Times Cryptic – 15 April 2015 – online offering

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I see 26073, the first qualifying puzzle of the Championship, has been published today in the paper and as a PDF, so no doubt it will be blogged after the closing date for entries. Online, the Crossword Club has an alternative puzzle, described as a substitute. I’m not surprised to see it was from 1948, the same age as me! It’s going to be an odd sort of blog because some of the answers don’t seem to have definitions or anagrists so there was some guessing involved.

Across
1 AMOUR PROPRE – cryptic definition, I suppose, literally ‘clean love’. My first in, before the nightmare began.
10 ANTHEA – One from the TLS stable; I vaguely knew it but looked it up to be sure.
11 THIRD ESTATE – A poor third after the clergy and the nobility, in the early class system; and what a wealthy landowner might want, so a DD.
12 SMYRNA – I think this is (AMYS)* around RN (navy), giving the ancient Greek seaport and scene of hostilities, but there’s no hint of a definition.
13 MALA FIDES – (DAMES FAIL)*; Latin phrase meaning bad faith.
15 DORA – I think this is a girl’s name and the acronym for Defence of the Realm Act (1914); the ‘last war’ being the First, not the Second.
16 STRONG DRINK – Not convinced, but it fits.
21 SOLAR PLEXUS – Amusing &lit; at last a clue which I understood and made me smile.
23 EROS – Greek God of love, equivalent to the Romans’ Cupid. Not much of a clue.
25 APHRODITE – Mother of Eros, Greek goddess of love; ditto.
26 FOLIOS – I suppose folio books are large so don’t fit in an ‘ordinary man’s’ pocket, but is there more to it?
28 DINING ROOMS – (MINOR GODS IN)*; the anagram is flagged, but the definition is non-existent; this is all I could make from the fodder, with or without the checking letters.
29 SEABED – Not-very-cryptic definition; I was looking for something more complicated.
30 DEAD AND GONE – ‘Quick’ meaning alive, so a cryptic def. I spent ages looking for a DD, one meaning ‘plainly’.

Down
2 MAHRATTA – A place in India where Tennyson’s Dad presumably fought, in around 1846; Tennyson wrote a poem about it.(A RAM THAT)*
3 UNREASON – (RUN ON SEA)*; def. irrational. A Ximenean clue!
4 PEEPING TOM – Chap who according to legend, saw Lady Godiva naked and subsequently lost his eyesight.
5 OUTWEAR – I originally had OUTLIVE but 13a scotched that; left with OUT-E-R this is my best thought so far.
6 RATS – Quote from R Browning’s ‘Pied Piper of Hamelin’, about a lot of rats.
7 ENEMY – Eva Péron famously said ‘time is my enemy’ but I’m sure there are many more similar quotes to justify our setter’s reference to a ‘popular phrase’. None were on the tip of my tongue.
8 CHEROOT – CHER = French for dear, expensive; OOT = too, reversed; I can’t find a place called ‘Cheroot’ to justify the def. ‘here’, so it must be the thing you smoke, a word originating from Tamil apparently, although there’s no hint of a definition.
9 MACADAM – Scottish engineer after whom TARMACADAM is named.
14 SNAPDRAGON – I put it in without fully knowing why, so thanks to ‘Sue Sweeper’ below for enlightening us about the arcane and dangerous party game.
17 HEADLONG – Double def; you could trip headlong, and Thomas Love Peacock wrote about Headlong Hall.
18 HUNTSMAN – Chaps in pink jackets astride horses chasing foxes, probably more common (the pink jackets) in 1948 than nowadays.
19 SELFISH – (IS FLESH)*; def. greedy.
20 COALMAN – Cryptic definition, of a sort.
22 APPLIED – A PP (pianissimo) LIED (didn’t tell the truth); so not true. Well, you know what I mean.
24 CODED – Not written ‘in clear’ meant encoded, especially during WWII, a more top of mind idea in 1948.
27 SIDE – Cryptic definition, conceit = side, so not straightforward.

