Author   plusjeremyPosted on 19th July 2024 at 1:00 AM19 July 2024Categories Daily Cryptic
11:58, reflecting a gentler offering which was much appreciated after both the heat wave this week, as well the difficulty of my last several blog puzzles. I enjoyed this greatly: excellent clues through and through! Though now that I’ve had my rest, I feel ready for a challenge again!
| Across | |
| 1 | Henry tucked into piece of cake and currently hot toast (4-4) |
| CHIN-CHIN – H in CINCH (piece of cake) + IN (currently hot) | |
| 5 | Groups aboard boats picked up sail (6) |
| CRUISE – hom*ophone of CREWS | |
| 9 | Daughter forsakes trifling romance for marriage (8) |
| ALLIANCE – {d}ALLIANCE | |
| 10 | Retiring policeman’s maintaining place without much upstairs (6) |
| STUPID – DI’S reversed around PUT (place) | |
| 12 | He unexpectedly helped a parent aboard cargo train in motion (4,9) |
| GOOD SAMARITAN – A MA in GOODS (cargo) + anagram of TRAIN | |
| 15 | Abridged books containing article by unknown amateurs (5) |
| LAITY – (LIT around A) + Y (unknown) | |
| 16 | Like a bad waiter’s tip I meant to revise (9) |
| IMPATIENT – anagram of TIP I MEANT | |
| 17 | Scottish writer, odd figure hoarding Time back numbers (9) |
| STEVENSON – SEVEN (odd figure) around T + reversal of NOS. (numbers) | |
| 19 | Fine in case of bigger drug bust (5) |
| BROKE – OK in B{igge}R + E (drug) | |
| 20 | Trip runners poorer at running through French city (4,9) |
| TOUR OPERATORS – POORER AT anagrammed (running) in (through) TOURS (French city) | |
| 22 | Broadcaster screens current news free of padding (6) |
| SKINNY – SKY around (screens) I (current) N N (news) I don’t mind ‘news’ = NN. | |
| 23 | Yogi perhaps follows American behind capital city (8) |
| CANBERRA – BERRA (Yogi perhaps) after CAN (American behind) A double US reference here, to Yogi Berra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra) and our (?) word for the rear end. | |
| 25 | You dictated right extension for original document (6) |
| URTEXT – hom*ophone of YOU + R (right) + EXT (extension) | |
| 26 | Hold cake and hold bananas (8) |
| HEADLOCK – anagram (bananas) of CAKE + HOLD Charmingly weird clue. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Raphael maybe entertained by game that’s fixed (10) |
| CHANGELESS – ANGEL (Raphael maybe) in CHESS | |
| 2 | Problem generated by Iago’s opening lines (3) |
| ILL – first letter of IAGO + L L (lines) I don’t mind ‘lines’ = LL. | |
| 3 | In unsophisticated fashion clothing from couturier, equally foxy (7) |
| CRASSLY – C{outurie}R + AS (equally) + SLY (foxy) | |
| 4 | Working with assignment following pay cut (2,10) |
| IN COMMISSION – MISSION after INCOM{e} | |
| 6 | Artist cheers rubbish noise made by rapper (3-1-3) |
| RAT-A-TAT – RA (artist) + TA (cheers) + TAT (rubbish) …suddenly there came a tapping,/as of someone gently rapping, rat-a-tatting at my chamber door… | |
| 7 | I look to seize writers with love for Homer or Milton’s work (2,9) |
| IL PENSEROSO – I LO (look) around PENS (writers) + EROS (love for Homer) I think we perhaps need a question mark, but I think it’s fine to omit in this case. Love the clue. | |
| 8 | Top children’s toy to create current disturbance (4) |
| EDDY – {t}EDDY | |
| 11 | Consider cutting endless red tape, oddly, to be most important (12) |
| PREPONDERATE – PONDER in anagram of RE{d} TAPE | |
| 13 | He wanted more surprising end, say, after finale of concerto on organ (6,5) |
| OLIVER TWIST – TWIST (surprising end, say) after last letter of CONCERTO + LIVER (organ) | |
| 14 | Suffer anxiety over correct pronunciation guide (6,4) |
| STRESS MARK – STRESS (suffer anxiety over) MARK (correct) This seems like a newish use of the word STRESS. Etymonline has the meaning ‘subject (a person) to mental or emotional stress’ attested by 1973, but the meaning in this clue feels more modern than that, where the person ‘stressing’ is the person undergoing stress. Chambers has “(informal)”. | |
| 18 | Like horse, tailless bovid’s in biannual event (7) |
| EQUINOX – EQUIN{e} + OX | |
| 19 | Sang and wittered on with Liberal in higher position (7) |
| BLABBED – BABBLED with L earlier | |
| 21 | Heir of Isaac Hayes auditioning covers (4) |
| ESAU – hidden in HAYES AUDITIONING Again a very lovely clue. | |
| 24 | Friend of Winnie’s runs round and round (3) |
| ROO – R + O + O | |
Just 1 missing at the 50 mins mark, but was never going to get IL PENSEROSO. Saw pens=writers, but assumed love=O, and needed a longer word for “look”. Though definition was some Latin tag to describe a poetical work.
