Times Crossword 25,774 – Steamy Edition

Solving Time: 22 minutes, plus a few to check some parsings. About average for a blooging day, but I was slow to get started and it didn’t feel easy. I’m pleased with the time, in the end. I think I like this crossword, it’s got some excellent clues with very good surface readings, which I am always a sucker for. Good stuff. It is perhaps rather Anglocentric, what with the bear, the comic, the rural county and the industrial port, and none the worse for that of course.

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

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across

1 Herefordshire – present = HERE + FOR + D(aughter)’S HIRE. Not so hard (for an English ex-cricket fan), once the H appeared anyway
8 knob – central parts of weaKNess + imprOBably
9 Rupert Bear – game = RU + forward = PERT + stick = BEAR, the def. being “strip of paper;” “strip in paper” being a shade too helpful…
10 gymnasia – *(GAS + I + MANY), the second consecutive cryptic def. being “pumping stations,” as in pumping iron.
11 browse – summit = BROW + points = directions = SE.
13 codswallop – fish = COD + S(mall) + paste = WALLOP… with the fish and the paste sandwiching the small, see? A very neat clue, that
16 lilt – (portuga)L in “was illuminating” = LIT
17 snog – SONG, with the O moving towards the tail. Ah, snogging, I remember it well <sighs>
18 tantamount – light brown = TAN + horse = MOUNT, containing we’re obliged = thanks = TA
20 Mr Bean – British = BR rev. in MEAN. I like him about as much as Jack likes Spike Milligan..
22 mooching – low = MOO + punch = CHIN + G(lass), the girl having left it, see.. mooching reminds me of this classic song from that wonderful film, Blues Brothers
24 coatimundi – fur = COAT + IM, + UNDI(D), as in “lawks a mercy, I am undone” etc.. I note that both Collins & the OED have only the hyphenated coati-mundi. Coatis pop up in crossword land now and again, as do agoutis, but I haven’t seen a coatimundi before
26 pogo – LOGO, with the L(arge) replaced by a P(arking)… pogoing being the sort of dance you do, if you are as totally untalented at dancing as I am
27 Ellesmere Port – “from Calais, she’s” = ELLE’S + just = MERE + left = PORT, to make the industrial port (its highlight being the oil refinery) at the seaward end of the Manchester Ship Canal. I used to go there and watch the tankers coming up the Mersey and going into the canal. For fun. This was before computers, you understand, damn near before television in fact. I mean, it was that or Muffin the Mule..

Down

1 honeymooner – polish = HONE + unknown = Y (so, not x or z) + shower = MOONER.. well, look it up <blushes>
2 robin – ROBIN(G). Robing, what judges do..
3 for a start – chap with dreadlocks = RASTA(farian) in keep = FORT
4 Raphael – hammer = RAP + HA(Z)EL, a dekernelled nut. Raphael was a master painter indeed, one of the greatest. He had the remarkable distinction of dying aged 37 after “a night of excessive sex,” … see comment for 5dn, below
5 shrub – pipe down = SH + RUB = massage. What with the massage, the snog, the mooning, and the honeymoon, is this setter trying to tell us something? Is this a theme, or what?
6 imbroglio – *(BIG LIMO OR) – a word I know, but can’t pronounce..
7 eta – dd, Greek letter and a TLA for “estimated time
12 silent night – fast = one = I + LENT + approaching = NIGH (as in “The end is nigh..”), all in ST(reet)
14 segmental – *(M(arch) LANE GETS)
15 piano wire – *(OR WIPE A N I). Tricky clue.. not so hard to see its an anagram, but a bit of a leap from a baby to a baby grand, as I suppose is intended. Almost certainly not an oblique reference to garrotting, trying though babies can be at times
19 nominee – hmm, so if a miner digs, a minee must be dug? And NO MINEE can’t be… you get the picture here, I hope
21 Nimes – hidden, rev., in streetwiSE MINister. A lovely town, wish I was there..
23 hippo – with it = HIP, + (the river) PO. I thought of this straight off but didn’t write it in, thinking the def. a bit weak at first. It is an @lit, ie the entire clue is the def.
25 owe – sounds like O(utside) when broadcast..

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

69 comments on “Times Crossword 25,774 – Steamy Edition”

  1. The clever can border on the obscure; and the obscure on the unfair. 19dn is a case in point. There is no “minee” in any universe I know. And, while we all know about mooning, I’m not sure there’s a “mooner” (1dn).

