Times crossword 25715: All you have to do is get all the letters in the right order

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Stopped the clock after a smidge over 20 minutes. Probably should have been quicker, but decided still to do this on the night shift after a long day pottering around northern France with my 10 year old granddaughter tracing the last days of her great-great-great-grandfather, finding both his name at the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, and the place where he fell at the tiny hamlet of Louverval on the road from Bapaume to Cambrai, which still looks,in the grey and uncertain light, like the sort of place where WW1 clashes were bound to happen. Rest in peace Roger Tom Juggins, outcast from England doing his duty in the guise of an Australian. Perhaps I can be forgiven for being a tad sluggish – there was a lot of driving and a bowlful of emotion, with much of pride in both my ancestor and his young descendant. Anyway, to the puzzle, which announced itself as a probable pangram with a J in top left. Now where did I put all those other letters. Ah yes…

Across

1   JIGSAW  If you served in the (US) military you WAS GI (d-n this pesky grammar). Reverse it to follow that J(udge)
4   EMPIRES  One of Ireland’s identities, EIRE’S looking after MP, the easiest example of a politician. Powers as in Germany,
     Britain and France at the beginning of WW1
9   BATON  Perhaps not particularly familiar as a weapon. In cricket, one of the things you do if you don’t declare is BAT ON
     (if Australian most recently …and on and on and on)
10 EXEMPLARY  Seasoned campaigners see flower and think river, usually Po or the ever useful EXE, in this case given by the
     helpful “Devon”. MARY the girl is set outside of PL(ace) for a model clue.
11 EARNESTLY Seasoned campaigners see “composer” and think ARNE (Rule Britannia and all that) and his claim to fame as a
     useful collection of letters. In STYLE rearranged, this time. Seriously.
12 ROMAN  Today’s hidden fROM ANcona.
13 KIEL  Careful here. A poetic ship is a KEEL, but you need its soundalike famous canal which connected the Baltic to the
     North Sea so that the German Imperial Navy could avoid having to go round Denmark
14 RUN SHORT OF  I read this as “begin to lack” (definition), control=RUN, in a way=SHORT OF if slurred by excess alcohol.
18 RECOMMENCE  I got hung up on the ancient REDE for advise plus some other stuff, but it’s advise=RECOMMEND, D(aughter)
     leaving and being replaced by an empty C(ours)E
20 OPAL  Today’s every other letter Or PeArL.
23 PRANG usually preceded by “wizard” in Bigglespeak. P(arkiing + RANG(e) for the almost-sierra.
24 PENURIOUS “Very poor” for definition. Writer=PEN, the URIOUS comes from a Thesaurus 3 point turn via strange in which
     CURIOUS=novel only to have its C(hapter) removed
25 SICK LEAVE Harvester whimsically=SICKLE, add AVER for claim and remove its R(ight)
26 EQUAL  Queen is not ER, peer is not noble. QU in EA(ch) L(iberal). “A jury of his peers”
27 AIRDRIE  The (British) crossworder’s road to the north is the A1. add an anagram of RIDER. The A1 stops a long way short of
     Airdrie. At least it wasn’t clued with reference to the celebrated Ferguson hAIRDRIEr. Just a thought, setters.
28 CEMENT  I quite liked this smoothie. CT as a traditional abbreviation for court, E(nglish) MEN are contained and act like
     glue.

