Times 28243 – Monday, Monday, Part II

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 23 minutes
Music, Dvorak, Symphony 8, Dorati/LSO

Here we have another fairly standard Monday puzzle that will put up little resistance to skilled solvers.   I just got hung up at the end for a bit in the dowel/echelon/wolfish/Leningrad section.    This one will probably be in the low 60s on the SNITCH – I haven’t looked yet.

Across
1 Irritable declaration of one in Casualty? (9)
IMPATIENT – I’M PATIENT, a chestnut.
6 Peg wants to succeed for the most part (5)
DOWEL – DO WEL[l].
9 Meet clergyman eating ice cream? On the contrary (7)
CONVENE – CON(VEN)E.
10 Time to embrace revolutionary left’s rank (7)
ECHELON –  E(CHE,L)ON.
11 Regret abusive Democrat must be removed (3)
RUE – RU[d]E.
12 Bent copper facing end of his employment (11)
DISPOSITION – DI + [hi]S + POSITION.
14 Saw for example Conservative leading state (6)
CUTTER – C+ UTTER.
15 One drawing is of Her Majesty on small boat (8)
SKETCHER – S + KETCH + E.R.
17 He perhaps is in Tangiers working (5,3)
INERT GAS – Anagram of TANGIERS, where He is helium.  We have seen this trick before.
19 Threaten island legislator with death (6)
IMPEND –  I + M.P. + END.
22 Opinionated idiot can err horribly (11)
DOCTRINAIRE – Anagram of IDIOT CAN ERR.
23 Soldiers moving south for dope (3)
ASS – SAS with the first S moved.
25 Nothing unreasonable about way one refuses to face reality (7)
OSTRICH – O(ST)RICH, with the slang meaning of rich.
27 Greed, a weakness holding soldiers back (7)
AVARICE – A V(RA backwards)ICE.
28 Subterfuge of old magistrate, jailing Penny once (5)
DODGE – DO(D)GE.
29 Bit by bit story spread (9)
PIECEMEAL – PIECE + MEAL, where piece is a very peripheral synonym for story.
Down
1 Suffer among reactionary force of old (5)
INCUR – IN + R.U.C. backwards, the old Royal Ulster Constabulary.
2 Sarcastic chap cracking jokes? (7)
PUNGENT – PUN GENT, where the question mark indicates that the clue is not much better than the chap.
3 Pioneer’s guard dog crossing river (11)
TRENDSETTER –  T(R)END + SETTER.
4 Last two avoiding service still (4,2)
EVEN SO – EVENSO[ng].    This was a really tough cryptic, most solvers will just biff the obvious answer.
5 Everything in factory? (3,5)
THE WORKS – Double definition.
6 Stretcher bearer going the wrong way? What an idiot! (3)
DOH – HOD backwards.
7 Ravenous and unhappy, knocked up some food (7)
WOLFISH – LOW backwards + FISH.
8 Duke learning about city once besieged (9)
LENINGRAD –  Anagram of D + LEARNING.
13 Meet painter, remarkably self-indulgent (11)
INTEMPERATE – Anagram of MEET PAINTER.
14 Best days for one in minority? (9)
CHILDHOOD – Cryptic definition.
16 Uncle’s place, where you can get dubious material, I hear (8)
PAWNSHOP – Sounds like PORN SHOP, if you are a non-rhotic speaker.
18 Left without Charlie, on a high (7)
EXCITED – EX(C)ITED.
20 Question old flame, an explosive type? (7)
EXAMINE –  EX + A MINE.
21 Talk foolishly about current danger on the seas (6)
PIRATE – P(I)RATE.
24 Time for a bit of magic (5)
SPELL – Double definition.
26 Cockney’s rent causing outrage? (3)
IRE – [h]IRE.

62 comments on “Times 28243 – Monday, Monday, Part II”

  1. Slow to start but finished off in 25 minutes. I think ‘piece’ for ‘story’ is standard when referring to a newspaper item.
  2. 7:42 – like jackkt a slow start but then everything fell in to place. I saw the wordplay for EVEN SO but I did biff INCUR.
  3. Started well with 1ac FOI, but slowed down immediately. I was ready for He this time; been fooled too many times before. It took me a long time to see how DISPOSITION worked; I couldn’t get past ‘twisted’ for ‘bent’. And I couldn’t see how ‘story’=’piece’.

