Times Cryptic 26288

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This one took me 34 minutes with a number of early biffs, in particular the three multi-word answers that opened up the grid nicely. The long Down single-word answer eluded me until the last moment or two but was well worth waiting for. I eventually biffed that one too and unravelled it later. It’s  a quaint euphemism that for some reason reminds me of  Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough as ‘Cissy and Ada’. There’s nothing obscure here, I think, although there’s a dance and a parliament that may be unknown to some.

{deletions} [indicators]

Across
1 BRIO – BRO (close relative) encloses [touring] I (island)
3 OVERBURDEN – OVER (remaining), BURDEN (chorus)
10 JACKASS – Two definitions. One a fool and the other combined with ‘laughing’ gives us an alternative name for the kookaburra.
11 CAMPING – CAMP (affected), anagram [misuse] of GIN
12 WASTE NOT WANT NOT – Anagram [oddly] of SANTA WENT TO TOWN
13 LOATHE – Hidden in {Os}LO A THE{atre}
14 RELIABLE – ELI (priest) is enclosed by [stops] RAB{b}LE (crowd) [ejecting bishop]
17 NOTEBOOK – ETON (college) reversed [about], BOO (voice disapproval), K{id} [‘s first]
18 ANKLET – A, N (northern), K (king), LET (hired out)
21 CROSS THE RUBICON – CROSS (thwart), THE, RUBI sounds like [reported] “ruby” (jewel), CON (scam). Julius Caesar started a civil war by taking his army across this river.
23 ENTHUSE – THUS (this way) inside ENE (various quarters – of the compass)
24 IKEBANA – IKE (old president – Dwight D Eisenhower), BAN (veto), A
25 STRATHSPEY – Anagram [out] of H{i}S [disheartened] + PARTY SET. A slow Scottish reel.
26 WAND – WAN (anaemic-looking ), D (daughter)

Down
1 BEJEWEL – BE (live), JEW (Israeli possibly) EL (the – Spanish)
2 INCESSANT – IN (like MPs), CESS (tax), A, NT (set of books – New Testament). When parliamentary candidates win a seat they are said to be IN. This old form of tax, usually on property, may be unfamilar to some.
4 VISION – VI’S (woman’s), I (one), ON (cricket side). The setter is being overly generous to us here by mentioning cricket, although I suppose it’s needed for the surface reading. If only Dean could have been as helpful last Sunday!
5 ROCKWEED – ROCKED (shook) around WE (you and I)
6 UNMENTIONABLES – UN MEN (male peacekeepers), anagram [oddly] of BO{ugh}T IN SALE. Definition: bloomers, as in ladies’ undergarments. UN stands for United Nations and [ugh no!] indicates the letters to be excluded from the anagrist.
7 DEIGN – DE{s}IGN (goal) [remove son]
8 NIGHTIE – NIGH (nigh), TIE (game)
9 TAKE THE BISCUIT – A figurative definition with a cryptic hint
15 BALACLAVA – BALA (Welsh lake), C (cold), LAVA (molten matter). I didn’t know the lake though it has come up before so I should have.
16 POSHNESS – Anagram [around] of SHOP, NE (Tyneside), S{howing} S{uch} [initially]
17 NUCLEUS – CLUE (hint) with its U (university) moved down [dropped] to make CLEU inside NUS (students’ union)
19 TYNWALD – LAW (statute) + NY (city) all reversed [up] inside T{alente}D [extremely]. It rules the Isle of Man.
20 CRUISE – Sounds like [talked of] “crews” (ships’ companies)
22 OTTER – {h}OTTER (spicier) [from the East End]

42 comments on “Times Cryptic 26288”

  1. As Jack says, lots of biffables in this one; especially in the SE. Knew TYNWALD from an early age: the name of one of the Liverpool-IOM ferries. And Ike Bana is, of course, Eric’s brother.

    Good to see ‘bloomers’ indicating undies and not errors or flowers.

  2. A shade under 17 minutes, with DEIGN last in, as I had tentatively popped in ‘prion’, which would have been another unknown to add to IKEBANA, CESS and the oft forgotten TYNWALD.

    Enjoyed the ineffables.

