Times Cryptic 29024

Solving time: 46 minutes

I found enough easy answers to make a confident start in all quarters of the grid but then hit problems and slowed to a crawl. Some of the clues were not easy to blog and I’m not completely convinced of all of them.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.

Across
1 Summon back to city demonstrating ludicrous change (8)
BATHETIC
BATH (city) then CITE (summon) reversed [back]. SOED: bathos – (of rhetoric) ludicrous descent from the elevated to the commonplace.
5 Mineral of thulium also containing aluminium and copper (6)
TALCUM
TM (thulium) [containing] AL (aluminium) + CU (copper). Talc is a naturally occurring mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate.
9 Dance one spied regularly around Royal Navy? (8)
HORNPIPE
HOP (dance) + I (one} + {s}P{i}E{d} [regularly] containing [around] RN (Royal Navy). The hornpipe is a dance principally associated with sailors.
10 Rock at the lowest level beginning on top (6)
BASALT
BASAL (lowest level), T{op} [beginning]. LOI. I didn’t know ‘basal, but the answer was obvious once I had all the checkers.
12 Chance a noted clinic for reconstructive work (12)
COINCIDENTAL
Anagram [for reconstructive work] of A NOTED CLINIC. ‘Chance’ has to be taken as an adjective for this to work e.g. as in ‘ a chance meeting’.
15 Long time after old Papa Haydn’s works? (5)
OPERA
O (old), P (papa – NATO alphabet), ERA (long time). Joseph Haydn’s operas tend to have been neglected over the years by comparison with much of his other output, but he wrote a couple of dozen. The surface is apt because the affectionate nickname ‘Papa’ was given to Haydn during his time at the court of Esterházy. Please see Wil Ransome’s comment below for an alternative interpretation of the definition.
16 Having some power to bond with opponent in camp (9)
TRIVALENT
RIVAL (opponent) contained by [in] TENT (camp). I’m never sure about the equivalence of ‘camp / TENT’, but we’ve had it before.
18 What’s sticky and hard to throw away? (9)
BOOMERANG
Cryptic. This might loosely be described as a stick that comes back when thrown away it – unless you’re Charlie Drake. I was going to put a link to the song but decided to spare you .
19 Botch at least three notes (5)
MISDO
MI’S (notes i.e. 2 or more) + DO (note x 1), so at least three notes
20 Warmth of home shut up during day without end (12)
FRIENDLINESS
IN (home) contained by [shut up during] FRI (day) + ENDLESS (without end)
24 Volume of Whitman contains nothing to kill time (6)
LOITER
LITER (volume, of Walt Whitman – i.e. US spelling) [contains] 0 (nothing)
25 Carelessly mention a name (8)
NOMINATE
Anagram [carelessly] of MENTION A
26 Yankee has to consider carefully when there’s no parking over there (6)
YONDER
Y (Yankee – NATO alphabet), {p}ONDER (consider carefully) [no parking]
27 Eros perhaps appearing centrally in last item from Aida (8)
ASTEROID
{l}AS{t} + {i}TE{m} + {f}RO{m} + {a}ID{a} [centrally]
Down
1 Physicist — one going on and on endlessly about hydrogen (4)
BOHR
BOR{e} (one going on and on} [endlessly] containing [about] H (hydrogen). I knew about Niels Bohr from the play and film Copenhagen.
2 Rubbish seen round top of railway cutting (4)
TART
TAT (rubbish) containing [round] R{ailway} [top of]
3 Intelligence calculates pi on a general sequence (9)
ESPIONAGE
Hidden in [sequence] {calculat}ES PI ON A GE{neral} sequence
4 Dark beer, pint, drunk with meal (12)
IMPENETRABLE
Anagram [drunk] of BEER PINT MEAL
6 Dread admitting a king’s return to the land of the living (5)
AWAKE
AWE (dread) containing [admitting] A + K (king)
7 Possibly a green method of recycling maps (10)
CHARTREUSE
CHART RE-USE (method of recycling maps)
8 I left in changed form, such as Mr Hyde was known to do (10)
MUTILATION
I + L (left) contained by [in] MUTATION (changed form). I can’t remember the gruesome details of Mr H’s deeds but a summary I found on line advises: “His actions are characterized by a lack of empathy and a willingness to inflict pain and suffering on others” so I assume this may have included mutilation.
11 Cryptically disguise noun “cunning” as an adjective (12)
DISINGENUOUS
Anagram [cryptically] of DISGUISE NOUN. I think ‘as an adjective’ is there for the surface reading as it’s not really necessary to tell us we are looking for an adjective.
13 Tentatively be one hundred per cent like Thomas? (10)
DOUBTFULLY
DOUBT FULLY (one hundred per cent like Thomas). ‘Doubting Thomas’ was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus in the New Testament. He is known for his initial scepticism about the resurrection.
14 Knocking down protest hero full of appeal (10)
DEMOLITION
DEMO (protest), LION (hero) containing [full of] IT (sex appeal)
17 Peace agreement with power bombing cities (9)
ARMISTICE
ARM (power), anagram [bombing] of CITIES. MER at ‘power / ARM’ but it’s in my thesaurus (both ways) so I guess it’s okay. Perhaps someone could provide an example to demonstrate substitution?
21 French resort entertaining English relative (5)
NIECE
NICE (French resort) containing [entertaining] E (English).  An escapee chestnut from the QC that I accepted gratefully at this stage.
22 Fixation over air in Lisbon (4)
FADO
FAD (fixation), O (over). This is plaintive Portuguese song and dance music with guitar accompaniment. ‘Fixation’ seems a little extreme for a passing fad or fashion but I’m open to being convinced.
23 Crazy drinking energy drink (4)
MEAD
MAD (crazy) containing [drinking] E (energy). Another easy one to finish with.

