Times Crossword 26025 – Sounds like…

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 16 minutes, but it seems I have one wrong. I’m pretty sure it’s 19ac, careless of me really. Otherwise, a good crossword with some neat clues (I did like 13ac) and no unduly difficult vocab. There seem to be an unusual number of homophones, no dodgy ones though

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

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online, Collins means Collins Online


Across
1 machinist – MACH I (ear-splitting speed) + *(ISNT)
6 chews – sounds like “choose,” ie to go for.. I remember chews from my childhood, four for a penny
9 ladette – TED (old rocker) in ET AL (others), all rev. Teds turn up pretty regularly and always make me think of Jimbo. Love to see a photo some time, Jim..
10 lambada – BAD (awful) in LAMA (monk). Trickily worded clue for one of my favourite dances (to watch others do, that is)
11 fakir – (O)K in FAIR (just)
13 mortician – sounds like “more Titian,” for one “undertaking”
14 collegian – COLL (scottish island) + EG (say) + IAN, a Scottish name, at least in origin. Coll is an island near Mull with a lot of birds and not much else
16 gash – (BA)G + ASH (remains). Gash means surplus or extra, as well as a cut
18 rime – sounds like “rhyme;” what Robert Frost wrote.
19 presaging – PRES(IDENT) + AGING, getting older. Rather too quickly I put predating, which does mean older, but with absolutely no support from the wordplay.
22 contested – CON (prisoner) + TESTED (put on trial)
24 Danes – sounds like “deigns” (stoops).
25 traipse – *(PARTIES). For some reason I always think of traipsing as being quite light-footed stuff, like tripping.. but the meaning is clear in (eg) Collins: “A long or tiring walk; trudge”
26 cheerio – EER (always) in CHI (character abroad) + O
28 aloft – F(earlessness) in A LOT (many)
29 telemetry – ELEME(N)T (component, with the N(ote) removed) in TRY, an attempt. Telemetry is a familiar word from F1, where they love gathering it

Down
1 malefic – MALE (fellow) + FIC(KLE) (volatile, not half)
2 cod – I suppose this is a reference to the fact that WG Grace was a doctor, so DOC rev. And a cod can be “caught in the deep”
3 internes – (SURGEO)N in INTERES(T). Interne is an American term for a medical registrar, more usually spelt without the E at the end
4 i-beam – dd. An i-beam is type of RSJ
5 tolerance – O + LE (the, Parisian) in TRANCE (stupor)
6 comfit – COMFORT, with the OR (other ranks, ie ordinary soldiers) replaced by I. More childhood sweets, usu. liquorice flavoured
7 egalitarian – *(RAILING AT + A(varic)E)
8 staunch – dd. One staunches a wound
12 Kilimanjaro – I + MAN (fellow) + JAR (shock) in KILO (mass). The highest free-standing mountain in the world, sadly beset these days by d-list celebs and charity fundraisers
15 impatient – IMP (touble-maker) + AT (attending) + I + ENT, the setter’s favourite hospital department
17 daydream – Y(en) in DAD (old man) + RE (about) A M(aiden)
18 ricotta – COT (cotangent, a trigonometric function) in RITA, subject of the film Educating Rita. Took me a while to spot the definition here
20 Gascony – GAS (fuel) + CON (rip-off) + (mone)Y
21 despot – DES (little man, presumably through being short for Desmond) + POT, a protuberant belly
23 ducal – CU (copper) in LAD (boy), all rev.
27 rat – RATE, with the E (recreational drug) removed.

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

30 comments on “Times Crossword 26025 – Sounds like…”

  1. 30 minutes, but a combination of lack of science, lack of interest in F1 and carelessness led to an erroneous ‘telometry’.

    I was slightly deelayed at 13a wondering how Her Majesty might order additional works by Tiziano Vecellio.

  2. Very nostaligic. Men of my father’s generation used “gash” (spare) all the time, as in “You got any gash fags?” I assumed it was army slang, but can’t be sure of that. Then, as Jerry notes, the comfits and the chews. Chews came in two varieties, a black one (liquorice) and a pinky-red one (fruit). The black ones were called Black Jacks — definitely not PC these days — and I can’t remember the name of the others.

