Times Cryptic 29539 – Jumped the Gun?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 22:41
Music: Mahler, Symphony #4, Solti/CSO
Again, we have a rather easy Monday puzzle, with many of the clues eminently biffable.    I did in fact biff my way through this puzzle, which is probably the best approach as some of the cryptics require a lot of cruciverbal gymnastics.    I did get hung up on a few that should have been obvious, such as sticking and hybrid.   
The early results on the SNITCH show some very fast times – Verlaine is under 4 minutes.   Et tu?
Across
1 Instrument’s peg adjusted with skill once (12)
GLOCKENSPIEL –  Anagram of PEG + SKILL ONCE.
9 Poor knight, feeble, wanting wife (5)
NEEDY –  N + [w]EEDY.
10 Fellow attorney Conservative required (9)
MANDATORY –  MAN + D.A. + TORY.
11 Putting arachnid in pipe? (8)
STICKING – S(TICK)ING.
12 Reflected on hard image in code (6)
CIPHER – RE + H + PIC backwards.
13 Story from a relative omitting one gripping point (8)
ANECDOTE –  A NE[i]C(DOT)E.
15 Holy ship’s company mostly in blue (6)
SACRED –  SA(CRE[w])D.
17 Walk out on expanse of land without water (6)
DESERT –  Double definition.
18 Anxious at home with scoundrel coming into view (8)
INSECURE – IN + SE(CUR)E.
20 Put a stop to school hosting business account finally (6)
SCOTCH – S(CO + [accoun]T)CH.
21 Beginners lead rest astray (8)
STARTERS –  Anagram of LEAD REST after STAR.
24 Boring sport, one followed by a few (9)
WEARISOME –  WEAR + I + SOME.
25 Weakness about love, say (5)
VOICE – V(O)ICE.
26 Revolutionary behind lines, protected by new name, unusually polite (4-8)
WELL-MANNERED –  RED following anagram of NEW NAME around LL.   Undoubtedly, most solvers will just biff this obvious answer.
Down
1 Style of rap starts to generate almost overwhelming dread (7)
GANGSTA – G[enerate] ANGST A[lmost].   A style not much favored by our senior blogger.
2 Chaps in team, number climbing on Scottish island above loch lacking depth (3-11)
ONE-DIMENSIONAL –   MEN inside SIDE + NO upside down + IONA + L.     This has got to be the most convoluted cryptic ever, at least in a daily puzzle.
3 King and leader of armada chat in boat (5)
KAYAK – K + A[rmade] + YAK.    A rather small boat for such an important conference.
4 Propose an item broadcast after drama (8)
NOMINATE – NO + anagram of AN ITEM.
5 Long stretch of trip in Europe (4)
PINE – Hidden in [tri]P IN E[urope].
6 Destroy order, losing time after time (9)
ERADICATE –  ERA + DIC[t]ATE.
7 Impure hero, sort mistakenly made head of religious community (6,8)
MOTHER SUPERIOR –  Anagram of IMPURE HERO, SORT.
8 Cross in past hour, upset, then relieved (6)
HYBRID – BY H upside-down, then RID.
14 Dreadful in operation, ignoring first in command (9)
DIRECTIVE –  DIRE + [a]CTIVE.
16 Area guarded by soldier perhaps on border, a thing that’s abhorred (8)
ANATHEMA –  AN(A)T + HEM + A.
17 Reject racket broken by seed (6)
DISOWN –  DI(SOW)N.
19 Dean set to work in part of London (4,3)
EAST END – Anagram of DEAN SET.
22 Bird that’s black and yellow, not caught (5)
RAVEN – [c]RAVEN.
23 Mere share (4)
POOL –  Double definition – mere as a noun, share as a verb.

25 comments on “Times Cryptic 29539 – Jumped the Gun?”

  2. 22:34 for me, but with a break in the middle to peel some apples for an apple pie, so actual solving time was less by maybe 5 minutes. So very Mondayish (and lots of biffing for me too). I couldn’t see at a glance how HYBRID worked but with checkers and “cross” it was always going to be the answer. My LOI was INSECURE, but only (I think) because I never looked at the clue until I was almost done.