74 comments on “Times Cryptic 29024”

  1. I can’t recall any mutilation in Stevenson’s book.

    ‘The long arm of the law’ is an example of the word’s power sense.

    20 minutes for this. I can never remember what BATHETIC means.

  2. 26:20
    I found this hard, and failed to parse some. Like BASALT, even though I knew ‘basal’–I’d say it’s ‘at the lowest level’–and ASTEROID. I liked ‘volume of Whitman’, which tricked me into thinking how ‘leaves’ would work; it took me DEMOLITION to give that up and see the light.
    Pope was in effect the coiner of ‘bathos’, and used it skillfully:
    Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey,
    Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea.
    (That’s actually zeugma, but I’d say it’s bathetic.)

    1. I’d not thought about this, but the best use of zeugma is bathetic, Pope also has this:

      Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law,
      Or some frail China-jar receive a flaw,
      Or stain her honour, or her new brocade.

  3. 10:47, I got off to a very slow start with this one, but eventually it came together. 18 across reminds me of the old joke “What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?”: “A stick”.

  4. About 75 minutes. Slow going because of complete lack of phrases. FOI BOHR LOI FADO found after a long trawl through nearly forty four-letter words with A second and O last. Finally clicked after long time going over and over. Once you know it the answer is obvious from the wordplay.
    Thanks Jack for the parsing.

    1. I fluked FADO by conflating FARO (in Portugal) with PRADO (in Madrid), but it was enough to pull it from some dark recess, although I thought it was the name of a street in Lisbon.

  5. I apologise for being off the point of this crossword, but could I just ask the team for your views on a technical question?

    I recently tried a cryptic crossword which included two clues with a similar feature.

    One was “MCG’s aim: remove rough-and-tumble?” The answer is “scrimmage”.

    The feature I dislike is that you have to split the word “remove” – “re” forms part of the anagram fodder, while “move” is the anagram indicator. The split is unindicated.

    I can’t help thinking that Ximenes would not have approved. Views?

    1. Definitely ok for The Guardian where it’s a regular feature, definitely not for The Times although I believe one or two examples may have slipped through and not been well received.

        1. Even having discussed this with you early this morning I was caught out by an example in today’s Guardian puzzle. It would have been my LOI after a long struggle, but I simply didn’t spot it in the wordplay and was unable to get the answer from definition and checkers.

          1. Yes I see that one. I had never noticed it before, even in the Guardian.

            Call me old-fashioned but I don’t like it.

            1. There are lots of things I don’t like about The Guardian puzzle but things I enjoy too that often make it more of an adventure than The Times. But if forced to choose there’d be no competition.

