Times 25832 – Expect Records to Tumble

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This was perhaps the easiest daily crossword I have ever done, and certainly the easiest since I started blogging nearly two years ago. I expect a lot of fast times, several PBs and not a few less than gruntled regulars. 12.5 minutes for me. On edit: How embarrassing! I managed to make an asp of myself at 17ac. Should have paid more attention in Chemistry.

ACROSS

1 SUPER BOWL – SUPERB + OWL
6 BASTE – hidden (my last in, if also one of my last looked at)
9 FATIGUE – ‘wear’ in its verbal sense of make weary (perhaps the nominal one can stretch to this too); FATIGUE[s]
10 GIRAFFE – GAFFE around IR[ish]
11 SYNOD – S[ill]Y + NOD
12 NUTRIMENT – NUT (fanatic) + an anagram* of TERM + I around N[oon]
13 SCHOONER – CH[eck; as in chess move] in (on board) SOONER
14 DIVA – reversal of ‘avid’; the across word du jour
17 ASPS – AS + first letters of A[rsenic] P[ut] P[araquat] S[trychnine]; my Internet is playing up, so the meaning of ‘poisonous things’ will need to come from the floor. Thanks to anon for reminding me that As is the chemical symbol for arsenic.
18 JETTISON – JET + IS+NOT*
21 ENCHILADA – CHILEAN*+ D + A
22 RELIC – RE + L + IC
24 AS USUAL – AL[l] after A + S[outh] + US + U[niversity]
25 ADORNED – N in ADORED
26 EVENT – EVEN + [even]T
27 TREATMENT – TREAT (pay for) + M + ENT

DOWN

1 SIFTS – F in SITS; riddle, besides it CRS meaning, means to sift
2 PUT IN THE PICTURE – double definition
3 RIGADOON – a musical from bygone days derived from [b]RIGADOON – a dance of bygone days
4 OLEANDER – O + [LEADER around N]
5 LEGATO – how I rely on the internet these days! I imagine a legator is a cleric, whose responsibilities include reading Wrong again! It’s LEGAT[e] + O, where the legate is a Papal representative
6 BERLIN – a triple, I reckon, consisting of Irving Berlin, a carriage and the capital of Germany, who I hope will win the World Cup, as I have a few bob on them
7 SUFFER IN SILENCE – a nice image, is it not? Trappists are the best known of the orders that take a vow of silence
8 EYESTRAIN – one needs to get into Wodehouse mode for this one; it’s E[nglish] = TRAIN [tutor –verb] around YES (rather – as in ‘top hole, what, old chap!’ AKA Yes)
13 STALEMATE – STALE (old) + MATE (fellow) for the down word du jour
15 SEPARATE – APES reversed + RATE
16 START OUT – STOUT (porter as in beer-like drink) around ART
19 PIQUET – PIQUE + T[ell] for the game played to a stalemate by divas nibbling chestnuts?
20 BALLET – ALL in BET
23 CADET – [m]ADE in CT

45 comments on “Times 25832 – Expect Records to Tumble”

  1. So not a doddle at this end. All of the trouble in the top left with RIGADOON and FATIGUE last in. What I know of musicals can be written on the back of a bus ticket in large script.

    Germany to win? They have to get through Brazil first and then either Argentina or Netherlands. So I wouldn’t be counting your winnings yet!

    1. If a ref from Asia or Africa is assigned to the Bra/Ger game, I will probably tear up the ticket.
  2. Not a PB, but getting close. 35 min. Not much else to say. Thx for the blog.
  4. Not a pb, but close enough; fast enough that some of the answers went in on checkers alone, e.g. 23d. The one that slowed me down was my LOI, OLEANDER. Ulaca, you’ve got a minor typo at 6d: IrvinG
    1. Reminds me of the story Isiah Berlin tells of being invited to the White House for dinner. The then President (Johnson perhaps?) inquired of him whether he’d written any good songs recently.
  5. Not quite a PB but close, even though done quite leisurely while eating lunch.

