Times Crossword 24406

Author   sabine_tkPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 9.31

I sat looking at this in total horror for the first half minute or so, then saw 14A and 3D, and everything began to fall in to place quite smoothly after that, with the SE corner filling up first, and the other three presenting roughly equal levels of difficulty.

My next blog would be due on Christmas Day, so it looks as if I have four weeks off. As I rarely post between blogs, I’ll take this opportunity, absurdly early though it is, to wish everyone a terrific Christmas, and I’ll see you again in the New Year.

Across
1
 BOOK, CLUB
5
 S,C,ARAB – S=primarily sacred, C-caught, and ARAB=Egyptian
10
 PA(R)CE,L
12
 PA(N)D,A – PAD=walk quietly, N=innermost part of Chinese, A=area
13
 STAINLESS -“stay in less” minus the y (unknown).
18
 TABLE MANNERS – TABLE=put forward, MANN (Thomas) is the German author, and “wrong, not right” is ERRS without one of the R’s.
21
 P(ER(EG)R)INE – slightly surprised to see wrong=ERR in two consecutive clues.
23
 HA(RD)Y, “pack” being a containment indicator.
24
 CHE,RUB – as so often the revolutionary is Che Guevara. I can’t find RUB=ointment in the dictionary but a quick click around Google turned up Sen Sei Ointment Menthol Rub, which seems to pack quite a punch, and any number of vaporising chest rubs.
25
 T(OREAD)OR – an oread is a Greek mountain nymph, which makes it very clever that she’s been put inside TOR (rocky peak) to produce a word whose definition inclues “mount”. A toreador is a bullfighter on horseback, and so “killer on mount”.
26
 L(ONE)LY – the wordplay for this had me puzzled for a while, but I think “one having to be replaced” simply means “replace the I in lily with the whole word, ONE”.
27
 E(SOT,ERI)C – SOT=drunk, ERI = reflected anger (IRE backwards) all in EC (City – The EC postcode that includes the City of London.)
Down
1
 B,ICEPS – SPECIE=coins, and SPECI is a lot of SPECIE – followed by B (billions) – all raised.
2
 ON(LIN)E
3
 CRA(B AP)PLE – BAP (a roll) inside (carpel)*.
4
 UNSYSTEMATIC – (any music test)*. With the bottom half in place, for some reason I blithely pencilled in “asystematic”, dealing with the slight problem of the extra space by writing an extra E in it. Luckily I solved 1 across soon after, or else this stupidity could have caused a major holdup.
6
 CHA,IN
7
 REC(RE)ANT – a coward, apostate or renegade. Though it was obviously correct, I didn’t know this word.
11
 CAN,TANKER,O,US
15
 P(ARCH,MEN)T
16
 ATYPICAL – an anagram of Y (yen) plus “capital”.
17
 ABERDEEN, a straightforward anagram.
19
 TRA,DER – RED ART all turned up. I thought this was quite neat.
20
 CY,MR,I,C -the outside letters of the two Welsh locations mentioned, plus I C (I note).
22
 G,RUE,L

28 comments on “Times Crossword 24406”

  1. Hello Sabine, and a terrific Christmas wish back to you. ‘Terrific Christmas’ sounds a lot more enthusiastic than ‘Merry Christmas’, or the bland ‘Happy Holidays’ that we in the US have had to adopt. My experience with the puzzle is quite similar to vinyl’s, 35-40 minutes finishing with TOREADOR/TRADER, and not knowing CYMRIC or RECREANT. My knowledge of nymphs being very poor, I thought the nymph was ‘reado’ until you ‘splained it above. Thanks, and regards to everybody. COD: CHERUB.
  2. Enjoyed this enormously while on the road: hence no definite time. 20dn ought to be a herb, and 4dn is obviously a French robotic nun!
  3. About 40 minutes here with most in quite quickly before giving up on “toreador” and “trader”. Also plumped for Cymria rather than Cymric leading to esoteria at 27A, which I post-justify on the dodgy grounds of EA being the city postcode of a big swathe of Amsterdam. DCH
  4. I experienced a similar feeling of horror, Sabine, but mine lasted about three minutes until having read most of the clues I went back to 9 across and solved it immediately on a second look. My horror was only tempered by the thought that it was your Friday to blog rather than mine!

    However having got started in the NW corner things progressed steadily if rather slowly, it all gradually fell into place and I completed it in 45 minutes without resort to any aids.

    My only new word today was RECREANT but I placed queries against “diploma” = PARCHMENT and “failure to concentrate” = LAPSE neither of which were resolved by reference to Collins but the COED supports both. I also looked twice at the logic in 26 before coming to the same conclusion as Sabine.

  5. I found this reasonably easy at 30 minutes or so. I had not much of an idea how 1d worked at the time, and now I see I had even less than I thought. Last in the delightfully cheesy STAINLESS. I liked many clues in this, particulary the two &litoids and CANTANKEROUS raised a laugh. Thoroughly enjoyable.

    And as merry a Christmas as you can muster to yourself, Sabine.

