Times 24,827 Of Pubs and Cricket Teams

Solving time 20 minutes

Another large helping of poetry associated references plus a fairly obscure reference to a cricket team that many will, I suspect, find a bit baffling. At 15D we have an interesting little quirk. I only have access to Chambers which gives it as two unrelated words, which is what I would have considered it. Perhaps one of the other references gives it as a single word?

A reasonably typical Times daily cryptic with no particularly outstanding features.

Across
1 SQUILLION – S(QUILL-I)ON; irritating description of a large number used by non-mathematicians;
6 COBRA – CO-BRA; groans from the ladies;
9 ROMANIC – OR reversed – MANIC; soldiers=ordinary ranks=OR; of the language;
10 DENIZEN – DEN-I-ZEN; (electric) current=i (physics);
11 MANIFESTLY – MAN-(if set)*-LY; conspicuously is the definition;
12 POET – PO-ET; reference Robert Bridges 1844-1930 poet laureate;
14 IDYLL – hidden reversed (si)LLY DI(spute); more poetry;
15 BUTTERFAT – B(UTTER-F)AT;
16 SUCCOURED – sounds like “suckered” – old slang for “had”;
18 EIGER – E-(t)IGER; mountain in the Swiss Alps with an infamous north face;
20 ROBE – ROB(ert)-E;
21 VERTEBRATE – BET REV all reversed-RATE; feel sure=BET; minister=REV; charge=RATE;
25 EARLDOM – (or medal)*;
26 ASUNDER – AS-UNDER;
27 TITHE – TI-TH(is)-E;
28 WINDSWEPT – WIND(ie)S-WEPT; West Indies cricket team=Windies then lose “ie”=that;
 
Down
1 SCRUM – SC(R)UM;
2 UNMANLY – UN(ion)-MA(i)NLY; i=influence at first; many modern youths;
3 LONGFELLOW – LONG-FELLOW; tall=LONG; peer=FELLOW; reference Longfellow’s poem about goings on under the chestnut tree; where would Times setters be without their poets and poetry?;
4 INCUS – INCU(r)-S; small bone in the inner ear known as the anvil;
5 NODULATED – U-DON reversed-LA-TED; gent=TED (makes a change from thug);
6 CONE – C-NO reversed-E; Japanese drama=NO;
7 BUZZ,OFF – slang for euphoria=BUZZ; slang for rush away=BUZZ OFF;
8 ANNOTATOR – ANN(OT)A-TO-R; books=Old Testament=OT;
13 HEREABOUTS – (saoteur he)*; the “as” looks like padding;
14 INSURGENT – INSUR(G)E-NT; cover=INSURE; key=G(music); book=New Testament=NT; if it’s not poets it’s religion;
15 BARLEY,MOW – two words as far as I’m concerned; BAR-LEY-MO-W; LEY=lea=grassland; MOW=a heap of grain in a barn; today the name of thousands of country pubs;
17 CABARET – CA(BARE)T; vessel=catamaran=CAT;
19 GRANDEE – G(RAND)EE; an American VIP, clearly;
22 TRAIN – three meanings 1=aim; 2=instruct; 3=discipline;
23 EGRET – (r)EGRET; standard crossword setter’s bird;
24 EDGE – a guess on my part – cryptic definition?

39 comments on “Times 24,827 Of Pubs and Cricket Teams”

  1. Unfortunately, my mind being what it is, when I read the clue to 3 down, I could not get a certain song out of my head…

    “The village blacksmith he was there, da da di da di da”!