    On edit: Ah yes! Fruit Salad. Seems they’re still in production. Heavens above!

    Edited at 2015-02-18 06:50 am (UTC)

    1. Don’t understand why Black Jacks are not PC? Are we not allowed to use the word “black” to describe something black any more?
      Any way, nobody has told the manufacturers, because you can still buy them – the history of the name that it gives is interesting, though!

      Edited at 2015-02-18 08:18 am (UTC)

      1. I meant, if you remember, the wrappers when they were sold individually. They showed a golliwog, as your linked site mentions.

        Edited at 2015-02-19 01:22 am (UTC)

  3. At 58 minutes this was a rather similar tale for me as for yesterday’s 15×15 but it was far less enjoyable and satisfying as there were too many unknowns resulting in guesses.

    I didn’t know the Scottish island (I’m pretty good on these but COLL has passed me by until now), GASH as “waste”, TELEMETRY, MALEFIC (though I’m familiar with other words from the same root), INTERNES with a second E, nor DOC for WGG although I note Wikipedia has “The Doctor” as one of his official nicknames.

    Weary from this one I turned my attentions to today’s Quickie and recorded one of my slowest ever solving times and still have one unparsed so I guess I just had a bad start to my day.

    Edited at 2015-02-18 06:53 am (UTC)

  4. 18.26, which is currently looking quite good. But hey, this is a caucus race: all have won, and all shall have prizes. Alice, what’s in your pocket?
    I might now have to go to COLL, a faraway island of which we knew nothing (until now). Its website extols the virtues of the sandy beaches, the lack of accommodation and anything to do, and the Wednesday night home composting sessions (6-7pm) at the Old Hall. We do the research so you don’t have to.
    TELEMETRY from spaceflight (for me, that is), somehow linked to the Challenger disaster.
    Loved MORTICIAN, and the DD+wordplay for GASH: very generous.
  5. Chews at four a penny? Blimey, where did you shop? When I used to buy them in a small corner shop in the ’50s they were a penny each. The number of times we used to go in and ask how much the penny chews were. Oh how we laughed. Simple pleasures.
    30 minutes to polish this one off with the bottom half coming easier than the top – but why single out the Danes as members of a kingdom? Seems pretty random.
      1. Triple that number if you go world-wide – all those Middle Eastern countries and self-styled monarchs in Africa. Let’s hear it for Bhutan, I say!
        Anyway, I’m not really criticising the setter – let’s just say I was suitably misdirected for a while.
    2. No, a farthing each in say, 1960.. as noted below. So four for a penny. Even then farthings were rare, though I can just about remember being sent with a shilling to buy a loaf of bread for 10 3/4d, and being given a penny and a paper packet of pins as change.
    3. Definitely four for a penny in my 1950s childhood. Not forgetting gobstoppers which used to be huge and change colour through the layers too.
      1. Absolutely, CS. I am surprised that there was not an epidemic of choking given the size of the things then.
    4. I can definitely remember ‘black jacks’ and ‘fruit salad’ chews being four for a penny in the school tuck shop in the second half of the 60s. There were also ‘penny chews’ which were a lot bigger (more than four times the size of a black jack
  6. Just under 30 minutes with a number of ‘Yes, Dear” – type interruptions. An enjoyable romp. I can confirm by the way the cost of Fruit Salads and Black Jacks as a farthing each back in the day. My primary school in Dartford had a little sweetie stall in the morning break and I had 6d to last the week. I could either have a small handful of chews each day or could blow almost the lot on a 4d Wagon Wheel. I never did though and this rankled with me for years until one day I did buy one and found that it tasted awful.

    Edited at 2015-02-18 09:19 am (UTC)

  7. Pleasant enough puzzle with roots back in the 1950s. 25 minutes to wander through

    We paid a farthing for chews which were cheaper than a woodbine which cost a penny a fag. Sorry Jerry no pictures from back then – no camera!