  6. After a very long day at work (right here in this same chair), I got off to a very slow start, intending to approach this—having read his intro—as Jackkt did, and as I often do, first getting a couple in each quadrant. But I didn’t have anything in the NE until the other quadrants were filling up. I finished in the SE, though, with two clues that I really loved: FADO (because I’d heard of it) and ASTEROID (whose parsing I have just now found, or I would have written much sooner!)—we’ve had a few similar to this recently, but it still seems rather original.
    MISDO made me laugh. I think of “Tentative” as slightly more positive than DOUBTFUL, so I was… hesitant there.
    Three cheers!

  7. Made a complete mess of that. Had AWARE instead of AWAKE, and for some reason just could not see DOUBTFULLY! Aarrgg!

    1. It’s funny how often that seems to happen. The answer to one of last week’s clues, you may remember, was GIANTS CAUSEWAY. I was visiting it for the first time the next day.
      KC

  8. 41 tortuous minutes. LOI ASTEROID. BASALT was a biff. The setter set me off on a few wild goose chases such as trying to think of a Walt Whitman poem.I didn’t know any, I’m ashamed to say. Much as I hate to admit it, it was my Physics and Chemistry that helped me out today. I guess our setter watched the last night of the Proms. It was as well I had too, for the HORNPIPE. Very tough. Thank you Jack and setter.

  9. So there’s an asteroid called Eros, is that it? Never heard of it, but it was a cleverly constructed clue which I totally missed, along with MISDO (??!!?) and the NHO FADO, so the towel went in at about 45. Thanks Jack for unravelling those plus HORNPIPE and a few others. Couldn’t remember BOHR for ages and was held up at DOUBTFULLY by suspecting Thomas might be the tank engine.

    From It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue:
    YONDER stands your orphan, with his gun
    Crying like a fire in the sun
    Look out, all the saints are coming through
    And it’s all over now, baby blue

    1. I’d been planning to mention the asteroid in my blog, but then forgot. Here’s what Collins says: Eros – an asteroid that approaches to within 14 million miles of the earth once every 44 years.

  10. 17.50
    Somewhat lacking in solver-FRIENDLINESS, I thought, with three interlocking long anagrams.
    Next week we’ll be going to see Milton Jones, who on a trip to Australia once claimed to have learnt some Aboriginal words.
    “Like ‘boo’, which means ‘to return’. Because when you throw an ordinary meringue…”
    LOI ARMISTICE
    COD HORNPIPE (an honest-to-God & lit).

  11. 45 minutes with a lucky guess FADO, but defeated by MISDO. I couldn’t see how to get three notes, so decided it must be some musical term for a chord of at least three notes. Also MESS fitted which led me to try other ways to end MUTILATION.

    Fiddled with Eros as an anagram in ASTEROID for some time. And Whitman for an American? Why him, and not Buzz Aldrin or Raymon Burr (or any other random American)

    COD HORNPIPE and DOUBTFULLY

    1. Why, indeed, but it gives the setter scope for variety.

      I think the technical term for a chord of three notes or more would be ‘chord’ as two notes would be an interval. ‘Triad’ is three, but not just any three, the upper notes having to be a third and fifth above the bottom one.

    2. Because Walt Whitman wrote (poetry, etc), so his work would be published in a ‘volume’ (ie book of his work).

      Saying that, while I was thinking of an American writer, the voice in my head told me it was Slim Whitman. That actually still works, especially as some of his albums had ‘Volume 1’, etc in the title.

  12. No time, as I let the cogs keep whirring over the baffling _A_O as I walked from the tube. It hit me eventually. I’m not sure if I knew the word, but I do now. I also had a typo elsewhere, but let’s not dwell on that.

    Thanks both.

  13. Just under half an hour.

    – Have never been sure what BATHETIC means
    – Was thrown by the ‘also’ in 5a, leading me to try to fit ‘PS’ into it until MUTILATION set me straight
    – Didn’t parse HORNPIPE or ASTEROID
    – Took a long time to see how long the definition was for TRIVALENT

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    FOI Mead
    LOI Espionage
    COD Nominate

  14. 18:39
    No major hold-ups but like others I couldn’t have told you what BATHETIC meant if asked. FADO rang a vague bell (I think from The Rest is History podcast) but it took a while to get there, and I could have been quicker with CHARTREUSE as I thought of it straightaway but didn’t take the time to parse it.

