Times Crossword 25,571 – don’t mention the answers..

Solving Time: 22 minutes on the club timer, but that does include printing the crossword off, pouring a nice glass of wine, settling down in an armchair, solving on paper, entering all the answers later etc etc. Perhaps 15 minutes of actual solving, this was not a terribly hard crossword. I enjoyed it, and have no real complaints. It is one letter short of being a pangram; it has an unusually large number of two-word answers (8); and for a change, it makes no reference to the game of cricket.. I haven’t much else to say.

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

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across
1 scream – S + CREAM
5 tide over – D(AUGHTER) in bind = TIE + unused = OVER
9 jumpsuit – spring = JUMP, clubs say = SUIT. it may be put on, though not by me in any circumstances that I can imagine
10 Red Rum – MURDER, rev. To my mind Red Rum is the most remarkable racehorse of all time. He ran 100 races over fences, including five Grand Nationals, and never fell once. Unique
11 edge tool – *(EG TOLEDO)
12 wah-wah – W(ITH) A H(ORN), twice. What I would call a band pass filter
13 sheathed – articles = A + THE, in cast = SHED
15 info – home = IN + belonging to = OF, rev.
17 Elbe – hidden.. you could define a crossword enthusiast as someone who sees “banker” and automatically thinks “river.”
19 smarting – memory = RAM rev. in do = con = STING
20 taught – “TAUT”
21 aquatint – A + T(IME) in QUAINT
22 endure – dd
23 intimate – A(CCOUN)T in IN TIME
24 marjoram – MAR + gold = OR in JAM = spot
25 earned – (L)EARNED
Down
2 cauldron – AULD (as in Lang Syne) in CRON(E)
3 expresso – ODO says: “The spelling expresso is not used in the original Italian and is incorrect, although it is common.” I am very surprised to see it – and not for the first time – in a Times crossword. Time was, when you would be penalised for such a mistake
4 mausoleum – gold, this time AU, + only = SOLE in silent = MUM
5 totalitarianism – *(A STALIN IMITATOR) .. neat anagram!
6 emerald – ME in (H)ERALD
7 very well – dd
8 romp home – RO(W) + PM rev., + HOME
14 etiquette – *(QUITE) + (L)ETTE(R)
15 isotherm – extra = OTHER in ISM, “…a distinctive practice, system, or philosophy, typically a political ideology or an artistic movement” (ODO)
16 flounder – L(ARGE) in FOUNDER
17 egg timer – *(MIGHT AGREE), without the A or the H(OT)
18 brunette – stretch = RUN (as in run/stretch to, I suppose) in BETTE(R). What most women used to be, before l’Oreal etc. Not terribly keen on this clue, better doesn’t mean streets ahead, it only means ahead
19 scherzo – unknown = Z in *(H + SCORE)

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

59 comments on “Times Crossword 25,571 – don’t mention the answers..”

  1. I was racing the clock with just 18d to finish, but that one took me 2+ minutes to give me 31:32. Didn’t notice (and barely knew) the expression ‘streets ahead’. Also DNK RED RUM, but figured it must be the name of a horse, as I gather it was. ‘Expresso’ strikes me as not that far from ‘Febuary’; it’s bad enough when an uncommon variant spelling shows up as a solution, but this!
  2. 32 minutes parsing as I went, with the last 10 spent on 21,18, 15dn and 24. Having got a bit stuck on these I wasted a couple of those minutes working out what was needed to complete the pangram in case the missing letter(s) might help to complete the grid. But they didn’t.

    With three easy puzzles in a row I am now wondering whether Uncle Yap or I will (or both of us perhaps) will get a stinker to blog.

  3. I enjoyed this puzzle, which I thought was very even in quality, finishing with BRUNETTE. Nothing wrong with the clue, as far as I can see, as the ODO entry for run (noun) 4 has ‘a continuous spell of a particular situation or condition’, which is good enough for me, and then ‘a continuous stretch or length of something’ to clinch it, as it were!

    Didn’t know WAH-WAH, didn’t automaitcfally think of river for banker, and didn’t mind EXPRESSO. If loads of people say it and spell it this way, then dictionaries of the English language, if they pay more than lip service to the descriptive principle in lexicography, must at least consider it. Thus, language changes – if not, indeed, progresses…

    1. I didn’t like EXPRESSO, though I take your point that it is quite often heard and that language changes. Whether this usage is now common enough to warrant the description “accepted” rather than just “incorrect” is debatable. I think Jerry’s objection to 18D BRUNETTE turns no so much on “run”=”stretch” as on “better”=”streets ahead”, which it clearly doesn’t.
  4. Another neuralgia-filled morning. But at least the printer’s back up and going. So much nicer not to have that timer going on the screen.

