Times 29317 – Just not baseball

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

A Snitch (see glossary if you don’t know what that is) of 63 early in the day, but I think it’s a bit more challenging than that.

Lots to like here: a bit of geography, a bit of botany, a bit of geography-cum-botany.

12:06

Across
1 Alaskan city’s branch or agency downsized (9)
ANCHORAGE – hidden; largest city in Alaska by far. Juneau, the state capital, occasional pops up, and Fairbanks offers the setter swashbuckling opportunities.
6 Some soldiers almost laugh involuntarily (5)
CORPS – CORPSe; to corpse is to laugh (occasionally, to make someone laugh) at the wrong time on stage
9 Animated character with goal to serve drinks (7)
BARTEND -BART [Simpson] END (goal); Bart Simpson is actually voiced by a woman. D’oh!
10 Priest protecting poor moves out of Brazil (7)
LAMBADA – BAD in LAMA; moves, as in dance
11 Largely subdued spy drinks martini finally — it’s shaken not stirred (10)
TAMBOURINE – TAMe martinI in [Jason] BOURNE; got to love the Bourne films, about a bloke who doesn’t know who he is
12 Unenthusiastic response crushes small network (4)
MESH – S in MEH
14 Plant 41 stops work (5)
OXLIP -XLI in OP
15 Quest — pick outrageous dance (9)
QUICKSTEP – anagram* of QUEST PICK
16 Antique unit to get angry about state museum’s leader (5,4)
ROMAN MILE – OMAN (state) Museum in RILE (to get, i.e., make angry); a Roman mile (mille passuum or milia passuum – a thousand paces – from which ‘mile’ is derived) was somewhat shorter than a modern mile, standardised in 29BC by Agrippa at around 1620 modern yards. Well, you know, nutrition being what it was, those legionaries would have had shorter legs.
18 English city is a close match? (5)
DERBY – beloved home of Brian Clough; a derby is a game between local rivals. The latter owes its provenance (unsurprisingly) to the boisterous Shrove Tuesday football games of the 18th century. The most famous took place in Derby, where the parish of All Saints squared off against St Peter’s, the aim being to force the ball into the other’s parish.
20 Leave South American capital briefly (4)
QUIT – QUITo; Quito shares the podium with Bolivia’s two capitals in the list of world’s highest capitals
21 Artist’s editor wise to pull back (5,5)
EDGAR DEGAS – ED followed by reversal (back) of SAGE (wise) DRAG (to pull)
25 Save king’s boring quotation? (7)
EXCERPT – R (king) in EXCEPT (save – ‘all countries, save France, agreed’); ‘boring’ is frequently found as an insertion indicator
26 It’s played by chamber musician (7)
CELLIST – CELL (room, chamber) ITS*
27 Card deck returned to snitch (5)
TAROT – reversal of TO RAT (snitch)
28 Man to deal with topping for loaf (9)
HEADDRESS – HE (man) ADDRESS (to deal with); whimsical definition
Down
1 Religious leader and a bishop on program (5)
ABBOT – A B BOT
2 Sweet creature eats dairy periodically (7)
CARAMEL – dAiRy in CAMEL
3 Bananas gone on ripe tree (6,4)
OREGON PINE – GONE ON RIPE*; never heard of these, specifically, but a lot of trees – and a lot of rain – feature in the 2018 film Leave No Trace, a poignant movie, set in Oregon, which deals with post-traumatic stress disorder
4 Leader leaves more nuts for summer? (5)
ADDER – mADDER; as, in Crosswordland, a winger is a bird and a runner is a river, so an adder (someone who adds) is a summer (someone who does their sums)
5 Plant, say, on road plating metal (9)
EGLANTINE – EG (say, for example) followed by (on) TIN in LANE
6 It can make parting company bearable at first (4)
COMB – COM (internet domain name for a commercial company) B~
7 Period covered by cost of living? That should get a reaction (7)
REAGENT – AGE in RENT (cost of living, whimsically)
8 Grumpy companion follows friends the wrong way — reckless! (4-5)
SLAP-HAPPY – PALS reversed HAPPY (one of the Seven Dwarfs)
13 Abruptly left desk, dazed and confused (10)
SKEDADDLED – DESK* ADDLED (confused, as in, ‘Keir’s brain was addled’); ‘skedaddled’ was a common word growing up, along with its synonym, ‘buggered off’
14 Sort queen out if one asks for it (2,7)
ON REQUEST – SORT QUEEN*
15 Coin toss for fantasy sport (9)
QUIDDITCH – QUID (a one pound coin equates to a quid) DITCH (‘the horse ditched/tossed its rider’); I’ve never read a Potter book, but we took our kid to see the first two films, and this game featured in one of them. Pretty boring, but I forgive JK Rowling, since she talks so much sense about issues which wouldn’t have been issues when she and I were young.
17 Part of US train disturbed calm air (7)
MAILCAR – CALM AIR*
19 Kind of music paper publishing rubbish magazine (7)
RAGTIME – RAG (newspaper publishing rubbish – take your pick of quite a few in the UK; those in Hong Kong have been closed down for not toeing the CCP line) TIME (magazine)
22 Fancy cereal seen regularly in African city (5)
ACCRA – fAnCy CeReAl; at only 98 metres, the Ghanaian metropolis comes in pretty low in the highest capitals list
23 In speech, refers to locations (5)
SITES – sounds like ‘cites’ (refers to)
24 Rising late, nearly curses (4)
DRAT – TARDy reversed

