Times Crossword 26,037 – Vale, sort of

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: a little over 21 minutes, so rather slower than average but I felt a bit sluggish. I’m having medical tests tomorrow so can’t eat or (more to the point) drink this evening.
I thought this was a fine crossword, quirky, clever and interesting. Also some very slick surface readings, which I am always a sucker for, eg 19dn or 24ac. I liked a number of clues but settled on 11ac as my favourite, so neat.
This is my last regular Wednesday blog but hold back the tears, I will continue to do the Club Monthly, (so long as I can solve the darned thing) and also maybe fill in as a locum from time to time. I’ve enjoyed doing these late night blogs very much. They have a certain frisson to them that the weekly and monthly blogs can’t quite match.

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

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across

1 Pobble – B + B (British repeatedly) in POLE (European). The Pobble, of course, has no toes… or so Edward Lear claims
4 Madison – I in MAD (crazy) and SON (boy). There are no less than 28 towns in the US by that name, probably it refers to this one though. It was named after James Madison, 4th US president and a signatory to the constitution. Presumably most of the others were too..
9 noise – N + OISE. The Oise is a tributary of the Seine and is not so well known, though it does have a Department named after it
10 recommend – I had trouble parsing this; it is OM (order, ie the Order of Merit) + MEND (repair), with REC (sports ground), the def. being “advance.”
11 Rochester – dd. the second oldest British diocese, which my local church belongs to, and also a reference to Jane Eyre, one of our oldest (and best) novels
12 abide – I’D (I would) in ABE (Lincoln)
12 meek – a cd. I’ve never been convinced of the correctness of the theory that the meek shall inherit the earth (Matthew, 5:5). And even if they eventually do, the more aggressive amongst us will probably have destroyed it first
14 brutalises – TA (volunteers) + L(eft) in BRUISES (injuries)
18 contending – CON (against) + T(ime) + ENDING (death)
20 cove – dd, a fellow and a place apparently favoured by smugglers. These days, they use white vans and arrive via Dover
23 Burma – RUB (friction) + AM (morning), both rev. Apparently we are supposed to call it Myanmar, but because we disapprove of the military government there it turns out that it is all right not to. But we mustn’t upset Beijing, or Mumbai.. I find this whole subject very confusing. Why not Firenze, or Munchen, or Roma?
24 scrambled – SCRAM (depart) + BLED (drained)
25 switch off – WITCH (charming woman) in SO FF (very loud). Liked this clue
26 donor – DON (fellow) + OR (gold). Less keen on this clue. Surely there must be a better def. for “Don?”
27 dessert – S(ustenance) in DESERT (barren place). I am assuming a typo here, in the online version anyway, “fist” instead of “first.”
28 memory – ROME (city) rev. in MY (this person’s). I am reminded of the Kai Lung stories. Very fine, entertaining books, I highly 10ac them

Down

1 panoramic – NO RAM (lack of memory) in PANIC (alarm.) I spent more time than I should have trying to fit pandemic, epidemic or endemic in here, especially as they all have too few letters
2 brioche – BRIO (vivacity) + CHE (“Argentinian fighter,” or murderous terrorist, or poster boy, according to point of view)
3 lieder – dd, one a reference to “leader,” the leader of an orchestra being (always?) the first violinist
4 macer – CE (church) in MAR (ruin). Not a hard clue even though I hadn’t heard the word before. Disappointing to learn that the official in question only carries one, he is not allowed actually to wield it
5 damnable – *(BALD MAN) + (gaggl)E
6 species – IE wearing glasses, ie in SPECS. A neat clue
7 nudge – G(uilt) in NUDE
8 cratered – CRATE (old vehicle) + RED (brightly coloured). Another one that took time, thought it might be battered at first
15 Tenerife – (th)E + FIRE (blaze) + NET (clear), all rev. Never been there I’m afraid
16 slenderly – LENDER (library) in SLY (wily)
17 demarche – MARCH (demonstration) in DE (of, in French) + E(nglish). A word I have met before, but seldom have need of. Before anyone claims they didn’t know this word, they should perhaps check the comments for the blog to 25151, just in case…
19 nereids – *(IN REEDS). Sea nymphs, amongst their number are Thetis (Achilles’ mother) and Amphitrite, Poseidon’s better half
21 Orlando – LAND (territory) in OR (men, ie Other Ranks) + O (love). a write-in. Orlando Gibbons was the leading composer of his day apparently, albeit his day was quite some time ago. I was interested to learn that he died of apoplexy, aged 41. Can’t help wondering what brought it on. Any suggestions? On edit: apparently that means he died of a stroke, so not quite so amusing as I had imagined.. thanks for putting me right, Sotira.
22 smidge – S(low) + MIDGE, things that bite, the def. being “a bit.” More of a smidgeon man myself
23 based – AS (when) resting, ie in BED
24 scout – SC (scilicet, that is) + OUT, exposed. I wrote snout in but it was clearly wrong so had to rethink

