Times Crossword 25,068 – tricky!

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: A long time, 39 minutes. I suspect that those of us who like to have a moan will find plenty of material here – apart from a single clue, this crossword is relentlessly arts/literature/religion based. It also contains some challenging vocabulary, and a rather uneven quality of clue – some sparklers, but also some I wasn’t keen on though I think everything is bang on technically. And our overseas contingent may have trouble with one or two (not actually a problem in my eyes 🙂
But I did struggle, partly through tiredness perhaps, to find the right wavelength here..

Across
1 Praetorian – (REPARATION)* – a Praetor was a Roman magistrate
6 omitted; ask if puzzled
10 retreat – a dd: to go back and to treat once again, ha ha. A rather clumsy clue, I thought
11 rounder – ROUNDER(S)
12 hush money – a cd.
13 minus – M(ARSHY) + IN US
14 Shiva – easy, once you discover that SHIV = “a knife or razor used as a weapon” (ODO). Shiva is one of the three major deities in the Hindu pantheon. I’ve always felt a choice of gods is a good thing, a pity we in the west settle for just the one..
15 sedentary – (RESENT DAY)*
17 bookstall – BOO(K)ST + ALL. For ages I was convinced this should be whelkstall, though not enough to actually write it in, espcecially as it should be two words
20 nappe – a homophone. I didn’t know the word, but it couldn’t be anything else so in it went..
21 Iliad – I + LID containing A. The Iliad is an epic poem, written in 24 “books,” and a good read to boot
23 tetragram – TETRA + G + RAM. More tricky vocab here, but in this case I forgive it as I thought this a very neat clue indeed. Ram = beat in the sense of to ram earth. So the dictionary says, anyway. And a tetragram is just a four-letter word with added class
25 Lateran – not original = LATER + AN, an article. The treaty by which the pope appropriated the land that comprises the Vatican City.
26 Chagall – caught = C + HAG + ALL. I am fond of Marc Chagall, mainly because of his surpassingly beautiful stained glass windows in a church a few miles from me.
27 dust – another homophone and a tricky choice for me between DOST and DUST.. Which is the answer, which the soundalike? It turns out that DUST is correct. So “our mortal body” is the def., and Dost = do, in antique fashion, the homophone
28 contravene – story = CONTE containing RAVENYet more vocab., I hadn’t heard of a conte before
Down
1 perch – a dd, we Brits having a wide range of obsolete measurements to choose from, including the rod, pole and perch. All of these, even more confusingly, are measures of both length and area.
2 altissimo – a weak cd.
3 The Ambassadors – Well, THE AMBASSADORS is a well known book by Henry James. But I’m unsure what the reference to St James’s is. Can it mean the Ambassadors Theatre? If so it is off Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2; and if St James’s, the district of London, extends farther from Mayfair than I thought. On edit: no, it is clearly a reference to the Court of St James, to which as Vinyl says, Ambassadors are presented; that being the official name of the UK Court.
4 ratings – a neat dd.
5 arrayed – formed up = ARRAYED, yet another homophone
7 had on – HAD(R)ON, today’s foray into the world of science. Hadrons are a class of subatomic particle
8 peristyle – (PRIESTLEY)* – a good anagrammatic find, though I slightly resent having become an expert on greek architectural terms, entirely courtesy of the Times crossword!
9 Our Man In Havana – OUR MAN (a perpetrator, what the Mounties always get) IN + HAVANA, a smoke.. But I can’t explain the IN – ah, wait, yes: IN = burning, as in fashionable. edit: or IN = burning, as in a lit fire which is said to be in, as mctext suggests.. the more likely answer perhaps?
14 subtitled – SUB + TITLED
16 aspartame – A + SPARTA + ME. Not sure how ME = I do?
18 Antonio – a cd alluding to the Merchant of Venice. I was seriously held up by confidently, but stupidly, entering “Shylock,” until 23ac became impossible and 28ac highly unlikely
19 late cut – today’s obligatory cricket term. Dead = LATE, and CUT = cut..
22 ictus – (SUIT + C)* – a metrical term used in poetry – another unwanted area of expertise for me!
24 Milne – MINE containing L = line, to make AA Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh.

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

48 comments on “Times Crossword 25,068 – tricky!”

  1. So a similar time to jerrywh — thanks for the blog; great to have a Wednesday off.

    Equally unsure about St James’s in 3dn. Post-solve inquiry shows that the Libyan embassay is (was?) in St James’s Sq. But that can’t be it, surely; and my knowledge of London is limited to a few streets in Paddington.

    Liked the anagram at 8dn and assumed Priestly was Joe of Oxygen fame; so another tick for the scientists.

    9dn was devilish; though I assumed “burning”=IN as in fire. It’s in when it’s lit.

    Never heard of NAPPE or the LATERAN treaty.

    COD to 23ac for its double clueing.

