Times 29289 – not too tiring

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

A more straightforward Wednesday this week, which took me about fifteen minutes with no hold-ups. My LOI LYNX needed both crossers and a little thought, as hunter was a rather vague definition. I liked the Eskimo home.

Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].

Across
1 Casino is accountable to some degree over incident (8)
OCCASION – hidden reversed.
6 Reflect in silence, taking in one small wrong (6)
MISUSE – insert I S into MUSE.
9 Mischievous girl missing home match (4)
GAME – remove IN (home) from GAMINE.
10 Couple perhaps finally renovate large part of church (4,6)
LADY CHAPEL – LADY + CHAP = a couple perhaps, [renovat]E, L.
11 Behold to-do when running wild (3-7)
HOT-BLOODED – (BEHOLD TO DO)*.
13 Hunter relates to the audience (4)
LYNX – sounds like links = relates to.
14 Separated daughter is coming to Greek island (8)
DISCRETE – D, IS, CRETE.
16 A single desire, but not old, somewhat recent (6)
NEWISH – ONE WISH loses the O for old.
18 Tricky question when the time of Christian festival has moved (6)
TEASER – the T of EASTER moves.
20 Second phaeton ordered for another carriage (8)
STANHOPE – S, (PHAETON)*. I knew my carriages from re-reading the Barchester Chronicles recently.
22 Blue-eyed boy in swimming pool, length behind (4)
IDOL – LIDO has the L moved to the end.
24 Bequeathed present journal containing tons (10)
HEREDITARY – present = HERE, journal = DIARY, insert T.
26 Man keeping deep affection back, heartless not spiteful (10)
MALEVOLENT – MALE = man, LOVE reversed = EVOL, insert that into MALE > MALEVOLE, add N[o]T.
28 Possibly tire of work on house (4)
HOOP – HO[use], OP = work. Collins give TIRE as “the US spelling of TYRE”, and I’d never use tire here, but I have seen it used in UK.
29 One fighting to censor The Scotsman’s coverage (6)
BANTAM – BAN = censor, TAM (o’shanter) a Scotsman’s hat. As in bantamweight boxer I presume.
30 One getting something done about pit boss (8)
DOMINEER – A DOER gets something done, insert MINE = pit.
Down
2 Tea second, milk mostly first for English tea maker (9)
CHAMOMILE – CHA (tea) MO (second) MIL[k], E[nglish].
3 Lab mice breaking scientific equipment (7)
ALEMBIC – (LAB MICE)*.  One of those old retort things now obselete.
4 Home originally included guest facilities (5)
IGLOO – I[ncluded] G[uest] LOO = facilities.
5 Sleep regularly enfolds (3)
NOD – alternate letters. As in The LAND of NOD.
6 Former kingdom’s obsession involving Conservative European party (9)
MACEDONIA – MANIA has C, E, DO inserted.
7 Bird   down (7)
SWALLOW – DD.
8 Group of geese hide around rear of farmhouse (5)
SKEIN – E (rear of farmhouse) inserted into SKIN. We had this the other other day, was it the Sunday before last?
12 Furniture   one found in theatre (7)
DRESSER -DD.
15 Underground traveller initially travels hours absorbed in catchy music (9)
EARTHWORM – T[ravels] H[ours] inserted into EARWORM.
17 Put over with great attitude (9)
SUPERPOSE – SUPER = great, POSE = attitude. Collins gives “a rare word for superimpose”.
19 Evolving entails forward projection (7)
SALIENT – (ENTAILS)*.
21 Hertfordshire town’s success in protecting church (7)
HITCHIN – HIT (success) IN, insert CH. My trainline to London passes through this station but I’ve never alighted there.
23 Drink before a show? (5)
DRAMA – DRAM, A.
25 Hold back when accepting odd bits of true fact (5)
DATUM – DAM (hold back) has T[r]U[e] inserted. Datum being the singular of data, which all too often is treated as a singular word by the media.
27 Finish repair to remove marks (3)
END – MEND loses its M.

 

62 comments on “Times 29289 – not too tiring”

  1. 33 minutes with BANTAM as my LOI. I was distracted momentarily along the way by the unaccustomed spelling of ‘tyre’ and ‘camomile’ spelt with an H. Most entries in the usual sources qualify these as American spellings. So much for the assumptions we have recently been encouraged to adopt as to what to expect in a crossword published in an English newspaper!