Down

1   JOBSEEKER‘s Allowance is the jauntier term for unemployment benefit introduced in 1995, intended to distinguish the
     earnest out-of-work-but-looking from the merely idle and indigent scrounger. I’ve been one (shan’t say which). Here
     B(ishop) with his place of work SEE, is the the filler for JOKER (card). An amusing little story of a clue, worthy of a modern
     Trollope.
2   GUTHRIE Stomach=GUT, parcelled with H(ou)r and 1 E(uropean for (one assumes) Woody of that Ilk.
3   ARNHEM  A wild mishmash of military misdirection for A Bridge Too Far. Navy gives RN, add H(igh) E(xplosive) and bed both
      in AM(erican)
4   ELEGY  More familiarly written in a Country Churchyard, this &lit gives L(ines) E(xemplum) G(ratis) in ELY, “ship of the fens”
     more often clued hereabouts by “see”,
5   PAPER BOY (though it doesn’t have to be 5,3 and conventionally isn’t). PROBE anagrammed into wage=PAY
6   READMIT Given by study=READ with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. College? Discuss.
7   SPY ON  “Every Step You Take” Playboy’s two covers are P and Y, lad=SON the container. Mildly disturbing. So’s the song –
     ever listened to the words?
8   TEST TUBE  Another tidy &lit, Container=BUTT (stop sniggering at the back) ready=SET, combined and reversed at
     Experiment’s start.
15  SECONDED Tory=CON(servative) contained within (thank)S and two ED(itor)s.
16 FALLS FLAT “Leaves one cold” the definition, (Victoria) FALLS and apartment=FLAT the wordplay, The ? is there to justify a
     “definition by example”.
17 SMUGGLER  Runner the synonym, SMUGGER contains (indicated by “crossing”) L(ine)
19 CHANCER  Chancery is the section of the legal system that deals with what is equitable rather than what is merely legal,
     such as the interpretation of wills. Jarndyce v Jarndyce its most famous, if fictional case, introduced by Dickens to
     illustrate the wisdom of the aphorism “Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!”  It loses its
     “unknown”  (X, Y and Z the most common examples) for our villain.
21 PROCURE  A simple joining of PRO (expert) and CURE (successful treatment). “Get” the laconic definition
22 BREEZE  Or as almost anyone (except the French) would pronounce Bries. An attempt to discredit L’industrie laitière
     française avec un on dit?
23 PASTA  “A course in Italian”. History=PAST, top academic stream=A (mine was alpha)
24 PEACE  I essayed POISE with no real justification. P(hysical) E(xercise) expert=ACE.

 

67 comments on “Times crossword 25715: All you have to do is get all the letters in the right order”

  1. about 35 or 40 mins for me. didn’t time it and was also answering the odd email. airdrie is not *that* far beyond the end of the A1 (end of Prince’s Street in Ediburgh). Given that Scotland goes north for nearly another 300 miles without even counting the islands.

    Held up since I was convinced 24 was PENNILESS even though I could not justify more than the PEN or the literal. Was also tempted by POISE and it ended up being my LOI since I couldn’t see it.

    It has to be Woody and not Arlo since Arlo is alive.

    At 7D I think you mean “Every Breath You Take”. It should be the NSA/GCHQ theme song. “I’ll be watching you.”

    Edited at 2014-02-20 03:27 am (UTC)


  2. … and that wrong letter was at KIEL, where I went for ‘keel’ without really thinking about parsing it.

    All others ok, and after a slow start I made steady progress to finish with PEACE and AIRDRIE in 45mins. Needed all the checkers for the unfamiliar Scottish town, and even then very nearly went with ‘airerid’. Wondered what ‘stream’ was doing in 23dn, thinking that ‘top Academic’=A. Also didn’t really parse RUN SHORT OF.

    Didn’t see the pangram. As usual.

    Sounds like you had a great day, Z. Any day spent pottering with a granddaughter, whatever the context, can only be a good one.

    1. not necessarily true Janie.
      Half-Term this week. Daughter informed me yesterday that I was taking her, 6 year old Ellie and 19 month old Nathan (who used the ramp thingie) bowling. Venue packed.
      Grandson wanted to take everyone’s go, on every alley. Granddaughter threw a very public strop because Nathan was beating her. Then grandfather’s somewhat gammy left ankle collapsed under him on run up, depositing him in an ungainly heap in the gulley of the neighbouring lane.
      1. Great day. You’ll be able to tell your grandchildren about it – when they’ve forgotten. As for the crossword: about a week’s worth of cute clues in one.
  3. 47 minutes – so 5 minutes adrift of my target again – with ticks against 3, 9, 14 and 24d. Sadly, none of Fergie’s nine Scottish clubs was based in Airdrie. (Good to see that commonsense prevailed and the town’s football team reverted to the euphonious Airdrieonians after a dalliance with the prosaic Airdrie United.)

    Be thankful for small mercies – at least 13 wasn’t clued by ‘Poetic ship sounding like OK singer’.

  4. Great to see the good and great Woody in the puzzle. (One day we’ll be proud to have a sticker reading “This forum kills fascists”.)

    Had a load of trouble with the TEST-TUBE clue. The answer was obvious, but not the parsing until I remembered “a butt of malmsey”. On reflection, has to be my COD.

    Love a good metonym, so 13ac (KIEL) was most welcome.

