Times 27523 – Yes, golden cymbals again – thanks, Mr Baker!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 36 minutes
Music: Chopin, Ballades, Gary Graffman

This was a moderate puzzle, but I had a hard time getting started.   Eventually, I migrated to the bottom half, where things turned out to be much easier, and I was able to make reasonable progress.   However, even with some checking letters, progress in the top half was very slow, not at all helped by a careless ‘dandy bear’ – that can’t be right, can it?    Eventually, I was stuck at the very top, where I was fixated for a long time on ‘ranter’ as the madman I was looking for.   If ‘Cranterbouts’ were a famous brand of British loudspeaker, I would have really been in trouble.

Across
1 Conservative madman fights to see liberal speakers (12)
CHATTERBOXES – C + HATTER + BOXES, this definitely should have been obvious if you automatically substitute ‘hatter’ every time you see ‘mad’ or ‘madman’.
8 Military group drops unknown flotation device (7)
ARMBAND – ARM[y] BAND.
9 Irritation of King George, trapped by succession (7)
CHAGRIN – CHA(GR)IN.
11 Leave boy with daughter, hiding in the grass (4-3)
HALF-DAY –  H(ALF, D)AY.   I was stuck on ‘holiday’, which doesn’t really work, nor does ‘holy day’.   The boy would have to be Ollie, not Oly or Oli. 
12 Saying little, ultimately, when chased by farm animals (7)
EPIGRAM – [littl]E + PIG, RAM.   A novel variant on an old chestnut.
13 Old tongue preserved in gelatine (5)
LATIN – Hidden in [ge]LATIN[e].
14 Fascinated by dapper new criminal (9)
ENWRAPPED – Anagram of DAPPER NEW, where ‘new’ is neither ‘N’ nor an anagram indicator.
16 Rather agitated, holding live element (4,5)
RARE EARTH – R(ARE)EARTH, where the enclosing letters are an anagram of RATHER.
19 City starts to construct an international relations office (5)
CAIRO – First letters of C[onstruct] A[n] I[nternational] R[elations] O[ffice], an unlikely prospect, to say the least.
21 Drink quite a large shot (7)
TEQUILA – Anagram of QUITE A L.
23 Coward exploits short operation (7)
MILKSOP – MILKS OP, which if not a chestnut, should be.
24 A grave message? (7)
EPITAPH – Cryptic defintiion, matching ‘epigram’ in the opposite quadrant. 
25 Tribe besieging city produces trumpet (7)
CLARION – CLA(RIO)N, most often used an adjective, but can also refer to an actual instrument.
26 Horribly under the weather, heads off to various places (4,3,5)
HERE AND THERE – anagram of [u]NDER [t]HE [w]EATHER,
Down
1 Rivers surround highest part of Edinburgh: Arthur’s seat (7)
CAMELOT –  CAM (E[dinburgh]) LOT.   A river you don’t see a lot of, but the answer was obvious enough.
2 Pantomime boy involved in a racket (7)
ALADDIN – A(LAD)DIN, a palpable chestnut. 
3 Fashionable fellow to carry stuffed toy (5,4)
TEDDY BEAR – TEDDY + BEAR, where the 50s teenage rebel is finally viewed in a positive light. 
4 Look around park on initially chilly evening (5)
RECCE – REC + C[hilly] E[vening].
5 Instrument from old motor in top of aeroplane (7)
OCARINA – O CAR + IN + A[eroplane].
6 Take papa off sugary sweet medicine (7)
EARDROP – [p]EARDROP.   I wanted to biff ‘eardrop’, but I waited until I saw how the cryptic works.
7 Unmarried lady to celebrate wildly, snaring husband (12)
BACHELORETTE – Anagram of TO CELEBRATE + H.   One of the more amusing surfaces tonight.
10 Talking about the stars has reputation diminishing (4-8)
NAME-DROPPING – NAME + DROPPING, in entirely different senses.
15 German forces arrange the march west (9)
WEHRMACHT – anagram of THE MARCH W, which is what they did as the Red Army approached. 
17 Need disheartened reggae singers on the radio (7)
REQUIRE – R[egga]E + sounds like CHOIR. 
18 Take me up and away from crazy region in the Middle East (7)
EMIRATE –  ME backwards + IRATE…..hmmm, my parsing doesn’t seem very convincing, anyone else?
19 Artwork, huge, lacking centrepiece: pass over that (7)
COLLAGE – COL + LA[r]GE.
20 What you must do before you expire? (7)
INSPIRE – Cryptic definition, a play on the literal meanings of ‘breathe out’ and ‘breathe in’. 
22 Like The Woman in White (5)
ASHEN – AS HEN, more often clued as ‘for women’ or ‘no men’. 

