Times 25111 – for leather!

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 10:51, so on the easier side, though I groaned at the cryptic definitions and shook my head at a few others. Bit of a mixed bag this one, which may mean there’s something for everyone, right? I was surprised to see the device L used for a Roman numeral in two places (leading to three L’s indicated as numbers) in the grid.

There’s even a triple-dose of cricket hiding in here.

Away we go!

Across
1 I’m going to get the across omission out of the way early
5 BOSOMY: SO(thus),M(maiden, cricket reference #1) in BOY. Reuben always reminds me of the sketch from “Not Only, But Also”
8 ROC: first letters of Republic Of China
9 REV,ELATION
10 TREASURY: TRY around (A,RUSE)*
11 BONBON: NB(nota bene – be attentive) in BOON
12 GUYS: I think this is a reference to Guy Fawkes and Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital?
14 PORT ENDING
17 MARVELLOUS: O between Andrew MARVELL and US
20 PILL: P(ounding) then ILL
23 B,ARROW
24 SHEIKDOM: (HOME,KIDS)
25 MAIDEN,HOOD: the MAIDEN is a good over and our cricket reference #2
26 ADD: The thousand could be 500+500, so D,D Edit: I messed this up in writing the first version and had LL instead of DD
27 ADONIS: take the first letters away from sAD,sON,hIS
28 SNOWFALL: NOW in S,FALL(baseball playoffs are also known as the “fall classic”)
 
Down
1 STRATAGEM: (START,GAME)*
2 ARCHERY: Cricket #3 – the new ball in cricket is called A CHERRY, so move one of the R’s to the top
3 HERE’S,Y: Y being the end of conformitY
4 LIVERPOOL: R in a game of LIVE POOL
5 B,RAMBLE
6 SKINNY-DIP: cryptic definition
7 M,ON(playing),SOON
13 SOVEREIGN: take IT from SOVIET REIGN
15 TOUCH(just a little),DOWN(depressed)
16 let’s leave this out of the downs
18 A,L,ARMED: another Roman numeral making an appearance in L
19 (f)LAWLESS
21 INDIANA: DIANA is the female hunter succeeding IN
22 WINDOW: N in WIDOW(partner, after loss)

49 comments on “Times 25111 – for leather!”

    1. oops, you’re tight, that’s a very silly mistake in writing up the blog, yes, it’s ADD to fit 16 down
  3. 36 minutes with the tricky SNOWFALL last in, after flirting with ‘snowball’. I always thought baseball was a summer sport – when I’ve thought about baseball at all.

    Not hard, but enjoyable. The three that stood out for me were HERESY, BONBON and GUYS, which is my COD as, besides seahorses, I also have a soft spot for 4-letter clues.

  4. Complete failure of understanding for BONBON and ARCHERY, but at least I got them right for want of alternatives. I noticed just after submitting online that I had typed GODLMEDAL, and also bunged in SNOWBALL, so a total disaster on my part.
  5. Groaned at 1ac which, as usual and fortunately, wasn’t an indication of all to come. (Barring SKINNY-DIP, of course.) Still the top half went in quite quickly; the SE a little slower and the SW in far too much time.

    How could I have missed “good over” (=MAIDEN) at 25ac? And why, more perplexingly, did I want VIRGINHOOD?

    SNOWFALL: I had no idea that “fall” was a baseball season and just assumed that our baseballer was a metonymic American.

    ROC: don’t think there’s a need for “originally”. I have far too many labels in the house reading “Made in ROC”.

    COD to the &lit (HERESY).

  6. 19 minutes and a few seconds, so a rare excursion under 20 for me.

    I’d be surprised if everyone knows the reference at 1ac to the tongue-twister “She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore” so I thought I’d mention it.

    As I have already pointed out elsewhere, 25ac only works from the point of view of the bowler. The batsmen who are “In” would not count a maiden over as a “good” one.

    I suspect ‘baseball player’ at 28 was intended to indicate nothing more than the American use of ‘Fall’ as a season of the year.

    ROC at 8ac comes from ‘1001 Arabian Nights’.

    Edited at 2012-03-15 06:58 am (UTC)

    1. Not quite sure, I agree, Jack. Although logically you may be right, a cricket commentator – and a cricket fan – will refer to a maiden over as a good over. Many a batsman would too, on account of its intrinsic quality, i.e ‘goodness’. Would eyebrows be raised by ‘good service’ for ‘ace’ on the grounds that it’s not good from the point of view of the receiver?

