Times 26485 – Playing for one’s average

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A weekend for the sports fan, with Wellington (NZ), Sri Lanka and England all notching significant wins, with Manchester United chipping in with an insignificant one of their own.

As for the proposal to switch to 4-day Tests, the statisticians must be saying ‘We told you so’ after, of two matches being played concurrently, one finished in 3 days, while the other went the full allotment of 5.

It’s not often I swap my Brahms and Schubert for more modern stuff, but this puzzle was solved to the dulcet tones of Midnight Oil’s album Diesel and Dust, featuring the unlikely global hit ‘Beds are burning’.

And the crossword? Typical Monday fare, as I clocked in in a little under 28 minutes.

ACROSS

1. SHALLOT – ALL in SHOT.
5. NO-HOPER – NOH (Japanese chestnut) + OPER[a].
9. ALE – [h]ALE.
10. SCREENSHOTS – the toughest decode of the day: SNEER (‘scornful remark’) reversed (‘about’) + H[usband] in SCOTS (‘Northerners); ‘pictures’. My penultimate.
11. DOTTEREL – hidden in ‘anD OTTER Eluded’. I was looking for a hidden, but in the wrong place (‘dandotte’?), and was done like an Aussie on a turner. My last in.
12. LAZIER – [g]LAZIER.
15. PORN – PO + RN; ‘blue material’.
16. STRAVINSKY – I removed various consonants from Tchaikovsky to try and make him fit, but I was playing down the wrong line. It’s STRAINS around V + KY.
18. MINCE WORDS – CRIMES DOWN* (anagram); ‘indirectly say’.
19. PREP – initial letters of four of the words in the clue.
22. SWEETS – WE in SETS.
23. GREEN TEA – GREEN + TEA[m].
25. INVESTIGATE – I + N + VEST + I + GATE.
27. BOA – OB (abbreviation of Latin ‘obiit’, meaning he/she snuffed it) reversed (‘turning’) + A for the constrictor.
28. GREENIE – reversal (‘repulsed’) of EINE (as in kleine Nachtmusik) + ERG (‘work unit’). An Antipodean slang term for someone who annoys the tits off you with his or her apparent concern for the environment. I’m not jesting – I am told by my Kiwi colleague that it is typically used in a derogatory manner.
29. HALBERT – HAL + BERT. Also called a ‘halberd’, this Medieval cross between spear and ax was probably dreamt up by a committee with too much time on their hands. Like most hybrids, it probably wasn’t very effective.

DOWNS

1. STAND-UP – double definition. I was stood up once – still coming to terms with it…
2. AGENT ORANGE – ENTO[mbed] in A GRANGE. ‘Grange’ is making a stealthy bid for Crossword Word of the Year 2016.
3. LISTER – whimsical definition, playing on the lean sense of ‘list’. Joseph Lister was a pioneer of antiseptic surgery who has become something of a crossword staple. I wonder if he ever lived in a grange?
4. TURKEY TROT – TORT (‘wrong’) reversed after TURKEY (‘country’); ‘dance’.
5. NOEL – EON reversed + L. Perhaps he was in a trio with Hal and Bert?
6. HISPANIC – H followed by IS and PANIC.
7. PRO – PRO[m].
8. RESPRAY – 3 of the 9 letters of RESidents + PRAY; ‘makeover for estate [car]?’
13. INSCRUTABLE – [v]INS (‘French wines not very’) followed by CRU (‘certain vineyards’) + TABLE (‘list’); ‘hard to understand’.
14. BALDERDASH – RED (‘left-wing’) + LAB (‘party’) reversed (‘upset’) + DASH (strike); ‘nonsense’.
17. JETTISON – JET + IS NOT*; ‘scrap’ (verb).
18. MASKING – SKIN in MAG.
20. PEASANT – SAN[k] in PEAT.
21. BEFELL – BE + FELL.
24. CITE – IT in CE.
26. VIE – VI[l]E.

55 comments on “Times 26485 – Playing for one’s average”

  1. Yes, a big sporting weekend for Sri Lanka. Beating Australia in the Test, and level with Great Britain on the Olympic medals tally after two days (along with Kiribati, Somalia, Bhutan and a few others).

    25:44 for the crossword. Took ages over AGENT ORANGE, PEASANT and the unknown HALBERT in what I thought was more of a Wednesday-ish puzzle.

