Times 29101 – Go and get on my case no more!

One of those crosswords that are far harder to explain than to solve. So, I think I’ll been earning my corn today. A couple of clues in particular really push the envelope out. It will be interesting to see what others make of it. Typically, a fast time covers a multitude of sins.

18:20 for me.

Across
1 Unbroken company detachment retreating in common sense (10)
CONTINUOUS – CO UNIT (detachment) reversed in NOUS (common sense)
6 In favour of hosting University rowing crew, perhaps (4)
FOUR – U in FOR
10 People with servants reduced period in service (7)
MASTERS – TERm in MASS; people with servants, or indeed people with pets. We are not their parents!
11 Swimmer ready to keep fit with training (7)
CATFISH – anagram* of FIT in CASH (ready); as instructions to make an anagram of a word go, ‘with training’ is rather left field
12 Restaurant prosecution mostly about nothing after dessert returned (9)
TRATTORIA – TART reversed (dessert returned) the O (noting) in TRIAl (prosecution mostly)
13 What’s the point of extra minute in sleep? (5)
COMMA – double the M in COMA; the comma is used as a decimal point in Europe. Is that what the setter is getting at?
14 Feature of stage act? Compère’s introduced a good one (5)
MAGIC – A G (good) I (one) in MC (Frenchified compere)
15 Any pistol will shatter these locks (9)
PONYTAILS – ANY PISTOL*
17 Nearby? Almost all close, I’d fancy (9)
LOCALISED – ALl CLOSE ID*
20 Country network backed including recording (5)
NEPAL – EP (record – ‘extended play’ from vinyl days) in LAN reversed
21 Yellow stone, not dressed (5)
STRAW – ST RAW (raw being the opposite of dressed when talking about timber)
23 Religious figure tucking into fish — curious problem (9)
CONUNDRUM – NUN in COD RUM (curious)
25 What’s originating from criminal? (7)
OFFENCE – not sure how to categorise this: OF FENCE is ‘from criminal’ and the target word OFFENCE is formed (originates) from those two words put together. On edit: Lucas parses ‘originating from’ as OF, which makes a lot better sense.
26 Biased article in Paris — flinch when one’s put out (7)
UNEQUAL – UNE (article in Paris) QUAiL (flinch)
27 Energy certainly seen in storm centres (4)
EYES – E YES
28 Fools ecstatic tackling start of major tax process (10)
ASSESSMENT – ASSES M (initial letter of Major) in SENT (ecstatic: ‘You send me – honest you do!’)
Down
1 Astronomical object with tail and wake incomplete (5)
COMET – COME To
2 No reduction in jam, accommodating a large yearning (9)
NOSTALGIC – NO LG (abbreviation for ‘large’, along with lge.) in STICk (jam/stick, as in the CD has jammed/stuck); YEARNING as an adjective, of course
3 Duplicates collapse of titanic swindle (9,5)
IDENTICAL TWINS – TITANIC SWINDLE*
4 Release American gin around November (7)
UNSTRAP – N in US TRAP (‘Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is set for him?’ Amos 3: 5)
5 Free meal, no starter, central course (not starter) (7)
UNCHAINlUNCH mAIN  (as in the main course of a dinner, sometimes called the entree)
7 Dislike sulphur being kept away from reactive metal (5)
ODIUMsODIUM
8 Medley of Lehar has listeners interrupting run-through (9)
REHEARSAL – EARS in LEHAR*
9 Standard fashion regarding shirts in Northern town (8-2-4)
STOCKTON-ON-TEES – STOCK (standard, as in ‘CS Lewis was a great fan of stock phrases’) TON (fashion – never out of fashion in crosswords) ON (regarding) TEES (shirts) ; the Stockton and Darlington Railway was the first railway to use steam locomotives. It opened 200 years ago next September.
14 Unpleasant things in male mood — something burdensome (9)
MILLSTONE – ILLS in M TONE
16 All but meaning to regulate press (9)
IMPORTUNE – this had me puzzled, and the best I can manage is this: IMPORt (meaning or signification, as in ‘the import of this cannot be underestimated’, where ‘all but’ indicates deletion of the final letter) TUNE (regulate according to Collins means to adjust an instrument so that it operates correctly. However, according to piano tuners, tuning a piano means adjusting the pitch of the strings, while regulation refers to the adjustment of the touch – the way the keys feel and respond to one’s playing).

