Times 27537 – have a piece of Christmas cake.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I thought this was the easiest Wednesday for a while, no doubt the SNITCH will show us if I’m right. No homophones, dodgy or otherwise, no anagrams of tricky foreign words, nothing obscure to scare any horses. 10 minutes for 3/4 of it and another 7 minutes or so to tidy up the NE quadrant, as the word for a cute American kid eluded me at first and I was looking for a species of fish at 12a not fish of a certain size.
As next Wednesday’s Christmas Day, the following is Jan 1st, may I wish y’all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope everyone is now going to stop saying “two thousand and… ” and call it twenty-twenty, like a fun cricket match.

Across
1 State of rabbit regularly engulfed by tidal water (6)
SERBIA – R B I (rabbit regularly) goes into SEA = tidal water.
5 Cute American kid, one abandoned by German city family (8)
MUNCHKIN – I leaves MUNICH then KIN = family.
9 All right to pinch a cooker, perhaps? The gall! (3-5)
OAK-APPLE – A inside OK, APPLE as in cooking apple.
10 Woman adopting a king’s method of self-defence (6)
KARATE – KATE adopts A R = a king.
11 Provider of security, one using foil? (6)
FENCER – Double definition.
12 Leader of the layabouts eating duke’s fish (8)
TIDDLERS – T (leader of The), IDLERS (layabouts) insert D for duke.
14 Peacekeepers develop wrinkles and ultimately this shambling gait (12)
UNGAINLINESS – UN (peacekeepers, in theory), GAIN (develop) LINES (wrinkles), S (ultimately thiS).
17 Heart broken, monarch’s touring quiet area of great importance (12)
EARTHSHAKING – (HEART)*, SH (quiet) A (area), KING.
20 Quietly he accepts a pay increase, the hypocrite (8)
PHARISEE – P (quietly), insert A RISE into HE.
22 English carrier losing right to deliver game (6)
ECARTE – E, CARTER (carrier) loses R from the end. The game écarté, from the French meaning discarded, is a whist style game, I’ve seen it listed in my Hoyle’s compendium but never knowingly played it.
23 Fuss about an enlisted man moving very slowly (6)
ADAGIO – ADO (fuss) around A GI.
25 Popular instrument half of team used to put cannula in (8)
INTUBATE – IN (popular), TUBA (instrument), TE (half of team). An experience I do not enjoy (having one in, not me doing the putting-in).
26 A bird originally encountered in this writer’s nonsense (8)
MALARKEY – A LARK E (a bird, originally encountered) inside MY (the writer’s).
27 Eager group of artists? (6)
RARING – a ring of R.A.s could be a group of artists. As in raring to go.
Down
2 Behind time, jettisoning first of boosters over the moon (6)
ELATED – BELATED loses its B.
3 Financial adviser’s source of healthy food? (4-7)
BEAN-COUNTER – You could buy healthy beans at the bean counter, I suppose. Derisory term for an accountant. For sure, some accountants are financial advisors, but not all FAs are accountants, far from it.
4 Vegetable poisonous types take in a meat and tomato sauce (9)
ASPARAGUS – ASPS (poisonous types) take in RAGU a m&t based sauce for pasta.
5 Conductors from West maybe on second short tour (7)
MAESTRI – MAE as in Mae West, S (second) TRI(P).
6 Finally bitten by a bloodsucking fly, being bald (5)
NAKED – N (finally bitteN), A, KED, a sheep tick or horsefly, nasty biting thing.
7 A woman’s idol? Not altogether (3)
HER – HERO without its O. So easy I took a while looking for something harder.
8 Curiosity shown by soldiers in trial cases (8)
INTEREST – IN TEST (trial) ‘cases’ RE (soldiers).
13 Unruly bald British ranger, one illegally seizing estate (4-7)
LAND-GRABBER – (BALD B RANGER)*, the B for British.
15 City’s diamonds brought in in case by leading lady (9)
LEICESTER – ICE (diamonds) inside LEST (in case) ER (leading lady). I had the L and started thinking of LENINGRAD and LIVERPOOL before realising it wasn’t D for diamonds and the city was 20 minutes down the road from me.
16 Female journalist beginning to rest on a bishop’s throne (8)
CATHEDRA – A bishop’s throne is so called, a Latin word from the Greek καθέδρα meaning seat. CATH is a female name, ED is a journalist, R (beginning to rest), on A.
18 Resource a girl’s written about in French and Italian (7)
AMENITY – AMY (yet another girl’s name) is written about EN and IT.
19 Prescribed drug Oscar’s removed from post (6)
STATIN – O for Oscar is removed from STATION = post.
21 Protective garment some initially make fun of (5)
SMOCK – S(ome), MOCK.
24 Odd parts of global state (3)
GOA – Odd parts of G l O b A l.

