Times Crossword 25,332 – 2012 Championships, hail & farewell

Author   JerryWPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: Well, I solved it on the day, over a month ago now, and can’t remember how long it took but doing the blog now, it seems reasonably straightforward. My answer sheet is completely clean, usually a sign of a quickish solve. This is the third of the crosswords in the second preliminary round and so, presumably we now bid goodbye to this year’s Championship, the Grand Final efforts having been published already. Taken as a set of nine I think they demonstrate quite clearly why The Times cryptic is still the one that sets the standard.

cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–).
ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online

Across
1 unwise – SUNWISE ..a word Chambers carefully defines as “In the direction of the sun’s apparent rotation.”
4 Caucasus – A + S in CAUCUS. The Caucusus region is notable for being either in Europe or not, depending on who you ask. As such it may/may not contain Europe’s highest mountain, Mt Elbrus. It so happens that I flew past the Caucusus on Monday, my way back from Qatar and a fine sight they are too, even from 35,000 ft.
10 dishonest – DISH + ON + *(SET)
11 sonar – COLLISION in fly high = SOAR. Personally I would say bats use echolocation, and sonar is technically an underwater device. But Chambers has it, so it must be OK..
12 tie – TIER
13 have ones way – sport with = HAVE + ON, + E + SWAY = influence. Clever clue!
14 barrow – BAR ROW. Grave = barrow, along with dolmen, eolith, megalith, cromlech, menhir etc etc. all appear now and again, also see 2dn.
16 sloe gin – *(GASOLENE). Another clever clue
19 oddball – a cd referring to snooker, the values of the balls mentioned being 1, 3, 5, 7.
20 apeman – appellation = NAME + PA = progenitor, all rev. The def. being an &lit.
22 egalitarian – *(ANTI REGALIA), and another &lit too.
25 eel – CREEL
26 eagle – E + ANGLE. Erne is another name for a sea-eagle. Not to be confused with an osprey, which is merely a fish eagle…
27 ownership – OWN + ER + SHIP
28 pilaster – only remaining = LAST in support for bridge = PIER. A pilaster is a flattened column added to a wall for decorative or aesthetic purposes
29 red top – “read” + first = TOP. It is a matter for national shame, that they find so many daily buyers as they do.
Down
1 update – finished = UP + DATE. Up as in “Once the snake struck home, it was all up with him” etc. Or, “time’s up” if you are a bit less fanciful
2 wasteland – standing stone = STELA (aka stele) in WAN + D. I like the picture the clue conjures up
3 sloth – SLOT + H
5 action stations – has influence = ACTION on ranks = STATIONS, in the sense of what you must not act above.. I’m less sure in what sense “action” is the same as “has influence”, however
6 casserole – turkey = ASS in *(CREOLE)
7 sinew – function = SINE + W
8 straying – runs = R in STAYING. Has there ever been a Times cryptic with no cricket references whatsoever, I wonder?
9 leave well alone – a dd, one referring to well = bore (hole)
15 readiness – “book within presses centrally” = READ IN PRESSES
17 grapeshot – G + RAPE’S + HOT. Shotgun pellets for artillery, sort of.
18 home help – in = HOME + HELP = aid
21 slip-up – another cricketing reference, the SLIP being the classy fielder close to and behind the bat, ready to catch an edged shot.
23 angel – A + N + GEL. Theatrical angels invest in new plays. A risky business, since the opportunity to back sure-fire hits is normally restricted to friends, colleagues etc. See The Producers for the opposite process, ie finding investors for a sure-fire flop
24 nerve – NERD + VINTAGE

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

23 comments on “Times Crossword 25,332 – 2012 Championships, hail & farewell”

  1. I really struggled to get properly going with this one but as the half-hour approached things suddenly started to come together and I finished in 45 minutes. I really don’t know what the problem was.

    On 5dn, I think it’s ‘influence’ as in ‘force’ = ‘action’ and ‘has’ is not part of the definition.

    Edited at 2012-11-28 01:29 am (UTC)

  2. 56 minutes for me, with the right-hand side going in quick but the other side, especially the NW, proving resistant. PILASTER was the only unknown, and I can give myself excuses at 2dn, where the Greek stele is more familiar to me than its Latin equivalent. I must consolidate my grip of common ‘crossword’ collocations such as angel/backer, erne/eagle and red top/newspaper.

    ‘Odd’ for the snooker balls seems a bit of stretch to me. Apart from that, good puzzle. COD to DISHONEST; thanks to setter and blogger.

