24510 – Very straightforward (thank goodness!)

38 comments on “24510 – Very straightforward (thank goodness!)”

1. Thanks Dave – bloggers who volunteer and then find I’ve messed up the arrangements don’t have to drop everything!

   10:48 for this which should have been a bit quicker – the NE corner held me up, with 5, 8, 20, 9, 6, 11 the last few to go in. Getting from “Housman’s book” to “A Shropshire Lad” didn’t happen until after stopping the clock. I wondered how many counties there were in this puzzle after also having Surrey in the wordplay for 3 and Bucks in the answer to 1D, but that seems to be the lot.
   I also didn’t know about the original meaning of Mocha for 24D.

   The diarist at 26 is John Evelyn.

2. Another easy one – 20 minutes. A lot of straightforward definitions and little clever wordplay. Some rather clunky stuff in places such as both the long down clues, neither of which I would have been happy to submit as a setter. I think the diarist is John Evelyn 1620-1706.
3. I found this entertaining and enjoyed some of the wordplay such as “BBC repeats” for B and the use of A Shrops in cash crops. This puzzle did expose some gaps in my knowledge. I did not know that Mocha is a port and I did not know that it is in Yemen. I also did not know that a yeoman is a petty officer. However, Mocha and yeomen were the only possible answers.

   I suffered at the end from excessive lift and separate on the intersecting buckshot and stevedore. I was looking for synonyms and containment indicators and it took me too long to realise that the definitions were “stuff used in peppering” and “worker in the dock”.

4. 22 minutes. Not much to write home about. Good to see EG clued in a new way (20ac). Much talk of the diarist: was I the only one thinking the obvious with ??E?Y? in place? The clues for 1ac, 20dn, 9dn and 28ac were below Times standard and would never have won the cluing comp. in a pink fit.
   Talking of which: it will be interesting to see the defs. for the target word (INFOTAINMENT). Any takers?
   But maybe I’m being a tad picky having spent a fair while yesterday on the Club Monthly and feeling duly overworked.

   1. The obvious is clearly lost on me. Unless you’re spelling PEPYS in a peculiar way, or maybe CHERYL Cole has begun a diary that I’m not aware of!
      1. Well I was was just assuming the letters in his name might be involved. ‘sall.
      2. I think Evelyn is probably “obvious” to old hands – my guess is that in the old days of the Times xwd he was a stock filler for a bottom row or right-hand column answer, and the kind of writer Times solvers were expected to know about because they’d read him. I can’t find a Times for the Times blog with Evelyn, so he seems much less common now – our last tricky diarist was Kilvert, last November.
   2. I considered “Times for The Times” but as my definition of “pit stop” (circuit breaker) was criticised for being too cryptic I decided against it.
      1. Oh! That was you! Interesting to put a clue to a name. “Circuit breaker” seemed just fine to me as a def.
         My effort (Chance to fuel up, it’s to park in) was rejected on various grounds — including the fact that a final “in” was not seen as an indication of inclusivity. We live and learn. And we should probably leave it to Koro who seems to double well as poacher and gamekeeper.

      2. I like ‘circuit breaker’ as a definition. I think it works fine. My effort (Reason to pull over in trip – it’s to purchase sandwiches) was criticised for the use of ‘in’ to connect the definition to the wordplay. Still seems a little harsh to me…
         1. I think the jury is still out on this new assessor. The previous month he decided in my clue that Madame Defarge wasn’t a nosey parker and that “knitting” was not an anagram indicator, which took back a little. I await the next judgement with interest.
            1. There’s a thing! Circuit breaker was one of my first thoughts as a definition (holds piece of paper with rough workings out on it up to screen so all can attest to the veracity of the claim) but reluctantly had to abandon it due to lack of any idea what the rest of the clue might be. I was amazed to see somebody had got it to work. Well done, that Jimbo. As for poaching, I am partial to a bit of trout.
5. Another good puzzle for starters and those of us relatively so. Staghtforward untaxing solve.
6. Twenty minutes for this one. Mostly straightforward with the sticking points being STEVEDORE (my last in) and SURREPTITIOUSLY (glad the first letter was checked). This completion without aids means that for me Tuesday is now statistically (based on the 139 Mon-Sat puzzles since 2 Nov 09) my most successful day with 85.0% of clues solved without aids, just pipping Monday with 84.5%.

   I was glad that MOCHA was a hidden word because I’d not heard of it and it was fun to learn in YEOMEN the country it’s in. Friends of my in-laws will have cruised past Mocha last week on their way to Aqaba and Suez.

   Liked BLOWING UP, ASLEEP and TRUNCATE and the cross references between clues 3/14 and 19/24.

7. Really enjoyed this one. 24 minutes. The clues mctext finds below par are fine by me as long as there aren’t too many like that, and as for much of the rest…witty, accurate, modest somehow, deft, entertaining, skilled…I swear, if this crossword were a woman I’d fall in love with it. COD 11 which I find delightful.
8. It took me 45 minutes at a very steady pace with few of the answers leaping off the page at me. I didn’t know the meaning of YEOMEN required here.

   Evelyn is John Evelyn 1620-1706.