  8. 19m, so very similar to yesterday for me. Quite a few unknowns today though: COLL, GASH meaning ‘waste’, W G Grace’s nickname, INTERNE with an extra E, I BEAM.
    I remember Fruit Salads and Black Jacks from my childhood in the seventies, but not what they cost. Chewing Nuts were my favourite.
  9. Very enjoyable grapple with a successful outcome (don’t ask about the tine though!)

    MALEFIC and I-BEAM were both unknown but gettable from the wordplay: I need to bone up on my RSJs…

    Loved the surfaces for 17d and 18d, but COD goes to 13a.

  10. 18 mins, and I didn’t find this quite as chewy as yesterday’s. I had a couple of the same unknowns as others, which were “intern” with an “e” on the end and gash=waste. COD went in with a shrug because I thought “hit up” as a reversal indicator was a little strange even though I was fairly sure that’s what the setter intended. MORTICIAN was my LOI after COMFIT.
  11. This Wednesday child is full of WOE. Second day running with a silly error, today’s oopsie being MORTITIAN

    21 minutes of slightly disconnected solving. I never did parse the -FIC of MALEFIC, so thank you Jerry.

    I can’t remember what we paid for Black Jacks or Fruit Salads, either. I think we just filled up with whatever was left after the Sherbert Fountain or, later, the Curly Wurly. I’m amazed I have any teeth left.

  12. 19 minutes, thought it was much easier than yesterday’s, which I DNF as was under time pressure to finish a project. Would have been a few minutes faster but held up by LOI STAUNCH and GASH. The LHS was more or less a write-in but the RHS was trickier.
  13. Over an hour, with NE very recalcitrant, being unable to think of CHEWS (not in Bradford).
    Perhaps as it reminded me of an incident from my schooldays (ca. 1937) when having found a farthing, I tried to buy just one, but was refused – I was so furious that I hurled the coin at the door and cracked a pane of glass, so was in fear that my father would be asked to pay for the damage.
  15. 19 minutes something. I hesitated over GASH as the waste bit of the clue seemed surplus to requirements, so thanks for clearing that up for me. LOI was DANES where a couple of head scratching minutes nearly had me throw in DINOS for members of the dinosaur kingdom (with no other justification).

    I always thought the mountain was spelled KILIMANJIRO so I’ve learned something today.

  16. 20 mins today despite being stuck in the NW for ages after entering ABEAM. I’m surprised that my time compares well to the usual thoroughbreds as I thought it relatively straightforward. Didn’t know the extra E in INTERNES. LOI was LADETTE. Black Jacks definitely a farthing each in Wakefield in the 50’s though I preferred Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls whose price I forget.
  17. Would have been just over the half-hour, but had 6d wrong. I ‘sort of’ tumbled the substitution, but then couldn’t think of the ‘comfort’/’comfit’ combination. I bunged in ‘commis’ on the basis that it might have something to do with ‘commiserations’ and commis chefs. Dumbo. Better luck tomorrow, and I do have two recently purchased tins of oversize Swizzles Drumsticks as succour/sucker – but they don’t taste as good as Black Jacks and Fruit Salads used to back in the 1950s.
  18. I didn’t have time to do this yesterday (pressures of work) so I did in in 20 min on the train in to work this morning. It turned out to be easier than I first thought it would be – one of those rather fun ones with an interesting vocab.

    Black Jacks and Fruit Salads were definitely 4 for a penny in the late fifties and early sixties. Penny Arrows (strips of toffee) were – remarkably – a penny each. I sometimes wonder how I still have all my teeth.

  19. 8:47 for me, definitely more on the setter’s wavelength than I was yesterday. An enjoyable solve.
  20. DNK Gascony or Chews, as well as Coll and Interne; but did know GASH as waste – from working with Jocks in the North Sea. Not sure of COMFIT, always confusing it, CONFIT, COMPOT(E)
    Otherwise straightforward, 18:05, so surprisingly I’ve beaten many who are usually much faster.
    Rob

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