  5. Somewhere between 35 and 40′, with everything but bits of the SW in by the half-hour, the rest going in during lunch. I outdid myself today with rash, unjustified flingings-in of non-solutions: ‘armada’ at 3d, ‘shtum’ at 9ac–forget which justified the M of the other–‘pearl’ at 26ac, ‘take leave’ at 25ac; no wonder I went overtime. Tempted, but only for a few seconds, by ‘keel’. Thanks for explaining RUN SHORT OF, which I didn’t even try to parse.
  7. MIT is a “college” in the American sense of the word, in that it confers bachelor’s degrees on those who complete a (usually) four-year course of study.
    1. MIT is a university in the American sense of the word, in that it confers Ph.D. and other doctoral degrees, where a college doesn’t (although it may grant Master’s degrees). It is not a college in the American (or British, so far as I know) sense of the word. I’m sure we’ve been through this before here, since ‘MIT’ has been clued as ‘college’ often enough.
      1. Yes, it’s one of those “this what it means in the Times” constructions – the level of accuracy is secondary!
  8. 32 minutes with the 24s between them taking my solving time past 25 minutes. At 8dn I thought of TEST-TUBE on first reading the clue but required all the checkers to be sure enough to write the answer in and only then did the explanation become apparent. On the other hand I was pleased to work out 1dn from the wordplay with only the K checker in place. An excellent and well-constructed puzzle at the easier end of the spectrum.
  9. Morning reflection and Her Indoors reveal that 4 is not an &lit and I have too many Ls in my parsing. Pity, it was such a nice &lit.
  10. 25 minutes Monday, 35 Tuesday, 45 yesterday, so today…not 55 but 35! What price palindromic times this week? Somehow I doubt it.
    Still, probably the most enjoyable puzzle of the week so far – particularly liked 1a & 23d.
    Thanks for parsing 14 – I really didn’t have a clue why.

    Good ol’ Thomas Arne making a welcome reappearance. What would compilers have done if he hadn’t written “Rule Britannia” and so become famous?

  11. 12:18 on the club timer, in spite of bunging in PENNILESS and not reconsidering it for a while. So pretty gentle, but also a very enjoyable puzzle. Nothing unknown at all today, which is rare for me.
  12. 21.23. Last in peace, favourite clue the shlightly outrageous one, a tad disturbed by the hovering jobseeker, sick leave, penurious and run short of, glad to be reminded of the vowel-fest in Airdrieonians.

    Edited at 2014-02-20 09:20 am (UTC)

  13. Got everything except 14A in 15 in a minute romp. Thought 8D was a weak cryptic definition and completely missed the quite clever construction. Had no idea who GUTHRIE was. Finally had a Doh! moment with 14A. Nice puzzle.
  14. My uncle used to live in Verdun and I well remember visiting the seemingly endless graveyards as a child. I’m not saying military action is never necessary – but maybe these should be compulsory viewing for politicians in advance of such decisions?
    As for the crossword, zoomed through half and then DNF I’m afraid. Had to be enlightened by your explanations for 14ac and 24ac. And then there’s Kiel. Still looking at this and can’t see why it’s particularly ‘sounds like’ the poetic ship – can you let me know why taking sounding in canal can’t be ‘sounds like’ canal?
    1. It just makes a better surface reading this way, with the ship using its bathometer, or whatever, to measure the depth of the channel. Keel stands to a ship as crown to monarch, but I guess you know that!
  15. Pretty straightforward and entertaining, apart from the KEEL/KIEL conundrum; I picked the right one, so I suppose that could be said to prove it’s not debatable…but it took me a long time to come down on that side of the argument.

    Re: Suralex, Z, if you were suggesting that someone could make a good clue out of “Airdrie” being the central section of “hairdrier”, I can tell you that they already have. I blogged a puzzle from the Grand Final a couple of years ago, and that was the stand-out clue in one of the best crosswords I can remember solving in recent years.

