Times Crossword 25,200 – Bladders and such

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 22 minutes, so about average for me for this time of night. I hesitated for a while over 6dn but overall I really enjoyed this crossword, which I thought a fine effort. There are some lovely, beautifully misleading surfaces and neatly wrought clues. Nothing unknown for me except 15dn. Not too hard, but not too easy either. Not too arty-farty. Good stuff.

cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–).

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across
1 Brave New World – heroic = BRAVE + NEW + WORD containing L = large. Started it once, but didn’t finish..
9 argot – (M)ARGOT. There is only one Margot
10 cathedral – queen = CAT + HEAL containing DR. Is the queen a dbe? Not that I care
11 distraught – D + IS + T(R)AUGHT
12 aces – ArChErS
14 ribcage – *(BIG RACE)
16 tangent – beat = TAN + GENT
17 almanac – A LAC(K) containing worker = MAN
19 left out.. ask if puzzled
20 peak – (S)PEAK
21 injury time – IN TIME containing JURY
24 old school – (T)OLD + SCHOOL
25 outdo – available = OUT + DO = make
26 nature reserve – *(TREASURE NEVER)
Down
1 bladder campion – *(POD AND A CLIMBER). Fine anagram, fine clue. Not a familiar plant, though I had heard of it. It has the highly amusing attribute of being regarded as a food crop in some places, and as a weed in others..
2 aegis – when = AS containing E GI.
3 entertains – *(A + N + INTEREST)
4 exclude – EX CLUE containing D = word ending.
5 watch it – W + A CHIT containing T
6 reek – (C)REEK. I have never regarded a creek and a bay as synonymous, but Chambers says they are, or can be, so fair enough
7 dirt cheap – just a cd, really..
8 close to the bone – a dd this time. I’m more of a “near the knuckle” man myself
13 antonymous – *(TO MANY + US NO)
15 bombardon – food provided = BOARD + ON = operating, containing doctor = MB. Not a word I had come across, but easy to guess. It is a bass tuba, apparently.
18 contour – C ON TOUR
19 sculler – SCULLER(Y)
22 left out. The answer’s in Milan.
23 scat – school test = SAT containing C = crazy at first.

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

26 comments on “Times Crossword 25,200 – Bladders and such”

  1. 45 minutes, so not the easiest of solves for me. BLADDER CAMPION was unknown but I have met the tuba before.

    I know very little about soccer but I’d heard of INTER Milan so I assumed that accounted for the second part of 22dn although I can’t find anything to justify INTER on its own in that context. Fortunately I didn’t need to go past the first three words to come up with the correct answer to that clue.

    Edited at 2012-06-27 12:52 am (UTC)

    1. Usage would justify Inter (and Internazionale) – not surprisingly, given its full title ‘Federazione di Calcio Internazionale Milano Società per azioni’.
      1. So the least popular guy at an Inter game would be the one who shouts: “Give us an F!”.
  2. Enjoyed this a great deal, despite the late start. Interview with the Vampire was on the box last night and I had to stay up to watch it all.

    Don’t like CDs much; but for some reason I thought DIRT CHEAP was good. Maybe just the relief after a fair bit of complex wordplay elsewhere in the puzzle.

    Add me to the list of those who didn’t know ‘creek’ as ‘bay’. LOI: most of the SW, ending with PEAK.

  3. 59 minutes, with 10% of that at the end puzzling over 6dn, where I considered REEK but plumped in the end for ‘rhea’ – as in diarrhea, lots of effluvia there – which involved some unlikely indirect shaping of ‘reach’, which to my mind was closer to a bay than a creek. Having checked ODO, I must remember that effluvium can be a smell as well as an ooze.

    BOMBARDON from wordplay; COD to SCULLER, a discipline in which GB should pick up a third of its medals, after the cyclists and the sailors have grabbed the rest.

