Times 25433: What? No bra?

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 28:45

Not at all at my best this morning, perhaps as a result of Australia’s miserable showing against Oman in Sydney yesterday or perhaps from the drop in interest rates on my super. But this is a good puzzle which I enjoyed struggling with for the best part of a half hour.

Talking of time: this is my last post before British Summer Time starts on Sunday. Some overseas solvers may like to know about this because it means the puzzles starting on Monday (1st April) may arrive at a different time. (In my case an hour earlier.)

Across

1 DECLAIM. Can be split as ‘de-claim’. Similar to the device at 27ac.
5 PERSEUS. PERSE{vered} + US.
9 TROMBONES. Anagram: no mobster.
10 CHINO. CH (Companion of Honour), IN (wearing), O (old).
11 BREAK ONES DUCK. BREAK (holiday), ONES (singles), DUCK (love, nil, zero). Today’s cricket clue; bringing to mind Stuart Broad who was in the spotlight yesterday (24ac).
13 ACRIMONY. A, CRONY inc IM.
15 FINEST. F (following), 1, NEST. The def is A1. Couldn’t see this for ages. So many possibilities for _I_E_T. My LOI and the main reason for the slower time.
17 SATINY. SA (sex appeal, it), TINY.
19 CANNIBAL. CA (about, circa), reversal of LAB (party) and INN (pub). Interesting definition. (Etymology: distortion of “can nibble” [e.g., on one’s bones].)
22 DESIGNER LABEL. Anagram: bling dealers; inc E (European). Maybe a slight costumery theme today?
25 VIPER. VIE (struggle) inc P (power), R (resistance).
26 PERDITION. P (page), EDITION (publication) inc R (last of ‘dictatoR’).
27 RETREAT. Two defs, the first being ‘re-treat’ (renegotiate, as in treaty).
28 ASSEGAI. ASS (donkey), last half of ‘carrIAGE’ reversed. A favourite crossword weapon, along with KRIS and a few others I can’t think of right now.

Down
1 Omitted.
2 C(L)OBBER. L for ‘line’. I’ve been in Australia since 1975 and have never heard the word ‘cobber’ actually used.
3 AMBLE. M (miles) inside ABLE (fit).
4 MONOKINI. ON (being worn) + OK (fine), all inside MINI (skirt). Pants!
5 POSING. PO (Petty Officer), SIN (crime), G (good).
6 RECESSION. RE (about), sound-alike for ‘session’.
7 EPICURE. PE (exercise) reversed; I, CURE (smoke).
8 STOCK-STILL. STOCK (goods for sale); STILL (whisky producer).
12 PASSED OVER. PASSÉ, DOVER. (Topical if you know your Jewish calendar.)
14 MENAGERIE. Anagram of ‘mange’, ERIE (the lake).
16 {s}MALL,ORCA.
18 TOSSPOT. Reversal of TOPS (ace) and SOT (drinker); &lit.
20 BELTING. Two meanings; the first connected with A1, finest, tops, ace, etc.
21 KEEP AT. First of T{hings}, A{lways) + PEEK (look), all reversed.
23 BRITS. B{rutal}, STIR (become restless) reversed.
24 Omitted.

Back later. I’m off now, posing in my itsy-bitsy chino-satiny designer-label monokini!

40 comments on “Times 25433: What? No bra?”

  1. The top half flowed quite nicely for me but I came a cropper in the bottom half and only just crept in under the hour. What is “From” doing in 16ac? I’d expect it if the answer had an ‘n’ on the end but otherwise it seems wrong to me.

    Edited at 2013-03-27 02:08 am (UTC)

    1. I discover whilst the dictionary gives mallorcan as the adj & noun
      there is mallorca bread and also mallorca pearls.Not sure I would take the case to court.
    2. The way I read it the definition is “Mediterranean island” and the clue reads “From definition, wordplay”. Or “From definition, [you get] wordplay”.
      1. Thanks, I see that now, the definition leading to wordplay instead of the other way round. Not sure I have met this before so it has a certain novelty value on this occasion but I hope it doesn’t become overused.
  2. 49 minutes for a satisfying solve with, like Vinyl, CANNIBAL, my COD, falling and making way for LOI BELTING, where you really need the first letter.

