Times Crossword 24083

Author   sabine_tkPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 15.24, with one mistake. I wrote in TAXES at the very end at 9ac, and stopped the clock – I didn’t really understand how it worked, but then I rarely do understand anything tax-related and don’t like to think about it too deeply. Saw the right answer about thirty seconds later and corrected it, but a stopped clock is a stopped clock, alas.

Was expecting something really easy after the rigours of this week but found this distinctly tricky, and it’s been quite a few weeks since I took so long over writing a blog, though to be fair I’ve had half an eye on the Aussie cricket.

Across
1
   FRESHER. Two quite cleverly opposed meanings of FRESH here, using different meanings of “familiar”: something that is fresh in the sense of “new” is less familiar, while a person being fresh in the sense of “cheeky” is more familiar.
5
   MA(PUT)O – formerly Lourenco Marques, the capital of Mozambique. This took a while; for most of the time I was looking at it I only had the P, and all kinds of things seemed possible, including LAPUTA, which I was certain I’d heard of but which turned out to be the flying island in Gulliver’s Travels.
9
   TEXAS – being “taxes” with the even letters swapped. I got nowhere near this till I’d solved TAX YEAR at 7d – the only ways I’d found to decode it were “Take every even letter from ‘State duties’ and rearrange” – which gives TITUS, but not a lot else; or “Take a 2-letter state abbreviation, add the even letters of ‘duties’ and rearrange”. I was so sick of this clue at the end that, as described above, I just thought “Must be TAXES”, and wrote it in, spotting the mistake almost immediately after.
11
   R(EGA)N – EGA being “a long time back” (AGE reversed) and RN the service. Regan was one of King Lear’s less charming daughters.
12
   H(ALLOWE)EN – ALLOWE(d) = “almost let”. Not sure how the “out of” bit of the clue works.
13
   PEELINGS – (sleeping)*
15
   GLORIA – (o,a,girl)*
17
   R.U.,SKIN – John Ruskin, Victorian art critic, author, poet, artist etc etc.
19
   GOUR(MAN)D – one of the few clues I got at first glance, this one solely from the definition.
22
   E.G.REGIO(n),US. “For one” here means, as it presumably did in the previous clue, “for example”
23
   QU(IT)O. I enjoyed QUO for “one with status”.
24
   TIKKA – sounds like “ticker”. Does it really? Not when I say it it doesn’t.
25
   LOO(KALI)KE. Kali is the Hindu goddess of death and destruction and LOOKE(d) is “made inspection briefly”.
26
   PROS(e),IT – a drinking toast of Latin derivation.
27
   ST,KIT,TS – “Kit” being approached by ST (way) in both directions.
 
Down
1
   FUTURE PERFECT. My spirits rose slightly when this long 1d was the first clue I solved, leading immediately to 8 and 11ac, but progress thereafter was slow.
2
   E,CLOGUE – CLOGUE being “catalogue” (list) with the “ata” removed, indicated by “not at a”. An eclogue is a short pastoral poem. I had the L and G early and so suspected the LOGUE ending before I worked it all out.
3
   HERON – “eaten by” here just indicating a hidden word, not some kind of complex containment operation.
4
   ROUG(HAG)E
5
   MIDDLE – I dread to think what possibilities will have flashed through people’s minds before brought down to earth by geography. Middlesex is a former English county, still used informally as an area name.
6
   POTBOILER = (let rip boo)*
7
   T,A,X,Y,EAR – again, like everything to do with taxes this caused me untold grief. I think the definition is just “I start in spring”, with “time” being T, “a” being A, the axes being X and Y and EAR the part of wheat.
10
   SONS AND LOVERS
14
   ISINGLASS – (sailing SS)*. I had no idea what this had to do with beer, or what fining meant, and am grateful to the Wort and Beer Clarification Manual, which sounds like it should be a guest publication on HIGNFY, for the following: “The objective of isinglass fining is the removal of particles from beer, either to reduce the particle load presented to the filter, or to prodice a visually bright beer at point of sale.” I’m sure we will all remember that.
16
   HOTS,HOTS – HOST = army, with “succeeded to rear” meaning “move the S to the end”. Rinse and repeat.
20
   ANIMIST – Belfast (NI) has disappeared from view due to being surrounded by A MIST.
21
   JOB,L,OT. JOB = book, OT=where it’s found.