The parable of the importunate woman must have had many young churchgoers like me wondering exactly what it was she had got up to, especially when set beside other Biblical women, like the one caught in adultery. Sadly, the truth was much more prosaic: she was basically just like our mums – wouldn’t let go once she’d got the bit between her teeth.

18 Petitions involving two Conservatives beginning to see positive result (7)
SUCCESS – C C in SUES (petitions) S (initial letter of See)
19 Teeth study right to have change of heart (7)
DENTURE – DEN TruE becomes TURE
22 Weapon readily found round Lake (5)
RIFLE – L (lake) in RIFE (readily found)
24 Fine upset corporation importing chlorine (5)
MULCT – CL in TUM (a crossword favourite, where corporation means stomach) all reversed. Not a very common word; it means to cheat or defraud, to fine, or a fine. I blithely biffed the clue and thought MULCT was mulch, without writing in mulch – if you follow what I mean.

78 comments on “Times 29101 – Go and get on my case no more!”

  1. About 50 minutes Most enjoyable. Only slowed for a while when I had NOSTALGIA and nothing fitted. All the other crossers were correct so it had to end in C .
    Thanks U

  2. Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck,
    or the rolling thunder
    (Faith, Tennyson)

    20 mins pre-brekker left me with three which, as it turned out, relied on Quail.
    Eventually I saw Flinch=Quail and that convinced me Chlorine needed to be upset too in the NHO Mulct – and Importune was LOI.
    Nice one.
    Ta setter and U

  3. 35 minutes. I had the parsing of IMPORTUNE as suggested in the blog. Away from tuning pianos, tuning an engine avoids any perceived problem with ‘regulate’.

    MULCT was unknown. It has turned up here a couple of times previously but its most recent outing was 10 years ago.

    1. I only know mulct from Right Ho Jeeves. “And now you say you don’t believe me and call me names for which I could have you up before a beak and jury and mulct you in very substantial damages”.

      1. An impeccable source. I recall that Wodehouse mentions in passing a particularly brainy character who solves the Times crossword while boiling his breakfast egg, “and he does not like them hard.”

  4. 29 minutes with question marks against COMMA and OFFENCE. MULCT sounded vaguely familiar though I wouldn’t have known its meaning beforehand. I was also a bit thrown about the singular DENTURE. Useless fact – I remember The Shadows put out as a B side ‘Stars fell on Stockton’.Thank you U and setter.

  5. I know exactly what you mean – after a slow start I got going and finished in a breakfast adjusted 20 minutes, but in a number of cases I still can’t fully explain the parsing. One random thought on 25 ac, could “originating” and “from” give the letters O and F, followed by FENCE?
    Thanks U and setter

  6. 10:29. LOI CATFISH. I took a while to parse IMPORTUNE before I put it in, not being sure of the definition. MULCT was vaguely remembered as a word, but I couldn’t have told you what it meant. I was pleased to see STOCKTON-ON-TESS appear as I was brought up there. Thanks U and setter.

  7. About 20 minutes, the last 10 of which were spent on 24d. I eventually put in MULCT with a shrug, and I’m amazed to come here and find out that it’s right.

    – Wanted 2d to be ‘nostalgia’ before the C from LOCALISED pointed me towards NOSTALGIC
    – Didn’t parse IMPORTUNE
    – Wasn’t sure in which context raw=not dressed for STRAW, but assumed there had to be one

    Thanks ulaca and setter.

