Times Crossword 24095

Author   sabine_tkPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 18.30.

I found this a tricky but enjoyable puzzle with some nicely disguised definitions, and also some where the definition was a giveaway but the wordplay needed quite a lot of thought. I don’t like this grid much as once you’ve solved the long central vertical there’s very little communication between the two halves, and I soon found myself with two unconnected problem areas in the SW and NE corners, the NE being the toughest to crack.

Across
1
   E,LICIT
2
   BALL,COCK – ball = dance and cock = lift, as in to turn up or tilt up.
9
   CY,C,LO,-CROSS – a pedal cycle cross country race where bicycles have to be lifted over obstacles. CY=extremes of charity, C=clubs, LO=look, CROSS=transcend. I might quite easily have put CYCLE-CROSS if I hadn’t been paying proper attention.
10
   LOCO(motive). This was the last but one clue I solved, having only the C in place, and it took a long time.
11
   F,LAME,NCO. NCO=non-commissioned officer, perhaps a corporal. Didn’t see the wordplay for a while; because so many of the letters of FEMALE appeared in the answer I was trying to use more of them than just the F.
12
   FEN,CER – CER being REC (recreation ground) backwards, and therefore “park backing on to”
13
   UGLI. We know that “regularly” can mean only one thing. Earlier this week we were treated to an “indirect regularly”; here we have a “reversed regularly”, alternate letters of bIlLs Go Up, reversed. An ugli is a cross between a grapefruit, a Seville orange and a tangerine, its name deriving from the unsightly appearance of its rough, wrinkled, greenish-yellow skin. We’ve all had days like that.
15
   IN(C)LINES
18
   TOR,TILL,A. An eight-letter pancake was always likely to be a tortilla, but I struggled with the wordplay. It’s TOR = rise, TILL = up to (in the sense of UNTIL), and then you just take the last letter of “grandma”.
19
   FALL
21
   (f)ETCHER, a fetcher being “one going to get” and “first cut” being an instruction to remove the first letter. I had this all upside down, or possibly inside-out,  for a while – I had the right answer, but thought “first cut” was C, and so was trying to justify “ETHER” as “one going”. Which was obviously never going to work.
23
   CLAVICLE – (vice, call)*
25
   MILL – a reference to John Stuart Mill. A mill is also a building or factory (works) and the current of water that turns a millwheel is called a millrace.
27
   HEAD,LOCK
28
   ELDEST – D in (steel)*
 
Down
2
   LOYAL – the last letters of the first five words. “Ultimately” is another very helpful indicator.
3
   COLUMNIST – (must Colin)*. “Leader” here refers to a leading editorial article in a newspaper.
4
   T,ECH(N)O – electronic dance music. Techno is somewhat repetitive, so the clue is quite clever.
5
   B,IO(LOGICAL) CLOCK. LOGICAL = sound, interrupting the bishop (B) and one o’clock. I got the CLOCK part very early, and toyed mentally with BIOLOGICAL for a while before figuring out how it worked.
6
   LOSE FACE, a hidden reversal (seasidE CAFES OLd).
7
   COLON(y). There is indeed a colon in the next clue. This was the last one to crack; I really did need all three crossing letters. Just couldn’t see “Following clue has one” as the definition, and was mostly trying to think of specific dependency-type small countries that could possibly be the answer.
8
   COCKEREL,L – Christopher Cockerell was the inventor of the “special craft” the hovercraft, and a cockerel is “one that crew”. All very crafty, not to mention special.
14
   G,HOST,LIKE
16
   IN,FL(I,CT)ED – not the most obvious meaning of “visited”. IN=home, FLED=Split, I=one, and CT=empty chalet.
17
   ALFRESCO – (sore calf)*
20
   CACKLE = you start off with COCKLE (seafood), and “for nothing, there’s a” tells you to replace the O with an A.
22
   HOLED – the definition is “Succeeded in putting”, which is very neat. “To one’s ear” indicates a soundalike – HOLD in the sense of to adhere (stick).
24
   L,ULLS – L=lake, followed by another lake (ULLSWATER) with no water. Ullswater is the second largest lake in the Lake District.

