Times Crossword 24118

Author   sabine_tkPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 11.04.

A pleasant enough workout that started with CYBERSPACE – nice to see PHISHING turn up in the same puzzle. I felt I should have been able to do this one in 10 minutes, but got a bit stuck in the SW corner where BARMY ARMY and OYSTER took me way too long. I was toying with MATTER for the latter, for no better reason than it fitted and was grey.

 

Across
1
   PHI,SHIN,G. PHI=”break hip”, so “hip bone” has to be separated. Phishing, a term first recorded in 1996, is the process of trying to acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by a trustworthy-sounding electronic communication, usually email or instant messaging. The name “phishing” refers to the bait used to catch useful information in this way.
6
   M(IK)AD,O – the title given by foreigners to the emperor of Japan.
9
   ST(R)AND
10
   OWN BRAND
11
   S(H)OD
12
   REFORM BILL – “Kaiser Bill” was the nickname given to the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II. He made an unexpected and so far unrepeated appearance in the UK charts in the (whistled) song “I was Kaiser Bill’s Batman”, peaking at No 5 in March 1967.
14
   OB(STAC)LE – CATS = jazz fans, ELBO = join shortly, and “turning” tells us to reverse the lot.
16
   A,FAR(m)
18
   AREA, hidden in CaesAREAn
19
   CL(OTT)ING. OTT=too much, CLING = hold on. I didn’t see how this worked for a while and was seriously considering “Clothing” as the answer, with the definition “being bandaged”, LOT being “too much” and CHING being – erm…
21
   C,YBERSPACE (scary beep)*.
22
   S(l)UMP
23
   AR(OM,A)TIC – “artic” is a shortened form “of articulated lorry”.
26
   A(VEN)GE. VEN is short for Venerable, an honorific prefix used before the names of certain churchpersons.
27
  

OYSTER, a pale greyish beige, and if the world is your oyster it lies before you, ready to yield success. See also: “The world’s mine oyster” (William Shakespeare); “The world is your lobster” (Arthur Daley).
Down
1
   HITCH, being “hi tech” with the E removed (energy fails).
5
   GEOFFREY CHAUCER – (huge coffee, carry)*. I was glad to get this long anagram fairly quickly.
6
   MAN,TR,A – “a right to raise” means A, RT all reversed (up).
7
   KIR(k), with “one that’s drunk” being the liquid itself and not the SOT I was trying to justify.
8
   DON,ALB,A,IN – described here as a prince, actually became King of Scotland on the death of his brother Malcolm in 1093. The name was vaguely familiar from the cast of Macbeth.
13
   BEAUTY SLEEP – SLEEP being PEELS reversed (strips, turning).
15
   BARMY ARMY (ARMY ARMY = host doubly) The dedicated travelling supporters of the England cricket team, who have had an interesting week. (So, what do we think of Strauss as captain? Have we stumbled chaotically into what would have been the right original choice, or lurched into a spectacular pre-Ashes disaster?)
17
   DO,VET,AIL
20
   I S(H)TAR. Babylonian goddess of fertility, love and war, which must have kept her pretty busy, and occasionally somewhat conflicted.
23
   MO,GUL. MO=second, and GUL(f) = source of oil running short.
25
   MAT – I was originally thinking “opening of good book” meant MAT is the beginning of (the book of) Matthew, but on reflection I think the good book is the New Testament and MAT indicates the opening book in it.

31 comments on “Times Crossword 24118”

  1. I might be first to comment today, so I confess I found this tough, about an hour, and I needed to confirm that there is a Barmy Army (nice name, by the way) and the Scottish prince/king. I still don’t know if ‘pudding’ means paunchy, or if there’s an actual UK pudding called a ROLY-POLY. A lot of fun stuff also, i.e. ‘Beauty’s lover’, PHISHING. I really liked 2, 22, 23, 6, 11. Regards, see you next week.
    1. There is indeed a roly-poly pudding. In my day it regularly featured in school dinners, although the concern about child obesity probably means that it’s now off school menus. A Google search will give you plenty of recipes, although I bet Jamie Oliver doesn’t do one.
  2. A good puzzle. 25 mins here. Nice to see some different words for a change! ISHTAR was new.
    I held myself up for a while with S,WELL at 23dn (blithely ignoring the “running short” bit!)
    12ac – technically of course the Reform Bill became the Reform Act 1832 following passage through the house. Among other things it abolished rotten boroughs like Old Sarum (which appeared in a puzzle not so long ago).
  3. 14:39 .. Your description is exactly as I found it, sabine. Didn’t mark any clues one way or t’other, and can’t think of a thing to say.
  4. An extremely pleasant 45 minutes over breakfast. If your definition of “getting a bit stuck” is a one minute hiatus then I spent half a lifetime trying to think of ALB, studiously ignoring the ecclesiastical hint (if not direct give away) in vestment, preferring to think generically.

