Times 26425 – What is all this juice and all this joy?

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A puzzle worthy of the Spring Bank Holiday, with lots of nice stuff and enough trickery to keep me occupied for 51 minutes, which included a pit-stop which was only marginally longer than Daniel Ricciardo’s. At one stage, I thought I might need a Red Bull to give me a turbo boost, but it all came together in the end when I sussed out what was happening in the Rafa Benitez corner and finally worked out what stood for ‘pale’ in 17 across.

I will be on holiday in England in June and have set aside Wednesday 29 June for a possible TfTT get-together along the lines of the one we had three or four years ago on a previous visit. Since I will be staying in Vauxhall, I was thinking perhaps of the Old Red Lion on Kennington Park Road, but London folk on the blog may know a better place. We would aim to congregate at 6pm, and setters – as well as the founder of this blog – would be most welcome to join. Unfortunately, my time is tight and weekends and Fridays are out.

If there is sufficient interest in the responses here, I will ask Andy (Linxit) to create a sticky, and we can to take it from there.

Right, back to the crossword with a tip of t’ ‘at to t’ setter…

ACROSS

1. ANTI-SEMITE – what a fine clue to kick off with! An anagram* of TISANE + MITE. Tisane is a herb tea, which I have neither heard of nor drunk.
6. ECHT – another nice clue. [br]ECHT is the doubly German wordplay.
9. TAMBOURINE – NOT + [d]RAMBUIE*. Not so shabby either.
10. EDGE – every other letter of [h]E[i]D[e]G[g]E[r].
12. LADY CHATTERLEY – the story of the posh bird and her gamekeeper turned poacher, told in Lawrence’s inimitable style, which you may like. Or not. Depends. LAD (groom) + YY (wise, so to speak) around CHATTER (conversation) + LE (the Parisian).
14. IRONED – ONE in I + RD; de-creased: boom, boom!
15. ARROGATE – among the more bizarre, nay contrived, surfaces of the year. The literal is ‘appropriate’ (as in nick) and the wordplay [h]ARROGATE, where the rugby goal (AKA posts) is represented by the letter H.
17. DISALLOW – my last in, so it must be cunning. I’D (complier had) reversed + SALLOW, literal ‘bar’.
19. ODDS-ON – literal ‘likely’; ODD + SON. Compact.
22. UNCONVENTIONAL – ‘defying expectations’; CONVENT in UNION + AL[l].
24. FOIL – F + OIL.
25. ATROCITIES – TIE in ACTOR IS*.
26. RUNE – a drug smuggler might run Ecstasy, AKA E.
27. FREE AGENTS – literal ‘they aren’t bound’; FREE + GENT in AS.

DOWNS

1. ARTY – ‘like luvvies’; the R of repertory is pronounced AR, while the T of theatre is pronounced TY (think Hardin or Powell). Forget that nonsense – R and T (first letters of ‘repertory theatre’) sound like ARTY.
2. TIMPANO – IMP in TAN (topaz colour, that is, yellow-brown) + O.
3. STORYTELLING – TORY in S (society) + TELLING (as in Lady C gives Mellors a telling smile).
4. MARSHY – MARS + H[az]Y.
5. TINCTURE – ‘medicinal extract’; T in TIN CURE .
7. CEDILLA – LID in ALEC all reversed.
8. TEENY-WEENY – I thought this was great. The literal is ‘little’ and the wordplay TEE (help if driving) followed by W + E[ngin]E surrounded by two NYs.
11. SECOND COMING – I liked this too. MIN in SECOND (back) + COG (a cog can be a wheel as well as a tooth).
13. WINDSURFER – WIND + F in SURER.
16. FORESTER – an elegant &lit: FOR + TREES*.
18. SECTION – ‘cut’; SECT (school) + I[rritation] + ON (running).
20. SHAVIAN – ‘evoking a writer’ (George Bernard Shaw, to be precise); S[idmout]H + AVIAN.
21. STROKE – ‘perhaps crawl’(AKA freestyle); R in STOKE. (KEELE and GOOLE, which isn’t even in the Midlands, were my first thoughts).
23. ISIS – a simple one to finish with.