46 comments on “Times Crossword 24095”

  1. Took about 45 minutes, with the last while in the NE staring at 7,8 and 10. I had to look up the inventor, I confess, then the rest came. The last was 7, and originally I thought it meant that “the guy who’s the answer to the next clue has one” was the def. Happily, I soon realized it meant the actual “:” in 8D, not the one inside Mr. Cockerell. Very nice puzzle, a relief after yesterday’s, with lots of clever clues, 7 especially, but also 16, 20, 25. Regards, see you next week.
  2. Best of the week for my money. Lots of nice little tricks and deceptions but 8, 22 and 24 all deserve a special mention. 42 mins felt like a triumph.

    In 8, “one that crew” is obviously needed for the surface (rather than “one that crows”) but I assume it is justified by being a biblical reference to the particular cock which “crew” – something to do with Peter denying Jesus 3 times, I think).

    One pedantic quibble at 10 – a locomotive is not a train, which is a number of carriages pulled by an engine. My children used to have a picture book about a “train” which in fact was only the engine, and it always annoyed me.

    All in all a great end to the week.

    1. 100% with you on loco = train. It feels to me just as sloppy as nonsense like “charge” for ION, which I’ve seen elsewhere, but as far as I recall, never in the Times.

      I suspect the concept “part of train” could be worked into this clue without spoiling it too much.

  3. Maybe its old age. Maybe its the obligation to perform quality control on the local wine, but this was a bumpy ride. Again I had entered a number of answers, without understanding the word play. But then loved the solutions of every one that I had misgivings about. A marvelous exercise in hiding in plain sight.
  4. I also thought this was superb. I was going along fine but just couldn’t get HOLED and ETCHER at the end.

    Tom B.

  5. 35 minutes did for all except 21,22,25 and the first four letters of 27, then I managed 12 minutes without progress until I remembered J.S.MILL (someone mentioned him earlier in the week when a less common philosopher’s name turned up) and the rest fell into place within 2 minutes. During my 12 minutes in the doldrums I started to doubt GHOSTLIKE at 14 as I was toying with (c)LEAVER at 21 until I realised the definition and wordplay were the wrong way round for this to work.

    After completion, when I went through to understand the wordplay I found my answer at 24, LOLLS, didn’t work and it had to be LULLS.

    I agree with others that this was probably the best this week though judging by the past few Saturdays we may get an even better one tomorrow.

  6. This has to be LEAVER. Cutter = CLEAVER. Drop the first letter and you get LEAVER, which means one going.
    I’m not wrong….
    1. Nice idea, but it has two problems, each fatal. One, it puts the definition in the middle and the wordplay each side, so it doesn’t parse (it’s the “one going to get” not the “cutter” which is cut). Two, it doesn’t fit the checking letters.
      1. The first is the one for the anonymous poster to listen to carefully. There are or were puzzles where setters were happy to do things like stick the “one going” def. into the middle of the “Cutter is to get first cut” wordplay, but this style has been absent from the Times for at least a decade, and probably two or three.

        I don’t say it’s impossible for the def to be in the middle of the wordplay, but if it is, the cryptic reading will make it clear where the def is.

  7. Very much my sort of puzzle. I love all those tricky definitions and complicated wordplays. 40 minutes to solve.

    21A is interesting. I agree “cleaver” can’t be correct but how about “(t)ripper”? If you don’t get GHOSTLIKE first I reckon you could go for that and cause yourself some problems.

