Times Cryptic 25739 Bright Maharajah, long producing problems for his guardian? (4,9,6)

Was there perhaps a hint of a more relaxed style of setting here? A touch of the not-quite-Ximenean? There is certainly one laugh out loud clue and a couple where the definitions are hardly precise.  I looked in vain for some hidden meanings or thematic references – today’s challenge to the community might be to prove me wrong and demonstrate some miraculous web of links hidden just out of sight. Solving the thing took me 21′ 12″, just inside 3 gilhams, which is about right for me. I was helped a little by more than a hint of deja vu, with a certain answer repeated from a currently embargoed crossword, not only verbatim, but in the identical place. At least the clues were different, with ours here requiring less knowledge of, shall we say, popular culture (someone must like it). Here’s my reading.

Across
1   POTAGE  Defined only by its significant attribute – it’s thick – the soup is created by dropping name – TAG  – into the
    crossword setter’s favourite author, (Edgar Allan) POE
4   ASPHODEL. The grid (and the clue) defied my efforts to write in ASPIDISTRA. The right plant emerges from helpful
    wordplay: D(ied) is inserted into an anagram of HOLE and follows the ASP, which certainly qualifies as something poisonous.
    Just ask Cleopatra.
10 ARAUCARIA  The monkey puzzle tree which does indeed have cones around it. ARIA, something sung at the Royal Opera
    House, Covent Garden (anyone not know that?) contains AU (gold) and a CAR. Araucaria was also the assumed name of
    Rev John Galbraith Graham, celebrated creator of Guardian (and other) crosswords for 55 years until his death in
    November last year, and one of the small band of our craft heroes to have a crossword setting style named after him,
    characterised by themes and a less precise, but no less entertaining format.
11 ALLOT To divide amongst several recipients, or as in this case, “a lot”. A very generous indication of a sound-alike clue.
12 COS  Double definition, first COSine, trigonometric function, then a bit of salad, the crisper version of lettuce.
13 ORANGE PEKOE  First decide that, out of the possibilities presented, you’re looking for tea, then reverse engineer to O(ld)
    APE OK and GREEN as your anagram fodder
14 CORNEA  Two types of ear, the first wheaten, the second a shortened lughole, combine for the front part of the eye.
16 DEEP SEA  The Ocean, where the River DEE joins P(ost) S(cript) and the first letter of E(bb) A(way) I tried but failed to
    imagine it happening as described
19 HELIPAD  LIP is “nerve” (you’ve got a../none of your..) in HEAD=main (sort of) for the landing place presumably digitised by
    Apple
20 GEE-GEE  The centre of drugging gives you the necessary two Gs, which are then spelt out. My son as toddler disdainfully
    told us that “the lovely gee-gees” were in fact horses.
22 DAISY-CUTTER  Again a double definition. A daisy-cutter, today’s cricket, is a ball that keeps low and is likely to get under
    the batsman’s guard. I’m not sure whether the “rare” refers to its fine quality as a delivery, or just that, on a normal pitch,
    it doesn’t happen very often. You know what a mower does.
25 RYE in Sussex is one of the Cinque Ports, though now about 2 miles from the sea. Rye whiskey is an American concoction,
    impossible to confuse with Scotch. Canadian Rye apparently often contains no rye.
26 VOILA which directly translates as “See that!”reverse hidden in totAL I OVerpaid.
27 TERRORIST  TT (dry/teetotal) harbours (verb here) ERROR=failing and IS 1: “likely to cause mayhem” “one likely to
    cause mayhem” is a rather jolly definition of a terrorist. Thanks McT
28 LEATHERY “Tough”. I initially played with LETHE, the drug of forgetfulness, but settled on THE (article) inside LEARY.
    Timothy Leary was a psychologist famous for his experiments with and advocacy of psychadelic drugs in the 60s and 70s.
    Richard Nixon called him “the most dangerous man in America”, which from Tricky Dicky sounds like a recommendation.
29 STATUE  Permanent fixture? A rather loose definition, as both Lenin and Saddam have discovered. U(niversity) in
    STATE=Country

