Times Crossword 25,798 – pick any one from two…

Solving Time: 16 minutes, so pretty fast for me for a blogging day, albeit with one or two not yet parsed. Still I was pleased. I suspect there may be some fairly quick times today, though a certain amount of general knowledge will be helpful here. I was a bit thrown by discovering that the Times website has kindly provided a choice of two cryptics today, 25798 and 799. I have blogged 798, the correct number for today, and I suspect the other has appeared a day early because of an error – always the likeliest answer on what must be the most error-prone website I know of. Perhaps it will disappear again in due course.. or, would you like to blog it for that swansong of yours, MC?

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

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across

1 grouchy – bunch mostly = GROU(P) + CH(urch) + Y, an unknown that is not X or Z
5 parable – horse – ARAB + L(ine) in training = PE
9 dreamboat – *(A DRAB TOME) I’m reasonably good with anagrams but I needed a checker or two for this, not a word I would ever use.
10 gourd – glutton = GOUR(MAN)D. The gourd family includes the marrows, squashes, pumpkins, melons, and cucumbers
11 social climber – party = SOCIAL + member = LIMB in play area = REC. rev. One I didn’t bother parsing til now
13 Chequers – dd. Chequers Court is near Aylesbury
15 change – dd, small change being coinage.
17 obtuse – just a cd, an obtuse angle being one larger than 90 degrees. What the Times IT department is
19 playgoer – operate = GO in member of team = PLAYER
22 lance-corporal – cut = LANCE + my = COR (blimey, luv a duck etc) + P(ermission) + exam = ORAL
25 op art – O(ne’s) + role = ART.
26 britannia – *(IN A BARN IT). Rather obvious anagram.. britannia metal is a branded form of pewter, a base alloy mainly of tin, and not to be confused with britannia silver
27 knavery – church body = NAVE, in KeRrY
28 gamboge – marshy ground = BOG in willing = GAME. Not a familiar word exactly, but I had heard it before, somewhere. It is a yellow pigment made from tree resin, used amongst other things to dye the robes of Buddhist monks

Down

1 gods – dd, mythical beings and the uppermost parts of a theatre
2 oversee – deliveries = OVER, the cricketing reference du jour, SEE?
3 comic – COMIC(E). A comice apparently is a variety of pear developed at the Comice Horticole (horticultural co-operative) of Angers, France
4 yeomanry – the old = YE + O(ld), + N(ew) in Mary. The clue says “cavalrymen once,” but apparently there are still plenty about
5 putsch – placed = PUT + SCH(ool)
6 roguishly – My spelling is generally OK but it does let me down occasionally. I had the nonexistent rogueishly in my head so hesitated a while over this. But its an anagram – *(U + HIS GLORY) so I got there eventually
7 bourbon – a dd, though I might have gone for the whisky myself. Henry of Navarre was the first Bourbon king. His Wiki entry makes interesting reading.. I particularly liked the sentence “Henry’s popularity greatly improved posthumously.” That must have cheered him up no end.
8 elderberry – hmm, struggled to parse this.. it’s ELDER = more senior and bishop = RR (right reverend) in Turkish governor = BEY. For a while I thought it was B = bishop, and wondered what on earth an erry was. I’ve drunk a fair amount of country wine over the years, but never any I would have paid money for.
12 scrollwork – move around screen = SCROLL, + argument over = ROW rev., + K(ing). I bunged this in without parsing it properly either, but it sounded decorative enough
14 unsheathe – a French = UN + novel = SHE + H(ospital) in devoured = ATE
16 flipping – dd, one jocular, though indeed it is what one does during the course of a tiddlywinks match, m’lud..
18 tantara – flay = TAN + sailor = TAR + A. An onomatopoeic word I had not met before, but clear enough from the cryptic
20 Orlando ORLA + D(aughter) in NO, the Japanese plays so traditional, especially here in crosswordland. Hadn’t heard of the Irish name before but it didn’t matter because I only know one Florida city. Well, one-ish, there’s always Miami
21 wobbly – because you throw a wobbly.. you know, if you’re off on one, that is
23 rearm – state = REALM, with the L changed to a R
24 mate – dd, one relating to the glorious game of chess..

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

38 comments on “Times Crossword 25,798 – pick any one from two…”

  1. Definitely the easier of the two on offer. Interestingly the newspaper site only has 25799 with no sign of the “earlier” puzzle blogged here. If it’s not replaced by the end of the day, I’ll post a blog. You see I’m psychic and knew somehow I’d be blogging!

    My LOI for this puzzle (25798) was WOBBLY. I was certain it had to have a letter I somewhere in there. Didn’t know BRITANNIA as a metal. Thanks for the parsing of ORLANDO, Jerry. Didn’t know the ORLA bit.

    Edited at 2014-05-28 04:40 am (UTC)

  2. 23 minutes but I saw the answer to 1ac here before I realised I was looking at a blog for a different puzzle from the one I had solved. Didn’t know ORLA or BRITANNIA and would probably not have thought of GAMBOGE but for the very clear wordplay. I was also amused by WOBBLY appearing so soon after yesterday’s discussion.