    I’ll give COD to GREENIE, which I didn’t realise was a particularly “down-under” term. Can confirm that in some quarters it’s used in a derogatory, or at least cynical, fashion.

    Thanks setter and U. Oh, and well done on discovering the great pub band The Oils. Didn’t think they’d be your cup of tea.

    1. I’m guessing that the series loss to Sri Lanka hasn’t featured heavily in the media Downunder. It’s the Aussie way, of course. BTW, what is Peter Garrett doing these days?
      1. The English press has become embarrassing in its jingoism, as far as I am concerned. Sometimes I read the SMH or the Auckland Herald or whatever after their team have suffered a reverse (especially against the old enemy) and they’re pretty fair on the whole. (Compare the Spanish press and their carping about referees – even when they win, and the ref was good. And don’t get me started on the Chinese (social) media – good on yer, Horton!)

        Having said that, I got very nearly apoplectic listening to the unholy trinity of Grant Nisbett, Ian Smith and – ugh – Murray Mexted. Only watching Steve Walsh – who both sides of the Tasman can claim (disclaim?) – referee made me more likely to suffer a heart attack or destroy the telly….

  2. About 40 minutes, so not too hard for me. Didn’t know the alternative spelling for ‘halberd’ so PEASANT was my last in. Liked RESPRAY, SCREENSHOTS and especially the surface for INSCRUTABLE, my favourite.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  3. My blogger’s habit of trying to parse each clue as I solve it held me up today and I needed 41 minutes to complete the job. With the aid of a few checkers I could easily have biffed SCREENSHOTS, AGENT ORANGE, INSCRUTABLE, PEASANT and SHALLOT and moved on and met my 30 minute target but instead I spent time unravelling them, some of which took a lot longer than others.
  4. 14:28 … with a few delays mopping up the tail-enders, notably HALBERT and RESPRAY.

    One of the nice things about solving The Times and misspending time around here is the way you find yourself taken down unexpected side roads. Today I started to wonder if Joseph Lister was ever aware of the mouthwash named after him.

    History (now also known as Wikipedia) doesn’t record the details, but Listerine was certainly invented long before Lister’s death (33 years before), albeit across the Atlantic. It didn’t catch on, however, until a decade after his demise, so perhaps he never encountered it.

    What caught my eye was the commercial history of Listerine. There’s a lovely extract from Freakonomics on the Wiki page which starts:

    “Listerine, for instance, was invented in the nineteenth century as powerful surgical antiseptic. It was later sold, in distilled form, as both a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea.”

    I urge you to read the whole thing on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listerine

    Listerine do not mention the floor cleaning or the gonorrhea in the product history on their website. Oversight, I’m sure.

    COD .. if MINCE WORDS is an original, it’s a great clue

    Edited at 2016-08-08 06:29 am (UTC)

    1. Shouldn’t they have used it on the toilet seats as well as the floor? If so, there would have been no worries about gonorrhea.
  5. Plenty of biffing today, and finished in under 15mins – except for 29ac which took another 10mins by itself. I guessed that the first chap was probably HAL but couldn’t see the alternative spelling.

    Without wanting to offend any glaziers, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call them “craftsmen” – down here we’d call them “tradies”.

    According to Wiki halberds could be quite effective:

    “A Swiss peasant used a halberd[4] to kill Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy—decisively ending the Burgundian Wars, literally in a single stroke.[5] Researchers suspect that a halberd or a bill sliced through the back of King Richard III’s skull at the Battle of Bosworth.”

    Dereklam

    1. The most interesting thing about the Wiki article is the startlingly long list of similarly unpleasant weapons it contains .. says much about humanity
    2. Of course they’re craftsmen. They practise a craft. 23.30 here for a workaday puzzle, alleviated as often by sotira’s devious remarks (below).
      1. Not according to Oxford:

        Glazier: “A person whose trade is fitting glass into windows and doors.”

        Craft: “An activity involving skill in making things by hand”

  6. I reiterate galspry’s comment. I struggled in just under an hour not the usual Monday for me.

    1dn STAND-UP FOI

    Didn’t like 27ac BOA far too loose IMO.

    Nor 28ac GREENIE (LOI) – rather too down-under. At school in UK it was snot!

    Nor 8dn RESPRAY – the shooting-brake has had its day! Any relation to M.Galspray?

    COD 4dn TURKEY TROT a rag-time caper.