    Don’t think, pace Ulaca, that there’s much excuse for EXPRESSO. But a WAH-WAH is certainly such. Couldn’t imagine Hendrix saying “band pass filter”.

    The dreaded double-E grid nearly did me in at 10ac and 8dn where DES RES and REST HOME pleaded to be entered. Glad I didn’t have to blog this Wednesday.

    Edited at 2013-09-04 04:22 am (UTC)

  5. 13:26 .. few minutes to find the wavelength but then it all fell into place easily.

    True confession time: I used to pronounce it ‘expresso’, but then a lady in Chicago was kind enough to correct me, even to the point of spelling it for me. Lovely woman.

    The more sophisticated coffee-drinking nations should really take pity on us Brits. Until quite recent times an ‘expresso’ meant an extra teaspoon of instant in the mug. And you don’t want to know how we made ‘frothy coffee’.


  6. Was held up by a carless typo of TOTALITARIANISM, but not by much.

    Didn’t like EXPRESSO, didn’t know WAH WAH, or that spot=JAM.

    I did see banker and immediately thought ‘river’. I’m making progress…

  7. Just under the hour for me so pretty average. Spotted Elbe straight away from banker/river which seems to me a Times favourite, so thanks for making my day Jerry!
  8. I can’t believe all the fuss about EXPRESSO.

    COED and Collins list it as a variant of ‘Espresso’, Chambers says ‘same as’ and OED has ‘Espresso , also Expresso’. So of the usual sources, only ODE, which nevertheless gives it its own entry with a cross reference to ‘Espresso’, makes any reference to incorrectness (as mentioned by the blogger) while admitting the spelling and usage is common.

    Whatever the original Italian term for the coffee, it is derived from the Latin “expressus” so it and the English variant are clearly linked etymologically. ‘Febuary’ for ‘February’ is in no way comparable.

    I fail to see that a mortal sin has been committed, the required spelling is clear and unambiguous from the wordplay so any complaints should be addressed to the dictionary publishers and not to the setter.

    Edited at 2013-09-04 06:08 am (UTC)

    1. I’m writing letters just now Jack. Given that the X is not crossed, I can’t see why the genuine article wasn’t used.

      The NOAD says:

      USAGE The often-occurring variant spelling expresso — and its pronunciation |ikˈspresō| — is incorrect and was probably formed by analogy with express.

      Incorrect is incorrect. “There are no surprises in logic”!

      Edited at 2013-09-04 06:25 am (UTC)

      1. Well, I expect the answer to that is when the setter wrote the clue he/she had hopes of making a pangram and that got the X out of the way!
        1. I think you may have something there Jack. Also EX-PRESS-O is easier to clue than ES-PRESS-O.
  9. I’m amazed. This took me just over 10 minutes (one of my fastest solves ever, with virtually every answer going in, fully parsed, on first reading). I assumed this was a relatively easy solve and expected to see some ultra-fast times. Maybe I just happened to be absolutely on the setter’s wavelength (one of those rare occasions when even the musical reference didn’t hold me up).
  10. While not disputing Rummie’s record and abilities, spare a thought for Crisp, who Red Rum beat in his first National in ’73. Crisp, under top weight, had given arguably the greatest Aintree jumping performance of all time, and was only piped on the post by this lightweight impostor! Richard Pitman, jockey of Crisp, arguably never recovered his reputation from the castigation he received for ‘dropping his hands’ on the runner-up and favourite (if I recall correctly).

    In a role-reversal that didn’t bother racegoers much at the time – as the legend that was to become Red Rum was not established till he won back-to-back Nationals as an 11/12-year-old – Rummie himself was runner-up the next two years, as he in turn struggled at the hands of the handicapper.

    1. Pitman indeed blames himself for losing, but not due to dropping his hands. He says that at the Elbow (the last jink in the track before the final hill to the line) he drew his whip with the wrong hand, making Crisp veer off a straight line.

      Earlier in his racing career, Red Rum was ridden by Lester Piggott.

      I have to admit that it never occurred to me to write in Espresso

      1. Thanks for the corrections to both you and Jerry. I was going from memory and eschewing Google for a change.

        My cousin by marriage missed out on riding the 1971 National winner after a particularly bad fall. He ended up with just the Gold Cup on his resume, even if he was one of the greatest horsemen of his, arguably any, day. And he rode at almost 12st, being 5’10”!

