Times Crossword 24334 – A Reticulated Network

Author   sabine_tkPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: Something like 35 minutes; I completely forgot to stop the clock after grasping what was going on. This was no ordinary puzzle; after 25 minutes I was still totally baffled by apparently senseless definitions all over the place, and horrified at the blanks I would have to leave in the blog if I were even to attempt to post it tonight. I would be exposed for all time as a wretched jobbernowl. The shame!

But when a solver knows she is to blog in an hour, it concentrates her mind wonderfully, and all at once I noticed that the top line of the completed grid read SAMUEL JOHNSON. And everything clicked into place. Today is the 300th anniversary of Dr Johnson’s birth, and the puzzle is themed. The exasperatingly impenetrable definitions are derived from definitions in Dr Johnson’s dictionary! And several other clues have Johnsonian significance.

After a few minutes’ wailing “Why did this have to happen on my watch?”, and generally cursing myself for not catching on sooner, I found myself greatly enjoying the whole thing. I needed to do research to explain many of the answers, and while some people may feel this puzzle is not really in the spirit of the Times, as an old Listener solver (currently resting) I thought it was a real treat. Ironically, had this been, say, a A rated puzzle in the Magpie, I’m sure I would have picked upon the theme much faster, because I’d have been looking out for one.

Apologies for any Johnson references I may have missed, and I hope I will be excused for the title, which, upon reading the list of definitions here, I could not resist.

Across
1
   SAMUEL – (amuse)* + the first letter of “Lichfield” – the town where Johnson was born and grew up.
4
   JO(H)NSON, the playwright here being Ben Jonson. This and the previous answer spell out the theme of the puzzle, which canny solvers will have noticed a very long time before I did.
9
   CON,IC = CON=study, and “tricky at heart” indicates the central letters of TRICKY.
10
   FR(ILL)IES,T – FRIES= chips, and “I shall” reduces to ILL.
11
   C(ROW’S F)OOT – ROWS=lines and F=FINE, all inside a COOT. I guess the whole thing serves as a whimsical &lit, though it seems like a plural definition.
12
   R(E)ICH
13
   (g)OATS. Johnson’s definition of OATS – “A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.” – was certainly unusual.
14
   GRUB STREET. Johnson lived and worked as a journalist on Grub Street early in his career, and defined it thus in his Dictionary: “originally the name of a street… much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems, whence any mean production is called grubstreet.”
18
   HE,PT,A,M,ETER, with the ETER coming from “moving tree”. Heptameter is a verse of seven feet. I have not been able to discover whether it was particularly pleasing to, or idiosyncratically defined by, Dr Samuel Johnson.
20
   TRIP(e) – Johnson recorded his travels in Scotland with Boswell in “A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland”.
23
   PAST,A . See also MACARONI, below.
24
   SIGNAL,MAN – signal can mean “remarkable, extraordinary”. I can find no Johnsonian link here beyond his obvious qualification as an extraordinary man.
25
   PRE(POT)EN,T – not a word I knew, and even with PREEN and T penciled in it took me a while – a while I spent ruing that I had never remembered to learn the names of the stomachs of a cow – to come up with POT (pot belly) for “stomach”.
26
   IDLER – “The Idler” was a series of essays published weekly by Johnson between 1758 and 1760, as a way to avoid finishing his long-promised edition of Shakespeare. Writers everywhere will sympathise with a man who lived in an age where more attractive avoidance strategies, such as beating your high score at Minesweeper, were sadly unavailable.
27
   PENSION – a continental boarding house, and therefore “residence abroad”. It will come as no surprise to solvers such as me, who gazed at this clue for a very long time, still ignorant of the theme and trying to make sense of the definition, that Dr J is as usual to blame. He defined “pension” as “An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.“
28
   PAT,RON – Back to the dictionary, for “One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.”
 