    7dn made me chuckle by reminding me of Percy’s attempt to make conversation with the silent Lord Whiteadder: “Erm, er, yes, er, well, Lord Whiteadder, er, a vow of silence… Now, that’s quite an interesting thing… Tell me about it.”

    1. That very episode was on TV last night while I was waiting to see the tennis.
  6. Not as speedy as our esteemed blogger, but my second-best time ever, I think. Mostly fun clues, but you’d probably prefer more of a challenge on a daily basis.
  7. 17 minutes must be very near my PB if I knew what it was, though I think may have achieved sub-15 once. Time lost considering “Bartok” at 6dn (before I had the third checker in place) prevented that today. But anyway there were only 4 minutes for me between this and today’s Quickie.

    Edited at 2014-07-07 05:42 am (UTC)

  8. I agree with Ulaca and Jack that this must be one of the easiest main daily cryptics in a long while, its difficulty only marginally greater than that of one of the more demanding Quickies. About 25 mins for me, which must be close to a PB. There will surely be some nano-second times from the resident speedsters.

    A pleasant and entertaining puzzle for all that, with some nice surfaces (e.g. SUFFER IN SILENCE). My LOI was LEGATO, with its combination of musical terminology with a far from obvious definition for “member of the clergy”.

  9. 9:31 .. while somewhat 9 acrossed after a weekend up in town. This was just the puzzle I needed. Thank you, setter.

    Some nice moments, like GIRAFFE and said 9a (FATIGUE). And I agree, ulaca, lovely image with the brothers suffering in silence. Not quite on point but it did make me think of Dave Allen … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx6hAQmR1fg . Didn’t he do some sketches with a silent order, too?

    1. Sotira, Many thanks for the Dave Allen clip. Never seen that one before. Made my day.
  10. About 8 mins here, including a short interruption to show my ticket and a phone call from the missus. So yes, pretty easy. I see Jason James did it in 2:59 on the Club leader board, with Magoo yet to appear.
  11. It must have been easy because I finished it. However I did have to look up 3, 4 and 19 to make sure my guesses were correct. I’d never heard of those words before.

    No doubt in my mind that the QC is helping. I’m completing the main puzzle more frequently now. Most of the time with aids but it wasn’t so long ago that I wasn’t able to finish with them either.

  12. 17m, with the last 3 spent on PIQUET, which I knew only as a racing driver and not as a card game. I almost had APPS at 17A until a rare triumph for haste over speed.

    For 16D I’ve always thought of stout and porter being similar but not synonymous as the clue would have it.

    1. I think originally, at least here in Ireland, stout and porter were different products (stout being stronger). But around the the time of WW11 (quaintly referred to as ‘the emergency’ in Ireland) brewers began to mess about with the strengths and the terms became synonymous. One can now ask for ‘a pint of porter’ or a ‘pint of stout’ and you’ll get the same thing (Guinness country-wide and Beamish or Murphy’s in Cork).
      1. I’m a big fan of the porter/stout served at The Porterhouse pub in Covent Garden. I see that of the few Porterhouse establishments there is one in Cork. Perhaps you know it?
        1. No, I hardly ever get to the big city (!) as it’s 45 miles away, but next time I’m there I’ll check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!
  13. 6:11. My second fastest ever. It would have been a PB and under 5 minutes without PIQUET. Of course we don’t want them this easy very often but it’s good for the ego from time to time.
    Interesting how a puzzle can be this simple in spite of a fairly generous helping of less-than-everyday words: SCHOONER, ‘riddles’, RIGADOON, Brigadoon, OLEANDER, PIQUET. Just follow the wordplay.

    Edited at 2014-07-07 09:31 am (UTC)

  14. On the basis that the received wisdom seems to be Monday is easy street for the main cryptic, I decided to have a go tonight after a long day at the factory here in Sydney. And managed to get it out!

    OK, ridiculously easy for the senior pros, but very happy to have a workyday win – usually I only do the main one on Saturday and Sunday when I am free from the day to day madness we call work.

    PIQUET last one in – did not know this game, but guessed it from chequers and wordplay. Also had to validate RIGADOON.