    2. Yes, Crisp was a fine horse, and that particular battle is still remembered as one of the great Nationals… even I remember it. Incidentally, Crisp was carrying 12st, the same weight as Red Rum was carrying the following year, when he won. Now prohibited in the National.
  11. I’ve always insisted on ”espresso” but feel I am being over-didactic to the point of pedantry when everyone I know says EXPRESSO. Can’t say I get steamed up about it, so to speak, any longer; there is no possibility of getting a skinny latte, is there?

    What does bother me is when a slight change in the spelling of a foreign word alters the meaning completely. The one that has come to my attention recently (aptly, since the discussion has a horsey theme this morning) is the word “manege”, which I often see spelt “menage”. Only yesterday, I drove past a riding school advertising an “outdoor menage”; there was no sign of hanky-panky in the hedgerows, though.

    Oh yes, a very enjoyable half-hour puzzle, I thought, though it took me a while parse ISOTHERM.

    1. Well I always say “espresso” too. But I know that any smugness I may or may not feel (I’m taking the fifth) about my “authentic” spelling has no intellectual foundation.
      Thinking about it I wonder if the French are to blame for this. They tend to say “café express”.
      I doubt “ménage” for “manège”* will catch on, but in the meantime it’s rather funny.

      *I’m not smug about my ability to key ALT 130 and ALT 138, I promise.

      1. I wonder if some of the confusion comes from the film title “Expresso Bongo” starring Cliff Richard and set world of 1950s coffee bars.

        1. That may have helped propagate the usage but I doubt they invented it. Rather like all those words Shakespeare is supposed to have “coined”: if he had really coined them all (as opposed to just writing the earliest surviving written example) his plays would have been rather hard to understand!
      2. It looks as though it already has, K, though without the acute accent.

        Googling [“riding school” menage] returns 367,000 hits, [“riding school“ manege] 41,900. I notice that Chambers gives menage as an obsolete form of manage (which is related to manège) but I nonetheless continue to be intrigued by “private lessons in the menage”, “make your own menage” and “a menage with semi-permanent jumps”.

        1. Gosh, so it has. Ah well, nothing we can do about it other than titter. From the Bolsover Castle website:

          Cavendish…was considered an authority on the art of Menage, so much so that he was engaged as tutor to the Young Prince Charles (later to become Charles II).

          Edited at 2013-09-04 01:50 pm (UTC)

      1. Thank you, Jack. I try to have a look at the blog each day but haven’t had time to comment for a while.
  12. 10m. Very straightforward, but I was tipped just over the 10 minute mark by taking a couple of minutes over BRUNETTE.
    All this stuff about EXPRESSO is a load of nonsense I’m afraid. So the English language has slightly mangled a foreign word when adopting it: this is incredibly common. In fact it probably happens more often than not. In any case notions of correct and incorrect, right and wrong, are utterly meaningless when it comes to language, and any dictionary purporting to be an authority on these meaningless notions is strictly ultra vires. We can talk about not liking a certain usage, or convention (which is just lots of people not liking a certain usage) but there is no intellectual basis for anything beyond that.
    Rant over.

    Edited at 2013-09-04 08:17 am (UTC)

  13. 18 mins but I should have been a lot quicker. The RHS, apart from BRUNETTE, went in very quickly, but I took much longer than I should have done to see TOTALITARIANISM. My slowness on the LHS is hard to explain, and the CAULDRON/EDGE TOOL crossers were my last in. I’m with jackkt and keriothe as far as EXPRESSO is concerned.
  14. 10:39 for a (mostly) perfectly good puzzle at the easier end of the spectrum. But at the risk of joining the side of the humourless pedant brigade, as nobody is calling us, I thought 3 down was dreadful. Maybe the setter just wanted to annoy David Mitchell (see below).

    Edited at 2013-09-04 10:00 am (UTC)

    1. Terrific stuff. Tim – as a M&W aficionado (I’m assuming), are you able to find the sketch they did about those awful slogans that corporate organizations love to stick beneath their names (I recall: Metropolitan Police – We’re People Who Catch Criminals)? I’ve looked for it before without success.
      1. Afraid I can’t help you there, though it does ring a bell (mind you, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise, corporate idiocy is a pretty well-ploughed furrow for M&W…)
        1. THAT’s the one! Thank you. The bit I slightly misremembered is in Part 2 of that video –

          Metropolitan Police – The People Who Arrest People

          I still don’t know for the life of me why police forces need slogans.