Down
1
   SACK,C,LOTH – a very nicely constructed clue, where SACk=fire, C=cold, and LOTH (reluctant) goes below them, indicated by the crafty “reluctant to undergo”.
2
   MIND OUT – (into mud)*. “Cave” here is the Latin “Beware!”.
3
   EXCISE – sounds like “x size”, with X=unknown and size=quantity. This clue, before the Johnson penny dropped, caused me untold misery, since I thought EX was a soundalike for “unknown quantity”, not just “unknown”, and of course could make no sense whatsoever of the hateful collection of the wretches, eventually abandoning EX and battling fruitlessly to justify ETCHER or even ESCHER, simply because all their letters turned up in “wretches”. We are, of course, back in the dictionary, where old Sam defines EXCISE as “A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.”
4
   JO(IN)T, with JOT being a tiny quantity, holding “IN”. This wordplay took me ages to work out, largely because I was frantically Googling “samuel johnson joint”. You would have, too.
5
   HILAR(IT)Y – Hilary being the spring term at some universities.
6
   STERILE, first in the sense of cleaned by sterilisation, then that defined by Chambers as “destitute of ideas or results”.
7
   (k)NOT,CH
8
   OF(f) COURSE
15
   B,EER,GUTS – a nice definition that had me wrongly focusing on mugs and mats.
16
   TIP AND RUN, being an an anagram of Puritan plus ND (the extremes of “nettled”).
17
   MAC(AR)ON,I – AR=”are, briefly”, MACON is a burgundy wine, and I=”start of inspection”. Johnson’s fondness for macaroni cheese was faithfully documented by Boswell: “I vouch I have never seen a man eat so merrily or less wisely of the starchy slop.” All right, I just made that up. I figure I’ve earned a bit of licence. The truth of it is, Johnson was an indifferent horseman, and Boswell teased him thus: “You are a delicate Londoner; you are a maccaroni; you can’t ride.”
19
   PA, STERN, wrongly defined by SJ as the knee of a horse (it is in fact part of the foot). Confirming evidence that horses weren’t really his speciality. When Johnson was once asked how he came to make such a mistake, he replied, “Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.”
21
   RAMBLER = “The Rambler” was a a periodical by SJ published on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 1750 to 1752.
22
   PAT,IN,A – PAT as in “off pat”, memorised exactly.
24
   SK(E)IN – “Hank” here in the sense of a length (skein) of wool. If Dr Johnson had a junkie friend called Hank, i will leave this for others to discover, for while not at all tired of life, or of London, I am becoming just a fraction tired of Samuel Johnson. But, not to end on a grumpy note – happy 300th, sir.

39 comments on “Times Crossword 24334 – A Reticulated Network”

  1. Well blogged, sir!
    Took me ages to see the theme too, wondering why the journey had to be to the Western Isles, what IDLER had to do with papers, why the PASTERN was wrongly-defined, and most of the rest. At first, I thought a certain person would be complaining of “padding”. Now I guess the complaint is going to be about excess lit. refs. Even the slight nod in the direction of science (“Lab” in 6) is superfluous.
    Oh yeh … 55 minutes, held up by the obvious. But I think it’s good to see a themed puzzle from time to time.
  2. Oh woe woe woe … I didn’t cotton onto the theme, even though I am a great admirer of the great man. It certainly explains the weirder answers. Amazingly got them all correct, in spite of not understanding the clues fully. Forgot to record my time, but about 45 min. 3 dn should have given the game away. Happy birthday Grumpy.
  3. I totally missed it. I was even wondering things like why “trip” was to the Western Isles (a great place worth a visit by the way).

    I finished but I didn’t time it. Around an hour but I was cooking dinner at the same time so not a very scientific measurement.

  4. Well done sabine on a blogging experience from hell! I don’t think uncovering the theme would have helped me in the slightest. Even though SAMUEL went in early, with the Lichfield reference understood (it occurred in one of my blogs months ago) I still stared at what was to become JOHNSON fruitlessly for a very long time. In the end I had many question marks next to clues and PREPOTENT undone, at which point I headed to the dictionary. A thorough rout for me, but I take heart from the message at 5d and give the setter my compliments.
  5. i too missed the samuel johnson allusion. however for me it was a puzzle of two havleves …top part went in bar crows foot and excise fairly easily…then is truggled with bottom half but finally ended up done in an hour with Patina being the last one in!

    well done to the setter…very clever and appropriate!

  6. 24:13 for this – – theme puzzles being so rare in the Times, it took about half that time to realise what was going on. Last answer in was SKEIN.
    Nicely done puzzle, and I think Sabine has picked up all the Johnson references.

    There’s something else going on here: this seems to be the first appearance of Times grid no. 93 – a reminder to me to get on and put up the new set of grids sent to me by Anax.

  7. I completed the puzzle, blissfully unaware of the theme but did wonder why some of the definitions seemed so strange. My introduction to Johnson was in secondary school where a dedicated teacher from Kerala told us oat was defined by Samuel Johnson as “A grain that in England is fed to horses, and in Scotland to people”

    It was only much later that I heard the Scotsman’s retort to this – “That’s why England has such good horses, and Scotland has such fine men!”

