Times 28081 – I’ll have whatever Emma’s having

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Born in Canada to a Romanian dad and a Chinese mum, Emma Radacanu is as British as you can get, and I would like to dedicate this blog to her fabulous run to the US Open, its pint-sized trophy and its hefty cheque. An all-rounder in the sports arena, a straight As student and a dedicated petrolhead, as Baroness Schrader, AKA Eleanor Parker, might have said, ‘My dear, is there anything you can’t do?’

I seem to have channeled a wee bit of Emma, as I came home on this one in 14:12. I’m not sure it was that easy – it may have been that I was just on the wavelength, or, as Emma might say, ‘doing my processes and staying in the moment.’

ACROSS

1 Main cloak worn by Seurat at first for painting (8)
SEASCAPE – S[eurat] in SEA (main) CAPE (cloak)
5 Heads of lodge in extremely distinctive clothing (6)
LIVERY – L[odge] I[n] VERY (extremely)
9 Curb control, securing backing for cultural pursuits (8)
RESTRAIN – ARTS (cultural pursuits reversed) in REIN (curb); I once watched ‘Curb your Enthusiasm’ because Ricky Gervais raved about it. I didn’t laugh once and hardly understood what was going on. It was the first time that I wished a TV show had a laugh track, so I would have some clue which bits were meant to be funny.
10 Cake served in City retreat (6)
ECLAIR – EC (city – of London, East Central) LAIR (retreat)
12 Distant object associated with girl’s old bike (5-8)
PENNY-FARTHING – PENNY (girl) FAR (distant) THING (object)
15 Language once used in school at Inverness? (5)
LATIN – hidden in [schoo]L AT IN[verness]
16 In Paris she accepts call ultimately for skilled workman (9)
ENAMELLER – NAME (call) in ELLE (she in French) R (final letter of [fo]R)
17 Endless recceing by peacekeepers around east (9)
UNCEASING – UN (United Nations, who attempt to keep the peace, at any rate) E (east) in CASING (recceing); my dad was always ‘recceing’, so this brings back memories of the Humber and point-to-points at Kimble
19 Hoard money, it’s said (5)
CACHE – sounds like ‘cash’
20 Behave stoically, but let the bile out (4,3,6)
BITE THE BULLET – anagram* of BUT LET THE BILE
22 Sexually pure son consumed by constant loathing (6)
CHASTE – S (son) in C (constant) HATE (loathing)
23 Study dance, having postponed payment once (8)
CONTANGO – CON (study) TANGO (dance); I’ll leave Collins to explain this bit of financial mumbo-jumbo: ‘(formerly, on the London Stock Exchange) postponement of payment for and delivery of stock from one account day to the next’. The sort of thing that would have Goldman Sachs salivating, I reckon.
25 Corrupt French nobleman in Canterbury, perhaps (6)
SEDUCE – DUC (French nobleman) in SEE
26 Taught English journalist about old European coin (8)
EDUCATED – DUCAT (old European coin) in E (English) ED (journalist- ‘one who has an air of being an expert in everything’, as CS Lewis memorably put it)

DOWN

1 Principled old American curls up awkwardly at first (10)
SCRUPULOUS – CURLS UP* followed by O US
2 Idiot biting girl’s head off (3)
ASS – [l]ASS
3 Continue to cause a commotion (5,2)
CARRY ON – double definition (DD)
4 Letter introducing recent catalogues for certain collectors (12)
PHILATELISTS – PHI (Greek letter) LATE LISTS; I believe horryd dabbles in this pursuit
6 Rise that has Charlie opening fashionable branch of business (7)
INCLINE – C (Charlie) in IN LINE
7 Bible-bashing woman inspiring saintly girl in the end (11)
EVANGELICAL – ANGELIC (saintly) in EVA (random woman) L (final letter of [gir]L)
8 Overturned cart in enclosed ground (4)
YARD – reversal of DRAY; a bit of a chestnut
11 Odd place to store cargo, putting learner in complete control (12)
STRANGLEHOLD – L (learner) in STRANGE (odd) HOLD (place to store cargo)
13 Clock surmounting management’s information site (11)
NOTICEBOARD – NOTICE (clock, as in ‘Did you clock what Arthur Daley was doing?’) over BOARD (management)
14 Dire photos misrepresented ministers collectively (10)
PRIESTHOOD – DIRE PHOTOS*
18 Potentially moving article thus containing inferior material (7)
ASTATIC – TAT in A (article) SIC (thus); a sciency word, evincing no great imagination, meaning not static, unstable or having no tendency to assume any particular position or orientation. They do like to cover their bases, do those boffins.
19 Corrosive agent mostly leading to spasmodic twitching (7)
CAUSTIC – CAUS[e] (agent mostly) TIC (spasmodic twitching – as evinced by Darling in Blackadder Goes Forth)
21 Sicilian shepherd about to go north on island (4)
ACIS – reversal of CA in IS; in the Greek mythology of Ovid, Acis, the son of Pan and the nymph Symaethis, was a beautiful Sicilian shepherd and lover of the Nereid Galatea. His rival, Polyphemus the Cyclops, surprised them together and crushed Acis with a rock. His blood, gushing forth from beneath, was metamorphosed by Galatea into a river bearing his name, Acis or Acinius, at the base of Mount Etna (the modern river Jaci). So now you know
24 Ultimate catch (3)
NET – DD; net in the sense ‘ultimate; final; conclusive (esp in the phrase net result)’ (Collins)

71 comments on “Times 28081 – I’ll have whatever Emma’s having”

  1. DNF the QC, and despite this being sub-60 on the snitch, I struggled to 14:22, and fluked the NHO ACIS, having meant to put ACOS!! LIVERY and YARD also dragged on a bit, and I was very surprised not to see pink squares for the also NHO ASTATIC and CONTANGO.

