Times 25,351 – A Bit Of A Laugh

Author   yfyapPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Had a lovely time in Fujian, China attending the consecration of an ancestral temple, together with thousands of people from all over the world whose surname is Yap and whose forebears originated from this part of China in the last 600 years or so
Back to the grind 🙂 I assume that George and I are doing a mini-shuffle in this Thursday blogging duty. Nice to come back to a par-for-the-course Times puzzle with some nice surfaces and entertaining clues which regulars should have no problems with. It is pleasantly fortuitous that there are some connection to Malaysia, where I live.
ACROSS
1 MANNISH M (married) ANN (name of woman) IS H (hard)
5 PALACE PAL (friend, China from Cockney rhyming slang, China plate for mate) ACE (very good) presumably for Crystal Palace, a football team in the English Championship League
8 SITUATION Ins of I (one) and U (university) respectively in STATION (office)
9 TAPED TAP (strike) ED (editor, journalist)
11 RAINY BRAINY (clever) minus B (bishop)
12 MINNEHAHA Sounds like mini ha ha (a bit of a laugh) for the fictional Native American woman documented in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1855 epic poem The Song of Hiawatha.
13 NUGATORY NUGA (rev of A GUN, a piece) + TORY (politician)
15 BORNEO BORNE (carried) O (round) for an island aka Kalimantan in South-East Asia which holds Sarawak and Sabah, two Malaysian states
17 LOCKET LOCKE 1632–1704), English philosopher + T (time)
19 BEVERAGE (first letter of bar) EVER (always) AGE (time)
22 TOP FLIGHT ns of OP (opus. work) & F (female) & L (learner driver, new person in driving seat) in TIGHT (firm)
23 PERCH dd
24 SAUDI (first letter of spring) A UDI (unilateral declaration of independence)
25 DEBENTURE EB (rev of B Ed, Bachelor of Education) + *(TENURE)
26 CENSER sounds like CENSOR (official controller) ceremonial container in which incense is burned; so more likely to produce a smokescreen
27 DECIDES DEC (December month) IDES (of March, when Julius Caesar was murdered in Rome)
DOWN
1 MISTRANSLATES *(LATIN MASTER’S School)
2 NOTHING ns of H (husband) in NOTING (being aware)
3 ITALY ITAL (full of life) minus V (very) + Y (last letter of wealthy)
4 HAIL MARY Spooner’s Male (man) Hairy (risky)
5 PENANG ENANCE (religious observance) with G (good) substituted for CE (Church of England) for another Malaysian state
6 LITHESOME *(HOME IS LET)
7 CAPTAIN AP (top) TA (Territorial Army, fighting force? :-)) IN (fashionable)
10 DRAG ONE’S HEELS Ins of SHE (the woman) in DRAGON (monster) & EELS (fish)
14 THE ALLIES ns of HE (high explosive) in TALLIES (agrees)
16 DEATHBED *(THE BAD DEed)
18 CAPTURE Ins of APT(suitable) in CURE (remedy)
20 AGROUND (ON GUARD)
21 AGADIR GA (commander) DIRE (terrible) minus E for a major city in southwest Morocco, capital of the Agadir province and the Souss-Massa-Drâa economic region
23 PANIC (PAIN) + C (first letter of cause) for my COD, an &lit
++++++++++++++
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(FODDER) = anagram

33 comments on “Times 25,351 – A Bit Of A Laugh”

  1. Enjoyed this a bit. And, UY, was drinking Oolong tea from Fujian during the solve.

    I liked “Sailor’s stuck” for AGOUND. Nice possessive there. And the misleading fodder in 1dn where “reads Sallust” is also 12 letters.

    10dn: I think there’s a slightly different containment here. DRAGON, then SHE inside EELS.

    Edited at 2012-12-20 06:27 am (UTC)

  2. 30:05. Welcome back, Uncle Y; but I believe 26ac is CENSER (which could provide a smokescreen). Also a typo at 21d: AGA+ DIR. I can’t say I care for the putative homophony of hairy/Mary (marry/merry/Mary have long been among American phoneticians’ favorite dialect tests), but with the enumeration it was easy enough. Liked 13ac and 20d; the latter had me barking up quite a wrong tree for a long while, as did 25ac.

    Edited at 2012-12-20 02:37 am (UTC)

    1. Yep, agree. It’s CENSER. Wrote this in without much thought, attempting to forget my dishonourable discharge from a church choir (high Anglican!) aged 12. (Don’t ask.)

      Suppose though that a smoke sensor might (just) screen/detect(?) smoke.

  3. 21:14 – I actually wrote up a blog thinking it was my turn this week, but it appears UY beat me to it. So I’ve deleted it and you’ll get my random musings in two weeks’ time.
    1. Sorry about your wasted effort George. The diary says it’s you today… it would be interesting for us blog aficionados to see the two blogs for a contrast/compare 🙂
  4. I had real problems with this and at one stage with only 5 clues solved I was on the point of giving up and returning to it in the morning. However I persevered, solved a sixth clue, NUGATORY, and after that made steady progress and managed to complete the grid in 1 minute under the hour. Sadly, although I was unable fully to justify my LOI, SENSOR, I could see no alternative so I ended up with one incorrect answer. Smells and bells have never been my strong point regarding religious ceremony; I am much better on the musical aspects of worship.

    I never heard of Sallust and until the N checker from 13ac went in I assumed that the name was part of the fodder at 1dn.

    I know chunks of Hiawatha by heart so MINNEHAHA was familiar and I had retained knowledge of AGADIR from my studies of early 20th century history at O-Level which included an example of gunboat diplomacy that took place there in 1911.

    This was a rather fine puzzle on a very good day for it not to be my turn as blog-writer.

