Times 25130 – In it for the long haul…

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I had a struggle with this one and took an hour give or take 5 minutes not for the first time this week. Some of the clues that held me up for longest (4ac for example) seem really obvious on reflection so I guess I’ll have to blame it on blogger’s nerves yet again. Having eventually got started (6 minutes before I wrote in my first answer) this was at least a tidy solve as I worked my way through each quarter in turn and completed it before moving onto the next. I knew all the words and learnt only one new meaning – the bond at 23dn. Rather unusually there is no hidden answer today – unless it’s so well-hidden I have missed it completely. I can’t knock the puzzle as it all seems very fair and workman-like but there was nothing in it that caught my imagination so there’s very little to say in the blog other than how each clue works. Some readers may see this as A Good Thing.

Across
1 CO-STAR – COS (Greek island) + TAR (sailor)
4 CANNABIS – CAN (vessel) + NAB (capture) + IS – I can’t believe how long it took me to see this one! I was misdirected by ‘rear of vessel’ into thinking ‘stern’, ‘aft’ and ‘L’ amongst several other distractions.
10 REAPPOINT – REAP (harvest) + POINT (precise moment)
11 CIRCE – CIRClE (ring with line coming out of it) – “The loveliest of all immortals” according to Homer
12 COLOUR SERGEANT – Anagram of NCO SURE TO GLARE
14 TASTE – STATE (say) with its S (leader) moved to its middle
16 REMINISCE – Anagram of CRIMES IN England
18 ROUNDELAY – ROUND (several drinks) + YALE (university) reversed
20 Deliberately omitted
21 RECORD-BREAKING – Double definition, one of them humorous
25 VENOM – VEN (churchman – an archdeacon in the C of E) + OM (Order of Merit)
26 VISCOUNTS – V (very, small) + IS (exists) + COUNTS (matters)
27 RESONANT – REST (sleep) is interrupted by O (old) + NAN (grandma)
28 CROCUS – CROCk (pot chipped at side) + US (useless)
Down
1 CARICATURE – CAR (vehicle) + I + CApTURE (get lacks power)
2 STALL – Double definition
3 AMPOULE – A + MULE (beast of burden) encloses PO (river)
5 ASTIR – ASTI (wine) + driveR
6 NUCLEON – NEON (gas) encloses UCL (University College London). I wasted for ever trying to fit LSE into this one.
7 BERING SEA – BEE (busy person) enclosing RINGS (gangs) + A
8 Deliberately omitted
9 MINSTREL – MINSTER (big church) with its ER (queen) reversed + L (left)
13 GEOLOGISTS – Anagram of TO LOSE GIGS
15 SAUTERNES – Sounds like “so turn”, allegedly
17 MAYORESS – MASS (religious celebration) encloses YORE (long ago)
19 DOORMAN – DORMANt (almost asleep) encloses 0
20 FLAVOUR – FAVOUR (act of generosity) encloses L (Liberal)
22 DEVON – visiteD + NOVEmber reversed
23 IONIC – Double definition. I didn’t know the bond.
24 OVER – I assume the ellipsis here indicates an alternative to ‘on the line’ which may be OVER it. And the umpire in cricket calls OVER of course. On edit: Jerry and Ulaca have further information on this clue in the comments below, for which I thank them.

34 comments on “Times 25130 – In it for the long haul…”

  1. For some strange reason, held up in the NW which, as Jack says of the puzzle as a whole, seems obvious on reflection.

    Also misled by the “if parade sequence” part of 12ac until I saw it was part of the extended anagram indicator. (“If linear order”, or some such.) Nice.

    Badly wanted 5dn to be AMBER — except it’s not a wine and an I-B ending for 10ac was unlikely if not impossible. (OVERCLIMB may be the only possibility and I don’t even know if that’s a word.)

