Times Crossword 24071

Author   sabine_tkPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 7.51.

I’ve been moping around with toothache since late last night, and the crossword gods have been merciful, providing a straightforward puzzle with easyish long answers, and entirely free of words like “throb”, “molar” and “unspeakable agony”. It would have been all too easy under the circumstances to put “dent” in at 24d but I managed to avoid this.
 

Across
1
   C,AROUSES – the “eight” referring to the reveller in 8 down.
9
   COIFFURE – U in (officer)*. I think “set” is the word that has the most different dictionary meanings. Guessed the right answer from the crossing letters but took another half minute or so to verify it – was trying much more complex machinations for “officer in mess” than a simple anagram.
10
   GRA,D, with GRA being alternating letters in “German”, indicated in the usual way.
13
   QUINCE – Peter Quince is a carpenter in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
14
   PHYSI,C(A)L = “Physi” sounds like “fizzy”, and A is the top mark.
15
   THEBAN(N)S – “pre-match announcements” here being the proclamation of a forthcoming wedding.
17
   PL,ODDER
20
   MA(Y AP)PLE. The definition is just “Fruit”, with MAPLE the tree, protecting the bark (YAP). The may apple is actually not a tree at all, but a North American herbaceous plant.
22
   CAR(e)FUL
25
   GOT,H
26
   W,IN TRIER – Trier is one of those German cities it’s useful to remember.
27
   MINIS,TRY
 
Down
2
   (g)A(I)RB,RUSH. That looks a bit of a mess, so, to clarify: “topless dress” is GARB without the topmost “g”.
4
   S(MIDGE)ON
5
   SCRI(M)P,Y – “scrip” and “wallet” can both mean a small bag.
6
   MIG,HT,Y. MIGs are Russian aircraft, usually fighters (indicated by an odd-numbered suffix).
7
   BULL(y)
8
   REVEL(L)ER – “standing up on bar” needed some disentangling – “bar” looked like LEVER, but took a while to see how the rest worked. “On” is RE (the preposition meaning “concerning”), the bar is indeed LEVER, and “standing up” means “reverse everything”.
12
   BUILD BRIDGES – a reference to the Poet Laureate Robert Bridges.
15
   TOM,A,HAWK
17
   LOCKED IN – (con liked)*
18
   E,DUCAT,OR
21
   PAR,KIN – a kind of gingerbread or biscuit originating from the North of England.
24
   D,IN,T – which can have exactly the same meaning as “dent” – a hollow made by a blow.

18 comments on “Times Crossword 24071”

  1. Nothing to add to sabine’s model blog.

    This took way longer than it should have, as I took some time to finish the NW corner. I spent ages trying to think of things that an “eight” does other than simply row. When the penny finally dropped that it should be “8”, everything fell into place.

    (On reflection, thinking back to the rowers I knew in college, “as eight does” makes a pretty plausible definition for “CAROUSES”.)

  2. I struggled a bit to get started but then plodded steadily through most of it, however I became completely bogged down in the NE with 5,9 & 14 unsolved. When solving time hit the hour I resorted to Chambers Wizard. I’m ashamed I didn’t spot that 9 involved an anagram.
  3. I felt sure the blog headline today would have some reference to champagne, revelling, or carousing but I guess that toothache precludes those kinds of activities!
    As usual these days, I got all but one in sixty minutes. (Didn’t get COIFFURE – I suppose we see so many officers around here that we don’t expect the word itself to be an anagram.)
  4. 18:00 dead for me, mainly due to spending at least 5 minutes staring at 9A. Why is everyone struggling with this obvious-in-hindsight anagram I wonder?

    I was trying CO + IN, then U in a three-letter word for mess. My excuse is that I solved it at half past midnight and I was tired.

  5. Same experience as others – polished off everything but 9A, which bogged me down completely. Didn’t record a time as I went off in a huff leaving it unfinished.
  6. I quite liked this crossword. Though, I took ages to unravel the reason why “reveller” was correct. Also I thought the definition “city people” for “Thebans” a bit general and weak.