    Though 3 years ago I would never have thought that I would type that I “struggled” to 14:22 for a 15×15.

  2. Coupled with a (PB) 2:36 in the QC, new combined PB of 8:47.
    But this is mere bagatelle in comparison with the fantistically British Saturday night triumps: the marvellous Latvian accordionist, the re-rendering of Barber’s Adagio for Strings and all the pomp & ceremony at the end of the Last Night melding sublimely into Miss Emma’s triumph in NY … couldn’t be better (and I doubt I won’t be bettering today’s times for a while either. They were cruciverbal gimmies (except for ACIS perhaps).
  3. 12.51. A gentle canter with little thought required. Only contango unknown. Sounds like something Elvis and chums would be doing if the warden were to throw a party at the county jail.

    U, I’m not sure I understand your parsing of seascape in the blog: C (cape) in S[eurat] CAPE (cloak).

    I parsed it as SEA (Main) and CAPE (cloak) containing (worn by) S (first letter of Seurat).

    No big deal though. Que Seurat Seurat as Doris Day would’ve put it.

  5. On Saturday night, even my (normally very sports-averse) wife voluntarily suggested we watch the final, so British tennis has definitely found someone to connect them with a new audience. Like Emma and our blogger, I executed my skills and controlled the controllables today, pausing only briefly to let CONTANGO ring a bell which was faint, but enough to convince me I was drawing the right conclusion from the wordplay.
  6. Surprised to find myself on here with another 15 x 15 finished all but two squares. FOI penny-farthing, eight on first pass … going well for me. The checkers helped the rest. I put continuo in at 23 ac, despite thinking it must be contango from the clueing, so I looked it up in the dictionary, and changed it to the strange-looking financial term, which of course I had NHO before. Everything else was clear enough, although as usual I find from the blog that there were nuances in the parsing which I hadn’t seen. I had heard of Acis and Galataea, but did not know the story. I thought the island might be Cos, but could not think of a letter that would precede it. So I left it and came here to see what on earth it was. Thanks, U, and setter. I thoroughly enjoyed this almost-finish, and it didn’t take me as long as it usually does. I gather the crosswords are easier on Mondays, I will remember that, Monday ones might ease me on to Friday ones eventually.

    Medvedev looked determined, and Djokivic looked tired, more so than I’ve ever seen him. Zverev might have lost the semi, but he seems to have taken the final away from Djokovic, who may well decide that he cannot afford to drop sets in tournaments and rely on his fitness to hold up. Intriguing. GW.

  7. Having glanced at the Snitch, I was hoping this was going to be straightforward, and for a large part it was, but it took me ages to see Stranglehold, Livery, Astatic and loi Enameller (I was fixed on En as the French part and wondered who on earth Amelle was). Similarly, if only I had gone with the nho Contango on the first pass, but it seemed such an unbelievable word. The upshot was I limped home having taken longer than with some of the harder puzzles last week. Invariant
  8. 29:57 here in sunny Beckenham. The Park Langley tennis club is just round the corner but I have never played there. Amazing performance by Emma.
    My performance was OK. All correct in 29:57 after LOI ACIS which was all I could get from the parsing. I’ve never heard of him and thought COS had to be involved until the last minute. ASTATIC also unknown but I did know CONTANGO.
    Hats off to Phil who must have chanelled his inner Raducanu.
    David

  9. These were the three I failed to get, before other things pressed in on my day. Greek mythology is a weak area for me. I thought about ENAMELLER, but was convinced it had only one ‘L’. And yet, ‘trust the wordplay’ yet again, as it tells you how to spell it. Damn!
  10. 10:40 this afternoon, with around 1/3 of that time spent on 18 d “astatic” and particularly 21 d “acis” neither of which I had heard of.
    Otherwise a pretty rapid solve, although I realise I’m far from alone in this regard with a SNITCH well within the “very easy” category.
    I recalled 23 ac “contango” somehow from Finance exams I took over 45 years ago. I knew it would come in useful sooner or later, but perhaps not this late!
    COD 7 d “evangelical”.
    Thanks to Ulaca for the blog and setter for a gentle start to the week
  13. 33 minutes. I found this puzzle something of a mismatch between the 93% of exceedingly easy clues and the remaining two that absolutely weren’t (ACIS and CONTANGO, of course). I would have preferred wittier clues with somewhat less arbitrary surface readings and a more even-handed distribution of the difficulties.
  14. I saved the problem of the only clue that caused any problem (ACIS) by leaving it to the end then forgetting to go back for it 😬

    Would have been a top ten time for me too

    Thanks all

  15. Thanks ulaca for the explanatory note on ACIS, a new word for me (along with ASTATIC and possibly CONTANGO) but all clued fairly, the mark of a fine puzzle.
  16. 17.5 minutes, but stumped by ACIS. Turns out his blood morphed into a river. Mine just merged with my sweat and tears when trying to solve this clue

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