Times Crossword 24180

Author   foggywebPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 24 minutes. I did it all apart from 18a in about 16 minutes, so thought I was going to get another really fast time.

Mostly this was quite easy – quite a few multiple word entries that I always seem to get quite easily. There were a couple of unfamiliar words for me – one I got straightaway, the other taking about a third of my solving time!

Across

4 A,F(FLU)EN,T
8 TAKE THE BISCUIT – one of those phrases that I have to think of the meaning when I hear it – it doesn’t mean the same as ‘take the mickey’.
10 NARC(1)S’,SUS – a NARC is a narcotic agent.
11 ELFIN – initial letters. Worth knowing that elfin is also a noun – so elfins is a valid Scrabble word (it comes up in a great scene in the documentary Word Wars).
12 HOWDAH – anagram of WHOHAD – I didn’t know this: it is the seat on an elephant’s back.
14 MAN,DOLIN’
17 CRI[t]TER,1,A
18 A,GIST’S – well, I didn’t know this word (agist: to take in to graze for payment). I also couldn’t see how to split up the clue. I considered changing NAIL-FILES to NAIL-FILER (!) to see if that would help. After much head-scratching I thought of point=GIST and looked up AGIST in the dictionary. Pretty tough.
20 LEE(C)H – C (caught) inside HEEL reversed.
24 SLAP ON THE WRIST – anagram of ‘with rose plants’.
25 A,GITATOR – ROTATI[n]G reversed after A
26 [b]ROGUE

Down

2 B[e]AKER – E is the top of egg, so removed.
3 TIT,TI(VAT)E – TIE wasn’t the first item of clothing I thought of (isn’t a tie more of an accessory?), but VAT was indeed the first tax to come to mind.
4 A,TEASE – I think here twit has to be considered as the verb.
5 FRIES,IAN – I knew Frisian, of which the answer is an alternative (in Collins).
6 UNCLE[an]
9 ON ONE’S METTLE – anagram of ‘to lose ten men’
13 WHIT,E(FLA)G – WHIT=scrap, EG=say containing ALF ‘hoisted’.
15 DO(GS)OFWAR – SG=something empty inside ‘raw food’ all reversed.
16 DIS(TIN)C,T
19 ARC,HER – William Tell is the archer.
21 HOPI,T
23 ICING – I suppose it is possible that some baritones might pronounce ‘I sing’ like this.

25 comments on “Times Crossword 24180”

  1. Solved in 8:22 – started nearly as fast as last Monday but struggled a bit with 22 (thought of roisterer though “bully” didn’t seem right as the def, so not written in) 17, 16, and most of all 18 which looked (?G?S?S) as if very little could fit until I saw point = GIST and then remembered agist as something with farming/cash links – definite case of help from barred-grid solving. Tittivate with double T was a bit of a surprise but is in Collins.
  2. 11:50 for me. I remembered AGISTS from barred-grid puzzles, so that went in with just the G in place. Slight hesitation over 3D, as I only knew the spelling with 3 T’s, not 4. Last one in was 17A, where I just went blank for a minute or so at the end.
  3. 28 mins . Should have been much quicker, but for some reason I could not see 16 and 17 and took about 5 mins on those alone.

    AGIST is in very common use in Australia – drive anywhere out of the cities and there are properties with large signs offering “agistment”.

  4. 20 minutes but for 15 and 19, and about as long again sorting these two out.

    The reason for my problem at 15 was that I had somewhat rashly put LEASES in at 18 without properly thinking it through. LEA or LEAS being pasturage perhaps which one might get paid for leasing + ES are points of the compass. I know it doesn’t work but I had at least half a dozen other clues unexplained until afterwards and they all turned out to be correct. There has to be a trade-off sometimes if I am ever to improve my solving times.

    ARCHER/Tell at 19 is another of those definitions by example things that I don’t much care for. It needed a “perhaps” or a question mark.

  5. 35 mins. 16 & 17 did for me. I thought 17 began with CE (which narrowed it down to ceilings and ceilidhs, neither if which meshed with TITTIVATE, or the clue for that matter) and 16 ended in TINET (a French word obviously). Took some time to shake those prejudices. COD: HOP IT. Now know where Friesians (the cows)come from.
  6. I found all but 18 very easy and filled the rest of the grid in 15 minutes, getting most clues at first glance. Only 4 ac held me up a bit. I couldn’t see more than AGISTS and EGESTS for 18 so plumped for the former from GIST/point, but didn’t understand the definition. 19 minutes all told. The clue that stood out for me was 19 – very nice deception with “Tell..”
  7. 23:23 but with one error – egests was the only word I knew that would fit 18 even though it plainly had nothing to do whatsoever with as much as a single element of the clue. To be honest I’d got bored by then.

