Times Cryptic – 25881

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

This was quite a gentle offering for my first blog in my new spot and I doubt it would have delayed my distinguished predecessor for very long – I suspect he’d even have been in “stroll in the park” or “picnic” territory. No doubt he’ll be along later to tell us. I suffered a few moments of blogger’s nerves before getting properly under weigh but I was pleased to finish in exactly 30 minutes. I think there’s one dodgy definition but otherwise I found this entertaining with some humour and inventiveness along the way.

Across
1 PALISADE – Sounds like “palace aide” (royal assistant)
5 PASCAL – P (pressure), A, SCAL{e} (short graduated measure). The SI unit of pressure.
8 OPS – {l}OPS (cuts – with the end letter of “Whitehall” removed)
9 EASTERLIES – EASTER (holidays), LI{n}ES (queues – with N for “new” removed)
10 INTEGERS – Anagram of REGI{m}ENTS
11 TIERED – TIE (couple), R{u}ED (regretted – with U for “university” removed)
12 ATOP – A TO P – the series of letters followed by Q which sounds like “queue”
14 DRAINPIPES – DRAIN (empty), PIPES (instruments). The definition is “bags”, a slang word for “trousers” as is “drainpipes”, the only problem being that the styles are at completely opposite ends of the scale. Bags are loose-fitting and drainpipes are skin-tight so I don’t really see how one can define the other.
17 SUBSTITUTE – Anagram of TUBE TUTSIS
20 GLUE – LUGE (toboggan) with the end letter of “leg” moved forwards
23 NEXT TO – OXEN (cattle) reversed around T (time) x 2
24 DELEGATE – Sounds like “Delhi gate” allegedly. Since Watergate any scandal is likely to have the suffix -gate attached to it. We even had the possibility of a Gategate in the UK a couple of years ago following an incident in Downing Street, though the popular press settled for Plebgate instead.
25 BUNKING OFF – BUN KING (master baker – ho-ho!), OFF (temporarily unavailable). I don’t think “temporarily” necessarily comes into it.
26 EGO – Definition “I” plus a trusted friend could be one’s “alter ego”
27 SEVENS – S (son), EVENS (quits). From memory it’s a fairly tame card game. Edit: Thanks to mct for pointing out this would be  seven-a-side Rugby. The card game exists as I played it as a child and it’s described in Wiki, but for some reason it’s not mentioned in any of the usual dictionaries.
28 UPSTROKE – UP (at university), STROKE (oarsman). The definition seems to be “mark rising”.
Down
1 PRODIGALS – PRO (favouring), then DIGS (lodgings) around A, L (lake)
2 LESOTHO – SO (very) inside anagram of HOTEL. I wasn’t aware of this as a mountainous country but apparently the whole state lies more than 1000 metres above sea level.
3 SLEDGE – S (square), L (leg), EDGE (boundary). Lots of cricketing stuff here. I wondered if SL might be taken together as an abbreviation but I couldn’t find it listed.
4 DESERT RAT – DESERT (go AWOL), TAR (sailor) reversed
5 PURITAN – RITA (girl) inside PUN (joke)
6 SHIVERING – HIVER (French winter) inside SING (carol)
7 AUSTERE – Anagram of ARE SUET defined as the opposite of luxurious
13 PAST TENSE – PA (Pennsylvania) then TT (racing event) inside SENSE (meaning) defined by an example of a verb that’s in it (moped).
15 IN THE SOUP – Double definition
16 STEVEDORE – EVE (woman) + D (daughter) inside STORE (shop)
18 USEABLE – SEA (marine area) inside anagram of BLUE. My dictionary tells me that the first “E” is rare.
19 IVORIES – IVOR (man), IE (that is), S{olo}. “Tinkling the ivories” is a slang expression for playing the piano referring back to the days when piano keys were made from the material, hence “piano parts” as the definition. I doubt it’s still used today.
21 LEAVE GO – LEAVE (holiday), GO (journey)
22 SEE FIT – TI (note) + FEES (charges) all reversed