    A decent time for me so no doubt I’ll return to form tomorrow.

    Thanks to both.

  15. I found this one a touch quirky, but in the end I emerged unscathed in a pretty decent time.

    FOI TALCUM
    LOI MISDO (biffed)
    COD BOOMERANG
    TIME 8:33

  16. 10 minutes for most of this but I had no idea about 22dn. I considered FADO but dismissed it on the basis that ‘fixation’ and FAD are not remotely synonymous. Bah humbug.

    1. Chambers for fad has as definition 2:”An overriding personal preference or taste, esp trifling”, and for fixation (6): “Loosely, an abnormal attachment or an obsession”. Not that remote?

      1. A ‘preference’ and an ‘obsession’ really aren’t the same thing. When even a three-point turn in Chambers can’t get you there…

  17. No undue problems but did not find this particularly easy .. some went straight in but there was quite a lot of mopping up to do towards the end … I liked the espionage clue. Struggled to parse hornpipe since the &lit means that everything is doing double duty!

  18. Some long and unconvincing words: IMPENETRABLE for dark ?? a green for CHARTREUSE ?? (otherwise very nice). Surely it’s rather illiterate to say that you ‘do’ MUTILATION? Although Haydn may have written 24 operas they are not I think very well known and I simply had ‘opera’ as the plural of ‘opus’. Anyway if they are what is being talked about then surely the answer would have been operas? Ashamed to say that I was completely stumped by the hidden and used aids. I liked ASTEROID. 50 minutes.

    1. You’re surely right about opus>OPERA.

      I think one can take ‘such as Mr Hyde was known to do’ as a prompt, as if it were on a quizmaster’s cue card. So, ‘do’ is performing something of a generic role, if that makes sense.

    2. You may have a point about OPERA notwithstanding my dislike of the use of the Latin plural (‘concerti’ is another one I hate). The problem then is that Haydn’s works are never referred to as opuses (or opera, except the operas) as they are classified by Hoboken numbers (Hob. or H. for short), but I guess the setter was pleased with the Papa Haydn reference so he couldn’t have picked another composer.

  19. Well, that was a challenge! 25.24 for me, taking ages to see most of the wordplay and later wondering why. I didn’t see the hidden ESPIONAGE, mistook, as I usually do, my Hyde for Jekyll and tried to find a transforming word, couldn’t think of an opponent to put in my TENT even though I guessremembered the chemical connection, and obviously tried to think of a love god to substitute for Eros while remembering the hugely plump Aida I saw dying of starvation at the end of her opera alongside an equally chubby Radames.
    BOOMERANG was fun, though, and it was a relief to revisit the CHART RE-USE from previous grids. FADO tenuously remembered as something to do with Portugal, probably with an appearance or two in Mephisto.

  20. I found this… weird. Why on earth choose Mr Hyde, of all the vast number of available things/people, to link with MUTILATION (which I also don’t recall from the book)? NHO FADO, so missed that (fad=fixation, really?), and MISDO (still don’t understand the parsing) simply defeated me. Wasn’t wild about the def of BATHETIC. All in all, a strange puzzle.

    1. ‘Mi’ is a musical note (as in Do, Re, Mi). If you have two or more of them you have ‘Mis’. Add ‘Do’ (another note) and you have ‘Mis + Do’ i.e. at least three notes.

  21. 23:30 – had to rely on the cryptics for a couple. Knew fado from travel, though I could never see what the fuss was about; a bit of a racket in my [narrow] view. Didn’t parse the asteroid, but knew Eros as one and in it went from the A and D crossers.

  22. DNF. Misdo too clever and Fado too boring to find. I was going to say NHO fado, but I added it to the Cheating Machine so it must have come up before. Doh!
    I guessed Boomerang but lacked confidence to enter it until all the crossers made it inevitable. It was clever I suppose….