    1. I didn’t think of the numeric values of the balls, rather of the order in which they must be taken, missing yellow, brown and pink respectively.
      1. That’s another possibility, but ‘red’ is the problem with that solution. At the end of an actual game of snooker, the player pots a red, then a colour of any kind, then yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black. This would give us: red, yellow, brown, pink.

        I think Jerry’s explanation is, how shall I put it?, better than the clue itself.

          1. Something like ‘Value for red, green, blue or black card?’ might do the trick.

            Edited at 2012-11-28 09:09 am (UTC)

  3. … and a significant improvement on yesterday’s offering. So much so that, on returing to this after a few weeks, I had to re-parse a whole bunch of clues to see how they led to the answers I’d written. A puzzle where close attention to every word is required.

    4ac reminded me of the joke about the difference between a caucus and a cactus. (With particular ref to the Australian Labor Party.)

    As I’d already done this, had a go at Saturday’s about which there’s been much talk here, and which I’d missed at the weekend. All I can report is that instead of recording the time, I wrote a detailed expletive.

  4. 19 minutes on what, for the most part, seemed unfamiliar territory: I must have done it quicker on the day.
    As it unfolded afresh, I remembered thinking that this was the most interesting and innovative of the three offerings, with some clever cluing. ODDBALL raised a smile, EGALITARIAN a fine &lit and discovered anagram, UNWISE prompting all the wrong responses (backwards? enclose an A? look for a word meaning leader?), SLOE GIN a smooth and elegant surface. Perhaps the nearest thing to a “normal” crossword experience in the adrenalin fuelled, speed inspired atmosphere of competition.
    A decent challenge and a delight, and as Jerry says, demonstrating why it’s the Times that sets the standard.
  5. I found this an interesting and elegant puzzle that reflects the care that is taken in compiling the competition puzzles. My only reservation is 19A, my last in, solved from “card” and followed by a wince as I made the somewhat arcane snooker connection. In a collection of good clues I thought SLOE GIN and APEMAN both excellent. 25 minutes to solve.
  6. 25 minutes for me too, galloped after a slow start. I liked the snooker clue and many others in this fine puzzle, no aids needed today.
  7. 18m. Very nice puzzle.
    I had the same thought about 11ac, and I’m not happy with the idea that what bats have is sonar, whatever Chambers says. However the clue says “ability like a bat’s”, so it doesn’t matter.
    Like jackkt I thought “action” was “influence” and “has” is just a filler.
    I thought “have on” was “sport”, but it works either way.
    And I just read the snooker clue as “every other” ball, without thinking about the points. If I was asked to name them in order I’d do so from red up to black. When you’re playing cards you don’t necessarily play the jack before the queen but that’s still the order you’d put them in.
    1. I just think it’s not a coincidence that the value of all the balls mentioned is an odd number, and that all of the odd-valued balls are included.
      As for 11ac, if it said “porpoises” instead of bats it would have been bang on, if a rather harder clue.
      But as you say it doesn’t really matter. Neither clue was hard to solve correctly, which I tend to see as the main thing
      1. Yes you’re probably right: this is just the way I read it at the time.
        The problem I have with “sonar” for bats (and porpoises) is the use of a name for a man-made system to describe a natural phenomenon. I realise the dictionaries are all against me on this!

        Edited at 2012-11-28 11:18 am (UTC)

  8. Ground to a halt in NW and eventually solved in 55 minutes. I like the misdirection so to speak in 1
    ac. ‘Oddball’ is stretching it (in my view scoring value) but it’s the sort of stretch that eases into a grimace of acceptance I guess. Having last entered the preliminary round of the competition in about 1970 it’s this sort of experience that tells me to leave well alone.
  9. Odd how memory works, isn’t it. Give it another month or two and I suspect I’d have totally forgotten that I’d already solved this puzzle. This might also explain why most solvers, however proficient or experienced, have blind spots which mean they have to re-learn certain innocuous words or devices more than once…
  10. Nice puzzle – although I didn’t see the snooker connection. Got the answer on definition alone once I had the checkers. I must be getting better at the cricket teerms though. SLIP UP was one of my first in. 34 minutes. Ann
  11. I was flagging badly by the time I reached this puzzle, and struggled to finish in a miserable 17:20.

    I suspect this is one of the setters whose wavelength I have difficulty with. There were one or two clues I liked, but there were too many where I had difficulty matching some part of the clue to the part of the answer it was clearly supposed to match.

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