  4. Bumped along in 35 minutes. Relieved to find bladder campion exists, so to speak. Bombardon new. I suppose an ace is a hole in one on the golf course though I’ve not heard it in commentary. I had a feeling it was the shot putt but that looks wrong on paper. The opening of ‘Brave new World’ Jerry is surely the best part.
      1. On the subject of golfing terms, Jimbo, I have only recently discovered, after 60 years of playing the game, that “bogey” originally meant what we now call “par” – i.e. the number of shots a professional player should take for a given hole or for the whole 18. Its current meaning of “1 over par” dates from as late as the 1940s according to some sources, but rather earlier according to others. The term is attributed to a Dr Thomas Brown, a member of Great Yarmouth Golf Club in the 1890s. The idea of playing against the course score, as opposed to a flesh and blood opponent, was then a new-fangled concept and the good doctor didn’t care for it. He took to referring to the course score as “the bogey man”, in the sense of an invisible enemy who followed him round the course but never appeared in person (I know just how he felt!). There was a popular song at the time, “The Bogey Man”, with which Victorian parents used to frighten naughty children, and Dr Brown may have had this in mind. Anyhow, his joke caught on and gradually spread round the golfing world, “bogeyman” in time being shortened simply to “bogey”. Were you aware of any of this?
        1. Absolutely not – fascinating stuff. I’d like to read it for myself – what’s your source?
          1. My starting-point was the entry headed “Bogeys” in The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth, which topped the non-fiction best-seller lists for a while and can best be described as a book about words and their often weird etymologies (ideal fodder for us xword nuts). Easily available on Amazon and downloadable to a Kindle if you have one. Since then I have googled all sorts of sources in search of further enlightenment. They confirm the essential facts of the Forsyth version, but there is much dispute about exactly when “bogey” ceased to mean “par” and became “1 over par” and why. It seems that the US made the move before the UK. I guess one would have to write to the Royal and Ancient for a definitive answer (if indeed there is one). And once you start down that road ….there is doubtless some equally outlandish explanation for golf terminology’s avian obsession, all those birdies, eagles and albatrosses.
          2. Almost all the above is, surprisingly, in the OED itself, which I get free online access to via my library card. The OED also has the par+1 meaning as purely US, with the English meaning still being par.
            It also says: “After the rubber golf ball was invented in America in 1898.., the bogey that had been established for the old gutta-percha ball became too easy and the British lowered their bogies by about one stroke per hole and kept the term, but Americans began to use the word par instead, keeping the old British word bogey to mean the older, easier expected score of a good player, usually one stroke more than the new par.”
  5. 22’51” with one errant letter messing things up on the board. Only really got going in the nether regions with NATURE RESERVE. BOMBARDON from a childhood where I got fascinated by the stops on the Church organ. CAMPION (which I have heard of) emerged helpfully from the general wreckage and the anagrist provided the otherwise unknown variety. I may never need it again.
    INJURY TIME my pick of the day.
  6. Really enjoyable 25 minutes with BOMBARDON worked out from wordplay. The plant has appeared before.

    I think of queen as opposite to tom and regard both as synonyms for cat – a sort of mental knee jerk as soon as I see the word.

    Very well crafted puzzle, thank you setter

  7. Only one short interruption today, so I was able to record a time of 40 minutes. Most went in very quickly, but it took me a long time to see that 1 down was an anagram, as I had convinced myself that “pod” must be “gam”. A very enjoyable puzzle, though, with a wide variety of clues; my favourites being TANGENT and ANTONYMOUS.
  8. 16m. It felt much harder than that, but in a very enjoyable way. Super puzzle.
    BLADDER CAMPION and BOMBARDON were completely new to me, but as rednim says above working out unknown words from anagram fodder or wordplay is what it’s all about.
    I was unsure about REEK because I didn’t know that an effluvium could be a smell or that a creek was a bay.
    1. Same comments from me regaridng ‘bay’ and ‘creek’ but 35 minutes,had heard of campion and was left with Bladder to guess. Outdo was LOI, took a few minutes to see it. As jimbo says, ACE is a hole in one, in USA they sadly use it as a verb as well ‘He aced the second’.
  9. 17:50 for me but as keriothe says it did feel much harder. The unknowns were all gettable from the wordplay – I just hope I remember some of them nest time they turn up.
  10. One gap today, and that was the unknown BOMBARDON, which I guess I should’ve been able to work out.

    Bit tougher than the average for me today, but ultimately satisfying.

  11. About 35 minutes, ending with ANTONYMOUS, which misled me for quite a while into thinking I was looking for a synonym for ‘equidistant’. Wrong, but I eventually figured that out. Same reactions as others re: BOMBARDON (unknown), creek=bay (really?), and feeling a bit smug when able to unravel BLADDER CAMPION. Nice puzzle. Regards.
  12. Very enjoyable puzzle but I think I fell for every trap, so took over an hour. (Anagram of HEROIC in 1 across, anyone?) I remember BOGEY originally meaning PAR being mentioned by Stephen Fry on QI, although that’s no guarantee of correctness. CAMPION invariably reminds me of the excellent Margery Allingham’s detective Albert. SHOT PUTT conjures up the image of a very large golf club. SQUALOR fits neatly into 19 down and I wasted time trying to justify it.
  13. Unfortunately I wasn’t really in a crossword-solving mood (for reasons I won’t go into at present) so made heavy weather of this one and finished in 16:35 – which is a pity since it was obviously a fine puzzle (though of course I’d prefer something a little more arty-farty to give me an edge ;-).

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