Times Cryptic 26372

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I finished this in only a minute under the hour but I really don’t know why it took so long, as when it came to blogging  I found it one of the most straightforward that I’ve ever written and there’s  very little that needs adding to the basic parsing information. Having said that, I’ll get straight on with it…

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

P.S. The Quick Cryptic button is currently stuck on Monday’s puzzle. If anyone’s having trouble accessing it here’s the link: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/puzzles/crossword/20160329/13911/

Across
1 PAWN – Double definition, the second (pledge) with reference to borrowing money against the value of goods
3 PRECOCIOUS – PRECIOUS (expensive) encloses [clothes] CO (company). Definition: getting ahead
9 UNLACED – Two mildly cryptic definitions
11 ASUNDER – SA (it – sex appeal) reversed [returning], UNDER (towards the bottom)
12 PHOTOCELL – PHOTO (something a tourist might take), sounds like [we hear] “sell” (flog)
13 SPARE – S (small), PARE (cut)
14 SATISFACTORY – SATI{e} (composer, not English), FACTORY (works)
18 EXCHANGE RATE – EX (former), CHANGE (coppers), RATE (evaluate)
21 AXIOM – A, XI (team), OM (order – Order of Merit). Definition: (something) that’s self-evident
22 CLINGFILM – Anagram [cracks] of MC FILLING
24 SOIGNEE Anagram [doctor] of SEEING 0 (nothing). Definition: well-groomed – the double E indicates the feminine
25 WITHOUT – WIT (intelligence) encloses [incarcerating] THOU (you). Definition: using no…
26 MEANDERING – MEANING (import) enclosing [brought in] DER (the, German)
27 DYED – DY{f}ED (historic county – female banned). The geography of Wales is not my strongest subject but suffice it to say there was an historic area of this name before the modern county was invented in 1974. Whether it was a kingdom or a county or just a region I’ll leave to those who know of such things.

Down
1 PLUMPEST – PLUM (orchard crop) + PEST (infestation in…)
2 WALKOUTS – WA{r} [brief], K (king) inside [captured by] LOUTS (thugs). Definition: strikes
4 RIDGE – {part} RIDGE (bird – part missing). Definition: crest
5 CHARLATAN – CHAR (domestic), NATAL (birth) reversed [repelled]. Definition: quack – a phoney, often associated with medicine but also more generally
6 CRUISERWEIGHT – CRUISER (pleasure boat), W (with), EIGHT (crew e.g. a rowing eight). Definition: on the heavy side – a light heavyweight boxer or wrestler, for example
7 ORDEAL – OR (gold), DEAL (trade)
8 SERVER – R (right) in SEVER (part). Definition: celebrant’s aide – especially to a priest administering the Eucharist
10 CROSS-EXAMINED – Anagram [scruffy] of MEXICAN DOSSER
15 A THICK EAR – A straight definition and a cryptic one with reference to ears of corn, for example
16 PALIMONY – P (parking), A, LIMO (car), NY (state). Definition: settlement
17 HELMETED – HELD (kept) enclosing [crossing] METE (boundary). SOED has ‘mete’ as: limit, (material or abstract); a boundary stone or mark. Freq. (esp. Law) in metes and bounds. L15. All of which is news to me!
19 PASSIM – PA (secretary – Personal Assistant), MISS (skip) reversed [round] Definition: all over the place – usually referring to something mentioned in various places in the text of a document.
20 SILICA – {ba}SILICA (spacious church, all but top quarter)
23 IOWAN – Hidden [houses] in {tr}IO WAN{ting}

33 comments on “Times Cryptic 26372”

  1. I found the SE corner brutal, and was just about ready to concede when I realised that WITHELD might not be correct at 25ac.

    Also wasted time in the NW wondering what a WALROUT might be, so possibly not my finest hour.

    Another excellent puzzle, COD to WITHOUT after I finally parsed it. Thanks setter and Jack.

  2. … much chewier than some recent puzzles. With Ulaca, I considered COUNTERWEIGHT, thinking there may be some obsure pleasure craft involved. That left me the rather peculiar TRACE at 13ac. Just couldn’t be right.

