Times Cryptic 24157 Not So Elimentary Watson

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 35 minutes

I really liked this puzzle which has a goodly number of smoothly worded clues and at times quite complex wordplay. I can’t say that anything particularly held me up and I made steady progress from top to bottom, left to right.

Across
1 COMMONLY – two meanings; 1=the “aristocracy” are supposedly not “common”; 2=very often;
5 ATOPIC – A-TOPIC; inherited tendancy to acute allergic reaction;
10 ERNIE – (y)E(a)R (i)N(s)I(d)E;
11 MEADOW,RUE – ME-ADO-W(orkers)-RUE; the buttercup to you townies; nice clue;
12 UNSHACKLE – (sun)*-HACK-(sensationa)L-(articl)E; nice clue;
14 ROUND,ON – (g)ROUND-ON(e);
16 ADJOIN – A-DJ-O(dd)-IN; another nice clue;
18 AACHEN – A-ACHE-N;
20 DEFLECT – DEF(L)ECT; nicely worded if you remember the UK drives on the left;
22 ADAPT – A-(“pad” reversed)-T; another smooth surface;
23 GAULEITER – (regulate+i)*; a Nazi official;
25 REHEATING – (“her” reversed)-EATING;
27 WIDNES – change “widens” to WIDNES; town in the Runcorn/Liverpool area of Cheshire;
28 LEANED,ON – L(E)ANE-DON;
 
Down
1 CHEQUERS – CHE(QU)ERS; Prime Minister’s country pad near the Chilterns in Buckinghamshire;
2 MINIS – M(IN)IS; M=maiden (cricket reference); IN=wearing;
3 OPEN,AND,SHUT,CASE – rather weak cryptic definition;
4 LAMBKIN – LAMB-KIN; reference Charles Lamb 1775-1834;
6 THOMAS,JEFFERSON – (he sent majors off)*; one of the founding fathers, he was President 1801-1809;
7 PARRICIDE – PARRI(CID)E(s); the murder of a parent; another smooth surface;
8 CREASY – sounds like Creasey; John Creasey 1908-1973 best known for creating Gideon of the Yard;
15 UNABASHED – (n)U-NAB-A-SHE-D(e); NAB=slang for catch; another excellent clue;
17 STURGEON – ST(URGE)ON(e);
19 NOGGIN – two meanings; 1=the head; 2=a drink;
20 DRUGGIE – (EIGG(U)RD all reversed); Eigg is the Island; U=a U-bend; Holmes was a well known tripper=DRUGGIE;
21 FARROW – FAR-ROW; a litter of pigs;

22 comments on “Times Cryptic 24157 Not So Elimentary Watson”

  1. 35 mins here. I thought at the start that it was going to be a really tough one, but it just worked out quite smoothly. Nothing to add to Jim’s comments.

    23ac took a while as I don’t know German and needed the checking letters to make something that sounded vaguely familiar. I hadn’t heard of John Creasey but it wasn’t hard to guess.

    A nice puzzle.

    1. Foolishly put “patricide” for “parricide” (thought short evasive answer was something like “pat re(ply)” although truncation by 3 letters was never likely, and on closer examination there’s a spare “i”). Never heard of “meadow rue”, so although the worldplay suggested it fairly strongly I didn’t have enough faith in it to realise 7 down might be wrong. So 7dn wrong, 11 ac incomplete. About 20 mins. bc
  3. 18:20 – got there in the end, but unimpressively. In the NE corner, neither ATOPIC nor MEADOW RUE felt sure enough to put straight in when they should have been, and neither version of CREASY felt secure either, so looked for other C?E?S? possibilities. Worst of all, rushed into tripper=TOURIST at 20D, from the def and the fact that UIST was in there somewhere. Others like 17 and 3 took longer than they should have done.
    1. UIST
      Yes, I too had that word spring to mind immediately. Fortunately I very recently clued UIST so remembered that “Hebridean island” wouldn’t work as a def.

      UIST or THE UISTS refers to the group of Hebridean islands consisting of North and South Uist, Benbecula and other small (mostly uninhabited) islands.

  4. About 60 mins for me today, with MEADOW RUE and CREASY both guesses.

    Other than the def, could someone explain why 13ac is ALIAS?

  5. 21:47 .. I must have spent 3 minutes on my last in – ADAPT. It just doesn’t pop into my mind as a transitive verb. Another appearance for Sherlock. It raised a smile, but it’s one of those where the use of the full enumeration makes it very easy.

