25907 A piece of cake

81 comments on “25907 A piece of cake”

1. Z, you have a typo in 15ac (meat) and the wrong anagrist in 18ac. And some formatting issues, it would seem. (It’s fun being first to comment).

   My experience was similar to yours, including an attempt to shoehorn FENIAN into 20dn. Was sailing through this, all complete in under 20 minutes, except for ADMIRAL. Even with all the checkers in place, it took me ten minutes to see what now seems like a pretty obvious answer. That’s the joy of solving I guess.

   Oh, and thanks for parsing PONG.

   1. Hmmm, ignore my formatting comment. Looks like the problem was at my end.

      Excellent blog as always.

      1. No indeed, the issue was mine. I couldn’t get preview to work, so posted what I had and edited from there. I think most things in the rough draft my tippety-tappety produces are now hammered into shape. No doubt I’ll find out soon enough!
         1. It’s funny how preview sometimes fails. The same thing has happened to me, and usually I then post a raw blog in panic, fearing the whole site will go down. Then I do my usual editing live, so early commenters can watch me work.

            So far, no one has caught it.

            1. Or else, we’re just too polite to say. Didn’t seem to affect 23ac in 25904??

               Edited at 2014-10-02 06:47 am (UTC)

2. So no fast times down here this morning. Being a Holmes fan helped but. Liked the PONG/ODOUR crossing. And another who tried to make FENIAN fit.

   Edited at 2014-10-02 01:48 am (UTC)

3. My time was 42 minutes. I didn’t find it particularly hard, but it wasn’t easy either. Maybe not my type of puzzle? I kicked myself when I saw how easy some of the answers were, but that doesn’t explain why I couldn’t see them right away.

   I had always had ‘sweet corn’ as two words – it is thus in the US.

   1. And in Australia Vinyl.
      1. And in the US, it’s usually just ‘corn’.
         1. Ditto. This cropped up (geddit) before.
4. Appropriately enough, perhaps, the intersection of ODOUR and PONG were my LOIs. Had no idea why PONG, but with _O_G the opportunities for going wrong were limited. Also didn’t get ODOUR–say, maybe that’s why they were my LOIs! I still don’t: ‘Noon leaves no’=ON, no? not O. I thought of THE VALLEY OF FEAR, and it rang some sort of bell, but not a loud one, so I waited until the last moment (well, except for ODOUR and PONG) before putting it in. COD to ADMIRAL.
   1. “Noon” = N. Delete that from “no” = O.
      1. Aha. Excuse me while I go wipe this egg from my face.
5. “Née” always refers to a female, not “usually.” That’s what the second “e” indicates.
   1. Quite correct. What I was trying to say was that it’s usually the female of the species that changes name on marriage and so forth. This inclusivity lark is made much harder by the French (and others) who still insist on masculine and feminine endings.
      1. I figured you must know that, really, but I’m a copy editor and compulsive-obsession is both a prerequisite and a hazard of the job.
         1. Perhaps we could employ you to keep us in order. The position would be respected (possibly), but obviously unpaid.
6. 22:16 .. I can’t say I thought this straightforward at all, but I did enjoy it. Several penny-drop moments made it a rewarding one to finish.

   EMBARGO, PHILATELY (what a stonking good definition that is) and HANGAR all successfully led me up the garden path.

   The Holmes reference passed me by so THE VALLEY OF FEAR was wordplay + assumed gap in knowledge.

   1. Actually, I had thought to niggle about this–one doesn’t normally think of the stamp as what’s posted, although being stuck to the envelope it is perforce–but of course I never niggle.
      1. I can’t claim any expertise (other than philately’s having cropped up as a cover story in a Len Deighton novel I read last week) but I’m not sure philatelists are interested only in the adhesive stamp. I think they’re into the whole package, as it were. I’m probably opening a can of worms, here.
         1. Don’t worry about it- philately will get you nowhere.

            Nick

7. 44 minutes for this rather lively and enjoyable puzzle.

   I didn’t recognise the book title but it was easily found from anagrist and wordplay.

   ODOUR was also unaccountably my LOI.

   The usual sources are two to one with the setter on SWEETCORN, Collins being the exception.

   Edited at 2014-10-02 05:42 am (UTC)

   1. Maybe the usual sources will catch up one day.
8. 
   Thought it was gonna be quick when 1ac went right in, but sadly no…

   Was left with two in bottom right (STEREOTYPE, PYRE), somehow couldn’t get letters to fit the spaces…. Now, of course, I can’t believe I didn’t get them!

   Put in CRAVE with a shrug, never really think of it meaning ‘sigh for’. Also WRETCH. Was thinking of the wrong sort of ‘eat out’.