    1. Finished the top half (other than EXCISE) but struggled with the bottom, possibly because until coming here I didn’t realise there was a theme to this puzzle, or indeed that it was Johnson’s 300th.
  8. Well, Sabine, I for one am extremely grateful this happened on your watch as on another Friday it would have been mine and I would have been exposed as a complete ignoramus, railing as I would have done about the unfathomable wordplay and references.

    I missed the theme completely, and like koro I don’t think it would have helped me much if I had spotted it. As it happened 1ac and 4ac were amongst my last in so at least the worthy Doctor hadn’t been staring me in the face throughout my lengthy travails.

    I have solved this type of puzzle before in The Oldie but at least there I was ready for it. This one turning up in the Times took me completely by surprise.

    But anyway, working at my own level I got through it in 90 minutes with two unsolved and then used a solver to find 28ac, and 22dn immediately fell into place.

    My only remaining gripe is at 11ac where I agree with you that a plural is required and I don’t see how “CROW’S FOOT” is defined by any interpretation of the clue.

    1. More about crow’s foot here. I guess “fine lines” are wrinkles and “described by bird” means that the expression relates to a bird.
      1. Thanks, Peter. I’m familiar with “crow’s feet” but I was querying the plural in the clue. It seems to me it would work perfectly well with “line” for “lines” and then the solution would fit.
  9. Very well done Sabine. I could not have blogged this puzzle because I know almost nothing of Johnson other than often drinking in a pub just off Fleet Street that boasted he used to be a regular patron.

    I “finished it” in the sense that the grid was completed in 35 minutes with a lot of guesses and numerous question marks next to clues that I did not understand until reading your excellent notes.

    If Johnson is worthy of such treatment by the Times then I look forward to the themed puzzle that will undoubtedly appear on 24th November next which marks the anniversary of a really important happening as against this frippery.

    1. Indeed, and since Darwin didn’t write a dictionary, hopefully we will be able to use the COED as usual.
    2. Spending a few years as a “harmless drudge” may not match making a great scientific discovery for you, but putting some of Johnson’s jokes and mistakes in an occasional special crossword seems entirely appropriate to me.

      Are there any jokes in Darwin? I might find out in November – there just might be a setter beavering away on a Darwin puzzle, perhaps with some unches spelling out “FOR JIMBO”.

  10. Don’t hold your breath for comments from beginners today. If Jimbo later calls this a 25 minute stroll I suggest he gives his clock a shake. Hate themed xwds which is why I prefer the Times to the other one. Didn’t get it and as others have said, wouldn’t have helped. Finished, all but GOAT (but by then too fed-up even to guess) with 10(ten) question marked.
    Well done Sabine (I adore Sabine’s warts and all blogs) but to the setter… well, decorum prevents.
  11. I will put my name in with those who completely missed the point. To be honest, even though the top half went in quite quickly, I didnt even notice the read-across at 1 & 4 !!

    Consequently I too thought why “wrongly defined” and why “to the western isles” etc etc. In fact, it wasnt until I came on here that it had to be hammered home to me what was going on.

    Notwithstanding this gross misappreciation of the finer points, it was definitely a game of two halves. The top was fairly easy and I thought I had a 15 minuter on my hands, before the bottom half bore its teeth and I struggled. SW went in first (spent ages looking at the three P’s from POP-UP and drawing blanks, before PASTERN helped out. Last in were 22, 26 and 28, with the latter two effectively guesswork with no idea of reason.

    Tagging on late to one earlier point, having initially thought that there was a singular/plural issue with 11, I also realised what PB put so succinctly above, that a singular crows foot must by visualisation contain a plural amount of lines hence making the clue perfectly acceptable.

  12. Like everyone else, I congratulate Sabine on spotting the theme. I was completely oblivious to the significance of the top row until I read the blog. I even recalled Dr Johnson when I got PASTERN, as there was a themed crossword elsewhere not so long ago based on definitions from the dictionary which included the same word, but the overall penny still didn’t drop.

    Finished all but 3D by guesswork in around 10 mins, but was then bemused by the hateful wretches, which made no sense at all, and put in EXCESS just because it fitted.

  13. Earlier this week I was invited to a rather expensive restaurant. The food was evidently very sophisticated and required a lot of skill to prepare, but I can honestly say that I would have preferred a vindaloo and lager at the local curry house.
    In this puzzle, I failed even to connect the SAMUEL and JOHNSON at 1ac and 4ac, let alone realise there was a theme, despite the obviously odd definitions. I am resigned to not appreciating the finer things in life.
  14. Crossword: an empty thing filling the heads of the overeducated and underemployed.