    1. I thought it looked like a good one, though I’m not sure I ever tackled the puzzle. Not sure about a lot of could-be-remembered things these days…
      1. I think one of the rules of this blog is that the more puzzles you solve, the more inevitable it becomes you will at some point say with great confidence “I have never heard of this word”, only for someone to point out you said exactly the same thing the last time that word appeared, six months earlier. It’s certainly happened to me…or at least, I think I remember it happening…
  16. very nice blog, and enjoyable crossword. Didn’t know Guthrie or kiel canal- but both were gettable from the cryptic. Acceptable level of GK unlike yesterday’s scary offering.
  17. Polished off NE and SW quite happily, then seemed to lose the wavelength altogether. Ah well, roll on tomorrow…

    That said, the day was not entirely without amusement. When reviewing a proposal from an IT services company, I was delighted to see on offer “Disaster as a Service” (the unfortunate author had inadvertently omitted “Recovery” after Disaster). Want a complete meltdown? Sure, we can do that…

    Edited at 2014-02-20 11:21 am (UTC)

  18. Forgot to say thankyou, z8, for sharing the day. And what a wonderful name your great-grandfather had.
    1. My sister, who did all the research, is particularly thankful for the name. Now if he’d been called Jones…
  19. Sorry, should also have added many thanks for a particularly helpful blog. The care taken in explaining some of the more ticklish constructions is greatly appreciated by those of us relatively new to this game. Thanks very much.
  20. Pleasant enough and not the killer we expected. Re 13A, good to see that I can still spell synecdoche, hopefully! Great parsing z8

    Edited at 2014-02-20 12:11 pm (UTC)

  21. My fastest time for some years I think, about 45 minutes. Enjoyed the crossword, didn’t parse it all, esp test tube but enjoyed the challenge.

    That trip to France sounds wonderful, thank you for the blog.

    Nairobi Wallah

  22. Another slow start, not helped by a wild SUEZ at 13A and subsequently a dodgy POISE at 24D, but otherwise steady progress. COD to 1A.

    I thought that the “this” in the clue for 13A resolved what would otherwise be an ambiguity.

    When I lived in the States, it was striking to me that people always used “college” in situations where I would use “university”, whether they were talking about MIT, Stanford, or wherever. Regardless of colloquial usage, though, Chambers has one definition for college as “an institution for … higher education”.

    1. I expect that that is because the US doesn’t have the various gradations and mixes of pre-university education that the UK does. It’s Kindergarden, Grade (or Grammar)(I know) School, Middle School, High School – which mostly everyone does – then Higher Ed. I’m with DJ that we all know what College/MIT mean in our world, and will only contribute that, if we’re going to be pedantic then it’s not a uni, it’s an Institute.

      Edited at 2014-02-21 03:24 pm (UTC)

  23. This one composed itself clockwise, starting in the NE with EMPIRES and finishing in the NW with JIGSAW, where I got stuck trying to work in a Judge Advocate General. My penultimate JOBSEEKER is my COD, shared with the economical BATON (not often I commend a cricketing clue!) Liked the tricky TEST TUBE, which was not what it seemed. All in all, some nice, elegant clueing today – Thank You, setter.

    A steady 40 minutes. Would have been quicker but I was going through my own “catalogue” of poetic ships to get at 13ac: Argo, barque, Cacafuego, Deutschland … The penny only dropped after the excellent Woody GUTHRIE gave me the “E” crosser.

  25. 26 mins and I struggled to get on this setter’s wavelength. My amazement at Jimbo not knowing Woody Guthrie is probably the equivalent of his amazement at somebody not knowing one of the scientists he considers required knowledge.

    I got KIEL but like Tim I spent a long time thinking about which of the two homophones was required. I was also sidetracked by thinking that 24dn was going to be “poise”, and even after I solved 25ac it took me a while to see the “PE ace” element of the clue and it was my LOI.

      1. Nice to see some US GK to make it easier here every once in a while. I thought that with Pete Seger’s death and obits last week Woody G might have been mentioned
    2. I know of Woody Guthrie but only because of reading Q magazine cover to cover every month for a couple of decades (I otherwise have no interest in folk music). Though I’m sure most people will have heard “This land is your land”, even if they didn’t know the singer, I can’t recall (m)any mentions of him in the mainstream media.
      1. Just listened to This Land on YT – I’m clearly not one of the majority! OTOH, a song with a nit dissimilar type of message, The Last Resort, is one of my all-time favourites.

        ‘Call some place paradise – kiss it goodbye’. Wow! Karl Popper couldn’t have put it better…

    3. I never got beyond Simon and Garfunkle and Peter, Paul and Mary. You should never forget that I once owned up to never having watched Neighbours before being talked into it by members of this blog.

      The Times of course has a huge black hole when it comes to scientists and mathematicians with only the most obvious appearing

  27. Completely failed to get penurious and peace so despite knowing both Guthries, Kiel, Arnhem and Airdrie I get nul points.

