24001

31 comments on “24001”

1. This was straightforward and I completed it in 29 minutes, the last 10 of which were spent sorting out 14Ac and the SW corner. I didn’t know SOAPSTONE and I had to dredge up MOORFIELDS from somewhere – I imagine this one might cause some problems overseas though I gather it’s supposed to be world-famous.

   I’m tempted by 23Dn as my COD but have a feeling I have met it before so I’m going for 10Ac instead.

   1. You are so right. Not world-famous in New Zealand. But then again, it is the Times of London, so we must make allownces.
      1. Especially for butter-fingered typing.
         1. Or then again it could be the very quaffable Trapiche Malbec from Argentina. Absolutely excellent, different and highly recommended.
2. Nothing much to say about this one, a gentle 17 minute stroll. I expected a tough one to keep us all occupied on a lazy Bank Holiday Monday.
3. 7:27 for this, so it’s easy given my current slowness or this was a better effort on my part. MOORFIELDS was the last answer, falling initially for the fake anag. of ‘low flier’ but then seeing nothing better than LOWRFIELDS.
4. Agreed, very straightforward but enjoyable none the less. MOORFIELDS was my last as I also tried to make an anagram of low+flier+ds before seeing low=moo. I thought this an excellent clue. For a time I feared my ignorance of TV soaps might be an issue at 14A before remembering that talc is SOAPSTONE.
5. 10 minutes, it’s a slightly convoluted sentence but 10 made me laugh.
6. An enjoyable 13 mins, with 13A last in. I’ll choose 11A as COD, as every word counts and it’s an excellent surface; I also liked 2D. I wasn’t sure about 10A; wouldn’t ‘Who one wants to kill…’ work better as the definition?

   Tom B.

   1. That was meant to be ’21A last in’.
7. I took 25 minutes, making it a pretty easy puzzle, but one that had enough interesting clues to engage me. I got MOORFIELDS about half way through. The one I didn’t see until the end was SINFONIA. I agree that the definition in 10a is convoluted; it could have been a far neater clue. 7, 13 and 20 are all contenders for COD for me, but I cannot make up my mind.
8. 16 minutes. Several convoluted surfaces make this less than a thing of a beauty. Not keen either on the ‘the’ (but I did like the band) in both the anagram and the solution at 1d. What do people think of 28ac? I can’t make up my mind.

   COD, probably 20d NIPPIER.

   1. That was me.
      1. Chambers and Collins have “rasp” as Scottish dialect for “raspberry” so it’s fair enough. Before I knew this my only concern was the absence of anything to indicate the omission of the inevitable greengrocer apostrophe.
         1. That settles that, then. You made me laugh with the apostrophe comment, and you raise the interesting philosophical question of whether there should be a punctuation mark to indicate the omission of a ‘greengrocer apostrophe’. An apostrophe, perhaps?
9. If sotira’s doubts about 28 ac turn on whether RASPS is a fair abbreviation or shortened version of raspberries, then I think I share them. The usual convention is that “briefly” may be used to indicate that the final letter, or possibly last two or three, have been chopped off the end of a word, not removed from within, as here.

   In 12 ac, does anyone else share my feeling that “urgent” is unacceptably imprecise as a synonym for “strident”, which is defined as (a)”loud and grating” and (b)”expressing a point of view with excessive force” in Chambers and the Compact and Concise OEDs?

   However, perhaps there is some cryptic twist that I’ve missed in both these clues.

   Otherwise, an enjoyable and relatively easy start to the week. 30 mins for me.

   Michael H

   1. Michael, my Chambers 9th ed. gives for strident: ‘loud and grating; urgent, commanding attention.’ Has anyone forked out for the 11th ed. yet?

      Tom B.

   2. As pointed out below, Chambers gives “strident” = “urgent”. And so does Collins.
      1. Above, not below.
10. I was unaware of the Scottish dialect connection. Thanks to jacckt for that.

    Michael H

11. Rasps is a common Scottish usage and very familiar as I spend many days in my summer holidays in the 60’s picking them for 3d per pound. Nowadays I believe that schoolchildren spend their summer holidays in Majorca or on their play stations. Berrypicking in Scotland is done by young EU migrant workers.
    I also wanted to put in lowrfields for 13 having never heard of Moorfields but guessed it anyway. I think our non-UK solvers might have more trouble with Dalek.
    14.00 today
    JohnPMarshall
12. Thanks to all on this. It seems clear that there is sanction for this definition, even if not in my Chambers (only 7th ed!) nor the OEDs I mentioned. I still don’t like it, but I’ll go quietly.