67 comments on “Times 29317 – Just not baseball”

  1. 38 minutes with ROMAN MILE constructed from wordplay and checkers as my LOI. If I’ve heard of it before it was a long time ago.

    Ulaca, you have a typo at 21ac ‘draw’ (pull) instead of DRAG. Maybe we were thinking along the same lines here as I wasn’t sure of Degas’s first name and was considering Edward based on ‘draw’ meaning ‘pull’ until I went to write it in the grid and realised there wasn’t enough space.

    I wanted ‘HAIR something’ at 28 but the checker provided by ACCRA prevented it.

    NHO OREGON PINE but the anagram fell out nicely.

    I was going to say NHO COM for ‘company’ until your explanation made me feel stupid, so I’m glad I didn’t say it.

  2. 35 enjoyable minutes. Nothing too scary today.

    Luckily the city in Alaska came to mind quickly and things flowed from there finishing off with CELLIST, SITES & HEADDRESS.

    I liked SLAP HAPPY (poor old Happy!) TAMBOURINE, & EDGAR DEGAS. Nice to see an artist’s first name for once.

    Thanks U and setter.

  3. 40:24, but with one type in TAMBOURINE.

    All parsed except 1a with its hidden word.

    EDGAR is my middle name, so I knew DEGAS first name, as there are too many famous ones.

    COD and LOI TAMBOURINE

  4. I’m glad I, too, didn’t mention that mysterious com reference. 23.12 and reasonably straightforward although ROMAN MILE and TAMBOURINE had me flummoxed for a while and I had no idea what CORPS was about. Thanks to U.

    From…well, what do you think?
    Yes to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
    Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
    With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
    Let me forget about today until tomorrow
    Hey Mr TAMBOURINE man, play a song for me…

  5. 21 minutes with LOI ROMAN MILE. Dead straight, I assume, not rolling al la Chesterton. COD to SLAPHAPPY. Tambourine is another half volley outside off stump for Lindsay. Enjoyably Mondayish. Thank you U and setter.

  6. 21.50 and would have been quicker if I’d thought about “ cordial” and “orange pine” a bit more forensically. Fortunately, I realised before it was too late. Memo to self, don’t be impatient- not much chance of that!

    Now I’ve read earlier entries, I had a third misstep with Hairpiece until I saw the light. Same problem as above….

  7. 10:25
    That’s just about as quick as I can go but I’d have dipped under 10 minutes if I’d remembered DEGAS’s first name rather than having to construct the clue.

