Times Crossword 24597

Author   sabine_tkPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 20.20.

With quite a few answers going in at a glance (4A, 11A, 8D, 13A, 15A, 16A, 20A, 22D, 10A) I seemed to be off to a reasonable start, with bits and pieces all over the grid, one long down obviously an anagram and the other – well I didn’t much like the look of that one, but I already had a good start with S_O_C. After that, though, things slowed down a great deal, and I was stuck in the top left corner for a good while at the end, before eventually seeing SFORZANDO, which led me to the final two answers, 1 A and 18A. A very good puzzle, I thought.

Across
1
   IMPOST – a kind of tax, especially on imports. The wordplay presumes that if I am post, you are pre. One of my very last clues solved – I needed the S from the evil 3 down, which itself took a very long time.
4
   ES(CARGO)T – CARGO=burden, inside EST, the French word for “is” – so “in France” is part of the wordplay.
10
   M(ARC)O POLO -MO=second, POLO=game, and ARC here is in the sense of a luminous discharge of electricity. I put this in right awat from Traveller (5,4), back when I still thought this might be a very easy puzzle. it all seems so long ago.
11
   TILER – RELIT spelt backwards, and therefore, in an across clue, from the East.
12
   RES,I,ZES – “Sleeveless” is an instruction to remove the outer letters of “dress”, I=one, and ZES(t) is the endless relish. For an awful moment here I thought I was looking for an obscure item of fashion – not my specialist subject.
13
   CO(ROLL)A – ROLL=curl, inside the short envelope, COA(t) (something that covers).
14
   A,U,DEN – it’s painful to think how long I juggled mentally with these three elements before they settled down into the required order.
15
   GOING, SON. This seemed very familiar – unsurprisingly, as the same answer with a similar treatment appeared in my last blog two weeks ago.
18
   PL(EON)ASM – meaning “a redundant expression”, the wordplay being EON (ages) inside PLASM(a). This was the last clue I solved; I had (not very hopefully) pencilled in ERAS for “ages”, giving me _L_ERASM. Not impossible, but if correct it would certainly be a word I didn’t know. But when I eventually got the O from 3 down, rubbed out the mistakes and looked at the new collection, I remembered the word PLEONASM at once, though I didn’t have the faintest idea what it meant. I checked Chambers afterwards and this is actually the only word that fits these letters.
23
   HU(RR,I)ED – HUED=coloured, outside RR (Right Reverend) and I (one),
25
   T(OM,B)OL A – wrote this in at once from “lottery”, but the wordplay has taken me quite a while to unpick, mostly because I was seeing the middle section as MBO, not OMB. It’s OM (Order of Merit) and B=book, inside A LOT, reversed (many sent back).
26
   MIL(N)E – a very crafty use of AA.
27
   MAIL MER(G)E
28
   S(HILL)ING – “ready” here meaning money, and “until 1971” indicating something dating from the pre-decimalisation era.
29
   SNEEZY. I suppose his affliction was more explosive than that of Grumpy, who must have been more inclined to sulks than to outbursts of rage.
 
Down
1
   IMMOR(T)AL – IMMORAL=bad, with T (time) admitted. I struggled to see how this worked, fiddling around with anagrams of “time”, and trying to think of 8-letter gods.
2
   PHRASED – an anagram of “Shepard”, the clue referring to astronaut Al Shepard. Never have I been more aware of my surface-reading-blindness than with this clue – when I looked at it first I thought “the only Shepard I can think of is Al Shepard – would he crop up in a puzzle?” completely overlooking the “blasted off” significance until this moment – I just saw “blasted… looks like an anagram…”
3
   SFORZANDO – the musical term for “with sudden emphasis”, and you make ZOO into SO if you substitute S FOR Z AND O. I was fairly sure this, turning ZOO into SO, was what I was supposed to be looking for, especially after the Z appeared, but finding it was another matter, with nothing at all seeming to fit except the wildly unlikely SNOOZINGS.
5
   STOIC,H(I)OME,TRIC. Not a word I knew, but I could see STOIC for long-suffering at the beginning, and was reasonably confident I would put the rest together with enough crossing letters, as was eventually the case, though not before I’d wrongly put in OUS at the end, thinking “residence with no end” would be HOUS(e). In fact it’s the deception that’s endless (TRICk).
6
   ALTAR, sounding like alter. I don’t think it works the other way around.
8
   TAR,TAR – two rats, raised.
9
   COASTGUARDSMEN – anagram of “once mustard gas”.
16
   GROOMSMAN – a bridegroom’s attendant.
17
   STRATEGY, hidden, reversed, in “gallerY GET ART Set”.
19
   LORE, LEI
21
   SC,O,URGE – SC is “a couple of scrambled”, and the eggs are O and URGE (to egg on).
22
   TH(O)MAS – “he doubted” is a nice helpful definition.
24
   I,DEAL (drugs).