    1. You could, but two weak links should make you wary – {ripper = cutter, ripping being tearing rather than cutting except in the case of Jack the Ripper} and {one going = tripper – rather vague}
  8. Much more difficult today. I had the grid completed in 15 mins but now realise I was paying less attention than sabine and settled for CYCLE-CROSS without thinking about the wordplay. Several other answers came via the “it must be this, but how does the clue work?” route.
  9. Mostly straightforward, but, as yesterday, my good progress was impeded by tricky parts of the SE and NE corners (7,10,12,20,28) and TECHNO, which was the last to go in – 35 minutes in all. There were some nice deceptions on the way. I didn’t understand the clue to TORTILLA. Thanks to sabine for the explanation.
  10. Relieved to see that even sabine needed 18.30 mins for this one. In the light of that I was delighted with my own 55 mins. Excellent puzzle, with lots of clever, ingenious and unusually deceptive clues. Like jackkt, I spent some time convinced that(c)LEAVER had to be the answer ar 21ac, before the penny dropped. 22dn was exceptionally neat, with the added bonus for golfers of the hilarious image conjured up by the surface reading. Admittedly, I’ve not yet seen anyone trying to put the flagstick in their ear after missing a 12-inch putt, but I can well imagine it! I loved the interlinking of clues 7 and 8dn, which followed on the cross-clueing of 11ac and 12dn in ystdy’s puzzle. Same setter?

    Michael H

    1. I’m pretty sure that the sequencing rules used by the Times xwd ed prevent us from seeing the same setter on successive days (or even in the same week if I remember right).
  11. Can I be the first to ask whether 28 L’s in the same Times grid is a record? The setter didn’t quite get an L into every answer, missing with 12, 21 and 4, but it still looks quite a feat.

    11:43 here, so probably my best solving of the week. 21/22 were the last in – my own problem with 21 was the idea that “is one going” was a fiendish route to a letter S, with the answer fitting ST???R.

    1. I suppose we could have had “fennel” at 12 and “lecher” at 21 (with “globe-like” at 14).
    2. There are a lot of C’s as well, especially in the top half of the grid. I didn’t really notice the L’s and C’s when solving, though when I put the last two answers in (LOCO and COLON) I did notice the same letters being used and that they seemed to be surrounded by more of the same.
  12. Excellent puzzle, though I missed LOCO and COLON. No obscure references, no needing to know the last word of a play, just lots of devilishly cunning clueing.
    Top marks to the setter. I was beaten fairly and squarely.

  13. By the way – Thanks to Peter B and sotira for their comments on whether the absence of a comma after “say” in 7dn of yesterday’s puzzle invalidated the use of “say” to indicate that Jesus was an example of a college. Glancing this morning at Chapter 4 of Tim Moorey’s excellent How to Master The Times Crossword, I see that No 7 of his Tips for Solving Clues is headed “Ignore punctuation”. He writes: “In a nutshell, only exclamation marks and question marks are meaningful in clues; other punctuation should usually be ignored”. The rule seems therefore to be that punctuation should make normal sense in the surface reading but should (apart from the exceptions Tim mentions) be ignored in the cryptic reading. Must try and remember that.

    Michael H

  14. I enjoyed this, 19 minutes with two interruptions, I thought I wasn’t going to make it for a while with the top right corner (New England) being empty for most of that time. Nice crafty definitions.

    COCKERELL and CYCLO-CROSS were new ones from wordplay. If I was opting for a favorite, the surface at 22 has it with a satisfying “clunk” sound (the main reason for playing golf, or mini-golf).

  15. I struggled for an hour with this – with the bottom half falling into place fairly quickly, but the top half giving me no end of grief – I sat for a good ten minutes without filling in a single clue there. I also made 4 mistakes (2d / 9ac (where I went for RALLY CROSS) / 7d / 10ac), to compound all this. Lots of clever stuff here, a lot of it just too clever for me in a Friday lunchtime!
  16. An excellent puzzle, much misleading and great variety. 30 mins. COD 14 down, closely followed by 18 across
  17. Put me in the CYCLE CROSS club – just careless. Took ages to get the HOLED/ETCHER pair and COLON/LOCO.
    COD was 7
    Also noted lots of CCCCCC’s 21 in fact.
    JohnPMarshall
    1. I can’t rightly remember but I think the C’s and L’s can be explained by the fact that this one someone’s 150th puzzle 🙂
      1. Congratulations on 150 and thanks for the hours of fun you’ve given me. Here’s to the next 150!!!
  18. My calendar ran out; so no idea of the time. Put LOLLS instead of LULLS – but couldn’t justify either. Missed both 10A and 8D.

