Times Cryptic (Number 24138)

Author   foggywebPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 27 minutes

I browsed to the new Times Crossword Club and it remembered me – with the old version I had to log in each time. It’s also the first time I’ve tried the PLAY option, with the interactive grid. When finished, it used to have a pop up message ‘Congratulations – you have completed the crossword’ – it doesn’t have that anymore, so I spent a short time making sure I’d filled in every cell.

I found this puzzle ok. I quickly got on the right wavelength and, unusually for me, I think I understood all the wordplay as I went through – I didn’t need to come back to anything later. With the Xs and Ys I thought we might get them all – but no K or Q.

Across

4 BE,SETTING – first thought was UPSETTING but I couldn’t make that work, nor I could I think of anything for U?Z? at 4D.
9 BULLDOZER = BOOZER with U,LLD(Doctor of Laws) replacing the first O.
10 [w]EASEL
11 OC,CU(L)T – OC=Officer Commanding.
12 A,VIA,TRIX(sounds like tricks)
14 I,N(STALL)ATION – I=current, NATION=race.
20 OCCU(PIE)R – this made me smile, I think I just like pies.
23 GABLE – not sure why there’s a gap between W and all – that held me up a bit. Clark Gable is the US actor. I suppose Wall is capitalised as he is a character in the play within a play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
24 HER,BALIS,T – BALIS=anagram of basil.
26 DEMUR[e]

Down

1 AM,BROS,IA – IA=Iowa.
2 SOLE,CIS,M – CIS=SIC reversed.
3 MIDDLE-AGES,P,READ
4 BUZZ = BUZZARD with A,RD escaping. Another space coming in ‘w ay’ – not good enough twice in one puzzle!
5 SHROVETIDE – anagram of TO VERDI SHE.
7 IN(S)ERT
13 ALTO,GE(THE)R
15 J,IN,GO,ISM
16 A,G(IT)AT,OR – GAT is a Gatling gun, OR=other ranks (soldiers).
19 ICE,BOX – I think reserve is ‘put on ice’, rather than just ice.
22 TR(O)Y

41 comments on “Times Cryptic (Number 24138)”

  1. You’re lucky.
    The new version forgets me quite quickly. Even if I have windows open to the club, if I come back to those windows and try to access a crossword, I get a plain grey screen with a message at the top which tells me (roughly) that “my session has expired”.

    Mike O
    Skiathos

    1. I had the same problem, but only if I had shut a pop-up window before returning to the page that had launched it. As long as I left all windows open, I wasn’t logged out when trying to access another crossword. The old pop-up is repopulated, possibly behind the visible window. This might have more to do with my ferocious pop-up blocker than the site itself.
  2. 33 minutes with no problems.

    I was a bit surprised to find I could access this on line via the back door as I was unable to get to the ST puzzle yesterday. I’m still locked out at the front door as they are demanding payment but then can’t process it for one reason or another. I plan to ring them today.

    No gaps here in 4 or 23, by the way. Maybe the back door in has some bearing on this.

    1. I wondered about this too, but Chambers has Ice (n) = Reserve.

      Just tried ringing the Times but they are not taking calls – “please send an e-mail” which they will no doubt ignore along with all the others I have sent them over the past week. I’ve not had a single response other than the automated acknowledgement.

    2. >No gaps here in 4 or 23, by the way. Maybe the back door in has some bearing on this.

      But there should be a gap in 4 between the a and w of away. Was there one in the newspaper version?

      1. But in the right place. It read ‘a way’. Foggyweb was talking about ‘a w ay’ though I think.
  3. 18 min. Much more straight forward than most of last week. Yes, the back door is still working, but not for the ST. No gap in 23 Ac. COD? Possible 25 Ac.
  4. Just back from a week in the Snowies – internet-free and crossword-free. When we went three years ago it was freezing while Sydney was 35C – this year it was 34C while Sydney was 28C. Very odd.

    This was a nice welcome back, although I got held up for a while because of putting (Sharon) STONE at 23ac. There is a trend to use “actor” for “actress” these days – does anyone know if the editor has any policy in respect of use in clues? If we could rely on “actor” (and similar words) as always being male, it would be nice to know.

    ASSAM at 1ac is very similar to a clue a few weeks ago (“Like Pepys brew” or something like it).