Down
1   PLAICE  Nicely disguised, for here fare=food, of which our fish is indeed a flat example. Sounds like place (duh!), which is
    equivalent to station as in “I know my place”.
2   TOADSTOOL  Breakfast, in abstemious households, might well be TOAST, but see also 9 for a better idea. The last of (lar)D
    is included, and the assembly followed by LOO, a “Ladies” up. Are toadstools necessarily inedible? Discuss.
3   GECKO  Definition lizard, skin in CasK in GEO(rge). Christmas cracker of the week: How do you shoot lizards? With a gecko
    blaster!
5   SHAGGY DOG STORY Something of a cryptic definition, a SDS being a determinedly long winded and often rather
     pathetic joke
6   HEADPIECE, which I would have associated more with books rather than hats, but it’s HE (Man) with an old penny (D) in
    APIECE for “each”. Younger readers might want to know that, when attending to Mr Leary, we were careful to distinguish
    our LSD from his LSD
7   DALEK  Correctly identified as alien, from the planet Skaro. K(ing) foots DALE, a valley.
8   LUTHERAN, named for the protesting Martin Luther, he of the 95 theses. NEUTRAL converted and (patriarc)H included.
    Luther tended not to be tolerant of protesters who didn’t protest like he did, drowning Anabaptists and laying the
    foundations for rabid anti-Semitism. But at least he wasn’t a Catholic.
9   BREAD AND BUTTER  To bring home the bacon is to bring in the financial necessities for living, and in at least one sense,
    B&B serves the same function. On the other hand, it could just be about that culinary masterpiece, the bacon sarnie. .
15 NAPPY RASH  Quite a complex &lit construction built around a plausible description. Components are: Managed=RAN
    (reversed); very soft=PP (music); baby’s bottom Y and and anagram of HAS. Follow the Ikea-ish assembly instructions
    and you’ll have your answer.
17 SPEARMINT  Looking for a flavour, take S(mall) PEAR=fruit and add it to perfect as in MINT condition
18 SHE-DEVIL  One out of Rev John’s Anglican prayerbook (almost): the baptismal injunction to SHED EVIL with the gap closed
    and a hyphen inserted where it can do most – um – good.
21 SETTEE  One who has clues set for him/her. Bring on the comfy chair and the soft cushions! For me, a laugh out loud piece
    of whimsy
23 IBIZA A holiday destination famous for its night-life and pioneering electronic music. Heading off (t)IBIA and include the
    generic unknown whoreson and unnecessary Z (King Lear)
24 ROOST A Quickie level clue to finish: S(on) contained in ROOT=search.

43 comments on “Times Cryptic 25739 Bright Maharajah, long producing problems for his guardian? (4,9,6)”

  1. … that being for the erroneous GRASS- at 22ac. But a good puzzle full of entertaining wit, such as the &lit at 15dn and my LOI, DEEP-SEA (which I take to be the adjective with “from” being part of the def).

    On which, I suspect the “one” in 27ac is where the def begins. The solution doesn’t need an extra 1/I at that point.

    Just a bit peeved by “that’s thick” in 1ac, but there’s so much to compensate for it. I’ll even forgive the CD at 5dn. (Yet another repeat from a still-under-wraps puzzle; as I see now our blogger notes.)

    Lastly, pleased to see the Quick Cryptic was up and available at 11pm GMT. Hope this continues because it gives me a chance to warm up for the main event at midnight GMT.

    Edited at 2014-03-20 09:59 am (UTC)

  2. About 20 mins for me (actually 30 but I booked a plane ticket in the middle and didn’t stop the clock). LOI was ROOST of all things, probably because I hadn’t read the clue until that point. Took a long time to get the DAISY bit of 22A since I only know the phrase in the context of some sort of bomb.
  3. Thank you for an entertaining blog of an entertaining puzzle, although as you say it was a bit loose in places!

    With DEODAR yesterday and more plants today, I am expanding my plant vocabulary. I had heard of ASPHODEL but if asked would have ventured that it was a Babylonian deity.

    ARAUCARIA was first in. LOI by a long way was POTAGE, mainly because I spent at least 10 minutes puzzling over P_O_G_. I can’t type, and I’m sure I would never have written 2d as OOADSTOOL.

  4. 44 minutes, with the last 5 on CORNEA. Nice, quirky stuff, with TOADSTOOL and NAPPY RASH my favourites…figuratively speaking, of course.
  5. 34 minutes, so only 4 beyond my self-imposed target for the main puzzle which I have not managed to achieve for some time now. 1ac and 1dn were my last ones in.

    Never heard of, or had forgotten, Timothy LEARY so I lost time considering the alternative LEATHERN at 28ac.

