Times 25072 – I thought it was a cucumber, your Honour

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 30 minutes

After a flying start, solving both 1ac & 28 at first sight, I slowed to a more genteel pace and fell over the lign (sic) thankful it hadn’t turned into a (sic) 18ac (unlike last night’s/this morning’s tennis final). A reasonably easy puzzle by most standards. Tally ho…

Across
1 BENJAMIN BRITTEN = JAM in BENIN + “Britain”
9 (MAIN RACES)* = AMERICANS, where the whole is the definition, but only a part the wordplay. Hence the “?”?
10 TABOR = TABOo + Radio. You might know it as a dub.
11 RY, short for railway or lines in this case, inside BONY = BRYONY, a toxic weed, grown either accidently or on purpose, according to Wiki, depending on who was asking how it came to be found in the cucumber sandwiches, presumably.
12 DISRAELI = I LEAR’S ID reversed
13 RUBBER, double definition
15 SLAPDASH = PALS reversed + DASH for “to burn rubber”. The latter activity is called “hooning” in Oz.
18 MARAT as in Death of + HON for honourable = MARATHON
19 RECESS, a double definition, or at least it was when I realized I was looking for a bay and not a boy. Must start printing in larger font.
21 REAL TIME, a double definition, the second facetious. The escudo replaced the real on the 22 May, 1911 as you no doubt recall.
23 MANCHU = C.H. for Companion or Honour inside MANchester United, who aren’t a premiership team’s bootlace, according to some, although don’t make the mistake of saying that in Ye Olde Man and Scythe, Bolton
26 IN for popular and RN for sailors all about U, being the film classification for univeral = INURN, to place in an urn. Is there a word which means “to place in a glass jar previously used for marmalade”? To intiptree?
27 UNWITTING = WIT inside ‘UNTING
28 Deliberately omitted. A clue for the vain?
Down
1 BLUBBER with the Union replaced by A = BLABBER or gossip verbally.
2 NEEDY = ED inside our favourite French marshal NEY. Very pleased with myself for remembering his name, this time.
3 ALIGNMENT. I think this is a cryptic definition, playing on dress in the military sense, although I’m open to other suggestions along MEN get into ALIGNT lines.
4 IMAM = I’M A Muslim, where the wordplay references the definition.
5 BASTILLE = TILL inside BASE
6 Deliberately omitted. See 26ac and possibly also comments on 23ac.
7 TABLEWARE, a cryptic definition, playing on menus and tables
8 NORWICH = (IN ROW)* on top of CH. Now there’s a premiership team.
14 CUD inside BARRA = BARRACUDA. Barra is fortunately near the top of my list of Scotish Islands.
16 POETASTER, a double definition, the second alluding to one Edgar Allan Poe’s quothing bird.
17 DORMOUSE = DORM over the OUSE, the party being Lewis Carroll’s Mad Tea-Party
18 MARTINI = ART as in art thou in MINI
20 LEG* after SMUG = SMUGGLE as in rum run.
22 TENET = TENEmenT
24 C for Conservative + LIMB = CLIMB
25 TWEE = W for with inside TEE, as in golf.

38 comments on “Times 25072 – I thought it was a cucumber, your Honour”

  1. 33 minutes, last in INURN. Didn’t know military meaning of ‘dress’ as align, or of course the plant.

    There’s something about Benjamin Britten that gets me every time.

    Edited at 2012-01-30 03:39 am (UTC)

  2. For the most part they don’t come easier than this for me as most of the answers went in on definition even before I had read the clues properly. But as always seems to be the case I had problems finishing having stalled on 23ac, 19ac and 20dn. These last three extended my solving time from 18 to 28 minutes.

    I knew the plant at 11ac but I needed the wordplay to prevent writing ‘briony’. I didn’t get the ‘journalist’ reference at 18ac until I looked it up later. I don’t remember coming across INURN before which apparently relates specifically to cremated ashes. A nice start to the week.

  4. Done in fits and starts. And lots I didn’t understand at all. (Thanks to Koro for clarifications.) E.g., the DASH part of 15ac and INURN in general and the U-part in particular. Could have done without the POE-TASTER pun.
  5. …quick solve today, but I carelessly put in pietaster (doh! they were blackbirds in the pie, not ravens!). The word POETASTER has come up very recently (6/1/12), and I even had it scribbled in the margin, so should’ve got it straightaway! Clearly not a word in my daily vocab.

    Other than that, fairly straightforward. Unknowns: BRYONY, and NEY.

  6. 37 minutes.
    Unlike others I found this really tricky. There was quite a lot of stuff I didn’t know, and something about the style of clues that I struggled to get a handle on.
    Last in RECESS, which took forever, partly because (I now realise) I think of bay windows from the wrong side.
  7. 15 minutes but felt longer, as very few clues (NEEDY, TENET, INTER, TABOR – so mostly 5’s) went in almost without looking, and most needed looking at, going away, and coming back to.
    ALIGNMENT was almost my first in, the command “in open order, riiiight dress” echoing from my days as a CCF cadet attached to the Royal Artillery. I rose to the rank of Bombardier, so some of you can call me “Sir!”.
    One of two cutesy definition only clues in this one, it read to me much like a straight clue.
    Some pretty enough stuff here (fine blogging, by the way) and CoD to the economical IMAM, something you don’t get to say every day.
    2. Yes, INTER it is (INTERn); 26ac is the crematorial equivalent. It’s a toss-up which fate might have awaited the good doctor had he chosen to remain in Bolton following the unfortunate incident in Ye Olde Man & Scythe. The moral of the story is don’t make jokes about football teams in pubs.
  9. My heart sank when I read 1A and though “composer, 8,7 containing jam – BENJAMIN BRITTON” and concluded I was probably in for yet another trip around the wretched poets, authors and all the rest of it.