    But a number of really good clues more than made up.

  7. I did this straight after doing yesterday’s so was really in the swing of things. I think it’s an excellent puzzle – about 30 minutes to solve.

    9A is a well constructed clue, which is why it’s giving trouble. “Officer” and “mess” go naturally together, which disguises the intent. “Set” is a well hidden definition. Once you see the construction it’s obvious but deriving a hypothesis for the construction of the clue isn’t easy.

    1. It also exploits the pair of unchecked letters in the middle to maxiumum effect – I’m sure C?I?F?R? or ?O?F?U?E would have been easier than C?I??U?E, which keeps the most significant letters up its sleeve.
  8. 30 minutes to solve this rather nice puzzle. I should have been quicker – I was shamefully slow to see QUINCE and PHYSICAL, and, like others I spotted the anagram nature of 9 rather late. However, it’s the dunce’s hat for me: with my mind on the definition I entered CIRCUS for “Lots of travellers” in 22. I don’t think I realised CARFUL was a word.
  9. About 13 minutes for this. Not much trouble with 9A or the 8 in 1A (as I was doing the newspaper version), but led myself up a garden path at 22A by equating “Lots of travellers” with CIRCUS, then seeing that this was CIRCUMSPECT with some letters removed, and trying to find something similar from which to remove ER = “very interior” to make CIRCUS. Then thought about what letters might fit the unches, and thinking of 4th letter F did the trick.

    “May apple” was new to me, and 15A went in without seeing the wordplay. Curious to have OLD MAN’S BEARD only a week or so after TRAVELLER’S JOY.

  10. Started last night, fell asleep (shouldn’t have started that late), polished it off pretty readily in the morning – another one for fans of wordplay. As opposed to Peter, I got MAY APPLE solely from wordplay (it was my last to go in). PARKIN was my other new from wordplay word.
  11. Sabine’s time of 7.51 mins – with toothache to boot – is extremely impressive. This seemed to me a hard, but excellent puzzle, for which i needed about 60 mins. I had the unsettling experience of not being able to fill in a single answer at first read-through. Then REVELLER came at 8dn and progress was reasonably steady from then on. I’m happy to have been in high-quality company in failing to spot the brilliantly disguised anagram at 9ac, so COIFFURE was largely a guess. I also did not help myself by initially writing in CAROUSED instead of CAROUSES at 1ac.

    Michael H

  12. Very enjoyable one today. No timing but 10-15 mins. 9a was pure genius – nice one setter. Others worthy of a mention are 20a,12d and 23a.
    Belting end to the week.
  13. A just over average 40 minutes, a lot of that sweating over 13ac / 15ac and 20ac – which gets my COD, for the very clever usage of bark in the surface reading.
  14. Started last night but couldn’t think due to anaestesia from oral surgery yesterday; Sabine, I truly share your pain, if not your very fast solving time. Took about 40 minutes this morning, but I thought it was a lot easier than Thursday’s difficult (for non-UKers) offering. I really liked ‘physi’=’fizzy’ in 14A, so that’s my favorite today. Never heard of PARKIN before, but the wordplay made it the clear choice. I also didn’t know you spell SMIDGEON with an ‘o’; we don’t. Regards, see you next week.
  15. I thought this was excellent. Like most I got confused at 9a because the “Officer” was present at the start with “CO” and it took me ages to get past that and see the simple, but elegant solution. I thought that “City people” at 15a was an excellent definition (unlike some it seems) and the construction of the clue at 23a was right up my street. My FOI was, naturally enough, 7d BULL(y)

    There are 4 omissions from the blog:

    11a A shade sad, late in the day (8,4)
    MIDNIGHT BLUE. Midnight blue rinse for your 9a madam?

    23a Hot milk supplier’s pitch in northern town (12)
    H UDDERS FIELD. Nice one.

    3d Plant chewed by lad’s Doberman (3,4,5)
    OLD MANS BEARD. Anagram of the last 2 words.

    19d Theatre company on the up: class act (7)
    PER FORM

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