    RE 4 across, although any man will tell you that a cold is just like flu I doubt you find a wife or doctor to agree.

    A peculiar mix of very easy and rather tricky, marred by some dreadfully unconvincing surfaces (4a, 11, 20, 3, 6, 7, 15, 15 again (it’s that bad) & 16).

    Q-1, E-3, D-6, COD mandolin, 1ac rock – Affluent Orbit, 1980s new romantics who were booked several times to support Duran Duran, Adam & The Ants and Spandau Ballet but always cancelled at the last minute when one of the band got the flu (or a cold, as it’s now known). The closest they got to fame was when their debut single, “Mandolin out in the cold”, was played by mistake on Tiswas.

    1. Shaken from his despond by news of Spandau Ballet’s reformation, lead singer, the elfin Narcissus Leech, went round to the old squat to catch up with the band, only to find they’d got well paid day jobs years ago. Formed new hard rock group On Ones Metal with current occupants. Look out for “Cold Biscuit”, their version of the Wiggles hit “Hot Potato”, on Blue Peter sometime soon.
    2. Fair comment – the Times puzzle’s usual very high standard for surface meanings is one of its strengths, and this puzzle falls below that standard rather too often.
  8. 30 Minutes, but I had to look up agists since it was new to me and I could not get if from the wordplay. Otherwise quite straightforward with an unusually high number of straight anagrams for a Times crossword. I too was initially confused by the anagram at 22 indicating Roisterer.
  9. 21 min. Much of it stalled with 16/17. Narc as an abbreviation for narcotics officer is well supported. As for cold/flu, my Mum always said that if you are scared you might die, it is a cold. If you are scared you might live, it is the flu.
  10. 26:38 A pleasant start to the week. Had three left at 20 minutes – 4a, 5d and 19d. Was fixated on C for cold at 4 across until I realised that FEN was the low lying area. 5d followed immediately then. Took too long to see that ‘Tell’ was the definition in 19d.

    An enjoyable solve but nothing really stood out as a brilliant clue or an awful clue.

  11. Nice steady solve, first half very quick, second half less so.. no trouble with agists despite having not heard of this not-very-useful word, but criteria & distinct took a while for some reason.
  12. 20 minute saunter after golf. No problems (like the other bar crossword fanatics knew AGISTS). Didn’t care much for cold=flu or definition by example Tell=archer without a “perhaps” or similar. Nothing particularly memorable.
  13. Regards all, about 30 minutes for me, but 1 mistake, that being TITTIVATE, where I tried ‘tittilate’, even though I wouldn’t spell it that way, because I’ve never heard or read the word “tittivate” before, ever. So I reasoned incorrectly that you folks passed a new LAT tax, to supplement your VAT. The wordplay leads straight to ‘tittivate’, I realize, but I really thought it more likely that someone had created a new tax, than that ‘tittivate’ was a real word. My mistake, apparently. See you tomorrow.
      1. I also checked the dictionaries, and find it listed in Webster’s, Random House, etc. It is not shown as either ‘ch. Br.’, or ‘coll.’, or limited in any way. All the same, I’ve never seen it before. A gap in my knowledge, I suppose.
  14. I’m travelling so doing the online crossword through dodgy internet connections. Not much to say that hasn’t been said, I liked the slippery definitions, and for some reason had a hard time coming up with the long anagrams readily.
    1. ORBIT – (verbal) def. = “go round”. OR=gold (heraldry), BIT = piece
  16. Absolutely with you it agree. In it something is also to me your idea is

    pleasant. I suggest to take out for the general discussion.

  18. I had no idea what was going on at 18a AGISTS. I thought it might be a variant of AGEIST me being too old, or too young, to understand it. From the comments above it seems that I would have been OK if I was an antipodean sheep farmer?

    There are 4 “easies”:

    1a Go round with gold piece (5)
    OR BIT

    22a Bully reforms or retires (9)
    TERRORISE. Anagram of (or retires).

    1d Neglected hotel I’d count out (3,2,3,4)
    OUT IN THE COLD. Anagram of (hotel I’d count).

    7d Get hold of records used for dealing with digits (4-5)
    NAIL FILES

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