Times Crossword 25,344 – an explosive event

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 26 minutes, about average for my blog efforts. I suspect this may be on the harder side rather than the easier. It calls for some general knowledge (quite right too), a wee bit of science, bless it, and there are one or two tricky bits of cluing (translation: there are still some clues I haven’t worked out) – overall, a good crossword with nothing too controversial.

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

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across
1 easy-going – (Captain) Marryat’s character = EASY + failing to stay = GOING. A familiar book to most people my age, I guess
6 shtum – Henrys’ returned = HS + bread basket = TUM. The H being a reference to the SI unit of magnetic inductance, I guess
9 crouton – heavy defeat = ROUT in racket = CON
10 zooming – ZOO + MING. I was all set to complain that Ming was a dynasty not an emperor, but Wiki says there have been seven Emperor Mings. Eight, if you include this one
11 let-up – don’t stop = allow = LET + climbing = UP. So presumably fell is the def., not sure if I have that right?
12 I Claudius – constant = C + praise = LAUD, in “couple in Latin” = II + US. A very neat clue indeed, top class. I Claudius being a very high-class novel by Robert Graves, plus film, play, TV, radio, you name it
13 part song – certain subjects = ARTS in PONG, the def being lay
14 Brno – PUB CHEER CHARLTON + BOO. The second largest city in the Czech Republic, sadly known to me only as the home of the well-known firearms manufacturer CZ
17 romp – PROM, with the P moved from front to back. Dance = romp seems a teensy bit of a stretch to me
18 white tie – with = W + buffet = HIT + film = ET + that is = IE. White tie being what one wears when black tie is just not dressy enough..
21 upholster – UP HOLST + ER
22 miles – Miles being a boy’s name, and far away.. seemed a bit weak to me, this one
24 Teheran – well, what = EH, time = ERA with a T at the front and N = noon at the rear.. I always used to know it as Tehran, when did the extra E get added?
25 ooziest – island – I in ducks = OO + relish = ZEST
26 yappy – programme = APP in axes = YY. I spent far too long trying to fit XY in somewhere
27 Damascene – ASCENT in DAME. Not the place for your next holiday, I fear
Down
1 excel – EX CELL, better as in outdo
2 shoot from the hip – CRASS + HOOT FROM THE HIP, a word used in my youth to describe trendy folk
3 gatepost – wicket = GATE + stick = POST. As in “Between you, me and the…”
4 inn signs – “in sines,” a homophone. That’s sines as in cosines
5 guzzle – UPSETTING + PUZZLE. The rather crude def. is accurate enough
6 Shogun – appropriate = HOG in paper = SUN. This use of appropriate took a while to dawn on me
7 trinitrotoluene – TRINITY college + *(TO ENROL + EU). I smiled when I saw this word, more familiar to many perhaps as TNT. Another neat clue, if only the surface was a mite more convincing
8 megastore – *(GASOMETER), an instant solve for me as I’ve seen it somewhere before and quite recently too, Though I’m not sure where. According to Google it was in a Guardian crossword in 2011 and also a Crossword Championship final in 2008. Interesting blog, that!
13 parquetry – QUIET in counter = PARRY. “Late last night I slew my wife, Stretched her on the parquet flooring; I was loath to take her life, But I had to stop her snoring.” (Harry Graham)
15 Khartoum – “car tomb”
16 atomizes – cat = TOM in MAIZE’S, the def. being just “fragments,” as a verb
19 Blu-Ray – BLURRY, with one R changed to A. Don’t ask me about blu-ray, I’m still wondering what to do with all my cassettes
20 stoned – BUSINESS + made firm = TONED. Another one where the penny took time to drop
23 Satie – MADE IT A SYMPHONY, rev. Sadly I know as much about Eric Satie as I do about 19dn.

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

28 comments on “Times Crossword 25,344 – an explosive event”

  1. Had me going too. I read it as a double def. Let up = don’t prevent from climbing. Let-up = fell, as in “abated”.
    1. I realise I’m a bit late on this but I think the whole thing is Don’t! = Let-up! Made up from stop = let, climbing fell = up. I think I’m agreeing with you except that it’s ‘do prevent from climbing’. Generally a blisteringly good puzzle.
  2. This took me a minute or two over the hour but I achieved it without aids and never felt that it was going to beat me although some of the parsing was really quite difficult. I didn’t understand 20dn before coming here and I still don’t see how “slogan” or “slogan backing” gives UP at 21ac.

    I thought we were in for a pangram but we are missing J and V, I think. I liked the clues to OOZIEST and SHOGUN but I agree MILES is a bit feeble.

    I wasted a while trying to fit BLUE RAY into 19dn which only goes to show how unobservant I am when it comes to new technology! My cassettes and LPs don’t concern me, but I have no means of playing my 78 collection at the moment.

  3. Downloaded at 8:00 (12:00 UTC) and finished right on the 9:00 news theme, but with STONED only pencilled. Couldn’t justify it. So thanks to Jerry.

    Had to think a bit about the parsing of LET-UP (see above); though now I look at it, neither of the proposed defs seems to require a hyphen.

    TEHERAN took a bit of finding as well: penny dropped when I found you have to take “time” and “noon” together as the bookends.

    Oh and … prompted by jackkt, what is UP doing as “slogan” in 21ac?