    So do we now get a day off solving and blogging on Thursday? Anyway I think I’m due to blog 25800 whenever that turns up.

    Edited at 2014-05-28 01:34 am (UTC)

  3. Took me a while to remember the bourbon cookie (oh, all right, biscuit); Garibaldi was as close as I could get. WOBBLY I got (or at least felt sure of) mainly because it had appeared recently; ditto for GAMBOGE, albeit less recently. I, too, was wondering about the Erry of Turkey; never did think to drop the B for ‘bishop’. Orla?
  4. Orla Guerin is a journalist currently with the BBC, I think. Strange the name is so little known at this blog.
    rednim
    1. The Irish ability to throw any number of letters together, pronounce it entirely unexpectedly and declare it a name is well respected on this blog. I freely confess I did not know ORLA (and her allegations about me are complete fabrications). But I do now. My spellchecker didn’t know her either, but then it doesn’t know spellchecker.
  5. Gilbert and Sullivan to the rescue again. From ‘Iolanthe’:The House of Lords, or a batch of them anyway, enter, singing
    Loudly let the trumpet bray,
    Tantantara! Tantantara!
    Proudly bang the sounding brasses,
    Tantantara, tzing, boom!
    1. I too was rescued by the peers’ chorus in Iolanthe at 18D. The bit I remembered was:

      Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!
      Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow , ye masses!
      Blow the trumpets, bang the brasses!
      Tantantara! Tzing! Boom!

  6. very nearly 17 minutes for this, a slow (for which read non-existent) start in the NW, where I think you need to get some hints before the excellent tea-bag materialises. The right hand side fairly flew in and allowed the mysteries of the NE to fall at the last.
    Some pondering over REARM/REALM, and I think I could make some sort of case for either. REARM looks weird written in. I don’t think of YEOMANRY being on horseback – they’re not at the Tower, for example. But hey ho.
  7. Oh for a Gilbert and Sullivan now. Think what they could do with the nervy grey-faced attempts on hand at a Europe shore-up. At the end Christine Lagarde could run off with Cameron as the new power couple to oversee a trimmed-down structure more about people than itself. 21.10 here, a bit 1.ac. as was going well early on.
      1. 1dotac is a web address. Or at least it takes you directly to a web page operated by icuc.
  8. 16 minutes for this somewhat old-fashioned offering, no less enjoyable for that. I remember coming across gamboge in the tins of watercolour paints that were frequent childhood gifts. Throwing a wobbly predates going off on one by a few decades, dreamboat seems straight out of the 50s and SHE must be of pensionable age by now.
  9. The top half went in so quickly that I thought that I was looking at a fugitive from QCland. The bottom half slowed me right up though.

    As far as I can see, The Times iPad app does not have tomorrow’s grid so hopefully I will have something to do then.

  10. Less than 15 minutes today for a very easy offering. Another pear today and wobbly for off on one. I trust a manager somewhere in the Times is of on one about their website be it user error or IT inadequacy or a mix of both – they certainly lack quality control.
  11. 14 mins. I didn’t solve an across clue until I got to OP ART and I thought I may struggle, but I got on to the setter’s wavelength and didn’t have a lot of trouble the rest of the way. SCROLLWORK was my LOI after the OBTUSE/TANTARA crossers. I thought “move around screen” was going to be one word inside another until the penny dropped.
  12. Delighted with 10:01 with fingers crossed for TANTARA which was new to me too. Also COMIC was put in with only a vague recollection of a pear that had some connection with most of the letters.
  13. We seem to be having an easy time of it this week. 20 minutes with only a minor hold-up at the end with the crossing 17 and 18. Nothing much to comment on, except I didn’t know Britannia was a metal, nor was I familiar with the Irish woman; ‘gamboge’ rang a distant bell.

    What am I supposed to do with the other puzzle? I haven’t tackled it, assuming it’ll appear as tomorrow’s official puzzle.

  14. 18 min: DNK ORLA (and she wasn’t in Chambers way back when) but the town was easy.
    Does anyone else find that the selected clue isn’t highlighted in the grid? – when I found it was stuck on 1ac. I thought for a couple of minutes that the site wasn’t responding before I tried entering a solution and found that it did go in, in the right place.
  15. I’m awaiting the tick of midnight with more than usual interest. Richard, our friend and editor, says on the club message board that it was a mistake, and he’s taken it down and asked TftT to take down its blog too, to which the reply is as you can see ( and count on two fingers). I have taken the precaution of copying McT’s masterly swansong in case 1) we are doing it tomorrow and 2) the McT’s opus is taken down and I have to put up a reasonable facsimile in its place.
  16. LEADERBOARD
    I suspect this may have already been discussed at some stage but I absolutely do not believe anyone is capable of completing this puzzle online in the two and a half minutes or so claimed by Hedwig, closely followed by others with similarly preposterous times. I am assuming that they do the puzzle offline and then engage in a typing contest, or even more likely copy the answers from the unfailingly excellent blog in this forum because they are unable to do it for themselves. Either way it is pretty pathetic in my view and I do not understand how any pleasure can be gained from this.
    I await a) hate mail from the guilty and b)agreement from some of you very fast solvers out there who really can motor. My own pb is 7:23 and the only time I witnessed a truly spectacular time was by the eminent Tony Sever in a distant Grand Final. Now he really can shift!