      Oh, and congrats on beating McTight!

      Edited at 2012-03-15 08:07 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks for the congrats!

        You may be right about ‘over’ but I would expect a commentator to say, for example: ‘he had a good over’ or something else that identifies the POV from which it’s expressed. Not being a cricket follower I’m not sure that a maiden over can be judged as intrinsically good per se as it might be the result of the incompetence of the batsmen. However, an ace in tennis is different because it’s unreturnable.

        Edited at 2012-03-15 08:48 am (UTC)

        1. I don’t think it’s that different, as an ace just has to miss the receiver’s racket having landed legally to be adjudged so. The receiver might take an air-shot. You’re right about the ‘intrinsicness’ not being intrinsic, of course, but prototypically – and we tend to think in prototypes – both a maiden and an ace are ‘good’ deliveries, I believe.
          1. I think we’ll have to agree to differ although I don’t think either of us is ruling out the other’s POV completely. I do disagree on your definition of an ace though!
  7. Agreed, as suspected (above). But strange now that devotees of the game frequently tout its international popularity.

    What price NYT: FALL = “cricketer’s autumn” anyone?

  8. Ah, an easy one at last..c14 mind for me. I’m reading the Arabian nights at present, and they call them “rukhs” .. Never realised how racy the AN is, either
    (JerryW, on a channel ferry)

  10. A quick solve today helped by some easy constructs (B+arrow, Rev+elation, Port+ending, A+l+armed, (F)lawless), simple anagrams (Stratagem, Sheikdom, Gold Medal) and plain definitions. Made a careless mistake at the end with Snowball not Snowfall. D’oh!

    20 minutes which is about as fast as I get. LOI Guys. You’re right about the Guy Fawkes, Guy’s teaching hospital reference George. I’m glad there was only one unchecked letter – not sure I’d have got it from say G?Y? or ?U?S. Thought this one might cause problems for non-UK solvers.

    Cherry for new ball raised a smile.

    Will today be the day that sircharrington completes his first puzzle?!

    1. Sadly it was not to be Daniel. I was thinking in the wrong ways for some of the final clues (and the cricket terms as always are unknown to me). I got frustrated and gave up, but should have spent a bit longer to try and finish with a chance like this.

      Edited at 2012-03-15 10:27 pm (UTC)

      1. Keep at it – I’m sure you’ll complete your first puzzle pretty soon. 24/30 today is a decent effort! Learning the cricket terms is important.

        It’s not that long ago that I finished my first Times puzzle without any help (11 June 2007) and I’m now completing one in four and 80%+ on most days. I usually find that if I get completely stuck then putting the puzzle down for an hour and coming back to it fresh soon gives another answer or two. It’s amazing how my subconscious works away on the clues in the interim and how when I revisit the puzzle thoughts occur to me that didn’t the first time.

  11. Not much to say about this one. 15 minutes and completely straightforward. The cricket references, especially cherry, will be difficult for the US folk.
  12. Definitely nursery slopes today in a flashy 10 minutes. the only one that held out was BONBON, because in this kind of puzzle, “middle of blessing” seemed certain to be SS. I had been cheerfully entering the across clues more or less on sight and couldn’t fathom why SHEARS would mean sweet.
    I wasn’t sure what “old” was doing in the clue for BARROW, but I see Chambers has it as obs, except in place names. Curious.
    Like others, I assumed baseball player was there to give the American flavour, Any hope of cricketer’s fall sometime?
    All decent, neat and tidy clues, with GUYS my laconic CoD.
  13. 25 minutes for me, so definitely easy. BONBON the only real hold up at the end, that and wanting to spell MARVELLOUS with one L, and wondering how to fit it in. COD to HERESY over GUYS
  14. Yep, very easy today: just over 7 minutes for me. A neat and enjoyable puzzle though. The new ball was the only unknown but it didn’t slow me down (obviously).
  15. 6 minutes and a bit, so the first time for ages that I’ve hit the ground running (and not subsequently fallen over a hurdle). Cricket is rarely far from my thoughts, so that was a plus as far as I was concerned. Nothing wrong with a puzzle like this, which is very much on the easy side of things but retains a certain elegance.