    2. My husband may require surgery to remove the smug smile from his face after suggesting that the American spelling of tyre could be used in a crossword in the Times of London.

  2. Enjoyed this, despite the Americanisms. Tire is incorrect spelling in the UK, at least in modern times, in this context.

    1. In British English, “tire” can be the metal hoop around a wheel (think an old carriage wheel), according to Chambers at least.

      1. Some of my very best friends are American … it is just that I see The Times cryptic crossword as part of England’s heritage, like Stonehenge or Buckingham Palace, or moaning about the weather; and would not like it to lose its unique identity.

  3. 16 minutes. NHO ALEMBIC but it seemed a bit more likely than amelbic (despite the fact that we were always abusing amoeba in school biology classes).

  4. Pleased to finish as I don’t always. Wondered if BANTAM was a cock-fighting reference.

  5. 16:03

    ALEMBIC known more to me as a make of bass guitar, rather than scientific equipment, though it does ring a bell in that context. As with our blogger, LYNX was my LOI and took a little thought to come up with.

    Thanks P and setter

  6. Threw in BENEVOLENT without parsing (or thinking for that matter) which created my own DRAMA.

  7. 31 minutes with LOI LYNX. Had heard of ALEMBIC, but couldn’t have told you what it was. COD to LADY CHAPEL. A good reintroduction to the working week, not that I’ve plans to do any work. I’m pretty sure that TIRE was an alternative spelling in my youth, (yes, the wheel had been invented then) so the eyebrow didn’t raise all the way. Thank you Jack and setter

  8. Hitchin is near an old family pile – sadly gambled away long before I was around.

    Well done to the England ladies’ team. I only hope the final doesn’t go to penalties. Well, I also hope they play better in the final, but that goes without saying.

    14:59 – more than four minutes inside today’s target

  9. 15:40

    For some reason I find the shorter words the most intimidating and it took me an age to get the chestnutty LYNX at the end. I also had to rely on the wordplay and checkers to get the unknowns GAMINE, ALEMBIC, and SUPERPOSE.

    A gentle mid-week solve so thanks to both.

  10. DNF with 2 errors in MATE (NHO Gamine) and SUPERTONE by which point I’d given up and all under 30 mins.
    Really struggled to get into the style of this. Some clever clueing to appreciate, I liked LYNX and some of the long constructions. Remembered STANHOPE via Vera.
    Not my cup of tea this one, more of a coffee drinker. Thanks both.

  11. Thought I finished after a dragged-out alphabet trawl to LYNX in 25:41, only to find that MATE was wrong for NHO GAM(IN)E. I had reasoned INMATE (mischievous girl) – IN (home).

    The alphabet trawl was painful, giving the stretches LINE (hunter in a fishing rod / something that ‘relates’ to the audience) and LINK (hunts animals in the Zelda series / etc.) But it did show that it at least works much of the time. My error was assuming it must end in S or Z, forgetting about the /s/ sound in X. I hadn’t alphabet trawled _A_E as I had assumed it would have taken too long.

    I felt lucky to think of BANTAM, and NHO LADY CHAPEL. I was a little irritated that STANHOPE was NHO, as I’ve looked at the Wikipedia box for types of carriage at least 3 times in the last half-year.

  13. 24 mins with LOI – SUPERPOSE, after mulling over SUPERTONE.

    No other major holdups apart from ‘gamine’ not springing to mind quickly enough to be sure of GAME.

    COD to BANTAM!

  14. 15 minutes for a mild Wednesday. As for others, LYNX was last in at least in part because I was not inclined to think of four-legged hunters, and might have been amenable to considering watches. Nimrod didn’t fit.
    I don’t recall seeing (or refusing to drink!) camomile with an H.

  15. You cannot imagine how long i tried to make Museum be the answer for 6a, which of course did not work, but had Lion for hunter, (relate to = Lie on ?? with the wrong part of speech, duh!). I had skein but discounted it as i thought a group of geese would be a gaggle, and skein is of wool, no?? Never mind, all good fun, onward and upward! Thx Cx

  16. My MER at TIRE didn’t hold me up sufficiently to record a decent submission, despite going very steadily and checking every answer for typos as I went along, after an earlier fat-finger incident on the QC. Now I need to maintain that level of discipline (about the 6th time I’ve made that promise to myself – knowing I’ve solved a puzzle correctly in my head is always some consolation in such circumstances).