    Not for the first time this week I was helped a little by having solved the Quickie first. Incidentally, although that has been up promptly at midnight the past few days, the e-paper has been late appearing and indeed I still can’t access it to find out the name of today’s setter.

    BTW, there’s also an element of dubious truth about a 5dn that accounts for ‘tall’ in the clue. Just thought I’d mention it.

    A very nice puzzle but I am really not very happy about the definition at 1ac. By the same token would it be acceptable to use ‘that’s clear’ to define the answer ‘consomme’?

    Edited at 2014-03-20 07:03 am (UTC)

    1. I wouldn’t object to that. For me consomme is most definitely clear soup whereas potage is just soup. If I narrowed down a definition to “it’s clear” then consomme would very likley pop into my head. For potage I solved the other way round as Jimbo alluded to.
  6. About 20 minutes, so quickest of the week for me thus far.

    I had similar reservations about POTAGE. Clueing this as ‘it’s thick’ seems a step away from clueing soup as ‘it’s stuff’.

    I was helped getting ARAUCARIA by recongnising the late setter from my occasional dabblings into the Guardian crossword. Didn’t he reveal his terminal illness via his crossword?

  7. Another 20 minute saunter for a mainly pleasant enough but never taxing offering

    1A is a Pavlov clue! Name=TAG, Author=POE. The definition is awful but it doesn’t matter if solving from the very obvious cryptic. I think “breakfast” for TOAST is just as bad – TOAST can be eaten at every meal and on its own as a snack! Another weak cryptic definition at 5D – they’re becoming a Times hallmark.

    I liked NAPPYRASH and SPEARMINT

    1. 17.1. Noticed bit of overlap with the quickie (roost and asp) so perhaps Grumpy was doing double duty. It was a bit surprising to see the shaggy tale again so soon. In the very old days of British Rail you were indeed offered a choice of soup – thick or clear, flavour unspecified. So Jack is right about consomme, but I don’t see how anyone would know that unless they’d experienced it. No I’m not THAT old but I do remember dining with my grandfather on a train as a small child – wonderful.

      Nice blog Z!

      Edited at 2014-03-20 10:17 am (UTC)

  8. Logging in from NZ for a change; not a million miles from my avatar’s namesake. I enjoyed this one too, in spite of or perhaps because of the liberties. To add to which, an asp isn’t poisonous. You can eat as many as you like without ill effect, I’m told. It is however venomous, which is a different kettle of toad fish.

    Settee brought a smile to my face too, not only because of the conceit, but also because of the signs in the Auckland buses which refer to standees not being permitted past certain points. Isn’t a standee someone who is stood rather than standing? Or are you stood if you are standing? In which case a stander and a standee are one and the same. Or do they mean stood a drink, say, so the signs are discouraging people who don’t pay their fair share of rounds from travelling on buses?

  9. 32min: 1ac LOI, as after failing to find anything for the expected N in an author P–G-, tried for PHLEGM from the definition. Eventually resorted to an aid to fit checkers in 2dn, which I’d failed to parse.
  10. For the third day running I’ve made an error and it wasn’t my LOI. I had everything but 1dn entered in 12 mins but then spent another 5 mins staring blankly at it before the penny dropped. No excuses, just me being dumb.

    My error was at 21dn where I had “settle” on the basis that it is a seat and a solver can settle things. The whimsical SETTEE is obviously the correct answer and mine isn’t really an acceptable alternative because a settle couldn’t exactly be described as comfy, and there is the question mark at the end of the clue. I really must concentrate more.

    1. I’m glad I didn’t think of SETTLE first, or it might have stayed and I would have missed the punchline. While Chambers’ definition, “a long high-backed bench”, lacks a certain warmth, the word itself conjures images for me of that comfortable corner by the fire in a proper pub.
      The 1’s were also my last entries.
      1. Pick up a copy of The Good Pub Guide and just about every other entry talks about settles.
  11. First and foremost, I’d like to thank z8b8d8k for a magnificent blog.

    Love the wit and sheer panache, and it explained neatly the things I’d slapped in but been unable to parse – VOILA (missed the reverse hidden), POTAGE (didn’t see the TAG / POE – just put it in on a wing and a prayer ‘cos it was thick and it fitted…)and GECKO.