    FOI Four
    LOI Mulct
    COD Ponytails

  8. Was on for a 40 min solve but the SE corner beat me. I had CANON for religious figure in the CONUNDRUM clue, and I assumed I needed a fish I didn’t know. And in the other clue down there I spotted one of my pet peeves (Corporation=tum) which gave MCLUT, which I decided could be correct (maybe named after a Scot).

    Apart from that, not too bad, although I needed this blog to explain several of them (e.g. I thought the QUAL in EQUAL was QUALm). 1A and 1D were the first in, always good to get a solid start (Duckett and Crawley, please note)

    TON means in fashion? That’s a new one (probably an old one, like TUM)

  9. Seemed to make heavy weather of this – same issues with IMPORTUNE, NOSTALGIC not parsed, and nho MULCT.

    The aforementioned parable is also known as the ‘unjust judge’ or ‘persistent widow’, and all three ‘titles’ convey different meanings and invoke different value judgements. Parables are terrific.

    16’32”, thanks ulaca and setter.

  10. 35 mins, the last few staring at MULCT and thinking, surely it can’t be, though it MUST be!

    Quite enjoyable but a few unparsed, so thanks to our blogger for that. I’ve never understood why « entree » is a main course in English, but the starter in France?

    I liked the anagram for IDENTICAL TWINS.

    Thanks U and setter. (Nice photo, by the way)

      1. We’ve been here before, but I was brought up in leafy Surrey to choose between steak and fish as my main course, AKA entrée.

        1. Interesting. Certainly not my experience: an entrée has always been a starter. The dictionaries are divided on the matter: Collins has the ‘main course’ meaning as specifically American, Chambers says ‘esp N. American’, ODE has it as the main meaning and then gives ‘starter or appetizer’ qualified as ‘British English’.

        2. Actually on reflection that’s not really divided, is it? They all basically say it’s American. Your particular part of leafy Surrey appears to have been a little American linguistic enclave!

          1. I remember entrée on English menus as a main course from a quite early age, but it may have been a fashionable thing in certain establishments as I associate it with steakhouses.

            1. One of the citations for this meaning in the OED is from the Daily Mail in 1917, so it’s obviously been around in the UK for a long time, even if it’s not the most common usage.

                  1. And often doesn’t! Still, someone somewhere thought that was an appropriate word for the main dish. They must have had some kind of thought process behind that…

              1. I think it was the Tudor Rose restaurant in Virginia Water. A Spanish couple ran the place, as I recall. It was a pretty naff place on reflection (especially given the foodie I’ve become), peddling stuff like prawn cocktail and melon with a glacé cherry on top for starters. But it sure beat boarding school food.

                Weirdly, my mum was a great Daily Mail fan too.

  11. 22.20 which I suspect will be on the sluggish side of today’s solves. NHO mulct so guessed it. Didn’t parse importune so will investigate what I missed.

  12. This felt slow, though it was all over in a tad shy of 18 minutes. Probably trying to parse NOSTALGIA (because it couldn’t be -C, surely) took quite a bit of time.
    COMET I didn’t parse, because I was trying to arrange some sort of tail with some sort of wake – probably illustrates my denseness today. I knew MULCT as “swindle” or “squeeze”, but not fine, but I suppose that’s still – um- fine.

  13. 8:35. No major problems this morning. I knew that MULCT was a word if not what it meant.
    The definitions of ‘point’ in the usual dictionaries suggest it can be used for pretty much any punctuation mark, which is surprising to me.
    U you have the wrong anagrist at 17ac.

  14. Two things in Cracking the Cryptic for that difficult Friday puzzle struck me: how Simon A spent longer on each clue, really trying to see how it worked (I had tended to flit from one to the other), and how he started by solving one and then looking at possible answers that attached to the one he had entered (I was looking at all the acrosses, then all the downs, then back to the acrosses, which were now helped by some of the downs). Don’t know if that was a wise idea, perhaps it was. It will certainly never make me into a speed solver, but my 33 minutes on quite a nice, maybe easyish, puzzle may have been marginally faster than before.