    COD (from a very good field) to SOIGNÉE by a short head from CLINGFILM.

    Today’s opposition paper tells me the Romanian football team are sporting arithmetical puzzles on their backs instead of simple numerals. Can anyone improve on that? The Italians in Roman numerals perhaps?

    Edited at 2016-03-29 05:10 am (UTC)

      1. Bit like the time an Everton fan kicked Harry Catterick after a shocking loss. The Echo reported that it couldn’t have been any of the players, because they would have missed.
  3. A similar experience – and time – to others, delaying myself with ‘a sharp cut’ (I rather like that), ‘witless’ at the cunning 25, and both ‘coasterweight’ and ‘counterweight’. I finished with the unknown PALIMONY, but my COD goes to the hidden IOWAN. 59 minutes.

    Edited at 2016-03-29 04:31 am (UTC)

  4. A also took longer than I should have at 55 mins.

    SE corner was tough with 17dn HELMETED LOI although it had come to me earlier but I wasn’t convinced.

    COD 22ac CLINGFILM 3ac PECOCIOUS was also very useful.

    horryd Shanghai

  5. … the setter’s, not mine. You know that you have an excellent crossword when even the anagrams (SOIGNEE, CLINGFILM etc.) and the hidden clues (IOWAN) are top notch. Much-enjoyed.
  6. I agree with Sawbill.. much enjoyed this, excellent clueing and about right degree of hardness for me.

    As regards Dyfed, it was only a county for 22 years before it was abolished, which (being Welsh) is known as preserved status. It is administrative demographics rather than geography of course, the geography is still much the same but the names keep changing.. I was in Pembrokeshire (or Preseli, or Dyfed) only a couple of weeks ago


  7. Bottom half (except SILICA, where I had my One Error, my LOI where I threw in cilica, without troubling to parse…) was done in 30 mins, but needed another 30 mins to complete. Wanted 9ac to be ‘unlucky’ but then couldn’t make sense of 4dn… I agree, excellent puzzle, just about right level of difficulty…
  8. Difficult puzzle that needed a lot of work. Was very glad I no longer had to blog it – would have got that sinking feeling well before I finished it. Well done Jack.
    1. I’ve lost track whether this would have been your Tuesday, Jim. When I took over from you I knew where I was but now I’m doing every week the distinction is lost.

      I felt the difficulty was in the solving rather than the parsing and I started off with a very basic blog that only took about 15 minutes to construct. When I came to look at it again I added a bit more detail.

  9. 24 minutes, much delayed by being convinced that the power source in 12 was a HYDROCELL – I had nothing much else in the region and it seemed possible that a tourist might take a hydro. Maybe if I got the innocuous PAWN early on things might have been a lot quicker.
    If Satie’s factory hasn’t been done before I’m claiming a copyright fee.
  10. Took me 13 minutes, so by no means a walk in the park. I guess that’s a mark of an excellent crossword, if it seems difficult without ever resorting to anything unfair, obscure or controversial!
  11. Agree with jerrywh, a fine puzzle of fair difficulty, some good anagrams, 45 minutes or so with a gap for phone calls, took a long time to see HELMETED and DYED after wanting to take the F from FLINT for a while. CoD 14a.
  12. Really seemed to struggle, so slightly relieved others found it tough. Couldn’t seem to finish a corner, PASSIM and SOIGNEE long delay, also PLUMPEST. 51 minutes. Good puzzle, should not get so worked up.
  13. I dithered over the boxer, not knowing the term and thinking that a CRUISER was a warship and not the other kind. But in the end it couldn’t be anything else. Got all the way down to EXCHANGE RATE before finding a toehold. Good one. 21.05
  14. Like our blogger, I took nearly the hour without knowing why and without ever quite getting stuck. Biffed helmeted early and didn’t bother to find out that mete could mean boundary.
  15. 17m. A really excellent puzzle, I thought. The fact that it seems so simple in retrospect is a marker of quality I think.
    No real obscurity although METE isn’t exactly an everyday word. PALIMONY feels a bit new-fangled, and ODO says it originated in the 70s. I originated in the 70s and I like to think of myself as quite new-fangled, in spite of what my kids say.

