Times 26217 – it’s there, just.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A straightfoward enough puzzle, no obscurities, 16 minutes, a few cunning traps to fall into if you were a biffer, and yes, it’s there, just; today’s cricket related clue, near the end. I wonder (but I can’t be bothered to do the analysis) what percentage of Times puzzles don’t have a cricket-linked clue in them? I suspect it’s a low figure; do our transatlantic friends need to be kept believing we’re a cricket-obsessed nation of white-flanneled chaps and Roedean ladies?
Anyway, here’s the blog.
D = definition, DD = double D, [A] = anagrind, if amusing or not obvious.

Across
1 AIR SCOUT – AIRS (displays), C(O)UT = O in style; D uniformed youngster. Of course, the temptation to write in BOY instantly was there, then I thought, there are others; AIR, SEA, for example, which one parses? Black mark for anyone who had to erase BOY or CUB.
5 ELISHA – (ISH AEL)*; D prophet.
9 COBBLERS – DD; I think a cobbler in this case is a sort of pie without a bottom crust, but that might be cobblers.
10 GOBLET – GOB (mouth) LET (allowed); D drinking vessel.
12 SAUNA – SUN (newspaper) then A (article) around A; D a session in the spa?
13 MIDSEASON – (MADISON SE)*, where SE = S(QUAR)E empty; D in the heart of winter?
14 CHARING CROSS – CHAOS = havoc; insert RING, CR; add S (near south); D London terminal.
18 LAMENTATIONS – LA MEN are Hollywood folk, maybe; Jacques TATI’S = French director’s; insert ON = performing; D biblical work. This sprang to mind quickly as it’s the last of the six C J Sansom novels about Henry VIII and I finished it recently, the best of the set IMO.
21 STAGE PLAY – AGE and PL inserted into STAY = holiday; D live entertainment.
23 VERNE – Reverse all; EN RE V = in French, about, volume; D he wrote.
24 ANTHEM – THE M(ASS) after A N(EW); D hymn.
25 FAIR ISLE – F(emale), AISLE, insert IR; D knitwear. A sweater with a complex multicoloured or striped pattern.
26 TO DATE – Slightly witty DD.
27 IDOLISED – I DO LIED = I perform song, insert S(HOW); D worshipped by fans.

Down
1 ACCUSE – CU’S inserted into ACE; D charge.
2 RUB OUT – RU (rugby) BOUT (match); D put an end to.
3 CALLAGHAN – CALL A GHAN(A) = name, most of African country, after A; D former British PM.
4 UNREMARKABLY – UN (a French) RELY (bank), insert MARK and AB for the currency and the sailor; D not surprisingly.
6 LOOSE – (B)OO(K) = OO, inside LSE; D inaccurate.
7 SOLO STOP – SO LOST = very confused, OP = work; D piece for organ. A jolly interesting list of around 2000 organ stops – useful for setters? – can be found here: http://www.organstops.org/
8 ARTINESS – (STAINER’S)*; D showing such cultural pretension.
11 IDENTITY CARD – I’D (CERTAINTY)*, D (back of pad); D personal document.
15 CANAVERAL – Insert AVER (state) into CANAL (water); D name of cape in US. For 11 years it was re-named Cape Kennedy but now it’s Cape Canaveral again; is this because JFK was shown to be rather less of a saintly well-behaved chap than we’d first thought?
16 CLASS ACT – CLASS (kind), ACT (deed); D impressive person. I liked this one.
17 IMPARTED – I’M PARTED = my spouse has left me! D revealed.
19 CRISIS – C(AMPE)R = camper losing contents, ISIS = river (as the Thames around Oxford is so called); D emergency. There’s a long list of things which are no longer called ISIS because of the connotations of the jihadist army, among them its use as a name for a hurricane, but I believe the river is still the Isis.
20 LEGEND – D 27 player = idolised player; LEG = side in cricket, END = goal.
22 ERECT – Hidden reversed in IMPORTAN(T CERE)MONY; D standing up.

33 comments on “Times 26217 – it’s there, just.”

  1. … so yes, all quite straightforward.

    My black mark would be for having to erase CUB SCOUT at 1ac. Needed wp to work out spelling of CANAVERAL.