Liked CHIN CHIN. Knew Yogi Berra, but tried to get Yogi Bear in there first. Guessed that URTEXT might be a word.
Reply
10:45
Surprisingly easy for a Friday. I biffed IL PENSEROSO from the enumeration and the E, never parsed. Also didn’t parse CHANGELESS, GOOD SAMARITAN, STEVENSON, OLIVER T. I would write URTEXT with a hyphen.
PREPONDERATE & IN COMMISSION both felt odd, but as they say, they had to be. I notice that of the four corpus examples ODE gives for ‘in commission’, three refer to ships.
[On edit] Even more surprisingly, the SNITCH is at 109, hardly an easy one; I’ve actually got the lowest NITCH, with Jeremy close behind.Reply
Wavelength!
Reply
I got a bunch of these from the definition, with help a few times from the enumeration. Maybe this accidentally got switched with yesterday’s…? LOI was last answer, HEADLOCK, but first I had to fully parse and correct PREPONDERATE (not PREPONDERANT!).
Collins has the intransitive sense of STRESS found here as the 10th definition, tagged as “Informal,” but there’s no indication of when this became current. It’s in only one of the several listings on that page (two from American dictionaries). However, Merriam-Webster (American) has it as intransitive for “to feel stress (often used with out).”
Reply
Around 70 minutes. Tricky but most enjoyable. NHO URTEXT or IL PENSEROSO but got them from wordplay. FOI HEADLOCK LOI SKINNY Slowed by having ON COMMISSION since it sounds more natural than IN COMMISSION. Also had TIDE for EDDY. Took a while to get CRUISE which is a rather cleverly worded clue. Liked GOOD SAMARITAN.
Reply
This was definitely a biff-fest; if I’m not the blogger, I just put in the obvious answers and don’t worry. There was a bit of a literary flavor: Stevenson, Oliver Twist, Il Penseroso, urtext, the stress mark. These were all right up my alley, of course.
I would say that the literal for in commission is simply working, because out of commission means not working.
Time: 20 minutes
Reply
That’s four of us in the States who found it on the easier side. Interesting.
Reply
Yes that was an accidental underlining. Fixing now.
Reply
35 minutes but not entirely without difficulty for me.
My LOI IL PENSEROSO was something of a guess. I got I LO and PENS from wordplay but the rest of it was a guess and only afterwards did I spot the possibility of EROS and the connection with Homer. I was going to say I never heard of the piece by Milton but I see it has come up a couple of times before so perhaps subconsciously I had it tucked away somewhere.
I thought of CANBERRA quite early although at the time I was missing two of the checkers, but it didn’t go in as I was unable to parse it. NHO Yogi BERRA, nor of CAN as American for ‘behind’ which I’d have expected to be ‘ass’ if it had fitted. CAN as American for ‘lavatory’ I would have known.
I wrote ON (working), COMMISSION (assignment) at 4dn with some confidence but then wondered how that might mean ‘with pay cut’ so I put a question mark in the margin. Later the arrival of CHIN-CHIN forced the change to IN COMMISSION but by then I was fixated on the definition being at the end of the clue and I was still unable to reconcile it. Nevertheless the answer had to be what it was.
I had none of the misgivings shared by others about STRESS, but MARK took a while to emerge as I didn’t have the A-checker at the time.
Reply
So far, I think Jeremy is the only one who expressed “misgivings” about the sense of STRESS in the clue (not the answer). I responded to that point only because initially I (absent-mindedly) thought he was talking about STRESS MARK and I briefly commented (since deleted!) about that.
Reply
Thank you for putting misgivings in quotes! Because I am in fact quite pleased to modern uses of words in puzzles (as opposed to modern references like pop music stars). I just wondered when this usage was attested.
Reply
Yogi Berra was the catcher for the NY Yankees, known, aside for his skill as such, for his (alleged) malapropisms, like “You should always go to people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t come to yours”. Many of these are probably apocryphal; as he himself said (maybe), “I didn’t say a lot of the things I said.”