28 comments on “Times 26425 – What is all this juice and all this joy?”

  1. … this was tougher than yer usual Mon-puzz.
    (No idea about UK bank holidays. Do the banks still get them? As if they don’t have enough privileges already. At least Australians have the good sense to call them “public” holidays — and, for that matter, have changed “civil” to “public” servants; the former being a soupçon on the oxymoronish side.)
    But it’s beautifully balanced with uncle Bertolt (6ac) as far left as St Martin (10ac) was right.
    A few new bits for me: the H posts (15ac); “de-creased” for IRONED; “school” for SECT (18dn); “topaz” for TAN (2dn).
    But you can keep your “smart aleçs” (7dn). One day, I’ll get a group of us together and get the epithet banned on the grounds of nominal prejudice.
    24ac: slight pity that F,ART isn’t something metallic.

    Ulaca: the literal at 8dn is “Little”.

    1. Thanks – have downsizing on the brain with all the redundancies around here. 25 departments, and only one (HR) has avoided a cull…
      1. Classic! The toecutters never cut their own. I’ve always found the expression “human resources” among the least humanistic in the capitalist dictionary.
        1. We used to call them “Human Remains”. It took an expensive consultancy to point out to the powers that be that a ratio of 1 HR person for every 5 staff was a trifle excessive.
    2. If they really wanted to avoid oxymorons, surely they would call them “public masters” or similar?

      And I do sympathise with your views on smart-a****, having been subjected to numerous jerrycan and jerrybuilding-related jokes over the years (also gerrymandering and geriatric, by those less able in the spelling dept).

      Edited at 2016-05-30 08:33 am (UTC)

  2. U, there’s a typo at 15ac where the answer should read ARROGATE rather than “arrogant”.

    Yes, a very enjoyable work-out involving several biffs, LADY C, SECOND COMING and SECTION. “Decrease/iron” is a chestnut but the rugby goal for H was a new one on me.

    I’m unclear about the reference to Ty Hardin as I’ve always pronounced the Bronco actor as “Thai”, and I never heard of Ty Powell, but anyway, without invoking that, surely 1dn is just a matter of saying the letters R T to get ARTY?

    Edited at 2016-05-30 05:05 am (UTC)

    1. Yep, that’s it. I was put more in mind of the great R{ichard} T{hompson} — with a silent P, as in “bath”.
      Apologies to Janie.
    2. Um, a couple of senior moments for the price of one in the irrelevant explanation. It is of course Ty Power to whom I was referring.

      Thanks, and blog duly amended.

  3. This one cheered me up after yesterday’s yuck (I thought so, anyway). Smiled at “too wise, say”, the rugby goal (though I confess I spent a little while with that one pondering how to get rid of the W as well) and “decreased” – even oldies but goldies can make you smile if they’re done properly. FORESTER was a pleasing &lit.
    I am able to confirm that “Bank Holiday” in the UK usually means “grey, windy and rather damp”. Thanks to setter and Ulaca for a fine attempt to brighten things up
  4. Might have to change the quality of the beans, but I’m sure something could be managed
  5. Tried to sneak in under the 30-minute mark, but there’s not much point in that if you get the answers wrong. I had a half-parsed TIMPANI at 2dn which led to a highly-speculative IRIDED at 14ac.

    Nice variety of clues, excellent weekend puzzle. Pity it’s not a weekend here, but maybe that means we’ll get an easy one tomorrow.

    Thanks setter and Ulaca. Wish I could join you on the 29th, we could toast the Wallabies’ 3-0 victory. Maybe next time.

    1. Who are they playing in the warm-up to the main event? Tonga? Bit harsh to suggest they won’t score a try.
  6. Middle difficulty level this morning, with some very neat clues and nice surfaces. Failed to parse 15ac so thanks for that Ulaca. Team games were never my strongest suit
  7. Took a while for the penny to drop as am now retired and it’s all the same to me. A really excellent workout today, 33′, loved DISALLOW and especially IRONED LOI. Pity no ref to yellow polka dot in 8d. Thanks to setter, and blogger particularly for parsing of TIMPANO.