53 comments on “Times Cryptic – 15 April 2015 – online offering”

    1. Thanks for that, it helped me enormously.
      I got there eventually, with a few cheats along the way. Not so bad once you stop expecting little things like definitions, anagram indicators, crypticity and so on.
  2. This puzzle is vintage 1948 material by the way. Sorry that is not apparent from the header.

    RR
    Crossword Editor

      1. Mmm, one clue referred to the last war and I wasn’t sure if they meant Great or Crimean.
        1. I was having that problem. I now find that knowing which war isn’t helping! It’s one of several clues I’m just not getting. I’m looking forward to Pip’s blog, probably more than Pip is.

          Fascinating insight into puzzles past, anyway. Certainly beat’s Cheryl’s birthday.

            1. You have to get yourself in the right mood. Personally, I made myself a lovely cup of Camp Coffee, lit up a Players Navy Cut to help me concentrate, tuned the wireless to the BBC Light Programme and just jolly well got on with it.
    2. Hi Richard, are you sure it isn’t vintage 1938? The reference to “the last war” in 15ac and the fact that the first one ever was in Feb 1930 suggests so to me anyway.
      1. A reference to WWI as ‘the last war’ in 1948 sort of makes sense to me, to distinguish it from ‘the war’. But you’re right about the number, so I had a quick root around in the Times archives (all available online if you’re a subscriber). I’m afraid I’m none the wiser as a result, because puzzle 1504 was published on 5 December 1934, and it isn’t this one!
        Edit: on a hunch I also checked around today’s date in 1948 and it turns out this is puzzle 5,644 from 16 April 1948.

        Edited at 2015-04-15 03:45 pm (UTC)

  3. On the club site, I guessed 1936, with the reference to DORA (1914) and the last war suggesting a pre-1939 date. Like Olivia I also made a comparison to the TLS. and its idiosyncrasy. You have to know your Greek, Latin and French., and not expect definitions unless the compiler is being uncharacteristically generous.
    Best of luck, Pip.
    1. Thank you for the ‘hint’, which enabled me to finish the puzzle. Have to say, I learnt a lot solving this and I thought there were some lovely clues. I’m not sure 28a would be allowed now, but I loved it, along with several others.
    2. Yes, thank you for the ‘hint’ too. I would also like to thank Google for 10ac and 2dn.
  4. Managed to do this in 16 minutes on a printout but I am uncertain about one answer. If it proves to be correct I shall regret not having done it online and thereby having achieved an authenticated sub-Magoo. I have read Tony Sever’s musings on vintage crosswords but this is the first I have tried, and I thought it was great fun. A different mindset is definitely required and I guess being old helps too.
  5. Yes, this was a beaut all right. On top of a couple of solving errors I also managed a double typo. I must admit I rather enjoy these in a masochistic sort of way – they’re similar to the weekly agony of the TLS. Good luck Pip and I’m curious to see what you come up with.

    Just had another look and make that one solving mistake (15a – not half bad that clue) and a quadruple set of typos – what on earth was in my tea this morning?

    Edited at 2015-04-15 11:38 am (UTC)

  6. Done in 15 min, having twigged that I wasn’t going to be given definitions – amazed to find myself on first page, and well above Magoo.
    Took me back to my early solving days – not that I remember this puzzle, though 15ac was an old friend.
  7. I didn’t find it too hard for the most part, although I had to search for the answer to 15ac. Like z8b8 I thought it had to be pre-WW2 for that reason and that the number suggested around 1936.

    I rather enjoyed the freedom from the tyranny of the definition.

    Edited at 2015-04-15 11:12 am (UTC)

  8. I went a full 15 minutes without managing a single answer but I have an answer for every clue now with only two that I have serious doubts about their accuracy, that’s 15ac and 26ac. Several others were biffed – if that can be an applicable term when one doesn’t understand the wordplay and the clue contains no recognisable definition. Good luck to you, Pip, but if it was my day on duty I’d just throw it open for a communal blog and get on with my life.
    1. You will appreciate that this is what Pip has skilfully done!

