Times 26917 – Prepare for More Pain, Poms!

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Mate, what a time to be an Aussie! The Kangaroos whitewashed the Poms 6-0 to win their 32nd consecutive world rugby league title, Scotty James is World Champion Snowboarder,and the Matildas won the Women’s Football Tournament of Nations after beating the USA, Japan and Brazil. It doesn’t get much bigger than that!

As for the Ashes, don’t you just love the comments coming from the English? “We’d be equal with Australia, if we had Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins”, has got to be the best excuse yet, closely followed by “Steve Smith can’t play the moving ball”. Well, he hasn’t had to yet – not at the speed Anderson and Broad bowl.

“How’s your Christmas been, mate?” I can hear you all asking. Ripper, totally bonzer! Having told the Sheilah I had to go to Fremantle to get a special preparation for the cracked bottom, I snuck off to the WACA and downed a few tinnies with my mates on the Hill, while giving the Barmy Army plenty. They can dish it out, those Poms, but, like the bloke said in Dad’s Army, they don’t like it up ’em!

Anyway, some of you crossword aficianado types will be sitting there in your tartan socks and M&S reindeer sweaters thinking to yourselves, “Streuth, what’s up with the old crossie website this morning? I shouldn’t have had that extra glass of mulled wine at the office party.” No sweat, everything’s fair dinkum, but Ulaca’s been faffing about so much with his codes and scripts that I thought I’d save you the fuss of hanging around until the evening for your blog. Okay, some of you may think I’m being a bit brutal and lacking in the Christmas spirit if I also suggest that his recent efforts (well, more like the last five years, if the truth be told) have been pretty lame – packing as much punch as a Moeen Ali off break.

So, without further ado, let’s get on to the Christmas Day crossie, while wishing one and all a very Merry Christmas and a Humdinger of a New Year!

Definitions underlined in italics, * indicating anagram, PJ joke at the espense of the Pommies

Yeah, and I asked some of the bloggers and regular contributors to chip in on some of the answers, because, as we say in Perth, variety is a lot more interesting than having the same old stuff all the time. Can you tell who they all are? First person to send all the correct answers gets a cross pen. Yeah, the wife uses it to write me notes when I come back in the arvo from my benders with the Rabbitoh Rabblerouser Club (Subiaco branch)!

ACROSS

1 Book into capital place for convalescing? (4-4)
REST-HOME – ESTH (Esther) in ROME. Grrrr! I refer you to my comments on 13 across.
5 Dance that’s trendy and hard work (3-3)
HIP-HOP – HIP + H + OP.
9 Award boy collected in New York’s theatreland (8)
BROADWAY – AWARD BOY*. It was during rehearsals for my Broadway debut that I ad libbed the line ‘Away we go’. The rest, as they say, is history.
10 Youngster causing havoc finally shot by mistake (6)
TERROR – [sho]T + ERROR. I have a goat, whom I call ‘Terror’. Terror in turn calls me some horryd names.
12 Fry odd parts of sea turtle (5)
SAUTE – S[e]A[t]U[r]T[l]E.
13 Good man who wrote fantastic tales in UK (5,4)
SAINT LUKE – TALES IN UK*. I have no intention whatsoever of learning a list of contributors to uncorroborated and unsubstantiated fables that have been arbitrarily chroniclised (is that a word? I have used it, so it must be) into a book that has no relevance to modern life – or even immodern life. Is that a word? Vide supra. Harrumph! Vide infra. 
14 Someone has to kill serial criminal in sensational novel (6,6)
BODICE RIPPER – BOD + ICE + RIPPER. I first came across this in a samizdat Georgette Heyer novel, where the male protagonist confronts his sexuality by challenging the Prince Regent to a duel with billiard balls. Unfortunately, he died – right on cue.
18 Detective wearing very little confronting dangerous creature on island (12)
INVESTIGATOR – IN VEST + I (island) + GATOR.
21 Go on about trailing first lady’s representative around (9)
PERSEVERE – RE after REP reversed + EVE. Grrrrrrrrrr! Vide supra bis.
23 Long-necked bird beginning to eat lots of herrings at first (5)
CRANE – CRAN (a unit of around 1,200 herrings) + E.
24 All one can see of much-visited tower, reportedly (6)
EYEFUL – sounds like, ‘ow you zay, Eiffel.
25 Spanish bar includes whale on menu’s starter (8)
MINORCAN – M[enu] + ORCA in INN.
26 Ciabatta’s terrific: consumer’s tucked into that (6)
TASTER – hidden in the first bit.
27 Methodical when working in long grass (8)
REASONED – AS + ON in REED.