    Good to see ELLESMERE PORT. I used to play cricket against them for my school’s old boys team. (One notable game was at Capenhurst on the day in 1966 England won the World Cup Final. We had to start early so as to watch the match in the clubhouse under the nuclear power plant chimneys.) Not a good place for a honeymoon, a massage or a snog. But if you like the odd imbroglio, it’s just fine.

    The Wirral is not the best placed for cricket right now:
    http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/apr/27/cricket-team-bowled-out-three-runs-wirral-cc

    Edited at 2014-04-30 01:33 am (UTC)

  2. Dreadful puzzle. I wonder what our anon friend on the train who posted yesterday will make of this one.
    1. I’ll drink to that. I didn’t like yesterday’s offering, but I didn’t expect to see one that I disliked even more quite so soon. SImply awful.

      Edited at 2014-04-30 04:43 am (UTC)

    2. Jack, I thought yesterdays was poor…not just because of obscurity, but some of the clues were weak and loose. This was much better IMHO, but challenging. Didn’t get the SA mammal, but happy to learn.
      I agree Jimbo the Baby is loose too, but very gettable.
  3. Well, I enjoyed this, appreciating the setter’s craft. I learned a number of things, not least that Rupert Bear started and indeed – at the same age as my aunt in Melbourne – continues life as a comic strip character.

    ‘Minee’ for one who might dig was no problem for me, given that I have to deal on a daily basis with the ‘standees’ on our buses. No problem at all with mooner.

    I needed to figure out my last in the South American racoon from the wordplay, eventually twigging when I saw COAT. HIPPO is even cleverer when you see that ‘connecting’ the (Greek) river will give you hippopotamus.

    Loved the definition for GYMNASIA and thought PIANO WIRE was very good too. Hats off to the settee (sic)!

    Edited at 2014-04-30 02:43 am (UTC)

    1. DNF for me – just couldn’t get going at all… Thought of HIPPO from wordplay but still can’t see the definition. Help please!
      1. Well, as Jerry says, the whole clue is the definition: a hippo is intimately connected with a river. On another level, we have two things that must be connected to get the answer, namely, “with it” (HIP) and “river” (PO). The asyndeton as it we’re makes the clue. Hope that’s a bit clearer.
  4. Meant to mention that while Rupert Bear is the character in it, the strip was just “Rupert”. Adds to my misgivings.
  5. Despite the Britishisms (How could I have lived so long and not be acquainted with the Rupert Bear oeuvre?) I’m with ulaca on this one. A struggle but a worthwhile one.

    Jerry, you didn’t explicitly say it, perhaps out of embarrassment , but at 1D the mooner is a “behind shower”, which surely is worth today’s 8p admission fee. (Why is my spellchecker objecting to “mooner” and not “spellchecker”?)

    Also at 19D, I took it that the minee (spellchecker again!) could never be dug by you; so the apparent convergent evolution of the “ee” and “er” suffixes wasn’t in evidence here, as opposed to on HK buses, say.

      1. Well, it’s the second definition for the word in Collins, which should satisfy all bar the dictionarophobes.
        1. Well go to the foot of our stairs! What does it say for MINEE? One 22?

          Edited at 2014-04-30 07:23 am (UTC)

      2. It is in Collins On-line along with a load of other garbage, however I didn’t have any problem with its appearance in today’s puzzle. Whether it officially exists or not, it’s an obvious agent noun (if one happens to know the required meaning of the verb) and it’s only being used in the wordplay to humorous effect. There wasn’t much else to smile at today!

        Edited at 2014-04-30 07:00 am (UTC)

        1. And possibly the best or worst homophone ever. In yesterday’s Groan, Philistine had “Chicken shock” as part of the clue for for PULITZER PRIZE.
    1. I’m sure you’re saying something valuable in your last paragraph (up to the semi-colon), but I can’t quite discern what! Could you elaborate?
      1. Elaboration can only breed contempt. I meant there was a case for the “no minee” being one not dug rather than one not digging. I can see no such excuse for standee, however, unless my habitual grasp of the wrong end of the generational stick is all too evident again.
        1. Gotcha – I was paying too litle attention to the surface. (Like a pro – ahem!) Maybe standee should be used only for someone who has been stood up by an angry pregnant lady, amputee, etc. I’ll have a word with the bloke who does the stickers for the bus windows.
  6. 35 minutes and a bit, which includes a natural break while I chewed over the strangely impenetrable HONEYMOONER. I think I might be asked to rewrite that sentence.
    I thought this was a serious challenge with very few gimme definitions, and one clue – HIPPO – where I can’t really see a definition at all even given that it’s an &lit. Didn’t detract from a sort of grimly determined enjoyment.
    No problem with “mooner” (Chambers has it) and a smirk at the wordplay. I found myself wondering whether Dean Mayer had sneaked another one into the dailies, given the mildly risqué, schoolboyish humour.
    Does it help that MINEE is (apparently) the Ministère de l’Eau et de l’Energie? Didn’t think so, but it must have something to do with le digging pour coal.
    Is MR BEAN a comedy? I think we should be told.
    1. Whether comedial or not, I can ascribe the success of at least six birthday parties for the nipper to the hypnotic effect it had on her and her little Chinese friends. So, I for one am grateful. Oh yeess.