    Feeling chuffed as I managed to get this one out on a midweek night – unusual for me! Maybe the confidence instilled by nailing the Quickie each lunchtime is starting to pay dividends… early days, but cause for optimism. Maybe I’ll fix my golf swing this weekend too…(joke)

    Edited at 2014-03-20 10:49 am (UTC)

  12. Again just under the hour, so I’m definitely improving (or the puzzles are getting marginally easier). Was held up for quite a long time by trying a mis-spelt CHAPPEAUE, which actually parses if Pue is an old penny, and which properly crosses everywhere except the deAD sea. thank you for a very nice blog.
  13. Took a while to get going on this one but then picked up steam. I’m sure that, in the last few days, someone either here or on 225 or the forum used SETTEE in this sense so it sprang to mind immediately. I thought a daisy-cutter was a ball bowled deliberately low to the ground, perhaps underarm, to not give the batsman a chance to score off it (see: Trevor Chappell), but I’m not sure if the laws of cricket allow that now.

    COD to PLAICE, which made me think of British Rail sandwiches.

    1. From an (ex) cricketer’s perspective, a daisy cutter is something most likely to occur by accident.

      It will either be an unintentionally very short pitched ball which then essentially dribbles along the ground (e.g. when a spin bowler loses his grip on a wet ball and it accidentally pops out and lands in the first half of the pitch), or it may be a ball (of any pace) pitched on a reasonable length that then fails to bounce and instead shoots along the ground because the pitch is in poor condition.

      The Trevor Chappell incident was a highly unusual (and rightly deprecated) instance of a deliberate daisy cutter delivered underarm. It has soured trans-Tasman relations for many a year now, and was close to causing a diplomatic incident at the time.

    2. Definitely still a legal ball. This from the BBC report of the first T20 between NZ and England at the Oval, 25th June 2013:
      “The medium-pacer’s delivery to dismiss McCullum was arguably the ball of the match – a slower-ball yorker which turned into a daisy-cutter en route to the stumps.”
      More fun, perhaps, from the Fanny Bush (sic) Devil’s Dictionary of Cricket, written especially for Americans:
      Daisy-cutter- see shooter
      Shooter- A ball which, after pitching, travels almost along the ground. Impossible for the bowler to bowl intentionally but, when straight and fast, almost always terminal for the batsman.

      In baseball, it’s an (old fashioned?) term for a ball hit sharply along the ground at daisy-head height. Daisy-cutter pitches would presumably be illegal as they wouldn’t trouble the strike zone.

      1. The relevant law was changed, as I recall, after and a result of the Chappell incident.

        Law 24: 7 states (in essence) that any ball that either bounces more than twice or rolls along the ground before reaching the popping crease will be called No ball.

        The importance of the law to the BBC report you cite is that either the “shooting” took place after the ball had landed *on or behind the popping crease*, or the ball had touched McCullum’s bat before “shooting”.

        Edited at 2014-03-20 03:12 pm (UTC)

        1. I think we may be talking about two different things. A daisy-cutter doesn’t roll along the ground, but zips along at “daisy” height. It pitches anywhere, but instead of bouncing normally it stays low. Very hard to defend, probably very hard to bowl deliberately. It’s also legal in the terms you supply, since it still only pitches once on the way through to the batsman’s pads or the stumps.
  14. . . . with no particular gripes. A cricket ball that tries to get underneath the bat is usually a yorker and I agree with the Cat (grr!) that a daisycutter is a ball that rolls along the ground. I don’t know whether bowling them is still strictly permissable but it is certainly against the spirit of the game.. Trevor Chappell did the deed but on the instructions of his captain and brother Greg, who picked up all the stick.
  15. Just under the half-hour, with no real stand-out clues. Quite liked NAPPY RASH, oddly, as don’t usually like the “ikea-construction” clues, but this raised a smile.

    Leary and his following among the more unpleasant memories of the 60/70s, up there with rent-a-mob Tariq Ali, and Jack Straw as a particularly nasty student agitator.

    FOI ORANGE PEKOE, LOI DALEK, COD ASPHODEL, for reviving memories of Tennyson –
    ” … others in Elysian valleys dwell,
    Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
    Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil …”
    I know how he feels!

  16. SETTEE hur hur hur, and I agree the term has been around on the fora for a (see what I did there?) while. Quite an unusual puzzle in terms of style, and somewhat approximate in places, but I rather enjoyed it. 37 minutes.

    Many thanks,
    Chris.