Reply
As a non-American who shouldn’t know of him, Yogi Berra is an iconic figures. Aside from his brilliant malapropisms, some of which he might never have said, he was equal to or better than all of his more famous Yankees teammates as a player. Won more World Series as a player than Mickey Mantle, Joe Di Maggio, Babe Ruth, all the other famous baseballers you’ve heard of. Then came back as coach and manager and won a few more. He has more rings than Saturn. But always a bit disrespected because he came across as a bit of a clown, perhaps? A personal favourite.
I do like: “I didn’t say a lot of the things I said.” Don’t think I’ve ever heard that one.Reply
About a restaurant Mr Berra remarked: “Nobody goes there anymore- it’s too crowded.”
Isn’t CAN just the last three letters of AmeriCAN? At least that’s how I read it.
Reply
No there are sayings here like “kick in the can”. But ‘can’ for behind is certainly not in high use these days.
Reply
I had the same for 4d and thought it was a brilliant cryptic definition – someone “following pay cut” is after a cut of the pay!
Doesn’t quite work on reflection, but I was convinced at the time…
Reply
A terrific puzzle I thought, 42.58. Many thanks to J, I missed several parsings. Couldn’t remember IL PENSEROSO even with all the checkers, and wondered for a while if the name of the ranch in Bonanza – Ponderosa – had been inspired by Milton. LOI, even though I lived there for 20 years, was CANBERRA. I knew that sense of can from Blind Willie McTell, ‘your southern can is mine.’
From Desolation Row:
The phantom’s shouting out to SKINNY girls, get outta here if you don’t know
AND
I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob BROKE
You asked how I was doing, or was that some kind of joke?
AND
The GOOD SAMARITAN he’s dressing, he’s getting ready for the show
He’s going to the carnival tonight on desolation row.Reply
Surprised to have finished in 13:07, as this *felt* tricky. IL PENSEROSO was constructed from the neat wordplay.
Thanks setter and Jeremy.
Reply
I didn’t find this at all easy, finishing in 48 minutes. LOI was 7dn which I have never heard of but after a long struggle I finally managed to work it out from the cryptic (when I realised the EROS bit).
Maybe I was off form today – definitely some of the clues were cleverly misleading!
Thanks setter and JeremyReply
Completed with a mate in 33 minutes but with a random guess at IL PENSE_O_O slaying us at the last. We debated for a while whether it was going to be Latin IN with an ablative or Italian IL, settling for the latter but then coming undone on lack of poetic knowledge! Really fun crossword otherwise though, enjoyed ESAU despite confidently saying ‘Esau was the heir to Jacob, I believe’ before realizing the clue itself contradicted me, and also having briefly questioned whether it was going to be a reference to Chef from South Park (I wish).
Reply
Straightforward for a Friday. Had heard of Il Penseroso; but not read it, obvs. Who actually reads Milton?
RL Stevenson, one of my favourite writers because of Travels with a Donkey and An Inland Voyage.Reply
I’ve read both Lost and Regained. Lost is better.
Reply
Did L’Allegro and Il Penseroso for Eng Lit O Level! Couldn’t recite a word of them now!
Reply
14’32”, with at least a couple of minutes on CANBERRA. I was fixated on Jellystone Park and a relative of Winnie, and nho CAN in that sense.
We had IL PENSEROSO a few years ago, although I had to construct it from wordplay. EDDY was in a crossword I did in the last day or so. I did not stress about this.
Nho URTEXT either, but now assume it references Abraham’s birthplace. If ESAU hadn’t been tricked out of his inheritance…speculate please. And the GOOD SAMARITAN mentioned also, excellent.
I’ve read some Milton. Try ‘On His Blindness’ if you haven’t.
Thanks jeremy and setter.
Reply
The prefix UR in this context is German, so probably nothing to do with Abraham!
Reply
URTEXT is familiar to musicians as a lot of music in the classical repertoire is available in ‘urtext editions’, as annotated by the composer rather than interpreted by an editor.
Reply
That’s where I know it!
Reply
Just under half an hour.
Like KensoGhost above, I slowed myself down by putting ‘on commission’ rather than IN COMMISSION and only corrected when I realised 1a had to be CHIN-CHIN; not familiar with can=behind but CANBERRA was otherwise clear enough; haven’t heard of IL PENSEROSO but eventually managed to piece it together from wordplay; and haven’t come across the verb form PREPONDERATE before (more used to seeing preponderance).
Thanks Jeremy and setter.
