Times 27703 – The Making of the English Solving Class

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 34 minutes
Music: Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um

I found this more difficult than expected, although the two long entries were simple enough.   I finished the whole right-hand side without much difficulty, but the left side gave considerable trouble.   Part of the problem was a wrong answer, where I found a hidden word that was not the right hidden word, that seemed like it must be the answer.   Eventually, having become a little suspicious, I erased it and found I could now solve the other clues. 

There is some clever stuff here, but it should have been a pretty easy puzzle if you have knowledge expected of an skilled Times solver. 

Across
1 Altercation had by society girl (6)
DEBATE – What the DEB ATE.
4 Write to head of MI6 about betrayer (3-5)
TWO-TIMER – Anagram of WRITE TO + M[16].
10 One always fuming Brit looms nastily (9)
STROMBOLI – anagram of BRIT LOOMS.   I had no idea what stromboli is, except a pizza place in NYC, but that must be it.
11 Revolutionary source of light, son cries (5)
BLUBS – BULB backwards + S.
12 A guard holding case of ammunition up (2,2,3)
AT AN END – A + T(A[mmunitio]N)END. 
13 Attempt to seduce? One might with item from Ann Summers? (3,2,2)
TRY IT ON – Double definition, one semi-jocular.
14 Letter has half of them worried in recession (5)
THETA – TH[em] + ATE backwards.
15 Acts as guide abroad, they say (8)
OVERSEES – Sounds like OVERSEAS.
18 Brainy brother drinking rye? The opposite (8)
CEREBRAL – CERE(BR)AL.
20 Leader of armed mob almost seizing city in battle (5)
ALAMO – A[rmed] +LA + MO[b].
23 Ducks outside range freely, finding something smelling nice (7)
OREGANO – O + anagram of RANGE + O.   Well, it smells OK.
25 What dog may do to welcome garden visitor? (7)
WAGTAIL – WAG TAIL.  The garden visitor is a bird, if you didn’t know.
26 Jack’s approval, quietly overlooked (5)
RAISE – [p]RAISE, not a sailor or a card this time.
27 Complaint of students backing coup (9)
SUNSTROKE – NUS backwards + STROKE.
28 Study agreements society put forward (8)
TREATISE –  TREATIES with the last letter moved forward one position
29 Model prisoner first of those getting out of nick (6)
TRUSTY – T[hose] + RUSTY.
Down
1 The horror of one’s experience under duke (8)
DISTASTE – D + I’S + TASTE, where the literal seemed a bit overwrought to me.
2 Anger in local leading to assault (7)
BARRAGE – BAR + RAGE.
3 Leaving old city, fever becomes mild (9)
TEMPERATE – TEMPERAT[ur]E.
5 Exposing evil action of a referee? (7-7)
WHISTLE-BLOWING – Double definition, with meanings to similar to be very cryptic.
6 Fat man I married needs new top (5)
TUBBY – -h,+TUBBY, a random letter-substitution clue, a style disliked by many solvers.
7 Cop, second one in Paris Match (7)
MOUNTIE – MO + UN + TIE.
8 Rebellion? Reluctantly at first I reveal all (6)
RISING – R[eluctantly} I SING.
9 Wait, as groom may have to do? (4,4,6)
HOLD YOUR HORSES – Double definition.
16 Killing earl’s thug arranged (9)
SLAUGHTER – Anagram of EARL’S THUG – great clue.
17 Dog on the tracks? It’s mine (8)
COLLIERY – COLLIE + RY, a bit of a chestnut.
19 Solitary Europeans possessing authority (7)
EREMITE – E(REMIT)E.
21 Atlas so useless, leaving one perplexed (2,1,4)
AT A LOSS – Anagram of ATLAS SO.
22 Swap tips on highly charged little Dickensian? (6)
DORRIT – TORRID with the first and last letters switched.  Little Dorrit was the Dickens novel I liked the best, in the grad school seminar where we had to read all of them.
24 Reread EP Thompson? Some of it’s brilliant (5)
ADEPT – Hidden in [rere]AD EP T[hompson], and not DEPTH as some (including me!) might suppose.

78 comments on “Times 27703 – The Making of the English Solving Class”

      1. But he probably wasn’t always fuming. Or maybe he was; I don’t remember the movie.
    2. In A Journey to the Centre of the Earth access was gained by going into the volcano.
  2. 6 or so minutes to deal with four in the SW corner. I was slowed down by dutifully putting in ONES for YOUR at 9d, which of course kept OVERSEES & CEREBRAL from occurring to me. I was also somehow unable to arrange the (RANGE)* between O and O. And like Vinyl, I saw DEPTH (rather chuffed at finding a hidden so quickly) and went for it, while wondering about the definition. Finally, almost simultaneously TREATISE, RAISE, EREMITE (LOI) fell into place. DNK ‘out of nick’, or Ann Summers.
  3. Heading for completion well within half an hour but scuppered by 9dn where I automatically wrote ONES as the middle word, as it always is when such sayings appear in Times crosswords…but not on this occasion! This made 15 and 18 impossible to solve. After taking some time to realise my error I finished 1 minute over target. Didn’t know the convict meaning of TRUSTY but ‘out of nick’ was no problem. Kevin’s main post wasn’t up when I wrote this.