    (And I know it’s always dangerous to try to discern a pattern in these things, but does this run of three easier puzzles after a ticklish one on Monday portend a real stinker tomorrow?)

  16. Straightforward but enjoyable. About 45 mins for me. One or two very easy clues – e.g. GOLD MEDAL, TOUCH DOWN and REVELATION, along with some much more inventive stuff (ADONIS, GUYS, SEASHELL, HERESY and BONBON). The two de rigueur cricketing allusions were at least balanced by the baseball one. And I suspect that cherry=new ball may not be known to quite a few cricket lovers in the UK either. It’s certainly a long time since I’ve heard a new ball referred to in that way. Many thanks to George for reintroducing me to the Dud and Pete “Rubens” sketch. Hilarious.
  17. Yes, an easy one, and probably about a 30 minute solve for me (I rarely put my time, as it’s usually off the scale…!). Didn’t know ‘cherry’, didn’t work out ADONIS, didn’t take the time to parse PILL.

    LOI: BONBON: COD: HERESY

  18. 11:13 .. Easy and fun (the puzzle, not me). A bit of a hold-up at the end for me with BONBON, which probably stopped me ducking under 10 minutes. But then, sub-10s have become even rarer for me since switching to online solving.

    COD.. PORTENDING … puntastic.

  21. 6:03, finishing with MONSOON (7dn) and BONBON (11ac).  Held up in the SW corner by a cocky MIRACULOUS at 17ac (MARVELLOUS), and less badly at 7dn by a speculative MIN—, but otherwise a reasonably smooth solve.

    I’m with ulaca on “good over” = MAIDEN.  Any ascription of goodness comes from a certain point of view, but here there’s a clear default, because an over is tied to a given bowler (barring e.g. sudden injury, I suppose, though I don’t know what the protocol is for continuation afterwards) in a way that it’s not tied to a given batsman.  Of course, a batsman might be said to have had a good over, just as a commentator might; but I think it’s fair for a setter to treat a good over tout court as one that’s good from the bowler’s point of view.

  22. A propos of nothing in particular, I just did the concise. It took me nearly twice as long as the cryptic and I had to cheat!
  23. At last, a result in just over 10 minutes, thought I had done well, non stop from NW to SE, then I see others also romped home. Easiest one for ages. No doubt tomorrow will be another day. As a cricket fan, Cod was maidenhood, but I can see others might disagree.
  24. 18 minutes but with a too hasty snowball. A century’s a good innings and a maiden’s a good over. Define the thing from the point of view of who or whatever makes the thing work. The ‘it’ in 1. ac. is very mushy.
  25. Glad to have an easy(ish) one. Only the 5th I have completed without aids since I started doing the cryptic about 18 months ago! Didnt know the new ball reference but it had to be Archery once I had the checkers. Time – prob. just over 2 hours. Can’t wait until I can complete it as quick as some of you guys!!

    Roger

  27. Yes, not too tough, 15 minutes, ending with GUYS. I hadn’t known of the ‘burn victims’ allusion before today. The cricket stuff didn’t slow me down today. Regards.
  28. 6:12, but one error. It’s strange how my mistakes often seem to come in pairs. I was trying to post a half-decent time for once, but failed to check that SNOWBALL really fitted the clue to 28ac before clicking on my stopwatch. Of course when I came to check through afterwards, SNOWFALL seemed annoyingly obvious!
    1. Snowball does fit? I justified it that baseball players played through “Ball Season,” which stretches from Spring until Autumn, I believe? Then stopped thinking any further.

      Ugly, but arguable?

      1. Nice try, but I think if the clue came up in a Championship puzzle, SNOWBALL would be ruled incorrect because “Ball Season” doesn’t (I imagine) appear in any of the (English, as opposed to American) English dictionaries, particularly the COD, that would be needed to justify it. Also the appearance of “baseball” in the clue should raise a warning flag!
  29. Very easy, except for the last three in, so over an hour again anyway. And my last three were BOSOMY (easy once I saw it, though) and ARCHERY with GUYS, which I did sort of half understand once I dared fill them in. Of course I didn’t know the cricket terms, but CHERRY as a new ball seemed not entirely unlikely. Some superb clues in this one, HERESY, BONBON and PORT ENDING in particular.

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