Times Cryptic (Number 24144)

Author   foggywebPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 30 minutes

Quite straightforward – it was pretty much clear what to do in each clue. I didn’t know Toscanini, although he looks slightly familiar. I also hadn’t heard of Berlin blue.

Across

1 BLUE,VEIN
9 ST(O,PC)OCK
10 MANTRA[p]
12 EVERYMAN,JACK – Everyman is the morality play; jack is ‘to uplift’.
18 TOSCA,NI,NI – came to this when I had -?I?I so guessed it would end -NINI. And luckily it began with a well-known opera.
20 ESCAPOLOGIST – once I had worked out that ‘aw ait’ was await, I got this straightaway.
24 [r]ELAPSE
25 MEDI(T)ATE – I did a quick run through the Muses before I spotted this.
26 KEENER – the lamenting meaning of KEENER was at the back of my mind, but I looked it up to check.
27 AS I SEE IT – anagram of EASIEST around 1.

Down

1 BOSS – a boss is a stud in architecture – I learned all I know about architecture from crosswords!
2 U(FO)S – FO=Foreign Office, as in the fairly funny film Carlton Browne of the F.O. (I’ve been watching quite a few Terry-Thomas films this year).
3 VICE,VERSA – anagram of VICARS around EVE.
6 DRAWN – [i]NWARD reversed.
7 EXTRA,MURAL – I remember this from one of the first Times crosswords I tried.
8 B,LACK,ADDER
11 I’M POSING,NESS – ‘I’M POSING’=’I sit’.
17 BLUE,SKIES – I thought of this early but didn’t get the Berlin reference so I left it a while. Berlin blue is another name for Prussian blue.
21 POSSE[ss]
22 WANE – sounds like WAIN (as in the Haywain) – last one in for me and I went through most of the alphabet before I got it!

38 comments on “Times Cryptic (Number 24144)”

  1. 18 min. Quite happy with this one, but did not cotton on to the wordplay for 17 Dn until reading the blog. No particular COD.
  2. Irving Berlin was the composer of the song “Blue Skies”. I don’t think it has anything to do with Berlin Blue.
  3. Paul is correct re 17 down. I spotted immediately that it was a reference to Irving and one of his song titles but I needed some checking letters before it came to mind.

    1d also works with reference to shields.

    I got off to a cracking start with this one and thought for a moment or two that I might equal my PB time (12 minutes) achieved yesterday with the ST puzzle, but it wasn’t to be. Having completed the top half and much of the SE I came to a grinding halt and it took me another 7 minutes to get going again. I eventually completed it in 29 minutes.

    1. Feeling a bit chuffed that for once I solved a couple that other old hands struggled with at least a bit. WANE and MEDITATE went in at first glance for some reason. Further evidence that there’s no such thing as a puzzle that’s easy for all solvers. All down to wavelength and many other factors. That’s why it’s all so interesting.
  4. A pretty gentle Monday puzzle. About 15 mins for all but 25ac, which for some odd reason took another 5 mins to work out – I was racking my brains for names of Muses!

    I have a CD of “Blue Skies” next to my desk sung by – of all people – Kiri Te Kanawa.

    Nice to see Edmund make an appearance at 8dn!

  5. 11:10 here – started quite well but needed about three minutes at the end to sort out the bottom half. Seeing the light on 20 gave 11 and 14 fairly promptly, then I saw the (r)ELAPSE trick at 24, so 21 followed. Last two were Irving B at 17, and 25 where I’d also fallen for the muse trap and wanted Clio, Erato or one of the others to be involved.

    Foggyweb: good work with 22D – a classic tricky little four-letter answer.

  6. I think I would have easily gone under the 30 mins if it weren’t for WANE. Like foggyweb I started at the wrong end of the alphabet and kicked myself once I got there. I’ll try thinking next time. 17 was COD for me.

    As for learning from crosswords, I think they should be added to the school syllabus. Much of what I know has come tracing clue references. Mind you, my knowledge base has been aptly described as arcane.

  7. WANE and MEDITATE did for me. I can’t see how ‘say’ works as a homophone indicator, but I’ve come across it before so no excuses. I liked 27A most.

    Tom B.

  8. A familiar story with the SE corner proving the stumbling block. I had IB’s BLUE SKIES (one of my father’s favourites), VEST and the long 11D but could not get rid of a mental block on MEDITATE and the very tricky WANE. About 30 minutes to solve.

    I got the dreaded 404 error when logging in today but solved it by going to “help” and pressing the “delete cookies” button, so worth a try if you have the same problem.

  9. About 10-12 minutes for me altogether, not timed as I had to sneak peeks at it while working. WANE went straight in, came to me as soon as I read the clue. I took a few seconds to justify ELAPSE though, and MEDITATE/BLUE SKIES were the last 2 to go in.
  10. One of the easier Monday puzzles from some time. About 25 mins for me. 17dn was not too difficult to get, but my thanks to all those above who explained the Irving Berlin reference, which escaped me. Re Tom B’s comment on “say” as homophone indicator in 22dn: it seems to me to work OK if you take “say” as being in the imperative mood – i.e. an instruction to say, or speak out loud, a synonym for cart which, when spoken, sounds like WANE. A bit contrived, I agree, but a not uncommon deceptive device, requiring the clue to be read in a different way from what the surface syntax suggests.

