Times 6614: My pre-cryptic Hell

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Other Crosswords

Time taken: most of the morning …

… and I’m still not sure if I have everything right. Filled in the obvious ones (like 25ac) and then worked with the cross-references until I had about half of it done. After that, it was pure guesswork and a couple of Google checks. Some things I can’t (and so won’t) explain. That’s in the nature of guesses. So, I’ll put up what I have and, later in the day — after 4:00pm WST — I’ll have a look at the Times archive and report back.
BTW: I’ll post the blog for today’s Qualifier after the embargo date. Please don’t discuss it here in specific terms.

Across
 1 LOTS WIFE. Pun on lots of wives?
 5 PARCEL. If you only get letters you don’t get parcels?
10 FALL TO THE GROUND. ??
11 LIONEL. Anagram of ‘one ill’.
12 REPORTER. A discharged weapon makes a report?
14 NUTS. Not cryptic. ‘Out of one’s 19’ might have worked??
15 FORESTERS. The Foresters or, Robin Hood and Maid Marian; a play by Tennyson.
18 LOVE MATCH.
19 TREE.
22 A,VIA,TORS. There’s no def here at all.
23 HESIOD. General knowledge.
25 CHIEF MAGISTRATE. As it says in the clue: an anagram.
26 DO,SAGE.
27 TERRITET. Anagram with no indicator. It’s in Switzerland.
Down
 1 LIFELINE.
 2 TALE OF TWO CITIES. Please explain.
 3 WITHER. Two defs; one a poet and man of parcels no doubt.
 4 FATE.
 6 AIRPORTS. Pun on the drinks, ports.
 7 COUNTER IRRITANT. Pun on ‘counter’; where customers may be found.
 8 LODORE. Bob Southey wrote ‘The Cataract of Lodore’. Yes, I had to look this up. How else would I get it?
 9 DEFERENCE. Another anagram with no indicator.
13 ROYAL ROAD. Pun on King’s Way.
16 PETTI,FOG.
17 DEAD HEAT. Another pun.
20 RAN,CID. Ref to El Cid: Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. I only know the fillum.
21 HECTOR. Two defs.
24 TIME. Another look up.

18 comments on “Times 6614: My pre-cryptic Hell”

  1. Congratualtions mctext on your perseverance. I gave up after about 30mins with about one-third of the answers in, and not the faintest idea about the rest.

    I think in 1951 Britain was still experiencing rationing; maybe it’s in that spirit that clues offered either a definition or some wordplay, but not both.

  2. Congratulations and thanks, mctext. I’m another who gave up after about 30 minutes with ‘about one-third of the answers in, and not the faintest idea about the rest’. 1951 was the year in which the School Cert was abolished and replaced by O levels. Was this the start of ‘dumbing down’? This certainly made me feel dumb.
  3. Well done, mct, this must have been an absolute nightmare to have to blog. I finished it in 90 minutes with a little assistance along the way and had two wrong, ROMAN ROAD for ROYAL ROAD (I know it doesn’t fit the clue but given some of the other clues and answers I was past caring by then) and AEGROTAT for TERRITET since it was the only word the solvers suggested – I had tried an anagram solver on TITTERER but nothing came up. I never heard of the town.

    http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/node/14288 Here’s the explanation of 2dn

    1. Bit obscure — eh?
      But my thanks for that. I’m glad this puzzle appeared a whole year and two weeks before I was born.

      Edited at 2011-06-01 08:32 am (UTC)

  4. Well, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga McText. I managed to get all but 6 (5, 12, 22, 27ac, 6, 8d) in the first 16 minutes (with enough confidence in only 4 of them to write them in in full rather than faintly writing the checking letters only), although I put in ‘life’ for ‘time’ at 24d, then spent an hour staring stupidly at either the grid or the clues or the ceiling. 10ac: If one is falling to the ground, one is earth-bound, hint hint, nudge nudge. Ah, those were humorous times, 1951 England.
    Anyway, congratulations; I wouldn’t have wished this blogging job on my worst enemy. Congratulations also to jackkt for digging up the 2d explanation; another work of supererogation.
  5. I took one look at the number of this puzzle, worked out must have appeared somewhere around 1950 and decided to retain my sanity by not even attempting it. Having now read the blog and comments I’m more than happy that I took that decision.