55 comments on “Times Cryptic – 25881”

  1. Nothing much to report, save that delegate sounds nothing like Delhigate in any English I am being aware of.
  2. Ulaca beat me to it, but DELEGATE follows on (I can’t remember when it was) POMEGRANATE as a non-homophone foisted on us innocent solvers by a malign setter. Seepier/sepia, fine; but the line must be drawn somewhere. DNK DRAINPIPES and BUNKING OFF. But I did like the short ones, ATOP, GLUE,OPS, and especially EGO.
  3. Ah, so that’s what PRODIGAL means. Makes sense.

    Walk in the park today. COD to DELEGATE. Homophones are much more fun when they’re slightly dodgy, especially when they’re easily solvable.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

    1. Okay, I’ll keep the score. At the moment, it’s 2-2, with a discernible continental weighting.
    2. I agree there’s room for a bit of humour in this type of clue and there was no problem solving this one. I think I may have been a bit tetchy on the subject in the past when I have struggled to solve a clue and then found it relied on a homophone that stretched things beyond belief.
  4. But about 25 minutes. A personal bonus was “alter EGO” and SLEDGE in one puzzle. I have to say I had a bit of a laff at DELE-GATE.

    Odd to see the tightest possible kecks clued via “bags”!

    Re SEVENS: isn’t this a ref. to the rugby game?

        1. Mention of Hoyle reminds me of Phil Harris’s “Darktown Poker Club”:

          ..you ain’t going to play this game according to Mr. Hoyle,
          You’re going to play this here game according to ME!

          Edited at 2014-09-02 06:55 am (UTC)

          1. I used to have a 78rpm record of Phil Harris’ “Darktown Poker Club” with the truly memorable “Woodman Spare That Tree” on the ‘B’ side…Magnificant!
        2. Indeed. Cribbage has been the family staple for the last ~40 years and, despite occasional flirtations with Sevens, Newmarket, and Canasta, it’s what we always come back to.
  5. My disappointment at yesterday’s dismal failure has been diminished. Firstly I found a new series of Only Connect on TV last night. Then I completed today’s offering all parsed in 22 minutes.

    So the easiest crossword for at least a week, but one I enjoyed nonetheless. DELEGATE may have been in ‘dodgy homophone’ territory but I liked it. However my COD goes to ATOP. Good stuff.

    1. Z8, myself & a friend auditioned for the new series of only Connect; but regrettably did not make it through to the real McCoy 🙁

  6. Nope, not easy for me at all this morning, and it took over the hour…but I did manage to finish it eventually…

    Didn’t get the alter EGO bit, nor did I know that meaning for SLEDGE. Looking over it now, can’t really see why it took so long

  7. 31.40. A bit tricky at times. Delegate is ghastly. There seems to be a “bad homophones are fun” convention taking up residence in the unwritten constitution. I can accept palisade (‘They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace, Christopher Robin is going with Alice’, poor devil) though initially jolted; but to my mind 24 is simply wrong and the end of the world.

  8. I have no problem with the homophone. How else can you pronounce DELEGATE as a verb? I enjoyed today’s offering.
    1. When I say it the second E is a schwa, whereas the I at the end of Delhi is definitely an I. Having said that I don’t mind it at all: it’s never occurred to me before but I think Galspray is on to something when he says that homophones are more fun when they’re a bit dodgy.
    2. To delegate is a bit more like Deli-gate than Delhi-gate, but I have to admit I was thinking of the noun. *Off to consume my humble pie.*
  9. Yesterday was easy – 13 minutes, today’s was exactly twice as hard, on paper, analogue timed. I proved I can just as easily writo as typo, which didn’t help.
    DRAINPIPES my last LOI, much headscratching until I eventually realised empty was a verb and not a challenge to fit a “nothing” inside something.
    Amusing humphones are OK in my book, so 1ac is OK too. Score?
    Apart from the trousers, the short ones gave me most grief, and I am chagrined to have missed why EGO was right. ATOP is just excellent, there being no word MNOP in any language I know.
    SEVENS? Well, I thought of rugby, but thought the terminally quaint Times might be thinking of a less modern game. Glad to find there is one. For this and other enlightenments, thank Jack.
  10. Well done Jack and indeed a reasonably gentle 20 minute stroll undertaken with no pressure and at a civilised time in the morning.

