Times 26221 – Don’t mention the rugby…

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Thank you for your patience. I know some people will be champing at the bit to give their comments – and perhaps a word or two about the puzzle as well.

24 minutes for this gentle Monday offering. Since I’m rather late getting to this, we’ll get straight down to it without mention of any oval-shaped ball game whatsoever.

ACROSS

1. PARMESAN – PAR[t] (part here being a division of a book) – actually, PAR the abbreviation for paragraph: thanks, Jack – + S in MEAN.
9. OKLAHOMA – OK + L + OMAHA* (anagram).
10. EARNER – ‘profitable job’; a sort of chiasmus of a clue, I think, where a new driver or LEARNER would be formed by adding L[eft] to an EARNER.
11. ICEBREAKER – C (the speed of light in a vacuum as featured in Einstein’s best known formula) in IE (‘that is’) + BREAKER.
12. FETA – F + ETA; no struggles in the group stage for this one: straight into the final of Easiest Clue of the Year.
13. PROSPECTUS – PUT PROCESS*.
16. PANICKY – PICKY around AN.
17. PILLORY – PILL + [d]O[u]R[l]Y. I didn’t know a PILL was a tiresome person; I thought that was a pillock.
20. VICTORIOUS – VICIOUS around TOR[y]. Um, not England…
22. ALLY – a sort of extended cryptic definition where our friend is verbALLY and editoriALLY useful. ‘Finalize’ with a zed raised an eyebrow.
23. TRENCHCOAT – TECHNOCRAT*.
25. TU[R]PIN – Dick of that ilk.
26. NOTIONAL – NOT I (‘disclaimer’ from the writer – as opposed perhaps to the speaker who would say ‘not me’, unless he were of a precise and slightly annoying persuasion) + ON (‘about’) + A + L[ine].
27. EMAILING – ME returned + AILING. My COD because it gave me something to smile about.

DOWNS

2. ANATHEMA – ANTHEM with one ‘an’ in and one after.
3. MONETARIST – IS in MONET + ART. City types can discuss the definition; Milton Friedman and his ferric protégée are the only two persons of that persuasion known to me.
4. STRIP POKER – moving swiftly on….
5. NOSE JOB – ‘knows’ [the book of] Job. Gathering even more speed…
6. SLUR – final letters of four words in the middle.
7. LOCKE[T]
8. SACRISTY – RACISTS* + [jul]Y. A rather bizarre surface.
14. POINSETTIA – SET (‘put’) in IN A POT I*.
15. COLLATERAL – ‘security’; hidden.
16. PIVOTING – P + I + VOTING.
18. RELIGION – ‘faith’; LI (Lithium) in REGION.
19. MONOCLE – nice cryptic definition.
21. CHEATS – nice literal, straightforward cryptic: C + HEATS.
24. HAND – N in HAD (‘done’ or ‘cheated’).

44 comments on “Times 26221 – Don’t mention the rugby…”

  1. 11.46 but anyone interested in joining my new faith? It is called Ralation. Very fundamental. Puts the aluminium in ones ration. Oh dear.
  2. Is anyone else having ipad issues today? I couldn’t download today’s edition and since I have tried to reinstall I can’t download the app.
    1. I could download the edition but I could not use the Content button to fast forward to Mindgames. A tedious sweep to get there through many pages, many of them mentioning the rugby . . .

      I am having problems with the Racing Post on iPad and apparently this is because I have not downloaded the latest OS. I am reluctant to do this as there are dire warnings of lost information in certain apps, especially the Vault, where I store passwords etc.

      1. I did wonder if the OS level could be an issue as I’ve never applied an update. However it seems to have sorted itself out now.
  3. Yes – I did that, then corrected it to ‘relation’ before submitting (I’d filled the grid in about 15 min, then went away and noticing that I’d not submitted did a quick check for typos, fixed that without reading the clue and pressed ‘submit’ – of such are error made. 🙁 )
  4. …this was pretty easy.

    14:31, no cricket clues, but no OREADs or DEMIURGES either. Traditional Monday fare.

    Thanks setter and commiserations blogger.

  5. As pleasant a “Monday” solve as I’m likely to find, I think. Only 7 and a bit minutes, but all enjoyable. Particularly fond of 22ac, as I always like those clues which are based on the process of setting clues.
  6. Fairly benign, but a good way to start the week, esp. after yesterday’s which I found v. hard going. Thanks for explaining 14, which I BIFD, and the PAR in 1a which also went through to the keeper.

    Sterner stuff undoubtedly on the menu for the rest of the week.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  7. At 1ac I had PAR (some text) – short for paragraph. 14dn took me the longest to resolve as I needed all the checkers. Otherwise this was quite a quick and tidy solve which I completed in 23 minutes, only 4 minutes more than I need for today’s Quickie.

    Edited at 2015-10-05 09:27 am (UTC)

  8. I too bifd POINSETTIA from checkers, and wondered about ‘text’ at 1ac. All others fine. About 20mins, so very quick for me
  9. I was doing quite well but then get stuck with last few for 10 minutes – mostly the SE corner. I didn’t see why ‘Some text’ was PAR in 1a – thanks ulaca. I was thinking xxSHIRE at first, but CHESHIRE was clearly not right. 18d my LOI. I liked the &lit 12a and 5d made me snigger. 23:38.
    1. Thanks, but I have adopted Jack’s parsing, since, on reflection, ‘some text’ to represent chopping off the final letter of a word is not really done, I think, cf ‘nearly all the text’.
      1. Ah yes. Even better. I’ve always seen paragraph abbreviated to ‘para.’ or, in HTML,

        , but I see ‘par.’ is also acceptable.

