Times Crossword 24298

Author   sabine_tkPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 11.29.

I had this whole thing done in about 6 minutes apart from a cluster of 5 clues in the SW corner (22A, 25A, 15D, 21D and 22D), and thought I was heading for a very good time, but then ground to a total standstill for what felt like a very long time indeed, thinking all the same wrong thoughts over and over again, before making a correct guess at 15D, after which the rest fell into place quickly.

I enjoyed the puzzle, apart from the sinking sensation other bloggers may recognise, that always arises when progress dries up on a puzzle I need to solve and blog within the next couple of hours.

Across
1
   GNARL, alternate letters of GuN bArReL.
9
   IN-(BET,WE,E)N. INN=pub, BET=venture, WE=we, and E= “start to explore”.
10
   VISTA – (is a TV)*. “Broadcast” is a word new solvers will soon recognise as a likely anagram indicator. However much it tries to pass itself off as a noun, always suspect it of being a verb or adjective.
11
   LEMURS – an anagram of “slumber” without the B.
12
   P(HARM)ACY – I would probably have got this more quickly if I’d paid closer attention to the wording, which points to the actual shop required, rather than concentrating exclusively on assembling the constituent parts.
14
   MIN(D READ)ER
16
   S(IV)A – an alternate spelling for Shiva, destroyer, third god of the Hindu triad. The wordplay is SA (Salvation army) with I (one) and V (against) inside (invading). Slightly surprised that the setter actually used “army” in the clue, but perhaps there’s no feasible alternative.
19
   TON,G – “ton” is a French word for fashion, and a tong is a Chinese secret society, usually criminal.
20
   STONEHENGE, (Gen on sheet)*, a nice helpful anagram.
22
  

S(EM IN)OLE. ’em is an abbreviation for “them”, IN=at home, and the fish is of course a SOLE. This took me a while. It seemed likely “at home” would be IN, and that fish would form the outside of the answer, but “fish” can be singular or plural and “Tribal people” seemed quite likely to be a plural answer, so I struggled to put this together. The Seminole are a native American people, originally from Florida.
23
   OS(WA(L)D), Lee Harvey, lone gunman in the assassination of JFK, or, if you prefer, fall guy for the mob, Castro, the anti-Castro exiles, the Russians, the Klan… (I just finished reading the excellent “Voodoo Histories”, a book in which David Aaronovitch rips into modern conspiracy theories, and thoroughly recommend it). Back to the clue: “huge pile of notes” has to be separated into “huge” (OS, outsize) and “pile of notes” (WAD). Hmm – does the clue point to Oswald being paid to take the rap? But who paid him?
26
   LATTE(r) – which I should have got sooner, but kept seeing MOCHA (with MO=second, and/or CHA being an unfinished drink, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but still hung together just enough to block the right answer.)
27
   V(ER,SAT)ILE
28
   SEEING RED, an anagram of “energised”.
Down
1
   GUIL(LEMOn)T
2
   ALBUM, being “albumen” (egg white) minus “en”, a printing unit. An em, which is twice the size of an en, also crops up from time to time.
4
   HOER – the pigeon is a HOMER, dropping the M (mass).
5
   PINCHPENNY, a stingy person.
6
   C,OVERT
7
   TAS(MANIA)N – MANIA=raving, which can be a noun as well as an adjective, inside (ants)*.
8
   HE(AV)Y – I spotted AV (Authorised Version) for “Bible” right away, but without any crossing letters except the A, couldn’t immediately see anything other than GRAVE that fitted.
13
   C(ANTI)LEVER
15
   NANOMETRE – badly needing a breakthrough in the SW corner, and having N_N and the final E, I pencilled in this answer with hope rather than conviction, but it turned out to be right and provided the lifeline I needed. I only just this minute worked out the wordplay, having spent at least ten minutes gazing blankly at those binmen. (What could anyone do with binmen? Did they have a union called the NARE, National Association of Refuse Executives?) In fact it’s simply that the binmen have at their centre “nm”, which is the abbreviation for nanometre, and therefore must be made longer to provide the answer.
17
   AMEN,D(M)ENT, “dent” here in the sense of making a dent in someone’s finances.
18
   THE(SSAL)Y, a part of Greece with a large central plain, so the definition is “In Greece, a plain”, SSAL is LASS reversed and therefore a girl upset, and THEY=those people.
21
   A,N, DE(A)N – “within range” is a clever definition, and – even though I was toying with DEN for “hideout” – one that had me beaten until I got the crossing N from SEMINOLE.
22
   SALES – I’m somewhat ashamed that I needed all three crossing letters before I recalled that Sale is a place in NW England.
24
   A,NIT,A – the definition is just “Female”, and the rescuers who travel are the AA (Automobile Association).
25
   GRI(n)D