      1. It’s worse than that. In Australia, there’s no red-and-amber before the green. The amber only appears to warn of an impending red! That’s when you put your foot down! (Note to self: double demerits all Easter weekend.)
  2. Found this straightforward though held up at the end by taste and Sauternes. (Not savouring it unfortunately.) 21 minutes. Don’t quite get the ellipsis point in 24: aren’t the dots usually on the line, like more full stops? As indeed in the clue (which must have something of the sort; seems very weak otherwise).
  3. 29/30 today. Didn’t know the sorceress.

    I had pangs of déjà vu solving this. I remember Co-Star, (En)venom, Ionic, Roundelay, Bering Sea from recentish Times/Sunday Times puzzles.

  4. Found this much easier than most this week, and finished without the usual one missing/incorrect.

    Didn’t get the ‘…?’ bit at 24dn (not sure I do now, really), but even I knew the cricketing term here.

    Usually don’t think too much about dodgy homophones, but I did mention to my husband that 15dn may raise a few eyebrows. Guess it depends on how French your accent is.

    Good start to the weekend. Happy Easter, everyone!

  5. 8dn is a dd; stem as in shoot (of a plant) and as hold back

    Re 24dn, the dots merely indicate that the bowler’s foot can be on the line or over it (for a no ball). A cricketing clue..

    Didn’t find this hard, 20mins, but one or two clues at the end took time: 1dn, 14ac, and in fact 8dn

  6. 38 minutes, held up mostly in the SW by the wine, the commissionaire, the venom and the WIDE (sic), which I thought fitted just as well as OVER. COD to COLOUR SERGEANT
  7. Don’t you love it when the deliberately omitted answer is the one clueI cannot answer :-)) Enjoyed the rest though.
  8. ok, I guess that 8 dn is what it is but not the greatest clue in the world. Shoot??
    1. Well, a STEM is defined by C as the shoot and leaf parts of a plant, so it seems a v. good DD to me.
  9. 51 minutes on the website, where I am logged as 2 wrong, as my fat fingers led to my entering ‘record braeking’. Besides the STEM, I was also held up by the unknown/unfamiliar AMPOULE and 4, 5 and 6 in the NE.

    The obligatory cricket clue is actually rather clever, even if it likely to go over most solvers’ heads. ‘On the line, or … ? Umpire’s call’ – for a delivery to be legitimate, the bowler’s front foot must land with some part (grounded or raised) BEHIND the popping crease. If s/he oversteps, the umpires will call … NO-BALL.

    Sorry about that – the inner umpire coming out again.

    1. Yes, 4,5 and 6 in the NE nearly did for me too and in fact STEM was my last but one to go in, so on that basis I should not have chosen to omit it from the blog. However, when writing up the puzzle later I had to omit something and by that stage I had forgotten all the angst it had caused me and it just looked like a simple double-definition so out it went.

      Is the umpire’s call of “over” after six balls actually nothing to do with 24dn, or is it a second definition? In the only sport I follow the umpire’s call on a ball over the line would be “out”.

      Edited at 2012-04-06 09:48 am (UTC)

      1. I’m not very good at assigning clues to the right category, but, yes, the literal would be the umpire’s call of OVER, while filling the dots with ‘over’ gives you, as Jerry puts it so neatly, the definition for another umpire’s call, that of NO-BALL. Your parsing is absolutely spot on – just missing the nuance of the second, subsidiary – in terms of the clue – call.

        It’s one of those esoteric clues which are absolutely fair, as it’s quite accessible by non-cricket lovers and gives extra delight to the aficiando.

  10. A good, very fair challenge with many of the answers seemingly ‘obvious’ once you’d worked them out: but working them out took time. That said, the nuances of OVER eluded me until coming here: so thanks for the blog and comments.
  11. No problems here – finished in 20 minutes with a straight run through

    Strange how we go for quite a time without any really contentious clues and then suddenly get a run of them. Today’s is 24D of course. Luckily I got VENOM before I read the clue so OVER was a give away even if I didn’t really understand the first half of the clue – and still think its a feeble effort.

