Times 25512 – Advantage, Murray

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
What a thriller of a night at Wimbledon. Maria Sharapova & Roger Federer eliminated by newbies but the Brits must be very happy for Andy Murray. Now if someone were to beat Novak Djokovic, Murray would be odds-on favourite to win the trophy that has eluded the host since Fred Perry in 1936 …

… and all that meant staying up late for Uncle Yap who is also suffering from the worst haze arising from burning of forest in neighbouring Indonesia. Fortunately, the mind is not dulled and today’s offering from Times has been a delight to solve with many splendid clues and entertaining devices. Play on …

ACROSS
1 POTAGE Rev of EG (exempli gratia, for example, say) A TOP (superior)
4 AT RANDOM *(MANDATORy)
10 STATUTORY Ins of TUTOR (teacher) in STAY (suspension)
11 RAT ON RATION (a lot, a share) minus I (symbol for electric current in physics)
12 CONVERSATIONAL *(SLOVENIAN + CROAT)
14 ROYAL dd a sail immediately above the top gallant sail
16 APPOINTED Cha of A P (page) POINTED (expressing criticism)
18 NYASALAND *(LADY ANN’S A) former British colony now known as Malawi
20 SPRAT Rev of TARPS (American slang for tarpaulins or covers) What a pleasant co-incidence to see the fish after Jack Sprat the last time
21 GREENHAM COMMON Cha of GREEN (raw) HAM (meat) COMMON (accepted) Military airfield in Berkshire, closed since 1993
25 FAUNA FAUN (creature, part human, part goat from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis) + A
26 MANIFESTO MANIFEST (patent) O (first letter of office)
27 REDSTART Ins of S (first letter of seed) in RED (cherry) TART (pie) for a European bird (Ruticilla or Phoenicurus) with a conspicuous chestnut-coloured tail; an American warbler
28 PROSIT PROSE (writing) minus E + IT. Good luck to you, a salutation in drinking toasts.

DOWN
1 PAST CARING Ins of CAR (wheels) in PASTING (hiding, beating)
2 TRAIN dd
3 GLUTEAL GLUT (a superfluity of) E (European) A (ace) L (left) of three muscles of the buttock and hip
5 TRYST TRY (crack, have a go) ShoT (shot with content removed, vacated) My COD for its elegant simplicity
6 A PRIORI A (first letter of American) PRIOR (earlier) I (one) term applied to reasoning from what is prior (logically or chronologically), eg reasoning from cause to effect, from a general principle to its consequences, or even from observed fact to another fact or principle not observed, or to arguing from pre-existing knowledge,
7 DETRACTOR DE (DrivablE) TRACTOR (farm vehicle)
8 MINI Sounds like Minnie Mouse, Mickey’s partner
9 MOUSSAKA M (maiden) + ins of US (American) in OSAKA (Japanese port) for a dish traditionally eaten in Greece, Turkey and the Balkans, consisting of alternate layers of minced lamb, aubergines and tomatoes, usu covered with bechamel sauce and cheese.
13 EDITING OUT Reversed anagram whereby the answer is like a clue for IGNITED
15 YEAR-ROUND *(AUDREY + RON)
17 PEDIMENT IMPEDIMENT (bar) minus I M (one metre) a triangular structure crowning the front of a Greek building
19 ABEYANT ABBEY (heartless church) ANT (worker)
20 SCOFFER SCOFF (food, see Chambers 2) ER (expressed hesitation)
22 HOMER HOME (in) R (first letter of raven) for a homing pigeon
23 MASKS Ins of K (king) in MASS (crowd)
24 AFAR Ins of FA (first letters of Fits & And) in A R (river)

++++++++++++++
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
yfyap88 at gmail.com = in case anyone wants to contact me in private about some typo

33 comments on “Times 25512 – Advantage, Murray”