    1. I’m no speed solver and gave up ambitions in that direction long ago, but I have always worked by solving a clue and building from checkers it has provided. Until the first one has gone in I flit around the grid looking for an easy picking, usually 3 or 4 letter answers or those with multi-words.

      1. FWIW that is my approach too, though I’ve always assumed/wondered whether the real quickies adopt the “all acrosses then all downs” approach.

        1. I’m not a “real quickie”, more “mid-table in the 2nd division on a good day”, but I do all the acrosses and then all the downs then fill in the gaps for the QC (where I am going for speed), but here I do tend to build off checkers as I’m not quite so interested in speed.

          1. I have found that in moving from solving on paper to solving on a phone, I’ve naturally adjusted from “building from checkers” to “try all clues in order” and my times have improved dramatically.

            I theorise it’s because it means that some downs thereby get Banged In From Definition and Checkers at first glance whereas before I might have thought about some for a while based on a single checker.

            1. For me reading all the clues also seems to improve the time. My theory is different: you can solve some clues subconsciously while you’re consciously solving different clues; the answer just seems to pop into your head from nowhere. If you’ve read all the clues you have more possibilities of this happening. Still I don’t go for speed, so mix the read all the clues and build from checkers on a whim.

      2. I’m another who tends to get a first word in and then try and expand from there. However, when I see a set of three letter words I always look at them first.

    2. I have a hybrid strategy. I try and solve the across clues in order. But if I get the first letter of a down clue, I try and solve that (also, if I get something really odd like an X in the middle of a down clue). Then the downs. And then I see what looks most promising.

  15. DNF. I entered Mclut, thinking it to be some sort of Scot’s traffic fine, or whatnot. I thought of IMPORTUNE, but couldn’t see how it worked, so in irritation I pressed the reveal button.
    Liked IDENTICAL TWINS and LOCALISED. Most of the puzzle went in fairly quickly, apart from that troublesome SE corner.
    Thanks for the excellent blog, and thanks Setter.

  16. Failed on 24dn where I constructed McLUT and, like Merlin, thought it must be named after a Scotsman (the Scottish magistrate Hamish McLUT, perhaps, immortalised for the severe fines he imposed). For the RAW in STRAW I relied on: in the raw = not dressed. Doesn’t quite work but at least it got me to the right answer in that case

  17. 19d Denture never saw true=right, so biffed. 25a Offence biffed, i remain quite unsure how it works. 17a Localised was delayed because of the lazy Nostalgia in 2d. Was a bit wobbly about 24d Mulct=fine, so looked it up. I find that it wasn’t construed as a regular verb in Cheating Machine so I added those bits.

  18. 22:41

    This felt like a trickier puzzle with a few easier answers thrown in (COMET, FOUR, COMMA, NEPAL, RIFLE) – it was a slow build around the grid for me, each answer providing a couple of useful checkers to confirm the next answer. Didn’t parse IMPORTUNE but couldn’t think of anything else that would fit the checkers. Ho hum with LOI NHO MULCT.

    Thanks U and setter

  19. 14.43

    As one, COD to the TWINS, and a decent anagram it is.

    Otherwise, I couldn’t get a few of the easier ones “blind” but once I got a toehold and some checkers progress was solid.

    NHO MULCT but it had to be

    1. COD also to the TWINS (as will be obvious to those with a smattering of Lithuanian and French). Still can’t get near my slightly older brother’s times though. 22 mins. Fast for me.

  20. No real problems with this, although didn’t dwell on how IMPORTUNE was explained. IDENTICAL TWINS was a nice long anagram. MULCT rang a bell. 29 minutes or so.

  21. 34.07, with Australia v India test match distractions so mostly done in rain breaks. A couple of curly ones and some knowledge lacking, but generally an enjoyable puzzle, thanks U.