38 comments on “Times Crossword 24083”

  1. Like Sabine, I started fast with 1dn but took forever to do the SE corner.

    Two mistakes. At 1ac I had “Further” – “more” in the oratorical sense of “further(more)” or “moreover”, and also “more distant” i.e. less familiar. (Well it almost works!) Did not get 2dn as a result.

    I had the same thought on 12ac.

    Having taken execption to Manhattan=UN the other day, I would just slightly revise Sabine’s take on 20dn to “Belfast has disappeared from view due to A NI MIST”. (On reflection I suspect it may amount to the same thing!)

  2. All of the LH except 2 and 22 went in with little pause for thought, though on reflection 24 is a somewhat dubious attempt at a homophone – I’ve never heard “Tikka” pronounced other than “Teeker” though it may well be in whichever language it is taken from.

    The RH was another story where despite solving 5D, 10 and 27 early on I struggled to make progress and gave up when the hour struck and resorted to books and on-line help. I still managed to come here with 7 and 9 unsolved. A more even distribution of conventional and “smart” styles of cluing might have helped. This was definitely a puzzle of two halves.

  3. About 20 minutes.
    Quite an odd solve in that there were several flurries of 2 or 3 answers followed by lots of head-scratching, and a few instances of placing “only possible” answers and going back later to try and unravel wordplay.
    No real quibbles, but 17A featured one of those instances I referred to yesterday; something in the clue that initially stopped me from seeing the answer and may possibly be unfair, namely the past participle “had” which doesn’t seem to have a valid role. Unlikely as it seemed, I wondered if there was a short synonym for “had” with some game serving as a container. Oh well. I suppose it can be read as “can be had using the wordplay…”
    In our equality-conscious society I wonder if anyone will suggest “mother” in 10D could/should have been “parent”?
    And to be honest I wasn’t at all keen on the first instance of “at a” in 2D. It helps with the surface but, for me, doesn’t really serve as a valid link-up between the wordplay components.
    Several very good moments – 1A took a little while to understand but is a good clue, 9A is a nicely observed treatment, 1D is possibly an old one but worth seeing again, 4D caused a giggle (although “old woman” = “hag” I’m not 100% sure of) and 23D gets my COD for a very good deception and clever treatment of an awkward little word.

    Q-1 E-6 D-8 COD 23D

  4. 18:37 here. Like kurihan I struggled with the SE corner after a fast start – in fact the last 7 or 8 minutes were spent scratching my head over just 5 interlocking clues (16D, 19A, 21D, 22A and 25A). I knew 16 had to be HOTSHOTS but couldn’t see why, suspected EGREGIOUS for 22 but could only see REGIO(n) in the wordplay, finally remembered KALI = destroyer in 25 and it all gradually came together.

  5. I also found this quite tricky. I don’t know how long it took because I stopped to chat in between solving clues. 50 minutes altogether, probably 40 minutes solving. It was some time before I saw FRESHER, only getting it when I solved 2 to give me an E for the third letter. I share Anax’s reservation about the first “at a” in 2, especially in a down clue. I’m also dubious about the equation between animist and witchdoctor, even with “maybe”.
  6. A curate’s egg of a puzzle, about 30 minutes to solve. Some nice moments but some not so good also all of which have already been covered.

    I can’t let 24A pass without at least a comment. The lovely people in my local Indian pronounce it “teeka” and would certainly not recognise “ticker”. I don’t understand how or why good setters manage to produce these wierd homophones.

    This is the last in a run of 24 puzzles that I have been analysing for topics contained within clues (a repeat of the exercise carried out last May). I should have some results early next week.

    1. I have just finished a very nice Indian takeaway dinner. When I picked it up I asked the lady who runs the restaurant about “tikka”.

      She said it is pronounced “ticker” and also volunteered that the word has Persian roots (tandoori food is of Mogul origin), although now (in common with a lot of English words) it has been absorbed into modern Hindi.

      For what it’s worth.

    1. To me, EGREGIOUS suggests something bad and there was no suggestion of this in the clue so the answer didn’t come readily to mind. Both Collins and COED confirm my understanding of the word as their first definition but the setter is justified by their alternative “archaic” definition. Chambers is not so fussy and doesn’t even mention a “bad” shade of meaning.
  8. Solved this in no time at all, having forgotten to start the stopwatch. But probably around 25-30 minutes. A few really nice clues, but the sum of thing I found annoying rather than satisfying. Just not to my taste, I guess, so I’ll say no more.