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

55 comments on “Times Crossword 26,037 – Vale, sort of”

  1. 28 minutes, so on the wavelength for this, with only MACER and POBBLE unknown, finishing with COVE, where the alphabet run was mercifully short.

    I hope the tests are straightforward and fail to dim the Club Monthly Mojo.

  2. … you the best Jerry. Great to work with you in earlier days. Hate those fasting tests: take a pork pie and thermos for when it’s all over eh?

    Had a few struggles with this one. Couldn’t make RECOMMEND reconcile with “order”. Then saw it wasn’t the def. after all. And lasts were CRATERED and CONTENDING. The clue for the latter may be gruesomely appropriate if you’ve been following the fate of the two poor sods facing the firing squad in Indonesia.

    The philosophers (unlike the lexicographers) will have trouble with “mind” = MEMORY (28ac).

    1. Hadn’t even noticed the memory=mind thing, but ‘comes to mind’ comes to mind.
      1. I have no objections, not being a card-carrying philosopher (merely half a PhD in the subject). The Oxford Thesaurus has “mind” under the head “memory”. The unfortunate example there is: “she is losing her memory”.
  3. Another quite chewy puzzle that took me 47 minutes.

    I too had problems parsing 10ac and never quite got there as I missed the definition, thinking it was ‘order’ even though ‘order’ and ‘recommend’ are not exactly synonymous. I spotted the possibility of REC being the sports ground but also considered RE being clued by ‘on’ and leaving COM unaccounted for unless that was the sports ground (perfectly possible considering my lack of knowledge of things sport-related that everybody else takes for granted). ‘In advance’ I took as an instruction to put the other stuff in front of MEND. Anyway, thanks for putting me right, Jerry.

    And thanks too for saving me from myself re DEMARCHE. In the process of reading my admission of ignorance in #25151 I discovered the blog had attracted 759 suspicious comments filling some 22 pages, mostly to do with a Swedish casino site as far as I could make out. Anyway I have now deleted these and released acres of memory on the LJ servers.

    My unknown this time was MACER (unless proved otherwise).

    Sorry you won’t be blogging the weeklies regularly, Jerry, but I hope you will continue to contribute comments. All the best for your tests.

    Edited at 2015-03-04 02:30 am (UTC)

  4. Quite surprised I finished, as I got hold of the wrong end of stick after stick, misparsing clues left and right; and several in the NW were proving quite recalcitrant, until they all fell into place in 2-3 minutes. LOI BRIOCHE; I’d forgotten that Che was Argentinian. DNK MACER, but no prob. Comforting to see that Jerry was also trying to force ‘pandemic’ into 1d.
    Thanks for all your blogs, Jerry; I won’t be seeing you on the Monthly–they’re beyond me–so I do hope you’ll be commenting here.
  5. 25:04 … not too easy, not too tricky, this puzzle was just right for a Wednesday morning. I spent a ridiculous amount of time (7 minutes or so) on PANORAMIC and MEEK, my last two in. I was absolutely convinced that the definition in 1d was “of memory”, and I was searching in vain for wordplay in 13a.

    Thank you, Jerry, for all the entertaining weekly blogs, including today’s — a fine one on which to bow out. I was going to make a typically flippant remark about Orlando Gibbon’s demise from apoplexy, until I looked the word up and discovered it doesn’t just mean ‘really angry’. Now I feel terrible. Sorry, Orlando.

    1. Ah, you are quite right about apoplexy Sotira, I’ve amended the blog. Not my finest hour this clue, as initially I also had him confused with Grinling and was all set to make a wood-carving joke..

