Times Crossword 24226

Author   sabine_tkPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 12.14

One of those worrying puzzles where I was left at the end with three completely unconnected blanks – 19A, 6D and the 18D/23A duo in the SE corner. I’m still a bit baffled by 23A and not even sure I have it right. I might have been a bit quicker if I hadn’t been semi-riveted by an MP on Sky News defending his purchase on expenses of a surround sound cinema, a flock of flamingos and a small island (well, something like that…)

Across
4
   TECHNICAL – sounds like TEC (detective, one who investigates) + NICKEL.
9
   CON,STABLE. “faced by” is just telling us to put STABLE (unlikely to wobble) next to CON and the whole clue serves as the definition (this is known in solving notation as &lit – “and literally…” )
10
   GREYS, sounding like “graze”. Does this one pass the soundalike test without any objections? Sounds OK to me, but you never know…
11
   EX(P)ATS – P=little money, inside (TAXES)*. A second &lit, this one rather more convincing than the constable in 9a, who I pictured as circling the criminal, nervously but doggedly, on a bicycle.
12
   S,T(ILL)EST
14
   OUT OF ORDER – fairly obvious once I’d discarded the initial idea of NOT IN (or indeed OUT OF) HABIT.
16
   LASS(o)
19
   F,ELL – I wasn’t familiar with this meaning of FELL, a Scottish term for cruel, but couldn’t think of anything else that went F_L_ and fitted the wordplay, so I put it in and hoped for the best.
20
   LOC(AL R(AD)I)O, made up from AD (all departures initially) inside (limited by) (RAIL)* (broken rail) inside LOCO (engine, stuck outside). I got the final D_O very quickly, saw what the answer had to be and put the wordplay together later.
22
   M,I,STRESS – yet another &lit to join the constable and the expats. We could cast an entire soap with the &lits in this puzzle. (Maybe they already did? Remember Eldorado?)
23
   TOMCAT – at least, I hope so. I have an uneasy feeling I’m missing something very obvious with this clue, but all I was able to make of it was that a tomcat is a male cat and Noah took one of those on the ark. This is by a mile the weakest justification for an answer I’ve ever attempted, and I’m quite prepared to look foolish when its full depth is explained. (And I was indeed missing the point entirely. The correct answer is BO(BC)AT, kindly provided by drjdcollins below.)
26
   T,ROUT – I wasn’t entirely happy about this, but Chambers has “ruin” as a definition of “dish”, which is quite close to “rout”, to defeat utterly.
27
   IN E,ARNE,ST – you have to separate “English composer” to get the E, though Thomas Arne was in fact English.
28
   PA,Y (PACK)ET – “Governor” here is in the sense defined by Chambers as “a father, chief or master, applied more generally in kindly, usu ironically respectful, address” – and therefore father, or PA.
 
Down
1
   HACK,ED OFF
2
   T(O)N-UP – a person who habitually drives at great speed. PUNT (reversed) is the capsized boat and the O is indicated by” carrying round”.
4
   TAB,U
5
  

CHEW THE FAT – not sure if the rhyme is familiar to non-Brits, so here it is:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
And so betwixt the two of them
They licked the platter clean.
6
   NI(GG)LE – the definition is simply “Get”, used here in the sense of to annoy. “g” is an abbreviation for “good”, so “Goods” in this clue requires two of them, inside the river NILE.
7
   C(LEVEL A)ND – “anti-nuclear protesters” were always going to be CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), making this an easy clue to unravel.
8
   LISZT. Well, it has to be, doesn’t it? Though my attempts to find a meaning of “list” that corresponds to “broadcast” have so far failed. (And thanks here to kororareka who sorted this one out for me: “broadcast” was actually the homophone indicator, and “hear” the definition of “list”, not the other way around as I was assuming, “list” being an archaic or poetic form of “listen”.)
13
   B,ROOMS,TICK
15
   (s)TALL S,TORY
17
   SHORTSTOP – a fielding position in baseball. I think this has cropped up fairly recently. (I’m still grieving over Five’s decision to drop baseball this year. They still seem to have enough money for another 180 wretched episodes of “Extraordinary People:Half Man, Half Lobster”. We’ve already seen the kid in Nepal with eighteen legs and every pair of conjoined twins on the planet. Give us back the baseball.)
18
   A,RM,OUR ED – “our Ed” For “Times editor” is quite fun, and tricked me for a while into trying to make this answer end in XED.
21
   PRO,TEA – a South African genus of plants. I was greatly helped here by knowing that this is the nickname of the South African cricket team (formerly the Springboks).
22
   ME(T U)P – TU (trade union) = body of workers, and “politician in Brussels” is a helpfully clear definition for MEP (Member of the European Parliament).
24
   C(R)E, DO
25
   H,EAT