    Edited at 2014-05-28 02:47 pm (UTC)

    1. tringmardo, This has been discussed. The typing contest people are known as neutrinos (which can theoretically travel faster than light). Over on the Crossword Club, Tony Sever publishes a weekly neutrino-free list, invariably headed by Magoo or Jason.

      Separately, I am not sure why we are rushing to take down McT’s last blogging at the request of the Crossword Editor, even if it will appear again.. The puzzle in question is not a prize one, and McT’s fine effort is not the first thing that appears on this page. If you dont want to read it yet, dont read it.

      1. In fact eight different solvers have headed my weekly leaderboards. However, apart from Jason, who’s twice beaten Magoo on time, they’ve only done so when Magoo has either made a mistake (yes, it does happen occasionally) or been absent. Jason himself has only been beaten on time by two other solvers apart from Magoo.
    2. Your suspicion is correct tringmardo, this topic has been discussed at great length on the crossword club website, – which is surely a better place for it. Many solve on paper and then key in the results to see if they are right, submitting with leaderboard because they care not a jot for our opinion, it seems
    3. They are worst on weekends and shove genuine solvers off the deep end of the board. There are only 2 or 3 people who can very occasionally beat Magoo and Jason (Mohn e.g.) but that’s rare. Ignore the wpm brigade unless they turn up on the Club Forum – in which case they can expect a barracking.

      Glad to see Alec’s blog is still up.

      One way to know who’s cheating by peeking at this site is what happens on the days when the blog goes up late.

      1. I don’t have accurate statistics to hand, Olivia, but I suspect it’s more than 2 or 3 (more like 5 or 6; perhaps even more).
  17. 61 minutes for me, with no complaints other than COR for “my” – bit of a stretch when CORP lends itself to some more imaginative clueing….
    Hadn’t heard of GAMBOGE or ORLA but both easy to get from the clues. Was tempted for quite a while by DAUPHIN for the biscuit and for the future roi, which seemed reasonable, so it took me a bit to unscramble the NE corner!
    As one who cannot even type in the grid online in 2 minutes even if I already knew the answers, I too would find the times given somewhat spurious.
  18. Did this multitasking (watching an episode of NCIS post-prandially), one hour for both!

    FOI OP ART, LOI YEOMANRY (which we – certainly I – normally don’t think of as cavalry, although they were originally volunteer cavalry regiments). With no checkers in place, “Dragoons”, also not strictly cavalry, seemed likely but I couldn’t get the parsing …

    Nice to see “She” making a reappearance – I dimly remember a time when she seemed to turn up in every other crossword! Do schoolboys read H Rider Haggard any more? Or are young imaginations confined within the bleak landscapes of computer games? Seems a poor exchange.

    1. Sorry, indeed dragoons are strictly cavalry. The OED says: “A species of cavalry soldier. The name was originally applied to mounted infantry armed with the firearm (sense 1). These gradually developed into horse soldiers, and the term is now merely a name for certain regiments of cavalry…” – do you see how cavalry, horse, mounted, all appear in the def.? My son-in-law is in the Blues & Royals, one more mistake like that and I’ll send him round to see you 😉

      The problem with “She” and her ilk is their generous larding of unfashionable, not to say taboo, words.. young imaginations are not *allowed” to get their mitts on them any more.

      1. I stand by my definition. To be fair, since WWI all regiments of horse, including cavalry (however defined), would actually have fought as “mounted infantry” before being motorised and effectively becoming armoured regiments. The last British “cavalry action”, properly understood, was probably during the Boer War. Remember also that the OED is a dictionary of usage, it is descriptive and not prescriptive, and contains many other current coinages which, sensu stricto, are “wrong”.
  19. About 20 minutes, no problems except those already mentioned about ORLA , the pear, the metal, and TANTARA. I did not see the other puzzle, and so was not tempted to do it. Not much else to say, so regards.
  20. A rare sub 20m for me at 18.30 with no holdups and actually able to parse all of them for once. Didn’t need the blog but enjoyed reading it!
  21. An enjoyable puzzle for me, and it probably took me as long to complete the Quick Cryptic today.
    As regards ‘Orla’, I have obviously misheard the name of the lady who regularly reads the traffic reports on the radio, and thought that she was called ‘Orna’ Merchant. What I would say though is that she has the most beautiful voice and a clarity of diction that I would love to see emulated by her colleagues.
  22. A slightly sluggish 8:23 for me, though given how tired I was feeling, I actually wasn’t too disappointed at my time.

    A straightforward enjoyable solve.

  23. Only found 25799 yesterday as I was on the Times site to get the QC for blogging, so did 25798 today pretending it was yesterday. A steady solve in 23 minutes. Surprised ORLA was so obscure, I know quite a few Orlas having lived in Dublin for 10 years, not to mention the BBC’s spendid ORLA Guerlain who seeks out the most awful places to report from, a glutton for punishment and possibly fame.

    Edited at 2014-05-29 04:36 pm (UTC)

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