    Edited at 2016-03-29 03:49 pm (UTC)

  16. Pretty much identical experience to Galspray by the sounds of it (except he got there eventually whereas I fell over!). Having convinced myself 25a was WITHELD (to the point that I did not even reconsider it as I struggled with 16 and 17d) I ended up with a DNF down in the south east.

    Thought 4d was rather neat. Thanks to setter and to jack.

    Edited at 2016-03-29 01:06 pm (UTC)

  17. 50m today and a real struggle overall but lots of excellent clues. Thanks jack and setter.
  18. Really liked this one – quite hard for me but rewarded a bit of persistence. Out of many good clues my favourites were the def. for WITHOUT (my COD), A THICK EAR and PALIMONY. I’d never heard of METE either but seemed to fit for 17d, my first in.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  19. A really good one with a toss-up between SOIGNEE and WIHOUT for COD. Tempted by plumpish at 1dn and made hard work of parsing the rather simple RIDGE, which was therefore last in.
  20. Tough for me too at 27:32 with a long period in the doldrums about 2/3 of the way through. I had to change plumpish to plumpest at 1d, puzzled over the HOUT bit of my LOI WITHOUT, wasn’t terribly familiar with METE and didn’t know the meaning of PASSIM. For ages I wanted UNLACED to be NOTICED.

    A good workout.

  21. dyste
    Mar. 29th, 2016 01:06 pm (UTC)
    I hope it’s ok to post before the blogger, but as it’s getting late where I am I thought I’d get my comments in. I started by expecting a tough puzzle, then was surprised to make reasonable progress early on, but brain cells started withering and I slowed down, so I didn’t finish until 45 minutes had passed. As so often, some of the ones that eluded me until the end were not hard (eg 1a). Last one in was 17, where the pattern of checked letters suggested nothing but PERMUTED at first. Then I wondered if PELMETED could conceivably fit the definition, after which the penny dropped, though the definition of METE was not a familiar one.
    A good range of clues and cryptic devices, I thought, though 15d struck me as a rather laboured pun.
  22. Just under two Verlaines which means a quality solve by my standards. Sailed through the W side but then got held up in the E. FOI “pawn” was a good start, LOI was “asunder”. I agree that there was nothing particularly obscure today but it felt tricky while solving.
  23. Yesterday x 3 so just over 30 mins. Hard work from the bottom up but enjoyable stuff. COUNTERWEIGHT went straight in for a while and an ever-annoying SA=IT but a pleasant solve.
  24. Tough today, about 45 minutes, held up in the SE by HELMETED, PALIMONY, and my LOI, WITHOUT. I had myself stuck on the initial W?T being the ‘wit’ needed, and tried in vain to make something out of ?O?T to fit the wordplay. I confess I finally just biffed it in, so thanks for the parsing. Regards.
  25. I’m a muppet. I didn’t give 1dn a lot of thought and misbiffed “plumpish”. Other than that I was pretty much on the setter’s wavelength and I spent 20 mins on the puzzle.
  26. Hard but fair – and made harder by starting off 1ac with MEAN which seemed entirely reasonable at the time….for lowly and as pledge.
    Count me in as another who went for PLUMPISH having finally corrected the above. sigh……
  27. Good stuff. Avoided the rocks, and might even have been quicker had I not been listening to the dismal England football performance. Close run thing with 1d when the correct solution occurred to me just as I was about to enter ‘plumpish’ with a shrug.
  28. It took me an age to find the setter’s wavelength (after getting PAWN very slowly, I could make nothing of the next seven clues I attempted – the following five acrosses plus the first two downs). But then I found it at long last, lost it again briefly a couple of times, and finally plodded home in 10:13 assuming that I was going to finish way down the field.

    It’s still a bit of a mystery why I didn’t. With hindsight it all looks completely straightforward – just another pleasant solve, though with some very nicely constructed clues. I can’t see Magoo taking more than 5 minutes.

    (Oh to be young again – it would have been nice to finish in 1/2 x verlaine :-).

    Edited at 2016-03-29 10:11 pm (UTC)

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