Times Cryptic 26360

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This one took me exactly 30 minutes and I found it very enjoyable and quite inventive in places. A couple of words may not be familiar to all but the wordplay is clear enough in these cases to make the answers accessible.

As usual {deletions} are in curly brackets and [indicators] in square ones. I have included definitions where I think they may be of assistance to recruits from the Quick Cryptic puzzle.

Across

1 CROTCHET – CROCHET (woollen creation) containing [covering] T{toddler} [head of]. Definition: note.  Crotchet is the British name for the American quarter note in music.
9 HAREBELL – HAL (Shakespearean prince – Henry V as he was to become) containing [throttling] REBEL (insurgent)
10 EMMA – ME (the writer) reversed [switch], MA (old woman). Definition: young woman in novel – of the same title by Jane Austen
11 RETURN TICKET – TURN (modify) + TICK (bug) inside anagram [gnarled] of TREE. I liked ‘homing device’ as the definition here.
13 LAWFUL – L (left), AWFUL (in a bad way)
14 POLTROON – Anagram [dreadfully] of POOR LOT, {ma}N [ultimately]. A strange word I learnt at a young age as a term of abuse favoured by Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock. I don’t think I knew it specifically meant a coward though, just a general ratbag, to use another favourite expression of ‘the lad himself’.
15 CATS-EYE –  A straight definition with a barely cryptic hint, but I suppose the whole thing makes sense as &lit too
16 ATHEISM – A, then IS inside [probing] THEM (those people)
20 I DARE SAY – Anagram [dicky] of IS READY containing [to tour] A (area)
22 RELIEF – REF (official) contains [accepting] LIE (story)
23 CROP ROTATION – PORC{ine} [more than half] reversed as indicated by ‘rotation’ in the answer. Self-referencing indicators tend to be anagrinds, so it’s a change to have one that’s a reversal. Definition: element of farming activity
25 CLAN – CAN (no longer continue – N. American slang for ‘stop’) encloses [to house] L (large)
26 APRES-SKI – A, PRESS (for reporters) + KI{t} (package [curtailed]). Definition: activity in the Alps
27 DYSLEXIA – D (daughter), anagram [upset] of EASILY containing [about] X (times – multiplication)

Down
2 RAMAYANA – RA (Egyptian god), MAY, A{e}N{e}A{s} [oddly]. I didn’t know this ‘Sanskrit epic’ but full marks to the setter when clueing a foreign and possibly unfamiliar word for doing so in such a way as to give all solvers a fair chance of working out the right answer.
3 TEAR-OFF STRIP – TEAR-OFF {a} STRIP (reprimand) [overlooking article – A]. Definition: opener – e.g. on jiffy bags
4 HOSTELRY – HOST (lots of people), R (run) inside ELY (fenland city)
5 THERAPY – PARE (cut) reversed [up] inside [during] THY (your, old)
6 BRUTAL – RUT (routine) inside [involved in] BAL{let} (classical dance [not half])
7 PECK – {s}PECK (small bit [with no seconds]). Definition: eat just a bit
8 PLATINUM – A + TIN (metal) in PLUM (exclusive) surroundings. The definition is &lit.
12 CARTE BLANCHE – C (clubs – cards), anagram [exercised] of CLEAR THE BAN. Definition: absolute authority
15 CHITCHAT – HITCH (difficulty) inside [blocking] CAT (spiteful person)
17 TERMINUS – TERM IN U.S. (four years as President). Definition: end
18 SVENGALI – SVEN (Swede – with fond memories of scorer Samantha’s occasional stand-in on ISIHAC) + I (one) contains [without] LAG (delay) reversed [looking up]. Definition: hypnotist. Svengali was a character in George Du Maurier’s novel ‘Trilby’ but this has now become a general term for a manipulative person who exercises a controlling or mesmeric influence over someone, usually for sinister reasons. ‘Without’ means ‘outside’ here.
19 PYRAMID – MARY (woman) inside [during] DIP (swim) all reversed [picked up]
21 SPOUSE – SPO{t} (identify [reduced]), USE (purpose)
24 OGRE – GO (try) reversed [upset], RE (about)

47 comments on “Times Cryptic 26360”

  1. Yes, in hindsight I suppose POLTROON does look more likely than POLORTON. In fact I think I’ve even heard the word, so my bad.

    Thanks setter and thanks Jack, especially for the amazingly early blog. How do you do it?

    1. We’ve just had the blogger’s TARDIS serviced following a mishap last week and it’s working well at the moment.
  2. Is it ‘dyslexia’ or ‘dislexia’? I can never remember, so I made a point of checking my spelling, fully realizing that ‘easily’ was anagrist. And yet I failed to correct my misspelling. Fortunately, I’m in San Francisco currently, where it’s now cocktail hour, so with luck I’ll soon forget my idiocy. DNK CATS-EYE, but the checkers and the hyphen suggested it. I see from my dictionary that it’s a UK term; I have no idea what they’re called in the US. I liked 23ac, and especially the ‘homing device’ of 11ac.
    1. I’ve been told that Americans have trouble recognising irony. .. Don’t know if that’s true, but for future reference an inability to spell “dyslexia” is definitely ironic 🙂
  3. Surely it doesn’t matter how one spells DYSLEXIA!