    WOD(Vietnamese) AGENT ORANGE.

    horryd Shanghai

  7. I’ve tried solving on the club site recently because the papers are delivered later in the holidays and it would seem strange drinking my first coffee without a crossword to hand. I must improve my typing and proofreading skills (i.e. do it) because I don’t think today’s GRERN TEA and BRFELL could have happened on paper. Slowed down in the SW and clocked just over 15 minutes.
    1. My usual online entries would have been GGREENTA and BBEFEL, as I habitually click into the second space and start typing there. If I developed the habit of looking up from the keyboard before finishing, it would help, I suppose, but it often takes ages to spot, usually done only when crossing clues are impossible
  8. Yes, HALBERT LOI with crossed fingers, knew of halberd – didn’t they hold cavalry at bay while the musketeers reloaded? Was hung up on David Hilbert, the famous mathematician. Good start in NW, ALE then STAND-UP, PORN and my favourite lady at 1ac. Distracted throughout by picture of fencers, the Brit came fourth, those flag-based fencing masks are ridiculous. 17’38” today, thanks setter and blogger.
  9. A DNF for me, with several missing in the NE. I should have got NO HOPER, which would have helped, but though I thought of NOH (which didn’t have an “H” the last time it came up, I think) and OPER{a}, I didn’t think of them both at the same time, oddly. Not sure I’d have figured out SCREENSHOTS, either, but if I’d got them both I may have come up with RESPRAY in the end…

    Still, fairly pleased to have come up with the unknown LISTER, GREENIE and DOTTEREL (eventually!), and that HALBERT spelling. I think that *has* come up before, which probably means I’ve seen it four or five times now and am actually starting to remember it…

  10. 25 minutes and on a roll (for me) so wait for the tears tomorrow?
    DNK GREENIE but it was well clued. Birds are relatively easy for me but I wondered if DOTTEREL was widely known. It is a good one to hide as it looks strange written down.
  11. Not very Mondayish for me either, clocking 18.39 and actually thinking it’d been longer. The four longest clues in particular were rather tortuously clued and none the worse for that: like Jack, I stopped to verify the wordplay because it somehow felt necessary.
    I’d be interested to know whether AGENT ORANGE is well known to those of a less extended vintage: as far as I know, its use was banned after the Vietnam advisory campaign. Like most truly horrid devices in warfare, the British had it first and then campaigned for its proscription.
      1. Erm, well. Britain had the Tube Alloys project before the Manhattan project, which developed much of the technology for the bomb. The terrifying Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector was deployed in the Battle of the Somme 1916, and while portable flamethrowers were in use, this was the first effective large scale battlefield version and played a significant role in the two sectors where they were used. I’ll give you Germany for ICBMs, and I’m pleased to allow the US the invention and use of naplam.
        Modern germ warfare conceivably began with British Marines exploiting smallpox in NSW and possibly earlier in the US. Porton Down was a lead facility for the development of germ and biological weapons. Cornishman John Davy first synthesised phosgene gas in 1812, though not at that time as a weapon. The French did that.
        But hey, let’s have the machine gun (Maxim), the Congreve rocket, torpedoes, tanks, shrapnel, Dreadnaughts, fighter aircraft, depth charges, stun grenades, the Harrier Jump Jet (hooray) and, of course concentration camps for civilians.
          1. I think you mean “leg theory”. As with so many of the items above, the Poms invented it, used it once and then took the lead in getting it banned.
            1. Struggling to see the problem here .. give it a try, see if it works, give up if it doesn’t … unfair to be slagged off for being creative..
        2. Good answer .. not that I agree with some of the things, but reading the list, I’m now depressed and need a lie down .. humans, eh?
          PS: Sorry, but Hiram Maxim is as American as Napalm whatever his passport might say ..
          1. Sure. Born in Maine, but knighted properly in Britain. We don’t do foreigners. As British as, say, Marconi. Inventions belong to the country that nourished and fostered them.
    2. One point on the graph for you: I was two years old at the fall of Saigon, and I’ve certainly heard of Agent Orange a fair few times over the years. Think it might have come up first in a chemistry lesson at school, though I don’t think we manufactured any!