FOI Ill
LOI In commission
COD Headlock11:02. Gentle for a Friday. NHO CAN for bottom only for lavatory and NHO the baseball player, so CANBERRA went in from the definition and checkers. This will be our American setter, I guess. DNK the Milton work, but had vaguely heard of the title. LOI STRESS MARK, which needed HEADLOCK to get the second word. I liked IMPATIENT and OLIVER TWIST. Thanks Jeremy and setter.
Reply
7:17. No problems today. Weirdly my only unknown was IN COMMISSION, which I don’t remember ever seeing other than in the negative before.
Reply
Very nice, even though I have to record a DNF, with IL PENSEROSO completely unknown (and shortly to be forgotten) and three in the NE which defeated me but any of which, on revealing the solutions, could be my COD: CHANGELESS (and not the unparsable EVANGELIST which fitted what I had and made CHIN-CHIN impossible) and CRASSLY. Thanks to our setter for an enjoyable 35 mins or so, and to our blogger as ever.
Reply
44 minutes with LOI STRESS MARK. Didn’t/ don’t understand the CAN of CANBERRA. I didn’t know but liked the idea of URTEXT. That’s what I’m now calling the drafts of my next (and last) novel. Liked the literary stuff but quite tricky. Thank you Jeremy and setter.
Reply
229 mins.
Easiest one this week, I thought.
Thanks, pj.Reply
50m 18s
Now that we have had our fourth Mephisto word of the week, ILPENSEROSO, to follow on from ICHNEUMON, ROCAMBOLE and AEDILES, does that mean I can now apply for a free lapel badge?Reply
Quickie quality until bits of the lower half put up more of a resistance, finishing in 17.55. SKINNY and CANBERRA were the culprits, possibly because Sky is having trouble being a broadcaster this morning, but more likely because I was looking to work with “news free of padding” being NS, and an American behind is usually an ASS. I did, once the pennies dropped, remember Yogi BERRA as the inspiration for the picker nick basket aficionado (which, I see, tiring of its overexposure in Big Brother has taken refuge in the Quickie today). I couldn’t remember what Berra was otherwise famous for.
Generously friendly for a Friday.Reply
24:51
Gentle but good fun with a nice literary feel to it.
Didn’t know that meaning of CAN.
IL PENESEROSO was no problem as my wife is a big fan of Milton. Me not so much, but, thanks to Armando Iannucci, at least I now know that the opening line from Paradise Lost ‘Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree…’ rhymes with the theme tune to the Flintstones.Thanks to Jeremy and the setter.
Reply
The STRESS MARKs I grew up with fit the definition in the clue quite neatly. They were little forward slashes placed above the letter in a word to show where the stress or emphasis should be. For ‘pronunciation’ the stress mark would be above the U to show the place of emphasis.
Reply
24.17
Really wanted yogi to be “bear” and wasn’t aware of the CAN sense so slightly fingers crossed on that one.
Is “correct” the same as “mark”? I’d say not usually but whatevs.
Thanks Jeremy and setter
Reply
I also have doubts about ‘correct / MARK’ which accounted for my difficulty with the second word in the answer at 14dn.
Reply
I thought the same, then I looked at Collins which has ‘to indicate the errors in’ for ‘correct’, so I thought it was OK, but on reflection I think that’s a copy-editing thing and you wouldn’t use ‘mark’ in that context so I’m back to thinking it isn’t!
Reply
I was thinking about marking/correcting students exams/papers.
Reply
Yes, I was thinking along those lines, but if you mark an exam or paper do you correct it or simply rate it?
Reply
Thoroughly enjoyable puzzle which I had nearly complete in 15 minutes then held up for a long time by my unknowns and had to use aids for il PENSEROSO and Canberra. I’d heard of Berra but would never have brought him to mind and certainly was not one of my many thoughts for yogi. Also had not heard of that expression of can = bottom, like many others here only knew of it as lavatory.
Thx Jeremy and setter
Reply
16:45 – A v gentle Friday apart from a couple of uncertainties in the parsing. NHO “can” as US slang for behind (toilet, yes) so wasted a few seconds noodling alternatives. Biffed PREPONDERANT without checking the anagram until HEADLOCK unambiguously presented itself
Reply
15 minutes or so solving on paper.
A couple of unknowns (URTEXT, IL PENSEROSO) but all fairly clued. Inexplicably, last-in was the ultimate chestnut CRUISE.
Re CANBERRA, I parsed it as CAN being the ‘behind’ of ameriCAN, but I am always willing to be wrong.
After a relatively tough week and with a thick head from last night’s festivities I was expecting a stinker, so I was pleasantly surprised.
Thanks to both.