    37:41 .. the OATS gave it away for me and from that point on I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing.

    A puzzle worthy of the man, and a blog worthy of the puzzle.

    1. Agreed – top blog, thanks very much. ‘Are briefly’ = AR (not ‘A’) had me in knots trying to unravel the starchy slop.
  15. I work in Lichfield, and, by chance, am reading a biography of Samuel Johnson at the moment (not the Boswell one), but I still didn’t get this all right. I didn’t think of EXCISE at all, so put in EXCESS, more in hope than expectation.

    Steve W

  16. hands up i completely missed the theme, felt quite grumpy about the whole thing and went for assistance earlier than i should have. i think if i had spotted the theme my feelings would have more appreciative. on a vinous note macon is more commonly a white wine so ‘red’ at 17d is an unnecessary obfuscation, nor is it a burgundy as per the blog but is part of the maconnais area which also includes wines such as saint-veran and pouilly-fuisse.
  17. Didn’t spot the theme, and without it some of the clues were, as others say, almost impenetrable. While the idea of a themed crossword is a nice one, it comes back to the question of the Arts/Science balance that is regularly discussed. Would the Times ever print a themed crossword to celebrate some scientific anniversary, and I’d venture to suggest the answer is no?

    One little carp is 17A; Mâcon is not exclusively a red wine.

  18. Spotted the title across the top early on, but it was of no assistance to me. Lost the will to continue the struggle with PREPOTENT. PATINA and IDLER unsolved and several others not understood.
  19. Sabine, allow me to add my congratulations to all those above on a top-notch blog — elegant, witty, informative. Definitely, alpha ++. Like you, I took some time to spot the Johnson theme, and then made reasonably steady, if at times somewhat mystified, progress (I’d forgotten, if I ever knew, the idiosyncratic Johnsonian definitions of EXCISE, PATRON and PENSION). I can see that if you didn’t spot the theme, and were not a Johnson fan either, many of the clues would have been pretty baffling. But I’m in the camp of those who hugely enjoyed this puzzle. And, pace Jimbo, if you are going to have a themed crossword puzzle – and why not from time to time? – it would be hard to think of a more appropriate subject for one than the founder of English lexicography.
    1. Many thanks for your kind comments, and I think thanks are due to all of you for resisting the obvious Johnsonian crack about a woman blogging crosswords being like a dog’s walking on his hind legs…
  20. Having got the crossword out on Monday with minimal cheating I only got 2d, 9a, 20a & 16d.
    A query on 1a -where does the two books come in ,please? As mentioned by someone else I’m not a great fan of themed crosswords -however a scientific one would give me a chance.
  22. A marvellous puzzle; charmingly elucidated by the blog. As a beginner, I found this rather easier than the preceding Friday, although I may have had an edge…
    Richard Johnson
  23. Just a question born of curiosity and ignorance for those who are better-informed than I am. I have read Johnson’s biography, and (like most people) know some of the quirkier definitions of his dictionary and pithy remarks. The dictionary was obviously a landmark achievement, but does anyone still actually read any of his other works? Of his contemporaries Defoe, Fielding, Sterne and Swift, for example, were far more influential in the development of English literature and are still read. Johnson may have had a reputation as a literary giant in his day but it seems unsubstantiated by history. Or does it rest on the dictionary alone? Discuss.
    1. I can only refer you to the wikipedia article linked in Sabine’s report. There’s a certain amount of Wilde/Shaw-style fame for various quips – e.g. the reply to the lady who congratulated him for omitting obscenities – “So you have been looking for them, Madam?”. But there’s more serious work too.
  24. 22:03 here, solved late afternoon at work after most people had gone home. I twigged the theme from the clue to PASTERN and having already noticed SAMUEL JOHNSON across the top, which I originally took as a coincidence. I remembered reading the “Ignorance, madam…” quote fairly recently. The only other Johnsonian definition I definitely knew was the one for OATS. The rest went in from the wordplay, which was generally helpful.

    Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary was published in 1911. Maybe there’ll be a centenary crossword. Can’t wait for that one!

    CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

  25. Anonymous (not me) asks if Johnson is read these days. ‘Rasselas’ may still be forced on English lit students; but in any case his Shakespeare commentary is very much alive in annotated editions of the plays.
    I, too, failed to twig to the theme, and I failed to get ‘patron’. Some of you may be interested to see Johnson’s famous rebuff to Lord Chesterfield’s offer of patronage:
    http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/johnsons/patron.htm
    –Kevin Gregg (falsely hight Anonymous)

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