59 comments on “Times 27523 – Yes, golden cymbals again – thanks, Mr Baker!”

  1. After a wretched last week, it was good to have an anodyne Monday. I see that I biffed TEQUILA from the Q and forgot to parse it. I wondered about EMIRATE, too; the best I could come up with is crazy=mad=IRATE, but that doesn’t really work.
  2. I had trouble getting started and then it all came together in a quick (for me) 17 minutes.

    I had the same problem with EMIRATE, feeling I was missing something. IRATE doesn’t really mean crazy. And is EM really “take me up and away”.

    I nearly fell into an EYEDROP (it fitted the checkers I had at that point). Then I saw it.

  3. By the way, for people who have never been there, the highest point in Edinburgh really is Arthur’s Seat (it’s a volcanic plug in the Holyrood Park). So 1A really is quite clever.
  4. I don’t have a solving time but I wasn’t delayed by much.

    On 18dn I think my parsing is the same as yours, vinyl, which in my ‘notation’ would be written

    ME (reversed) [take…up and away from] IRATE (crazy)

    it’s a bit verbose as either ‘up’ or ‘away from’ alone could indicate reversal, but it seems okay to me.

    On 3dn I shall be interested to hear from Jim later but I don’t recall the fashionable fellows in question ever being referred to, still less actually calling themselves ‘Teddies’ or ‘Teddy in the singular. They were either ‘Teddy boys’ or ‘Teds’ for short. ‘Teddy’ on its own was the stuffed toy or an item of women’s underwear.

    I’m a little puzzled by the comment re CLARION as I’m not particularly familiar with it as an adjective. As a noun it was a trumpet associated with use on the battlefield and as such it survived in the title of many a newspaper down the years, the most famous one having being published 1891-1934 in the UK. After that it was still popular in the local press.

    Edited at 2019-12-02 05:54 am (UTC)

    1. A “clarion call” is encountered, from time to time, I expect Vinyl was referring to that ..
      As for teddy, neither Collins or ODO has it as a shortened form of teddy-boy, but curiously, the OED does. Jim would NOT like the various definitions given for teddy-boy 🙂
    2. Quite correct Jack. In the real world we were Teddy Boys or Teds for short. I’ve not heard Teddy used in this way and it would have been a bit cuddly – rather running counter to the rebel culture.

      I know about the dictionaries Jerry – they’re just wrong and perpetuate the myths

  5. I went with HOLY DAY rather than HALF DAY. Seems to me it almost works, but not quite. I’m pretty sure that Oly is a variant of Ollie, inasmuch as some people spell it that way. Though I don’t know what the Times rule is on names – is there a Chambers book of names which contains “official” variants? Anyhow, I don’t think I can claim that HOLY DAY is synonymous with leave so the name variants are academic.
    1. In replying to Midas below I’ve realised the answer was hyphenated, further invalidating my HOLY DAY.
    2. My 2003 CD-ROM Chambers, which has miraculously survived transitions to various versions of Windows, has an appendix with Some first names, which does indeed contain variants and diminutives. Whether that is or ever as been a validating source I could not say, but for what it’s worth, it only lists Ollie as a possible.
      1. The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, ed. E.G. Withycombe, is sometimes useful. It gives a few variants and familiar forms of names, but for Oliver remarks only:
        ‘The old nickname Noll is now seldom heard.’
        Which is undoubtedly true.
  6. No great shakes to the QC devotees might want to join in
    as there is TEQUILA

    FOI 2dn ALADDIN –

    LOI 8dn EARDROP

    COD 15dn WEHRMACHT – ‘the slightly better Germans’ as described by my Uncle Fred.

