Times 25044: Ramchandra, the Indian Summer

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 21:47.

Not helped by the ABC test commentators chatting about cryptic clues; and the fact that I had to keep running to watch the TV as the wickets fell.

Across
 1 C,LASSI,C. Lassi: an Indian yoghurt drink.
 5 COBBLER. Three defs. NOAD has: 1 a person who mends shoes as a job. 2 an iced drink made with wine or sherry, sugar, and lemon. 3 a fruit pie with a rich crust on top. The first of these (last [!] in the clue) must be one of the oldest crossword tricks in the book.
 9 CONCERTINAS. Anagram: I can, cornets.
10 Omitted. If you didn’t get it, own up now!
11 O,PI,ATE. Rev of ETA.
12 PR(INC)ESS. The conceit here is that INC is IN PRESS.
14 SECOND-GUESSED. Lift and separate. Support=SECOND; person accommodated=GUEST (hence GUESSED).
17 ABBREVIATIONS. Two defs and two examples: ‘prep’ and dept.’.
21 R(O,L)E-PLAY.
23 VOLUME. Two defs.
25 C,00. Pair (cricket) as in two ducks.
26 UNI(NITIA)TED. Anagram: I ain’t.
27 SA(N)D,BAG. BAG (secure).
28 OUT,G,ROW.
Down
 1 CUCKOO. Two defs. (The Indian bats are emerging at five-minute intervals as I write.)
 2 AU(N)TIES. AU (gold); TIES (bonds).
 3 SPECTAC,LE. Anagram: accepts.
 4 CITY. Why (Y); I; see (C); tea (T) rearranged.
 5 C(ONGREGAT)E. Anagram: get organ.
 6 B,AS,IN. The B from ‘bottle’ or ‘bowl’; AS IN (for). Well, that’s my parsing anyway. If so, it’s a very cunning use of ‘for’ posing as a link word.
 7 {f}LAWLESS.
 8 Omitted. Think: inside. Right? Good!
13 INDIC(A)TING.
15 ECONOMIST. Anagram.
16 BAR(RACK)S. Interestingly, in Australia, this means just the opposite. So one can barrack India and barrack for Australia.
18 B(ALL)OON. Excluding none = including ALL.
19 SH,UTTER.
20 MEADOW. Like my will: a dead giveaway.
22 PLUMB. Sounds like ‘plum’.
24 CIAO. ChIcAgO.

27 comments on “Times 25044: Ramchandra, the Indian Summer”

  1. Another of those puzzles where I made steady but extremely slow progress so although it took me 54 minutes I never actually felt completely stuck.

    My main problem was in the SE where I decided the answer at 23ac was a unit of work I wasn’t sure how to spell but the enumeration demanded that it had to be JOULLE. This ruined my chances of solving 19dn until I had realised there was something wrong and I needed to think again.

    I didn’t know the meaning of SECOND GUESS required at 14ac and according to the COED (but not Collins) this is chiefly an American usage. The one I knew is to do with predicting rather than criticising with hindsight.

    Thanks to mctext for mentioning cricket at 25ac because I have now learnt that 00 = ‘spectacles’ which I have met so many times before in the Times crossword is actually sanctioned by a cricketing connotation. I had always assumed it was simply a crossword conceit that 00 looks like a pair of spectacles.

    I seem to be struggling this week which does not bode well for Friday’s blog.

    Edited at 2011-12-28 07:32 am (UTC)

    1. I suspect that both meanings can prevail. The cricket sense makes more sense to me: ‘Philip Hughes was out for a pair again’. The other seems to be a kind of visual pun out with which we should see!

      And, hey, I also suspect your mojo will be back by Friday. (Remember, Madame Sotira, famous clairvoyant, has declared me “psychic”: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/784032.html).

      Edited at 2011-12-28 07:40 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks. The two are one and the same according to Collins which has ‘pair’ (in cricket) as short for ‘pair of spectacles’. They then cross-reference to ‘spectacles’ for the explanation of the cricketing term so it appears the visual pun had its origins in cricket.
  2. Thought I had done really well with 13 minutes or so but then discovered I had typed INITITIATED. After nearly a year of online solving, typos are starting to feel like a fact of life.

    Talking of which… some really interesting results coming through on the Festive Survey. Please give it a go, if you haven’t already …. Festive survey, . Results will be coming soon, probably just after the New Year. Thank you to all who have taken part – some very entertaining and interesting responses.