  3. The unknown STRATHSPEY took a while to unravel. Same for TYNWALD, but mainly because I was reading “statute” as “statue”.

    Pretty plain sailing other than that. Thanks setter and Jack, particularly for parsing INCESSANT.

      1. I made the same mistake and tried PRION, until OVERBURDEN revealed itself and I re-read the clue. For some reason, I often misread GOAL and GAOL.
  4. All done in about 20mins, but, since I was convinced that 25ac ended in ——STEP, the three remaining letters fell where they were thrown, giving an unlikely sarythstep. Have I mentioned before that I hate it when anagrams are for unknowns? Resolution for 2016: increase my GK!
  5. 19:27. DNK the BURDEN – CHORUS connection but biffed it. After toying with EKIBANA (Backing old president) I decided that I knew IKEBANA after all. TYNWALD went in unparsed so thank you blogger
  6. 11m, including a couple at the end trying to decide if there was any reason whatsoever to favour IKEBANA over IKEBARA or vice versa, before concluding that there wasn’t and predictably plumping for the wrong one.
  8. A pleasant stroll around BALA Lake – well worth a visit. Agree with keriothe about cryptic for IKEBANA and “backing” suggests EKI which only CRUISE corrects

    A trip down memory lane for UNMEN…. The only person I knew who wore bloomers was my grandmother who wouldn’t hang them out to dry on her washing line and found talking about them difficult – much to my slightly cruel amusement

  9. Finished this in 25 minutes except for the unknown dance for which I had to use an aid; could have asked one of our several friends who partake weekly in Scottish Country Dancing here in SW France; my knowledge of what exactly they perform didn’t extend beyond ‘teapots’.
    I knew IKEBANA and have attended many annual TYNWALD ceremonies having survived 20 years of residence on that windy, rainy outpost the French call “un paradis fiscal”.
    Thanks for parsing INCESSANT vinyl1, I biffed it.
    My Granny was just like Jimbo’s as far as bloomers were concerned. Were they all?
  10. 18.03. A little surprised by ‘in’ for ‘like MPs’ and foxed by ‘backing’ in the ikebana clue. I suppose there’ll come a time when the assumption East End people (22) drop their aitches will be unacceptable and reviled. Along with its appetite for new words the old TC has a handful of cultural fixations.
  11. Well, well, I’ve learned a couple of things today: cess meaning tax and burden meaning chorus – much to Mrs Deezzaa’s smug amusement as she of course knew them. I thought the clue for 6d was pretty tortuous but that aside, a nice puzzle.
    Estimated 30 minutes (I forgot to note when I started)
  12. Whizzed through in 15 minutes thinking it was far too easy then came unstuck with 25, trying to get STEP as the ending. Resorted to the dictionary in the end, which at least confirmed it was a dance I’ve never heard of. I knew IKEBANA, so wasn’t tempted by the wordplay to enter EKIBANA.
  14. Haven’t heard of Burden for chorus so the NE corner caused me problems when I entered Overstrain incorrectly. Hadn’t heard of Strathspeys but guessed from the anagram. I too guessed Ikebara incorrectly. Thank you to all the bloggers as my attempts are definitely improving. And Happy Christmas to all. Alan
  15. A bit of a cock-up on the timing front, Reggie, but about 10 minutes.

    More bad reading today had me looking for a statue city in 19d. Rio? Rome?

  16. About my usual 40 minutes, but pleased to complete with a couple of biffs and unknowns. I didn’t know IKEBANA, and interpreted ‘backing’ as BAN A coming after good old IKE. Didn’t know CESS in 2d, but it was biffable from the crossers and the definition, and I have never to my knowledge danced a STRATHSPEY (being much more familiar with SPEYSIDE!), but it was guessable. Heading to Edinburgh for Hogmanay, so maybe I can fill that gap in my repertoire whilst I am there.

    Edited at 2015-12-22 02:45 pm (UTC)

  17. 37m steady solve today with no major hold ups though BRIO took some dredging – my LOI. My granny also brought to mind by 6d, a smile worthy clue. Thanks for the blog – I needed it today as there was much biffing today and a new word : a ‘cess’ eh? Another tax to add to the list.
      1. Anyone who spent nearly 40 years in the tax world (not on the Inland Revenue side) would have come across CESS all over the place (indeed, mainly outside the UK) but I appreciate that this is a bit specialised. It remains for instance the name of many taxes in India.