    ((Also just completed yesterday’s which I thought a fine puzzle. The Club site was down until the evening local time. By which …))

  2. 26:54 … not too much trouble except for the SW which took much of my time.

    Last in.. DUST

    I think ambassadors to the UK are still officially Ambassadors to the Court of St.James, aren’t they? On edit, vinyl has just confirmed that.

    Edited at 2012-01-25 02:37 am (UTC)

  3. And there’s a touching little memorial to WPC Yvonne Fletcher opposite the former embassy, mctext, which was lightly bedecked with flowers when I walked around the square back in October.
  5. 50 minutes fitted around tennis so it might not have had my full concentration. Didn’t know NAPPE or remember ICTUS and LATERAN if I have met them before but they came from the wordplay. RH easier than LH I thought with SW the most tricky.

    I see we have some early spam today. It usually turns up weeks later I find. I deleted some from an old blog yesterday and spotted a dedicated remove spam button which I have not noticed before.

  7. Oh dear! What a poor offering. The worst puzzle for some time with 3D the worst clue for a long while.

    I could write a thesis on this one but will resist the temptation. “rounder” and “not so slim” are not synonymous. Ignoring its mathematical meaning, a NAPPE is a rock formation so it’s a sheet of rock not “a sheet”. As for the arcane vocabulary – enough already.

    35 minutes with several trips to the dictionary to check veracity. Well blogged Jerry.

    1. From Chambers Thesaurus: Round – CHUBBY, fat, plump, stout, portly, ample. Rounder therefore more so, and less slim. Seems close enough to a synonym to me.
  8. Nappe has more than one meaning, one of which is “one of the two sheets that lie on opposite sides of the vertex and together make up a cone” so 20a works. In my post-solve check I found that my 2003 Chambers doesn’t have this definition but it can be found in other sources. However, I thought that some of the cluing in this puzzle was more in the style of that sometimes found in the Grauniad, but as I regularly do that one as well it didn’t knock me out of my stride too much and my time was 24 mins.
    Andy B.
  9. A game of two halves, 20 minutes in a hurry getting about 8 clues, 10 or less later sailing through. Could easily be a TLS with minimal tweaking. No real complaints, though NAPPE was unknown and 2d was really a clue for da capo. Much sympathy for the not-the-arts community, but at least the religion wasn’t Christian today. Most of the 10,000 names of God are tetragrams, which in its singular gets my CoD
    Z8b8d8k on a different system
    1. Postscript back home. I thought ASPARTAME pretty good too, even though the stuff itself tastes vilely bitter to me – anyone else find that? Plus it metabolises in the body to formaldehyde and methanol. Is this a good idea?
  10. 12:40 here, so a different experience for me than for most others. I thought 3D was quite clever actually, certainly no problem as it went straight in. I didn’t bother to figure out all the wordplay for OUR MAN IN HAVANA as I’d already moved on. All the other literature/arts stuff should have been in most peoples’ general knowledge, and the tricky vocab was all clued very helpfully.
  11. A tricky devil and no mistake (and no mistakes), 39:33.

    Jerry, I’ve seen the Chagall glass in Kent and agree that it’s wonderful.

    I’m not a fan of the tetragram clue myself. Was “fish good beat” really the best triumvirate of 4-letter words the setter could come up with? It doesn’t mean anything. Why not fine ruby port or kids’ word game?

    1. Really doesn’t give the wordplay, does it? It’s the wordplay in addition to the three four-letter words that really makes this clue stand out – see my comment below.
  12. If the setter’s wavelength is around THE AMBASSADORS, mine is somewhere the other side of Jupiter. I struggled with this mightily, started in breaks during a rehearsal, a second peek before passing out, and finally a few minutes after waking up.

    I don’t think I’ve ever had as many complete guesses here – THE AMBASSADORS, and DUST went in just from checking letters and seeming like good answers. OUR MAN FROM… was CANADA for a while but finally I looked back at the clue. LATERAN and NAPPE from wordplay and I’m not a fan of CDs like ALTISSIMO.

  13. I’m rather surprised people are voting for TETRAGRAM as clue of the day. As penfold says, “fish good beat” doesn’t seem to mean anything, unless we are missing something. I also thought one or two of the other clues most oddly worded, especially MILNE and ASPARTAME. Apart from that I admired this puzzle’s rather old-fashioned feel.
    1. Re: Fish Good beat?
      Chambers: beat (n) an area of land or stretch of riverbank on which sportsmen hunt or fish. Fish good beat has a plain enough meaning, and if it still needs explanation, “to carry out angling activities on a productive stretch of riverbank”. That it also manages the cryptic meanings of TETRA G(ood) RAM in three tetragrams (as explained by Jerry’s excellent blog) is why it achieved the exalted status I gave it as my CoD. No recantation from me.
  14. Maybe this puzzle relied more than usual on GK, especially of the arts. Fortunately I was familiar with all the vocab and literary references, apart from NAPPE and LATE-CUT. I’m surprised that some people thought this was such a poor offering. Seemed OK to me. 30 minutes.
  15. I related NAPPE (20ac) to the French phrase “Nappe pliée”, meaning simply “folded sheet”, from which the expression “An apple-pie bed” is said to be derived.