      Edited at 2014-04-30 08:18 am (UTC)

    2. At the risk of losing the last vestiges of any credibility that may remain after years of posting here, I must admit that I don’t actually mind Mr Bean in very small doses. It’s not something I would ever choose for myself but watching it alongside children of the age group for which it’s (presumably) intended I can appreciate that it has a certain innocent charm about it.
  7. Second one in a week or so that I’ve abandoned on the “Life’s too short” basis.

    In fairness, I’m feeling pretty dim and foggy this morning and might have enjoyed the challenge when on better form — or on a Saturday. But I doubt I would ever have got RUPERT BEAR. I thought I was looking for a game and was focussed on some form of Brag that I hadn’t encountered before.

    re Mr Bean. I would always insist that I can’t stand it but every time I find myself inadvertently watching a bit of the show I end up laughing like a drain. Don’t tell anyone.

  8. 25 minutes for this one with no major hold-ups. All in all a reasonable puzzle with just the odd quirk

    SNOG brought back some pleasant memories but baby for piano was a bit of a stretch. I don’t really understand how the definition for HIPPO works. MR BEAN has never yet made me laugh.

    Tn the dark days 1942-45 my grandfather taught me to read using the Rupert strips (and they were called Rupert not Rupert Bear – just as the annuals are just called Rupert). So as well as remembering him and his chums like Bill Badger I was reminded of my now long dead grandfather

  9. 23 mins. This felt just as difficult as yesterday’s but I somehow managed to do it in half the time, so possibly a wavelength thing.

    I thought there was some decent cluing here, although as has already been mentioned there were one or two iffy (or non-existent) definitions. The only clue that I thought was a little unfair was 24ac, where “coatamundi” fits the wordplay just as well as COATIMUNDI, and it is an unusual enough word for it to have been a toss-up between the two without resort to aids. I chose right, and it was my LOI.

    1. Andy,

      As far as I know (and others may correct or support me) “A” cannot be clued as “one” in the Times daily. It was certainly that conviction that stopped me going for coatamundi.

      1. Penfold, thanks for the comment. If that is the Times convention I was unaware of it. It isn’t a hard and fast rule in the Indy and the Guardian and I was caught out very recently after I chose the wrong one.
        1. I think it’s a hard and fast rule in the Times… but I’m sure I’ve seen the rule broken once and once only – remember it because of the surprise factor, but never recorded which crossword it was in.
  10. Must have been on the wavelength for this one as it came out faster than average for me. Kind of odd to see a precise and telegraphed definition like “Minor cricket team” (not that I got it right first time …) in the same puzzle as an oblique one like that for HIPPO, though I could have said the same about yesterday’s. Not a great fan of Mr Bean but I’ve seen his videos on bus journeys in various parts of the non-Western world and he always seems to go down a storm.

    Forgot to add – COD to ELLESMERE PORT. Not hard but smooth.

    Edited at 2014-04-30 10:29 am (UTC)

  11. Sometime in the 50s when I was learning to read like Jim I got Rupert and the Mare’s Nest for Christmas, and I’ve still got it. COATI is in the NY Times puzzles almost every week. I first encountered Mr. Bean as British Airways inflight entertainment – at least he kept my children amused.

    I got off to a bad start after shoving Staffordshire in 1a (staff=team maybe) so things rapidly got very sticky in that corner. 28.10.

  12. I felt the same about this one as I did about yesterdays but I slogged it out without much pleasure. I see from the Crossword Club that Jason (second only to the great Magoo) put in the ‘other’ one for 24ac.

    One of the difficulties with 9ac is that courtesy of the theme song to the 70s TV series, so many people think that it is “Rupert, Rupert the Bear …”

  13. I can’t say that I much enjoyed this puzzle, but I don’t think it deserves the odium heaped on it by Jack and one or two others. I simply wasn’t on the wavelength and found it tough-going. There were many clever clues. I liked SEGMENTAL, IMBROGLIO, ETA and SILENT NIGHT. That said, I agree with those who felt that the “baby”=”piano” def at 15D was an absurd stretch: it can only mean a piano in conjunction with the word “grand”. “Strip of paper” for RUPERT BEAR was also too quirky for me.