    1. I’ve seen actor refer to a female in the Guardian; I remember as it held me up a bit. Can’t see why it wouldn’t be allowed in the Times.
      But Sharon Stone wouldn’t be allowed, as they don’t use living people.
  6. A gentle stroll in the snow (there are children and animals here that are having great fun with a completely new experience!). I also kept looking for the Q that never came. No hold ups, no problems, no issues other than the weird gaps in some of the clues, nothing particularly good, 20 minutes to solve. I agree with Jack that “reserve” at 19D refers to coldness of manner rather than putting to one side.

    Any commuters who can’t get to work should try the Guardian Saturday puzzle – it has a sort of theme you will relate to.

    1. Had thought that this might be the interpretation. But maybe ‘on’ used like that in a down clue wouldn’t be appropriate.
  7. Logged on to read previous days.
    Haven’t had the newspaper yet because of the weather. The snow here 2cm max. Roads are fine and the sun is shining. Hopefully will get the paper today. I wont make further comment about the newsagent!
    Haven’t looked at the answers yet… honest.
    Fran L-P
  8. Back from Italy at long last, back to a reliable internet connection, and back to crosswords! The Times is available in Italy of course, but editions tend to arrive a few days late and it’s an hour’s walk to the nearest outlet in Lerici. And I’m lazy.

    I managed to backdoor this one; no problems with spacings apart from its use in wordplay at 4D (ARD = a way) which threw me a bit – hey, I’m a bit out of practice you know.

    For me this was a nice, gentle return – no major hold-ups, no spectacular clues, solved in around 8 minutes. Crikey, it’s good to be back – I missed y’all.

    BTW – Who’s Alice? “She” is the Italian equivalent of broadband and “she” is pronounced ah-lee-chay.

    1. Welcome back Anax. When you get a moment have a go at 24,134 that appeared 28th January – an absolute cracker of a puzzle.
  9. Gaps a plenty in clues and synapses. About 50 mins, most of which taken up trying to get INSTALLATION which blocked progress on the LHS. I liked OCCUPIER also, but for the misdirection of “take place” (somebody else had already eaten all the pies).
  10. Thought this was going to be a doddle (by my plodding standards – i.e. about 20 mins), but then made a meal of several clues in top half, so about 35 mins in the end. Not helped by following foggy in initially entering UPSETTING at 4ac, which made an impossibility of 4dn. Also took a long time to see BULLDOZER at 9ac, and didn’t fully understand the wordplay until coming here (thanks, foggy). Likewise the wordplay for BUZZ at 4dn, though the answer itself was easy enough once BESETTING had replaced UPSETTING (thanks again, foggy).

    My experience of the refurbished website seems to have been less glitch-ridden than that of many others, judging by comments so far. For all its faults, it does seem to me to be an improvement on its predecessor (not hard, do I hear you cry?) So, adapting E.M. Forster on democracy, I propose one-and-a-half cheers for the new site.

    Welcome back, Anax.

    Michael H

  11. For some reason I was slow to get going, and didn’t solve one clue until I reached 5d, after which I got 12a and 6d straight off, then it was mostly plane sailing. Just under 30 minutes in all, about par for me.
  12. About 7 minutes for this one. I wonder sometimes about clues like 4A which rely on cryptic crossword jargon. For solvers who don’t know that crossword compilers like to be called “setters”, they seem at least potentially unfair, as {setting=writing crosswords} is not verifiable in the dictionaries.
    1. You’re right of course but isn’t it just one example of quite a large specialist vocabulary that exists only in our arcane world, the learning of which is part of the apprenticeship?
      1. I’m not convinced that most of the specialist vocabulary really does exist “only in our arcane world”. Most of it can be verified from dictionaries or sources like Google or Wikipedia. That said, Googling “crossword compiler setter” does find pages that show the required meaning.
  13. We had about a foot of snow yesterday. But then, I live in Canada so no one batted an eyelid.

    10:02 .. Definitely on the easy side, but engaging. A nice warm-up for the week. Ticks for HERBALIST and TAXIDERMY (you only have to say ‘taxidermy’ to make me laugh – I guess it triggers all kinds of Carry-on “Who wants stuffing?” type memories). And applause for two terminal Xs in one puzzle.

    Welcome back from your Grand Tour, Anax. Missed you, too, ya big palooka. I expect to see the whimsical Euro-memoir, “A Setting in Lerici”, on bookshelves soon.

  14. 11 mins, a pleasant solve. I thought 17A worked nicely but choose 10A as COD; to my embarrassment, I flung this in assuming the ‘deceitful person’ was an EEL and not thinking too much about the rest.

    Tom B.