    WOD 7dn BACELORETTE party – hen night in UK as per Sotira or was it Olivia? ‘The Bachelorette’ An American Unreality Show which Trump once interrupted to announce his ‘pick’ for SCOTUS! I shall miss him!

    Edited at 2019-12-02 07:10 am (UTC)

  7. I enjoyed the many witty and beautifully constructed surfaces of this, as well as the confidence-boosting rapid resolution of most of them, producing my record time of 19 minutes odd, with lots of fun along the way. Hats off to 1D as the epitome of this style.

    Having seen Verlaine’s incredible 3m time I am now setting my target at 6V. What is the record for a non-neutrino time on the Club board?

  8. I am delighted to inform that today there is a new puzzle (15×15) for GKers. I have no idea if this will appear daily or otherwise. Mr. Biddlecombe?

    Today’s was finished by me 11 minutes and 30 seconds.

    FOI 1ac………….ah! I’d better be careful here!

    LOI 23dn

    COD 12ac

    WOD 25ac

  10. 9:16. A rare sub-10 minutes for me. When I saw the SNITCH, I thought I’d see how fast I could go and didn’t stop to parse a few fully when I saw the answer. I unaccountably wrote in HEAR AND THERE for 26A, which gave me trouble with my LOI, EMIRATE, adding 1/2 minute at the end.
  11. Started at the bottom after finding the first few at the top initially impenetrable. Could have been significantly faster had I not been stuck in Lancaster Station’s waiting room interrupted by interminable announcements and schoolboy CHATTERBOXES as well as one particularly loud chap on the ‘phone.

    No problem with anything here only taking any real time to unravel the clever BACHELORETTE and work out where the aitches belong in WEHRMACHT.

  12. 14 minutes with LOI BACHELORETTE. I would have made it COD too, but the word has been banned from the banns. Instead, I’ll go for NAME DROPPING. Did I ever tell you about the conversation I had with Mick Jagger, Imran Khan and John Paul Getty Junior with Jerry Hall listening in and while Peter May was pouring me a drink? If I haven’t you must be the only people I haven’t told. I parsed EMIRATE as you did, V. Thanks to you and setter.
  13. I know far more people called Oli than Alf. In my humble opinion both answers should be accepted.

    Midas

    1. It nearly works with Oli but it comes unstuck with the hyphen – no such thing as a holi-day methinks.
  14. 9:58 … threw in HALF-DAY unparsed in a scramble to get under 10 minutes — convinced Hal was the boy for me when it was really Alf all along.

    I was heading for a much quicker time but then, as often happens, I started tripping over myself and mistyping things. If I were entered for the champs on Saturday I’d be placing an urgent call to my sports psychologist.

  15. Easy today, though not as easy as the GK crossword no.1 .. finished both pretty quick though I did have to look up the London Marathon winner in the GK ..
  16. A very rare sub-10 for me, with BACHELORETTE LOI, great word.

    Perhaps the up and away part of the surface for EMIRATE is an allusion to the airline and cricket sponsor?

    Did not parse HERE AND THERE. Knew HALF-DAY from reading books set in public schools etc.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

  17. Cranterbouts*! 31 minutes, but with a HOLY DAY. I did wonder about “Oly”, but not for long. And after all the time it took trying to find the BACHELORETTE at the end, too…

    *It may not be a CHATTERBOX, but I think it works well as a curse.

    Edited at 2019-12-02 10:10 am (UTC)

  18. ….but not by much.

    Surely it’s either TED or TEDDY BOY in full ?