    Interestingly (or maybe not), SUPER BOWL (with pretty much – from memory – the exact same clueing) cropped up in a Sydney Morning Herald cryptic around Easter 2013. Remember it well, as it was the first time I had ever got a DA (David Astle) SMH cryptic completed, and at that stage in my development as a crossworder I thought it was a great clue. (DA is the hard man of SMH cryptics). Probably just coincidence, or is there a central repository of great clues shared by the setters from different papers around the world?

    Edited at 2014-07-07 11:21 am (UTC)

    1. A quick check shows that the proud hunter makes an annual migration to the Times – 25224 and 25615 being the most recent sightings.
      1. Aha! Thanks very much for the references. Something of a running gag then (but a good one…)
  15. 12 minutes with only RIGADOON causing any problems (never heard of either the dance or the musical, but my guess turned out to be correct). Now I’ve got nothing to do during lunch.
  17. Was it too easy? I would say so. Like drinking alcohol-free beer, you don’t really get the full-on experience. Or meat-free sausages. They’re just the wurst.

    Under ten for me. I’ll win the Championship at this rate.

  18. 8:58 with a real sense of deja vu on some clues, certainly the superb owl and I’ve a feeling rigadoon may have caused me problems when it last appeared.

    Just did some sums and this took me 17.9 seconds per clue compared with 16.6 for the QC which felt a little tricky for a quick.

  19. 16.06 but hoped for a sub-10 (and never had that hope before) until I reached the NW where I had 4 blank minutes before 1a fell. Oddly enough I had the same fleeting memory of Dave Allen at Large as I filled in 7d. Enjoyable puzzle and it was cheering to finish for once in a while.
  20. Two missing today – both unknowns (Oleander and Piquet). I must learn more card games beyond Chase The Ace.
    No difficulties with the rest.
  21. 7 mins and definitely a PB because I’m not sure I’ve gone below 9 mins before. Having all the requisite GK obviously helped, and the QC only took me a minute less. For the most part the answers jumped out at me as soon as I read the clues. SCHOONER was my LOI after STALEMATE.
  22. Agree with everyone, didn’t time it, but a pretty quick solve, only sucking on the end of the pen for a minute or two with the last ones in – EYESTRAIN and DIVA.
  23. Probably not the easist daily that I have seen over the (45+) years but certainly a gentle start to the week. I feel that I am slowed down by poking keys etc rather than scribbling (and scribbling over – sorry CS) on a real newspaper.
    The owner of the brewery in my village has a black labrador called Stout. Figures I guess.

    Edited at 2014-07-07 03:07 pm (UTC)

  24. A PB for me since I began using a print-out and timing my efforts. 13 minutes which, considering my dodgy eyesight, is unlikely to be bettered any time soon! Ann
  25. 7 and a half minutes but the occasional very light puzzle is nothing to complain about. As Inspector Clouseau said, “It’s all part of life’s rich pageant, you know”.
  26. Agreed, something of a walk in the park, mine ending with BERLIN and LEGATO. I didn’t time it, but probably in the 15 minute range. Not much else to say, so regards.
  27. 5:33 for me, slowed by going for a clean sweep, which came to a miserable end after I’d spent far too long trying and failing to get STALEMATE. A pleasant start to the week nonetheless.
  28. A late sub-ten (by 7 seconds) after being part of the rich tapestry that is the Tour de France, both assisting and watching. The latter is 4 hours or so of not very much happening (though there was a googleplex of Skodas) followed by 17 seconds of flashing wheels and pumping legs. Actually, come to think of it, not many of the exotic materials wheels are made of flash. And our bit of the Tour is downhill, so not that much pumping, either.
    The puzzle? A welcome, simple relief after the weekend’s exertions and the contretemps on Saturday. Welcome back too to tooriffic too whit too woo , like an old friend you still greet with a smile.
    1. Followers of QI will know that ‘too whit too whoo’ is not the sound of an owl: it is the sound of two owls. The male says ‘too whit’ and the female responds ‘too whoo’. Or possibly the other way round.

Comments are closed.