DOWN

1 Healthy old boy going into decline (6)
ROBUST – OB in RUST.
2 Commander half-revealed weapon (6)
SHOGUN – SHO[wed] + GUN.
3 Fellow lifted blade outside for one’s roadside bushes (9)
HEDGEROWS – HE + reversal of EG (for one) in SWORD.
4 Curmudgeonly, the writer and a hooligan imbibing alcohol (4-8)
MEAN-SPIRITED – SPIRIT in ME + A NED. As a hooligan back in the 1950s, I strongly object to being typecast as a ted, and a ned is not a lot better, as is is pointed out in the comments below. Well done, Jack!
6 Lying motionless in bed, having removed clothing (5)
INERT – IN +[b]ERT[h].
7 Sound dissatisfied? Cheer up as policeman comes in (8)
HARRUMPH – MP in HURRAH reversed. This was the very sound I articulated when I voyaged to Terra Australis some years back to attend a concert by Indie group Nullarbor Nancies. I got so drunk I chundered on my copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses on the flight back to the Mother Country. 
8 Some wandered briefly in garden (8)
PARTERRE – PART + ERRE[d]. Some being used here in the sense of more than a singular quantity but considerably less than an enormous quantity, and ‘erred’ being used in its non-figurative sense of disporting oneself in, say, an arbour or other place of blessed repose with nary a pylon or other excrescence in sight. I do the research so you can gaze on in wonder.
11 A mostly very nice time producing realistic movies (6,6)
CINEMA VERITE – A + VER[y] NICE TIME*.
15 Irish officer initially scorns forged medal (4,5)
IRON CROSS – IR + O[fficer] + SCORNS*.
16 Least courageous warriors in Europe and America? (8)
WIMPIEST – IMPI in WEST.
17 Keeps an eye on eggs — clutch, you say? (8)
OVERSEES – sounds like OVA + SEIZE.
19 John is able to dance (6)
CANCAN – CAN (lavatory) + CAN (is able to).
20 One teaching correct pronunciation about to swallow energy drink (6)
PERNOD – DON + RP reversed around E (energy). I used to have one after my round at La Rochelle. The wife soon put a stop to that, though, and so I now have a Pernod instead.
22 Music in sci-fi film due for redistribution (5)
ETUDE – ET + DUE*. I have a 78 of Chopin’s Etudes, played by legendary Hungarian pianist, Gál Szpráy. 

25 comments on “Times 26917 – Prepare for More Pain, Poms!”

  1. 31 minutes.

    Jimbo can rest easy as the hooligan at 4dn today is a NED, not a teddy-boy: ME + A, NED containing SPIRIT.

  2. Happy Christmas from across one ocean from Oz and another from Britain. Just under 30 minutes for me (although I managed to type RIPPER with 3 Ps so a technical DNF). I had INERT from the first time I looked at it but couldn’t see “berth” for what would give me the ERT once stripped. I had no idea how many herrings were in a CRAN, or even if it was a measure of herrings at all, but it pretty much had to be once I had the C.
  3. 12:04 .. pleasantly surprised this Christmas morning, with the rest of the old family homestead still asleep upstairs, to find a regular crossword and blog. Well, I say ‘regular’ blog, but clearly ulaca’s mask has slipped and we’re finally seeing the man himself. I just hope he doesn’t drive his ute after all those tinnies. Struth. Mind you, he’s right about the cricket. The England players’ attempts at “We’re on a par with the Aussies, we’re just not playing as well …” remind me of the glory days of English footy under Sven (“Well, I thought we played very well. Apart from the goal scoring. And the defending.”)

    Nice of the crossword Ed. to go easy on all those hangovers. Not much here to put the horses off their manger of hay, though MINORCAN / PERNOD took a bit of thought, as did PARTERRE.

    Nice drop of the penny for the second part of HIP-HOP.

    Thanks to Ulaca and jackkt for blogging today. Cheers, all

  5. 30 mins then ground to a halt on the Bodice Ripper/Parterre combo – with yoghurt, blueberry compote, granola, etc (Hurrah).
    Must try harder.
    Mostly I liked: In vest island gator, Ova seize.
    Merry Christmas setter, Ulaca and all.