      Edited at 2016-08-08 01:54 pm (UTC)

    3. I was also two years old at the fall of Saigon and AGENT ORANGE is perfectly familiar to me. Not sure where from: all those Vietnam movies in the 80s perhaps.
  12. Galloped off to a good start with STAND UP FOI, then gradually tailed off to a crawl for no good reason. Perhaps it’s too early in the morning for me. My LOI was MINCE WORDS where it took me an age to spot the anagram, and I tried to find a violent crime to fit M_N_E. Liked INSCRUTABLE and RESPRAY. Deciphered the relevant bits of GREENIE early on but didn’t put it in until I realised the extra E was actually part of the German article, doh. A sluggish 48 minutes. Thanks setter and U.
  13. Seems like I did quite well to finish this one in a Mondayish timeframe of 5 and a half minutes, as it wasn’t quite as Mondayish as most Monday puzzles I don’t think. Was fortunate that I’d come across HALBERT in crosswords prior, as like many others I’m sure I only knew “halberd” for many years.
  14. In the weekend’s sporting successes, nobody has yet mentioned Wanderers’ emphatic 1-0 victory over the Blades. I’d forgotten we were allowed to win. Found this hard but biffs of HALBERT and DOTTEREL proved to be right. LOI SCREENSHOTS after LISTER suddenly became obvious having flirted too long with LANCET. Parsed GREENIE and it sounded Australian enough, a fracking good clue. COD MINCE WORDS. Took damn near the hour over the whole thing.
  15. A rare 40min+ today. Not sure why as nothing was intrinsically difficult and even the unknowns (GREENIE, DOTTEREL) came from the clueing. GLAZIER is potentially more than the guy who puts the glass in (think stained-glass windows) so I have no issue with ‘craftsman’. Finally, Rugby players of my era will know all about the Camel and the INSCRUTABLE smile of the Sphinx. Thanks setter and U.
  16. I found this very hard. After starting off quickly, I ground to a halt and only very slowly got going again having unearthed the bird which I had vaguely heard of, and 10 across. Although I had the Grange bit of 2 down I had never heard of the chemical so it was a DNF as I had got thoroughly fed up by then. My fault I know as it was all perfectly fair and, indeed, straightforward post solve! Many thanks blogger for making everything clear. I really liked 18 across.
  17. Found this quite straightforward and nearly there in about 30 minutes. Finally saw 20d but guessed Halgent for the nasty weapon not knowing the alternative to halberd. Good to see the setter anticipating Adam Peaty’s sensational world record by reference in 20d. Puts my breaststroke style to shame.
    Alan
  18. I felt like I was wading through treacle as I had other things on my mind and didn’t feel like I was in full-on solving mode so I’m not too displeased with my 15:09.

    It didn’t feel very Mondayish to me.

  19. Found this one a tad harder than usual Monday fare, or maybe I was just feeling dim. 30 minutes, slow but steady, took an age to unravel MINCE WORDS from fodder, and think of a veggie with ALL in the middle. Knew the D bird and the H pike thing. Liked the def for RESPRAY once the penny dropped.
    Glad to learn GREENIE which will use to despise one whenever one presents itself.
    1. I can never get one to talk – always too busy making money from their green ‘solutions’.
      1. Would make a change from ‘greenie’ French EDF sales people trying to put solar on your garage roof with a 14 year payback, surprised when you say no thanks not at our age but they still keep on asking.
  20. 19 mins. Count me as another who didn’t find this very Mondayish. Having said that, I made hard work of a few answers that should have gone in much faster, such as DOTTEREL (I looked for the hidden but quite incredibly didn’t see it until I had all the checkers), AGENT ORANGE, MASKING and BALDERDASH, which was my NTLOI before the trickier HALBERT. I liked the surface reading of 1ac.
  21. About 25 minutes, feeling a bit sluggish going through this. LOI was RESPARY, which I would not equate with a paintjob for a car. The wordplay was clear enough, but figuring out what connection it had to ‘makeover for estate’ brought about a lot of head scratching. As others have said, MINCE WORDS was good. Regards.

    Edited at 2016-08-08 05:24 pm (UTC)