32 comments on “Times Crossword 24597”

  1. Got totally stuck in the NW, and had to go for assistance. A broad spectrum of knowledge required: SFORZANDO, PLEONASM, STOICHIOMETRIC even COROLLA don’t exactly trip off the tongue. Couple with some devilish cluing to get a really great puzzle. COD split between the intersecting IMPOST and you know what. 48 min set to the resounding clang of dropping pennies. Hats off to the setter.
    1. I had exactly the same problems with the same words, some of which I had never heard of.

      Thanks for your comments-Brian

  2. I solved 26ac before 2dn, and could only think of EH Shepard, wondering if today was some sort of Winnie the Pooh anniversary!
  3. Don’t have a copy with me on my travels, but I have a strong memory of a medium-heavy solve; by far the hardest of the week. Couldn’t even think STOICHIOMETRIC until I had all the crossers and could work it out from the remaining letters. Wrote down ZOO => SO (vertically) but still couldn’t see the substitution (3dn). As I remember a little over the half hour (must have been as I was out by 7:45). This one should go in the annals for its arts/science balance: something for all tastes.
  4. Clobbered by 5 and 27 – finally there in about 50 minutes but half an hour otherwise. Couldn’t get stochastic out of so-called head. I wondered about Winnie the Pooh also – did Marco Polo appear in one story? Maybe not. A devilish touch to this one – just a flick of the tail. COD to 3 by some way.
  5. Without eventually resorting to aids I couldn’t do anything in the NW apart from AUDEN, RESIZES and COASTGUARDSMEN (why American lives?) and I was particularly annoyed to miss ARC for ‘discharge’ for the second time in a few days.

    Elsewhere apart from 5dn and PLEONISM I sailed along quite nicely putting in several answers without bothering about the wordplay. Again apart from 5dn I would go so far as to say the RH side was easy.

    1. Forgot to say that the crossword site was down at midnight so once again the puzzle was not available as it should have been.
    2. >why American lives?
      I just assumed “coastguardsman” was an American term because I’ve never heard it. The online Oxford has “a member of a coastguard, especially the US Coast Guard”.
      1. Of the two ‘official’ source dictionaries Collins has it without reference to it being an American term and the COED (and SOED) don’t list it at all. Chambers has it as ‘chiefly US’. But in the UK we have ‘guards’ and ‘guardsmen’ so it doesn’t seem a great leap to me.

        1. You’re right it’s not a leap but I think I’d call this person a “coastguard”.
          Incidentally something very similar applies to GROOMSMAN: I’d say “usher”.
  6. No time for this one, as I’d seen a sneak preview, but 20:20 sounds very good to me. This puzzle is the only anonymous one in a clean sweep of cryptics in today’s broadsheet papers (the Toughie in the case of the Telegraph) by 1996 Times champion John Henderson who gets married today to Jane Teather – “jetdoc” in Fifteensquared reports. The other puzzles have more obvious timely thematic material, but this one does it more subtly. In the third horizontal row of unchecked letters, you can see TEATHER. And after a careful hunt, I located HENDERSON in the diagonal running from the H in 28 SHILLING to the N in 15 GOINGS ON. Apart from ALTAR and GROOMSMAN as other wedding references, I can’t see anything else – but I’m quite ready to be proved wrong – the strangeness of some answers suggests that there might be more.

    I’m not sure whether this Times puzzle counts as a one-off from John, or is officially from another Times setter like John Halpern – Times setters are barred from entering the Crossword Championship, and as far as I know, John would still like to see if he can win again (and judging from Jane’s debut attempt last year, the first (AFAIK) married couple in the same final is something else to aim for).

  7. Finally limped home in 1h10m. Just couldn’t see COASTGUARDSMEN and was trying to devise an exclusively American term from the available letters. (In fairness, my Chambers does note chiefly US). Thought SFORZANDO very clever.
  8. Chambers and I managed to solve this in 30 minutes. Don’t think I could have managed it alone on the proverbial Clapham Omnibus.