      1. It’s why we collaborated so seamlessly on the Christmas Turkey, Jerry — complementary ignorance. I’m fascinated by the idea of a wood-carving joke. I suppose we could do invitations to the wood-carvers’ ball …

        Mr and Mrs Block, and their son, Chip O. Theobald …

          1. Mr & Mrs Exactly-are-you-going-to-give-up-carving-and-get-a-proper-job and their fair-minded son “Just” Wayne
            1. Mr and Mrs Chisel, and their son Cole

              The See-Doyles, and their charming daughter, Lynne

              1. Mr and Mrs Parting-Tool and their daughter Vi.
                Mr and Mrs Aroni-Gouge and their son Mack.

                Edited at 2015-03-04 04:25 pm (UTC)

                1. Been doing some research?

                  All the way from Switzerland by way of Russia, Mr and Mrs Tell-Vottitizyet and their adopted African American son Kanye Tell-Vottitizyet.

                  1. In the middle of a busy and stressful day, there’s nothing quite like taking a little break to find obscure wood-carving tools on wikipedia and convert them into silly names based on the conventions of a long-running Radio 4 panel game.
                    In this topsy-turvy world of ours I’m sure that’s something on which we can all agree.
  6. Top left took me over 30mins, with LIEDER being my LOI.

    But on checking I realise I had an unparsed ‘snout’ at 24dn. Oops.

    Good luck for tomorrow, Jerry, and many thanks for all your blogging.

  7. 16.22 for a tidy puzzle
    It’s just possible that Jesus was being ironic: assuming the MEEK actually survive any catastrophe, they’re the ones that just sigh, pick up a broom and start clearing up. Happened in Tottenham after the riots. Theirs is the earth and everything that’s in it. Bless ’em all.
    Very best wishes for tomorrow and many future days, Jerry. See you around!
  8. 16m, ending with SCOUT, where I had to resist the urge to enter first SNOUT and then SPOUT (SP = ‘spy that is briefly’!) before finding something that actually worked. Most of this went in reasonably quickly but then I got stuck on a few at the end.
    All the best for tomorrow, Jerry, and thanks for all the blogs so far. See you on the Club Monthly!
  9. 20.35. Good to see the Pobble back in business; seems to have dropped right off the national treasure list. By which I mean the young have never heard of him. As for ‘Jane Eyre’ being one of our best novels, I’m a ‘Wuthering Heights’ man myself and have always found ‘J.E.’ an extended women’s magazine (this’ll get me in trouble) story, for the most part. Quite liked the clue pattern today; one could almost say they managed to nudge splendidly, to take the vertical column on the right.
    1. I agree with you on Jane Eyre, but I think Wuthering Heights is even worse. I suspect Jerry was just making mischief. 😉
      1. i don’t mind jane eyre but i’m not much of a heathcliff fan. jerry’s a fellow georgette heyer aficionado so he may not have been tongue in cheek.
        1. I think the post-publication image of Heathcliff has got in the way of the book’s proper appreciation. It’s the only love story I know up with the Shakespearian ones.
        2. It’s not that I admire a particular genre, (and in particular not this one)but I just think that this book was a job extremely well done. Anyone whose writing can legitimately be compared with Joyce and Proust clearly has something going for them, whether it is to one’s personal taste or not… personally I’m more at the Kate Bush end of things

          (This is true even though I don’t like Joyce and am currently struggling with Proust!)

          PS: tests over, didn’t faint even once, wait for results now..

  10. Could someone please explain how to find the blog for March 2. Thanks.
    2. If you can’t find a blog, try the day before, as US bloggers will still be on that day in many instances. Thus, this was under Sunday 1 March.
  11. like jerry i get confused between my orlandos and my grinlings – what great names. at 17.25 this one was definitely within my range. sorry to hear you’ve got to spend time in that parallel universe hospital-land jerry and i hope it’s not for long. i do believe we crossword types have an advantage – albeit a small one – in being able to distract ourselves and pass the time with these puzzles. p.s. jerry, when you have time/inclination it’s S not D on the end of 14a.
  12. 17 mins. I was going to finish with a biffed “snout” after 16 mins and had even written it in, but I decided to give it a little more thought, remembered what “SC” could mean, and changed my answer to the correct SCOUT.

    I entered ORLANDO, POBBLE and MACER from their wordplay, and I confess that LIEDER was biffed. Thanks for all the blogs Jerry.

  13. I’ve been struggling towards the end over the last couple of days so was pleased to finish this in 27 minutes. ‘Digitally challenged’ in 1ac was a giveaway, and I cannot see ‘Gibbons’ without thinking of Orlando (he composed some wonderful stuff).

    I see the BBC have caved in and now refer to ‘Myanmar.’ Many locals still refer to their ohomeland as Burma, in a symbolic protest at the military government’s re-naming.