    Edited at 2011-12-28 07:56 am (UTC)

    1. Told you I was psychic. Mention her name and she’s posting! And yes, please do the survey. It’s a barrel of monkeys.
  3. Oops, 56 minutes with a BISON at 6dn – presumably a water bison. It seemed entirely plausible at the time, and once it had taken root in my brain I couldn’t dislodge it. A fun puzzle, though, nicely inventive in parts.
  4. 30 minutes here though the top half went in encouragingly enough. Indicating took a few minutes on its own at the end. Surprised by the dominant US meaning of second-guessed: is it a sign the UK-centric bias is on its way out? Ouch if so. I liked princess.

    Edited at 2011-12-28 09:35 am (UTC)

    1. I thought I’d try the edit button (noted by jackkt the other day) that I alone appear to have been honoured with, no doubt in recognition of the unmatched and unfailing aptness of my comments. (Or it could be blind luck when emerging from a recent picture lack by hitting keys more or less at random.) Bet you all wish you had one.
      1. I only notice a McT contribution now if he hasn’t edited it! Be careful – could be addictive.

        Edited at 2011-12-28 09:56 am (UTC)

      2. They’re handing them out on a priority basis, joe – those in most need come first.

        Edited at 2011-12-28 11:53 am (UTC)

  5. 41 minutes, but felt it coild have been quicker, so a wavelength thing, I guess. Last in INDICATING, which is worthy of COD, as it flummoxed not only me but our venerable American.
  6. 18 minutes, with OPIATE last in because I bizarrely missed the word Drug at the beginning. Can dyslexia strike late in life?
    SHUTTER caused difficulty because I assumed the more common application of “say”, and I needed the “C” of COBBLER before the penny dropped.
    BASIN was clever, I thought, but CoD to BALLOON for a neat little trick.
  7. On the setter’s wavelength today, completing in comfortably under 30 minutes, slowed slightly by the time needed properly to parse ABBREVIATIONS. Maybe helped by the fact that COBBLER, INDICATING and ECONOMIST all had a familiar resonance to them. (I think I can also remember my earlier disbelief at the description of an economist as a ‘financial expert’ or similar.)
  8. No great problems with this and home in 20 minutes. Mostly quite good stuff without ever getting to be mond bending.

    Some small niggles. You can be an uncle or an aunt at birth (I have a friend who fits the bill). Financial expert is at least contentious for economist. I was OK with the US usage at 14A having worked with Americans quite a bit but in a UK puzzle it should in my opinion be signposted.

    1. The setter could cite Collins as justification for not including one. Not only does it not mention US usage but it also lists the required meaning first.
      1. Hi Jack. My guess is that I’m out of date and that the original US usage has now become far more common in the UK since I retired.
  9. Enjoyable and mostly straightforward puzzle, with some clever stuff thrown in to keep us on our toes. I thought CITY, BASIN, BARRACKS, BALLOON and SHUTTER were very good. I agree with Jimbo’s niggle about aunts not necessarily being “older women”, though they always seem to be in crossword land. No problems for me with 14ac, however. Not sure which bits of this Jimbo regards as being “US usage” – if that was ever true, they are all surely naturalised English terms by now. Relieved to see that Vinyl also had some difficulty with INDICATING at 13dn, which was my LOI. Amazingly, even when I had all the checkers I still took ages to see it. Can’t for the life of me think why. Must be one of the simplest clues in the puzzle.
  10. did anyone else read the final word of 9ac as COMETS? It held me up for quite a while, and but for that I’m sure my solving time would have been a lot better. At least that’s my excuse… Gradese
  11. 12 minutes odd, so easiest offering for what seems like ages. Coming from an Irish family which gets quite extensive in some branches, I raised a mental eyebrow at the old AUNTIES; my mother has aunts who are about the same age or only slightly older as her, so they’re all getting on a bit now, but weren’t when they first became aunts.
  14. 42 minutes, the last in being BARRACKS purely from the wordplay, since that’s all I had to go by. Unfortunately, also some dyslexia: I entered UNITINIATED for 26ac, stared at it several times, didn’t see anything wrong until pressing the submit button. Didn’t like BASIN much (or rather its clue), but otherwise a fairly enjoyable puzzle which should have been easy.
  15. 9:00 for me (though as usual I should have been faster). Some nice clues. No problems, no complaints.

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