    I liked the slurring in 14 but I’ll give my COD to 25 for the sickle.

  28. Internet went out at my place last night so I’m glad it wasn’t my turn to blog, snuck in early to work to do it on the work computer and clocked in at 19:50 – just above my Thrusday counterpart. Needed all the checking letters to get AIRDRIE
  29. A1= ‘road to the north’? Depends where you live, surely. Could well be ‘road to the south’. But of course all Times readers live in London. Nice to see W Guthrie, a big influence on Pete Seeger. Since the latter is now dead, can we expect him to make an appearance in the puzzle?
    1. Hm. Down here, only very slightly to the south of Watford, we call it the Great North Way. What’s it called in Edinburgh? Or Gateshead? I believe Sam Johnson referred to it (or perhaps its equivalent as the best thing to come out of Scotland. Would that be better?
      1. I’m probably being a bit pernickety on this, particularly as the surface lends itself to ‘ending up’ in a Scottish town (of which, incidentally, I’ve never heard)!
      2. Well… Here in Yorkshire it’s called ‘T’A1’. It goes both up and down. Bit like a lift. Funny thing perspective.
        1. Sorry – this last Anonymous comment is me again. Seem to be having problems with being logged in on iPad. The machine may be great but the user… Btw – bad time to dis the Scots. (Some of whom are my best mates – especially the most intelligent and big hearted working cocker spaniel in existence who lives in Aberdeen).

          Edited at 2014-02-20 11:17 pm (UTC)

  30. 27m here and fairly straightforward but needed the blog to understand 14a inter alia so thanks for that.
  31. Half an hour of pleasure, of which last ten spent looking at P-A-E and all the possible words, still not convinced ‘composure’ is a def for PEACE but life is far from perfect and that seemed most likely. At least the sun is shining today, and it’s El Bosque tomorrow. Jimbo never heard of Mr Guthrie? Incroyable.
  32. Damn. KIEL/KEEL. Never heard of KIEL, except as part of KielKraft, makers of fine model aircraft kits, whose catalogue never ceased to enthral. That company was responsible for two of my lifelong passions – aircraft and solvents.

    Other than that minor disastrophe, this was an enjoyable puzzle – not too easy, not too hard. Even the obligatory cricket reference wasn’t too much of a challenge this time around. Had never heard of GUTHRIE, but I expect it’s mutual.

    Nice bit of drizzle here, so expecting trade to pick up as the cyclists go down. Most colourful accident of the day: young gentleman who tried to run a paint-spraying gun from a bottle of compressed CO2. I was fervently hoping that nobody would come to collect him after we’d finished irrigating his eyes, so that I could point out that he’d been marooned.

    1. This reminds me of the pirate song my kids used to ask me to do for them before they got too cool for that sort of thing (i.e. older than 6). Who says a whole song can’t be based on a dodgy pun?
      Google “Eric Herman pirate song”, sit back and enjoy…
  33. I’m quite new to this so I was pleased with 4 hours. It was the first time I’ve sat and tried to complete a crossword in a long time. Put Keel instead of Kiel and I wasn’t completely sure about RUN SHORT OF; I couldn’t work out the “H”. I liked TESTTUBE, but then I am a science teacher.
    A.
  35. Quite late today, sorry. About 30 minutes, ending with PEACE, after finally seeing the wordplay. I think peace=composure is a stretch, but other than that, a very nice puzzle, with the only unknown being AIRDRIE. Regards.
  36. 45 minutes here with FOI Paper Boy and LOI Exemplary. Struggled with the left half. Baton and Peace both made me smile!
  37. 12:44 here. I found this a strange mixture, with most of the answers going straight in, but one or two clues giving me far more trouble than they should have done (I seem to be going through another of my bad patches). For instance, I wasted time trying to justify SUEZ (glad to see I wasn’t the only one) and assuming that the card in 1dn was going to be JACK. 14ac held me up at the end – you’d think I was a complete beginner! (Sigh!)

    All in all though, a very fine puzzle.

  39. Thanks for a good blog – I’ve file Arne away next to Bach, and decided that I need to spend a pleasant hour with the Atlas learning three letter rivers. I tried to work Erie in to the canal, and weighed in on MIT, The Institute, above For the setter, I thought there were some nice clues. Ta.

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