  6. Pleased to finish in 24 min, with the only outside help being to verify CYMRIC as valid word. No truly outstanding clues, but no quibbles either. COD: STAINLESS. Not difficult, but rather nicely put together.
  7. 9:22 – a time which will ensure I keep on pestering Sabine to make the trip to Cheltenham – I made no careless mistakes today, so without the unsystematic issue at 4D you’d probably have beaten me. Very similar panicky start, with MANNERS as part of 18 the first writing in the grid.

    17D is a classic example of a def. that seems ridiculously vague but is balanced by easy wordplay.

  8. Seasonal greetings Sabine and may I say that in my first year of doing these things, how inspirational I have found your blogs, if that isn’t too insulting to all the other admirable bloggers.
    Found this a good deal easier than yesterday’s and finished just over the hour with guesses for RUE as a herb and OREAD as a nymph (all nymphs seem to have AD somewhere).
    Not too keen on ABERDEEN as simply a place on map or PARCHMENT as diploma, or ART as study come to that but enjoyed in particular BOOK CLUB and A PRETTY PENNY, not difficult but elegant nevertheless.
  9. I seem to be doing my puzzles more easily/faster thanks to the blogs, so gratitude and a Happy Christmas to all. Today 15 mins, enjoyed getting the wordplays, cymric new word for my vocab. Put manners in long before table added, and last in trader. Getting rather busy, so may not be on here much till after all the synonyms for this season.
  10. I was going to say that this was a good beginners’ crossword but then I was reminded by the experience of Sabine and several others above that it was three minutes before I got my first answer. After that it was a follow your nose puzzle. Recreant and Cymric were the only vaguely new words for me too and I particularly enjoyed Stainless.

    Just a slight quibble with Sabine’s explanation of 18. I puzzled a bit over the wordplay. To make it work the wordplay for ERS has to be “is wrong not right”.

  11. solved correctly and without aids in approx 40 mins. one slight niggle: the biceps, whether in the arm or leg, flexes or bends the joint but does not twist it. cod 13ac as i used to find this style of clue very hard, but this came to mind quite easily.
    1. COED uses “turn” to describe one of the muscle’s functions so I imagine that justifies the use of “twist”.
    2. Biceps Brachii has supination of the forearm as its prime function – contrary to popular belief – so it does “twist one’s arm”. I didn’t understand the clue either though.
  12. Completed in 18 minutes, the easiest of the week, with no hold-ups anywhere, though I didn’t understand the clue to BICEPS, my last entry. Thanks, sabine, for the explanation. One of those puzzles where none of the clues stood out particularly, but no quibbles either. Like sabine, I was a bit surprised at the duplication of ERR in the wordplay to two clues close together.
  13. I found this easier than average, 22 mins, and very enjoyable. COD STAINLESS. Last entry BICEPS after PANDA was found.
  14. Just over an hour and the first crossword to be completed this week. Usually only manage to complete one crossword a week so hopefully visiting this blog regularly will help me improve on that. Especially appreciate the parsing e.g. 1 down which I would never have understood without explanation. Liked particularly 26 across lonely and 13 across stainless
  15. 12:15 this morning, although I also experienced the mild panic at first look. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the same clue (or very similar) to RECREANT before. COD to STAINLESS.
  16. Didn’t time myself, but this one felt like a breeze, I was on the same wavelength as the setter for sure. Wish I had timed it looking back at the comments.
  17. Nice easy puzzle after golf and before a snooze. Unlike others I had no initial hold up getting SCARAB on screen as the puzzle printed and went from there – finished in 20 minutes. Reasonable enough puzzle but nothing outstanding. I hope you have a prodigious Christmas Sabine.
  18. 8.30 No real problems altohugh I had tentatively written in RECUSANT at 7 before seeing that 13 was going to end -LESS. Also first thought at 27 was ECLECTIC based on the definition but again was quick to see this was wrong.
    I though 26 was a teaser. No quibbles from me but was everyone else happy with this clue?
    Have a nice Christmas , Sabine
    1. It’s a bit odd, but as the ONE is under your nose in the clue, I can’t see much to complain about. I don’t think something like “Vest – in it, one’s replaced (7)” would get past the xwd ed.
  19. I waltzed through this earlier this morning at 0500…in 25 minutes….I was pleased. thought it was enjoyable…COD 3 down Crab Apple
  20. Having managed a grand total of three clues yesterday, I was delighted to complete this — without aids aswell, albeit with one or two educated guesses towards the end.

    There were plenty of enjoyable clues for me — though to be honest I quite enjoy any clue I can solve! I’m slightly bothered by 26ac which feels as though it needs something like ‘by another’ at the end. Also at 1d, do biceps twist “one’s arm”, singular?

    1. At 26, I’d say that at least “by something” was part of the meaning of “replace”. I guess you could convey the near-exactness of the replacement by “one undergoing a minor change” or similar.

      See wikipedia for the surprisingly full repertoire of your biceps.

      1. My concern about BICEPS was based on a faulty assumption that each arm was controlled by one ‘bicep’, so apologies to the setter on that score!

        Just out of interest, is ‘bicep’ nevertheless an acceptable word — in spite of being a rather dubious back formation, it seems to be in quite common usage?

  21. Isn’t “pack” and its variants another of those containment indicators that can work either way round?
    1. Without going back to look at the detail, I guess so – you pack a suitcase by putting things into it, and the things you put in are packed.

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