  17. 11:29 the last two minutes of which were spent on 1a/1d before the pennies clanged loudly to the office floor.
  18. For some reason I finished this in well under 20 minutes – about half the time it normally takes, so was expecting some very quick times from the experts – but it seems it was just ‘my’ sort of puzzle. I confess I actually like the cd at 5dn. Oh well, if we all liked the same things we’d be constantly queuing up.
  19. There’s a natural order for cats and dogs in the universe and, in your heart of hearts, you know what that order is – don’t fight it! 😉
  20. 13.24. Similar experience to Andy B as I had all done bar 1d in about 12 mins. I guess I just cottoned on to the answer quicker than he did (I assumed I was looking for a flat piece of food but the association between station & place was the bit that took a while to see).

    I agree with McT that the def for deep-sea is “from the ocean” and I though the necessary lift-and-separate of away and from was rather clever.

    I didn’t know Leary and whilst the word asphodel was familiar, if pushed to tell you what one was I’d probably have suggested an aasvogel-like vulture.

    29 put me in mind of a TV programme I watched this week with Danny Baker taking a rather whimsical look at TV coverage of British statuary over the years. He showed John Noakes climbing to the top of Nelson’s column for Blue Peter. Staggeringly there were no hard hats or harnesses in sight, not even a rope. The only sop to H&S was the fact that the ladders had been tied to the column.

    COD to voila for the neat definition.

    Puzzle and blog enjoyable in equal measure so thanks all round.

  21. This was rather a fun one – I also started with GRASS CUTTER but changed it when I saw the possibility for NAPPY RASH. Everything made sense in the end, thanks setter!

  22. Finished in ok time, with POTAGE (with a shrug), followed by LOI PLAICE, and that only once I’d corrected kos to COS. Getting my greens and my Greeks muddled.

    Like Andy Borrows (not often can I write that, I can only dream of his times…) I too had settle for SETTEE. Bah humbug.

    Thanks to Z for a fine blog.

  23. Just over an hour for an enjoyable puzzle with a good variety of clues. I personally like the Ikea type construction clue unless they include Suet and Dude!

    Our internet connection isn’t fast enough for YouTube but somewhere on there you should find a clip of Richie Benaud giving his opinion of that under-arm delivery. If my memory serves me right you can practically see the steam coming out of his ears as he lays into Greg Chappel who was captain of the team, something of a pity as Chappel was one of the most elegant batsmen of his generation but rather blotted his copy book on that day.

    Nairobi Wallah

  24. 10m for this. All straightforward, including the unknowns.
    I’m posting late because I didn’t get a chance to do the quickie this morning and was worried that someone might give one of the clues away again.
      1. No problem: I’ve concluded that I’m going to have to make sure I’ve done both before coming here anyway: it seems unrealistic to expect people to remember never to mention the other puzzle!
  25. About 20 minutes, ending with 1D/1A. I’ve learned to spot the PLAICE as a fish from these puzzles, but today I learn also that it’s flat. Also, I had thought POTAGE was invariably spelled as ‘pottage’. Is there a difference? No wonder that corner took so long. I smiled at the SETTEE, so my COD nod to that opposite corner. Regards.
      1. I have never seen plaice over here, no. Our common flatfish are sole and flounder. The summer flounder, commonly called the fluke, is the prey of a lot of sport fishing, but is never sold commercially either, as far as I’ve ever seen.
        1. According to Wikipedia, there are two flatfish called plaice – the European, which lives on the continental shelf, and the American, which is an Atlantic fish. Apparently the USA regards the American plaice as over-fished (perhaps that’s why you don’t see it) but the Canadians think it is abundant – it’s the 2nd most caught flatfish there, accounting for 50% of all fish caught. Well you live and learn, eh?
  26. Phew. After two consecutive DNFs, I was glad to reach the far side of this one in something like 50min.

    NTLOI was POTAGE, because I was determined to get an N in there. LOI was, inexplicably, HEADPIECE, wherein I was trying to fit a PER. SHAGGY DOG STORY was here recently, wasn’t it? Ah, I see that’s noted in the blog.

    Too many cricket-related clues in this one for my liking, but at least it was Shakespeare-free and didn’t include any wilfully obscure trees this time. A bit thin on techie clues, however, apart from COS and CORNEA and, I guess, DALEK. Still, you can’t please everyone, as I often point out to the next of kin.

  27. 12:49 for me, never really finding the setter’s wavelength, and misparsing several clues as a result. PLAICE was my LOI – my lack of foodie knowledge making be anxious that the answer was going to be some kind of flatbread I’d never heard of. (Phew!)

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