  2. Found this one hard in NW corner after a brisk start so 42 mins overall. COD to Windswept and Poet but don’t yet understand Edge.
  3. Speaking of songs, as a nipper I sang (in class to a radio programme, ‘Singing Together’ or ‘Rhythm and Melody’)’Here’s a health to the barleymow, my friends, here’s a health to the barleymow’ or somesuch. Anyhow it lodged it in my mind as one word. A little surprised by NT being book in the singular (insurgent); the plural as in annotator is at least more usual. 27 minutes after a serious hold-up on succoured and insurgent. No COD but all pleasant enough.
  4. This took me almost an hour, and I’m not sure why, aside from having to fight off narcolepsy. 24d: A brand is, among other things, a sword–hence ‘brandish’–and a sword, with luck, has an edge.
    A grandee is Spanish, not American. And there are insurgents who are anything but freedom fighters.
        1. Still fighting off narcolepsy, and none too successfully; good night, all. (Come to think of it, I’ve never used the word ‘gee!’ in my life.)
  5. Sorry; in the time it took me to compose my posting, jackkt had already explained ‘brand’.
  6. 44 minutes held up a little by writing SIDESWEPT at 28ac which apparently doesn’t exist but sounds as if it ought to. I got there eventually though with BARLEYMOW as my last in. I don’t have the ‘bibles’ to hand at the moment but OneLook lists it as two words or hyphenated but not as one word.

    I wonder if I’m missing something at 24dn because I don’t understand it.

    1. On reflection, i think it’s BRAND meaning ‘sword’ and that gives it an edge.
  7. 30/32 for me today, ending a three-day run of all corrects without aids – outwitted by Longfellow and succoured. First in egret.

    Co-bra raised a smile and it makes a change for the river to be Po not the usual Dee or R.

    Liked the manly / manifestly crossreference.

    Re 1A squillion. A google search turns up a whole list of names for mind boggling big numbers. I wonder if any of these have appeared in a Times grid:

    gazillion
    sextillion (10^21)
    decillion (10^33)
    vigintillion (10^63)
    googol (10^100)
    googolplex (10^Googol)

  8. Raced through the bottom half before slowing down in the upper part to finish in 41 minutes. Like others, I know the grain stand better as two words, as in the pub in Englefield Green we used to pass on trips to Windsor. ’Though INCUS was last in, I thought NODULATED and ANNOTATOR were particularly fine clues – if rather ugly words – with the need to lift and separate ‘university lecturer’ in the former and the checking letters permitting a whole raft of OT and NT permutations in the latter. COD to POET for the smooth and misleading surface.

    NT for ‘book’ as in ‘I bought him a Phillips New Testament for Easter’, I reckon, the NT often being sold separately.

  9. 24’ with the solve going smoothly, if anti-clockwise from the top right. But still, had to “phone a friend” for the parsing of 14dn: my stupidity amazes me some days. The 2dn/11ac pair were neat I thought; and reminded me of the time a friend from Sydney (actually a quite well-known philosopher) said I had a “Bondi chest”. I was bragging about it for months before he told me what it meant: a long way from Manly!
    And the “Barley Mow” I know is the drinking song: two words, just like that — as Tommy Cooper used to say.
  10. 9m. Only the third time I’ve broken the 10-minute barrier so I’ve a spring in my step this morning. For me this was at least as easy as yesterday’s but a much more entertaining puzzle.
    I didn’t know the LONGFELLOW poem or INCUS. I guessed that “brand” must mean “sword” based on “brandish”. However NO is becoming very familar indeed!
  11. Seriously slowed by NW corner (unravelled once I had MANIFESTLY) and by sitting out in the sun to complete. EDGE was a guess for me, too; thank you others for the explanation. My (paid for) version of Oxford Dictionaries Online does include BARLEYMOW as one word (archaic).
  12. After yesterday’s “State capital (10)” we have “Very nice (6)” in today’s FT puzzle by Loroso (Anax).
  13. 22:24 .. A bucolic tang to this one, ‘neath the spreading chestnut tree and all that.

    The Oxford Shorter only gives BARLEYMOW’ as one word, just beneath “barley-hood… a fit of drunkenness or of bad temper brought on by drinking”, which strikes me as rather a useful word.