    As for who should captain England in the forthcoming Ashes, to paraphrase the now folkloric statement of former ALP leader Bill Hayden (no relation to Matthew), ousted by Bob Hawke immediately prior to the 1983 Labor party landslide victory, “a drover’s dog could lead England to victory over Australia at the present time”. Given the Australian selectors’ abulia (nice word!), the chronic inability of the Australian batsmen to cope with reverse swing (is there a word fot that?) and the inexperienced Australian bowling line up, I’d say you were a good chance, as long as you don’t panic and start arguing amongst yourselves. Hmm…

  5. I found this one difficult and took 25 mins. DONALBAIN was a fairly desperate guess in the end. My COD is the topical 22A, but I wonder whether this originally had ‘pound’s’ rather than ‘pounds’, which seems to read better. If so, and thinking back to the brothers/brother’s question of a couple of days ago, is Ralph at work?

    Tom B.

  6. 35 minutes to solve all but two, plus 8 minutes to work out 20d from the wordplay as I didn’t know goddess in question, and 2 minutes on 27a.

    A really entertaining puzzle with lots of good clues.

  7. 32 Min. A nicely balanced puzzle which may have yielded more more readily without the encumbrance of a hangover.
  8. Like everybody else, a straightforward but enjoyable puzzle. About 20 minutes to solve. Is the BARMY ARMY “a supporter” or several supporters? I liked CYBERSPACE and PHISHING – both solved from definition and then reverse engineer the wordplay.

    English cricket wont be sorted out until it has a proper management structure with a head coach responsible for picking the team and the captain as happens in other major sports.

  9. … about the one-man BARMY ARMY. An old gripe returns at 25D – whether MAT is the opening of ‘Matthew’ or Matthew as the opening book of the NT, “(the) good book” means the whole Bible (as Concise Oxford confirms), so neither version makes sense. It’s just possible that ‘good’ is supposed to mean “adhering to the principles of a relgious cause” as in “good Catholic girl”, but if so we’d surely have had ‘good book’ = Koran/Torah/Veda/etc. by now.

    With those off my catarrhy chest, there was lots to enjoy in the rest. Solved in 8:30.

    Minor correction: in 14A, ELBO(w) = ‘joint shortly’. At 26, it’s archdeacons who are ‘Venerable’.

    1. Verily my cup runneth over. Not only do we agree about the one-man army but that business of using MAT as described has always irritated me as well. I’m off for a pint or three!!!
      1. But now I can see that Richard’s “supporter = thing that supports” point has merit too. Sorry!
        1. No need for sorrow. I too can see merit in his argument. Perhaps I should quaff Badger’s at lunch time more often.
  10. I was expecting a tough one after three easy ones in a row, but this was no harder, taking me twenty-three minutes. DONALBAIN, MIKADO and KIR were the last to fall. I agree that the singular definition for BARMY ARMY seems wrong. In retrospect I’m surprised to see it’s inclusion at all since I cannot find it any of my dictionaries, only in Brewer’s. Good clues on the whole.
  11. I found this one considerably harder than the previous two and I can’t believe I couldn’t get 15d with all the checkers! It’s a chant that I’ve been known to sing on several occasions while watching the mighty Rovers (it isn’t limited to cricket, lots of footie teams have barmy armies too). For the third day in a row I got a hit and hope right, this time with DONALBAIN.
    I thought there was some really good stuff today, though I also had my doubts about MAT. 19 minutes with one gleaned from Onelook.
  12. 11:33 today. So I found it easier than yesterday’s.

    I don’t see a problem with barmy army being a singular supporter. So long as you think of “supporter” as meaning something that supports, then that is what the army does, I think?

    1. I was just about to make the very same point (having finally got over the shock of Jimbo and Peter agreeing with each other!). There’s no problem with saying that the Barmy Army supports the England team, so I can’t see a problem with saying that it’s a supporter of the team.
      1. So it’s the first time Peter & Jimbo agree with each other and they’re both wrong?
    2. From my trusty “Usage and Abusage”:

      Collective nouns can be singular or plural depending on the context. Singular if considered as a unit, eg “The committee is to be responsible for this matter”, or plural if the idea of the individuals is predominant, eg “The committee [ie the members] do not agree on the best course.”