    From Idiot Wind:
    You hurt the ones that I love best, and cover up the truth with lies
    One day you’ll be in the ditch, flies buzzin’ around your EYES
    Blood on your saddle

  22. 24 mins – assumed MULCT came from the same root as the Spanish for fine, multa, which indeed it does. Took some time to see the second bit of DENTURE. Close to an indirect anagram which, if memory serves, used to be a no-no, though doubtless that is no longer the case (if it ever was)

  23. Reasonable progress, though I was solving a lot from wordplay rather than my preferred biffing/reverse engineering, which probably explains why I was slower than the snitch would expect me to be.

    LOI was the NHO MULCT, which seemed more likely than MCLUT to me. I parsed IMPORTUNE as did our blogger, and liked the TWINS and the Northern town.

    16:14

  24. Biffed FOI, COMET, and parsed it later. CONTINUOUS followed and I was off. My NOSTALGIA was transmuted to NOSTALGIC when MAGIC arrived. A pleasant romp around the grid concluded with UNCHAIN. 13:27. Thanks setter and U.

  25. A very straightforward solve with more than the usual amount of biffing and reverse engineering, not that I could do so with 2D. However, I also failed to parse it once I’d changed it to NOSTALGIC. I also couldn’t parse IMPORTUNE, though I knew the meaning, as I was fooled by the T of TUNE also finishing IMPORT. Otherwise no holdups, except for mombling LOCALSIDE until I came to my senses!

  26. DNF from my sickbed, thanks to MCLUT/MULCT. Hmph. I’ve made a few mistakes recently that were entirely my own doing – this was just unkind cluing.

    Thanks both.

  27. 13:33

    Didn’t parse IMPORTUNE and had similar queries as our blogger as to why COMMA was right. Still feels as though there must be something more to it…

  28. 23.13. This seemed intractable at first, but opened up when some crossers were in place. Very enjoyable, even if I was a bit slow.

  29. A pleasant puzzle, a bit more challenging than the average Monday for me, all done in 40 minutes. Couldn’t quite parse IMPORTUNE so thanks for the explanation. MULCT was vaguely recognised and rang a distant Latin bell.
    FOI – FOUR
    LOI – EYES
    COD – IDENTICAL TWINS
    Thanks to ulaca and other contributors.

  30. “Fine upset corporation importing chlorine “.
    Did not see an instruction to reverse chlorine, so I didn’t.
    MULCT did not seem likely so I chose the Scottish version.
    David

  31. Came late and whizzed through in 18 mins second best ever for me even though mulct was a complete biff and importune likewise. Thanks for the long explanations

  32. Wasn’t Stockton Macmillan’s constituency? And Blair’s? 12’36”. I fairly raced through this, putting in loads from definition only. Never a sign of a great crossword. But a good one, certainly.

  33. This must be a pretty easy puzzle, as I wandered in casually from QC land thinking I’d pick away at it, and was amazed to get 1D COMET immediately (never happens). With this encouragement I biffed my way through in about 50 minutes. Lots of entertainment. I spent a long time thinking “but M,U,T,C,L doesn’t have enough vowels!” before seeing MULCT. “Cheated” by using Google maps to find STOCKTON-ON-TEES (had the ON TEES part).

    Thank you to ulaca for explaining the many, many clues I couldn’t parse!

  34. FOI CONTINUOUS
    LOI any of MULCT, IMPORTUNE or CATFISH because even though I thought these were the answers I didn’t know why.

    But it’s always good to finish with all correct so I’ll take it.

  35. Not too hard. I’d never heard of MULCT or only very vaguely. I went down the NOSTALGIA rathole before realizing that it had to be wrong because (a) wordplay doesn’t work and (b) I couldn’t fit a word crossing it. I think that was my only holdup.

  36. 28 minutes, which was longer than usual on a Monday! Re ‘comma’, I think ‘point’ just refers to its being a punctuation mark. I remember hearing someone dictating copy and saying ‘full point’ rather than ‘full stop’.

  37. 34.05. got a bit stuck in the SE. NHO MULCT, and I couldn’t make any sense of IMPORTUNE. it was just the only word that fitted. Great puzzle though.

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