Times Crossword 25,367 – Homophony

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: about 20 minutes, in other words about averagely hard. I thought it a pleasant, well constructed crossword, with some clever cluing – a model Times cryptic. Unfortunately I managed to include a typo when I entered it online, a crossing letter too. I’m off to read Sotira’s Festive Survey results now..

cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–), homophones indicated in “”

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across
1 robotics – steal = ROB + *(COST I). The origins of robotics go back farther than one might think. Here is an early example
5 chapel – a homophone: “Chap’ll”
9 syndrome – and another: “sinned Rome”
10 Andrew – AN + DREW. Drew = painted is interesting but does seem to work. You can draw/paint a verbal picture for example
12 hallucinatory – *(RHINO ACTUALLY)
15 rogue – bend = U in “I heard you almost” = ROGER
16 stockpile – *(L + POCKET IS). Is, not in, as I originally thought
17 overshoot – LOVERS + HOOT
19 focal – constant = C in FOAL
20 Haile Selassie – “HIGHLY” + SANE + LASSIE. I wasn’t sure about the homophone to start with. Now I think this is quite a clever clue
22 Orange – O + RANGE, a reference to the House of Orange-Nassau
23 pastoral – gone = PAST + ORAL = not written
25 basket – lay out money = BET containing sue = ASK. I suppose one can sue/ask for forgiveness
26 skinhead – to swindle = SKIN + HEAD = boss
Down
1 restharrow – *(THROWS RARE). News to me that it is a weed. I thought it a pleasant, useful and increasingly rare wayside plant
2 bin – BIND
3 torture – TURN in rent = TORE
4 commissioner – is reflective = IS + SI in COMMONER = far from noble. I have seen this reflective idea once or twice before.. clever!
6 Hancock – “one no longer private” = NCO in HACK. Try this radio one, “The Test Pilot”
7 party pieces – (labour) PARTY + sections = PIECES
8 lawn – to lay down the LAW + GARDEN. An &lit.
11 pat on the back – a dd
13 loggerheads – a cd, disputing parties being said to be “At loggerheads.”
14 well heeled – well, rolling = rich = well-heeled. And I suppose a yacht that has turned round a certain distance may be said to be.. (on edit: it is distance – ELL in WHEELED. Thanks Mc and Jack)
18 shingle – hard = H in one by itself = SINGLE
19 flatten – F + LATTE + LEMON. I can’t speak coffee language and flounder rather, in places like Starbucks, where “Just a filter coffee please” doesn’t seem to get you very far
21 comb – Frenchman = M as in M. Hulot, in bread = COB
24 rye – run = R + you = YE. So nearly, a crossword without a cricket reference, so very nearly…

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

52 comments on “Times Crossword 25,367 – Homophony”

      1. Ah, but you gave the full explanation whereas I only went for the bones of it!

        A rare excursion under 30 minutes for me – 28 to be precise – yet I had thought I was in for trouble when I was unable to solve the first 3-letter clue until I had a checker in place.

        DK the weed, which incidentally is not defined as such in any of the usual sources, nor the required meaning of PASTORAL, although neither really required much working out. Once again we have a name from the past in the NE sector which will probably not mean much in certain parts of the world nor to UK solvers below a certain age.

        Edited at 2013-01-09 06:45 am (UTC)

        1. I was born after Tony Hancock died but he’s still very well known to people of my generation.
          1. He probably never travelled (in the comedic sense) outside the Commonwealth, even in his prime, but I’d say the lad himself has never really faded from public consciousness in the UK, even today. Those with DAB radios will know that he’s on more or less constant rotation on BBC Radio 4 Extra; presumably he suits their needs by being a) timeless and b) cheap.
              1. Indeed. Remarkable how well some of the radio comedy of 50+ years ago still stands up today.
                1. The 50s was a golden age for radio comedy. Never been bettered, and only a few things come close..
  2. I suspect the construal is: W(ELL)HEELED. ELL is the distance and WHEELED = “turned”. Def=”rolling (in it)”.
  3. 52 minutes, with one wrong, ‘Haile Selassee’ (sic), which will learn me to work out the wordplay. I did try, mind, and it was the only one that eluded me* as I couldn’t get past ‘lass’ for the gal and didn’t spot the homophone. As Jerry implies, homophone-fatigue had set in by that time, perhaps.