    Reply

  3. Enjoyed this and didn’t mind figuring out the IKEA clues, but don’t get No=Drama in NOMINATE.

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  4. Just over 20 with a couple of interruptions, so mostly quite easy but some held me up for a while. Like others I found biffs aplenty but was delayed by trying to make an anagram of ‘lead rest’ and having to do a tedious alphabet trawl before POOL appeared. I’m not fully convinced by the HYPBRID cryptic but what the heck. Thanks V.

    From Love Minus Zero/No Limit:
    The bridge at midnight trembles, the country doctor rambles
    Bankers’ nieces seek perfection
    Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
    The wind howls like a hammer, the night blows cold and rainy
    My love she’s like some RAVEN
    At my window with a broken wing

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  5. 15:59
    What Starstruck said. (I started with (leadrest)* but soon gave that up.) I biffed a bunch, parsing post-submission, except for ONE-DIMENSIONAL where I didn’t bother.

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  6. 26 minutes. A pleasant confidence-builder to start the week with new hope. I didn’t know TICK as an arachnid but that was the only unknown today.

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  7. 10’59”, pleasant solve. With crossers, biffed GLOCKENSPIEL, WELL-MANNERED, MOTHER SUPERIOR.

    A good Monday, thanks vinyl and setter.

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  8. 29 mins finishing with the convoluted WELL-MANNERED, not helped by having bunged in DIRECTION at 14d.

    Can’t say I particularly enjoyed this one. No unknowns but a lot of tricksy wp.

    Ta V and setter.

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  9. I biffed STARTERS. STICKING was on even shakier foundations. Otherwise, a steady solve. COD to DISOWN.

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  10. 7:30. Lots of biffing today, including a careless DIRECTION, which held me up a bit at the end.

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  11. 11:07. Held up for an extra minute+ at the end by LOI HYBRID, taking too long to discard the idea that the answer had an X in it having earlier tried and failed to get RELAXED to work. Thanks Vinyl and setter.

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  12. 22:22 one of my fastest times.

    Wasted time on the non-anagram “lead rest” which looked like very hopeful letters.

    Got ONE DIMENSIONAL from bottom up seeing IONA+L and biffing from there.

    So a tick has eight legs ? And there are some arachnids that aren’t spiders. New to me. As for Noh (apposite anagram of NHO) it even has a variant spelling ? Sheesh, fortunately not really needed, but glad I didn’t try to parse that one.

    LOI WEARISOME.

    COD HYBRID, that “cross” was well-hidden

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      1. We had Tardigrade as an answer last week. I just found out they have 8 legs but are not arachnids.

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        1. I’m familiar with tardigrades, aka water bears, from watching Octonauts when my kids were little. I also learned about siphonophores and the humuhumunukunukuapua’a!

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  13. I was undone by DIRECTIVE where I had DIRECTING. Same parse but that ‘in’ as a link word at the end does also produce ‘in command’ as a possible definition which would support the latter solution. Which left me with a very odd combo for what turned out to be WELL MANNERED. As I now had ‘in command’ firmly in mind, the correct solution eluded me for some time contributing to a 16 minute time that should have been quicker.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

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  14. 12 minutes or so.

    – Didn’t know that a tick is an arachnid in STICKING
    – Count me among those who thought 21a would be an anagram of ‘lead rest’ before getting STARTERS
    – Tend to think of a mere as bigger than a POOL, but clearly there’s enough overlap

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

    FOI Gangsta
    LOI Desert
    COD Mother Superior

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  15. 15:40. LOI STARTERS where I too spent ages playing with those 8 letters.
    Thought of MOTHER SUPERIOR from just _O_H before reading the clue.
    COD ONE DIMENSIONAL.
    Thanks to vinyl and setter.

    Reply

  16. My thanks to vinyl1 and setter.
    Pretty easy except for the 2 I could not see. Bother!
    8d Hybrid biffed. I assumed Hr=hour so didn’t know where the id came from. Doh!
    14d DirectiVE, as Rosédeprovence and others I had Direction which knackered Well Mannered. Doh.
    23d Pool, could not see it and gave up.

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  17. Gutted 13:46 which would have been a podium time but a misreading of the clue and anagram fodder meant I entered STARLETS. Annoyingly it wasn’t to be corrected by the checking letters.

    COD GANGSTA I concur with the surface reading.

    Thanks blogger and setter.

    Reply

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