Times Crossword 25,379 – not spam-free, but homophone-free

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: just over 21 minutes. It felt a relative canter compared to yesterday’s, but there are some tricky clues, and some very elegant ones.. I have three clues with wordplay currently unaccounted for, but let us see what writing the blog produces..

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

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across
1 sloped – SLOPPED
5 warm down – with = W + ARM DOWN. One of the three written in without understanding – I just thought there must be more to it than that!
9 agreeing – A GREETING
10 Apollo – A + head = POLL + O, the halo
11 Stravinsky – *(NAVY SKIRTS) not a hard anagram, hence perhaps the enigmatic def., just “Russian”
13 Goya – GOY + A. For curiosity I looked in Wikipedia and found a learned article about the word “goy”
14 here – EPOCH + ERE = before
15 promontory – memory = ROM in the card game PONTOON + line = RY. This would be a fine clue, if only the surface made sense
18 Providence – I had = I’D in PROVENCE. Providence is one of America’s oldest cities, the capital of Rhode Island, which is one of just the two things I know about that state..
20 fast – dd
21 lose – CLOSE
23 misericord – Scrooge = MISER + I + rope = CORD. If stopped in the street and asked what a misericord was I would struggle, I confess. But I knew the word and that it was churchy.. with Scrooge to start us off, it fell in place
25 minion – a jocular cd, MINI ON… ah, how I miss the 1960s. Happy days..
26 auspices – good = PI in *(CAUSES).
28 flag rank – relative = GRAN in severe criticism = FLAK. Now that is a neat clue!
29 minute – Ah, the second clue I couldn’t fathom arrives. We need four notes and I can only see three: Mi, Te, and N. But wait.. it turns out ut is a note as well, “now generally superceded by doh.” (Chambers) I think I have been caught ut by ut before.
Down
2 light-year – a dd I suppose, a light-year being about 6 trillion miles. I’m more of a parsec man, myself
3 prelate – if you need my help for this one just ask..
4 Dai – daiS
5 wages – dd
6 ready-to-wear – fibres = TOW in prompt attention = READY EAR. I quote: “In the textile industry, a tow (rhymes with cow, unless referring to cellulose acetate which sounds like toe) is a coarse, broken fibre such as flax, hemp, or jute.” I knew what it was but it seems I have been pronouncing it wrong all these years.
7 drought – almost rainless = DRY, + nothing much = OUGHT. More than that being the def. Tricky
8 welly – thoroughly = WELL + COMFY
12 impedimenta – PEDIMENT in *(AIM). A pediment is the triangular thingy on top of the columns, and as such quite a notable feature of the Parthenon.
16 own – at this moment = NOW, with the N moved to last place. With own = allow, we are back in Georgette Heyer territory, where folks are forever owning or allowing something to be true. If anyone isn’t clear what I’m on about, read one.. “Frederica” is a nice one to get you going, or for the more highbrow, An Infamous Army is a masterpiece
17 resurgent – oRdErS + URGENT, the third one I struggled with a little, thinking to start with it might be resurrect
19 viewing – victory = WIN in contest = VIE + G
20 faction – F + ACTION, the shooting being of the photographic variety on this occasion.. so Hollywod film-makers are always shooting shooting..
22 oriel – that’s = IE in ORLY, one of Paris’ airports. Oriel windows seem to crop up more often here than they do on buildings
24 snark – tin = SN + ARK = vessel. “The Hunting of the Snark” is a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll
27 Sam – SPAM. A strange clue, in that the setter’s in-box may contain spam but thanks to Gmail, I haven’t seen any in months.

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

28 comments on “Times Crossword 25,379 – not spam-free, but homophone-free”

  1. As so often at the moment I solved most of this fairly quickly but then got stuck and just about doubled my solving time pondering the last two or three clues. I didn’t actually know WARM DOWN or FLAG RANK however these went in without too many problems but MISERICORD as an alternative name for ‘Miserere’ was beyond my ken and needed a little assistance. RESURGENT changed at the 11th hour from ‘resurrect’ was my last one in.

    Apologies, Jerry, if you saw my original message subsequently deleted; I hadn’t read your comment closely enough.

    Edited at 2013-01-23 01:48 am (UTC)

  2. A “phew” moment after yesterday’s effort; but not much to say except that:
    • I liked the “back up” def at 17dn for RESURGENT.
    • Ditto the “prayer” as a person praying in 23ac.
    • Padding in 18ac duly noted.
    • Probably no need for the DBE-avoiding “for one” in 23ac, with Scrooge as the eponymous (?) miser (cf “Waterloo” for defeat).

    Oh and … today’s hidden words: SASH, REIN, WENT, NIP, LOO.