    Edited at 2012-12-20 10:40 am (UTC)

  5. A lot of this was almost too easy but I stalled and came to grief on 5 down, finally going for panone as an out-of-the-way church (‘that’s good for…’). So a disqualified 26 minutes. Nice to be reminded of Minnehaha – I think I was slightly in love with her at the age of about 10. Still am.
  6. 28m, of which well over half trying all the (many) alternatives for 26ac. I nearly put in SENSOR but didn’t like it so cheated to finish. I’ve never come across the word CENSER before so I could have stared at the clue for another five hours without getting it. So a technical DNF and a big harrumph from me.

    Edited at 2012-12-20 09:32 am (UTC)

  7. Good average difficulty puzzle but had to look up CENSER to be sure it was some sort of incense burner before entering in grid. It’s an unusual word and I don’t like homophone clues for obscure answers.

    On the topic of homophones I don’t think 4D really works without a separate “sounds like” indicator so “We hear Spooner’s man risky in prayer” would be better. Not the best clue in the puzzle anyway.

    I thought 23D was very good

    Edited at 2012-12-20 11:15 am (UTC)

  8. CENSER and SENSOR both seem acceptable to me for 26ac particularly after long discussions (i.e. arguments about the precise requirements of current building regulations) with my builders about the relative merits of heat detectors (sensors)/smoke detectors (sensors) for the fire alarm system in my new build.
  9. Thanks for the blog Uncle Y. 20 minutes, and I’d have been quite a bit faster without that tricky homophone. Speaking of homophones. When I was studying for the bar exam eons ago the groanworthy joke (which may still be making the rounds for all I know)is that a student was asked in a viva to define “debentures” and answered “the governing body of this Inn”.

    P.S. It may just be me but the site seems very slow this morning.

    Edited at 2012-12-20 10:30 am (UTC)

  10. This is my last daily puzzle here before the festive season, so I’d like to thank everyone for their feedback in 2012 and wish you all a Happy Christmas. Don Manley
  12. I did the same as McText and entered Censer straight away, and I don’t believe it was that obscure a word. However, has anyone completed the puzzle online to confirm that it is the correct answer?
    I liked the slight misdirection in 20 down where I originally thought the definition was “change” and I was looking for a word r???d that means guard to add to AB for sailor at the front, and the penny didn’t drop until I got the u crosser from 25 across. “Sailor’s stuck” indeed!

    Andy B

    1. I agree censer’s not that uncommon a word – about the same as rood screen, perhaps, if that – and I’m certain it’s the intended answer. A sensor may detect a wall of smoke but it’s not going to provide it one hopes. Incidentally jimbo surely ‘Spooner’s’ in 4 implies the sounding like.
  13. After a long absence from crossword solving my times have been very slow of late, so I’m reasonably pleased with 30 minutes for this. Nothing really to hold me up for long, but the right-hand side took longer than the left.
    Some good surfaces on the whole in this puzzle. I agree with dorsetjimbo that 4dn doesn’t really work, as it leads to the answer HALE MAIRY.
  15. Definitely censer not sensor, which makes less sense… but why it’s not called an incenser I don’t know. Nice straightforward puzzle completed in 25 minutes while watching England batting quite well for a change.
  16. Three missing today (Penang, Minnehaha and Deathbed) and one mistake with Sensor. Should have got Deathbed with all the checkers but couldn’t solve the anagram 🙁
    Lots of enjoyable clues today so thank you Mr Manley. Thought Panic was the stand out.
    Thanks for the blog Uncle Yap – a very good read, as always.
  17. About 20 minutes without any great problems, but arriving here I find I didn’t know how to spell CENSER, which I rendered as SENSER. I knew what it was having carried it as an altar boy, and which we more commonly called a ‘thuriber’. But alas, 1 wrong for me. That’s despite feeling quite full of myself for actually knowing AGADIR, from the same gunboat diplomacy incident Jack described above. I didn’t know of the ‘UDI’ in SAUDI, but the answer was very apparent anyway. Regards to all, including Mr. Manley, and of course Uncle Yap (with thanks).
    1. Few people living in the UK during the 1960s could have avoided hearing of UDI with reference to Ian Smith’s regime in Southern Rhodesia. The media of the day constantly referred to Smith’s “declaration of UDI” (or similar phrases) and the tautology always grated on my ear.
  18. Over the hour today but it did enliven tedious train journeys – lots to enjoy today so thanks as well as festive greetings to Mr Manley. I was mostly held up in the NE but eventually twigged PENANG and the rest fell quite quickly after hesitating over PALACE as a football team not the most likely definition these days. My COD to 22a for the tightness of the cluing and its neatness.

    Edited at 2012-12-20 04:03 pm (UTC)

  19. Had a good, straightforward time with this one, getting all but CENSER and AGADIR. I understood the wordplay but hadn’t heard of either. I tried AGADOU(r) and AGADRA(b) in Google before I was asked if I meant the correct answer. 🙂 And CENSER makes sense (no pun intended), and I suspected it was a homophone of ‘censor’, but wasn’t in the mood to guess… god bless this blog!

    Unknown but derived from wordplay: PALACE, MINNEHAHA, NUGATORY, DEBENTURE. Unknown bits: UDI, HE.

  20. 7:59 for me – not a bad time, I suppose, but this was so much my sort of puzzle that I can’t help feeling a twinge of sadness thinking back to the days when I’d have solved it a couple of minutes faster.

    Do I take it from Don Manley’s comment above that this was one of his puzzles? If so, then thanks, Don – most enjoyable.

  21. I mistakenly thought that ‘Sallust’ was a puzzling reference to a Dennis Wheatley hero (sad, I know). Having Googled the name I now see he was a Roman historian which makes the clue a very good one. Geoffrey.

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