    Agree with you on “bags” and “temporarily” and not sure what “mark rising” means or its relationship to UPSTROKE.

    DELEGATE is an awful homophone but has the saving grace of being easy and funny. It’s certainly not in the “sandpaper”-“sandpiper” league

  11. 15 mins, which probably confirms that yesterday’s time was a fluke, and I had to concentrate a bit more on some of the wordplay. I can live with dodgy homophones when they’re fun and easily solvable. I smiled at the concept of the “bun king” in 25ac. I was held up the most in the SE and UPSTROKE was my LOI.
  12. Enjoyed this puzzle very much, even though I overshot my half-hour target by a minute. The definition of DRAINPIPES as bags didn’t seem satisfactory at first, though I suppose if one’s drainpipes had been forcibly removed, one would still be deemed to have been de-bagged.
  13. 14m, so I found this easier than yesterday’s. Diff’rent oarsmen and all that.
    I assume the last word in 9ac is ‘blows’? On my $@%*&!# iPad it’s ‘blow’, which slowed me down.
    I thought 5ac very good, and likely to meet with approval in Dorset.
    Today’s previously unknown interesting snippet is the mountainosity of Lesotho.
  14. Collins has:
    a.an upward stroke or movement, as of a pen or brush
    b.the mark produced by such a stroke
  15. Do own goals count?

    Prefer to stay with the curmudgeons, though. I would support wind farms before I was knowingly called a progressive.

  16. Saturday’s puzzle:
    I was astonished to see that the answers to Saturday’s prize puzzle 25879 were printed in yesterday’s iPad Times!!
    1. This has happened before, most recently with one of this year’s Championship Qualifying puzzles. Crosswords seem to get low priority on The Times app and while they have corrected the random insertion of symbols into the clues, it is still the case, as keriothe says above, that parts of clues are routinely covered up. Makes solving more challenging I suppose.
  17. Straightforward 30-minute solve. Not a lot to say; I don’t particularly like the homophone, but the setter has thrown in a “could be”, which allows a lot of homophonic latitude.

    I don’t like the new format of this site. When I’m typing a comment I can no longer refer to comments from others because they’ve all disappeared. What was wrong with the old format?

  18. As others have said, the easiest main puzzle for at least a week. I felt on the setter’s wavelength right from the start and had all bar 14a and 24a in and fully parsed in just under 11 minutes. Took me quite a bit to a) see BAGS as the definition as intended and b) come up with DELEGATE even with all checkers in (four vowels of course!). Finally completed in 14m 30s – a pleasant start to the day!
  20. For those who think DELEGATE was dodgy, I give you this from the Guardian today:

    Sociable swimmer expressed sympathy for sick cat (8).

  21. Sorry if this has already been said but a ship gets ‘under way’. ‘Way’ means that the vessel is moving (usually forwards) against the flow of water against it. Only then does the rudder have the ability to turn the boat, known as ‘steerage way’.
    If the current beneath the vessel (tidal flow for example) is moving in the same direction as the boat, the vessel will need to exceed the speed of this current before it can be steered, so wherever possible a boat will get under way against the current.
    1. Are you sure you’re referring to the right crossword? I’m not sure how this relates to today’s.
      2. Sorry, I probably should have made it clear that I was referring to jackkt’s words (under weigh)in the blog.

        It surprises me when even word experts pick up a homonym and use the sound to build a word that makes no sense in the chosen context.

        It is a common error I know but I would have thought someone with a feel for language like you guys would have questioned its validity in that setting.