    33 mins – with only 2dn RAMAYANA biffed.

    I don’t think 15ac CATS EYE(S)were much used outside of UK – but they made their eccentric and reclusive inventor very rich – in WWII during the blackout. His company was named Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd – of Halifax.

    I do appreciate the early blog as it usually late afternoon when most arrive here and even later on Fridays!! Even better when the clocks go back in UK shortly.

    horryd Shanghai

    1. I don’t know how you managed to biff Ramayana. I suspect it was a new word to most of us and had to be derived from wordplay.
  4. Too many clever ones to like them all, but Apres Ski and Terminus were especially nice. One error where the previously unknown god Ramas led to the also as yet undiscovered Ramasana epic. Nice blog; very nice puzzle.
  5. 18 minutes, so all this channelling of Verlaine must be working. My last in and favourite was PYRAMID (‘something ancient in the sand’ sounds like a joke from ‘Diary of a Nobody’ – just read and enjoyed after ‘Portrait of a Lady’, written at just the same time but so different in tone and type of England being portrayed that they seem to belong to different worlds let alone eras). I thought the wordplay for CLAN was clever and the definition of RETURN TICKET well disguised.

    The cricket master at school used to tell a joke about one of the Classics teachers – who was a bit precious and came from Morpeth. His father was a local councillor and was attending a meeting where one agenda item concerned the proposed installation of cats-eyes on the road to Ashington. “Sounds like a good idea,” he said, “but who is going to pay for the electricity?”

    1. I channelled Ulaca and ended up with 6.5 minutes. A mutually beneficial arrangement it seems!
  6. Did the usual trick of printing out the crossword after 4 and before 5 only to remember that I got another copy of yesterday’s due to daylight saving.

    Minor point, but at 26ac I think it is A PRESS KIT (reporter’s package) curtailed. Having been involved today in preparing several, “press kit” is a phrase very much on my mind. On its own, KIT for package seems a bit weak.

    1. I hoped that was what I’d indicated but I can see there may have been room for doubt so I’ve made a slight amendment, adding “for” to “reporters” to correspond with the clue (it doesn’t say “reporter’s”) and a plus sign instead of a comma to suggest the second and third elements need to be taken together. I hope that clarifies things.
  7. Pecked a pick of peckled pippers, or something like that, for 7 thus ‘… making bloomer’ which was not the correct one for 9. I thought CROP ROTATION, CROTCHET and SVENGALI were especially good. Almost put in ‘hydatid’ for ‘… something ancient in the sand’ and it may have been correct for the def at least – hydatids have probably been around for longer than the pyramids anyway.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  8. 12 minutes but with a very careless ‘dyslexic’. That’ll learn me.

    Creative puzzle, I thought, and fun to solve. I always struggle with clues like RAMAYANA where part of the wordplay is explicitly there in the clue (‘may’) — a sort of setters’ double bluff.

    COD to the ingenious CROP ROTATION, which will forever make me think of Rick Mayall in The Young Ones’ University Challenge appearance. “Crop rotation in the fourteenth century was considerably more widespread after John.”

    1. Thanks for that line. I checked it out on YouTube, and, though I was never a massive fan – or watcher, like all the best critics – of The Young Ones, I enjoyed the revision scene on the train.
  9. 30 minutes with some clever clues ….. and only a Y and an X away from a pangram. Didn’t know 27a but the answer was clare from wordplay.
          1. I thought once that I had hypochondria until I looked it up and realised what I had was much worse.

            Edited on account of 27a

            Edited at 2016-03-15 04:49 pm (UTC)

  10. 8m, so easy for me, but still very enjoyable with surprisingly little biffing, some really neat touches and scrupulously fair wordplay for unknown (RAMAYANA) and ironically-easy-to-misspell (DYSLEXIA) words.
    My one question mark was the definition of ATHEISM, but perhaps you can read ‘opposition’ as ‘antithesis’ or something similar.

    Edited at 2016-03-15 04:00 pm (UTC)

  11. 16 minutes but with a weird typo that I can’t rationally explain. I liked CROP ROTATION and TERMINUS, which called to mind the possibly apocryphal clue “Play of two presidents?” for TITUS ANDRONICUS.

    Edited at 2016-03-15 09:32 am (UTC)

  12. Very enjoyable puzzle – not difficult but fun to complete. I’ll add my appreciation for the setter at 2D and also at 8D

    Interesting little diversion to Railway Cuttings, East Cheam Jack. One of the funniest radio programmes ever and well worth a nostalgic trip.

  13. 19:07. I fell into a couple of traps with this, possibly of my own making. When I had C_OP for the first word of 23A I was convinced it was going to be CHOP due to the porcine part of the clue. For 25A I initially had CULT – cut for no longer continuing and cult for family. Possibly a bit dubious.

    Lots to like in this, an honourable mention to PYRAMID but my COD to TERMINUS.