9. No time but definitively over the hour so by no means easy for me. The fact many of us finished with ODOUR suggests that the definition is well hidden and the word little used. Not to mention, as Kevin found, the wordplay is not the most congruent.

   I had to cheat in the SW on gunslinger to get going again. One of those where I was looking for an auteur predominantly and the only Second Amendment character I considered was ‘gunfighter’.

   Unlike some others I wasn’t that keen on the literal for admiral.

10. Pleased that today was one of my quite rare finishes and the iPad timer said 53 minutes though there was some dog feeding and tea making in between. Must have been the nasty bang on the head I gave myself the night before last … STEREOTYPE was my LOI and I enjoyed “love of what’s posted”, which had me heading down the road of Facebook status updates etc
11. 15m here, so fairly gentle. Rather a lot went in unparsed from the definitions.
    I’ve always written SWEETCORN as one word.
    I was a bit puzzled by 22dn: being fat is not really the defining characteristic of a CAPON. At least I’m pretty sure I’d feel that way if I were one.
    1. A castrated domestic cock fattened for eating.

       Not me … ODO.

       1. Exactly!
12. 20’55. All rather straightforward though was delayed by non-existent gold and silver symbols in prelate. There’s a fat-seeming capon in Jaques’ ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech in ‘As You Like It’: ‘And then the justice, In fair round belly, with a good capon lined…’ I too didn’t know of glycerine as alcoholic, merely explosive. Liked 3 for the Moore memory apart from the the surface neatness.
13. A very pleasant 15 minutes, especially when the penny dropped for PHILATELY. I initially went with IONA for 1ac, but thought even as I did it that it was perhaps a bit too non-PC for a Times puzzle…
14. 13 mins, so I must have been on the setter’s wavelength. I saw INCH and ASTRONOMER immediately and had the top half finished in no time (metaphorically of course), but the bottom half took a little longer to unravel. The Holmes novel was my LOI after STEREOTYPE.
15. Derives from Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson and the first battle of Bull Run. Recently made more famous by Richard Nixon who was heard on the White House taping system urging his merry men to stonewall the various Watergate investigations by any means possible, while publicly professing cooperation. 15.46 with a lengthy proofing session because when I’m quick I’m careless. Nice puzzle.
    1. Thank God we’re not all taped. Some stuff I’m involved with would make the Nixon tapes look like kindergarten sessions.
       1. The HK cops are on their way. And the Nixon tapes were like kindergarten sessions.
16. Thanks for parsing PONG which went in unparsed. PRELATE and CRAVE last pair in as for some reason, my brain got caught up on PRIMATE and couldn’t move on.

    Enjoyable puzzle, with unknowns or forgottens usually readily discernable or recoverable from the clues, e.g. I had forgotten 18, but was able to call it back from the wordplay.

17. 25 minutes

    Hadn’t used to much care for these concatenated clues such as 1 dn and 15 ac, but I’m getting quite fond of them these days. Didn’t recognize the Sherlock Holmes reference but guessed it must be a detective story.

    Thought I was being a bit puritanical in my reaction to 29 and wasn’t going to comment on it, so I thank Zabadak for emboldening me to say that I too found the clue in questionable taste.

    Some cleverly misleading definitions today: particularly liked “time of Prohibition”, “save” and “Love of what’s posted”.

    Tim’s solution for 1 ac above caused an audible chuckle, though it is probably more suited to Private Eye.

18. . . . with a surprising number going straight in from the definition. I knew the Holmes reference but then again, my name is Watson.
    Like z8 and John, I was a bit surprised at 29ac.
19. 23 min: thought I was going to finish really quickly after getting first two acrosses straightaway, but then nothing till PHILATELY. (& yes, Sotira, philatelists are not necessarily only interested in stamps – some postal history specialists just collect the pre-stamp era.)
    I was another who thought of FENIAN initially, so FABIAN was my LOI.
20. Most went in quite quickly for me but like others I struggled (and failed) to parse PONG and put in ODOUR from definition and DOUR. I did not see where the O came from but will try to remember that sort of clue for the future. I was able to put in and parse a surprisingly large number from first read through and was miffed to have to struggle so hard with a few others which, once they fell, seemed entirely obvious.Thanks for blog.
21. I lived in Kolkata a number of years and can attest (a) that a number of its citizens do the Times crossword and (b) that to its citizens the burning of a loved one’s dead body is a solemn business. As with Kolkata of course so elsewhere. The 29 surface, it shouldn’t need stating, is out of key with the sensitivity to be expected of a serious publication that goes beyond the borders of the UK. That said, it’s not the most heinous of crimes, but it is a little off-key.
22. Completed (hurrah!) though with constant interruptions over about 2 hours.
    I rather quite enjoyed this with lots of nifty clues, apart from 29a – it’s almost as if the compiler had tried to be a little too clever and it just didn’t work. I couldn’t really believe my answer was right from such a wording.
    Particularly liked 7, 10 & 27.
23. A racing start led me to think I was going to finish in little more than 20 minutes, but then got stuck on 1d and its symmetrical partner, and several in the SW corner, 19,25,26,28. No exact time because of interruptions, but I guess around 35-40 minutes’ solving time in the end, but, like ulaca, I confess to using an aid to get 28.

