Times 25457: Diet of coffee, tea, apples & pears

28 comments on “Times 25457: Diet of coffee, tea, apples & pears”

1. I struggled with this, making three errors that needed correcting before I could complete the grid, the first of which was that wretched cryptic at 10ac where the checkers I had in place at the time led me to SAMARITAN. I had the less plausible FLINTY at 4dn and LIMES as the fruit at 26ac – never having heard of POMES without a double M. Also didn’t know SCONCE as a candlestick – incidentally, mct, apart from the bracket device, SOED has it as “a) A lantern or candlestick with a screen to protect the light from the wind, and a handle for carrying. b) A flat candlestick with a handle.”

   I don’t think much of 24ac as one works ON a newspaper, not IN it.

   Edited at 2013-04-24 02:57 am (UTC)

   1. Jack, I’d be interested to know what your up-to-date sources say about POM. These days, it’s pretty much confined to English migrants (or those of English descent) rather than to Britons en bloc. Aust. Nat. Dict. however does have it (via ‘pommy’/’pommie’, from ‘pomegranate’) as historically applicable to immigrants from the British Isles.
      1. Yes, the ‘pomegranate’ explanation seems to be the most widely quoted.There is also a theory that it’s from an acronym for “Prisoner Of Mother England” which was allegedly stamped on the tunics worn by deported convicts. An Australian writer, Henry Lawson, wrote in 1921 that it comes from “Pom-me-word” i.e. ‘pon my word, an expression used by British immigrants.
         1. And the range of applicability: British or just English?
            1. You pays yer money…

               SOED has: An immigrant (esp. a recent one) to Australia or New Zealand from Britain, esp. from England; a person living in Britain, esp. in England.

               COED and ODE have British.Brewer’s has English. Chambers Slang has British (usu. an immigrant). Chambers has Immigrant from the British Isles, a British (esp. English) person. Collins has English.

               Edited at 2013-04-24 08:03 am (UTC)

               1. Many thanks indeed. As so often: the combined sources are confused and imprecise. Bob at the local pub hates to be called a Pom because he’s Irish. He prefers to be mistaken for a Yank (=Septic). I’ve got used to the Pom tag; even though in some parts of England I’m still a ‘Scouse git’ and, in some parts of the North, especially Merseyside, a ‘southerner’ because I’ve taken on the vowels from Australian English. No chance of a win.
                  1. You should try living in Dorset having had a Canadian father and a cockney mother and raised in darkest, deepest London
   2. I thought at once of ‘pomes pennyeach’…..and put in the right answer.
      1. Tsk, tsk. ‘Pomes Penyeach’.
2. 16 minutes, with a cryptic definition for once soliciting a smile from me and (can’t believe I’m typing this) gets my CoD.
   Several sticky bits. POMES is a word I use for bits of doggerel, so I had trouble believing it as fruit.
   CHAPPIES needed all the checkers, and I wondered for a while whether it might be chippies (are carpenters blokes? Are purveyors of fried products?)
   LACROSSE looked like a really complicated clue until I realised we hadn’t had a “hidden”.
   STAIR because it’s also a soundalike, and “bottom of stone” is surely E.
3. Exactly half an hour. Cracking anagram at 8; can’t believe it’s not been used before, though I’ve never seen it.
4. Welcome to the “leave nothing out” club McT. I also used to spend longer (a) deciding which one to omit and then (b) getting it wrong and fielding questions about the omitted than just putting them all in anyway!

   Funny old puzzle. No, I never come across GAMESOME before that I recall and can’t imagine using it in speech. Minor quibble but I think Jack is right about 24A, they work ON newspapers. Don’t really see why HIP is a relic of a saint at 15D. And can a legal deed be “good”?

   All in all not difficult and home in 20 minutes.

5. Had similar travails as Jack with limes and Samaritan. The latter was anything but good for me, as I originally ditched it in favour of something beginning s-p, as I confidently had clump at 2dn. Chump!

   Despite all this, I thought 10ac was a fine cryptic clue. Niacin thanks to years of exposure to Rice Krispies boxes. I avidly await riboflavin. 40 mins.