    1. Well, Chambers has ‘a small thing of its kind, as varieties of grand piano, car, etc’ for ‘baby’, so I reckon it just about passes mustee (sic).

      Edited at 2014-04-30 11:26 am (UTC)

      1. I disagree, and agree with mike that without “grand”, “baby” in no way signifies a piano. This was probably the worst of several bits of nonsense.
  14. 24:34. I found this tough but I really enjoyed it. Takes all sorts I suppose. Several clues where the definition was hard to spot even after you’ve worked out what the answer is, and some clever stuff. I particularly liked ‘small fish paste sandwiches’. I also rather liked ‘no minee’.
    I had the same thought as Andy about COATIMUNDI. I went for I by association with COATI.

    Edited at 2014-04-30 10:13 am (UTC)

  15. An enjoyable 35 minutes for a puzzle I also noted as fairly British – when Ellesmere Port went in from just Elle it occurred to me that the natives were at an advantage.

    Rupert Bear was my LOI despite having read on a Tottenham Hotspur forum this morning that if we get Frank De Boer as manager his name would lend itself to a song to the theme of the Rupert the Bear TV show.

    Knob for boss made me laugh – I guessed it may be where the expression ‘one for his knob’ comes from in cribbage but I don’t think my boss would approve of me referring to him as a knob

    1. I’ve always known it as “one for his nob”, at the opposite end of his body from his heels, but Chambers suggests that the derivation is from knob which is … hmm.
    2. Cannot argue with it though.

      Chambers

      boss – meaning 2
      noun
      A knob or stud

      Perhaps your boss would prefer the other definition.

      Edited at 2014-04-30 12:48 pm (UTC)

      1. I think we’ve had this before, but I grew up with “one for his nibs”.
        1. Can only confirm that in NW Kent, Cribbage had one for his (k)nob.

          Edited at 2014-04-30 08:15 pm (UTC)

          1. Yes. I think we’ve also had THIS before, but an immediate practical example of either Chinese Whispers or Telephone, right?
  16. 68 min, with 4dn LOI, which I never did parse. Almost submitted HERTFORDSHIRE, which is much nearer home till I noticed it didn’t quite work.
    I don’t know why it took me so long to get 9ac – I was trying to think of a game that would fit, but should have remembered that for the Times, the only game is RU.

  17. Enjoyed this one (maybe because I finished it unaided unlike yesterday’s appalling dnf), but it did take an age… FOI: FOR A START; LOI: GYMNASIA

    Didn’t have a problem with MINEE or MOONER.

    Still don’t really understand HIPPO, and didn’t get the parsing for KNOB, so thanks for that.

  18. This surely rates as one of the most frustrating efforts since Noah was required to assemble an ark at Ellesmere Port and load on board 2 x coatamundis
  19. Sorry Jackkt, I thought this was an excellent, not easy but fair puzzle with many amusing and clever clues. A bit tongue in cheek at times (no-minee for example) but all the better for that. Lots of good misdirections e.g. ‘PIANO WIRE’ for the baby. I finished correct in two stabs totalling 40 minutes with a visit to the pharmacy (before it closed for lunch 12 to 3 – this is France) interposed.
  20. 22:33 with about 5 minutes of that struggling with Raphael and Rupert at the end.

    I’m very much in the “enjoyed this” camp. The mooner raised a smile, codswallop is a great clue and pogo gave me a warm feeling of nostalgia – my first ever gig was The Stranglers in 1977 and whilst the jury may still be out on whether they were a punk band ot not 99% of the audience were punks that night so there was pogoing aplenty.

    As has been said there were some great surface readings and I enjoyed all the wit and quirkiness so thanks to the setter from this settee at least.

  21. 22 minutes… tricky puzzle, thankfully knew RUPERT BEAR from annuals being given to me as a kid in the 70s – last in was RAPHAEL. Didn’t know that definition of HIPPO but couldn’t be anything else from wordplay.
  22. An embarrassing dnf having a life’s too short moment staring at R???A?L after 35 mins. So my wife and I drove to Leighton Buzzard to check it out. Some nice remnants in the centre but like so many old market towns I’m sure it was more attractive 50 years ago.
  23. Over two hours again but finished it. A fair puzzle but not a lot of fun, bit of a slog actually.