    Could someone explain the ‘?’ in 8D. I can’t see what it adds to the clue other than obfuscation.

    In 10A agree with the “it’s not a train” comments above. Also, I can’t fathom in what sense “without reason going” = remove “MOTION”. I assume I’ve overlooked some sense in which reason=motion. What is it, please?

  19. First of all, this is an excellent site. Thank you to all contributors for explaining the various types of clue, it is much appreciated (certainly for my sanity)

    I would appreciate some general advice on a previous clue (from 24084, I think).

    The answer is ELOPER, and the clue includes the words “without ring”, where, presumably, “ring” refers to the letter O? Surely, since there is the insertion of the letter O, the clue should read “with ring”?

    Is there a mistake in the wording of the clue?

    Do setters make mistakes?

    Thank you

    2. This uses the old-fashioned meaning of “without”, which is “outside”. Most familiar these days from London church names like “St Sepulchre without Newgate” or the hymn line “There is a green hill far away, without a city wall”. (Any better examples gratefully received for future explanations)

      Setters do make mistakes, but even after decades of experience (I’m assuming you’re fairly new to this) you’ll find that most of the mistakes you spot turn out to be yours rather than theirs.

      1. In modern parlance it is used mainly with within. As in “both within and without the house”, or in oppositon as in, “whether within or without”.
        1. Thank you for your comments.

          As a matter of interest, in Scotland, the word “outwith” is used instead of outside: for example, “outwith normal hours”

          So, there is a connection.

      2. Not better example but I couldn’t resist. Old theatrical joke:

        Costume Drama

        ENTER Servant

        SERVANT: M’Lord, the carriage is without.

        LORD: Without what?

        SERVANT: Wheels, M’Lord.

        EXIT Servant

  20. A leisurely 20 minutes over a pub lunch today, but I realise now I carelessly put LOLLS rather than LULLS at 24D without understanding it. Slightly held up by 15A because I initially put in COCKERILL at 8D. Other than that I can think of 3 or 4 others I got from the definition without working out the wordplay until afterwards. I didn’t notice all the Ls and Cs while solving, but when reading the comments further up thought it might have been a Nina representing the setter’s 150th puzzle – confirmed by the setter himself further down!
  21. Am I the only person to have a q about 19? A tripper risks a fall no doubt but is ‘fall’ really a homonym for ‘rain’?

    I put it in but felt queasy.

    1. I think you mean synonym. The required meaning of ‘rain’ seems to be “to fall like rain”.

      (‘homonym’ is hardly ever a useful word in discussing clues, partly because the dictionaries disagree about its meaning. In Collins, homonym = ‘one of a group of words pronounced or spelled the same way but with different meanings’ – i.e. homophone OR homograph. In the Concise Oxford, the OR is switched to AND, with the example given as pole (wooden stick) and pole (end of earth’s axis).)

  22. 10A
    The point about train and loco being different was made quite recently by Chris Hughes on Eggheads, who specialises in this subject. Anyone who’s seen the well-known clue “Potty train” would have got this straight away. (I can’t remember if it had a question mark or not.)

    21A
    I can’t see the problem – surely the definition is the first word “Cutter” and the cryptic part is “one going to get first cut” i.e. fetcher without the f. I’m sure I’m missing the point though.

    Richard Saunders

    1. I don’t think anyone has an issue with ETCHER as an answer. There are just suggestions, with varying degrees of plausibility, that some other answers work too.
  23. This was a top effort. Goes to show how good you can get if you practise 150 times. I have tried to solve quite a lot more than that but was beaten by:
    lake with no water = ULLS,
    one going to get first cut = ETCHER,
    works on race = MILL and
    succeeded in putting = HOLED.

    All excellent and gettable but sadly too good for me on the day.

    Just the ONE omission:

    26a Not moving shop items yet (5-5)
    STOCK STILL

Comments are closed.