Times 25282 – Ole, ole, ole!

Solving time: 37 Minutes

Music: Prokovief, Symphony #7, Martinon/PCO

This should have been an easy one, but I started solving in an overconfident manner and entered a wrong word, then replaced it with another wrong word, and then saw it – and I still had all of Cornwall completely blank. Fortunately, after a few minutes of cogitation I came up with ‘Ave Maria’ and was able to finish.

Using my approach, and not making any mistakes, should lead to fast times. The big one down the middle should be a dead giveaway, although I haven’t bothered to figure out the cryptic yet, and that cracks the puzzle wide open. Just don’t get too cocky, and you should be able to whip through this one fairly quickly.

Across
1 RUMPUS, RUM + SUP backwards.
5 SERAPHIM, anagram of HARPS, I.E. M[usic]. One of the few non-IndoEuropean plurals found in English.
9 MINOTAUR, MINO(TAU)R, probably a chestnut.
10 QUEUES, sounds like ‘cues’. These may either be the lots of those waiting, or perhaps contain lots of people who are waiting.
11 POSEIDON, POSE + I + DON.
12 BUREAU, B(U R)EAU
13 TERMINAL, TERM IN A L. I thought for a while that ‘in’ was an enclosure indicator, and that the first letter must be ‘a’.
15 Omitted!
17 Omitted!.
19 BRIGHTON, B[ritish] + RIGHT ON. The second element, to my mind, is not a very exact equivalent of ‘trendy’, but the answer is obvious enough.
20 MODISH, M[odus] O[perandi] + DISH. The usual ‘rd’ or ‘st’ for ‘way’ won’t work here.
21 IMPRISON, I(MP)RIS + ON. A fine clue, but too easy to get from the literal.
22 REALLY, double definition. I wanted to put ‘indeed’ for a long time, but it didn’t seem to quite fit.
23 LODESTAR, anagram of OLD + E[ast] + S[outh] + TAR. Another one I just entered from the definition.
24 ADHERENT, double anagram, THERE AND and THEN READ. This seldom-used type of clue produces a nice surface.
25 SYDNEY, sounds like Sir Phillip SIDNEY. I nearly put in the knight rather than the town, but the ‘heard’ clearly goes with the knight.
 
Down
2 UNIFORMS, UNI + FORMS. I thought ‘rules’ was a little vague for ‘forms’, but the answer seems like the only one possible. U + N(IF)ORMS, thanks, McText.
3 PROPERTY, PROP + E + anagram of TRY. ‘Forward’, I believe, should be taken as a verb, as should ‘prop’, but the clue is rather loose.
4 SLANDERER, [i]SLAND + ER + ER. Despite understanding ‘Man’, I first put in ‘stutterer’ and the ‘stammerer’, before seeing what the answer should be.
5 SHRINKING VIOLET, KING in an anagram of EVIL, IN SHORT. Probably put in from the enumeration by most solvers.
6 AS USUAL, anagram of USA twice + L[iberal].
7 HOUSEMEN, HO(USE)ME + N[oon]. A rather pedestrian clue.
8 MOSQUITO, MOS + QUITO, another chestnut.
14 ANTIPODES, anagram of AS POINTED. The literal presumably refers to 12-hour clocks.
15 AVE MARIA, AVE[nue] M[aiden] ARIA. I wasted a lot of time trying to work in ‘lied’.
16 HARD CASH, HARD C + AS H[usband], where ‘career’ starts with a ‘hard c’, but ‘certain’ does not.
17 UNBIASED, UNBI(AS E)D.
18 DETONATE, D(ET)ONATE.
19 BUSTLER, BU(S)TLER. I was afraid this was going to refer to a famous British case I had never heard of, but no, the butler did it. My last in.

33 comments on “Times 25282 – Ole, ole, ole!”

  1. Could be parsed as: U,N(IF)ORMS. The rules are norms, inc. IF (provided).
    In 3dn, the PROP is a rugby forward.

    Edited at 2012-10-01 01:35 am (UTC)

  2. This was a breezy one – 10 minutes, HARD CASH and LODESTAR in from definition, the latter being the last in. Held up a little by having UNSIGNED with a question mark at 17 down.
  3. Not quite getting a regular sub-10 on the easy puzzles. Helped here by the grid — the famous double-E which is the only one in the Times with two answers entirely available from checking letters. The first, 15ac, had shades of Private Eye and the “ashen-faced Ron Knee”; a figure as unlike Huxley as possible. And 15dn put me in mind of Dire Straits’ “Romeo and Juliet”.
    1. Triple-drat. I did exactly the same even though I interpreted the clue correctly. A quick 33 minutes for me.
  4. 31 minutes held up by 14ac (because I had wrongly entered STAMMERER at 4dn) and my difficulty getting properly going in the SW.

    I gave up trying to parse 16dn thinking ‘beginning of career’ was HAR(e). Never heard of the knightly Sid.

    A nice easy start to the week.

  5. I also thought first of STAMMERER, but Donne came to my rescue as a little voice in my head whispering “No! Man is an ISLAND!”
  6. Yup. Every heffalump trap duly fallen into over an undistinguished 24 minutes or so. MURMUR worked so well for 1ac that it stayed way beyond its sell by date. RATHER! at 22 is just as good as the right answer, apart from being wrong. And I’ll never be able to show my face in the antipodes, not just because I can’t afford the fare, but because they won’t let me visit Sidney. I thought the poetic knight might be something to do with El Cid. Rather shameful, I murmur, but at least I ‘ave Maria.
    HARD CASH is brilliant, once you see how it works post solve.
  7. Stayed up late to watch the WONDERFUL GOLF, so printed this off last night, and polished it off in less than 10 minutes before getting up to face the day. Very fast for me, maybe a pb even.
    Go, Europe! 🙂
  8. Very enjoyable puzzle with some ingenious and unusual clues (16, 24) Began as the clock struck eight and finished as it chimed the half hour.