      This takes me back, as I started doing these in the 60s and quite a few of the 1940s conventions were still around then. More worrying is that RR has confirmed on the Club site that he has reclued some from the original, although in 1940s style.

      1. Yes, except nobody’s giving any answers! Do you reckon it’s all one big bluff?

        Forgot to say I was only rescued from my nil score after 15 minutes by realising the answer to 1ac came up here just a few days ago.

        1. Now I’ve seen the answers I got three wrong. No idea on DORA so guessed ROSA. At 20dn I plumped for BOOTMAN so never stood a proper chance at 26ac
  9. Thank goodness Ximenes rescued us from this sort of stuff. I’ve filled the top half, but most of the bottom is unfilled. The clues don’t even seem to be accurate. 10a appears to be a misquotation, and the answer to 14dn ought to be KNIPHOFIA (the red-hot poker) but that’s one letter short so I suppose it’s SNAPDRAGON, which hardly fits the notion of burning.
    1. Well, yes, it’s SNAPDRAGON. Don’t expect it to make any sense, though: in contact with a dragon, you’d probably get more than burnt fingers, and you’re right, knip-thingy is a better answer to the clue. I think back in the day, the Times was an even more exclusive club than it is now (!!) and solutions were found by some form of private telepathy as much as anything else. That said, this thing IS doable with a bit of very flexible thinking and abandonment of the concept of rules for setters.
      1. I don’t know how I knew this but Snapdragon was a parlour game where you set alight raisins soaked in brandy and then tried to snatch them up and eat them – hence the burnt fingers! It was my first one in but I am still working on it.

        Sue Sweeper

        1. Wow! What a wonderfully arcane piece of knowledge!  Makes much more sense of the clue, too, and sounds about the right sort of vintage. Might include it in my 6 year old’s birthday games. Gloriously non H&S, but he’ll love it.

          1. I used to do snapdragons in the 90s at the behest of a friend from Guernsey who was inordinately keen on them. So they’re not quite a thing of the ancient past!
        2. Right Sue. I’ve never played it either but it’s in Agatha Christie as well as some more upmarket writers such as Dickens and Trollope.
  10. I suppose the ones at Bletchley had no problems with this sort of puzzle….who needs indicators just use the Enigma machine!
  11. I approached this one with trepidation when I saw such an early number, but it was surprisingly solvable. Completed between Banbury and Oxford on the train this morning, so around 15 minutes.

    Having had experience of these vintage puzzles in the past, I knew to expect clues without definitions, anagrams without indicators, contemporary references etc, but 1ac came up the other day so I got off to a good start and never really got stuck. LOI was DORA, which was an educated guess confirmed online later.

  12. Well I’m in front of a laptop now at last and writing the blog, having put letters in almost all the squares, hopefully a couple more will fall in as I write; I’m encouraged to read above that I was not alone in being bewildered by some of these, so I loo forward to your further comments once I’ve posted, half an hour or so should do it.
  13. Well done Pip – not one I’d have wanted to blog in a million years. Lots of head-scratching and a couple of smiles – I did like the ‘sunny network’.
  15. I was born in 1948 and I am glad I didn’t start solving until I was a little older. DNF today with a few left unsolved in the SE. How can I biff if there is no definition?
  16. Well I managed to complete it, and made it into the top 10 despite a time of 38 minutes, which shows how baffling these old ‘uns can be if your mind is attuned to expecting definitions and the like. (Intriguingly, it seems that Mark G. wouldn’t stroll to victory if we had three puzzles like this on Finals Day, though on balance, I’m probably not in favour of that…)

    All in all, these puzzles are an entertaining diversion once in a while, but I’m glad I don’t have to blog them!