    Edited at 2022-03-21 02:58 am (UTC)

      1. On the other hand, the last time a clue began As, I was ready for ‘arsenic’; but it meant ‘as’.
          1. My DISPOSITION on birds setters know
            But they INCUR my IRE, EVEN SO
            An OSTRICH cannot fly
            But you’ll understand my
            EXCITED INTEMPERATE “DOH!!”
  4. Not too hard. Held up a bit at the end with my LOI slotting all those vowels into DOCTRINAIRE.
  5. Perhaps I’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Vinyl, but shouldn’t your underlining in 2d (PUNGENT) be under ‘sarcastic’. A chap cracking jokes is a PUN GENT?
    I enjoyed this. I liked the way EX was clued in two different ways in 18d and 20d.
    Thanks for EVEN SO. Couldn’t parse that. I once attended choral Evensong in Ely Cathedral; a lovely experience.
    In 14ac I saw ‘saw’ and thought ‘proverb’ for a while.
    I liked THE WORKS and INERT GAS. I’m getting better at spotting clues like 17ac.
    COD to DISPOSITION. Some clever diversionary tactics there.
    1. Occasionally popping into Evensong was one of the best aspects of living in Ely. Frequently popping into the Prince Albert, a few hundred yards away, was another
      1. Choral Evensong in Ely was wonderful but Evensong in a church in the Cotswolds with a cast of about half a dozen elderly ladies and the vicar -plus my wife and I, showed me that a certain vision of England still exists. “And is there still honey for tea?”
  6. …a heartfelt prayer repeated later at Evensong if the sermon went on too long. 26 minutes with LOI DISPOSITION, expected for a long time but it took me a while to see that sense of ‘bent’. COD to INERT GAS. Enjoyable. Thank you V and setter.
  7. Squat on my life?
    Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork
    And drive the brute off?

    25 mins pre-brekker. I really like the Bent copper one.
    MER at ‘reactionary’ as a reversal indicator.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.

    Edited at 2022-03-21 08:00 am (UTC)

  8. 35 mins so on the easier side. LOI PIECEMEAL when the penny finally dropped. Didn’t parse EVEN SO. Thanks for that v. Also I think in 17ac the anagram is just TANGIERS not the “is in”.

    I have ticks against DOH, INERT GAS and PIECEMEAL. Very enjoyable.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

    1. I agree with you on DOH, especially as nobody has mentioned the significance of the ‘stretcher’, which I find in this case is “a brick or stone laid with its long side along the face of a wall”. If I had heard of that definition before, then I had certainly forgotten!
      2. Yes, absolutely. I wondered how many people would know the term “stretcher” for a brick, and therefor the cleverness of the clue.
  9. Completely off the wavelength this morning. I gave up after 55 minutes with a fair chunk of the SW not filled in. Odd, the way that happens sometimes.
    1. I joined you this evening, giving up with 5 clues not solved in the NE corner. Brought crashing back to earth after my triumphant performance last week.
  10. 36:51
    Nice puzzle. No dramas, but a reasonable challenge.
    Thanks, v, good blog (I think this one might be 28243).
  11. Quite a slow trudge through this, with an even slower completion. At 40m I had two remaining clues, and didn’t feel close to solving either – so I headed off for emergency Somali breakfast. Tragically, there was no BEER and ANJERO to be found, so I had to settle for MALAWAH (sweet pancakes) and a couple of SAMBUSAS (indistinguishable from the familiar Indian / Pakistani samosas). Pretty decent, very cheap.

    Returning to the puzzle, I didn’t have any trouble finishing off:
    POI: Previously thought the definition was “besieged”, but immediately spotted LENINGRAD
    LOI CONVENED – trouble was caused by inaccurate cursor placement – I had entered 1d as “IINCR”, making it impossible to solve.

    Not the greatest start to the solving week – but at least it’s not a black mark, rescued by the nutritious interlude. Thanks V and setter

    Edited at 2022-03-21 08:42 am (UTC)

  12. Straightforward but I quite liked this .. no MERs and some nice clues.
    As Rose says above, the anagrist for 17ac is just TANGIERS

  13. 18:29 Well off the pace today being slow with the long anagrams and even failed to remember the chestnut at 1A.
  14. It was nice to be somewhat on the wavelength this morning after I seemed to find every puzzle hard last week by SNITCH standards. I liked the presence of DOH in today’s offering, in how it reflects the evolution of our language such that Homer Simpson has an influence on the dictionary. COD for me was INERT GAS — a great surface containing a nice anagram and a sneaky definition. I finished up with the unknown DOCTRINAIRE, which I was pleased to see I’d constructed correctly.
  17. An early semi-biff of TRAILBLAZER for the pioneer in 3d ( well, it had dog= tail around R for river, so no further thought seemed necessary). The Z made the across intersection difficult. Eventually forced to reconsider, and realised that TRENDSETTER would work better. 19:47