    I still don’t really understand 1A (my last in). Guessed it from “tax” but if I’M POST why are you pre? Derived PLEONASM and confirmed it in my solving friend. Did the same for 3D SFO…. and 5D STOIC…. Good wordplays to facilitate the process, helped by the easier clues giving checking letters. Liked SCOURGE as a clue.

    By best wishes to the happy couple and congratulations on an excellent if eccentric puzzle.

  9. 48 minutes for this – a real toughie so I’m pleased not to have failed for the third day in a row. Very enjoyable.
    STOICHIOMETRIC was (unsurprisingly) new to me so had to be constructed painstakingly from the wordplay.
    I couldn’t see the wordplay for 21d so thanks for that Sabine.
    COD to SFORZANDO. A great clue and timely because I’m off to have a piano lesson now.
  10. I joined the Times Club last week and as a result have just got back into regular solving. After a struggle last Friday, I sat down with my cup of tea expecting a half-hour solving session – but it ended up at not much more than 5 minutes (wish I’d timed it!) Actually, I think it was quite a hard puzzle but I just struck lucky in my guesses. It helped that I remembered reading about the SFORZANDO clue (or a variation on it) appearing in an old Afrit or Ximenes crossword decades ago, which meant that I was able to enter it at sight.
    1. hfreeman: would that be Countdown champ Harvey? If so, I look forward to hearing about some more quick times.
  11. Just under 20 minutes for me. I was look ing out for a wedding theme – ALTAR and GROOMSMAN were the first two in and I quickly spotted TEATHER in the unches. HENDERSON had to wait until I’d finished it though. Looking forward to trying the other puzzles later.
  12. Around half an hour for all but the 1s, which I had to sleep on. Like Jimbo, I’m still somewhat bemused by IMPOST. It sort of makes sense, but only sort of. I mean, why can’t we both be post? Or pre?

    I was feeling a bit ill-disposed towards this puzzle, but having read Pete’s note about today’s cruciverbal nuptials (do they make cryptic wedding vows? anagrammatize the invites?) I’m just thinking “Oh, that’s lovely.” So, good luck to the happy couple.

    I’m guessing this might be John Henderson’s own work, given the wording of 6 down which rather suggests that this is a crosswordy billet-doux. How lovely!

  13. I,too, was bemused by IMPOST: at first, I had “EXPERT” which nearly makes sense but threw out the entire NW. Eventually (ie after an hour) I had IMMORTAL which corrected everything and then the wonderful SFORZANDO.

    This was a lovely puzzle, very challenging to logic and vocab. Thank you Mr (and the Mrs to be) Setter!

  14. Isn’t there a diminutive Lib Dem MP called Jane Teather? Could the bride be her, or am I just confused?

    Steve W

  17. Apologies if this has already been asked many times but does anyone know what has happened to the clue writing competition at the times crossword club?
  18. Congrats to John and Jane, I should have looked at that – I’ve enjoyed a few Enigmatist puzzles from time to time. Slogged through this during a few breaks at work, really similar experience to sabine in that it was SFORZANDO that really opened things up. Thanks for the explanations of SCOURGE and PHRASED – I had a little question mark next to SCOURGE. Relieved to find PLEONSAM was a word. Now to work backwards through this week’s offerings.
  19. This was not much fun for those who knew nothing of some marriage. Annyone who has groomsman and coastguardsman in their answers must be desperate.
    For the first time ever I failed to understand Peter B’s response-
    what are these unchecked leters?
    Perhaps a crossword for the clique?
    Mike and Fay
    1. As somebody who didn’t get any of the “in” stuff I think your POV is valid to a degree. But what the hell, it was an interesting puzzle. Just as long as this sort of indulgence doesn’t become a regular feature.

      The unchecked letters are those in the rows and columns that don’t contain any answers to the clues. The third of these across reads T_E_A_T_H_ _ _E_R.

    2. Perhaps – but all you are going to miss is T E A T H E R and HENDERSON reversed diagonally. I’m not sure the actual vocab used in this puzzle was any more obscure than in some Times puzzles (STOICHIOMETRIC tho was a sure sign something was up, as obscurities this long are rarely chosen voluntarily, given these are normally the entries the setter puts in first.)
      Otherwise it’s more a question of whether this setter’s style is to your taste – he gets a thumbs up from me, rather “clue-drunk” after working my way through all 5 wonderful offerings!

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