    FOI CHAGRIN
    LOI CLARION
    COD BACHELORETTE (4 syllables when spinster is 2)
    TIME 7:33

  19. Yes, definitely an easy one — my 17 mins could have been quicker had I not tripped over ‘holy-day’. But Oly for the boy just rankled, and I lost about a minute before Alf arrived. I agree with the gripes about Teddy for the ’50s dandy and I’d like to add my own gripe about ENWRAPPED — surely some homophonous confusion with ‘enrapt’? The former has no sense of enchantment, except in the nearby ‘I was wrapped up in business affairs’.
    Thanks for your blog, vinyl1.
    1. Chambers gives “engrossed” for enwrapped, which I think is close enough, but I agree I’d be much more likely to use enrapt. I see spellcheck likes neither.
  20. A leisurely 15.43, not aiming for a fast finish, in which like Sotira my fingers have a habit of independent twitching. The exam conditions of the Champs have a similar effect, though obviously without a keyboard the twitching has a different impact.
    Speaking of which, I face a dilemma on Saturday in that my choir is rehearsing in the afternoon and performing in the evening, so I think I will have to graciously fail to qualify for the later rounds. That’ll be my story, I think.
    I see the River LOT is in France and was originally the Olt. Today’s free tidbit which you probably will never need.
  21. Gentle stroll in the park – just what we need on a Monday morning. Like others a raised eyebrow at EMIRATE. My comments on the strange “Teddy” at 3D are posted above
  22. Rare finish for me, also a PB, 40 minutes. Dnk rare earth and spent a long time trying To make ear = live. Just banged it in because of the time. Didn’t see (are) until I read the blog. Thank you vinyl and setter.
  23. 6:49. Easy one today. MER* over ENWRAPPED and MER** over crazy = IRATE. Like others I considered HOLY DAY (I even wrote it in) but fortunately I hesitated enough to see that it didn’t quite work.

    *Minor Eyebrow Raise
    **Major Eyebrow Raise

  24. Enjoyed this one despite the lack of difficulty. I usually finish up with 2 stinkers at the end, but no stinkers at all today. Only slight holdup was biffing CHARTERHOUSE without understanding why, and discovering EARDROP to find CHATTERBOXES which is my COD.
  25. Under 13 minutes and very possibly a BITCH (personal Best in Starstruck’s ITCH). Always enjoy it when any variation on the Ted theme crops up, salivating at the thought of the comments to come from Dorsetshire.

    ulaca (having incurred a ‘temporary login ban’ for a password infraction)

  26. An enjoyably gentle start to the week with only CHATTERBOXES and BACHELORETTE causing any delay. Saw ALF fairly quickly so wasn’t distracted by OLY. There’s an Oly lives over the road from me, but she’s a she. 18:33. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  27. Only the second time I’ve ever gone sub-5 minutes, and by a whisker: 4m 58s today.

    A gentle crossword but some lovely stuff, with TEQUILA, CHATTERBOXES & BACHELORETTE being my favourites. Like others, not entirely sure about EMIRATE.

  28. As y’all almost certainly know mad=irate is standard US usage so my eyebrows didn’t so much as twitch at stretching it a bit to include “crazy”. Never been to a BACHELORETTE party – the idea doesn’t appeal. 12.53
  31. Hoping for personal best, as I hit nine minutes with three to go. Then the inevitable. Chatterboxes, Recce and Eardrop (LOI) added another two minutes. And then I had a mistype (theee for there) which rendered the whole thing academic. Ah well.
  32. Very nice gentle Monday puzzle (of the sort which doesn’t actually exist, but feels like it on days like today).
  33. Oly was the boy for me. I did this on paper hoping for a fast time and – my pen stopped working! About 13 mins including replacement pen searching time.
  34. Fun! Lots of smiles, and a few memories, as I worked my way through this in 29 minutes (quick for me).

    I liked Chatterboxes, Tequila (but not to drink) and Bachelorette (although I think it’s a horrible word), but I too struggled with parsing Emirate, so it went in with a shrug.