​

53 comments on “Times 27537 – have a piece of Christmas cake.”

  1. Yes, fairly straightforward and, indeed, the easiest SNITCH-measured Wednesday for a while (at least on current rating).

    Things that looked like they would be complicated, like the fish beginning with T and the “tidal water”, turned out not to be so. The sign of a good puzzle in my book. DNK OAK-APPLE but the rest was all known. Interestingly, MUNCHKIN was my FOI.

    Thanks, Pip, for the illuminating blog, and to the setter.

  2. DNF for me. I had no idea about the bishop’s throne but it was the only one left. I’d tried some other girls’ names on the front and then I got the final checker. I still couldn’t see it and I thought of KATH and filled it in. I didn’t stop long enough to realize CATH would fit too and was far more likely since it was CATHEDRAL without the L. Oh well. Rest was straightforward, about 20 mins to get to my mistaken LOI.
  3. The SNITCH does confirm this as being on the easy side, but two clues held me up for some time. I was pleased to come up with ECARTE, because ‘carter’ is not an obvious synonym for carrier. I’m guessing that if anyone doesn’t know the game they might struggle to get that one. My LOI ELATED held me up for the most time until I finally saw ‘over the moon’ and the penny dropped with no parsing required.
  4. Done overnight in two sessions so no time to report but the answers seemed to go in without too many problems other than caused by tiredness in the first session.

    Didn’t know the required meaning of CATHEDRA but wrote it in with confidence. Learnt that RAGU and ‘ragout’ are not alternative spellings of the same thing as I had always previously supposed.

    Edited at 2019-12-18 07:54 am (UTC)

  5. Merry Christmas and Very Best Wishes for the New Year, Pip!

    One of my best ever times so I’m expecting The Snitch will mark it accordingly.
    Re CATHEDRA, if I remember my RI correctly the Pope is infallible when he speaks ‘ ex cathedra’.

    1. Same to you, Kiwis and poodles. I can’t imagine feeling Christmassy in all that sunshine and beach weather.

      I thought The Pope, like The Donald, was infallible, period.

  6. …Leicester body and beauty unprovide my mind again: this night, Iago.
    25 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc.
    No dramas except the unknown card game.
    And nice that Kate, Cath and Amy were all invited.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  7. Nice one Martin and proper-swanky time!

    FOI 5ac MUNCHKIN as per Mr. Star’s Truck

    LOI 16dn CATHEDRA

    COD 15dn LEICESTER Go you Foxes!

    WOD 26ac MULARKEY

    Time 27 mins.

    And Christmas Greetings to all in RUTLANDSHIRE. Pip-pip!

  8. It very nearly did for me. 11 minutes, annoyed that ECARTE/ STATIN just took me into double figures.The biffable INTUBATE was not known as a word, but I knew the cannula process from other people’s treatment. Everything else went in like a dream. COD to OAK-APPLE, because I knew it. My verdict ex cathedra is that this was too easy a puzzle. But thank you Pip and setter.
  9. 27 minutes, and an unusually easy flow from top to bottom for me. FOI 2d ELATED—I unaccountably didn’t think of “sea” for “tidal water” at 1a until I’d got more checkers!—LOI 21d SMOCK, never petering out anywhere in between.

    Definitely on the wavelength. My knowledge of low culture came in handy for 25a; they’re always dramatically shouting, “We’re gonna haveta INTUBATE!” in House.