26 comments on “Times Crossword 24298”

  1. 19:55 .. also had problems with Sale, that SW corner remaining blank for a long time. 10a, if it’s original, is excellent. SEEING RED, at 28a, is another fine anagram. A quality puzzle and a good test.
  2. 14:43 here – my last three were 26, 22, 16. Added to the troubles already noted by some plain stupidity on 1A and an unfortunate early guess at LIM(e) for the “endless fruit” of 1D, which seemed to be confirmed by checking letters until the initial G made the answer obvious.

  3. Sadly the SW held me up a lot longer than others, so clocked in a ghastly 32 mins. If it hadn’t been for the anagrams/part-anagrams in the across clues, I’d still be doing this one. Hard, I think, but fair. Maybe “’em” of “them” (22ac) isn’t quite so fair — but a nice match with “they” in 18dn. COD to 12ac: great construction with &lit-ish overtones. (Jeez, I’m starting to sound like a wine writer!)
  4. Wanted to quibble about HEY for GOSH but since my quibbles always make me look an eejit I did some research. Chambers has HEY as “expressing joy, irritation…”; so, a versatile expression which runs the gamut.
    Confess to a touch of schadenfreude this morning imagining the speed merchants looking for a bird starting G?G, having slapped GO BETWEEN in at 9ac. But alas not a murmur.
    Deja vu here as again had all Sabine’s problems and doubts (again in slow motion) but at least I finished unlike yesterday’s Telegraph (No 26000; Happy Birthday) which an evil friend asked me to look at as someone known to regard that paper’s crossword as too easy.
    Electronic help for SIVA; needed Sabine to explain LATTE(r)and NANOMETRE (a class too distant for me).
  5. Also doing these on-line, which is a strange experience for me. I didn’t have a clue how the binmen fitted into the equation either, so thanks for the explanation, sabine. I had PISA at 16ac for a long time, also without reason, until I had a rethink. Another good puzzle to end the week.
  6. I seemed to have the same experience as everyone else in the SW, but did it while wading through treacle for 28 min. I had charged ahead with MOCHA for 26 ac, and paid the price. Eventually, it HAD to be NANOMETRE at 15 dn (although did not cotton on to the ridiculously simple explanation until reviewing the finished product).
  7. For the second time this week I had difficulty getting things to flow and was putting in odd answers all around the grid for far too long. But it all came together eventually and I finished in 45 minutes.

    I thought crossing SEMINOLE with NANOMETRE was a bit unkind but I guessed them both correctly eventually, 22ac from the wordplay and 15dn as the only possible fit I could think of though I had no idea that the word existed and didn’t understand the clue until coming here.

    I caused myself unnecessary problems solving 1dn having written GO-BETWEEN at 9ac probably because it turned up in another puzzle, within the past week I think.