    The Lot is like the Dordogne but better – at least it was 30 years ago when we had a wonderful holiday there. Stunning scenery but fewer visitors. I wonder if it’s still like that?

    Rare earth particularly made me smile, because in our house it is usually followed by warp spasm! Rare earth warp spasm was a phrase coined by Mr B and colleagues many moons ago to describe a total hissy fit! It makes me laugh even to type it 😂

    FOI Latin
    LOI Ashen
    COD Here and there

    Thanks setter for the entertainment, and Vinyl for the blog

    Edited at 2019-12-02 04:04 pm (UTC)

  35. Straightforward but pleasant enough, a few MERs at IRATE for crazy, ENWRAPPED for enrapt, never heard of a BACHELORETTE but all fair enough really. LOI EMIRATES in 23 minutes.
  36. Twenty-one minutes, which is close enough to my average to satisfy me that my concussion has had no lasting ill effects. It’s astonishing that,, in this day and age, medical science can’t really answer the basic question “is his brain working OK?”. Scans only answer the question “is there anything radically wrong with his brain?”, which is not really the same thing. I did, it’s true, spend a while trying to justify “holi-day” for 11ac, but that level of stupidness is normal for me, as is not knowing where to put the extra “h” in WEHRMACHT.

    All in all, very enjoyable and quite comfortably Mondayish.

    Edited at 2019-12-02 05:50 pm (UTC)

    1. Not sure how the concussion protocol in sport works these days, and whether they still ask you who the Prime Minister is – apparently Gareth Bale revealed in a recent interview that he didn’t know that, even without being concussed, which suggests it’s not always a good question.
      1. I wonder what they do if you concuss yourself on polling day? They’re also keen on asking you if you know where you are, but if you say “relative to what?” they just peer harder at you. I also tried the “Do you think I’ll be able to play the piano when I get out?” gag, but they completely failed to see the humour.

        I’m sure that someone with access to the historical data from the Times crossword club, combined with clinical histories could write a thesis or two – I can’t think of any other mental exercise that tests overall brain function so comprehensively.

  37. A very easy puzzle for me, solved in what is surely my best time of just under 24 minutes (or actually a few less, since I spent about 5 minutes convincing myself that INSPIRE and EARDROP really were what the setter intended). Some very nice clues, though, like 1ac and 1dn and the farm animals in EPIGRAM. A good start to the new week, after not being able to finish several puzzles last week (the excitement of preparing our usual enormous Thanksgiving feast, as usual two days late since it’s not a holiday here in Germany, perhaps having got the better of me).

    Edited at 2019-12-02 06:28 pm (UTC)

  38. Crikey, 22 mins!!! Or to use my usual unit of time, 1.8 Kevins, which is faster than I did the QC! I wish it was like this more often … an Excellent Day.

    Thanks vinyl and kind-hearted anonymous setter.

    Templar

  39. Having had a disaster with today’s QC, I came to this with some trepidation. However, I needn’t have worried. Apart from having to check the correct spelling of Wehrmacht, and whether Bachelorette was a real word, everything else was straightforward. In fact, if I had spotted Chatterboxes a little quicker, the NE corner would have been less of a problem and I might even have come in under the hour mark. Heady days. Invariant
  40. 15:48. I found this a gentle canter through comfortably familiar surroundings and didn’t have to work very hard at all to come in well under 20 mins. Had a MER at teddy for teddy-boy or ted. I knew the trumpet but rather dimly thought the city in 25ac was LA and wondered if Crion was some tribe I had not heard of. Always nice to have one you can romp through.
  41. …. I entered “Holiday”. Should have thought of “Half-day” but who calls their son Alf these days?
    “Chatterboxes” was a nice clue.
  43. A ‘Clarion’ is a stop found on larger organs. It is a somewhat shrill Reed and so sort of sounds like a high trumpet.
    NHO ‘bachelorette’ but it could not be anything else.

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