    Last in WINDSWEPT

  14. The sort of puzzle I like. Not so hard that it takes ages to complete but with enough to get the brain cells working a bit. Far more interesting than yesterday’s. I didn’t understand 28 and 24 (which was also a guess). Not sure how long I took because I was interrupted by a ‘phone call, but around 30-35 minutes. The NW corner was the last to be filled (held up by 2, 9 and 11).
  15. 35:50 although it seemed slower than that. I didn’t understand EDGE or LONGFELLOW, although I assumed the latter was a reference to a poem with which I was unfamiliar. I didn’t know what a BARLEYMOW was, but I have vague recollections of a Farmer Barleymow in Bod, a reference that will no doubt puzzle the Americans out there, and anyone under the age of about 40. Oh yes, and I don’t know INCUS either, but guessed it was an ossicle. All in all, I was a little fortunate to get them all right without aids. Maybe I’m finally getting a bit better – it’s only taken 20 years…
  16. 16 minutes, BARLEYMOW and LONGFELLOW from wordplay. Was looking for a pangram after seeing BUZZ OFF, but was not to be
  17. 9:13, ending with LONGFELLOW (3dn) without knowing the poem.  Held up by entering the acceptable alternative RUSH OFF instead of BUZZ OFF at 7dn, but otherwise this was a steady solve.

    Clues of the Day: 6ac (COBRA), 20ac (ROBE).

  18. 50 minutes, quite enjoyable. Big difference between a DRAW and a TIE in cricket, but I guess they can be interchanged in other arenas. Sadly apt that the poor old Windies only get a mention in the context of showing distress and being blown away.
  19. An enjoyable 25 minutes. I didn’t know the meaning of BARLEYMOW except as the name of a pub. The Longfellow poem about the village blacksmith is familiar. My grandfather used to sing a version of it from a book of baritone songs, which I still have somewhere. I liked the smooth surface for EDGE. I think I’ve seen “brand” in poems and (possibly)in Shakespeare.
  20. 17:12 for me today, so found it quite a bit harder than yesterday’s. Started down the left hand side, across the bottom then finished in the top right corner – last one in POET.
  21. The usual bit more than an hour, and I don’t know how long the bit was since I printed out the puzzle with the SE and NW corners still fairly empty. Still, my solution seems to be right.

    First in, strangely, was SQUILLION, which seemed likely from the word play though I have never seen it before. Last in were most of the crossing words to that, SCRUM, UNMANLY, preceded by INCUS, which I also got only from wordplay, and then ROMANIC (after trying for ages to use COMO or something else meaning “like” in Spanish) and MANIFESTLY. It’s funny how everything just falls into place after a while (now all I have to do is shorten the while it takes).

    I didn’t understand EDGE either but assumed it was a brand name (of some manly scent, aftershave or such); the sword explanation is certainly better. And this puzzle, though not resounding, was better than yesterday’s.

  22. A newcomer here. Have recently migrated from the Telegraph. The Times is more challenging, much more ‘elliptical’ and certainly funnier. (I know the humour grates on some of you – maybe that comes with familiarity.)
    Anyway, 2 hours still left me missing 4dn thanks to a mistake with 9ac (ROMANCE – silly of me).
    I’ll never reach the speeds of most of you as I do it in the evening whilst watching TV.
    1. Welcome John

      Many contributors here started on the Telegraph and then moved to the Times (I did so in 1957!) You’ll gradually adjust to the differences and this blog will help you enormously

    2. Welcome aboard John. I did the same in the mid ’60s, and never looked back..

      Don’t be fooled by the speeds.. some few are indeed very fast, but many are not, we get all sorts here. The faster the solve, the more likely it is that a time will be mentioned 😉

      1. Thanks for your kind remarks. I didn’t finish today’s (#24828) – thanks to the SW corner. But I’m getting there!
  23. Welcome to our newcomer. I had to try the interactive puzzzle because I ran out of ink, and I will say I prefer the pen and paper. About 40 minutes including some breaks, but with one wrong: POET, where I didn’t know of the fellow, and guessed with PONT. Obviously I didn’t understand the cricket reference and there were a few more from wordpllay alone: INCUS, SQUILLION, BARLEYMOW. Yes, harder than yesterday’s. Regards.
  24. I thought the reference to a 1979 film about a British borstal in 1 down was a bit obscure…until the penny dropped.
  25. 8:23 here – not a disaster, but not so good either considering that I solved a fair number of the clues on sight.

    My acquaintance with BARLEYMOW is much the same as joekobi’s – from the song, possibly even from Singing Together, Rhythm and Melody. (I tried to find it on YouTube, but the versions that came up were Irish and rather different from the one I know.)

  26. 8 minutes … 12 hours … 43 days —- who cares?

    I myself under the influence of great quantities of sparkling fruity lexia once solved a puzzle in 3.4 seconds ..

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