    Edited at 2022-03-21 10:11 am (UTC)

  18. 7:16. Plain sailing this morning. I was a bit puzzled by ‘sarcastic’ for PUNGENT and still don’t really understand what ‘best days’ has to do with CHILDHOOD but neither slowed me down.
    1. I think there’s a quote somewhere about childhood being the best days of your life.
        1. being ‘the happiest days of one’s life’ is certainly the only expression that I know along those lines. I was also aware at the time that it didn’t apply to me from the age of about 7 upwards.
        2. Having Googled it, it certainly seem to be schooldays rather than childhood, but the connection got me to the answer anyway:-)
      1. Is it even a truism though? Sure it’s something some people say but others say the opposite!
  19. I did exactly the same as Corymbia with “trailblazer” – it looked all too plausible and made a horlicks of the western hemisphere. And added several minutes to my time. Took a long time to see how rich=unreasonable. A lot of idiots, dopes, Charlies and asses this morning, including me for a while. 18.22
  20. Off to a good start with INCUR and IMPATIENT. I was fixated on some form of distortion at 12a, but eventually was disposed towards the correct answer. I was held up in the SW for quite a while, until I dug my head out of the sand and saw CHILDHOOD, EXCITED and LOI, INERT GAS, Doh! 20:11. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  21. Not difficult, but some nice touches. I fell for “He” and “bent” as I always do (see also “supply” and countless others).

    PUNGENT meaning sarcastic was new to me. I liked TRENDSETTER and DOCTRINAIRE, but COD for me was INERT GAS.

    Thanks to vinyl and the setter.

  22. Enjoyed this one, not all that easy but finished in 32 minutes of steady plodding, with some good clues. Thought CHILDHOOD was a weak clue and liked EVEN SO and OSTRICH, and remembered to think HELIUM.
  23. Some nice clues, but also some pretty loose or thin definitions etc I thought: piece = story (piece, perhaps); the CD for CHILDHOOD, which I could hardly believe was the right answer even though I recognised the saying — surely there was more to it?; fish = some food, which is hardly a sharp connection. 37 minutes.
  24. 39:46. Gosh, this was a complete car crash for me. Slow to start and slow to finish. Best forgotten quickly.
  25. Worked steadily through this without any major problems in a very good time (for me) expecting to see many times much quicker but there seems to have been a mixed reaction. COD 17ac because I was so pleased with myself for spotting it.

    Thanks to the setter and blogger.

  26. A tale of 2 crosswords, the SW being almost unfathomable and the rest being very easy. Would have been easier if I had recognised He, and I found the anagram at 22 particularly hard without the extra letters the other clues would have provided.
    Yet another curate’s egg.
  27. Poor start however buoyed by finishing almost bang on my Snitch target (80 when I checked which = 30 mins).

    Mostly pretty easy once got going, though admit to not knowing stretcher = brick so the finer points of that clue sailed well over my head.

  28. 21.07 with a few stutters and puzzlements. Never thought of pungent as sarcastic and childhood seemed rather too literal. LOI Leningrad but biffed as didn’t recognise the anagram.

    Other than that, entertaining Monday fare. Thxsetter and blogger.

  29. An easy Tuesday afternoon (I write this as the Moody Blues’ Tuesday Afternoon is playing, by odd coincidence), and the SNITCH tells me it’s my third fastest time. If I hadn’t spent that extra couple of seconds trying – and failing – to parse INCUR, it would have snuck into second spot.

    3m 37s, lots of biffing. And if there’s a word for ‘making up a word that doesn’t even work cryptically’, then I briefly did that for DICTIONAIRE.

  30. 28’3”, with EVEN SO unparsed – so thanks to our blogger. Otherwise nothing much to say today,
  31. Like David above, I was slow to start and slow to finish — with a bit of a burst in the middle.
    LOI was Leningrad which I couldn’t see for the trees — embarrassing as I’ve been there many times (but may never go there again, I fear).
    1. Not least because it has changed its name. My first visit was far enough in the past that it was still called Leningrad.
  32. I started this after karaoke late last night and felt I was in for a fast finish, though sleep intervened. Biffed DOH and EVEN SO. PUNGENT seemed rather oblique for “Sarcastic.” Was slow to get INCUR, because I didn’t expect the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
  33. 19.38. I found this a testing solve in parts. Rich for unreasonable in the ostrich clue, intemperate for self-indulgent and pungent for sarcastic were all a bit of a stretch for me.
  34. Thought this was going to be a tough Monday but it suddenly all came together. But it does seem to have been a wavelengthy one. Didn’t mind CHILDHOOD. Quite liked DOWEL for some reason

    Thanks all

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