  2. Never heard of AIR SCOUT but with all the crossers and knowing about Sea Scouts, it had to be. LOI CALLAGHAN (not Dirty Harry).
  3. I was held up slightly at the end by CALLAGHAN and AIR SCOUT, the latter of which I kept thinking was going to be AIR CADET and thus made me wonder if I had something wrong. I should have known better with both my boys being air scouts!
  4. 21′ dead; didn’t know cobblers as desserts; satisfactory work-out; unremarkably so; 3 now chiefly memorable for denying 19, though the Lib-Lab pact a clever con.
  5. 13:32 .. not difficult, but very nicely put together, I thought (as is today’s Telegraph cryptic, for those with access — some super clues).

    I saw RUB OUT as one of those mobster expressions you find in Damon Runyon, Elmore Leonard etc. — “old Lefty got rubbed out when Bootsie caught him skimming on the vigorish”

    Always nice to see COBBLERS. Just a peach of a word.

  6. No problems with this one despite the tang of religion that runs through it

    Jim Callaghan was the PM before Margaret Thatcher and indeed lived in interesting times. As is so often the case he is remembered not for his achievements but for first “singing” the song “waiting at the church” at a Labour Party Conference whilst he dithered over calling an election; returning to the country in the middle of the Winter of Discontent and asking “Crisis, what crisis?”; losing to the unknown Thatcher in the election that
    followed

    1. Jimbo, what Callaghan actually said, in an airport interview on his return from some foreign jaunt, was the rather less catchy “I don’t think other people in the world would share the view there is mounting chaos”. It was the headline in the next morning’s Sun newspaper (where else?) that summarised the remark as “Crisis? What crisis?” An interesting case of how the misquotation, or pithy summary, can be far more memorable than the original words. It seems, to give another example, that Voltaire never said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”, which was a later writer’s much crisper summary of Voltaire’s defence of free speech and opposition to censorship.
      1. You just beat me to it. I knew Callaghan never said those words, but was researching what he actually did say, during which time you must have posted.
        Typical Tory press. They’re doing the same thing now, completely misrepresenting everything that Corbyn says.
  7. 15m, stuck for a while at the end with the 1s. I got 2dn early on so I never considered BOY or CUB (once I’d double checked RUB OUT at least) but I didn’t know there was an AIR version so I needed 1dn. My problem there was looking for a word meaning ‘expert’ consisting of CU or CUS inside a word for ‘charge’. That sort of thing often catches me out.
    Thanks for the interesting tidbit on Cape CANAVERAL, Pip: I didn’t know that. From a bit of internetting it appears that the name was changed by LBJ but this was always very unpopular with the locals, who had got used to the original name after 400-odd years.

    Edited at 2015-09-30 08:33 am (UTC)

  8. Yes, CUB SCOUT was my first thought at 1ac but didn’t get as far as writing it in. AIR SCOUT was unknown. Can’t say that SOLO STOP has ever come my way before either despite my music studies. 27 minutes. LAM with reference to LAMENTATIONS came up in a Quickie as recently as last week, I think.
  9. 18:13. I thought I was on for close to a PB, but the NW corner held me up by 5 minutes. Having put it in, I was dubious about RUB OUT, I’d never heard of an AIR SCOUT and I knew of COBBLER only as a savoury dish. I enjoyed the linked 7 and 8d and, with the ANTHEM at 24a too, 18a reminded me of the excellent piece by Thomas Tallis.
  10. Not much to comment on, usual high standard puzzle. Should be more cricket clues.

    Thanks setter and Pip.

  13. As others have already said, an enjoyable puzzle with some cleverly constructed clues. I’d not heard of COBBLER, though may well have eaten one without knowing it. There wasn’t much else that would fit once the cross-checkers were in place.

    I just escaped earning Pip’s black mark at 1A — I toyed with BOY SCOUT for quite a while but never got round to writing it in so did not have to erase it.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  14. Cobblers can of course be savoury as well as sweet. I remember with horror the beef cobbler deemed fit for human consumption by Surrey County Council, forced upon all of us at St Jude’s Primary in the sixties. Gristle, water and white pepper topped with limestone scones.

    Edited at 2015-09-30 10:42 am (UTC)

  15. Two black marks hereabouts

    1ac BOY SCOUT led to 1d BOFFIN (biffed) led to 9ac FLUMMERY (muffed)which led to ….ten wasted minutes(miffed).