        1. I think “par” as opposed to “para” is, if not specific to them, certainly most common amongst journalists and sub-editors.
  11. Didn’t like some of these clues; 10ac is a bizarre construction and the self-referential 22ac irked me.
  12. 14.10. Nice gentle start to the week. It’s probably not original, and if I had seen it before I had forgotten it, but something as felicitous as ‘sentimental attachment’ was bound to make me happy.
  14. Breezed through this late last night so it must have been on the easy side. Did have a question mark next to PARMESAN but it couldn’t have been anything else
  15. 9:35. Are we back to easy Mondays?

    It’s just as well these things give you the correct number of squares for each word otherwise I’d probably have put SACRISTRY at 8.

  16. 14m. I’m battling some kind of lurgi at the moment and felt I was making heavy weather with this one. I got particularly stuck in the SE, where EMAILING as a single word was unexpected.
    I wasn’t particularly happy with the definition of MONETARIST: it’s a school of thought that doesn’t necessarily (or as a matter of fact these days) have much to do with controlling anything. A bit like defining ‘socialist’ as ‘leader of the Labour party’. Oh wait…

    Edited at 2015-10-05 12:22 pm (UTC)

  17. Gentle Monday, only nearly slipped on the RELIGION one, 20 minutes. I think ulaca ‘pill’ in my vocab is an abbrev. for pillock.
    Southampton thrash Chelsea, Arsenal thrash MU – a great weekend! Who bothers too much about being totally outplayed in a rugby match? They’d probably have lost the 1/4 final anyway.
    1. Pill stands in its own right as a tiresome person according to Chambers and COED. I think pillock started life as an obscenity.
    2. This is a usage you find quite a lot in P. G. Wodehouse. In this sense a pill is the opposite of a brick.
  18. Can’t spell PARMESAN (would you believe an I in the middle?) so couldn’t parse it either. And a relatively slow solve, to boot.
    A mild query: given that adverbial clues don’t occur with any frequency, as far as I can see, what it “often” doing in 22ac?
    Great anagram at 22, and, like johninterred I appreciated the bonus &litery of 12ac.
    I privately queried “financial controller” at 3d but felt it unwise to expose my lack of sophistication in economic affairs

    Edited at 2015-10-05 02:27 pm (UTC)

    1. I think the setter is saying that among the (admittedly not too frequent) adverbial clues, ALLY comes up comparatively often. (I haven’t checked whether that’s actually true, but it sounds plausible.)
  19. About 20 minutes, no problems. LOI was POINSETTIA, which I thought a bit odd, as I did EARNER. But overall a fairly easy exercise. Thanks ulaca, and regards.
  20. Sorry Ulaca. In the event Australia was a shoo-in. Then it was you or us. I’m just glad it was us! They decided the groups far too early. Rankings change. It should never have come to a knock-out at this stage. Back to puzzle: Nice comfortable solve. No problems or queries. 17 minutes. Ann
    1. Thanks for the consolation, Ann, but the simple truth is that England had four years to prepare and couldn’t even decide on their best team. They were simply not good enough.

      I’m praying for a Millennium quarter-final between France and NZ, with Wayne Barnes as referee!

      Wales/Australia will be interesting because I think Wales will contest the breakdown far better than England and be less ponderous and predictable in attack.

  21. 10 mins, although I confess I biffed POINSETTIA and PARMESAN and didn’t bother to go back and check how they were parsed. For some reason it took me way too long to see that the clue for MONOCLE was a cryptic definition. RELIGION was my LOI.
  22. Tipped off by the QC blogger that today’s big puzzle was not too difficult I had a go and managed to finish it in a couple of longish sessions -proof that QC practice and help from the blogs work(thanks to all bloggers).My last two in were 18d and 22a -just couldn’t see them for a while and not helped by uncertainty over Pillory.
    Incidentally I had a go at Saturday’s puzzle (no QC on Saturdays) and thought that was really difficult,close to impossible.David
  23. 8:53 for me, plodding through fairly steadily until held up at the end by RELIGION – which I suppose I might expect as a member of the National Secular Society.

    I thought this was an exemplary Monday Times cryptic, and I raise my hat to the setter for providing such an agreeable start to the week.

  24. In case anyone hasn’t seen the setter (I assume) turn up to grumble that no one spotted his Nina, does anyone know what the HUNDRED AND FIFTY hidden in Friday’s solution might have been referring to?

    I did alright on this one last night, 7 minutes or so and that after definitely too much red wine. 19dn’s cryptic def my LOI, and while I agree that some of the cluing elsewhere in this one was unexpected, I think I do prefer that to the same old same old?

    1. Well, the Watercrest line opened 2nd October 1865, so it might be that. Can’t see anything else, and no other hint in the puzzle that stands out. The 150 takes som finding, mind. Good spot!

    2. I would guess that it was the 150th Times puzzle set by Roger Phillips (who sets as Nestor in the Indy).
  25. Twenty-two minutes here, with no major hold-ups (I’m just always that slow).

    I should also like to inform Verlaine that the phrase “too much red wine” is an oxymoron.

  26. Late to the solving tonight, and untimed but about par for the course I think.

    Too much red wine an oxymoron? I”ll think about that when the merlot headache has subsided, but I don’t think it is. Surely, an oxymoron is a stupid cow (Uxbridge English Dictionary).

    Edited at 2015-10-05 11:22 pm (UTC)

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