        Edited at 2015-12-22 03:47 pm (UTC)

  18. As an occasional solver, this one restored my self-esteem, after the pounding it got yesterday. Knew Tynwald and Ikebana – and got the dance from the whisky connection.
    As a bonus, I get to do some jigsaws when commenting.
  19. 33:49, although I confess to checking and entering TYNWALD at the same time.

    Thanks to jackkt for help with a lot of unknown parts today: Eight answers went in today without full understanding. Definitely learned burden = chorus, game = tie (which I vaguely remember), cess = tax, in = ‘like MPs’, probably others as well.

    Don’t particularly like NY as ‘city’, since I live in New York City, and we never write it that way. Except on envelopes, when writing my address as NY, NY… which I do almost daily… Touché, crossword conventions.

    As for flower arrangement (maybe a nice clue for DYKE?), I kept trying to get GARLAND to work. Wasn’t there a President Garland? With his First Lady Odie? Something like that.

    Surprised I didn’t get IKEBANA sooner as it and Hanabi are two of my favorite games. Anyone interested should definitely check out http://tinyurl.com/hanabigame. I suppose I’ll get collected by the spam bots now. Well, I, for one, welcome our new spambot overlords.

    1. Unspammed. What’s this about new spambot overlords? I’m not aware that anything new is going on here.

      I’m interested in your misgivings about NY for ‘city’. Collins and Chambers have it as ‘city or state’ and COED has it as ‘New York in official postal use’. But perhaps the traders making fortunes out of tourists by manufacturing and selling T-shirts etc with ‘I heart NY’ logos have something to answer for!

      Edited at 2015-12-22 05:54 pm (UTC)

      1. Just a Simpsons reference.

        As for city -> NY, I saw the error of my ways while writing. Normally I think of New York City as NYC only, but indeed in official postal use and on those T-shirts we indeed write the city as NY.

        I would like to add that it was mighty cruel to us unenlightened solvers to clue STRATHSPEY as ‘dance’, when without checkers we had S_R_T_S_E_ and something like S_R_T_STEP was possible! (Fortunately, I was unconvinced by SHARTYSTEP.)

  20. 22 mins but I was very tired and nodding off constantly. I ground to a halt in the SW but once the tiredness passed I raced through my last three answers, which were POSHNESS, STRATHSPEY and NUCLEUS. None of them would have held me up if I’d been properly alert. I knew IKEBANA so wasn’t tempted by an alternative reading of the wordplay.
  21. Well, good lords, only 21 minutes for this one, which is unusually fast for me. My only hold-up was STRATHSPEY, as I was convinced it was going to be something-STEP. However, none of the six possible -STEPs looked remotely plausible, and then STRATHSPEY surfaced from backwater of my memory.

    If I could do slightly better than this three times in a row, I’d just fail to make the qualifying rounds of the competition.

  22. Is a vision a dream? The first is a single image; a dream is a desirable/undesirable series of images.

    Which woman does Vi represent, for the record?
    Vicky? Surely not. That name is already an abbreviation.

    1. I don’t think a vision need be a single image. Think of Saul / Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus — it’s quite a lengthy episode.

      I believe the name is Violet. Not one you hear too often now, more’s the pity.

  23. I found this easier today than the Concise which I ended up having to google. About 17 minutes. I’m another who wasted time trying to think of a ******STEP for the dance. But remembered it eventually. Nice to see grandma’s UNMENTIONABLES get an airing. Now all we need is Georgette Heyer’s “inexpressibles” to make our washing line complete!
  24. I had hopes of a clean sweep, and I suspect I might have succeeded had I not been completely thrown by confidently bunging in OVERSTRAIN at 3ac. This took me an age to spot, so I finished in a disappointing 9:38.

    I’ve an uneasy feeling that this is going to be one of those weeks.

  25. 17:35 Late night solve half-asleep unwinding after a long day driving across the country and back for duty visit. A pleasant stroll compared to the rainy roads. Cess for tax was new to me, but I remembered IKEBANA from a crossword earlier this year. 19d my LOI. I liked the seasonal surface for 12a.

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