  14. I always end up tearing off more than I should. LOI, but liked the clue and the puzzle. Back to 35 minutes today, despite not having done Killer first.
  15. 20:03 today of enjoyable solving. I was very taken with the homing device and the Presidential 4 years. DNK RAMAYANA but obtainable from the cryptic. Thank you setter and Jack.
  16. Bad day today, with a couple left blank in the NE, and after an hour I gave up:
    HAREBELL (I had HA….L, but wanted it to be something like ‘wholemeal’),
    RETURN TICKET (I had RETURN…….),
    and I was convinced the ‘harsh routine’ was something to do with ‘quaDRILLe’
    Also had a blank at TERMINUS, which I can see now is very clever.

    Roll on tomorrow…

  17. Fairly flew today, fourteen minutes, so speed reapproaching that of undergraduate days now I’m retired.Are the two comparable? Didn’t parde 25 correctly. Spouse spends much time crocheting so 1 was instant. Really liked 27.
  18. 20 minutes, so very much on the easy side. As Jack says, 15a seems barely cryptic so I didn’t enter it immediately, but waited for checkers. I liked some of the other clues. 2d is a bit of a hotchpotch – the Ramayan is a wonderful Hindu epic with no trace of Latin influence; I felt the indication of ANA was quite weak.
  19. Light-hearted and not too difficult yet quite clever. An amusing definition of RETURN TICKET, and TERMINUS is a little unusual. PLATINUM however for COD.
  20. 13:14 for a puzzle with some clever stuff. I’d never noticed that pyramid was a reversal of Mary inside dip.

    Of course every pub quizzer knows that Percy Shaw invented cats’ eyes. If the cat had been facing the other way he’d have invented the pencil sharpener.

  21. Surprisingly quick for me. 2d was a write in, having done the Hinduism and Buddhism module in my Religious Studies degree course a decade ago:I knew it would come in useful,for something.
  22. Very quick (13:50) for me, with 8dn biffed, so thanks for parsing, also 24dn where I couldn’t see why ERGO dave ‘try’.
    LOI 9ac, as I’d initially put PICK at 7dn.
    Thought 17dn very neat.
  23. I remember that they showed an interview clip of the inventor after he’d died. ‘Bits o’ glass in t’road’ he said in a Yorkshire accent (I think). He reckoned the highway authorities (or equivalent) took a lot of convincing. But he did well out of it eventually.
    Nice puzzle, solved in stages over the day.
    Regards
    Andrew K
  24. A most enjoyable 23 minutes with just the one DNK which I was pleased to see was not an anagram. On the Hancock theme, I have to give up some of my Chateau O’Negative to the phlebotomist tomorrow morning – only a finger full I hope.
      1. No doubt I shall be on the receiving end of some more excellent lifestyle advice from my GP in the few nanoseconds he will grant me to discuss the results.
        1. You must have some influence to see a real doctor about your results; in these psrts it’s the deputy cleaner.
          1. In your surgery you have cleaners?!? Sorry ….. and they have a deputy? At my doctors you are given a mop on the way out ( which is a bit tough after a terminal diagnosis).
  25. Oh dear.

    I was about to congratulate myself on getting a full 36 minutes’ worth of enjoyment out of a puzzle which lasted many others less than a quarter of an hour. But then I noticed my error at 27ac (“dyslexic”).

    Sotira – preshumably your photograph ish from the Nederlandsh?

  26. I’m a day late with this one due to the newsagent delivering both today’s and yesterday’s papers this morning. I tackled today’s first and then this one. I found it quite straightforward and was pleased that the unknown Epic was fairly clued to allow me to construct the answer. About 40 minutes all told. Apparently Percy Shaw had 5 TVs, one for every room in his house, including the Loo! Thanks for the explanation of CROP ROTATION. I biffed it without too much thought. CROTCHET accidentally caught my eye when I did today’s crossword, so FOI after that was THERAPY’ Liked RETURN TICKET. I think POLTROON is a nice word too. Was pleasanly surprised to recognise the plant at 9ac after giivng up on trying to make a word with HAMLET. Managed not to fall into the dyslexic trap by studying the anagrist carefully. LOI LAWFUL as I’d mis-spelt HOSTLERY. Doh!
  27. I tackled this at the end of a tiring day and didn’t even have the energy to look through the clues again after I’d finished, let alone comment here. Looking through them again now (better late than never!), I find I don’t really understand PLUM = “exclusive” in 8dn; however, as no-one else seems worried about it, perhaps I’m missing something obvious.

    (For the record, I took 9:35 for this otherwise straightforward, pleasant solve – and would have been rather faster if I hadn’t somehow managed to bung in ERGO at 24dn.)

    1. Yes, I wondered about that too but decided going via another word such as ‘choice’ or ‘pick’ might cover it at a pinch so didn’t bother to raise it.
      1. Hm! That was the best explanation I could come up with as well, but I don’t feel it quite cuts the mustard, even with the question mark at the end of the clue. Anyway, thanks for taking the trouble to reply to my very belated query.

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