    FOI MISUSE
    LOI OCCASION
    COD GAME*
    TIME 7:03

    * I knew “gamine”, but ALEMBIC, whilst an easy biff, was one of those words I knew existed, but couldn’t have defined.

  17. Not in the groove at all, missed the second half of SUPERPOSE completely and was totally thrown by ‘possibly tire’ which I’m still not buying even though I eventually got it. So a DNF in about 40, thanks piquet.

    From Floater (Too Much To Ask):
    The old men round here, sometimes they get on
    Bad terms with the younger men
    But old, young, age don’t carry weight
    It doesn’t matter in the END

  19. Got done in 1 hour, although forgot to press pause, so my Club time is 6 hours!

    LOI GAME, was thinking Home was “H” as in a football league table. Went through lots of words but was not thinking of that meaning of “match”. Rethought and decided to try IN, although that is better served as “at home”. Didn’t have the stamina to run through all the words again, so used a dictionary to find GAME. Turns out I didn’t know what “gamine” means anyway, thought it meant “nubile”.

    NHO STANHOPE, ALEMBIC

    The last bit of SUPERPOSE was a grind. Also had BENEVOLENT for a time. I thought TARTAN was a good shout for “Scotsman’s coverage” and it fitted the two checkers.

    COD NEWISH

  20. About 20 minutes, with the last 5 of them spent frustratedly on GAME (eventually ‘gamine’ rang the vaguest of bells).

    – Didn’t understand the ‘tam’ part of BANTAM
    – Remembered CHAMOMILE from previous crosswords and got there from wordplay
    – Couldn’t have told you what an ALEMBIC is

    Thanks piquet and setter.

    FOI Nod
    LOI Game
    COD Domineer

  21. 29 minutes but 10+ of them on BANTAM. Didn’t know the Scottish hat or that BANTAM was a small soldier. I am a boxing fan so when I had had enough of trying to come up with something better I plumped for that.

    Didn’t know HITCHIN. Looks nice though and Wikipedia tells me it’s had more than its fair share of sporting stars.

    COD MACEDONIA

    Thanks blogger and setter.

  22. 32 mins. Only real hold-ups were LYNX, my LOI, and the not-very-difficult OCCASION, which baffled me for far, far too long.

  23. Thanks piquet and setter.
    29a Bantam is proverbially a fighter, as in Wiktionary “Spirited or aggressive.”
    3d Alembic, a crossword-only instrument. I remember its Wiki entry now I look at it.
    8d Skein, I still can’t spell this despite its recent appearance (I before E etc) and had to wait for the 10a Lady Chapel to fix it. I pencilled in II as it is easy to swap an I to an E but not the reverse.

  24. Enjoyed this one between morning meetings and a bit of wallpaper stripping. My LOI was LYNX, which I was pleased to eventually get without cheating.

    I had no issues with HITCHIN because, being from Hemel Hempstead and playing cricket regularly for 30+ years, I have played cricket in probably every town, and a fair proportion of the villages, in Hertfordshire.

    Loved LADY CHAPEL.

    Thanks setter, thanks piquet.

  25. Back in the dunce’s corner. LINX. Arrgghhh! 23,03 WOE. Thanks setter and Pip.

  26. 19:22 and I felt I took too long for a puzzle where the clues seemed mainly QC level to be honest.
    Thanks setter and blogger

  27. 15.30

    Not sure of the POSE bit of SUPERPOSE and left with the horror enumeration at the end _A_E. But no pink squares incredibly.

    Liked OCCASION even though I searched vainly for a straight hidden to begin with.

    Thanks Pip/setter

  28. 15 – fairly straightforward in spite of SUPERPOSE and a bit of dithering over BANTAM. Never thought of the hat…

  29. For once I completed almost everything with no trouble (except a little for the second part of SUPERPOSE), until falling prey to the trailing little finger, something that often happens. END at 27dn was my penultimate one in before DOMINEER. So the D of end remained ‘live’ and my trailing little finger caught the M on the keyboard, so I had ENM and 30ac was M_MINE_R (surely MINE in the middle), causing me to think for quite a while until I saw my mistake. 25 minutes.

  30. Mostly fine, but BANTAM was a big fat biff, so thanks piquet for the “Scotsman’s coverage”! GAME was LOI after finally remembering gamine to remove the in from.