  1. Nice to get a decent time after floundering around for a week or so. LOI GLUTEAL, I think. DNK GREEHNHAM COMMON, so I had to look up GREENHAM; I’m sure it would have taken me a while to come up with COMMON from ‘accepted’. Lots of nice clues today; COD maybe to PROSIT.
  2. PRIOR is used here in its colloquial sense of an earlier criminal conviction, as in “He’s got prior”.
    1. It’s American apparently. The UK equivalent would be “He’s got previous”.
      1. In the US, it would be ‘He’s got a prior’ or ‘He’s got priors.’
      2. I’m on a verisimilitudinal (close WITH a cigar?) roll – yesterday Howdy, today Prior.
  3. Yet another excursion over the hour for me with all my DKs (Didn’t Knows) more likely to be PFs (Probably Forgottens). My last one in was 11ac where I had been fixated on LET ON but resisted writing it in because I couldn’t justify the wordplay. I’m hoping for something easier tomorrow or you may be waiting through Friday morning for the blog to appear.

    Re the tennis, Uncle Yap, surely one would hope (assuming one wants him to win) that Murray will be the player who beats Djokovic (in the Final) rather than hoping someone else will dispose of him to clear the way for Murray’s second major trophy?

    Edited at 2013-06-27 02:08 am (UTC)

  4. 43 minutes, finishing with the down 1,2,3. Serendipitous to get REDSTART the day after trying to invent goldstart. No unknowns (apart from the sail), but needed UY to help with the parsing of GLUTEAL and the reversed anagram.

    Greenham Common may stump a few youngsters or non-UK solvers.

  5. 20 minutes plus a couple of breaths today, and another enjoyable puzzle. CONVERSATIONAL was such a bizarrely improbable anagram that it was easy to accept “reunited” as the indicator.
    I took a while to get going, and my first, lightly entered, was LINER for 14, on the basis that it might be a sail I’d not heard of. LOI 19, as I could see how the clue worked but couldn’t think which church to empty. The NW, specifically 1ac, 2 and 3 were also late entries – I was thrown by both superior (U?) and “liquid refreshment” for 1, the proper ordering of 3 and the sheer cheek of “one thing after another” in 2, which makes it as my CoD just ahead of the answer-as-clue for EDITING OUT.

    Edited at 2013-06-27 08:57 am (UTC)

  6. Again defeated by unknowns (GLUTEAL, ABEYANT, PROSIT) even with all checkers correct. So many thanks Uncle Yap for such a clear, elucidatory blog. Overall an enjoyable, if ultimately frustrating, challenge.
  7. 15 mins mid-morning, and from the comments so far it seems like I was lucky to be on the setter’s wavelength.

    I usually go through the across clues first, and NYASALAND was my FOI. I used to drive past GREENHAM COMMON a few times a month so that one went in fairly quickly, although it is probably more famous for the anti-US cruise missile protests in the 1980s than being a WW2 airbase.

    The bottom half went in a lot faster than the top half, and the top only really opened up when I finally saw the excellent CONVERSATIONAL anagram. My LOI was GLUTEAL after I got the “u” checker from STATUTORY.

  8. Another over the hour for me today, but managed to get one (letter) wrong: I had proset at 28ac. All others ok. Found this one as challenging, but somehow not as enjoyable as yesterday’s. Maybe because I found it more of a grind, with fewer d’oh! penny-droppers? Who knows…

    Never heard of NYASALAND, COD: EDITING OUT, LOI: TRAIN (with a shrug)

  9. 20 minutes for most of this, but I gave up after another ten with ABEYANT unsolved. I could see how the wordplay worked but “abbey” just didn’t occur to me. Sigh.
    1. Yes indeed, an odd one, that – I struggled with an appropriate church. I think it’s in part because B doesn’t strike as being the middle letter of abbey, perhaps because it’s part of a double. Much of the time I was trying to take two letters from the middle of a six letter word, and chapel kept intruding unhelpfully.
      1. Possibly. The Y is an unlikely candidate too. It’s not really a difficult clue though. Again, sigh.
  10. I found this tough. Not on the setter’s wavelength. Only fair, I guess, that the boot should occasionally be on the other foot and that we should be required to be familiar with Americanisms not necessarily known on this side of the pond. I was able eventually to recall “prior” in the sense used here but had never met “tarps” before. Some very ingenious clues -e.g. EDITING OUT, PAST CARING and MANIFESTO.
  11. Yes, this was my major holdup, too, being unable to think of any words at all to fit checkers, even with probable ending -ant. (Eventually had to resort to Quinapalus’ Word Matcher)
  12. 20:58 .. the latest in a number of terrific recent puzzles. Thank you to all the setters involved.