    A pleasant bank holiday solve so thanks to both.

  8. Very quick today except failed to parse 6dn COMB, saw the CO and the B, but where did the M come from? Thank you Ulaca for the explanation .. I always assumed the .com meant commercial, not company. As on investigation, I find it does!
    So a mer at that.

    1. So it does, and I always knew that, but Collins (alone amongst the usual sources) lists it as ‘a commercial company’ so I guess that lets the setter off the hook.

      1. I guess, but wrongly so. “Commercial business” would be more accurate as many .coms are not limited companies, and anyway that is not the derivation of .com.
        Wikipedia is more correct:
        “The domain com is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Created in the first group of Internet domains in March of 1985, its name is derived from the word commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for subdomains registered by commercial organizations. Later, the domain opened for general purposes. “

  9. 15 minutes.

    – Got TAMBOURINE from the checkers before figuring out the parsing
    – Needed all the checkers before I got ROMAN MILE
    – Didn’t know EDGAR DEGAS’ first name before today, and like Jack above I considered Edward until I saw that it didn’t fit

    Thanks ulaca and setter.

    FOI Anchorage
    LOI Tambourine
    COD Oxlip

  10. 11:02. I doubt I would have got OXLIP so swiftly had I not seen it in an earlier crossword, although the cluing was generous. The only slightly dodgy one was REAGENT, I felt, as it shares a root between definition and answer. I liked the appearance of ‘meh’ as part of wordplay – goes well with Bart.

  11. 11:25. Slow to get started but the Qs helped me speed up. I liked “Grumpy companion” for HAPPY. Good to see our county flower in the grid. Thanks-you U and setter.

  12. 15.03 for a pretty steady solve. Should have got the Alaskan city quicker, because it was in plain sight and there isn’t much of a range to choose from. I initially went for a rather gruesome HEADSMAN – he does deal with topping! – but fortunately it came up short.

  13. 17 minutes. I’ll put my hand up to wondering about COM for ‘company’ at 6d, not even thinking about .COM. As Jack notes in his reply to JerryW, Collins comes to the rescue of our setter, even if .COM usually stands for “commercial” which was news to me.

    Otherwise, I managed to get the geographical and botanical references without too much trouble for once. Favourite was my LOI CELLIST.

    Thanks to setter – two crossing Q’s, an embarrassment of riches – and to ulaca

  14. Good start to the week, a brisk 12.45 with no major delays. On ROMAN MILE I think the convention was a pace = two steps, so a thousand paces doubled with each step of about 2’8″ gets you roughly there.
    FOI ANCHORAGE
    LOI COMB
    COD SLAP-HAPPY
    Thanks U and setter.

    1. Interesting. Don’t know my walking step length; never march; but I used to be able to pace out metres (I live in the rest of the world) exactly on our golf course with metreages on sprinkler heads. Much more exactly than the length I hit my irons, except for exceedingly rare perfect strikes.

      1. Can you please explain the feeling of a « perfect strike » as I don’t think I’ve ever hit one!?

  15. A gentle puzzle enlivened by some witty cluing – CELLIST, HEADDRESS and SLAP HAPPY for instance. I was another puzzled by COM until Ulaca explained it. ANCHORAGE is the only city I know in Alaska, and I only know that from the Michelle Shocked song of that name.

    Thanks to Ulaca and the setter

    1. Michelle Shocked used to be a friend of mine! From right before she became famous till… she wrecked her career with an anti-gay statement (in San Francisco, even!).

      1. How interesting, Iknew very little about her. Someone gave me her first album and I played it a lot at the time but hardly ever, since. Reading her Wikipedia page suggests she is no stranger to controversy.

  17. I was zooming along until I came to the artist at 21a. I had put CITES rather than SITES for 23d, and so spent some time trying to think of an artist who would fit, vaguely recalling Edmund Dulac (probably generally forgotten, illustrator of fairy stories rather than a capital-A Artist), who didn’t quite work, before the penny dropped about Edgar D.