    Edited at 2020-06-29 12:27 am (UTC)

    1. I seem to recall one instance where ONES was YOUR; also YER in IN YER FACE. As against hundreds of ONES.
  4. 12 minutes and change, so quick for me. TRUSTY last in from definition, parsing had to wait.

    Had OVERSEES before attempting 9d, though, as vinyl says,’Hold one’s horses!’ barely works as a command.

    1. Not that the clue indicated a command, mind you. ODE lists the phrase (sv hold) as “hold one’s horses”, although indicating, of course, that it’s usually in the imperative. One of their examples has ‘their’.
  5. So pleased to see my LOI EREMITE that I didn’t bother to check for once and my little run of all-corrects is sadly AT EN END.
  6. As others my main hold up was caused by going for HOLD ONES HORSES on the basis that it’s always ones rather than your. Well not on this occasion. Otherwise fairly straightforward. I did have pause for thought on EREMITE which sounded a little like I made it up though the fact it fitted the parsing and sounded like hermit was convincing enough. If I remember correctly then we have seen it before.
  7. Easy this, except one automatically puts one, doesn’t one? But spotted the error, by eventually being CEREBRAL. Unwritten “rules” and conventions are tricky chaps sometimes.
    Stromboli is also the name of quite a number of warships over the years in various navies, including the US, British and Italian ones..

  8. 29 minutes here, despite having joined some illustrious company in having HOLD ONE’S HORSES first in 9d. It was lucky that I knew the word 10a STROMBOLI from somewhere (possibly The Sopranos coming to my rescue again) and that 19d EREMITE has come up before, too.

    FOI 1a DEBATE LOI 1d DISTASTE. An odd mixture of difficulty here, I think…

  9. A steady solve. No cricketing metaphors this week. But the aim is the same. A whole week without seeing pink.

    FOI: DEPTH at 24 down. So not a great start.

    COD: RAISE.

  10. Easy puzzle with only “ones” for “your” causing problems, which OVERSEES sorted out – somewhat to my surprise. STROMBOLI a write-in from obvious anagram.
  11. Strómboli is one of the beautiful Aeolian Islands just north of Sicily. The volcano constantly erupts in a small way and has given its name to that type. It’s so reliable that people live there without fear. Very spectacular at night from a boat.

    I enjoyed this – always feels good when 1a goes straight in. Finished under the half hour. Thanks setter and Vinyl for explaining all.

  12. 25 mins pre-brekker with last 5 in the SW.
    Some lovely cluing in this and a touch of humour. I really liked it, mostly the holding of horses, two-timing and wagging of tails.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  13. 19 minutes. I was another held up by holding ones horses, making my last two, CEREBRAL and OVERSEES, impossible to solve until I saw the error of my ways. COD to AT AN END. I felt I was a few degrees out of phase with this puzzle, but thank you V and setter.
  14. A message to everyone: ‘Keep one’s hair on!’

    Edited at 2020-06-29 07:10 am (UTC)

  15. 15.22 never quite feeling easy. I took time at the end to make sure of TWO-TIMER (the anagram didn’t look as though it was there) and little DORRIT, where I thought even Spooner himself wouldn’t have essayed TOR DIT. It just seemed the setter was attempting a Spoonerism without name checking the Revd gentleman.

    It seems STROMBOLI is also a cocktail: sadly, it doesn’t fume.

    There are, I understand, products at Ann Summers one wouldn’t be interested in trying “off”. Nice to see the Times venturing into product placement more at home in the racier stablemates.

  16. D’oh! Yes, I do.

    Fairly typical for a Monday with a couple of traps, I was also in the ONES/YOUR group, having been trained over many years by the Times to talk posh.

    COD: TWO-TIMER – great surface.

    Friday’s answer: Lewis Carroll modelled the dodo on himself, based on his stuttering Charles Do-Dodgson, apparently.

    Today’s question: in which modern-day city is the Alamo?

    Edited at 2020-06-29 08:00 am (UTC)

  17. I’m pleased I was able to solve this quickly. It means I can now watch episode 4 of “The Bodyguard” -first aired in the UK in 2018- on TVNZ1 without fretting over unsolved clues.
    No problem with Stromboli as Sue and I lived in Sicily for three years but, alas, without visiting the Aeolian Islands.
    One of my fastest solving times and I was only held up by EREMITE. I’ve never read “Little Dorrit” but the answer came easily.