    Edited at 2013-01-23 02:30 am (UTC)

  3. The last few (AUSPICES, APOLLO, RESURGENT) took heaps of time. I, too, toyed with ‘resurrect’ (and ‘restraint’, even) once I got the R,E,S; and that R led me to suspect ‘-ory’, which gave me PROMONTORY, which I didn’t understand until coming here. An ugly clue. I also wasted a lot of time on 26ac, trying to stick a G somewhere. The thing to know about Rhode Island is that it was founded by Roger Williams, whose radical egalitarianism helped get him booted out of Plymouth Colony. He was responsible for the first anti-slavery legislation in America, and advocated (unlike the Massachusetts Puritans) total liberty of conscience.
    1. …whereas I know it as the name of a chicken. This tells you something about how my mind works.
  4. Put in the non-exsitent SILLED at 1ac (sounds like it would mean inclined) and SPILLED certainly fitted, but LIGHTYEAR put paid to that idea. IMPEDIMENTA and PROVIDENCE took longer than they should have.

    Didn’t time it, was making dinner at the same time.

  5. Defeated by RESURGENT (couldn’t see past ‘resurrect’ – done by the non-tricky wordplay) and AUSPICES (failed to interprect ‘revolutionary’ correctly). At least, I wasn’t alone, I see.
  6. Meant to mention that I found the surface reading of 15ac just fine (see blog). It works if you remember that many people do play cards on line these days.
  7. 15m. I found this straightforward but highly enjoyable. I didn’t know MISERICORD or FLAG RANK, or who hunted the SNARK. I also couldn’t parse MINUTE, so thanks for that. “Travelled through” in 18ac raised an eyebrow.
  8. A rather vanilla offering that I strolled through in 15 minutes. Only one query along the way – the “travelled through” in 18A. Otherwise not a mark on my paper other than the entries in the grid. MISERICORD from MISERC-R- and wordplay – didn’t recall the word if I’d seen it before.
  9. 20d. Surely strictly speaking “action” is the cue to the actors to start acting. Doesn’t shooting begin as soon as the camera starts to roll?
    1. Interesting point. I was about to agree but on reflection, I suppose whether the camera is rolling or not, you only really start shooting a film when there is action.. also m’Lud, I believe it is common to just say “action” to do the work of the full phrase
  11. A rather slow solve, finishing in 45 minutes. Some answers came very quickly (eg APOLLLO GOYA, MISERICORD), others took ages. However I cannot claim to have finished unaided as I had an unconvincing RESURRECT, then checked for other possibilities using an aid and saw RESURGENT, which I hadn’t seen for myself.

    I loved the deceptive clue for 15, where it was so easy to see “employing memory” as the definer, particularly given a likely ending of T O/A R Y.

  12. 27:51 .. well, I found it difficult (as, looking at the leader board, did a few of the other regulars). AUSPICES, SAM, RESURGENT and WELLY all held me up. A few others took longer to justify than solve (especially ORIEL ).

    Do Morrissey songs start with a MISERICORD?

  13. Hilaire Belloc wrote (racistly)

    Behold, my child, the Nordic man,
    And be as like him, as you can;
    His legs are long, his mind is slow,
    His hair is lank and made of tow.

    I can’t find any support for the idea that tow rhymes with cow.

  14. All but 2 done in 30 mins. Promontory and Resurgent. One wrong. Work down for warm down.
  15. 33 minutes. Is t doing double duty in 29 (3rd and 4th notes)? As others held up too long on a few. Good honest fare.
  16. For 20d I took shooting as being action in a military sense ie that soldiers on telly talk about seeing “action” anyway – all raods lead to Rome as in this case?
  17. I know I’m very late, sorry. About 30 minutes, LOI AUSPICES. I had PROMONTORY, but had no idea how the wordplay worked, so thanks. Regards.
  18. Had to do this in fits and starts during the day, took a long time to justify IMPEDIMENTA and RESURGENT, also wondering if it would be MINUTE or MINUTA.
  19. 9:06 for me. I’d have been faster if I hadn’t taken a rash chance with CANT for 20ac (FAST), recollecting vaguely – but quite wrongly! – that it could mean “move fast”. Thank heavens the F and S were checked rather than the A and T.

    Apart from that – and slight hold-ups with RESURGENT and MINUTE – this was pretty much plain sailing, as I was much more in tune with the setter than I was yesterday.

  20. Late today after a hectic time at work so no idea how long – probably 50 minutes plus and undone by APOLLO which I can’t quite make parse and in which I came across a new addition to the crossword ‘slang’ that O equals halo. Live and learn!
    1. Think of ‘with’ as the linking word and ‘a halo on head’ as ‘A’ followed ‘Halo-on-head’ (POLL+O). Not sure if that helps. 🙁
      1. Many thanks for response – I wasn’t expecting one at that late hour! I think at least you have identified my problem. It is the use of ‘on’ meaning after for the halo. In my simplicity I would have thought it meant OPOLL rather than APOLLO. But at least I am forewarned to think ON means before or after. Just thought though that using Jimbo’s lift and separate law the ON could refer to head in which case the head is on the halo! So it does work.

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