    I had the same trouble as z8b8d8k parsing 10. I wasn’t particularly keen on ‘cable’ in 9 – obviously there for the surface, but completely unnecessary in the cryptic since ‘main’ = ‘principal’, A case for Occam’s razor. On the other hand 19d was a beautifully misleading clue.

24. 20 minutes. It seems I spoke to soon about the general level of the puzzles getting harder as that is the third one in a row erring on the easier side.

    Personally I quite liked the clue for PYRE. That said I can understand it might not be to everyone’s taste.

    1. Maybe it’s a question of how close the presence is of the body, in the overall idea. I daresay a clue that punned on the business of getting a corpse ready for burial , or to be seen in a funeral parlour, might not pass muster. I can’t see a Hindu writing this clue – nor, for that matter being enraged by it; they are the most tolerant of peoples. It could still grate a lot.
       1. No pun intended, I hope. -:)
25. 12:17 so like Andy I appear to have zoned in on the setter’s wavelength here.

    I have an anthology (if that’s the word) of the Sherlock Holmes long stories so The V of F was familiar enough. Re the last bit Z, I just took “away from” and “hearing” as separate elements rather than a quirky phrase.

    Forgive me but I dont understand the expressions of distaste at the clue to pyre. Don’t we have plenty of graves, tombs, interments etc that pass without comment? We even had “stiff” last week and nobody cared.

    1. It’s not that I thought PYRE was in bad taste – just a bad clue.
26. And tashes to ashes.
27. Those of us professionally engaged (a long time ago for me) would happily refer to a visit to the crematorium as “going for a burn-up down the A10” “coming home to a real fire” “Chest, nuts roasting on an open fire” and so on
    Not in the presence of the relatives and friends of the recently deceased, of course. Now that WOULD be in poor taste.
    Just as well there were no tape recorders running, I guess.
28. As a newbie who has been cutting my teeth on the Quick Cryptics and not really got more than occasional answers for the biggie, I was more than a little pleased to get 28 out of the 30 correct answers, although could not get all the wordplays. Got stuck in NW corner thinking of ISLE instead of INCH and so could not get CRAVE but greatly encouraged by this performance.
    1. Congratulations jucrow and welcome here.

       Edited at 2014-10-02 07:15 pm (UTC)

    2. Welcome to the blog!
29. Started earlier on the day for a change, so feel a bit more able to post here. Very pleased to finish after an on-off solve (due to various factors not in my control), even though I don’t think I hit the wavelength of the setter that well. I can only echo the comments of vinyl1.

    As a relatively newbie, I have also found the crosswords of late more difficult, so very pleased that I’ve been completing more than usual this past month or so. I put that fact completely down to what I’ve learnt from this blog, so many, many thanks to all!

    1. Last week’s were an unusually difficult crop and yesterday’s smorgasbord of clues from a variety of setters, which had been contributed to the Club Clue Challenge over a period of time, presented quite a struggle for those of us who try to get on the wavelength of a single setter (doesn’t always work). Nice to hear a new voice Nigel.
       1. Hi Olivia,

          Thanks for the kind comments. It’s difficult for me to contribute to the blog on a regular basis as I do the paper version late in the day, or even the next morning. But I always enjoy reading the blog whatever happens and enjoy hearing from the various characters such as yourself that contribute 🙂

          1. For what it’s worth, the lead blogger each day gets an email every time someone responds, so there’s always someone who will receive your comment or question. I occasionally get queries about puzzles weeks ago that someone has just completed, so I can confidently say there’s no time limit.
             1. Hi z8,

                Many thanks for advice!

30. I must be very dim, because I can’t understand 19dn. How is ‘top player on board’ = admiral? The top player on board is the king; unless you’re into some complicated form of fairy chess.
    1. Think ships and the navy! Grestyman
    2. On board ship…
    3. Admiral = top player on board (a ship)
       Bob
    4. Player’s being used in the (ODO) sense ‘A person or body that is involved and influential in an area or activity’. But, as noted above, I still don’t go a bundle on it, as the metaphor doesn’t evoke an atmosphere or provide a penny-dropping moment.

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