  8. The same experience as everybody else. Ripped through 75% of it in 15 minutes leaving a nasty hole in the SW corner, which took a further 10 minutes. I’ve no excuse for not seeing SALES immediately. Then, with the leading S, my real breakthrough then came from the wordplay of SEMINOLE where Mephisto style I worked out the answer and then remembered this mob turning up somewhere else. I thought ANDEAN rather clever but NANOMETRE – my last in – a bit obscure (both the word and its little known abbreviation)
  9. 14:24 here, no real holdups other than difficulty concentrating during a loud conversation between the people sat behind me on the train. Finally they shut up and my solving sped up.
    1. Can you get a recording of a quiet train carriage to listen to on your headphones while solving?
  10. The SW corner did for me also. After 25 minutes I still had 15 & 22ac to do and inspiration failed me. For 22 I should have seen ‘them’ might be part of the wordplay, but just took it as a link along with ‘see’. In the end I resorted to an aid for 15, then saw 22.
    For 23 I didn’t see the link with Lee Harvey Oswald, and spent some minutes thinking of Shakespearean plays in which there’s a killer named Oswald.
    Nice clues. I liked the one for ANDEAN particularly
  11. I had less trouble than most with the SW. I was fortunate to get Seminole early on so I was able to get Latte and Nanometre without understanding the wordplay. The NE was more problematical. Failing to squeeze Pennypincher in at 5 I decided that Pinchpenny must be a word. This enabled me to get the very clever Pharmacy.

    Finally, there was a long period of agonising over Pita, Pisa, Gila etc until I realised that Shiva must have an alternative spelling. In fact, I find that Siva is given as first choice in both my dictionaries. I might also have struggled with Hoer if we had not had Hoed yesterday.

  12. Glad this wasn’t too easy for most of you. As a physics graduate, I like to put in words like NANOMETRE. In fact there is a school of thought that science and mathematics are still slightly underrepresented in Times puzzles as against the classics, but none of you seems to ahve done the analysis recently!
    1. This analysis was last performed using puzzles dated 1st to 28th November 2008. The analysis has been done twice and on both occasions scientific topics came bottom of the list. Nothing has happened since to change that picture. I may repeat the exercise this November but suspect that the outcome would not be vastly different to the previous results.
    2. Not too easy for me at all. A testing Friday work-out. SEEING RED, ANDEAN and CANTILEVER were top quality, among other good clues. Expecting us to know that “nm” was the abbreviation for nanometre was pushing it a bit, but it was possible to guess the solution without fully understanding the wordplay once some checking letters were in place!
  13. Well I was stumped on 16 and invented RIVA thinking that RA must have gone around destroying things, being a sun-god and all.
  14. I liked this and there is a nice picture of 20a in the Register section of the paper today. Same timing experience as most, slow SW corner.
  15. It is great to see the setters joining in the discussions this last week. This site gets better each day!
  16. I’ve been excluded from the club site now for the best of a month; can’t seem to get through the paypal obstacle course. Emails then phone calls to custserv followed by trips to the bank; now ordeal by 0870 number if you are losing the will to live press 9. Just to get somebody to tick some box. The upshot being a different relationship to the ‘xword’ and to the TftT blog. By way of an experiment i photocopied the last three days down the library and sat down in chmpshp mode cold i.e. focussing on the definition part and leaving the analysis till later. Managed to complete in 45 mins or thereabouts with one error; i eschewed Siva for Pita (Pi=holy + TA =) which doesn’t have the meaning i was hoping for. Also involved were at least 10 ‘it has to be..but…’ answers which needed the TftT blog to give satisfaction.
  17. No problem with ‘sales’, as I grew up there. Also, I was very into Eastern religions later, so knew about the alternative spelling of ‘S(h)iva’, but ‘nanometre’ had me flummoxed, thanks for the explanation of that, Sabine. Did anyone else notice that 12A and 18D had the same intersecting letters? I wonder if this will lead to some kind of mega-anagram which might appear in future?
  18. Binmen!!
    Sorry to be so late. Just took a long time. We finally got there except for 15d. Even with your splendid blog Peter nanometre seems not to make sense. Are we missing something with the ‘covered by’?
    Mike and Fay
  19. I knew Nanometre and Amendment had to be right but I didn’t spot nm, nor the breakdown of Amen-d(m)ent. Tong was the one that got away – I thought TANG as in dynasty and perhaps to “tan” a hide is to “fashion” it…

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