  17. Pip – it’s possible I’m being overgenerous, but isn’t the definition in 28a a synonym of ‘disarray’, ie ‘mess’ (officer’s dining quarters)?
  18. Good heavens. Usually I take a stab at these old time puzzles and get 2 or 3 answers before getting completely mired. Today, I actually got 20 or so of them, so I’m calling it a success. I’ll be happy to be back to normal tomorrow, and a salute to Pip for decoding this. Regards.
  19. As I managed to find it (see above), here are the edited clues as they appear in the original puzzle.
    Across
    5ac: A common condition
    23 and 25 Loves Greek
    30 Obviously not brought to a dead stop
    Down
    2 “In wild – battle fell my father!” (Tennyson)
    3 Run on sea? That’s folly
    17 Peacock’s hall

    Edited at 2015-04-15 03:58 pm (UTC)

    1. Many thanks for that. I think I’d probably have solved the original successfully, though I’d have had to rely on checked letters to get 2dn as I didn’t know the quotation.

      PS: I think you meant 11ac rather 5ac. And 10ac was also edited – I assume unintentionally – so as to completely change the meaning of the quotation, which should read “Bid me to live”!

      1. Yes, on both counts. I had never even heard of Herrick, so I had to google ANTHEA, and I was a bit puzzled by the misquote. I thought it might be an oblique reference to the bit later in the poem he does say ‘bid me to die’!
  20. I tried this and got 1/4 through it before I got an error message telling me that my brain was not backwards-compatible as far as 1948.
  21. Not for me, I’m afraid. I didn’t try to solve it, but quite enjoyed reading the clues and the blog. It certainly highlights the level of precision engineering we expect in every clue these days.
  22. A slightly disappointing 14:19 for me – still feeling desperately tired.

    This is a lot closer to the Times puzzles as they were when I started solving them in earnest at the end of 1962 – and, as malcj says, I’ve had some recent practice – so I really ought to have knocked it off in around 10 minutes, but (as so often these days) I made heavy weather of some easy clues.

    I rather regret the changes that RR felt obliged to make. In addition to the ones keriothe mentions, he seems to have fouled up the Herrick quote at 10ac (one I’m afraid to say I didn’t know) which should read “Bid me to live”!

    Most enjoyable. If only the Championship still had puzzles like that.

    1. I must say I agree on the changes. I can’t for the life of me work out why he edited those and not some of the others. I thought the 23/25 change might be down to some constraint with the format of online puzzles because it’s better as it was.
      1. It wouldn’t pass muster today, and it’s arguably a little weak even by the standards of 1948 since “dead” appears in both the clue and the answer. However, the words AND GONE in the answer, reflecting the fact that whoever died didn’t also “stop”, justify the original clue.
        1. Thanks, Tony. Not sure I really get it yet, but if you say so! I never realized having so much of the answer in the clue had ever been considered acceptable. But it is very interesting to see a puzzle from 1948. I am the puzzle editor at The Nation, and it was in 1948 that the reign began of Frank W. Lewis, former OSS cryptographer and the magazine’s setter for over sixty years. This entry was reminiscent in spots of Frank’s often non-Ximenean style.
  23. By the way, I assume that the (misleading) puzzle number came from the date: 15/04.
  24. “Across
    5ac: A common condition
    23 and 25 Loves Greek
    30 Obviously not brought to a dead stop
    Down
    2 “In wild – battle fell my father!” (Tennyson)
    3 Run on sea? That’s folly
    17 Peacock’s hall”

    The Herrick quote change was a typo for which I apologise.
    I was worried the “Loves Greek” combination would fall foul of the crossword software. And the MAHRATTA quote I felt was a step too far.
    And as I could not solve the Peacock’s Hall clue I felt it unfair to foist it on everyone.
    I will continue to re-cycle the older puzzles very occasionally, though the nbect one will be from the more recent past

    RR

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