9. P.S. If anyone wants more information about the new arrangements at the Times as they affect the crossword club I’ve posted some at the end of yesterday’s blog.
   1. “Also, my sub happens to run out on 31st January and I’m still not clear whether that’s relevant to continued free access to the newspaper until that date or just a coincidence.”

      Just a coincidence. I’ve also been offered access until 31st January. My Crossword Club renewal is some time in April.

      Peter

10. 75 minutes of enjoyable solve/struggle. Many elegant and satisfying clues, including GLIMPSE, TRUNCATE (where I wasted time thinking the definition was ‘neuter’ rather than the misleading ‘cut’) and BUCKSHOT. However, these were mere Lee Westwoods to the Phil Mickelson that is FEEBLE, which dons the Green Jacket, since I knew the parsing almost at once but had to rack my brains like Nike trying to come up with a decent TV ad for Tiger Woods for the correct synonym for antenna.

    The Housman clue was clever, but is requiring solvers to count to 14 going too far down the mathematical road?!

    A plus of this puzzle was the fact that most people would know all the words in the grid and most of those in the clues. I fell short only at 21, where I knew the form but not the meaning of fusty.

    1. I don’t think actually counting to 14 is required. Only to be able to cross-reference 14d to establish tyhat the definition is NOT OVERTLY.

       If this requires you to count to 14, what about the reference to 24 in 19d?

       1. I just meant that A SHROPS needs to be carefully subtracted from the whole 14-letter book. Of course, most people will get the answer via the defintion, anyway.
          1. Ah yes, I see what you mean. On the same note, finding the centre of politicians had to be done with a certain amount of care.
11. 17 mins for me. Working several clues by definition only: 6d in particular was so clunky there seemed little point in straining through the wordplay; having, in a manner of speaking, undergone the process myself, EXCOMMUNICATION was much easier to get from “expulsion”. CASH CROPS was definitely one for the reverse solve: even though I know Cold Comfort Farm is by Stella Gibbons, not Housman it was still what sprang unhelpfully to mind, despite “Into my heart an air that kills…” being a favourite poem. I gave up on the cryptic because the definition was easier.
    MOCHA was only chocolate flavoured coffee until today – now at least we have been educated as to where the word comes from!
    Because I like made up but plausible words, FACTORY was my COD.
12. I liked it too, for the smile on its face, despite puzzling over a few of the aforementioned surfaces. Equally clueless about Mocha & Yemen, but they were obvious enough. TANGO was good, but COD to FEEBLE.
13. 10:35, held up by taking longer than I should have to crack the two 15-letter words. Enjoyed the puzzle, particularly the Housman wordplay.
14. If only such standards were applied to published clues!
15. …not exactly a brilliant solve. Dullish puzzles slow me down.

    First in was 10 – that has got to be one of the easiest clues ever. Last in was 8, which I thought was a good one.

16. Another one for lovers of long clues and anagrams. Mocha in Yemen new knowledge but nothing stopped a 20m solve with only the full gen on 11a to check here. Last in spotty, just happened that way & not because it was hard to solve.
17. 15 minutes, held up at the end by 11, partly due to my inability to recall what Housman wrote and partly due to reading the def as “commercial paintings”. What a div.

    I think the humour and quirks are sufficient to forgive the odd clunky clue.

    COD to tango as it was only on seeing the blog that I realised it wasn’t a duff literary clue.

18. As a ‘returning Times solver’ who often has a couple of clues hanging out before resorting to help I was quite pleased to finish this over a Full English (about 20mins).
    Re: 21d –
    8d in the Telegraph today has
    ‘Principal’s hard grippling end of Strap (6)’
    Hi to Koro and Penfold – I am a slightly more wizened gnome elsewhere!.
    1. And hello and welcome to these more civilised climes yourself.
    2. Hi gnomey.

       I’ve pretty much abandoned the other place now. You need to read between the lines of my last offering. (see Gunpine’s clocks clue also).

19. …for a novice like me. 10 mins in the morning and finished over lunch. I think I remember seeing mocha in a clue before but couldn’t remember where it was, didn’t need to in the end.
    Tango was my last in without getting the explanation until I came here. I feel so foolish! I suppose I could try to cover myself by saying the B shouldn’t be capitalised but I won’t.
20. I enjoyed this a lot. It took me only 25 minutes to complete (good for me). 3D was my last in because I OFTEN misread county as country… doh! That held me up a bit until I finally solved it by definition and then worked backwards.
21. Happy to finish today in less than 30 minutes, held up trying to fit in ‘Pepys’ at 27A.

    I don’t usually find the football headline as amusing as the crossword, but ‘Tevez told to keep mouth shut as Ferdinand wades in’ was pretty good!

22. About 25 minutes, first in STEVEDORE, last TRUNCATE. Pretty straightforward, yes. Not much else to say; I certainly didn’t know how 11 worked or who Mr. Housman was, but the answwer came from the def. I liked ERSATZ, it’s just a fun word. Regards all.
    1. A fun word in the way that “second rate fresh” (which I think I first came across in The Master and Margarita) is a fun phrase for a concept that’s no fun at all.
    2. TRUNCATE in last and liking ERSATZ. Got EVELYN through the back door thinking Evelyn Waugh who was considered a diarist as well I believe.

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