  23. A big DNF – gave up in despair with the NHO TRIVALENT and MISDO unsolved after 45 minutes.
    To the long list of (highly) dubious equivalences already mentioned, I should like to add INTELLIGENCE / ESPIONAGE.

  24. A decent challenge with BOHR FOI and FADO LOI. Didn’t see the hidden ESPIONAGE until near the end. POI, ASTEROID was similarly difficult to spot. Like Vinyl, I was accidentally distracted at 12a. 26:09. Thanks setter and Jack.

  25. 17.36 WOE

    TRIVALENT came up in an early crossword I did and have managed to remember it. Unfortunately carelessly put in TORN at the very end – ROT backwards on the top of…doh.

    I feel for Keriothe’s woes. Rest assured most of us aren’t up to worrying about the fine (but now you point it out fair) distinction and just bunged it in.

    Thanks all

    1. If I had known FADO I’d have done the same! I really don’t think it’s a fine distinction at all. This reminds me of the time recently when everyone seemed perfectly comfortable with the notion that gutting and filleting were the same thing.

      1. I didn’t really think it was a merely fine distinction but I was being kind to the setter! Missed the “fillet” and “gut” debate. Both things you do with knives to fish? In modern day lingo that’s probably easily close enough 🙂

        1. Just as ‘crack’ and ‘carry in the school sports day’ are things you can do to an egg with a spoon. Doesn’t make them synonymous!

  26. 32:10

    A long pause in the middle once the easier answers had been picked off. Another here that can never recall what BATHETIC means. DNK what TRIVALENT meant, but enjoyed the pdms for LOITER (needed DOUBTFULLY for its checker), MUTILATION and ASTEROID – NHO Eros in that sense. Dredged FADO from somewhere, probably an old puzzle.

    Thanks Jack and setter

  27. Didn’t find this too hard, except my LOI FADO which I have never heard of and after an alphabet trawl I thought of FAD and googled FADO and it existed, as a type of music in Lisbon. Well well who knew. So strictly that’s a DNF, but would have been 28 minutes.
    I also knew Eros was an asteroid but did not understand the clue till coming here. Ah yes all the central bits.
    Quite scientific today wasn’t it?
    Thanks Jack and setter

  28. After one letter wrong yesterday, I got one word wrong today- bunging in EXPLORATE. That’s a very clever hidden clue, and I should have seen it, as I’m reading Ben McIntyre’s book on Oleg Gordievsky.
    I seem to make more mistakes solving on my phone, than when I’m using pen and paper. Is that the experience of Anyone else?
    Quite gratifying to be solving more difficult puzzles though.
    Thanks for the blog, Jack. Erudite as always.

  29. DNF. FADO was beyond me, despite being a reasonably frequent visitor to Portugal (albeit much of the time spent on a golf course…). Otherwise LOI TART only came to mind once BATHETIC was solved. Like Vinyl, spent a lot of time trying to make up a word related to accident…. Thanks Jack and setter

  30. No official time, as I kept being interrupted by an annoying electronic beep and spent ages stalking it around the house and garden. Turned out to be from the oven that I was sitting right beside. Its control panel is now showing cryptic messages. “rEL 0.5.0” anyone?

    Nice puzzle. Luckily got FADO which I’d not heard of, although I agree that fixation and fad are rather different.

    ‘.. of Whitman’ seemed a rather clumsy way to denote American spelling. I can’t believe Walt would ever have used liters. Quarts, perhaps.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  31. I put this in late so nobody reads it as it will bore all as i have previously when wearing my save-the-planet hat. Reduce, reuse, recycle, landfill. It is vital not to think reuse and recyle are synonyms IM(not so)HO. Rant ends

  32. I enjoyed this one sat outside on the ferry home on a glorious late summer’s evening but DNF due to MISDO although I nearly got there. FADO was a new word to me but happy to make its acquaintance. I’ve never known Haydn for opera so definitely an education today. Thanks for the blog!

  33. 83:00 or thereabouts, submitted off leaderboard. needed some dictionary help with FADO as I’d NHO it. I found it very hard overall, but quite rewarding when getting a clue in! thanks J and setter

  34. This took me an hour – I thought I’d finished it correctly until I came here and realised that my Aware should have been Awake. My COD to Chartreuse – sorry, Edric.

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