Times Cryptic 25764 – Boo hiss and a round of applause

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I thought this was going to be easy but I got a bit bogged down towards the end and spent ages on the two unchecked letters at 18ac. Other than that final hurdle I had completed the grid in 40 minutes. 3dn is my COD.

* = anagram

Across

1 PATHETIC – B (Bishop) in ‘bathetic’ (such a letdown) is replaced by P (pawn)
6 MIASMA – I and S inside MAMA (mother)
9 COUPON – COUP (great achievement), ON (working)
10 INTEREST – IN ThE REST
11 ONLY – As in ‘ONLY child’ and ‘if ONLY…’ (expressing hopeless wish)
12 CHESTERTON – CHEST (part of body), TONER*. G K Chesterton is probably best known for his “Father Brown” series of detective stories recently revived by the BBC and put out in the daytime when few were able to see it. Well worthy of a prime-time slot in my opinion.
14 OMELETTEhOME, LETTEr (one posted)
16 VAIN – A (article) inside VIN (Bordeaux)
18 CROP – This double definition was my last one in extending my solving time by at least 10 minutes. One meaning is the stock or handle of a whip, the other is what grazing animals do when they bite off the tops of plants. I didn’t know this second one.
19 HARDSHIP – D (daughter) inside HARSH (severe), 1P (very little money)
21 EASY DOES IT – (SEASIDE TOY)*
22 OPAL – 0,PAL
24 MILL RACE – Mandarins, I’LL, RACE (compete)
26 CHICHI – CHIC (elegant), HI (greeting). I’m not sure I ever knew this means showy and/or pretentious. I think I have always assumed it to mean much the same as its first component.
27 CYMBAL – Sounds like “symbol” (representative)
28 SOLITARY – SO (very), LITerARY (bookish)

Down
2 ACORN – A, CORN (hard growth)
3 HAPPY-CLAPPY – HAPPY (slightly drunk), CLAPPY (a bit diseased!)
4 TENACITY – NET (free of tax – reversed), A, CITY (Geneva). I thought that ‘net’ was after tax rather than free of it, but perhaps I’m being picky.
5 CHINESE WHISPERS – CHINE (backbone), SEW (join), then PERt (cheeky) inside HISS (chorus of disapproval. Reverse engineering required for this one!
6 MUTATE – A inside MUTTEr (grumble quietly)
7 AYR – Hidden. I wasted time on the Iranian city HIRe before spotting the obvious.
8 MUSSOLINI – U (sort of turn) + LOSS (defeat – reversed) inside MIN (short time), I
13 REVISIONIST – I, (INVESTOR IS)*
15 MORTALITY priesT inside MORALITY (ethical principles)
17 PROTOCOL – P (quietly), ROT (rubbish), O (old), COL (army officer)
20 NO BALL – NO (drama), B (born), A, LL (couple of pounds)
23 ABHOR – A, H (hard) inside BORe (one endlessly tedious)
25 LOB – First letters of Lunch Over Barmaid

33 comments on “Times Cryptic 25764 – Boo hiss and a round of applause”

  1. I started so slowly that I thought of going offline after about 10 minutes–I do have work to do–but then somehow took off to get in just under the wire. But that meant ‘solving’ from definition and checkers in many cases, such as 5d, which I only now understand thanks to Jack. DNK 3d or 20d, barely knew 5d for that matter; we call it ‘telephone’, I believe, in the US. I actually came up with Chatterton for 12ac, who I’ve never read a word of, before giving up and moving on, finally twigging much later. Liked 28ac for the ‘unhesitatingly’.
    1. Around the NE US (according to husband) it used to be called Chinese fire drill, but I gather from my children that it’s no longer PC. 20.26. Away until Monday by which time I hope someone will have dealt with the troll on the Forum who keeps bandying my name about in a very ungentlemanly way.
      1. In southern New England we used telephone – a CFD meant some form of mass confusion, preferably with a lot of running around.
      2. Magoo has put the boot in pretty firmly. I’m not entirely sure it will shut the blighter up, but we can only hope.
      3. When I was a lad, a Chinese fire drill involved everyone getting out of the car at a red light, and running around and over the car, popping back in just as the light was about to change. Definitely not PC. But the passing of a whispered message from person to person was ‘telephone’.
  2. But under the half hour.

    Found this hard to get on with at first. But 6ac was my way in. Gradually got there but all the 4-letter answers (ONLY, VAIN, CROP & OPAL) came at a price.

    My sympathy to the setter having to clue CHINESE WHISPERS.

  3. . . . with CROP LOI, put in without knowing why but pleased to see that it was correct. Thanks for the explanation Jack. Very much a bottom-up solve.
  4. 16:14 .. loved most of this. Some very clever clues, such as the “little by little” in MIASMA and the whole construction of ONLY.

    LOI … also CROP, which was a hit-and-hope for me, too. A double-rare-def. always strikes me as not quite cricket. But then cricket’s not quite cricket these days.

    COD .. ONLY

  5. 25 minutes and a nice gentle start to the day with no arcane GK needed, albeit I didn’t help myself by unthinkingly putting in”mutter” at 6d (the correction was my LOI).
    I enjoyed this far more than yesterday’s which, although I eventually finished I didn’t share others enthusiasm for: I found many of the straight clues too irritating. But then it takes all sorts…
  6. A gentle 20 minute stroll in the park with no pyrotechnics.

