Times 25,331 – Strawberries and Cream

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 10 minutes

My first blog appeared at the end of November 2007 so this is approximately my fifth anniversary and I suspect the easiest puzzle I have had to tackle. As a result there is little to discuss in terms of either clues or answers.

Across
1 FAMILIES – (mafi)*-LIES; the Doones perhaps;
5 SLAP-UP – actor’s make-up=SLAP; revolting=UP (in arms); pastie and cider some say;
10 UNDERESTIMATION – virtually non-cryptic definition; description of setter’s view of our abilities?;
11 TOPGALLANT – TOP(GALL)ANT; the chief or top ant is the queen ant; sail=canvas (on a Cornish Crabber maybe);
13 UTAH – U-T(e)A(c)H; where the Mormons come from;
15 RING,OFF – if the lady removes her ring the engagement is over, or she has an itchy finger;
17 SAMPLER – two meanings 2=a test piece of embroidery;
18 COLONEL – COL(ONE)L; Coll is a small island in the Hebrides;
19 STADIUM – S(TAD-I)UM; The Stadium for Cornwall is a proposed multi-purpose stadium in Threemilestone;
21 BRIE – BRIE(f); cheese that is ruined by being stored in a fridge, should be eaten runny with cold Chablis;
22 CORNISHMAN – (in monarchs)*; a Celt – John Ridd for example;
25 STATUE,OF,LIBERTY – another virtually non-cryptic definition;
27 SEE-SAW – “set eyes on now”=SEE; “set eyes on then”=SAW; a teeter-totter or the now defunct BBC Internet based TV service;
28 UNSEATED – a reference to an MP losing their seat in Parliament or Carver losing his carver;
 
Down
1 FLUTTER – FL-UTTER; what Lorna did when she looked at John;
2 MAD – MA(ns we)D; n,s,w and e are the (compass) points;
3 LORNA,DOONE – LORN-ADO-ONE; Richard Blackmore’s Celtic lass from Exmoor;
4 EASEL – EASE-L; as used by Lamorna Birch to paint Lamorna Cove;
6 LEAD – two meanings; 2=the metal once mined in Cornwall at places like Menheniot;
7 POINTILLISM – (millions + it + p)*; p from p(ainter); painting in dots as done by Van Gogh amongst others;
8 PANTHER – hidden (ja)PAN-THE-R(arest); a black one supposedly roams Bodmin Moor;
9 PIANISTS – and a third barely cryptic clue;
12 PENULTIMATE – (patient mule)*; as used in the Cornish tin mines;
14 IMPASSABLE – (sample + bias)*; a great many roads across Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset at the moment;
16 FOLLOW,ON – FOLL(y)-O-WON; a cricket team batting poorly is obliged to “follow on” as in recent test match in India;
18 CUBISTS – CUBI(S)TS; a cubit was the length of John Ridd’s forearm;
20 MONEYED – M-ON-EYED; and living in Rock, north west of Bodmin;
23 NYLON – (only)*-N or N-(only)*; is this clue a sheer delight?;
24 TUNA – A-NUT reversed; loaf=head=nut (slang);
26 RAT – R(ace) A(gainst) T(ime);

39 comments on “Times 25,331 – Strawberries and Cream”

  1. This is one of my favourite types of Times cryptic: straightforward but imaginative, clever and elegant. I found lots to appreciate here, eg bat = flutter in 1dn, queen = top ant in 11ac, a beautiful hidden at 8dn, and so forth. Good stuff, thank you setter.
  2. Not so easy pour moi. 30 minutes for all bar the weird sail and the Cornishman. Sadly, the latter never fell, and I was left ruing my latent inability to spot anagrams, which surfaced with a bang this morning.
  3. Ashamed to say ‘TOPGALLANT’ left me becalmed. Liked the puzzle though. I don’t think I’ll forget the name of this sail!
  4. Can’t say I found it that easy. 31 minutes, after tacking from topsailing at the last instant. I love the idea there but the surface might have been improved perhaps: queenly irritation at piece of canvas (?).

    Edited at 2012-11-27 09:14 am (UTC)

  5. 15m, slowed down by the really easy ones! With UNDERESTIMATION, STATUE OF LIBERTY, UNSEATED and particularly PIANISTS I wasted a few minutes thinking “that can’t be it” and trying to come up with something else.
    I wasn’t a fan of those clues but I rather liked the rest of it. My last in, the unknown TOPGALLANT, was also my favourite.
  6. Nothing special here; but not too bad apart from the awful cryptic defs. As for 10ac, I didn’t think it even counted as a weak CD — and that’s as bad as you can get. Also didn’t think the “taking in” at 22ac would take many people in; or, indeed, do anything at all.

    Happy to give a point to TOPGALLANT though.

    BTW Jim: Van Gogh was not strictly a pointillist(e). He used the technique very rarely. Seurat may be a better example.

    Edited at 2012-11-27 09:55 am (UTC)

      1. Oops, underlined the wrong bits. Just the phrase “corruptly taking” seemed like a strange indicator.
        1. Ah, I see. I thought the same but if you read it as “taking in monarchs corruptly” it seems OK to me.
  7. I found this slow going at 28 minutes, particularly because clues that struggle to demonstrate cryptic credentials – the two long ones, plus PIANISTS as noted by Jim – leave me wondering what I’m missing and cost lots of time. I left PIANISTS unfilled until nothing else could go in. I suppose the Cockney connection was meant to raise a smile and a misdirection, but it didn’t, at least not here.
    I’m ashamed to say COLONEL went in without understanding, again after a long delay resisting the obvious. Scottish Islands are another of those “any collection of letters will do” lists, but I failed to spot the (really obvious) “one”.
    I did quite like the inventive MAD, the “either end will do” NYLON, and the sail for “top ant”, though I wondered about “irritation” for “gall”. Post-solve Chambers says it’s OK.
  8. An enjoyable if somewhat odd puzzle in places. 34 minutes for all but 11ac and I’m ashamed to say I needed aids for that one despite having all the checkers. I thought of TOPSAIL for ‘canvas’ and CAT for ‘queen’ but couldn’t get beyond that. I’d never heard of the word. I was mystified by COLL having to be a Scottish island at 18ac as that one seems to have passed me by despite knowing (I think) most of the others.