    Found the SW rather devilish, finishing with BASKET after a barely remembered cob had opened the corner up. The weed went in on a wing and a prayer; terrific name, conjuring hallucinatory visions of some yokel in floppy hat and with straw sticking out of mouth sayin’, ‘I’ll just be restin’ on me harrow a while, I thinks.’

    * On edit, no – thanks to Jack and the Corporal Jones-like McT…

    Edited at 2013-01-09 06:43 am (UTC)

          1. Since it’s just thee and me at this time of day, a true story courtesy of my mum, who taught dyslectic children for many years.

            One of her parents was a Brazilian millionaire called Suarez, who was desperate for his son to get into England’s most prestigious school. Sadly, Richard was not a bright lad. After being told by my mother that Richard’s chances of getting into Eton were slim, he remained unfazed, saying, ‘Well, if not Eton … Harrod’s!’

  4. Found this quite hard and almost defeated by the COMB/BASKET intersection. “Frenchman”=M indeed!

    Not too sure about the “goes to” as the link i 20ac.

    Glad it wasn’t my blog day!

    1. I think it’s ok with the meaning (approximately, admittedly) of ‘translates to’.
  5. Had a look there. How interesting! I will ask Koro to do some means/modes/medians (whatever) on them. But I suspect we’re mostly IT/managerial over 50s with far too much time on our hands. Also suggested we all come out on our desert island proclivities. As they said yesterday: the gloves are off!
    1. I was deeply disturbed by the almost total absence of solvers in the 18-25 bracket. I did everything to convince myself that this wasn’t just a function of the fact that they had a life but came up short.
    2. I am greatly intrigued by the possibility, however remote, that we have a 100 year old, pipe-smoking African PhD of uncertain gender in our midst..
    3. Well, the nap of course is ulaca at 22 as you say. Interesting that those of us who went for a different kind of bust chose Marilyn Monroe (me included at 96). I did see reference to Russell a couple of times but they referred to Bertrand rather than Jane.
      1. Nothing can compete with ‘I don’t twitter, don’t want to twitter and can’t stand any mention of it.’ Is this also our centenarian African friend, I wonder – before he asked for the iPad?
  6. Overall a pleasant, gentle solve – but with no idea how to parse ROGUE. So particular thanks, jerry, for a fine blog.
  7. 22m. Good puzzle, I thought, and not much to say. Time to have a look at the survey…
  8. Fairly routine puzzle but I checked the spelling of HAILE S… before entering in the grid.

    For some years I’ve been involved in a local fight to stop the powers that be from felling 20,000 trees on the land at the back of me. They argue that the trees are weeds which they define as “any plant that is in the wrong place” – so an oak tree is a weed if some expert can claim that it shouldn’t be where it is!

    1. More power to your elbow, Jim. As Tolkien understood, trees are semi-mystical things and only to be messed with at our peril.
    2. I didn’t spot this before posting my own comments about weeds; to this I say, the council is right in its definition, but if it thinks that 20,000 oak trees should not be where they are, it’s probably wrong about that!
  9. 25 minutes, so a straightforward puzzle for a Wednesday. Some very neat clues: 12, though not difficult, was particularly elegant, don’t you think?

    Thank you, Jerry, for the Hancock link; I’d not heard that sketch for years and it was always one of my favourites. I still find its absurdity hilarious, and it has brightened up a damp, foggy day here in Lancashire.

  10. I was still laughing about Penfold’s Mr. Sunshine from yesterday when I got up this morning. 22 minutes for this one – stalled for a bit on “syndrome” until I finally got the “peccavi” thing.
    1. Mr.Sunshine is already my favourite comment of the year and likely to remain so. I don’t know what that says about me.

      20:15 .. a good, testing puzzle which induced in me, as others, a certain dread when I realised I was dealing with an unknown plant at 1d. And like others, I thought of Tolkein when I saw RESTHARROW (must be Hobbit fever) and that settled it.

      1. If you Google “Mr Sunshine H&E” one of the top results is from Friends Reunited with another OB from my school recalling the scandal. I dread to think what the papers would make today of a teacher appearing starkers (in full colour across several pages) in an international magazine.

        FWIW he was my favourite teacher and taught me more about English grammar than my English teachers ever did. Great sun tan too.