    Good to see NUCLEON at 6D – we’re getting an increasing number of these particles. Liked “rock fans” at 13D

  12. Thanks, so I covered it without fully understanding it which is the best I could have hoped for as the concept of a foot being over the line in cricket would never have occurred to me despite that concept also existing in tennis.
  13. 22m. Very good puzzle I thought. Like one the other day very little went in without full understanding. And it was chewy even though unusually I had all the requisiste knowledge, except that Circe was a sorceress.
    I didn’t understand TASTE and I thought 24dn was a combined tennis/cricket clue, so thanks to Jack and others for the explanations.
    1. Enjoyable if far from easy puzzle. Time about the same as Jack’s – around an hour. As for quite a few others it would seem, the NW corner caused the most difficulty, with STEM, CANNABIS and ASTIR the last three in – in that order. Not sure why they took so long to fall as all three seemed pretty obvious once cracked. Like Jack, I also wasted much time trying to fit LSE rather than UCL into 6 dn (NUCLEON). I liked the smooth and chuckle-worthy surface read for DOORMAN at 19 dn, and, along with Jimbo, enjoyed “rock fans” as the def for GEOLOGISTS at 13 dn. 24 dn is clearly one of those clues that divides the troops. I’m with those who found it clever, with “umpire’s call” doing double service for OVER and the implied “no-ball”, but I can see that its merits might be less apparent to non-cricketers.
  14. I must have been really in the zone with this one which apart from the crocus more or less wrote itself straight in, in possibly my fastest Times time ever – 6 minutes. For me STEM is one of those old chestnuts as it has appeared in many similar clues over the last 41, gosh nearly 42 years, of solving, mainly in that paper I probably shouldn’t mention here! Happy Easter to all
    1. As you finished I was writing in my second answer! Most impressive to a plodder like me who is excited at getting a sub 20 minutes once in a whole.
  15. 29.34 here so my first sub-30 of the week (my personal indicator of success). I originally had ODIUM for VENOM for no obviou reason (DIU as almost a French churchman anyone?) but getting the wine sorted that out. I then confused myself for longer with DOVER where DEVON needed to be. OVER is after all half of the month too but then I thought more about ‘part of England’ and a town is more of a place I as it turns out rightly decided. My COD to GEOLOGISTS for the smile it raised. Also liked the if parade sequence version of indicating the anagram.
  16. STEM . . . of course!

    Well, I put SEED.

    I thought SHOOT = seed(ling) and to seed someone in tennis holds them back.

    Happy Easter all.

  17. STEM . . . of course!

    Well, I put SEED.

    I thought SHOOT = seed(ling) and to seed someone in tennis holds them back.

    Happy Easter all.

    1. You won’t find much tennis around here unfortunately, anon, as it’s usually cricket or soccer. However I did toy with the idea of tennis at 28ac today and very briefly at 1ac (thinking seeds or aces) but alas it wasn’t to be.
  18. Wow… I’ve been busy evenings and mornings lately and haven’t been getting in to comment, but I found this one of the most straightforward in a while and was done in 10 minutes with no quibbles (last in MAYORESS). Must have been smack bang on the setter’s wavelength.
  19. It seems that nobody has mentioned the fact that this is now a standard cricketing term — in the past year or two the Decision Review System has been increasingly used: that system they have in test matches where players have two challenges available in the course of the innings, and can challenge the umpire’s decision based on electronic evidence (Hawk-eye, Hotspot etc). If the third umpire, who analyses the information, isn’t convinced by the evidence then he goes with the original decision of the on-field umpire, in which case ‘Umpire’s Call’ is announced.

    This may enhance the clue. I don’t disagree with anything that has been said, but maybe the setter had a bit more in mind than possibly meets the eye.

  20. A sluggish 10:37 for me. Looking back, I can’t see why I was so slow over such an easy puzzle (apart perhaps from 8dn (STEM), which I may well have come across before, and forgotten).

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