    Michael H

13. Took about 40 minutes, the last long bit being wasted pursuing the same ‘lowrfields’ line of thinking as others have already mentioned. Never heard of the hospital before, nor have I heard of Dalek; I’m going to google it now and see if I can find out why so many here seem to like this clue. I gather today is your bank holiday, so happy bank holiday to those so situated. Regards to everyone else.
    1. “nor have I heard of Dalek”

       I was going to ask you what planet you have been living on Kevin and then go and live there myself, but I see you are in NY where Doctor Who is readily available now though it may not have been when the Daleks first made their appearance some 40 years ago.

       1. I don’t think “Doctor Who” really aired on any major stations in the US. Apparently it used to be on PBS at pretty odd times. The new series are on Sci Fi channel, which most people can get as part of basic cable, but it’s not something you’re likely to run across idly flicking through channels.

          It was a big part of my childhood, episodes were on one of the main channels in Australia, and I think that even with repeats it was on at almost exactly the same time slot daily for years. I stopped watching at Sylvester McCoy.

          1. Right. One of my pals lives in NYC and follows it avidly. I thought she watches the new stuff on BBC America but I may be wrong about that. Anyway, because she is a big fan I guess she seeks it out; I hadn’t realised the average US viewer is unlikely to know of Daleks.
14. About 24 minutes. Feel a bit rusty – Sotira won’t be surprised to hear that I lost my pen early on in the hols so didn’t get much Araucaria cracked.

    The surface at 10ac bothers me – for this to work shouldn’t it start “whom”?

    I also struggled with low/moo. Lowfields is the side of Elland Road, Leeds, where the impressive cantilevered East Stand (previously the Lurpack stand) now dominates the view from Beeston HIll. Lowrfields is nowhere.

    1. You see? If you’d worn some proper bathing trunks, with a pocket, you’d have been fine.
15. I’m Scottish and rasps seemed very easy and entirely orthodox — I hadn’t realised that this usage was specifically Scottish. However I do feel the Times crossword regularly contains references you’re much likelier to recognize if you’re from the South of England (Moorfields being just today’s example). Nowadays the Times claims to be a fully national newspaper, and those much rarer clues that favour people from other parts of the UK shouldn’t be resented. Today’s puzzle was relatively straightforward, although I always find it slightly unsatisfying when all the more difficult clues are concentrated in one part of the grid. The southwest corner was of a completely different level of difficulty to the rest. bc
16. Nobody seems to have mentioned this: why isn’t it ‘carries’ not ‘carried’? Although the wordplay just makes sense with the verb in the past tense, it would surely be much neater if it were in the present.
17. 10a is a bit tough on anyone not familiar with Dr Who. As far as I remember the Daleks were in the second Dr Who scenario in the first series after first having travelled back in time to the Stone Age? So the Daleks are over 50 years old. Whatever next – a female Dr Who? 😉

    There are 13 “easies” left out:

    1a One making recording has come to the point (5)
    TAPER. Not that anyone uses tape to record any more?

    12a Urgent to make big move forward with books (8)
    STRIDE NT. With urgent = strident only justifiable if you have the correct edition of a dictionary?

    14a TV show’s character goes for talc (9)
    SOAP’S TONE. A great relief not to have to know a TV Soap character and to get a geological answer!

    17a Itching to make social structures (5)
    HIVES

    22a At university, glance back to see maintenance costs (6)
    UP KEEP

    25a Those fronting extremely vicious acts don’t easily escape (5)
    E V A D E. First letters of Extremely Vicious etc.

    26a Degree from Greenwich Uni old get, amazingly (9)
    LONGITUDE. Anagram of Uni old get. The Greenwich meridian is now universally accepted as the datum for longitude. Twas not always so – I have seen old French colonial maps based on a Paris datum for example. GPS has killed off that sort of nonsense!

    28a Scrapes fruit briefly (5)
    RASPS. No problem with popular abbreviations. We might get BLOOBS sometime perhaps?

    4d Amount boy carried round? (4)
    L O AD. As mentioned above “carries round” would have looked better?

    6d Kind of acquaintance who’s agreeable? (7)
    NODDING. A sort of typically British phenomenon where you can acknowledge that you recognise someone you see regularly without actually speaking to them.

    8d Very quickly enjoy an appreciative audience (4,3,8)
    LIKE THE CLAPPERS

    15d Benefit from having commercial vehicle monitor energy (9)
    AD VAN TAG E

    20d A child keeps one more active (7)
    NIPP 1 ER

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