    Edited at 2020-06-29 08:02 am (UTC)

  18. Really liked the clue for two-timer; also the earl’s thug. Distaste not so much. No problem with hold your horses, it’s enough of a “thing” that I left your/one’s empty to test oversees’ clue. Knew Stromboli, but thought it was on Sicily… oops. Had no idea who Ann Summers was, but didn’t need to. Overall a walk in the park.
  19. Little Dorrit is a fabulous book, but like all of Dickens it should be read as written – that is, in short instalments.

    Thought of DISTASTE as FOI, but couldn’t convince myself until it was LOI.

    “Do you have oregano?” “I hope not, I had a checkup last week”, quotation from the great Glenda Jackson in A Touch of Class.

    11’20” thanks vinyl and setter.

  20. 13:05. No trouble with HOLD YOUR HORSES as I had OVERSEES already. Held up in the end by the SW corner until I remembered Little DORRIT, and TRUSTY, my LOI as I didn’t remmeber it meant a model prisoner, although it rings a bell now. I liked the active volcano at 10A best.
  21. But if you don’t actually like the smell of oregano does the clue still work?
  22. DNF. I did all bar 1dn in under ten minutes, but after another 5 minutes of staring at that one I gave up and came here. It turned out my problem had been that I was looking for a word meaning ‘horror’. Silly me.
    I had OVERSEES before I got to holding of horses so I didn’t fall into the ONES trap, but I was surprised to see the convention breached. After years of putting in YOUR I had finally learned the damned thing, too. Oh well, unlearning it will be much easier.
  23. I already had crossing letters in place when I got to H your H and ADEPT so escaped the booby traps.

    Pleasantly Mondayish without being too simple.

  24. Being a cagey soul, I left the middle out of 9 down until 18 across solved the dilemma, thereby achieving a possible pb, although I don’t actually time myself.
  25. Anyone else think that (1 across) Altercation isn’t a synonym for debate?
  26. Like most of us, I initially put HOLD ONES HORSES, but as my next entry was OVERSEES, I raised an eyebrow and changed it. I charged through the rest of the puzzle, finishing with a MER at DISTASTE, at 14:29, but would have been better advised to spend a few more seconds proof reading, as I’d managed to type BLUYS at 11a. Drat! Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  27. Not difficult (at least, as the our blogger suggests, to the experienced solver), but good fun. I was spared getting the ONES/YOUR choice wrong by having checkers in place already, but I’m certainly inclined to think this is a one-off, based on the fact that nobody in the real world says “hold one’s horses”, except HM the Queen, obviously, and possibly Jacob Rees-Mogg as a calculated affectation. Happily, I have just read up on Italian volcanoes for quiz purposes, in an attempt to get rid of my long-standing blind spot when it comes to distinguishing Stromboli, Etna, and Vesuvius.
  28. MER at DEBATE for ALTERCATION as others above have pointed out above. In my experience an altercation is altogether edgier than a debate.

    I enjoyed the BBC (?) version of Little Dorrit with the wonderful Claire Foy and the equally wonderful Tom Courtenay – I must admit to being a bit of a philistine when it comes to Dickens and generally prefer screen to book.

    All correct in 28.18.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

  29. No problem with the horses. Either I just put in YOUR or else I already had a checker. Held up at the end by DISTASTE. Even with all the checkers I couldn’t see it…partially because “horror” seems too strong. I even started to wonder if DEBATE was wrong, since “altercation” also seems too strong.
  30. Gave up after 20 mins, half of that spent on COLLIERY / TRUSTY / trying (and failing) to figure out EREMITE. It’s not a word I know, but for the life of me I don’t know why I couldn’t come up with ?E?I? meaning authority. A day to forget.
  31. Have you ever tried OREGANO OIL? Far from smelling nice, it is the most DISTASTEful thing I have ever come across – very good as a natural internal disinfectant though. And it is pronounced oregANo,(just to state my case).
    Talking of DISTASTE, it was was my LOI, as I couldn’t quite bring myself to equate DISTASTE with horror, as per our esteemed blogger.
  32. 18.18 enjoyably light fare. I had to do the same unpicking of “ones” in the expression at 9dn as others in order to get cerebral and oversees. A bit of a delay trying to work out eremite and convincing myself that trustee could be spelt trusty.
  33. I remember Jerry recently advising that in ‘The Times’ it was never ‘your’ always ‘one’s’- but there one goes, Eh!? Rules are made to broken.

    At 13ac thought ‘Anne Summers’ a bit naughty, as our American guests are more familiar with ‘Victoria’s Secrets’. I would go for ‘Agent Provocateur’ every time.

    35 mins being held up in Geordie area.