    About half an hour – should have been 20 minutes!

    GOB and COBBLERS lovely!COD 13 ac

    horryd – Shanghai

  16. Mainly very straightforward, more like Monday. The ones that held some others up didn’t cause me any problem, but for some strange reason I took ages to get my last two, 17 and 20. For the latter all that came to mind initially to fill the gaps were DEPEND and DEFEND.
  17. Obviously the way to get my Times crossword brain back is to fit it into what is fast becoming a terrible work day -I’ve taken multi-tasking to a whole new level. This took me 7:53

    As for cobblers, I’ve eaten many a peach cobbler, have a recipe for a very nice seafood cobbler but never ever have I put rhubarb under the ‘cobbles’.

  18. 10:08, no problems, although the organ piece and prophet wouldn’t have made the cut if you’d asked me to name 20 of each. I’d have ducked under 10′ but for my LOI, 1d, which I was attacking from the wrong end as described by Keriothe.

    Cobblers is indeed a great word (and a woody one at that).

  19. This was a fun one but I did myself no favors by confidently writing in TIE OFF for 2 down and really held up that corner. COBBLERS finally sorted it out.
  20. About 25 minutes, held up by reverse understanding of 1D, trying for a definition of ‘expert’ as per George and keriothe, before seeing the light. Then I deduced my LOI, the unknown to me AIR SCOUT. I can vaguely imagine what they do, but can’t really see the need for dividing the young men (and women) into all these subset scout groups. The SOLO STOP was also unfamiliar, but everything else went in OK. Regards.
  21. 13 mins. It should have been 10 or 11 but for some reason it took me a while to see the wordplay for SOLO STOP, it being a term I was either unfamiliar with or had forgotten. I would also have got 1ac a lot quicker if I hadn’t been reading the first word of the clue as “uninformed” for a while. When the race to the moon was at its height I was a boy who was enthralled by it, Cape Canaveral was Cape Kennedy at that time, and that’s still how I remember it.
  22. 32m so having a good week so far! I enjoyed this; struggled to get going, feared the worst and then gradually wormed my way in. Same unknowns as others but I thought the clues fair. Two black marks for me , pip, as I had cub and boy before seeing the wordplay. Also couldn’t parse some – CRISIS eg – and biffed them. So thanks for blog and thanks to setter for a pleasant 30m.
  23. 38 minutes including the time needed to erase BOY SCOUT, not too hard but with many amusing constructions in the wordplay. And the usual spate of unknowns which I couldn’t have solved without the wordplay: SOLO STOP and FAIR ISLE and AIR SCOUT. COBBLERS as pastry was OK, but as RHUBARB — not in my version of whatever language this is, although I did have a very faint inkling of having seen it before. As for Cape Canaveral, Kennedy does live on in the name of New York’s main airport, but before that it was Idlewild, much better! Can we move Kennedy back to Florida?
  24. Forgot to say earlier that the required meaning of “rhubarb” came up in the Quickie set by Don Manley on 17 September.
  25. A truly disappointing 11:06 for me. Like others I made heavy weather of the NW corner, wanting 1ac to be either CUB SCOUT or BOY SCOUT and not thinking of SEA SCOUT which might (or then again might not) have led to the less familiar AIR SCOUT. I’d forgotten that “rhubarb” could mean “nonsense”, which didn’t help.

    Janet and I spent a pleasant morning in Kew Gardens, but the afternoon was taken up with trying to sort out this damned move again, leaving me in poor shape for an evening solve. (Deep sigh!)

  26. Cobblers are popular puddings Stateside, but I was less sure of the other definition. I get the black mark for Boy Scout / Boffin, having never encountered any other than boy- cub- and girl-scouts. On the other hand the cricket rarely throws me a googly. I thought Canaveral was a write-in, but also liked the elegance of Florida being the only state, excluding Hawaii and possibly Alaska, which literally has water on both sides. Thanks for the blog, Pip, and for the puzzle, setter
  27. Well, the clue has ‘desserts’ (plural) so the plural of ‘cobbler’ follows quite – er – logically.
  28. I decided on Canaveral because it is a cape in the state of Florida, which has water on both sides. See a map.

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