    Michael H

  11. I solved all but 17,22 and 25 in 21 minutes, then spent another 13 minutes getting those last ones. WANE eventually came, then I spent ages racking my brains to come up with of all the muses, thinking ‘Muse’ was part of the wordplay in 25. I could manage only 7 muses, then did what I should have done far earlier and looked at the clue from the other end. A moment of self-flagellation when I got MEDITATE. I do remember “Blue Skies” but I didn’t know it was a Berlin number. My only consolation was that “Berlin air” didn’t fool me for a second, unlike ‘Muse’.
    A nice set of clues all round I thought.
  12. 22:15 – WH (with headache). My only major hold-ups were with escapologist, where one of those stray spaces in the typography had me thinking I was looking for some auld Scots thanks to “aw ait” (told you I had a headache), and with the strikingly awkward word IMPOSINGNESS. I’ve moaned about the equating of simple verb forms with progressive ones before, and been roundly shouted down, so I won’t say a word this time (though I’m obviously right). The word itself reminds me of Rowan Atkinson’s politician: “We must have purpose. We must not be purposeless. We must avoid purposelessness. We need to be purposelessnessless.”
    1. I did wonder with IMPOSINGNESS whether “I sit by loch” would have been fairer than “I sit by lake”? It wouldn’t have spoiled the surface reading.

      Edited at 2009-02-09 12:59 pm (UTC)

      1. It would have save me a few precious brain cells searching for something involving L,I,POSE
        1. My cells initially came up with -ERIE as a possible ending. It seemed possible at that point that there was some word from French to fit IM??????ERIE.
  14. A nice gentle start to the week, say half hour, which is lucky considering the state of my health currently! 22d was the most difficult, I thought. The only issues elsewhere were of my own making, having written the answer to 14d in 13d…
  15. 26:52 for me with a clueless 5 minutes looking at about eight incomplete entries just after the 18 minute mark. Like others WANE was the last to go in having worked through the alphabet and just about given up hope.

    I thought about POSSE for some time before I finally saw the wordplay as I thought that a POSSE could often be formed as something akin to a lynch mob. I note though that both Collins and Chambers have one meaning specifically referring to a group giving aid to Sheriffs or Constables.

    I think I have seen variants KEEN for variants on lamentation in a number of crosswords recently.

    I liked 20a and 25a.

  16. Didn’t time myself, but it was close to 10 minutes during a short break this morning. Relieved to find a few guesses were right, hadn’t heard of EVERY MAN JACK, so that was from wordplay. WANE a guess from definition. Nice to see BLACKADDER making an appearance, wouldn’t be surprised if some of the writers from that show were regular crossword solvers.
  17. I’m with Sotira in disliking IMPOSINGNESS. It struck me as one of those manufactured non-words that only ever appear in the answers to crossword clues. Inevitably, Chambers, I now discover, does in fact offer the word as a legitimate noun derived from the verb “impose” — which only goes to show that dictionaries are unreliable guides to the language as she is spoke. I agree with Peter B that “loch” rather than “lake” in the clue would have been more helpful, but I guess the setter felt that that would have made life a bit too easy, anyone seeing the word “loch” being likely to think “ness” pretty soon afterwards.

    Michael H

          1. There may be words in the dictionary that don’t get used much, and IMPOSINGNESS may be one of them. But this is a game for which simple rules are preferable to arbitrary rulings about what’s a “proper word”. The simple rule here is “if it’s in COED or Collins it’s OK”. [In my editions, it’s not in COED but is in Collins.]
    2. “loch” would have made NESS much easier for sure, but I’d rather have clues that were easy and fair. The acid test for me is whether the xwd ed would ever allow something like loch=WASTWATER – which is just as accurate as lake=NESS! If I’m right in guessing that he wouldn’t, I claim lake=NESS has to be ruled out.
  18. Regards all. I did the puzzle last night in about 20 minutes, but when I arrived here I find I have 1 wrong. The tricky little 22D WANE caught me up; I entered ‘pale’, which really isn’t a cart at all, is it. I keep forgetting about WAIN as a cart, and only remember it when I think of ‘wainwright’, which, quite obviouly, I did not do last night while solving. Or not solving, in this case.
    Nevertheless, I liked the Berlin clue, and MEDITATE. I don’t know who Mr. Blackadder is, but I’d heard the term, so it went in easliy enough. Regards to you all, see you tomorrow.
        1. The constellation “the Plough” (Ursa Major) used to be called “Charles’s Wain” because of a supposed resemblance to a hay-cart.
  19. 11.50. Got all but 24 in about 8 minutes then spent the rest of the time establishing that the only(?) word that fitted was ELAPSE , even after plumping for it I took about 4 or 5 minutes to see how it worked.
    Kevin , BLACKADDER was a British TV comedy series starring Rowan Atkinson who is maybe better known as Mr. Bean.
    1. Oh, him! Oh, dear. I didn’t really cotton to the Bean character when he appeared over here. I hope the television series was funny. Thanks John.
      1. Kevin – there are 4 Blackadder series, each with a different character down the ages. For a short excerpt from the third series – in which he is butler to the Prince Regent – see the link I posted last Friday to 24142 in respect of “the Scottish play”.
  20. Not a good day, even by my appalling standards. Utterly failed to complete this. Of the ones I did manage I liked 19 across best.
    Never mind, roll on tomorrow.
    Fran L-P
  21. Inexperience showing a lot today. Caught out by “summer” (8d) being one that sums even though I’ve been warned about “er” words (especially flower!) and had to look up the Muses (25a). Missed anagram hint in 27a. Also missed I knew Berlin was a hint to Irving but couldn’t get the song 17d). Put this down to me being a Lerner.

    Thanks for welcome and challenge to finish a puzzle by end of March – nearly got there with ST yesterday but not close today!

    1. We’ll have none of those Loewe puns here!

      Challenge was strictly for a Times rather than ST puzzle – ST ones have a different editor and are a notch or two easier on average. I’m pretty sure it’s still feasible though.

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