    Well done McText – you may find a quiet darkened room speeds recovery.

    1. Thanks Jim.
      I have one — strange that you should know my diagnosis!

      And surely there’s something else they could post on the Club site in place of the published Quals?

      Edited at 2011-06-01 09:45 am (UTC)

      1. I agree. There are a few who enjoy these old monsters but for the majority they are a frustrating nightmare. I would think the puzzle published this day 20 years ago would be fine. By the 1990s most if not all of the worst habits had been eradicated.
  7. I was five years old (well five and three quarters actually) when this puzzle first appeared and had not yet started on the crossword. Thank goodness! Managed all but four in 35 minutes then gave up.
  8. I enjoy tackling the oldies, but this one…. Good grief!

    In the end, I was quite pleased with my ‘5 Incorrect’, which was good enough to put me at the top of the leaderboard (alright, I was the only person on it at the time).

    I’m kicking myself over a couple, but I know I could have stared at the clues for LODORE and TERRITET until the cows come home without getting them.

    Bravo, mctext! Order of the Short Straw (and Bar).

  9. I gave up after 45 minutes with about a third still do to. Such a lot of general (especially literary) knowledge required. I knew TALE OF TWO CITIES straight away beause I’d heard of the play. Ditto HESIOD, WITHER, FORESTERS and LODORE (Although I needed 10 across for the latter). I was amazed at the number of cross-references which meant that a lot of the clues were meaningless in themselves. I originally thought 10 across might have something to do with foxhunting but I was being far too cryptic! It took ages for me to accept the simple answer. Didn’t get TERRITET. I took one look at “titterer” and decided it couldn’t possibly be an anagram of anything. I had REVOLVER instead of REPORTER so it took me a long time to get the COUNTER of 7d. Didn’t see IRRITANT at all. I started doing the Times Crossword in 1963 and am very grateful that I was too young to know about it in 1951. It would have put me off, probably for life, and I would have missed all the pleasure this crossword has given through the years!
  10. OK, I am trying to write this without looking at the rest of the blog, which isn’t easy. I expect to be looking at this crossword tonight and may not finish it until tomorrow morning (the qualifier was easy though, wan’t it? )

    Because Koro gets up at some unearthly hour every morning ( 🙂 he has probably spent hours on this already…

    All I would like to say is, DO give this crossword a proper try. To do that, you have to leave your cosy, structured womb of predictable clues and rigid rules. You have to undertake a freeing manoeuvre, to be prepared to accept a clue on its own terms, and not be outraged because it doesn’t meet your framework of preconceptions.

    But it is quite liberating and if you let it, it can be quite fun. Really..

    Please remember, the pre-eminent reputation of The Times crossword was built on crosswords like this one, not the ones you do now!

  11. Great effort McText. I got all but TERRITET, LODORE and HECTOR, but that was after a long, long time and a fair bit of googling.
    I’m trying to be open-minded, but find it hard to accept that this is a better offering than the average modern Times crossword. Makes me thankful for our daily treat.
  12. In the past, I may have made the odd aspersion about the quality of a clue, or even a puzzle as a whole. I abjectly apologize. I got within three of finishing this horror, before my computer spat the dummy and trashed my efforts. I can well understand why.
  13. I stared at this for about 15 minutes. I got ROYAL ROAD. Then gave up. I appreciate Jerry’s opinion, but the time wasn’t available to muster up the necessary whimsy. Regards, and I salute the perseverance of those who almost made it through, and especially to mctext, for his gallant effort at trying to explain this.
  14. A fascinating puzzle. I gave myself my usual 30-minute time limit for a 15×15 and ended up missing eight answers – but I’m really kicking myself as I should have got LODORE (I only know a handful of poems by Southey, and that’s one of them) and COUNTER IRRITANT (which I’d spell with a hyphen), after which the others would have dropped out almost immediately. (TERRITET would have been a guess, but I tend to regard guessing as part of the game for puzzles of this period.)

    A little more information about 2dn. The Only Way was apparently a stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’s novel by two Irish clergymen, Freeman Wills and Frederick Langbridge.

Comments are closed.