    I’m more pleased that my deliberate revision of crossword knowledge paid off here and there, too, especially for 22a ECARTE (I also knew the ballet meaning) and 16d, where I was reading just yesterday about Vatican I and the infallibility of the Pope when speaking ex CATHEDRA…

  10. Pleasant stroll in the park. A BEAN COUNTER is surely a bookkeeper and not even a full accountant. Certainly not a financial adviser. Well done Pip and seasons greetings to you and yours
    1. I had a similar eyebrow raise at that one, especially given that I work in financial services (not as an adviser I hasten to add), but justified it to myself with “well, they could advise on your financial position” which was as close as I could get.
      1. Known in advertising industry (and others I presume) as ‘Smartie Pushers’ back in the day – as pocket calculators with large coloured buttons were the weapons of the Martin Sorrell’s of this world.
  11. 14 mins exactly. I had all but two done in about 11 mins 30 secs but was detained by ECARTE, which I thought was right, RARARA which I thought was wrong, and STATIN which I finally got – and was then RARING to go and submit.

    COD: RARING.

  12. 10:51 … I was looking good for 5 or 6 minutes but ground to a halt with EARTHSHAKING, AMENITY and CATHEDRA, which took as long as the rest of the puzzle. I don’t know why EARTHSHAKING took me so long to see. I could have biffed CATHEDRA almost straight off but suffered a rare bout of parsing diligence. Rookie mistake.
  13. The easiest for a while, I think. I’m with Jim on the bean counter; surely the lowliest in the Accounts department. As it’s Christmas I will be generous and say that the question mark referred to both halves of the clue. Thanks all.
    1. I think that is why I said “derisory term for…”. It certainly was in my business career,for proper accountants in companies, in the same way as quantity surveyors were derided as brick counters or bean counters too. It was in jest, but they didn’t always see the funny side.
  16. I was flying until I reached the SW corner, then brain fog set in and I struggled for a while. PHARISEE led the way, I finally saw SMOCK and finished with MALARKEY. Nice puzzle. 17:10 including a bit of proof reading. Thanks setter and Pip and Festive Greetings to you too.
  17. 13:05. I found this mostly easy, but I got totally stuck with just two clues unsolved: ECARTE, which I had forgotten since it came up in January this year (27241) and STATIN. Even when I realised that I had written LAND GRDBBER at 13dn, making the card game impossible, it still took me an age of alphabet-trawling to get there. Those two clues took up nearly half my solving time in the end.
  18. As someone who will usually complete the QC, albeit not necessarily quickly, I was encouraged by the comments there to try this.
    As with my previous attempts, the step up, even on an apparently “easy” 15×15 is noticeable. The vocabulary is more extensive, the clue construction definitely more cryptic. However, I managed to make some inroads and with a bit of help from the blog, overcame a few blockages and was then able to go back to some more solving. Sufficient encouragement, I think, to dip a toe in again in future…
    Many thanks, as ever, for the excellent blogs.
    Plymouthian
    1. Congratulations and good luck. I am not sure whether you look at the Crossword SNITCH which can be found under Links at the top of this page (on the right on my computer screen). It will give you an instant idea of how difficult the 15 x 15 is on any particular day.
  19. Yes, easy..
    May I recommend ecarte and (especially) piquet as good card games for two? There are not many of those about.. easy to find the rules online
    ALL those with accounting qualifications are potentially bean counters .. The Treasury for example, often referred to as such. Nothing to do with hierarchy, though the term is a little disparaging
  20. 15’10. Parsed only a proportion of several clues as I went along. Maybe that’s what the speed merchants do anyway. Happy with bean counters as a financial advisor is often termed such as a bit of hype anyway. So that’s what a cannula is. Poor old Pharisees, hypocrites till Doomsday. joekobi
    1. Another example of the winners – scripture-wise in this case – writing the history, eh?
  21. Clearly hit the sweet spot with this one, even the more obscure bits of knowledge like ECARTE and CATHEDRA, which were lurking just inside the boundary of my known knowns. All good.
  22. ….was spent on the last two answers. I really shouldn’t have found it necessary to alpha-trawl SMOCK. Biffed INTUBATE.

    FOI SERBIA
    LOI MALARKEY
    COD RARING
    TIME 9:58

  23. 12’20”, with three minutes on ECARTE/STATIN.

    BEAN-COUNTERS often block or delay mission, whatever the institution, I use this disparaging term a lot. CATHEDRA a write-in. Dnk the real meaning of MUNCHKIN, only knowing the word through The Wizard of Oz – were they meant to be children?

    Thanks pip and setter.

  24. Same as Rob with this one. In Oz (both books and movie) they are certainly small but they’re not children nor are they cute. I was moving at warp speed until I stalled wondering what to put in front of APPLE because “bad” didn’t look right and I’d been thinking “cannula” was some sort of plant or Italian pastry. Must have been thinking of campanula and cannoli. 14.55 On edit – “cannoli” wasn’t completely stupid because it’s a kind of pastry where you INTUBATE the cream filling.