36 comments on “Times Crossword 24226”

    1. Thanks – you’re right, of course. I’ve added a correction above.
  2. Maybe I’m losing it. There seems to have been a run of puzzles with nothing too way-out in the answers, but some very oblique clueing. It has been taking me up to three quarters of an hour, with the occasional resort to on-line aids. Today is no different – 44 min.
    My main problem has been with unusual usages or parts of speech forming part of the clue. Today I was slowed down by “wrongly” = ILL, “cruel” = FELL, “dish” = ROUT, “governor” = PA, “sick” (of) = HACKED OFF, “speed merchant” = TON UP and “get” = NIGGLE.
    To me an excess of this type of device smacks more of smugness than cleverness.
  3. Well, I had BOBCAT right but I was defeated by PROTEA, which was a known unknown when I gave up after 17 minutes. One of those perculiar puzzles where 90% of it was extremely easy, the remainder definitely not. Second failure of the week, though I’m not beating myself up over this one.
  4. Sorry you’re missing the baseball Sabine. I did most of this while watching the game tonight in Toronto
    getting SHORTSTOP right off the bat
    but still staring at three unsolved in the SW corner…MET UP, PROTEA and
    TROUT which left me utterly defeated.
  5. Gave up after half an hour when I became engrossed in a radio program on a real life mafia infiltrator. Came back to it with not much more success. Another very solid workout. Many queston marks now resolved, thanks to sabine: pa=governor (best I could do was Post Adjutant) tec=investigator, get=niggle. I think Liszt sounds like “list” as in the old word for hear (=listen), with broadcast as the homophone indicator.

    On the opposite side of the ledger, I have many ticks as well. BOBCAT, IN EARNEST, TALL STORY & LOCAL RADIO but the &lits CONSTABLE & EXPATS get my COD vote. Not sure what kind of MISTRESS is being referred to at 22ac; school, one would think, but why the tension?

    Last in was FELL, from the construction, but then I thought of “fell swoop”.

  6. Regards all. I found this to be fairly easy, done in 15 minutes or so, and checked that PROTEA was a word before coming here. I didn’t know ‘dish’=’rout/ruin’, but couldn’t see it being anything other than TROUT. I don’t know why ‘list’=’old broadcast’ either. SHORTSTOP is a hanging curve for the N Americans (a hanging curve being baseball-speak for a very easy pitch to hit). Sabine, the rhyme would be familiar to most US born solvers, but thanks regardless. COD’s for me are the smoothly surfaced hidden at 1A, HATCH, and HOT STUFF. Best to all.
  7. Im impressed with these fast solving times. I found this a difficult puzzle to complete and wsa completely flummoxed by Lass…have never seen ball = 0 before. i did think that there were some clever definitions like dish = rout ….but also thought there were some stragne ones. although 1 down has to be hacked off this doesnt really mean sick except per ahps in the meaning of sick and tired…Technical too is almost brilliant but proabbly more contrived in my view.Thought there were some genuinely superb clues such as 7 down Cleveland and 14 across Out of order. 23 across whch fooled sabine was clever. the last of three tricky puzzles at the end of the week. looking forward (sort of) to a simpler saturday puzzle..

    but then if the puzzle is too easy it is disappointing…
    any one else feel the same?

  8. I endorse Ross’s comments. Like yesterday I found this slow going for the most part, without much to alleviate the slog.

    I didn’t get 4dn and (not having done any research on the matter) am still not sure that I understand it – perhaps I have led a sheltered life.

    1. Collins has Tab short for Tablet, a pill or drug.

      Put me down as another who initially went for Constance at 9ac.

  9. Very slow going for me today after a promising start. I had about two-thirds completed after 30 minutes and the rest of it took as long again as I slowly picked the remainder off one by one. Most of the trouble was in the NE corner where for a long time I had only 5dn and 7dn in place.