          Edited at 2013-09-04 03:43 pm (UTC)

  15. As Chrome won’t play online again, had to spend a few minutes getting into Firefox, but then was finished under half an hour with no major difficulties.
    I agree that Jack’s theory of the failed pangram attempt is the likely reason for the X – the wordplay made it clear immediately.
  16. Having been too busy to do crosswords for a number of days, I found this quite a friendly challenge to get back into things. I did not time myself, but did not take too long – certainly within the half-hour.
    Like others, I was not keen on the clue fot ‘brunette’ (loi) and I thought that 22a ‘endure’ only just made it as a double definition.
    George Clements
  17. enjoyable romp

    legacy of last year’s Norwegian holiday was that the “banker” that leapt out at me was the hEIDElberg (river then fjord), so wasted time trying to find a (e.g. Latin) 7D 4.4 ending with I, till I finally twigged 18D, and got the correct river.

  18. 6.34 – probably would have been 5.34 but I did have to look at EXPRESSO twice, particularly as I usually have to remember to put the first S instead of an X.
  19. Goodness, when was the last time a clue answer attracted so much comment?
    Surprised to find another fairly easy puzzle that I could complete in 30 minutes again. I thought the anagram for 5d was terrific. I was less keen on “streets ahead” for BETTER for the reason given in jerry’s blog. The clue for 11 is faulty; either “from” or “is’ needs removing for the cryptic to work. As it stands, the only logical way to read it is as an anagram of EG TOLEDO IS.
  20. 12:43 for me.

    I have no strong views on the espresso/expresso debate (although I wonder how Sotira’s lady in Chicago would respond if you asked for a cup o’ chino) and have no amusing anecdotes to offer on Red Rum, riding stables or horses generally so I’ll leave it at that.

  21. 29/29 in 30 minutes over four sessions.
    Doesn’t seem long ago that we last had this grid with the two Es and the two fully checked answers.
    I’m speechless that somebody hadn’t heard of Red Rum!
    1. Plenty of people:
      1. Aren’t that old
      2. Live elsewhere and have never been to England
      3. Don’t like or follow horse-racing
  22. One of the easier puzzles of recent times but the Stalin anagram is a stonker. Dim memories of the river Delb in Warhammer but that was never going to be the answer to 17A. Surprised that EXPRESSO is so widespread as I’d always thought it was just a mispronunciation – don’t recall ever seeing it spelled that way on a menu but, not being much of a coffee drinker, it could well have slipped past.
  23. I too winced at ‘expresso’. I always maintain that just because something’s in a dictionary it isn’t necessarily correct.

    Over 20 years ago one of my clients, who supplied those moisture retaining mats you see in public buildings, insisted on correcting my copy to: ‘your offices and corridoors will be dryer than ever before’.

    I won the case on ‘corridors’ (my client thought it should have a double o because it contained doors) but failed to convince her over ‘drier’ because she eventually found ‘dryer’ as an alternative in one dictionary. We printed 5000 brochures, only to have her boss complain that the agency’s copywriter couldn’t spell ‘drier’.

    Happy days.

  24. No problem with EXPRESSO as it was clear from the wordplay and it had been here before. There’s words here on a daily basis I have no intention of using. This was a good one for doing during quick peeks at work, and some really nice surfaces – A STALIN IMITATOR is a nice find and the clues for ETIQUETTE and AQUATINT don’t come smoother.
  25. 20.28. Nothing to get worked up about except better being streets ahead, not merely ahead, as Jerry says. As for expresso, a wah-wah out of nothing, so far as I’m concerned. An unprepossessing but adequate puzzle.
  26. I woke up this morning with a conspiracy theory.

    The Listener crossword regularly has clues with additional letters or words which collectively mean something and assist in solving the grid. Perhaps the unnecessary words ‘seaside’ and ‘odd’ this week are part of a wider story to be revealed later. Haven’t picked today’s oddball yet though.

    :-))

  27. About 20 minutes due to getting held up at the end by TAUGHT, because my mind got stuck on ‘touchy’ as ‘far from relaxed’. I tried too hard and too long to make it fit the wordplay, but it didn’t, obviously. I also had no idea what ‘streets ahead’ had to do with anything, but on the other hand I knew of RED RUM. As others have pointed out, a tip of the cap is called for re the long anagram, so thanks to the setter for that, and regards to all.

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