    FOI 1ac DEBATE

    LOI 18ac CEREBRAL

    COD 5dn HOLD YOUR HORSES!

    WOD 29ac TRUSTY – Porridge talk

    Did not think much of 1dn – not to my taste

    2. I’m sure I have said similar and perhaps not very long ago when advising a new solver re a Quickie. It’s an easy trap to fall into but it’s genuine advice based on experience and try as I might I can’t find anything even vaguely official that has ever claimed it as a rule. As mentioned above, I’m not sorry to see it confounded so that in future we shall always need to question which word to use.
  34. Got this one in the end, after falling into the one’s/your trap that it seems everyone else fell into.

    I’m a bit confused by 2d though: the anger (rage) is not “in” the local (bar), so how does it work?

    FOI Whistle-blowing
    LOI Cerebral
    COD Two-timer

    1. ‘Anger in local’ = BAR RAGE. ‘In’ describes where the anger is taking place and is not a containment indicator.
      1. Thank you. I bunged in the answer as I could see it was right. It was only when I read the blog that I thought about it!
  36. Easy enough – HOLD ONES HORSES held me up for a while until I saw OVERSEES.

    EREMITE then CEREBRAL final two in.

  37. ….and I’ve nothing to add to what others have said.

    FOI TRY IT ON
    LOI EREMITE
    COD TRUSTY
    TIME 7:27

  38. Gave up at 24.05 convinced I would never work out 1 dn. Completely stupid not to have got distaste. The rest of the puzzle came pretty straightforwardly. LOIs came at a trot with raise, eremite and treatise. I liked the challenge just frustrated by one of those blank wall moments.
  39. Felt I should have been faster. Last three clues took a third of the time, which I find to be a pattern. Could be simply that there are a few tough clues of course. Or, it’s that after ten minutes hard solving my brain starts to doze. I invariably find I need a nap after 15.
  40. Got eremite wrong. I guessed there might be a word emerite (same root as emeritus, ie if you are distinguished you are somehow on your own..?) but was wrong. As it happens my dictionary suggests eremite is a noun only and I’m pretty sure solitary is an adjective only…?
  41. I did the acrosses top to bottom, so I had oversees and only paused momentarily over ones/your. I liked Cerebral, and most of the rest of the puzzle. As with others, the crosses of Debate and Distatse for argument and horror went in last, and I won’t go into my deep emotions regarding the random letter exchange that gets to Tubby. Thanks, vinyl. A good puzzle work with Mingus, I think.

    Edited at 2020-06-29 03:05 pm (UTC)

  42. 20 minutes, a late start after windy golf game, then only delayed slightly by ONES for YOUR and DEPTH for ADEPT, but soon sorted out. Liked COLLIERY best.
    One person in our household is sometimes referred to as Chubby Hubby, now heading towards Tubby Hubby.
  43. I’ve never read Little Dorrit, but it was my first one in. I am determined to finish Tale of Two Cities before moving on.
    Re the HORSES, I decided that it could be either Your/Ones; the late arriving Oversees sorted that.
    My last two were CEREBRAL ( I’m still puzzled by The Opposite- I’ll re-read the blog); and LOI EREMITE (like Phil, again) , a word I have learnt from crosswords which still looks wrong to me.
    Was pleased to remember The Alamo. An hour or so until the last two.
    A fun puzzle. David

  44. Solitary is listed as a noun in most sources meaning hermit or (of course) eremite. It’s also a short version of solitary confinement, and in that context also works as a noun.

  45. I’d love to know where in the world “out of nick” means “rusty”. Stephen
    1. if a golfer for instance hasn’t played for a while he could both be said to be rusty and out of nick, meaning out of form.
  46. Very easy today, done in 27:40 after spending a moment or two convincing myself that REMIT in EREMITE could just possibly really be an equivalent to “authority”. Checking my dictionaries after submission, I find this stated so explicitly only in Collins (and indirectly perhaps in the COED).
  47. I always look at the crossers when ONES/YOUR alternatives crop up. So I left it open until I had 15a – which was an easy homophone. I thought the whole puzzle was quite easy but lost a few minutes because I bunged in OMEGA instead of THETA and then had a problem with 1d. 21 minutes. Ann
  48. I didn’t hesitate over HOLD YOUR HORSES – “hold one’s horses” just doesn’t exist, it’s an idiomatic phrase, not an infinitive! The Times Crossword is commonsensical not dogmatic…
  49. 40 minutes, with about 10 wasted on 1d/14a, as for latter had OMEGA (half of ‘them’ in ago, reversed) so could only find DISFAVOR to go in 1d .
    I did see the possibility of THETA, I couldn’t see any word of form D?S?A?S? that related to horror.
    No problem with ‘your’ in 9d – as Verlaine says.

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