6. ‘All correct’ in about 30 minutes. I enjoyed this despite initally opting for SAMARITAN, being ignorant of GAMESOME, left wondering by POMES and still not really understanding SOL-FA (but then music, in any form, has never been my thing). Wordplay rescued me on all occasions.
7. Legal documents such as deeds might contain various unintended loopholes or may not specifically tie down ownership or covenants re rights and responsibilities so I’d say there is room enough for the descriptions ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

   Before I thought of SAMARITAN I had wondered if were were in Baden Powell territory as I think one of the promises in his code was “to do a good deed every day”.

8. 23:34 .. Wrong turns aplenty here, too (don’t worry, Olivia, at least one other solver spent a long time ‘solving’ the wrong anagram at 8a). Worth the struggle, though. EDUCATIONALIST, SOLICITOR and LACROSSE all memorable in their own ways. A couple of quibbles but “close enough for government work”, as they say in these parts.
9. I went down so many wrong turns I was startled to find it only took 19.21 minutes (I always scroll down so I can’t see the clock ticking).

   I tried to make an anagram out of “teacher trainer” – bet I wasn’t the only one. Then I wanted to “chuck” in 2d (as in Huckleberry). Then I had “gladsome” in 4a from a hymn we used to sing at school which tied things up no end. Finally I spent time trying to shoehorn “limeys” into 26a.

   All in all I have to give this one to the setter for a nice lot of misdirections.

10. Or near enough for jazz, I suppose!

    Completion without error in 9 minutes, my best ever time – really quite unbelievable.

    Thanks all,
    Chris.

11. …is one of the Bard’s inventions, and turns up in (among others) Julius Caesar: it’s one of the things that Brutus isn’t.
    A campaign to recover it for public use? It almost directly would mean people who spend all their time staring at alternate universes and playing the hero by clicking a mouse or thrashing around with a control gizmo. I’m only gamesome when it comes to Angry Birds.
12. I didn’t have a problem with “hip” as a relic of a saint. There seem to be various bones of saints all over the place so why not a hip, although if pressed I certainly couldn’t name one. I must have been on the setter’s wavelength because I got through this in 12 mins. My time was certainly helped by seeing the two long anagrams very quickly. My last in was PANCREAS and for a few seconds I thought I was going to have a repeat of yesterday’s stumble over “blistery”, but thankfully the penny dropped.

    Andy B.

13. 19 minutes, quite a lot of which was spent fighting with the SE corner.
14. Similar to yesterday’s for me, in that I found it reasonably straightforward, but was held up again by two entries, GAMESOME (unfamiliar) and SOL-FA, but at least this time I didn’t have to resort to Ms Bradford. I didn’t understand the clue to APOCRYPHA, but then I’ve never been good on religious issues.
    A good set of clues, apart from weakness in 24, commented on by jackkt.
15. One missing today (Gamesome) but it was almost two (I guessed Sol-Fa). Like others above I took an early punt on Samaritan for 10ac only to have to correct it later.
    Didn’t fully understand the wordplay for Pancreas or Apocrypha so thanks mctext for the explanations. Sconce and Pomes from wordplay.

    Edited at 2013-04-24 02:35 pm (UTC)

16. Thank you for the feedback. Three observations:

    The correct name for an inanimate object that holds a candle is a candlestick (as Azed entrants for cluing candle-holder discovered many years ago!)

    A Sun journalist might well have a place (eg a column) IN The Sun

    I think I can remember ‘gamesome’ from Noel Coward’s Hay Fever and am surprised it was so unknown.

    1. Thank you.

       I’m buying it (your point, not The Sun)

17. I can also see the setter’s point about a place IN the newspaper, OK. But, yes, Noel Coward notwithstanding, GAMESOME is an unknown to me. I salute the nifty long anagrams with great surfaces at 8 and 9, so thank you kindly for those. About 30 minutes, ending with the GAMESOME/SOL-FA crossing. Regards.
18. 8:30 for me. This seemed generally easier than yesterday’s puzzle, but I had a much more erratic time with it. Worst was NIACIN, which I bunged in without really thinking too much about it, and then (forgetting its derivation, and probably thinking of HYACINTH) had a panic about whether it was actually spelled NYACIN. (Eventually I decided NYACIN didn’t look right. Phew!)

    GAMESOME is quite familiar from somewhere – but I’m not convinced it’s Hay Fever, given that the one word I can remember for certain from the play is “winsomely”.

19. Yes — ’twas winsomely, sorry! Setter

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