        But you happen to be correct about the wrong puzzle. I am trying to get back into cryptics after a 40 year sabbatical (stopped commuting in the seventies)and so far I am struggling even with the Quick!

    2. Thank you for your advice but there’s a convention here that if a word, variant spelling, definition or usage is in any of the source dictionaries then complaints should go to the dictionary compilers and not to the setter, nor in this case to the unpaid blogger.

      ‘Under weigh’ is listed in ALL the usual sources as an alternative to ‘under way’, albeit in some cases noted as originally by association with phrases such as ‘weigh anchor’ e.g. the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has: “under weigh, (of a vessel etc.) in motion through the water, under way”

      It’s true that we often discuss pedantic interpretations of words and their meaning here and that’s only natural in such a forum (notwithstanding the point made in my first paragraph) however we usually reserve that for the day’s crossword clues and answers rather than for criticising contributors’ grammar.

      Edited at 2014-09-02 01:33 pm (UTC)

  22. Apparently I’m not allowed to post comments until my email has been validated. Again. Can anyone see this post? TIA.

    Delhi gate arrgh. But the Grauniad ones are worse today, and not funny.

    32 minutes on the me timer.

    Cheers
    Chris G

  23. I struggled with this much more than yesterday, and needed help with DRAINPIPES (my loi), just not seeing the bags bit.

    Adding my vote for the Indian homophone, I find myself in support of the progressives.

    Interesting how comments keep coming up about the crossword’s presentation on the Apple device. I got so frustrated with it last year that I traded in my ipad for a Windows tablet, only to find that The Times don’t support a Windows app for their digital subscribers. I now buy the paper when I can, with all of the implications that has for sustainability and world peace. If the planet goes to the dogs as a result, I fear the blame is all the Thunderers.

  24. 15:38 with the trousers last to fall – like Z I was looking to put an O in a word for instruments.

    No quibble with the homophones (I don’t even know what a schwa is – did Molesworth ever draw one?).

    COD to the bun king. Whilst A to P is quite clever I don’t think “at peaks” is a terribly elegant definition.

    Tippex needed at 20 (I moved the wrong end of leg and initially put luge) and 15, where I had IN THE POOP, a drawing-room friendly version of in the other stuff relying on a ship’s crow’s nest being somewhere in, on or around the poop deck.

  25. I found this the easiest Times cryptic for a week and finished in three hours on and off.
    FOI Desert Rat, LOI Drainpipes.
    Didn’t understand Ego so thanks Jack for explaining that one.
    Enjoyed Delegate, Palisade and Past Tense.
    1. In our house we say ‘to Deli-gate’ for the verb and deluh-gut noun for the chap at a conference. Deluh-gate seems to be neither one nor the other. The various online ‘how to pronounce’ sites seem to offer them all. anyway, tomorrow is another day…
      1. I pronounce the noun the same way, for what it’s worth, but when I say the verb it rhymes with ‘tellergate’, not ‘jellygate’.
        But I still don’t mind the homophone!
  27. Came to it late after golf, spent an hour pottering along through it while watching an embarrassingly poor England cricket side losing to India again. This fun puzzle went a little way towards easing the pain.
    What’s wrong with DELEGATE / DELHI-GATE? Do people pronounce it DEL-UH-GATE? It seems like a fair homophone to me and a jolly amusing clue. As were several of the others, as observed above. Well blogged Jack, hope tomorrow is as good.
  28. Hi there. About 20 minutes, ending with DRAINPIPES from wordplay and SEVENS from definition, although I wasn’t familiar with the game. No real complaints re the homophones from me. Nice gentle puzzle today. Regards.
  29. Close run thing as I only discovered on a last check that I had failed to solve the contentious 24a. Duly did so and completed in the time shown. I did groan a bit at the Grauniad homophone, but I rather like Otterden’s puzzles (having tackled many in the New Statesman before he relinquished the editorship) so all is forgiven.
  30. 11:17 for me – still off the pace, but not disastrously so.

    A most enjoyable puzzle. (24ac (DELEGATE) is fine by me.)

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