    My only grouse this morning is not intended as a criticism of the setter, but why are schoolchildren referred to as students these days? (2 down) What was wrong with pupils? I recall that trainee lawyers and midwives used to be pupils; they may well still be. (Shuffles off into the garden, muttering.)

  9. 27 minutes, with my sob story occurring at 23 where I misread my checking ‘d’ as an ‘o’. Those who enjoy Spenser’s Faerie Queene should try Sir Philip (one ‘l’ only) Sidney’s Arcadia – either version.
  10. 14 minutes. Straightforward, helped by putting 5dn in from definition right at the beginning. The hard/soft C device and the double anagram were neat.
    Thanks for explaining 7dn. I thought the dwelling was a house and wondered how ME or EM could mean “practice”!
  11. I too stammered and stuttered my way to a 10 minute time, even though I did initially think island. Should have given more thought to ‘bad’ speaker.
  12. 34.16 so average for me after 12 minutes in SW before the Schubert fell and the rest quickly followed so perhaps an early solve does help. Like others thought 16d best of a mixed bunch.
  13. 10:16 with several thrown in quickly without bothering to unravel the wordplay until afterwards. Even then I’m grateful to Vinyl for explaining 24 and 16. Like Keriothe I wondered how EM or ME equated to practice. Duh.

    Despite starting with rumpus my LOI was uniforms.

  14. Through in about fifteen minutes, which indicates a very easy puzzle indeed givem my usual solving speeds! So maybe a bit obvious some of these clues, or too familiar. But then again it is Monday.

    Among the Monday fodder I probably quite liked SHRINKING VIOLET.

    Many thanks to the setter and blogger,
    Chris Gregory.

  15. Straightforward Monday offering, on the 30 mins mark for me. As Vinyl1 says, the long 5 dn clue made for an easy way in to the puzzle, the give-away definition making the cryptic wordplay redundant. I liked the double anagram at 24 ac (ADHERENT). Also like MINOTAUR. It may be a chestnut, but if so it’s not one I can recall having eaten before. HARD CASH involved some clever wordplay but, again, perhaps slightly wasted because the definition was too obvious. Still, all in all, an enjoyable puzzle.
  16. Nice gentle start to the week, 20 minutes after golf in yet more rain. Only one topic of conversation – that brilliant result from Chicago was absolute magic.
  17. 17 min 48 secs. A recent personal best.

    Couldn’t work out Hard Cash. Clever clue.

  18. Tired and expected a slow time but nothing taxing yielded an unHamiltonian 18 minutes. Living near Brighton I hope each mention in a “soap” or crossword sends the price of my house up a few thou. (Then a party political conference there takes it down again.) Not much of a labyrinth today.
  19. Thanks, vinyl1 for 16d and 24ac. I got them both right without knowing how. Excellent clues, both, but my cod was the butler wot did it, as he didn’t in that wonderful black comedy “The Ruling Class”. As for the (wonderful!) golf, I agree with Stephen Fry’s view that the reason one’s team is not doing well is because you are watching. Walking round the garden counting clouds is not really an option at dead of night so I did what I did 7 years ago when Liverpool were 0-3 down against AC Milan, and went to bed in the sure and certain knowledge that I would awake to glorious headlines; and I was proved right! No more hiding behind the sofa! On the downside, I think it will take a double miracle to rescue the England T20 cricket team from the live text on the BBC website.

    Edited at 2012-10-01 05:27 pm (UTC)

  20. About 20 minutes, ending with the very clever HARD CASH. Kudos to the setter for the double anagram, and the Europeans for their unlikely golf victory. A very gripping thing to watch, if a bit deflating for the Yanks. Regards to all.
  21. No problems today once I’d corrected an overhasty Murder at 1ac. We don’t often see this unusual grid with its two “E”s and two fully-checked answers.

    After the Europeans heroics at Medinah yesterday and the knight at 25 ac… arise Sir Ian Poulter !!

  22. 8:36 for me – not a disaster, but I can see a bunch of Championship contenders firmly ahead of me on the TCC leaderboard. (At least young Biddlecombe is no longer in the running.)

    I think I must be missing something with 14dn. I’d understand it if it was just New Zealand (and 12-hour clocks), but not Australia. Or is ANTIPODES supposed to be be taken literally? (Feeling tired and dim. Sigh!)

    Another vote for 16dn (HARD CASH) as COD.

  23. I think I’m being dim: what is the ‘holding’ doing in 19dn? (Active person holding murder suspect …). Is the definition of ‘bustler’ ‘active person holding’? Surely not. And it seems a rather bad link-word, if that’s what it is.

    Magnificent golf. But why do they go on and on about ‘retaining’ the cup? When people look back in years to come they will be far more interested in who won. Which makes Woods’s concession a bit odd. Nobody seemed to mind, but they should have.

    1. I think this is parsed as crime-BUSTER holding second aLso, the crime-buster is holding the murder suspect
      1. … Or maybe not, as we need active person, not just active, to get BUSTLER. It got me to the answer anyway:-)
  24. An oddly apt clue – with the subdued chants of USA – USA still ringing in our ears

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