    1. I thought the BBC had been calling it Myanmar for years, but wondered if they had undergone a change of heart after last year’s Top Gear Burma [sic] Special … which all went very smoothly.
      1. I may be wrong, but I thought that until relatively recently the UK and US did not recognize Myanmar as the official name. On BBC World for a long time it was referred to as Burma, but now they use Myanmar. I don’t know what Aung Suu Kyi’s current position is, but in the past she was always opposed to the use of the junta’s nomenclature.
  14. . . . with more time than necessary on ORLANDO. My trouble is that ‘Gibbons’ triggers an automatic segue into Decline and Fall but a) this is wrong and b) the writer was Gibbon anyway. POBBLE and MACER from the wordplay.

    Best wishes jerry and thanks for the blogs.

  15. about 30 mins. minor error in the blog at 1dn which must be O RAM not NO RAM. the N comes from panic. on renamed cities i just came back from guangzhou. the 3 letter airport code is still CAN for Canton. Beijing’s is PEK too
  16. Lovely to start with a pobble but lots more to enjoy in this nice puzzle – 13:52.

    Thanks to Jerry for this and all the other blogs – hope the tests go well, and that we will still see you here as a commenter.

  17. 15:16 so looking at other times I must have been on W.

    No problems with scout but I’m blowed if I’d know when to use SC instead of i.e.

    I only had a vague notion that Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre were connected. We’re off to Haworth for part of the day on Saturday so I’ll try and pay attention.

    I didn’t spot the typo in the clue for dessert so I wasn’t put off.

    Nereids was my first in. There’s no way that would have happened a few years ago.

    Good luck with the results Jerry, thanks for all the blogs and hopefully see you in October.

  18. All the best Jerry – know what you mean about the difference between blogging the daily as against a weekly puzzle. There’s nothing quite like reading those clues and not seeing an answer anywhere in sight and knowing it’s got to be done here and now!
  19. Spent ages thinking 18a was “CONTESTING” – “CON” being against, “T” for time and associating “STING” with death.
    Just couldn’t get the ‘E’ in – and then finally saw the light.

    Regarding changing names, the French still habitually call Peking “Pékin”.
    Also, I remember that Churchill got really fed up because he was still using the older form “Angora” for “Ankara”. Nowadays most of us wouldn’t even associate the two (I hadn’t).

    Edited at 2015-03-04 03:42 pm (UTC)

  20. …but felt like I should have been about nine minutes faster.

    Very pleased with an all-correct here, as I had varying degrees of trepidation with LIEDER, MACER, ROCHESTER, SMIDGE, NEREIDS, POBBLE and NOISE.

    Jerry, you will be missed, but I’m sure you’ll still be around to contribute to the frisson.

    So thanks setter and an extra thank you to the blogger.

  21. Glad to see “REC” for “sports ground” in 10a.
    The “Rec” (Bath’s rugby ground) is one of my home city’s many attractions.
  22. Nice to be back after missing a few days. But this took me 35 minutes or so, ending with COVE, because the ‘fellow’ meaning is only vaguely familiar, probably from these puzzles. I had no previous knowledge of POBBLE or MACER, so thanks to the setter for the wordplay. I also tried HEATHCLIFF first where ROCHESTER went; it’s a good thing it didn’t fit or it would have stayed there. Thanks also to Jerry for all the blogs and best of luck on the results. Regards.
  23. I think 1D is 0,RAM in PANIC (only one N in the solution). I wasn’t on the wavelength here and limped to a finish with LIEDER being the last in – needed wordplay for POBBLE and ORLANDO (where I’ll be next week). ROCHESTER seemed vaguely familiar but it didn’t go in until nearly all checking letters were there.

    Edited at 2015-03-04 08:30 pm (UTC)

  24. Probably distracted by listening to footie sgain, but I wouldn’t have finished quickly anyway. It didn’t help that I confidently entered ‘barge’ at 7d, which I only corrected when ‘Madison’ revealed itself.
    Sincere best wishes and thanks to Jerry. As I do not subscribe to the Murdoch empire, I don’t get to do the Club monthly, but I look forward to seeing future contributions to the blog.
  25. 10:51 here for an enjoyable puzzle.

    Thanks for all the blogging, Jerry – and here’s hoping the results of the tests turn out well.

  26. Blazed through this one in a mere hour. Admittedly, I failed to get BRIOCHE, ROCHESTER, CONTENDING, SCRAMBLED and SCOUT (so, technically a DNF).

    Sometimes I think I really need a bigger brain.

    Best of luck, Jerry.

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