    COD .. 23d

  9. I couldn’t do this clue, and I am very grateful for the clear explanation of the wordplay-brilliant. But what concerns me is that, according to the two dictionaries I have, a HOTSHOT is an important person. Neither mentions SNIPER or, indeed, anything to do with shooting a gun.
    1. I’d say “skilled or successful” rather than “important”, but I can’t find any sniper connection either, except by way of an imagined word-history.

      Edited at 2008-11-28 02:48 pm (UTC)

      1. Surely if you were a sniper you would be an exceedingly good shot and therefore you you could reasonably be referred to as being a ‘hot shot’?
  10. 14:50 for this one – another good start with much help from 1D, then bogged down in the SE, ending up puzzling over the two 23s. On the first vowel in tikka: Collins has the long version that disagrees with the clue, Chambers has the short version, and Concise Oxford has both. Also wrote TAXES at 9, but saw immediately that I’d picked the wrong one of the pair of possibles.
  12. Agree with all the preceiding comments re Tikka.a real challenge to finish the non prize week with!
  13. Gave up after 30 minutes with four blanks. I had put in FURTHER at 1a which did seem fairly plausible and only corrected this after 5 minutes of trying to justify relogue or rologue etc.
    Thought of EGREGIOUS but could not justify it and , I have to take my hat to the setter , the triumvirate of HOTSHOTS,LOOKALIKE and JOB LOT floored me. A long time since I have had such a dismal failure.
    No complaints
    JohnPMarshall
  14. Well here in Weston-super-Mare we all refer to Chicken Ticker, so I got this clue easily.Perhaps it’s a west country variation. Learnt 2 new words though egregious and eclogue both new to me.
  15. Last comment was from me, but I had lost my LJ identity. This was due to yesterdays problem accessing crossword. THe Times told me to delete my cookies, so today no-one recognised me.
  16. Found this about average in difficulty, 25 mins, with SE quadrant the hardest. Liked the 23(ac and dn) clues the best.
  17. I’m quite happy with Ticker as homophone for Tikka, and indeed I don’t recognise Teeker as an acceptable pronunciation. Wonder if it is regional. I’ve got a feeling that Indians would say Ticker too – Hindu not Heendu.
  18. I didn’t like 5dn: ‘Sex can follow it near London centre’. Presumably this is to be seen as ‘Sex can follow it to make a word that is a place near London; the definition is centre’.

    Quite apart from the fact that it is rather questionable to say that Middlesex is a place near London (most if not all of it is in London), it seems to me that ‘near London’ shouldn’t just be there, without anything introducing it.

    All the letters except z are in the grid. You’d think it could be fitted in but I can’t see how to.

  19. Re: tikka – I’ve been told on more than one occasion by friends from the subcontinent that most people pronounce this incorrectly, and it should be a short ‘i’, so no qualms about this clue from me. Although apparently it should be a long ‘er’ at the end as well 🙂

    I’m also one of those convinced myself that 1ac was ‘further’ – I find clues like these where there is another plausible answer to that intended a little unfair… what made it harder in this case was lack of literature knowledge (2dn and 9ac).

    Ian

    1. Agree. I think “further” is a perfectly satisfactory answer (illustrated by vinyl’s reply to my comment above). I suppose the setter can’t be expected to canvas all alternatives to make sure the clue allows only one answer, but it happens so infrequently that I never really question a plausible answer. That’s what made this hard.
  20. I’m struggling with QUO as ‘one with status’, And what is then 23D?

    Didn’t like it. Fell short of the answer being clear when the clue is solved

    Harry Shipley

  22. I found this horribly tricky and had to resort to Chambers after two sittings. But got there in the end.
  23. Took forever. Had to come back to the SE corner. On reflection, can raise no real quibbles, but at the time felt totally out of synch with the setter, and frankly didn’t enjoy it.
  24. I managed MAPUTO and TEXAS alright – incidentally two of the places I have spent some time in at work. However the E CLOGUE at 2d was beyond me. I BIFD EULOGIE from poem as the literal but put a ? above it as – oddly enough, I could not work out the wordplay.

    There are 3 “easies”:

    8a Finally persuade to have discussion circle (4,5)
    TALK ROUND

    18d Batsman: he’s out (7)
    STRIKER. Is that as in baseball with “3 strikes and you’re out” or something? I don’t understand this – is it correct?

    23d Unqualified man may get called across the pond (5)
    QUACK

Comments are closed.