  15. 21:35. Took a while to get going but once I’d got a foothold on the right hand side it was all fairly straightforward.

    The father of a friend of my daughter is a taxidermist. He once came to collect the girl after she’d had tea here and when we invited him in to wait he said he stay on the doorstep as he was a bit smelly from stuffing a goat. Nice.

    Q-0 (dodgy spacing aside) E-6, D-6.5, COD herbalist.

  16. Nearly a new PB at 14:07. I suspect that the rest of the week can only get slower.

    I was another member of the UPSETTING brigade until the BULLDOZER finally came along and pushed it out of the way. I thought that SOUGHT was pushing it a bit in claiming to be a homophone of SORT, but it was the obvious answer to the definition.

  17. 11:40. Nothing remarkable but nothing to complain about either (other than dodgy spacing). I came to work wearing a single wellington boot and a single glove today – the forecaster said there’d be one foot of snow. On the other hand it may be warm (Jimmy Cricket 1976)
  18. Does anyone have any idea how many members the Crossword Club has? I just wonder about the economics of it, especially given that the Guardian provides its puzzles for free.

    In a recent Feedback column on the Times site, Sally Barker revealed that on average they receive 150 entries for the Saturday puzzle competition via the website, which would suggest that membership numbers aren’t exactly huge.

    There must be sizable costs involved in setting up and running a subscription website. And it necessarily limits participation. Providing the crossword online for free would probably help to create a lot of new Times crossword addicts who could be expected to show rare loyalty to the paper and its website. Not to mention potential advertising revenues (the crossword page is a strong niche). Not to mention, either, the end of access problems.

    1. If the Times can run a good club site I believe enough people will pay for it to make it worth the paper’s while – if not, I don’t see why they’ve kept it going for so long. I’d also rather pay and complain than be palmed off with the response I’ve seen to complaints at the Guardian site since it stopped charging – effectively “we know it’s not much good but it’s free, so take it or leave it”. If I can pay and see a crossword without having to look at ads, that’s worth a bit too.
      1. Thanks. I hadn’t realised, not being a regular at the Guardian, that it wasn’t up to scratch. I’m not eager to see ads, either, so I guess I’ll settle for the status quo.
        1. I’ve always found the Guardian site to be basically sound without any of the horrors of the Times site. If we could combine their software and the Times puzzles we would have a winning combination. As to adverts – it’s sales and selling that make the capitalist world go round folks.
  19. A just above average 35 minutes, though it felt like heavy going at times. I filled in the RHS very quickly, but hit a brick wall with the LHS and began to panic a bit. A deep breath later, 3d fell into place and after that I pottered through without many problems. COD 6d. Off now to battle through the snow.
  20. Could somebody please tell me how use the “back door” access to the puzzles?
    I’m a paid subscriber and have no trouble logging in.
    But before the redesigning of the page, I used to be able to get the next day’s puzzle by merely changing the date in the URL, but I can no longer do this.
    I would be grateful for some enlightenment.
    Barbara (a confirmed computer clod)
  21. 19 minutes, still swimming after watching Australia lose and then some football game where people wear 10 kilos of padding and can be penalised for “unnecessary roughness”. Last in SOLECISM, noted a time but don’t really have any recollection of the solving process. Where’s the water bottle?
    1. Circa 25 mins, generally straightforward but with buzz/bulldozer and besetting proving a little recalcitrant at the end, all the more annoying because I thought of bulldozer quite early but couldn’t quite see the fit and I swithered a bit after seeing besetting as well. Once I accepted it was definitely besetting, the other two fell in place immediately. bc
  22. Regards all. An easier start to the week, about 20 minutes while watching the American football championship. Interesting to see the ‘overweight’ theme shared by the two long ones; that usually doesn’t occur, as far as I can recall. I’ve apparently learned a new sense of ‘second string’; here it pretty much exclusively means a backup to the main actors/players. Oh, I also hadn’t known that a pub is called a boozer. My COD is 1D.

    Here’s the backdoor link. Hope it keeps working. See you tomorrow.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/crosswords/printOnly/1,,,00.html?crosswordID=24138&type=1

    1. Add Super Adblocker to this list, which causes a problem like that outlined by Mike O above (and probably some more besides). Given that adblockers work by deleting code from the source file before it is displayed (including javascript) we should probably not be surprised when functionality is lost. Pity the poor designers who inadvertantly label a variable “adhere”. Not that the Times is completely blameless in this, given the crosswords which appear with the wrong grids and such.

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