      The question did occur to me but I decided that either is possible – “The Barmy Army [as an organisation] is a supporter of the English cricket team”, or “The [members of the] Barmy Army are supporters…”

      (I apologise if the above is all too obviously the work of a lawyer – verbose, and concluding merely that “it all depends”…)

  13. I found this very difficult indeed, and gave up after an hour with the following still blank: 8d, 19ac, 27ac, 15d. 8d I’ve a bit annoyed about, as I’d worked out DON_L_AIN, but just couldn’t get it! Perhaps this first week back in work has fried my brain cells?
  14. 20 mostly enjoyable minutes with two quibbles: the barmy army/supporter(s) point and from where I sit 8d was guilty of double-obscurity insofar as both the answer and the alb element of the wordplay were beyond my ken, laddie.

    That said, there were some excellent clues in here including 12, 28 & 23 and my COD for today, beauty sleep.

    1a held me up for a while as I was looking for an anagram of hip bone g. I sometimes watch “The Real Hustle” on Freeview (that Jen is a bit of a sweetie) but I’ve never heard them describe what they do as phoebing or ebophing.

    Q-2, E-8.5, D-5

  16. 9.48 last to go in was 1a – I had immediately identified this as an anagram of hip bone g and moved on. Only when I found there was definitely an S in it did I invent PHISHING which fortunately turned out to be correct. So learnt something today , also first experience of Barmy Army in a crossword but knew the term.My first thought was that singularly well known cricket fan -Barry Gray.
    JohnPMarshall
  17. Straighforward and enjoyable, and not the usual tough Friday work-out. About 30 mins, which is fast for me. Re MAT at 25dn, it seems to me that the setter just about gets away with it. The definite article is surely required if “good book” is to mean the entire Bible. Without any article, it could mean one among various “good books” making up the Bible, among which is surely the the Gospel according to St M. But not the best clue in the puzzle, I agree.

    Re the cricket: the super-size of Kevin Pietersen’s ego seems to be widely blamed for the current mess. On that subject, the Australians are putting about a mischievious story that goes as follows (apologies to those who’ve already heard it): KP and the latest Mrs P are having a cuddle in bed on their wedding night. “My God, your feet are cold”, says Mrs P. Replies Mr P: “Darling, when we’re in bed, you can just call me Kevin”.

    Michael H

    1. Good book: as far as I can tell, “good book” = “a book of the Bible” is only ever found in some cryptic crosswords, never outside them, and certainly not in any dictionary. Unless of course, you know different …

      KP: also like the Aussies calling him ‘figjam’ = “F*** I’m good, just ask me!”

      1. I begin to see the true nature of your problem now. It’s one that Australia had to face years ago, when we learnt that high levels of sporting ability were not necessarily accompanied by exemplary personal behaviour, either on or off the field. It’s a dilemma worthy of a Doctor Findlay’s Casebook (original version) script: do you cheer them on because of their match winning capabilities or wish them ill because it’s always nice to see bad losers lose badly? We didn’t have to think about this for long in Australia, where winning is of paramount importance and the means will always justify the ends. Those who still felt a little uneasy just had to hope they would mellow with age. I’m reminded of the old Beachcomber story of the man with a wart on his nose who was cured after just one application of Snibbo when his nose dropped off, but was able to live a long and fulfilled existence thanks to the Snibbo booklet “How to breathe through your wart”. I recommend this booklet to you all. You either have to learn to breathe through your wart or continue telling yourself that oxygen intake is of secondary importance.
  19. “hep-cat”, oftened shortened to “cat”, was a popular slang term for a jazz/swing fan in back in the 30s/40s/50s. Still occasionally used.
    1. Thanks Sotira. I thought my assumption that Jazz fans = (SCAT)* = CATS was a bit dubious!
  21. This was a cracker with lots of really interesting subject matter. It was made even more challenging in that over half of the enumerations were wrong. It all went out on sync at 22a and continued for the rest of the acrosses plus all but the last of the downs. In analysing it after the event it seems that the enumeration of the clue prior to the one you are looking at is the correct one.

    Despite that, I managed to finish it – I may award myself an extra pint in celebration of the fact.

    At 15d – BARMY ARMY – it always used to contain a St Georges flag with “Hereford United” emblazoned on it whenever I saw them on the TV. Since I do not have access to televised cricket these days I have been unable to check if this has been updated to HEREFORD FC.

    There are 3 “easies” rendered not so easy because of the wrong enumerations:

    28a Pudding poorly cooked, extremely lumpy (5)
    ROLY PO LY. Anagram of POORLY with the extreme letters of L ump Y.

    3d Put up with being ribbed, and order to relax (8)
    STAND A TEASE => STAND AT EASE

    4d In court, accepting dreadful sort of speech (8,7)
    IN DIRE CT

    See what I mean about the enumerations?

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