    I agree that NET is really after deductions; I didn’t attempt to parse either 5D or 8D just wrote in from definitions and checkers

    15D is of course also a mathematical subject of great interest to actuaries and soon every retiring pensioner it would seem. I see great scope for confusion and misrepresentation!

    1. The pension scheme report I was reading yesterday had as an assumption that the average life expectancy of a 65 year old man, which is already 25 years, will increase at 1.5%pa. I therefore calculate that once I am over about 80 I should be able to age more slowly than this, and therefore live forever.

      I can’t tell you how pleased I am..

  7. An enjoyable solve for me with some neat clues and mostly good surfaces. Helped by getting several from definition that then provided helpful checkers for the remainder, I finished in 12.30.
  8. 12:20 here, although for some reason it felt like I was struggling with most of it. My LOI was also CROP, although I knew both of the meanings so was confident when I put it in. CHINESE WHISPERS went straight in from the definition, but it took me 5 minutes to figure out the wordplay afterwards. Good puzzle overall with some entertaining clues.
  9. 13 mins but I didn’t bother to parse 3dn and entered a stupid “happy-slappy”. A very disappointing mistake, but I suppose that’s what I get for going for speed ahead of careful analysis. I also didn’t bother to parse CHINESE WHISPERS but at least that one was right. Of my correct answers ONLY was my LOI after CROP.
  10. 13:20 for a most enjoyable puzzle. I’m another for whom crop went in last on a W and a P.

    I’m happy with net as before VAT so free of tax seems just about OK.

    I’m not convinced that Abhor really works. I thought that A couldn’t be clued as one in the Times daily (as the blog seems to indicate) meaning that A BOR(e) would have to work as one endlessly tedious but surely it should be one tedious endlessly shouldn’t it? There’s no QM to justify anything else.

    I couldn’t parse Chinese whispers or Mussolini so thanks for those Jack. Re the latter I was convinced that turn defeat on its head was INIL (one-nil) reversed.

  11. My thanks also to Jack for parsing chinese whispers. It reminds me of my favourite (? apocryphal) example where on a military exercise, the message “send reinforcements, we’re going to advance” changed to “send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance”.

    jfr

  12. An enjoyable 10:18 for me – thank you for explaining Chinese Whispers. Lots to smile at including 3d.

  13. Thought I was getting through this quite quickly, but was surprised to find 45 minutes had gone by when I finished. Enjoyable puzzle. Took forever to see ONLY and CROP, the two last in. Happy Easter to you all.
  14. Quite a struggle this one, almost two hours, but enjoyable holiday solve for all that. Couldn’t parse many of them, even missed the anagram at 21ac and assumed Easy Does It was a ride one went on at Weston Super Mare or something. Held up for ages because I spelt 8d Mousolini. This is what happens when you don’t parse I guess.

    Thank you for clearing it all up in the blog.

    Nairobi Wallah

  15. About 90 minutes, and some pleasant clues with some nice misleading definitions. I need to get to a next level – I’m getting 3/4+ in in good time, then grinding to a halt. Any advice for fixing that appreciated.
    1. Put it down and then come back to it an hour (or more) later. Amazing, how that helps.
      If ever it becomes important to finish it in one sitting, then you must find a mental equivalent of the above. Some here have. But I recommend not to take it that seriously 🙂

      1. Two good pieces of advice. Thks, Jerry. The first being easier to adopt than the second, perhaps.

        Edited at 2014-04-18 04:35 pm (UTC)

  16. 40 minutes, finishing with ‘omelette’. Chesterton’s ‘Charles Dickens’ is acknowledged as one of the finest works of criticism on that writer. His biographies of Thomas Aquinas and Francis of Assisi are on my reading list.

    I concur with Penfold re 23.

  17. Never heard of HAPPY-CLAPPY! I was struggling with the top left, and was stuck trying to use “slightly” in some anagram because of the “drunk”…then tried “sloppy” for slightly drunk which left me even more confused.
    CROP had to fit but didn’t get the second definition.
    Favorite clue MIASMA
  18. Steady, enjoyable solve – about 40 minutes pre and post lunch. Amusing to see the robust Catholic CHESTERTON standing next to a breathless HAPPY-CLAPPY. FOI MIASMA – nasty thing, lovely clue! Also spent ages marshalling my reasons for entering CROP. LOI ONLY.

    Wishing all bloggers and solvers – and setters – a Peaceful and Happy Easter. May all your Easter Eggs be ovoid, oviform, ovate …

  19. 13:10, with several minutes at the end puzzling over 18ac. Not a great clue in my opinion, and too much of the rest was bunged in from the definition for me to enjoy this puzzle as much as others seem to have done. I did solve it after a six-hour drive though so it’s probably unfair to blame the setter.
  20. 45min here, with my LOI being HAPPY CLAPPY and ONLY. I wasn’t at all sure about CROP – the whip reference eluded me, and I made do with some vague notion that a crop of something could also be considered a stock[pile].

    HAPPY CLAPPY made me smile, but I didn’t really find a COD. Couldn’t be bothered to parse CHINESE WHISPERS either – too much assembly required!

  21. 11:09 for me. I was feeling nervous after the last couple of days, and agonised for a while over CROP even though I was reasonably sure I could argue a case for it.

    I was slowed by wanting 11ac to be ENVY and by trying (and failing) to parse MUSSOLINI – I eventually abandoned the attempt as the answer couldn’t be anything else. (I’d wanted “short time” to be MO and “defeat on its head” to be I-NIL, and it took me some time after I’d finished before I finally twigged the way the wordplay really worked.)

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