Reply
Very good crossword, nice surfaces and everything fair, except perhaps the CAN problem referred to many times above. Surely mark/correct is fine — think of a schoolteacher. Everything straightforward enough until my last three, CANBERRA, STRESS MARK (I had stress book, which didn’t make sense and in any case doesn’t exist) and CRUISE. Had to use aids for these. 54 minutes.
Reply
I didn’t find this as straightforward as others needing 52.45 to finish this. It took me quite a while to correctly parse PREPONDERATE before I dare put it in, and even longer to think of the MARK part of STRESS MARK for 14dn. Thinking I had correctly finished, I then discover I had one wrong anyway by carelessly spelling CANBERRA with an M instead of an N, when I knew perfectly well how it should be spelt. I think I was momentarily distracted by seeing ‘American’ as part of the clue.
Reply
33:46
I didn’t find this as easy as our blogger and a few others might suggest – backed up by the Snitch (103 when I looked – giving me a target time of 41.5 minutes). I had the following question marks:
– Yogi – knew of both BERRA and Bear – the R of ROO suggested the former, however…
– NHO CAN = American behind, only American toilet
– NHO URTEXT – cryptic was ok though
– CHIN-CHIN delayed by entering ON COMMISSION at 4d – didn’t think of CINCH as a piece of cake – another Americanism
– IL PENSEROSO – NHO – got as far as IL PENSE_O_O before figuring out EROS
– STRESS MARK – didn’t think the clue read particularly smoothly, however with all checkers in place, this appeared to be the obvious answerFor too long, I wondered what 1d might be – didn’t know Raphael was an angel but later, with the A_G_L checkers, considered that was a possibility which let me to think EVANGELIST though couldn’t see how the rest would work. Took a good deal of thinking to see CHANGELESS.
Thanks Jeremy and setter
Reply
My quick fire starters for five were, ILL, CRASSLY, INCOM——-, CHIN CHIN and ALLIANCE. I completed my mission later. Zipped though the rest until I hit the SE corner. STRESS was no trouble, but MARK needed both crossers. PREPODERANT held up HEADLOCK until a rethink cleared the deadlock. Didn’t know CAN for US backside, or Yogi Berra, so relied on definition and crossers with MARK then confirming CANBERRA. BLABBED gave away the capital. My O Level Eng Lit back in the 60s came to my rescue at 7d with IL PENSEROSO, along with L’Allegro and The Tempest forming the majority of the syllabus. Prospero, Miranda, Caliban and Ariel are helpful characters imprinted on my brain since that era. Had to assemble URTEXT as instructed. 18:08. Thanks setter and Jeremy.
Reply
I was off to a flying start with the across clues, but then slowed down to my more normal speed, finishing in 24 minutes. The only really serious hold-up was at 1ac where, like others, I had done myself no favours by starting 4dn with ON and not IN. Eventually I worked out the meaning of piece of cake and saw what the setter was aiming at. Not familiar with URTEXT but the clueing and crossers left little option. An enjoyable puzzle with no issues.
FOI – CRUISE
LOI – CHIN-CHIN
COD – CHANGELESS
Thanks to jeremy and other contributors.Reply
44 mins totally stuck at the end with SKINNY, CRUISE and EDDY holding me up. Very much off the wavelength, but with most of my attention on the Open, perhaps not surprising…
Reply
2 errors held me up – PREPONDERANT and ON COMMISSION. Realised the first one didn’t fit the anagrist, which then made my LOI HEADLOCK a write in.
23:11
Reply
43.35 with LOI preponderate after concluding my first bash of preponderant needed a review to make the anagram of cake and hold work. Very relieved. Checked urtext after entering but I’ll give myself that one.
Good Friday puzzle, shame it’s the wrong time of year.
Reply
No time to declare but I’d estimate around 25’. LOI was STRESS MARK. An enjoyable Friday puzzle with a few helpful literary references that helped progress and an American reference (CAN) that I’d not encountered – but what else could it be before BERRA?
Thank you, plusjeremy and the setter.
Reply
30:41, with IL PENSEROSO my LOI.
Enjoyable but tricky.
NHO URTEXT.
COD EQUINOX.Thanks plusjeremy and setter
Reply
Another DNF although I enjoyed most of this. Like others I didn’t get 1ac as I’d mistakenly rushed in with ON COMMISSION for 2d. TOUR OPERATORS and EQUINOX were cleverly clued.
Musical knowledge helped with URTEXT but have never heard of CAN used in this sense and together with my zero experience of American baseball players was stumped completely by 23ac as I could only think of Yogi Bear and yoga gurus 🙂
Thanks again to setter and blogger.
Reply