    EDITING OUT is the sort of clue I love – clever as a cartload of monkeys. And “Small female mouse picked up by the ears” makes me glad I do read surfaces!

  13. Found this tough, though I think I should have been a bit quicker than the 56 minutes I actually took. Some clever constructions and good surfaces. The only one I thought was weak was 25, since FAUN and FAUNA have the same Latin root.
  14. 23:02 with abeyant last in.

    Easier than yesterday’s but still pretty chewy.

    Not all fully understood mindst, the best example of my ignorance being the notion that there must be a book or poem I didn’t know called Homer and the Raven. D’oh indeed.

    1. I meant to mention HOMER – another really neat surface and a great penny-drop clue. Gosh, I’m being nice about everything today – must be some of Uncle Yap’s sunny disposition rubbing off on me.
  15. A very enjoyable puzzle that was tough but fair. Completed in 25 minutes.

    Knew GREENHAM COMMON from ban the bomb brigade and also a rather good golf course that is quite near to it. Used to drive past all those smelly women in their strange camp and wave to them.

    Not keen on 4A. The words of the clue are in the wrong order “mandatory changes mostly” doesn’t delete the extra letter. It should say “mandatory mostly changes”

  16. 43.22 here but at least all correct. I thought this enjoyable throughout but was glad of UY’s explanation on a couple of occasions. Like others have said 13d was especially neat and gets my COD though 6d did bring to mind the late great Jake Thackeray and his ‘On again on again’ song which whilst not especially PC always makes me smile as a ‘good bum on a woman’ is ‘positive proof of God’s existence a posteriori’!
  17. Untimed, but mid-range on the difficulty meter to me, with both MINI and EDITING OUT raising a smile. I had trouble in the bottom half, having to spend a while trying alternatives for the separate parts of the airbase. Quite pleased with myself for doing so without aids, which then allowed me to solve ABEYANT, SCOFFER and MANIFESTO, which actually was my last in. I should have seen it earlier. Despite being an American, the whole business about ‘prior’ in 6D went right over my head, because while solving I just took it to signal ‘earlier’, leaving no role for ‘conviction’. I just shrugged and went on. Nice puzzle setter, and regards to everyone.
  18. There is an article in today’s Times about some academics studying the abilities of crossword solvers. It gives some advice to would be solvers including the use of this blog.
  19. 9:48 for me. Another puzzle where I took ages to get going, but then finished reasonably briskly. Another very fine puzzle.

    I was invited to participate in the University of Buckingham study, but it was being held in winter in the middle of nowhere (or something of the sort) so I declined. Which was a pity because the woman I spoke to about it turned out to be the daughter of the woman who ran one of the clog-dance groups I used to perform with (Camden Clog), and she recognised my name from that.

  20. Another very enjoyable puzzle, which, again, I felt I was in danger of failing to complete.
    Thank you to ulaca for the parsing of 6d, I had completely failed to recognise the ‘prior’ as the British ‘previous’, and, like kevin from new york, had also settled for regarding ‘conviction’ as superfluous in the clue.
    My only quibble is with 11a, where I felt that the indication for removal of the letter I was a little clumsy, but it’s only a very small quibble.
    Knowing at least one of the dedicated women who protested at Greenham Common, I can say with conviction that they were certainly not all ‘smelly’, whether one agrees with their political stance or not.
    George Clements
  21. Could somebody please explain what “planks assembled” in 26A have to do with manifesto.
    1. A political party’s policies are sometimes called planks. Many policies/planks = one manifesto.
      Rob
      1. Thanks Rob. Something I have never heard of. Showing my ignorance I suspect. Carolyne

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