    COD for me – CHEQUERS – nice surface. One Across Rock – King of the hobo MCs, Trinidadian toaster Commonly Creasy

  6. I was very unsure of ATOPIC, though I entered it lightly at the beginning with no confirmed letters, and I didn’t get CREASY until the end, so ATOPIC was always in doubt. No big problems elswhere, apart possibly from DRUGGIE and NOGGIN, which I didn’t get until I had the N of AACHEN. I’d forgotten about EIGG, so didn’t fully understand the clue for DRUGGIE. “Dug up” seems an odd reversal indicator.
  7. The clock told me I didn’t have too much trouble with this, finishing in just under 10 minutes, but it felt like a struggle with several clues holding me up.

    I’m quite familiar with the town of Widnes although Wiki doesn’t mention anything about it that would grab the attention, so I can understand solvers regarding it as a bit obscure. For the record, the actress Kim Cattrall was born there, as was Spice Girl Mel C and politician Jack Ashley. More to the point, despite knowing of the place this clue teased me for a while before I spotted the switch of letters.

    My decent time was no doubt helped by getting the long answers very quickly; 3D a bit of a chestnut, 6D a very easy anagram. But the acrosses 1, 12, 14, 16, 27 and 28, and downs 1, 2, 7, 8, 15, 20 and 24 all took far longer than they should have so I’m really surprised about beating 10 minutes.

    Most of the smoothly surfaced clues felt familiar, so for nicely deceptive treatment my COD is 14 ROUND ON.

    Q-0 E-7 D-7

  8. I know I finished it before I went to sleep, but I don’t remember a time, just that some took me a lot longer than they should have. Needed all the checking letters for GAULEITER, FARROW from wordplay. Great wordplay for PARRICIDE. If I’d done this earlier in the evening or first thing in the morning I would have thought this was brilliant, but in my sleepy state I found it a slog.
  9. 12.24. I took ages to get the long Sherlock clue at 3d – partly because I had misread (or mismarked) the word lengths so that I thought the first word was ONE, and partly due to a conviction that the answer must, somehow, involve some number of pipes (as in a Three-Pipe Problem).
  10. 12.36. I guessed at ATOPIC and from the C my first thought for 8 was the Queen of Crime Writers Agatha Crusty.However I am old enough to remember John Creasey although this must be a difficult one for anybody under 50. Also struggled with DRUGGIE , the wordplay is ok but I often get thrown when more modern “slang type” words are involved but I am all for things moving with the times
    Widnes (Station) is also noted for being where Paul Simon was when he was sufficiently depressed to write “Homeward Bound”
  11. A steady solve with only a few moments where I thought – ‘Gosh that’s clever!’. Bit disappointed, both with my time 45 minutes and the crossword.
  12. I found this one less difficult, for some reason, breezing through everything except the crossing 24/26 in about 15 minutes, but needing another 10 or so before entering SMITE, and then guessing with TRIAD. I’m dubious about TRIAD, and considering no one has mentioned these yet, I’d be grateful if someone can clue me in. The prez at 6D was probably even easier for me than most of you, but I entered 8 and 27 on my useful theories of ‘there must be a WIDNES over there, and they must have a CREASY there too.’ Never heard of either the place or the author. Regards.
    1. Kevin, hear is being used for try, as in hear a case in court. So it’s try-ad, with “on the radio” as the homophone indicator
      1. Thanks much. I reread the clue just now, and realize the second word is ‘publicity’. I had previously read it as ‘publicly’. I should put on my glasses.
  13. 30 steady minutes. Which is slow, but it didn’t seem to be. “atopic” “widnes” “meadow rue” and “aachen” probably accounted for 20 of the minutes. It must be time that all of the gauleiters were put out to grass. I have only encountered them in crosswords.
  14. Tripper = druggie? I don’t think so, unless things have changed since my student days. I’ll buy “user of LSD” but it’s still a case of definition by example. I certainly don’t think of Holmes as an acid head — cocaine was his tipple, was it not?

    …Robert

  15. My ignorance of things Germanic came into play in this entertaining offering but did not prevent successful completion. GAULEITER at 23a was clued as an anagram but I managed somehow still to get the correct spelling. With ?A?H?? at 18a (before I used my NOGGIN at 19d) I toyed with AARHUS. Not only did this not fit the wordplay but it is a Danish City. Doh! Eventually, I dredged up AACHEN which did fit the wordplay and IS in Germany (just) – hurrah.

    There are 4 “easies”:

    13a Alternative identity given by Asian name, for example (5)
    ALI AS. ALI as an Asian name is common in Shi’ite countries such as Iran. As far as I understand it Shi’ites hold that the Prophet Muhammad appointed Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor whereas Sunni Muslims hold that the Prophet did not appoint a successor. This is a source of great conflict and strife in the Middle East.

    26a Second child is hit (5)
    S MITE. This was my LOI. Simple when you see it but I did not for quite a while.

    9a Woman turned up in Jerusalem apparently (6)
    PAMELA. Reverse hidden in last 2 words.

    24d Hear publicity on the radio for criminal gang (5)
    TRIAD. Sounds like try ad.

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