    Nairobi Wallah

  24. Another in the DNF but enjoyed the parts I did F camp. Some difficulty due to clever clues, some to not knowing a few of the Britishisms, quite a lot to consequently not trusting the ones I did know. Thank you for a useful and necessary blog.
  25. Finished this, unlike yesterday’s, but it seemed a slog. Maybe because I started it at 3.30 pm on a bus going tediously from Bloomsbury to Victoria, whatever, it and the ride dragged on interminably, and I finally finished it at home. Well over the hour.

    Minor counties cricket and the dear COATIMUNDI are (only) just within the bounds of reasonableness, so I won’t repeat the rant about yesterday’s words …

    “Strip of paper” a bit inelegant to describe old Rupert, but never mind. FOI IMBROGLIO, LOI RUPERT BEAR, COD has to be CODSWALLOP.

  26. Came in from work, turned on the snooker, unfolded the puzzle and between snoozing managed to get out of a number of snookers to finish it, though taking for ever at times to size up the situation. Don’t think much of nominee but otherwise quite a treat. I’ve always thought of the strip as Rupert Bear. Loved the rhyming story in it as I remember.
  27. About an hour and very Brit-centric (not a complaint, just a comment). LOI was KNOB. Most difficult was RAPHAEL, due to being utterly misdirected by ‘master’, so well done to the setter. Trying to think of the correct nut to take the kernel from was quite a trial. Quite proud to have figured out ELLESMERE PORT having never heard of the place. Thanks for the blog, hoping for something within the normal range of difficulty tomorrow, and regards to all.
  28. Not sure what the point is that you are making, Paul. Just passing on my only experience of the expression, in the world of cribbage scoring.

    Edited at 2014-04-30 09:26 pm (UTC)

    1. I was more rambling than making a point – when I mentioned ‘Nibs’ I thought I remembered a discussion from a couple months ago of the different versions of cribbage Nibs, Knob, Nobs and maybe a couple others in different parts of the country; then a week or two ago there definitely was a similar discussion of the various names Chinese Whispers is known by in different places, one of which was Telephone. And the grand connection: I assume that Knob in West Kent ends up as Nibs in California via some kind of Chinese Whispers mechanism. (The capital THIS wasn’t meant to be impertinent – rather it reflected my surprise at the connection between a couple of the site’s discussions.)
  29. Well, I don’t feel so bad over being a DNFer, as I see I’m not alone.

    I foolishly put in “ELLESEMERE WEST”, knew it was dodgy, and then didn’t question it. Consequently, I failed completely on HIPPO despite its being obvious, and put in HYPHE in desperation, hoping that it was an obscure term related to ‘hyphen’. How stupid can one be?

    COD was SEGMENTAL, simply because I had all the letters and most of the checkers but had to stare at it for an eternity before it clicked.

    Apart from that, I found the rest a hard slog, taking about an hour to get that far. Maybe I just wasn’t on the right wavelength.

  30. Don’t suppose anyone will read this now, but, just in case they do, I’ll own up that completing this puzzle took me ages. Last one in was ‘Raphael’, due to a combination of cunning misdirection, awkward word order, variety of different ways of interpreting the clue and general dimness on my part.
    Despite the time taken, there is a sense of satisfaction in prevailing ultimately when it seemed unlikely.
    1. I read all the comments to my blog, and the later ones are often the better ones, George.

      Well done, for sticking at it – I hate to leave a crossword unfinished, or cheat, and so far have never had to, since if you put it to one side for a bit, then have another look, eventually everything will come…

      I thought both this crossword and the previous day’s were excellent

  31. I’ve just been checking old puzzles and found that I hadn’t filed this one – and guessed (correctly) that I hadn’t commented here either (probably exhausted at the end of a busy day), so just for the record …

    24:41 for me, finally sticking for ages on CODSWALLOP (imagining a different parsing) and RAPHAEL.

    In contrast with some other commenters, I thought this was a brilliant crossword, and (not for the first time) have no objection to some of the clues that others didn’t like. For heaven’s sake, it only needs a bit of lateral thinking to sort out 19dn (NOMINEE) and the “baby” in 15dn (PIANO WIRE). Sadly this is far too late for the setter to read, but I raise my hat to him (or her).

    Great blog as well, Jerry. Thanks.

    1. As you can see I agree with you that this was a brilliant crossword, but what takes you 24mins is quite likely to take a lot of other people 2hrs or more if they stick at it, and not everyone wants to work that hard nowadays.. even to acquire the wherewithal to do it quicker in future.. hence the dissatisfaction.
      I suspect my blogging career may be drawing peacefully towards its close, Tony, but I have enjoyed some of the interaction very much and yours not the least.

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