Times Crossword 25,499 – Second Championship Qualifier

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: Traditionally we don’t discuss these, for the qualifying competition. Disclosing your time will merely give others either a probably unjustified sense of optimism, or an unhelpful gloomy feeling. Suffice it to say that this follows in a long line of qualifiers which are far easier than you are likely to meet on the day, should you progress so far.

I am now in Hendaye, France, on the Atlantic coast of France near the Spanish border, if all has gone according to plan with my travel arrangements and also with Livejournal’s diarising capability. See you all again in August, or thereabouts. If you are curious to see if I have reached the Mediterranean, or instead fallen off a mountain, look for Jerry Whitmarsh, Maidstone, on Facebook. All friends welcome

I have rather riffled through the blog, as the crossword is a week old now. Any questions, do please ask and I’m sure they will be answered..

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

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across
1 bohemian – *(HIM + AN OBE)
5 apical – A + PIC + A L. A clue that relies pretty much on the solution being and unfamiliar word
9 staccato – *(ACT + ACT + SO)
10 linnet – L(ARGE) + IN NET
12 latin – LA + TIN
13 enactment – a cd, referring to the House of Commons. Though the Queen’s approval and that of the HoL are needed as well, so I’m told.
14 bootstrapped – hotel worker = BOOTS + got into net = TRAPPED. I will let the ODO define the word, which I confess I was surprised to find in a Times cryptic, though no doubt I shouldn’t have been: a technique of loading a program into a computer by means of a few initial instructions which enable the introduction of the rest of the program from an input device.
18 apothecaries – A + POT + HE CAR(R)IES
21 coup d’etat – C(OMPANY) + *(UP TO DATE). I cannot rid myself of the feeling that cluing “d’etat” as (5) is wrong.. I know it is the Times convention, and I know if you clue it as (1’4) it may give the game away.. but still. Just wrong, however you dress it up.
23 toast – S(ON) in TO A T
24 skiing – I in S KING
25 locution – copper = CU in LOTION
26 sitars – India on radio = I in STARS, one of which the late lamented George Harrison surely was. Neat clue
27 deck hand – neat (but easy) cd
Down
1 basalt – AB rev. + SALT. Why AB, and not AS, means “able seaman,” is a mystery to me..
2 hearty – HEART + Y(OU)
3 macintosh – a neatly hidden clue
4 authenticity – article = THE in relative = AUNT, + I CITY
6 paint – P AIN’T. Another curious word, ain’t. If you are going to say “ai” instead of “am,” why bother to be so particular as to put in the apostrophe?
7 contempt – CONTEST, with S = second replaced by MP, a “successful runner.”
8 latitude – cd. This is a most peculiar clue. Why pick on poor Ecuador? It is notably democratic (voting is actually compulsory!) and there are a number of South American countries with smaller latitudinal geographical measurement. Notably Chile.. I think it likely the setter has confused the two, the latter being so obviously thin, in proportion to its length. Or I missed something.
11 masterstroke – (ANAGRA)M, + R + OK in *(A SETTER’S)
15 awestruck – A + “royal I” = WE + S TRUCK
16 Caucasus – since = AS in CAUCUS
17 populist – report = POP + U + LIST
19 maxima – saw = MAXIM + A
20 stoned – dd
22 donor – N(AME) in DOOR

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

8 comments on “Times Crossword 25,499 – Second Championship Qualifier”

  1. But a few probs with the cryptic defs and pondering the parsing of CONTEMPT. “Successful runner” indeed!

    Suspect the Ecuador clue has to do with degrees of latitude. Being on the equator (hence the name) it doesn’t have a lot of those. Looks like about five or six in total:

    http://www.mapsofworld.com/lat_long/ecuador-lat-long.html

    Edited at 2013-06-20 03:38 am (UTC)

  2. Something like 34′. Could have been a bit quicker, but I took forever to parse LINNET, even though it came to me almost immediately; it turned out to be my LOI. Never did parse MASTERSTROKE, or CONTEMPT. Apostrophic terms irritate me, too, but what can you do? Eliminate them? My sense is that, unlike hyphens, showing the ‘ in the enumeration would generally give the game away.
  3. I did a lot better on this than the first qualifier although it was by no means a write-in. My only real problem was BOOTSTRAPPED where the only hotel worker I could think of was ‘porter’. 8dn was my last in and I realise now that I entered it and put the puzzle aside without considering the wordplay in detail.
  4. mctext has got the point – forget Chile, which has a small measurement in longitude as it doesn’t extend far laterally.
    Spent several minutes pondering CONTEMPT, but never did see the wordplay.
    I don’t like the Times convention for apostrophes, but agree that anything better would be too helpful.
  5. I did this in 12m. Not good enough to qualify, it seems, so it must have been very easy!
  6. I found this quite tough, and clicked on Submit without having parsed 7dn (CONTEMPT), and feeling nervous about STONED as I don’t recall coming across “bombed” = “intoxicated by drink or drugs” before. In fact I was a bit worried about 27ac as well, but felt I could justify it (as a cd) if it came up on the day. At least my career in IT meant I had no problem with BOOTSTRAPPED.
  7. “Why pick on poor Ecuador?”:- I took this to mean the line of latitude (the Equator) after which Ecuador is named, and the fact that it has a value of 0ยบ…
  8. It had to be Ecuador for the surface reading surely? With Julian Assange trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy and trying to reach the country itself, we are having rammed down our throats that Ecuadorians don’t actaully enjoy the freedoms Assange espouses.
    Rob

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