  18. 20:19
    A quick solve, helped by ANCHORAGE being my FOI.
    Failed to count the letters in 3d, so originally entered ORANGE PINE. Only spotted my error when TAMBOURINE would not fit.
    Finished with HEADDRESS.

    Thanks Ulaca and setter

  19. From ABBOT and ANCHORAGE to HEADDRESS in 15:56. ROMAN MILE took a bit of thought. Liked TAMBOURINE and EDGAR DEGAS. Thanks setter and U.

  20. “slap-dash” could mean “reckless”; “slap happy” means “Punch drunk”.

    1. Chambers has

      slap-happˈy adjective (informal)
      1. Recklessly or boisterously happy
      2. Slapdash, happy-go-lucky
      3. Punch-drunk

      The OED is similar

  21. 34 minutes, no major problems. Com didn’t even bother me I’m afraid: I just thought that it was probably another abbreviation for company. Never knew that about Derby: I’d always assumed it was derived from the horse race.

  22. Really enjoyed some of the whimsical definitions here, Grumpy Companion, Moves out of Brazil, Summer. Love the word skedaddle. So loved the puzzle, even if not too taxing.

  24. Help for a newbie please: why the ? in 25? It sent me off in the wrong direction rummaging for puns etc.

    1. I think it’s because an excerpt may be a quotation but doesn’t have to be. And it makes the surface reading better.

  25. 14:30 – needed to work carefully through the cryptics to confirm some answers (Degas’s first name, the correct spelling of Oregon (!) etc) but otherwise a gentle Monday. If .com in a domain name ever stood for company, which (pace Collins) I don’t think it ever did, it certainly doesn’t now.

  26. 18:34

    Reasonable progress throughout, though a few bits missed in flight:

    ANCHORAGE – I couldn’t have named any other place in Alaska off the top of my head, though Juneau and Fairbanks both now ring a bell – thanks U
    TAMBOURINE – absolutely no idea what was going on here – bunged in from first four checkers
    EDGAR DEGAS – fortunately, seen a few pieces of his work in a couple of European galleries this summer, so his first name was reasonably fresh in mind
    OREGON PINE – NHO – picked out PINE once OXLIP was in place, and with 1a and 9a already in, juggled the remaining letters
    DRAT – memories of Dick Dastardly
    QUIDDITCH – if you’ve never been bothered to read Harry Potter, you might be surprised. The wizarding world (and its interactions with the normal world) is very well imagined, with a plethora of interesting ideas. By and large, the films reflect the writing extremely well.

    Thanks U and setter

  27. Blogger’s reference to Juneau reminds me to urge those of you (who haven’t already) to read Jonathan Raban’s ‘Passage to Juneau’, an account of a trip in his yacht from Seattle to Juneau, passing inside the Vancouver Island channel. That might not sound too exciting, but it’s the digressions in his account which fascinate. More here for those tempted.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_to_Juneau

    1. He is a magnificent travel writer, loved his trip down the Mississippi in Old Glory

  28. I was heading for a sub twenty minute solve until I got bogged down with my last four in the sw corner. I eventually got ROMAN MILE which led me to finish the rest. I crossed the line a little disappointed in 27.25, although I wouldn’t normally think that was too bad. The double definition for DERBY describing it as a ‘close match’, has proved anything but over the years in football terms, with many a thrashing being handed out, but I accept the alternative referring to the geographical proximity of the competing teams is what the setter had in mind.

  29. The ‘Atherstone Ball Game’ is a local (to me) Shrove Tuesday ball game. Apparently there are only 3 remaining in the country, I don’t know the etymology of ‘Derby’ was from a similar game that was once held in that city. 12:41 here, I think my second fastest time ever.

  30. Monday-ish. I liked Grumpy companion, but I wasn’t so keen on com when I didn’t understand where the “m” came from, and I’m still not so keen on it now that it’s been explained.
    Very disappointed, after our blogger’s teasing headline, to find that there isn’t any baseball; I’d have been more disappointed, though, to find that there had been some and I missed it. Two strikes.

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