  4. 83 minutes, with ‘atoned’ for STONED after a coin toss. ‘Out of it’, indeed! Thanks to Jerry for parsing 12 and 26. Lots of good stuff, including doing up the khazi (to keep with the zed theme), but 1ac and 3 were my favourites, not least because they were my last in, after I’d corrected ‘nuzzle’ to GUZZLE.

    I will be one of the few who had to laboriously work out TNT from the wordplay. Give me Menander any day!

  5. Rather glad this one didn’t appear yesterday, it’s a tough puzzle and having to blog it makes it that more difficult so well done Jerry

    30 minutes for me with the same problems of struggling to understand LET UP and not seeing ROMP as dance (still can’t see that one) but “prom” was obvious. My thanks to the setter for the “perhaps” in 15D and congratulations on an excellent overall offering.

  7. A cracking puzzle that I had doubts about finishing; took me about an hour. Chief problem was putting in LET GO instead of LET UP: I thought it was a triple definition. (Don’t! -Stop climbing-Fell) That hindered my attempts to discover GATEPOST.

    No complaints though about this first-rate brainteaser.

  9. Thought this was a good puzzle at the tougher end of the spectrum. Didn’t know Marryat’s work. After N’DJAMENA and BRNO, I’m looking forward to the next interestingly-spelled city.
  10. 32:25. Luckily my coin fell the opposite way up to (from?) Ulaca’s so I got stoned, as it were.

    No problem with 11: I read it as something like his enthusiasm eventually fell/let up.

    I don’t get the brickbats for Miles. It made me limes (anag) so I’m going to go against the grain and make it my COD although there are so many brilliant clues it’s hard to pick a favourite.

    I had to guess at the significance of the Marryat character and had to trust the wordplay on Brno as both were in my unknowns pile.

    At 6 I think hog is covered by “entirely appropriate”.

    Thanks to Jerry for the blog and especially to the setter for a marvellous puzzle.

    Edited at 2012-12-12 01:30 pm (UTC)

  11. A real toughie. I lost count of the time it took me – but it was a lot. I particularly liked UPHOLSTER. I’m in the camp of those still struggling to make sense of LET-UP at 11 ac. None of the explanations offered so far seems to me to require or justify the presence of the hyphen.
  12. Almost exactly an hour here, last entry being the unknown SHTUM, as a guess, since I am ignorant of this word and the Henry unit too. A very challenging puzzle, with a lot of very clever elements. Commenting the wrong way round, what went in at first read were MEGASTORE, OOZIEST, DAMASCENE, SATIE and SHOOT FROM THE HIP. Everything else needed to be brain-wrestled into place. Thanks to the setter, and Jerry. Up Holst! and ‘restoring the throne’ in the same clue are great, and MILES and SHOGUN made me smile. Top class puzzle. Thanks and regards to all.
    1. Hi Kevin. SHTUM (which has a variety of alternative spellings) is Yiddish co-opted into English, a process that started way back in the large Jewish settlements in London. In the same category are kosher, glitch and chutzpah along with quite a few others.
  13. 50m.
    I thought this puzzle was absolutely marvellous. Really tough, but in just the right way, with lots of knotty wordplay to untangle, almost nothing entered from definition alone, and all sorts of eureka moments along the way.
    I’ll join penfold in defending MILES: sure, not the finest clue ever written, but exploiting a particular phrase in a witty way.
    Last in STONED, a fine clue entirely overshadowed by my second last in, 21ac. Up Holst! indeed. Clue of the day by a country mile among a very fine set.
    Thank you setter.

    Edited at 2012-12-12 10:02 pm (UTC)

  14. 23:21 for me. Not my sort of puzzle at all, I’m afraid. There were a few clues – 21ac (UPHOLSTER) in particular – that I thought were very fine, but generally I found them over-convoluted.

    I don’t understand LET-UP (with a hyphen) = “fell”. I’m not keen on I CLAUDIUS = “drama”, since it’s primarily a book – though I agree that “couple in Latin America” is very good. I hate DANCE = “romp”. S = “business all but disappeared” seems weak, as does 22ac (MILES).

    Well, I’ve got that off my chest. I don’t usually complain so much about a Times crossword, but this one made me long for the puzzles of the past. Younger solvers who take a different view can just write me off as an old dinosaur.

    1. Thank heavens. I thought it was just me. The bits I liked I liked very much; there just weren’t many of them.

      Solved in 2 sessions – an uphill struggle followed by a downhill struggle.

      1. Me too in this camp. I found this very difficult but in my inexperienced view for all the wrong reasons and therefore just unsatisfying. Agree with all of the adverse comments about the various clues and indeed thought the grid even without the clues was packed with obscure words simply because they were obscure, such as BRNO when any number of recognisable words might have been substituted. So for me not a puzzle to thank the setter for at all today.
  15. 28/30 today after a lot of effort (Easy Going and Gatepost missing).
    Thanks Jerry for explaining Let-up, Shtum and Stoned. I couldn’t suss the wordplay for those at all and entered them just based on the checkers.
    Misspelled Atomizes with a middle S initially so that caused delays getting Ooziest.
    Top class puzzle – thank you setter.
  16. …appearing in The Oz.

    Did anyone ever figure out how 11a works?
    Clue: Don’t stop climbing fell? (3-2)
    Answer: Let-up

    Is the setter reading, to explain it?

    Otherwise very tough, but I liked it enough to keep going over the hour before resorting to aids.
    Rob

    1. I have no reason to suppose the blog explanation is wrong. Fell = abated = let up being the def.

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