  22. 13m. I started very quickly on this, and had three quarters done after 5 minutes. However I then slowed to a crawl: TURKEY TROT, STRAVINSKY (for some reason) and MINCE WORDS all caused problems, but I spent nearly a third of my total solving time on 10ac. I just couldn’t see how any of the wordplay worked, and solved it in the end just by looking for words that fitted the checkers. Even when I came up with SCREENSHOTS it took me a minute or so to unravel the very tricky wordplay.
  24. ….are silly birds. They nest in sand scrapes just above (they hope) the high water mark and then wonder why they lose so many eggs and chicks to the likes of crows and stoats. Perhaps that’s where the word ‘dotty’, meaning silly, comes from?
    Three solutions in particular that made me smile today: RESPRAY, LISTER and my favourite, MINCE WORDS. Lovely.
    AGENT ORANGE? Another name for Donald Trump’s make-up?
    43m 43s Too slow even to make it into the repechage.
  25. Did this outside in a pleasant cooler morning with a piping hot cup of coffee. I highly recommend doing crosswords that way. MINCE WORDS is a terrific clue, and the rest was very solid.
  26. 8:05 for me, making heavy weather of the NE corner for no particular reason. A pleasant start to the week.
  27. Not too easy (my usual hour), but I did finish correctly despite the usual spate of unknowns (DOTTEREL and GREENIE). Actually, when the timer reaches an hour and the score no longer changes, I generally save the puzzle and come back to it later. When that happened today, TURKEY TROT and SCREENSHOTS were still missing. But the instant I sat down to the puzzle again (after two hours of TV and a phone conversation) I saw TURKEY TROT immediately, closely followed by SCREENSHOT which only took a few longish minutes to parse, to make sure it really did belong there. Most of my puzzles are finished this way but I am always amazed by how effective it is to just put the puzzle aside for an hour or two.
  28. Certainly not a Monday puzzle for me. I also spent too long trying to get Tchaikovsky to fit.
    I fondly hoped that this would be a quick solve so that I could get an earlyish night, only to find that all the clues took longer to untangle that I expected. No gripes though, a perfectly fair crossword.
    1. After living in Australia for over 20 years, I became used to the habit of the local media of ignoring inconvenient sporting losses. One example: in 2000 the Kiwis were defending the Americas Cup on the waters off Auckland. You would never have guessed that such a major sporting event was taking place if you relied on the media in Sydney. There was no TV coverage at all and the only time the Sydney Morning Herald mentioned anything about it was when there was a positive Aussie angle to promote. After the Australian entry , “Young Australia”,had finished bottom or next to bottom of the qualifying group, another team was quick to snap up the young Aussie skipper, James Spithill, who has gone on to greater glory in sailing, of course. That was about the only time I can recall a mention of the regatta. On the other hand….at that time I flew on Air New Zealand from Sydney to Auckland every week for work. As soon as I boarded the plane, evidence of the Americas Cup was all around, starting with the cabin crew who all sported clothing with the A.C. logo.

      Edited at 2016-08-09 12:05 pm (UTC)

      1. Strange example to choose, given that Australia never contested the America’s Cup in 2000.

        You seem to be referring to the Louis Vuitton Cup, which I can safely say has never been a major part of the sporting landscape in Australia (is it anywhere?). Not surprising that it would be followed closely in NZ given that NZ was hosting the event, and as holders of the America’s Cup, they would be defending their title against the winners of the LV.

        Got any other examples?

        Speaking of the America’s Cup, Australia challenged for it and lost repeatedly during my childhood. It was always widely reported and closely followed. Then one day Australia won, and four years later I travelled to Perth with a friend to enjoy the celebrations surrounding the defence. Australia lost (very widely reported) and I’m still in Perth nearly thirty years later, but that’s a story for another day.

        1. What curious reasoning! The LV Cup is, as you acknowledge, part of the America’s Cup process, which, as you also say, is widely reported in Australia. It’s therefore logical to be interested in it, as the winner goes on to challenge for the cup itself. Had “Young Australia done well and been in contention to go on to the main competition, you can bet that the Aussie media would have been all over it. In trying to diminish the importance of the LV Cup, even though it provides the ultimate challenger for the Americas Cup you have just made my point. Aussies love it when they win but tend to ignore it when they lose.
          1. On edit: Forget it, silly arguments are mercifully rare in this place, let’s keep it that way. Enjoy your day.

            Edited at 2016-08-09 02:05 pm (UTC)

            1. I think one of the differences is that Aussies are far more used to winning. We’re not. After England had won the 2005 Ashes series, Simon Barnes, then of The Times, wrote an excellent piece on the subject of how we don’t expect to win, rather we expect to stuff it up*. I wish I had saved that piece.
              I cheer for Australia, except when they are playing England, of course. Oh, and when they are playing NZ. My wife is a Kiwi so if it’s Aus v NZ, I have to toe the party line; but she’s not interested in the Rugby Sevens, so well done for winning gold in the women’s Sevens. Having beaten Canada in an earlier round we then lost to the same team in the Bronze Medal Game. Ho hum.
              *so we have something to moan about down the pub.

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