    Needed the wordplay for MONOKINI, where I found it difficult to see past Borat in his mankini, and ASSEGAI only a vague memory from doing these things. Held myself up a little by bunging in stand-still at 8.

    Like Jack, I was finding it very difficult to justify ‘from Mediterranean island’ for Mallorca. The best I could come up with was the noun used as a modifier as, for example, in ‘Canada Dry’, but ‘Mallorca ham’ instead of ‘Mallorcan ham’, while possible, is rather a stretch.

    Edited at 2013-03-27 02:37 am (UTC)

  3. As a native-born Australian I can confirm mctext’ observation of the ‘non-use’ of the word “cobber”.

    I can also similarly advise for some other crossword favourites from the Great South Land such as “sport” (a familiar term for a male person as in ‘good on you sport’), “digger” (as for “sport”); “drongo” (term of derision); “cooee” (a loud greeting”); “fair dinkum” (true/correct).

  4. 19m. Not a lot to say really. I didn’t understand TOSSPOT: I wanted “ace” to be “top”. “Tops” didn’t occur to me. So thanks for clearing that up.
  5. All correct, though BELTING (LOI) without conviction. Held up by having stand STILL for a while. MONOKINI and ACRIMONY took working out. CANNIBAL gets COD for the def.
  6. 19’36” – my paper hasn’t arrived yet, so on the clock. A bit of a slow burner, where either the definition or the wordplay declined to resolve. I knew “no mobster” had to be anagram fodder, but I was looking for several wrong versions of brass. I guessed easily at MONOKINI, but couldn’t sus the wordplay.
    Solving piecemeal to begin with, I was temporarily blinded on 11 across to find the last 4 letter word crossed by *U*K and clued by “score”. Surely not!
    ASSEGAI’s spelling saved by the wordplay, and BELTING, as Janie says,had to have the B or it could have been anything. I’m now painfully aware that there are too many Greek heroes, 7 letters, ends in -US.
    CoD to the sneaky DE-CLAIM,though CANNIBAL’s def is a belter.
  7. Yet another straightforward but enjoyable. I wrote in 17ac but could not initially parse it; but now I see that yet again, I have fallen for the old sa/it trick.. will I never learn?
    Nice links, mc!

  8. Whirled round most then took about 5 minutes on Mallorca cannibal belting and then a very long time on finest. It became a matter of honour not to have to defer to the setter again. Finally round in 34. Not clear as to the parsing of 1 dn. Liked the fellow consumer.
      1. Ah yes, thanks. I was wondering if to dot could be to execute a staccato note on an instrument. I have no problem with ‘from’ in 16: “out of this (word)(obtain)”; a legit. use I’d have thought that neatens the surface.
  9. Found the NW corner tricky. Took an age to get Trombones (thinking the Brass definition referred to some ancient coins that I didn’t know) and had Exclaim at 1ac. Once corrected to Declaim I got to the end all correct.
    FOI Menagerie and LOI Dote. Thought Amble, Stock Still and Finest were particularly good but COD to Cannibal for its witty definition.
  10. Reasonably straightforward 25 minute solve but with two queries along the way.

    At 13A I think of a crony as a close friend rather than as a colleague. I can’t see the justification for “from” at 16D and certainly don’t buy the “from definition one gets wordplay” argument.

    I guess Oz slang in crosswordland is rather like all those dropped “h” being described as cockney. I loved the definition at 19A and thought 17A a very neat clue

    1. I put this in the same sort of “filler” category as these:
      > Given rating, is prone perhaps to reflect and climb down (ABSEIL)
      > Sort of rubber almost a success in making dye (INDIGO)
  11. Held up slightly by the parsing of SATINY and (especially) FINEST but otherwise a straightforward solve. Liked the definition for CANNIBAL.
  12. About 35 minutes. A very enjoyable puzzle that turned out to be not so difficult as I had first feared. Chuckled at “fellow consumer”, good to have something humerus to chew on.

    Took a while to get MALLORCA: I still spell it Majorca and pronounce it Ma-jaw-ka, crusty old sod that I am.