        1. I’ll have to take your word for it on the suntan (I let all my old copies of H&E go). I did have the same thought when you mentioned him – what would happen now? In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t been contacted and offered counselling. In my experience, a lot of the best teachers are a little different.
  11. 17 minutes this morning, with the rather misleading invention of RASHERWORT for the weed until proven mistaken. Must find one, a plant that smells like fried bacon: merely looking like it would be disappointing!
    Otherwise, plenty of above average clues, with two of the long ones, HS and the rhino one for its spectacular anagram, particular delights.
    1. I came very close to bunging in RASHERWORT early on, but managed to resist the temptation.
      1. I tried googling rasherwort, which resulted in a Googlewhackblatt, a single result, which inevitably was “anagrams of restharrow”. Presumably, future searches will now also lead here.
  12. 13:25 online. As Jerry says, pleasant and well-constructed (I always try to avoid sounding as if I’m damning with faint praise when I say that sort of thing, as it’s definitely a compliment). My major problem was, as always, an unfamiliar plant, but given the wordplay, even I could work it out by coming up with something anagrammatic that sounded like a Tolkien character’s surname.
  13. Solved this quarter by quarter (NE, SE, NW then SW). Not quick but faster than yesterday.
    FOI Party Pieces, LOI Orange. Made things difficult in the SE corner by a blundering Pat On The Head.

    Liked the Chapel, Syndrome and, best of all, Rogue clues. Party Pieces put in mind the Duchess of Cambridge’s parents’ business and by extension her. Happy 31st birthday, your majesty!

    The tough Skinhead made me smile and brought to mind Hooligan from last year, clued with reference to US golfer Ben Hogan. A new season has just started on the USPGA golf tour (well played Dustin Johnson in Hawaii) – happy days!

  14. Liked this puzzle, 23 minutes, had to guess restharrow was right after a long effort to fit in a something-wort. Thanks for the Eton – Harrods story, and the Hancock link. My CoD was ‘sinned-rome’.
  15. Apropos of “I didn’t know it was a weed…”

    There is no distinct botanical classification which translates to “weeds.” Essentially, if something is growing where you want it to grow, it’s a plant; if it is growing where you want to get rid of it, it’s a weed. (Dandelions do not count as weeds if you plant them on purpose…)

    However, it’s becoming increasingly common to refer to any flowering wild plant as a weed, whether people want it to be there, want rid of it, or don’t care either way.

    Edited at 2013-01-09 02:19 pm (UTC)

    1. That’s sort of the point I was trying to make. To take it a step further: if you call a plant a weed, that may say more about you, than it does about the plant. Nature and gardeners often don’t seem to get on nearly as well as you would imagine..
  16. I heard of someone who was having difficulty convincing an immigration officer that he was, as he claimed, brought up in England. Seeing that he lived in Cheam, the officer asked “Does the name Hancock mean anything to you?”. His reply, “He was in EAST Cheam.” removed any doubt.
  17. A plodding 34 minutes with a careless (but preferable?) rustharrow. I never found Hancock funny somehow. Now for the Sotira sketch of which I have better hopes.
  18. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Had a bit if a moan about yesterday’s clue verbosity – this was the opposite – crisp, sharp, witty and not an unnecessary word. No time to give due to interruptions and a very pleasant walk in the sunshine without the trauma of trying to hit a white ball with a stick.
  20. I thought there was some elegant clueing here. No particular problems – although RESTHARROW was unknown and had to be guessed. 25 minutes. Ann
  21. I managed half of this one whilst sat in Kwikfit wating for them to fit new brake pads and discs to my car, and finished it off when I got home. Slightly under the hour all told. I confirmed RESTHARROW on Google before writing it in but got all the rest without too much trouble. SW was last to fall, FOI PATONTHEBACK. Enjoyed the puzzle. Will do yesterday’s tonight.
  22. I started late, and was tired so maybe that’s why it took me 40 minutes. Like others, I didn’t know of RESTHARROW so used the checkers and the anagrist, and I had to derive HANCOCK from wordplay too. Judging by the comments, he must have been a funny guy. Got there eventually, LOI being the SKINHEAD. Altogether a very well made puzzle, so thanks to the setter. COD to SYNDROME. Regards.
  23. 12:36 for me, held up at the end by COMB and BASKET. A delight from start to finish – as you say, a model Times cryptic. Thank you setter.

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