    Having completed the grid I went back to check the wordplay I hadn’t understood and spotted my TOMCAT/BOBCAT error – glad I wasn’t the only one! I was still unable to justify PASS at 16ac which I thought must be yet a another sporting reference that I didn’t understand, and it was only after reading the blog that I realised where I had gone wrong. I also couldn’t explain PA at 28ac although I knew the answer was correct.

  10. Apart from the final checking letter, 26a could be TROLL. OED has ‘dish’ as ‘a distinct article or variety of food’, and ‘troll’ as ‘to angle with a running line’.

    A bit naughty, or does the checking letter excuse it?

    Paul S.

    1. I did think of TROLL, but thought “dish” was a bit vague for ROLL, and that TROUT was a possible too, though nothing went in until 21 was solved.
  11. 13:17, two mistakes. At 9D I stupidly rushed into CON+STANCE, which is the sort of vaguely connected idea I’m always telling people cannot possibly be the answer. With T?N? fitting TONS for quantity, I convinced myself there could be a drug called ‘tonus’.

    1. Crossed comments.
      Now feel even chirpier having Peter make the same error.
    2. Chalk up another CONSTANCE! Pass the foolscap, Peter! And another cap for HACKED OUT plus a baseball one for START-STOP. At least I was interested enough in the wildlife when I lived in the US to think of BOBCAT straight away; but baseball I fear uses the same wrong-shaped ball as cricket and soccer.
      I can’t remember when I was last so error-prone during solving.
      CONSTANCE is almost excusable, I think. The “Who’s” at the start can suggest a personal name, n’est-ce pas?
      Dafydd.
  12. In a rush so as can spend day watching rain fall at the Oval so stupidly put CONSTANCE in for CONSTABLE (though STANCE seemed to work) so TABU became impossible.
    Gave up on FELL and TROUT was a guess.

    Otherwise very pleased with myself given the last few days of struggle.

    COD = Liszt (despite 45 years of being a music nut I still have to look up how to spell).

  13. 12:42 for me, although I also put in TOMCAT without being able explain why. I thought 1A HATCH was excellent, very well hidden ‘hidden’.
  14. What! all my pretty chickens and their dam,
    At one fell swoop?
    Macbeth (1606) act 4, sc. 3, l. 216
  15. I found this great fun with its mixture of humour and ingenuity. It even has a homophone corner where the homophones work!

    I liked the goods on the Nile and BC in the ark plus the “& lits” of course, particularly the EXPATS but HATCH is my personal favourite. 25 minutes to solve.

  16. 10:29.  The last ones in were LOCAL RADIO (20ac), DROOP (29ac), and a guess at SHORTSTOP (17dn).  The only other things I didn’t know were “list” as an archaic or poetic version of “listen” (8dn LISZT) and the evergreen PROTEA (21dn).  FELL (19ac) isn’t Scottish, and should be familiar from the phrase “one fell swoop”.  I didn’t know it was from the same root as “felon”.

    Lots to like here.  Besides the high &lit. count, there are several ingenious misdirections – most notably the protean “dish” in 26ac (TROUT) and 3dn (HOT STUFF), but also “flag” in 29ac (DROOP), “sick” in 1dn (HACKED OFF), and “get” in 6dn (NIGGLE).

    This puzzle’s virtues easily outweigh minor grammatical niggles such as the use of “Ex-nun is” to indicate OUT OF ORDER (14ac); my only remaining complaint is that “hotel” in 13dn (BROOMSTICK) is overspecific and adds nothing to the surface reading.

    Clues of the Day: 11ac (EXPATS), 16ac (LASS), 29ac (DROOP), 6dn (NIGGLE).

  17. About 12 mins of which 2 or 3 were spent at the end trying to decide between TOMCAT and BOBCAT, before the light dawned.
  18. I did not enjoy this. For me, there were too many minimalist definitions and &Lits. I finished by deducing the existence of the South African evergreen and then writing in Trout on the grounds that it could not be anything else.

    I could not empathise with the &Lit for Mistress. In my brief experience as a maths teacher in the 1960s I always felt relief at the end of term. The tension came at the beginning of the term.

  19. Much easier fare after yesterday – finished within the trip to work so approx 20 mins. no real bursts of speed, just constant gentle progress.