    I agree with the comments about “cobber”; it appears in C J Dennis’s The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, which was published in 1915. (You’ll find the whole thing in Wikipedia; The Intro is the poem I know well.)

    Is it really BST again this weekend? We’ve had deep snow in Lancashire since Saturday, as you’ll see from the pictures in today’s Times of the aptly named Winter Hill. It’s snowing as I write and the bitterly cold wind is preventing even a single daffodil from opening in my garden, though the snowdrops have been spectacular this year.

    1. Little or no blossom on the trees down here John. Usually my cherry tree has bloomed by now but the whole garden is a sorry looking, boggy, mess!
    2. Plenty of daffodils blooming in Cardiff and surrounding areas when down there the weekend before last, although none out here in the Midlands.
  13. Tricky puzzle. On first read through I had no across solutions until VIPER, but then things began to fall into place. I made life more difficult than was necessary by trying for some time to make CUTLASS the weapon of choice at 28 ac (well, at least it accounted for the “donkey” bit of the clue). I am with those who can’t see the justification for the “from” at 16 dn. Loved CANNIBAL both for definition and wordplay – on a par with BROAD IN THE BEAM earlier in the week.
  14. Pretty straightforward solve, taking 35 minutes. We’ve had variations of “wordplay from definition” before, so I wasn’t all that surprised by 16, but it does break the conventions and I now think it’s dodgy (I used to think it was OK). I wonder if it would be more acceptable if the clue began “From this Mediterranean island…”, where ‘this’ would indicate where the nounal definition is.

    Like others, I loved the definition in 19. 15 and 17 were also neat.

    1. Good point. I think you’re right that the setter could, so to speak, have headed off the objections to 16 dn by simply inserting “this” after “from”.
  15. To add to my comment and those of others above, this particular example is possibly made even more suspect by the inversion. Wordplay from definition might just about be acceptable, though contentious, but in this case we have wordplay element + definition + wordplay, thereby defying the rule that the definition should not be in the middle of the clue.
    1. Is that a hard and fast rule? If it is the clue does seem to break it.
      Otherwise I don’t see why wordplay from definition is any worse than definition from wordplay. Both are indirect ways of arriving at the answer: neither is the answer.

      Edited at 2013-03-27 01:13 pm (UTC)

      1. I think it’s an established rule that the definition should go at one end or the other of the clue, hence jackkt’s very pertinent comment that the definition here appears to be adjectival, ie, MALORCAN.

        The only exception that I can think of offhand is the composite anagram, which the Times crossword doesn’t go in for.

          1. As I suggested earlier, although choosing the wrong food as an example – not being au fait with Balearic cuisine – ‘Mallorca’ can be used adjectivally as a modifier: a Google search shows that ‘Mallorca bread’ is quite common. So, ‘Mallorca’ for ‘From Mediterranean island’ ticks the boxes.
  16. 21:36, so kudos to the setter for sending me down at least a couple of blind alleys which then required unravelling: I started with the conviction that the Kent town was DEAL, so I was looking to close that; and I leapt to the over-hasty conclusion that retiring was a cunning reference to car maintenance, and went for RETREAD rather than RETREAT.
  17. No time but over an hour in fits and starts to a DNF as grounded in SW by SATINY which now I know the solution seems very good to me. My COD though to CANNIBAL as it made me chuckle!

    Edited at 2013-03-27 04:47 pm (UTC)

  18. About 25 minutes, ending with FINEST. COD to the fellow consumer, but an honorable mention to SATINY, despite requiring the old chestnut. Nice puzzle, really, so thanks to the setter, and mctext also for the links; I really expected a cricket term explanation, but I can figure that out on my own. Regards.
  19. 11:27 for me – slower than it should have been, but at least not a disgrace.

    I’m entirely happy with keriothe’s “From definition, [you get] wordplay”, even though, having typed in MALLORCA, I had a brainstorm and changed it to MINORCAN (at least I could justify “little”, even if no other part of the wordplay), before hastily switching back to MALLORCA again.

    A delight from start to finish. My compliments to the setter.

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