    Edited at 2016-05-30 09:05 am (UTC)

  8. 25:26 for a bit chewier than a normal Monday one but ideal for a bank holiday. Some nice clueing, especially the rugby posts which I have not seen before. I spent time trying to take the try out of places like Oswestry and Coventry. Anyway, thanks setter and blogger.
  9. So that explains it! Bank Holiday fare. Here we have four ‘jours féries’ in May, but not today. (May 1, May 8 being VE Day when the brave French army won, Ascension and Pentecost Monday).
    This was a cracker. I finished it correctly and with much smiling in half an hour without fully understanding some of the more complex parsing, so thanks U for the blog; TAN for TOPAZ would never have crossed my mind.
    Too many good clues to pick a CoD.
  10. 15 mins so I must have been on the right wavelength judging by the comments above. Like U DISALLOW was my LOI, and I had to check my Chambers post-solve to see why “topaz” and “tan” were synonymous.
    1. The answer was so obvious (once I’d corrected the I to an O) that I didn’t bother to check afterwards, but if asked I’d have said that topaz was blue. It can be apparently, but I think I might have thought that just by association with azure.
  11. 14:08, slowed down a bit at the end by a bunged-in TIMPANI and reading the definition at 14ac as ‘deceased’. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to read ‘painting on fine’ and come to the wrong conclusion.
    I hope Tom Conti doesn’t do these or he’ll take great offence at 1dn.
    Nice puzzle.

    Edited at 2016-05-30 08:45 am (UTC)

  12. Today’s holiday is a substitute for the former Whit Monday one, which was unpopular with planners because it moved about, being a fixed time after Easter. (By the way, there is a law to fix that – which will come into force when the churches agree.)
    I did manage to get within half an hour, with 24ac LOI, not seeing the rugby H, as I still can’t get used to that being a setters’ favourite. However, I had failed to parse 1dn, so bunged in ALTO from ‘vocal’ without seeing any wordplay.
  13. After 20 minutes I only had 4 answers dotted round the grid, and it was 23d before I got my first entry. It was another 50 minutes before I filled the rest of the grid, but with one wrong as I’d never heard of ECHT and biffed SCOT, although BRECHT did ring a bell once I’d read the blog. Some clever clueing, and I quite enjoyed the puzzle. My LOI was ARROGATE, which made me chuckle as the penny dropped for “Place with Yorkshiremen”
  14. Lots of excellent tricky clues that were often difficult to parse. After an hour I still had 11 and 15 unfilled and no ideas, so I resorted to aids. ‘Rugby goal’ for H was certainly a novelty.
    COD to 17 – compact and very deceptive.
  15. I enjoyed this – just the right level of challenge I thought. It took me 35 mins with the SW last to fall. Couldn’t see WINDSURFER for far too long and IRONED was my LOI. Although I am a Tyke, 15ac also held me up a while as I racked my brains for somewhere in God’s Own County ending in -try. Well done Barnsley yesterday!

    Edited at 2016-05-30 01:49 pm (UTC)

  16. A Bank Holiday afternoon task today, and as ever after lunch I was slow. Very enjoyable puzzle even so. LOI SECOND COMING. FOI TAMBOURINE.
  17. There’s some nice stuff in the bonus Jumbo today – this one I struggled with, I put in ARROGATE and SECOND COMING with a shrug, and got TIMPANO from wordplay alone
  18. Over the hour at 68m today – so I found this a challenge but got there eventually. Enjoyable puzzle and blog for a holiday Monday in the Teesdale sunshine.
  19. Just under the hour and that seems to be sort of average today, so I’m not too unpleased. LOI was ARROGATE, after wondering whether HARROGATE really was in Yorkshire and whether rugby goals do look like an H. I also didn’t know TOPAZ was yellow, but so my COED assures me — the stone itself can be pale blue or colourless as well. I liked IRONED as decreased. I liked having finished at all, having had little success the past week.

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