    One quibble on HACKED OFF for sick, – i can appreciate the sick of bit but cant quite see the “substitution” working exactly.

    Was briefly alarmed that 6d may be a rude word, given the other African river beginning with N…..luckily sense prevailed. Was prepared for heated debate on here!!

  20. 33 minutes, and straightforward for the most part, however got stuck at the end with 19ac and 16ac blank, spending a good couple of minutes on those two alone.

    I had question marks against 19ac / 23ac / 26ac / 8d, and was quite relieved to find I’d got them right (especially 23ac, where I did toy with TOMCAT, but decided BOB in the water, and went with that, despite not getting the wordplay at all!)

    Lots of ticks against the clues today. COD 10ac.

  21. 52 mins with perhaps 5 to be removed for interruptions. Really enjoyed it today. Some excellent wordplay while at the same time, nothing that required too much breadth of knowledge. Last one in was 16, I was also a little thrown by the use of O for ball.

    Went for OUT OF HABIT first of all, but 5 went in before I’d had a chance to check the checking letters so 14 was quickly altered.

    I’ve played a lot of eight-ball pool in my time, and I’ve often heard the phrase ‘dishing someone’ as meaning clearing in a single visit, or at least leaving one’s opponent with all their balls still on the table. So 26 came fairly easily.

    Lots to choose from for COD. I think I’d have to go for 23, but all of 1ac, 9, 11, 13, 18, 22 came close. A very pleasant lunch-hour.

  22. I took my time over this (45 mins). Nothing was particularly hard, but quite tricky wordplay in places.At least I finished without errors. PROTEA could be guessed from letters in place, as could SHORTSTOP (though sporting terms usually floor me). ‘Hotel’ in 13 was definitely superfluous and distracting, especially when I was looking at ‘Book’ as the definer. 19 had me completely stumped until I’d solved 15 – for some reason I was certain that ‘frequency’ was FR.
    GG in NILE looks to me more like goods sunk in the Nile.

    11 raised a wry smile. This ex-pat has to pay all his taxes in full to Inland Revenue.

  23. 12:22, the Dorset corner holding me up most. Like Jimbo, I’m amazed and delighted to be more than happy with the soundalikes today. I didn’t find it quite as enjoyable as a couple of days ago but I did like TECHNICAL and CONSTABLE.
  24. I thought this was hard, but generally in a good way. I didn’t finish – I put in ‘constance’ for 9A, and didn’t get ‘local radio’ – I find these very convoluted clues off-putting. I liked ‘expats’ and ‘hacked off’. Thought I had got off to a good start there, but soon hit a brick wall.

    Thanks for all your explanations, it really does help.

  25. Untimed but NE corner held up for no good reason, just too long getting niggle, Liszt and tabu. Most satisfaction from paypacket and bobcat.
  26. 13.10 today. Only initial mistake was troll for trout so biggest hold-up was in getting PROTEA which I vaguely knew as the SA cricket team nickname. Fortunately I didn’t see the other common mistakes made or considered. I did have a bit of a problem with 6 too.
    After “Lay on Macduff” earlier this week coincidental to see One fell swoop mentioned twice today. It comes from Macduff’s reaction to the murder of his family “What? My dam and all my pretty chickens at one fell swoop”
  27. i belong to the constance tomcat club today. found left hand side relatively straightforward possibly because i was able to put in protea without crossing letters, found some of the rest pretty tough, particularly lass and technical.
  28. My FOI was ALCHEMIST at 4a. This was compounded by CHEW THE FAT at 5d and I had gone nearly full circle anticlockwise when I finally twigged TABU at 4d and realised that my FOI was wrong. The T at the start enabled me to twig TEC & NICKEL to get TECHNICAL whereas, before, my metal was Al = Aluminium and the applied scientist was CHEMIST. My POI was BOBCAT – having caught the BOAT as an ark and LOI was ARMOURED at 18d. I still have trouble with OUR = Times. You’d think I’d feel I belong after all these years.

    There are 3 “easies”:

    1a Opening that chef uses (5)
    HATCH. A very good hidden in words 2 & 3.

    29a Flag returned by wretched Democrat (5)
    D ROOP. Poor D backwards.

    3d Dish, such as curry? (3,5)
    HOT STUFF. Not very PC there setter & editor?

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