    Edited at 2012-01-25 04:42 pm (UTC)

  16. Fair enough, I wasn’t expecting you to recant! Plainly I was missing the “beat” meaning”, though come to think of it I’m not sure I now go with “beat” = “ram”.
    But I look forward to the day when this word can be clued using the Margaret T/four letter word idea nonetheless 🙂
    1. Chambers again gives a direct connection: ram – to beat hard. Seems fair enough to me.
  17. 59 minutes but went to sleep three times. Had to guess aspartame but it stands up perfectly well, as does the whole puzzle in my view. ‘Our Man in Havana’ is my favourite Greene novel, which is saying a lot. Superbly light.
  18. Well, you can’t argue with Chambers but it doesn’t seem an everyday meaning of “ram” to me. It didn’t stop me getting the answer so on that basis it’s not a huge issue
  19. DNF and a struggle from the off for me. Too many failures to report but I really can’t follow the parsing of ASPARTAME – is it simply a given that Sparta is a ‘comfortless state’ and ‘I do’ equals ME? If so I remain baffled how I would work it out. However thanks for the blog which explained other blank spots for me very well.
      1. That’s one possible interpretation: another is simply that it’s A, Sparta? Me! (the last bit being the answer to the first two bits).
        1. The double-duty I in that is a touch awkward. ‘I do’=’me’ (below) is perhaps the most attractive, but it’s a bit far out I’d’ve thought. Hard to say.
          1. I’d agree with you but I think the exclamation mark puts you on notice that you might be looking for something a bit silly.
  20. Phew! 38 minutes. I tackled this at the end of a very long day, utterly exhausted, so it was an almighty struggle but it seemed pretty fair I must say.
    TETRAGRAM was a complete guess for me. Now that I know how it works, it’s a very clever clue. Perhaps too clever. Or perhaps I’m too tired.
    I took “I do” and “me” in 16dn to be synonymous as answers to the question “who wants more cake?”
    1. I think it could just be tiredness, as this is a fairly typical way of clueing TETRAGRAM. As in, for example, No. 23,023: “Girl rose over time – some examples of this? (9)”, though I have to admit that was some time ago (8 July 2005).

      I like your “cake” example.

      1. I think the “examples” device is very neat, although I didn’t see it. It was the combination of TETRA (a little-known fish) with RAM (in an unusual sense of the word) to clue a somewhat arcane word that made me think this too clever, and even after a good night’s sleep I think it’s a wee bit stretched. I prefer clues exemplified by today’s puzzle where the setter manages to deceive and delight without too much resort to what jerrywh calls “silly vocab”.
        Just a taste thing though: a perfectly fair clue.
        1. TETRA is a pretty common crossword fish, coming up as recently as last October in No. 24,981: “These are solid, hard rocks round back of cove behind swimmer (10)” (answer TETRAHEDRA). I admit RAM = “beat” is perhaps pushing things a bit, but I’m inclined to cut the setter a little slack on that one.

          Is TETRAGRAM really that arcane? I think I must have known it since my schooldays: we were certainly taught about the “tetragrammaton” in divinity lessons (possibly for the ludicrous ‘O’ level we all took in the subject for no obvious reason).

          1. Yes perhaps “arcane” is a bit strong (I’m trying very hard to avoid the O word…). Let’s just say these are not everyday words. In any event I’m not actually saying there’s anything wrong with the clue: I just prefer it when the difficulty comes from things other than the vocab itself. Answers hidden in plain sight leading to satisfying “doh” moments, as opposed to “that must be the answer so such and such must just be a word I don’t know”. I appreciate this doesn’t happen to you!
        1. Excellent!

          (Haven’t I seen “Margaret T” used before in clueing TETRAGRAM? She certainly brings to mind a few four-letter words.)

  21. 16:40 for me, with the last 5+ minutes spent agonising over ASPARTAME. Somehow I’d got it into my head that the word was ASPARTASE, which didn’t seem to fit the wordplay; and although ASPARTAME matched the wordplay nicely, it didn’t look right.

    Another excellent puzzle, with a nice mixture of literature and science. I’m not sure that I’d make 3dn my COD (though the temptation is there just to annoy dorsetjimbo ;-), but I can see absolutely no objection to it.

      1. Mr. Gregg, meet Dr. Alzheimer. I sent a comment on a whole nother puzzle! Just ignore me.
    2. woo-hoo! I actually beat Tony on a clue; aspartame went straight in unchecked (but then I did once sell the stuff!)
      small victory however, as another DNF (tetragram, Milne and dust – really should have got them though)

        JB

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