    Thankfully not so and an easy ride into the bargain. Didn’t understand the Raven reference but solved from definition. All my generation should know “dress” in military parlance because we had to do our basic training. I bet I could still strip a bren gun and navigate a plane – useful stuff!

    1. I hope that’s a typo: Benjamin Britten hated having his name spelled wrong! I guess that’s an issue with sounzabitlike clues – they can ruin your entire day by sounding a bit like something slightly different.
      P.S. I’m pretty sure I could still deploy, aim and fire the 5.5 inch gun howitzer. That’s really handy.
      1. Probably a typo. I’ve thrown the puzzle away so not sure what I put in the grid but on my better days I am aware of the affected spelling.

        Like the 5.5 inch howitzer. They really should bring all that back for youngsters. I got to fly a plane, my mates went down in a sub or drove tanks around – and we all learned discipline and teamwork – brilliant stuff

        1. No arguments from me – I didn’t much like being told I marched like a pregnant duck (?), but learned a lot. Some of the best outcomes I had with jobless and excluded young people in Hackney came from linking them with discipline rich careers, particularly military, but also the daft world of chefs. For regrettably few, they provided a route out of gangland.
    2. Surely The Raven came up only a few days ago, knocking at the door? But I can’t find it using search.
      1. 25068: 28a Conflict with bird tapping at door, in the story (10) CONTRAVENE
        So deviously clued that raven, knocking and Poe as keywords don’t find it!
        Jim didn’t like any of it.
        1. Many thanks, Z8, I thought I was going gaga (probably am anyway, but that’s another matter!). Jim, I hope you are at most only half serious about the “wretched trip” as you put it otherwise it’s hard to understand how you have survived all these years solving the Times puzzle.
          1. Just me having a little fun Jack

            I’ve been through several phases with this. My teacher put me onto the Times originally to try to improve my spelling, English and overall literary knowledge (which was non-existent). By doing the puzzle I have learned a good deal, a knowledge that I may not always own up to here.

            However, in recent years the sheer ignorance of much of the population for matters scientific has appaled me and I’ve lost no opportunity to draw attention to this very serious shortcoming. I’m pleased to see that this crossword is slowly coming to grips with that.

  10. Surely the “U” classification of films is now defunct. The classifications are now ages. (inurn)

    pickyorwhat

  11. Quickly through most of it but then a lengthy stall on DISRAELI / BASTILLE.

    But in any case I messed up thanks to a minor brainstorm and a temporary certainty that the word was IMAN, which I parsed as “I’m an iman”.

    Annoying, because I must have spent a full minute checking this puzzle, devoting half of that time to making sure I had avoided yet another ironic typo with SLAPDASH.

    COD.. MARTINI

  12. If we’d had a word for it in my family, it would probably be cluttermaking. My grandfather in particular had scores of jam jars (and Old Holborn tins) filled with bits that would probably come in useful sometime but never did, except as a child’s discovery delight.
    1. When I wrote that, I was wondering what was so special about urns; that they got a word for depositing thereinto but marmalade jars didn’t. What was the criteria? Clearly not quantity, since more marmalade jars are filled on a daily basis than urns. Of course, in the funereal context, it makes pefect sense to distinguish between cremation and burying and has since at least 1602 according to the SOED.

      Given the potentially volatile nature of marmalade jars filled with metal objects, I have moved on to more permanent means of storage. Unfortunately, the containers cost more than the replacement value of the objects. That’s economics for you.

  14. Struggled in NW with 1 and 3 down and 11 across after taking 23 minutes to that point, eventually struggling home in 42.37. I just wanted ALIGNMENT to be cleverer than it was; an unusual position for me as it is ignorance that holds me up as a rule!
  15. The Premiership team is MANCHESTER UNITED—Man U or, more appropriately, Moan U, is a cheat.
  16. 19 minutes, struggled to get the last few (ALIGNMENT, BRYONY, SMUGGLE and MANCHU), the rest all went in pretty quickly.
  17. This all seemed straightforward enough. 20 minutes. I like the suggested clue on the lines of Vain dictator? – but perhaps the ‘the’ is uncomfortable, so to speak. (Reminds me of Clinton’s “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is” in his impeachment hearings.) “Right Dress!” used to be bawled out at us shivering CCF cadets in the school playground, followed by lots of stretching the right arm out and shuffling. Incidentally, Anonymous, the team’s probably called Man U at least as often as the full form; and speaking counts too.

    Edited at 2012-01-30 03:59 pm (UTC)

  18. Not so tough, about 30 minutes but only that long due to having to trust the wordplay for the utterly unfamiliar BRYONY and INURN. Strange-looking words, those. The two long ones went in at first read, so not really a struggle today, and COD to MARATHON. Regards.
  21. 25′ for me. I would have been faster, but at 11ac ‘lines’ suggested LL to me and I threw in ‘idylls’ unthinkingly. I just noticed that we have INTER and INURN in the same puzzle; I suppose if Graham Chapman had been the setter we’d have also had DUMP IN THE THAMES.
  22. Knew a girl called Bryon – odd that it should be a poisonous weed! Held up by misspelling tableware as tablewear. Managed to complete but didn’t understand all the wordplay so thanks for the explanations. Solving time – about 1.5 hours.

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