    14:13

  31. Most straightforward in a while. English geography is a weak spot and I’d no idea which county HITCHIN was in but I’d vaguely heard of it and could piece it together from the cryptic. TIRE gave me momentary pause.

  32. Probably about 35′ all in, mostly done before a golf game and the last few afterwards. Knew the Geese/ SKEIN meaning from a recent puzzle and also made the BENEVOLENT mistake initially. OCCASION was my FOI but quickly and wrongly parsed as some sort of anagram without properly checking. LYNX came slowly, not least as it was an alphabet trawl requiring Y and X! Thanks Piquet and setter.

  33. 13:08, with a good 5 at the end staring at _A_E. I only knew ‘gamine’ as an adjective meaning ‘boyish’, so I had to think of the right word for ‘match’ and struggled to get MATE out of my head. When I finally alpha-trawled my way to GAME the unknown meaning of ‘gamine’ seemed just about close enough.

  34. Pretty swift for me at 23.45, and that included probably up to two minutes assessing if there were any other options for GAME and ALEMBIC, as I was totally dependent on the clueing to parse them. I also biffed TESTER for 18ac before taking the trouble to properly parse it and quickly inserting TEASER. Under thirty minutes for the QC and 15×15 combined represents a good day.

  35. Very annoyed as I have never seen the item which goes round the wheel of a car spelt ‘tire’ which means I couldn’t get the last syllable of ‘super…e’ . Damn.

  36. Slow today, but I am on holiday (some would say that, at my age, life is a permanent holiday, but many of us know better, I’m sure!) and I was enjoying a pint (or two) of Donnington bitter. That’s my excuse anyway. LOI LINX as others it seems.

    Pretty enjoyable generally. I knew ALEMBIC as it is a still for making alcohol, originally Arabic, I think.

    I liked all of the longer clues, but definitely not « tire ».

    Thanks pip and setter.

    1. I find many people (especially, offspring and offspring’s nearest and dearest: siblings, too, not to mention, nieces and nephews) prefer it when I’m sort of in holiday mode. I sense they prefer that to my being overly solicitous – sometimes mistaken for nosiness, perish the thought! – or overly willing to share my hard-gained wisdom with them!

      1. Couldn’t agree more. I think our wisdom is sometimes not appreciated !

  38. A steady Wednesday solve, all done in 35 minutes, a bit longer than should have been necessary as there were no horrors. I did myself no favours by biffing in SPARROW at 7dn, thinking the feathers might be used to stuff small pillows, and then wondering why I could not crack 13ac, but eventually common sense prevailed. No issues. I got used to Americanisms in the crossword ages ago and it is clearly a lost battle.
    FOI – DISCRETE
    LOI – LYNX
    COD – LADY CHAPEL
    Thanks to piquet and other contributors.

  39. LOI LYNX like many others, but failed as had NOWISH instead of NEWISH (and came here as it didn’t parse, so should have realised it was wrong). I also invented my own way to 1A: anagram of casino preceded by 0C (zero Celsius) for “some degree”!

  40. Tam is already a Scottish name (Tam Dalyell)…but probably coverage is supposed to get us to the hat…rather than banning Tam from the newspaper.

  41. One error. MATE for GAME. Otherwise would have been an OK 12 and a half mins.

  42. 27:06 is ahead of what we consider our curve relative to the Snitch. LYNX went in fairly readily and I recalled ALEMBIC but GAME and OCCASION went in with fingers crossed. NHO gamine and didn’t see the reverse hidden in 1a. STANHOPE was also a (possibly VHO) biff. Thanks to all.

  43. I did almost all of this in just under 20 mins leaving me with 13a (LYNX). But I had biffed SPARROW for the bird without thinking too much about “down” in the clue (birds have feathers and feathers are down, or something like that). When I failed to find an S–N– hunter, I reconsidered and realized it was SWALLOW. It still wasn’t easy, even with the correct crossers, so I did an alphabet trawl. I should have started at Z and worked backwards since it is a long way to Y from A. Then I clicked and finally finished.

  44. I do remember enjoying this, many hours and a good night’s sleep ago… and momentarily wondering if “tire” could possibly be meant, in a British puzzle, with no indication of its provenance. I was amused by GAM[-in]E and happy to remember STANHOPE.

  45. 26:54
    LOI SUPERPOSE.
    I also frequently pass through HITCHIN by train, without ever having occasion to alight there.

    Thanks piquet and setter

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