    Somebody kindly reminded me recently about the rules on capital letters but I’m afraid my brain has not retained them so it occurred to me that perhaps ‘House’ in 28ac ought to have been capitalised.

    Jimbo, we started blogging in the same week so it must be my 5th anniversary too. How the time flies!

    Edited at 2012-11-27 09:56 am (UTC)

    1. I think it goes something like: that which must be capitalised must be (e.g., Mill, as the philosopher can’t become “mill”). That which need not be capitalised can be (e.g., “springboks” can become “Springboks” for deception purposes — as we saw recently).

      Now go figure “house” in this light!

      Capitalisation might have helped given that there are no fewer than 27 standard words that will fit the pattern with all checkers in place. Not much of a clue with or without I’d say.

      1. Thanks. Well I’d have said that for ‘house’ to have the required meaning it really needs capitalising, but it’s the setter’s job to deceive us and so many other clues today were gifts I can’t get too bothered about it. I did just wonder though.
    2. Indeed Jack, it really doesn’t seem like 5 years and those very nervous first efforts

      The number of contributers was much lower in those days and consisted of: PB of course; anax; george heard; linxit; tony sever; 7dpenguine; ilanc; dyste; babs-gee; and eldesdichado plus you and I and some anons.

      The blog really has developed since then

      1. Plus foggyweb who blogged on Mondays and was apparently a little less confidant than some of the others. This encouraged me to stick around in such elite company despite feeling like a snail amongst all the hares. I’m pretty confidant in my blogging now but still get the jitters about solving when it’s my turn, possibly even more so now than in the early days.

        Edited at 2012-11-27 12:28 pm (UTC)

  9. Spent roughly 25% of my time on UNSEATED, as I was initially convinced that the “house” part of the clue would somehow involve IN.

    Edited at 2012-11-27 10:21 am (UTC)

  10. A bit off topic but I attempted Saturday’s puzzle last night. After an hour I hadn’t finished it and gave up. I’ve had another look this morning and there are still two clues I just can’t solve, even with extensive use of OneLook and my electronic Chambers. Looking at the forum neither of them seems to have caused anyone else any trouble! I’m completely mystified – roll on Saturday.
    1. Don’t you believe it! I took the best part of 90 minutes with some resort to aids and whilst I think it’s all correct I still have a couple not fully explained. I do not appreciate cryptic puzzles where the definition element turns out to be nothing more a given name and that one had two of them.

      Edited at 2012-11-27 11:43 am (UTC)

      1. It’s clear that I’m not alone in having problems with this puzzle but neither of the clues I can’t solve is a given name, and neither is mentioned as causing problems in the forum: in fact one of them isn’t mentioned at all. Even after putting the checkers I have into OneLook and examining every possible answer I can’t solve them, which has never happened to me before. As I say, roll on Saturday.
        1. I spent nearly an hour on it Friday night and I know I made at least 2 mistakes in the southern reaches. One was a careless error, the other a guess which I realised was wrong about two seconds after tiredly hitting submit.
          1. I finally managed to crack them over lunch. I thought the bits that were in English were hard enough…
  12. 12:42 .. yes, pretty straightforward and venturing into ‘barely cryptic’ here and there, but some nicely turned clues as well. FLUTTER is very elegant.

    Happy anniversary, jimbo and jackkt (how very 2012 that sounds!).

  13. 20:40 but I was glad just to finish after yesterday’s disaster and real problems on Sunday. In the end I was surprised to find that my last two in, topgallant and pianist, were both correct. Everything else has already been said, a weird combo of some very neat clue elements and some naff CDs.

    “Big up” to Jimbo and Jack for the milestone.

    1. Wouldn’t that make the clue a straight definition, though, in which case what would be the purpose of the question mark?
  15. Nice blog jimbo snd congratulations, hope the course dries out soon.
    Finished in 25 minutes without aids today, LOI the splendid TOPGALLANT.
    Took me a while to relate BAT to FLUTTER (eyelids I presume).
    1. Yes, bat the eyelids

      Yesterday one of our members paddled his kayak down the first fairway!

  16. About 15 minutes, with the only problem being trying to understand 1A, with the “organized Mafia mainly” part having to translate to FAMI… So I guess it’s Mafia without the final ‘a’, with the indication to drop that ‘a’ clued by ‘mainly’. Really? Or is there something profoundly simple I’ve missed? Beyond that, same experience as everyone else. Regards.
  18. 9:11 for me, with some time spent dithering over PIANISTS and UNSEATED: I suspected that they were probably going to be the right answers, but was worried that the setter might have had more subtle alternatives in mind.

    Congratulations on your 5 years, Jim. I’m always interested to read your views, even though I don’t always agree with them.

  19. 15:15, and 5 whole minutes of that were wasted on getting TOPGALLANT, my LOI: for some reason I thought it was going to end in LINE (I don’t sail, obviously).I agree about the non-crypticity of, especially, 9d; Brahms, by the way, was supposedly a brothel pianist in his youth. Congratulations and thanks to Jimbo and Jack; I hope we can count on many more years of blogging from you both.

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