    Edited at 2019-12-18 12:59 pm (UTC)

  25. Helpful comments on the QC blog said this was not too bad and most of it was gettable for me; but overall not that easy for the less experienced.
    I spent about an hour on this before biffing my final two EFACTO for the unknown game and CATHEDRA (tried Cassandra with one S at first). INTUBATE unknown but derived from the clue.
    Agree with comments above about 3d;I was also slow to get Bean Counter as it applies generally to accountants who just add up the numbers and don’t think about them; the opposite of a financial adviser. However, in Crosswordland, I can see that the two terms approximate. Most seem to have got there quickly.
    FOI was Munchkin. COD to LEICESTER. One error.
    David
  26. 11:05 so a good bit slower than yesterday for some reason. I’d finish one corner quickly but struggle to get going on the next.
  27. 9:20. ECARTE my LOI, but I can’t say anything held me up much, although I misparsed LEICESTER as ICE in case of L (leading) ESTER (lady). Whatevs. It couldn’t really be anywhere else with that ICE in the middle. I liked the bevy of ladies in attendance.
  28. And phew no howlers. I have got into a terrible habit of bunging stuff in and crossing my fingers. Too obsessed with time, I suppose – though I find it adds to the fun. FOI Elated. Held ip at the end by the Ecarte-Statin junction. I especially liked the malarkey clue for its nod to Edward Lear. He did after all write about larks in one of his most famous limericks – the old man with the beard. About himself, I think. Good biog recently by Jenny Uglow.
  29. Like Aston Villa, I hesitated between the unsatisfactory Rarara and RahRah before being forced to find Raring, and I couldn’t get Bacarat out of my head even when I counted the squares and had the crossers. Thanks for the blog, Pip
  30. Two relatively easy puzzles in a row. Yesterday’s was 20 minutes and this one was 17 minutes. Those are good solving times for me. I didn’t know Munchkin as a “cute child” – I thought they were just the little people of Oz. I’ve been struggling with the crossword lately so these puzzles were a bit of a relief. Maybe I’m not going senile quite yet. Ann
  32. So on the slow side compared to the above. Held by several unknowns CATHEDRA, INTUBATE and ECARTE, although the last fell very easily. Nice to see my team getting a mention, even got CITY in the clue.
  33. I haven’t been able to appear here a lot recently, so back today to report a failure with my LOI, where I went with may-apple. I hadn’t heard of the OAK-APPLE before, but perhaps I should have studied the wordplay a tad more closely. I didn’t know of a ked either, but figured it had to exist. Finished in 20 minutes, mistake included. Regards.
  34. Solving time was off the scale as I had an interruption, but it felt like about 24min total. CATHEDRA was an NHO for me, but gettable from wordplay. ECARTE was my LOI.
  35. About 20 mins slower than yesterday, but at least I finished this one without having to use any aids. A close run thing at times: still not entirely sure where I remembered Ecarte from, and Cathedra was a mix of wordplay and near enoughness to cathedral to make sense. Similarly, Ked was an unknown fly, but what else could it be? Interesting that the QCs have been slightly harder of late, but the 15x15s more approachable. invariant
  36. Another interesting ramble, this time with a medical twist. 25 across had me stumped until I recalled a recent conversation with an old mate about his being fitted with tubes- cannulas- and hey presto. Liked 5 and 26 across and crossed the line in 13 minutes.

    A good week so far but pride cometh before a fall….

  37. 12:36 for me which I am delighted to say is my quickest ever time for The Times, knocking my previous best time of around 13 and a half minutes into a cocked hat. It didn’t even begin particularly promisingly or feel like I was really racing through it at any point either. On the easier side certainly but I’ll take it. Hooray!
  38. Very late to be posting but I’ve just finished after doing this piecemeal throughout the day. No idea of time but not too slow – I’m glad it’s all done before bed though! First completion for a few days 😊 We seem to be amassing a pack of hyenas at the moment.

    FOI Oak apple
    LOI Munchkin
    COD Leicester – it really is an odd looking word when you break it down! But, ditto horryd! Can we do it twice?

    Thanks setter, and seasons greetings Pip from just down the road!

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