    Edited at 2017-12-25 09:15 am (UTC)

    1. Compliments on your very seasonal pun in TLS 1206. It made me laugh and also made me wonder if schoolchildren still sing about them washing their socks by night.
      1. Thank you for noticing. I’m glad you still do the TLS. A very merry Christmas to you.
    1. Yes, as regular readers will know, this is a jocular reference to another blogger who doesn’t like having to memorise obscure books of the Old Testament and is most definitely tongue in cheek 🙂
  8. I thought there might have been an old puzzle dredged up as an online special and was surprised to see both a quick cryptic and a regular cryptic. Carried that high over to one of my best times on the current site of 6:43, with PERNOD the last in without getting the wordplay.

    Expat Aussie Aussie Aussie! Expate oi oi oi! I know a pub around the corner that should be opening just in time for the first ball of the Boxing Day massacre.

  9. I thought HIP-HOP was the music genre not a dance but that’s a quibble. DNK anything about “crans” and “herrings”. The 9A contribution must be from George, 7D sounded Verlainian and 8d had a touch of Zabadak. Otherwise I can’t tell. I hasten to add that I was not responsible for the Georgette Heyer reference but perhaps it was Jerry, my fellow aficionado. My time was somewhere under 15 minutes but I lost track because I had a call wishing us Merry Christmas and it would have been MEAN-SPIRITED to cut it short. P.S. Would 4d be Jimbo’s?
  10. Having sung the Shoals of Herring once or twice, 100 cran of the silver darlings gave me an easy ride for 23a. REST HOME dived into first place as I read the clue. Nice not be too severely tested on this festive day. I was however, like Sarah, held up at the end by PERNOD, REASONED and my LOI, the never heard of PARTERRE. Particularly liked MINORCAN. Most enjoyable puzzle, and thanks to the setter and our Blogger/s. U, a tour de giggles! Bonza blog mate! Merry Christmas to all.
    On edit: forgot to mention, crumpets, croissants, ham and emmental with prosecco for breakfast. 33:24. Has anyone else discovered you can now see your puzzle results from any device or browser?

    Edited at 2017-12-25 03:27 pm (UTC)

  11. 15:30. Not bad after a lot of turkey and wine. Merry Christmas to all, and thanks to ulaca for the laugh.
  12. Q: What’s more fun than a Christmas Turkey?

    A: A barrel full of bloggers. Plus horryd and Galspray (whom I had not know was Hungarian).

    Best cheer to all

  13. With -E-N-D well beaten by PERNOD but got the rest,was trying to place OED somewhere then gave up.Merry Christmas to the tftt fraternity.
    Ong’ara,
    Nairobi.
  14. Hi Ulaca. I’ve not even done the crossword yet, having just done and commented on the quickie, but I spotted your intro and thought we must get you blogging a Christmas crossword every week! Hoping our boys give you a bit more of a game at the MCG starting tomorrow! More anon when I get round to the crossword, but post-prandial family games beckon,
    1. Family all dropped off so I returned and blundered through this, amazed to be all correct in 29:42, with a disproportionate amount of biffing, in a more than slightly sozzled state to find a blog even more entertaining than the crossword itself. Thank-you Ulaca (and other contributors), and setter.
  15. What, only 21 comments? A masterful blog, Ulaca (well apart from the first bit, obvs). Hard to get excited about cricket played overnight.
    Nice to see Georgette get a mention, though her books are far from being “bodice-rippers,” more’s the pity I suppose.
    Happy Christmas to you and thanks for even doing a blog at this time of year, never mind such an entertaining one.
  16. 50 minutes in the bath on Boxing Day (forgive the imagery.) Would have been 45, but I’d never heard of an 8d PARTERRE and it took me a while to come up with anything that looked like a word. Luckily it looked very plausibly like a word for a garden when I did.

    FOI 1A REST-HOME, glad to find that the unparsed 20d PERNOD turned out to be right, among others (I’m sure “cran” will prove a helpful everyday word for my vocabulary from now on…) WOD HARRUMPH, often the sound that escapes when I come across bible book abbreviations in clues, it’s true.

  17. An easy crossword SCMP crossword on the plane back from Taipei to Hong Kong tonight left me time for a nap, dinner and an episode and a half of “American Gods”. I should fly more often.

    CRANE bravely biffed… never ever heard of CRAN. I wondered if there was a red herring. But the only other obscure word was IMPI (which I knew from Rider Haggard), and so I felt the general obscurity level of the crossword was not high, for those of a biblical bent, and so CRANE was worth a flutter as LOI.

    Thanks setter, blogger, commenters.

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