Times 25123 – what’s in several names?

36 comments on “Times 25123 – what’s in several names?”

1. ive been over it 5 times and still cant find it. otherwise very enjoyable tonight.
2. Skipped through this and was on for a rare sub-20 before a hold-up in the NW, with COACH and finally HOEDOWN – my COD.

   With the two easy long verticals, I expect [British] old hands to be threatening the 5-minute barrier.

3. 12m without caffeine assistance, which qualifies as easy.
   Quite a lot of this went in from chequers and definition, including the long down ones. So I didn’t get to groan at 8dn until after solving. I thoroughly approve of that sort of thing.
   I thought for a while the “dodgy character” in 5dn was a “tout”, which would make the homophone dodgy. I’m still not quite sure how you get “doubt” from it.
   This meaning of UP THE POLE is one I’ve never come across in the real world but it came up here and here. I vagely remembered it had a meaning I couldn’t remember, which was enough.
4. 23.44 on the club timer – I kind of seized up half way through, and, being online, used BACKSPACE a lot, so really annoyed not to spot it quicker. Memo: key=something on keyboard, idiot.
   SLEEPER, as Jack was too polite to point out directly, is clued by Woody Allen’s Sleepers minus the final S.
   Otherwise, a fun crossword, greatly enhanced by the HEMMINGWAY clue. Has anyone spotted that before? Laugh out loud stuff and my CoD
   1. The Woody Allen film is SLEEPER (1973) whereas I think the clue is referring to SLEEPERS (1996), a Robert de Niro film that I have never seen, however I didn’t need to read as far as dropping the S to come up with the right answer.
      1. So it is. I’ll never try to show off again! I also think that the relative obscurity of the de Niro film together with the usual success of Woody Allen makes it unlikely that there’s anything other than a double definition here, so I repent in dust and ashes.
      2. I missed George’s point about ‘sleeper’ being a film that builds up over time rather than a specific title so thanks to Ulaca for pointing this out (it came by email but doesn’t appear here for some reason). But what the hell, we all got there one way or another!
5. This took me 32 minutes of steady solving with some of the clue details more complicated than I could fathom in the process so I bunged in those answers from definition and checkers alone and had a leisurely review of the wordplay after completing the grid.

   At 6 I got the answer immediately from the Woody Allen movie so I didn’t need to read past the first two words of the clue.

   Like keriothe I couldn’t quite understand 5dn but now I see that if one takes ‘dodgy’ as ‘uncertain’ it seems to make sense.

   Edited at 2012-03-29 06:16 am (UTC)

6. 
   Found it tough, but again was determined to finish. Today’s incorrect one was 4ac, where I put ‘backstage’, which kind of works as an actor who can move about freely without the audience seeing him?

   I too thought 5dn was meant to sound like ‘czech tout’, but then again, I never worry too much about how exact the homophones sound.

   Thanks for parsing HOEDOWN, SLEEPER and EH, which all went in on definition alone.

7. On the whole quite easy, but with some devilishly clever stuff mixed in. I agree with George about the “very crafty” 3 dn (HOEDOWN), which was my LOI. I’m also with George in seeing SLEEPER as a straightforward double def – dormant spy/film that flops initially but picks up a following over time. BILGE, BACKSPACE, SOUR CREAM, ADAM”S ALE and SKI PANTS were all top-class and ERNEST HEMINGWAY outstanding. Count me among those who read 5 dn homophonically as CZECH TOUT rather than CZECH DOUBT. The former seems to me to make more sense and, given the usual degree of latitude permitted with homophones, close enough sound-wise. But both work, just about, in my view. Perhaps the setter would enlighten us as to which he/she had in mind?

8. Took me a good 40 minutes; just couldn’t get PASTY out of my mind for 28. Wonder why?

   Like others I struggled to make sense of “Czech doubt”, so I searched Google for the expression “he’s a doubt” and found several examples such as

   Wayne Rooney to fight two-game ban but he’s a doubt for Chelsea showdown

   Just about convinced myself … I think.

   Liked the puzzle very much, particularly finding the definitions tucked away as “key” or “party” or “stage”.

   Off out now to enjoy the glorious weather.

   Edited at 2012-03-29 09:14 am (UTC)

   1. Well there’s no doubt Wayne Rooney is a dodgy character but I’m still struggling to come up with a sentence in which “dodgy character” and “doubt” are interchangeable.
      1. You are right, of course. A day relaxing in the English countryside, pondering the clue now and then, has left me thinking that the “Czech tout” interpretation is probably correct.

         Edited at 2012-03-29 08:58 pm (UTC)

         1. Crikey, you did better than me. I got to a similar result after a day that started at 5am and involved travelling 900 miles and back for a single meeting. And it was cold there.
            If we’re right, I’m not sure if this homophone is dodgy. I’ve been saying “czech tout” under my breath to try and decide but I’d better stop before my wife has me committed.
9. 27/30 today with Coach, Hoedown and Backspace missing. Kicking myself for not getting the latter – it’s not yet automatic for me to consider keyboard keys when I see “key” in a clue. Didn’t know Stage was an abbreviation for Stagecoach nor that Sleeper can mean “a film or book slowly growing in popularity” and doubt I’d have got Hoedown even with all the checkers. When I see “party” in a clue I struggle to think beyond Do, Lab, Lib or Con.

   The enumeration for 1D was a gimme and all those first letters helped open up the left hand side. I liked the clue for Dungeness. Before wikipedia corrected me I’d have put the headland somewhere on the north coast of Scotland not in Kent!

   I doubt it’s the first time that Eton and Harrow have been referenced in the same puzzle. Any old boys solving this one might be getting along to Lord’s on 23 June for the annual cricket match between the two schools.

   1. The Deadwood Stage, Daniel? But perhaps you’re too young to remember that one!
      1. Jackkt – are you referring to the song “The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away!)” from the 1953 film Calamity Jane? Long before I was born and probably even too long ago for my parents to remember! Thanks for the reference though – have read up on it on wikipedia.
         1. When younger than you Daniel we all had the hots for Doris Day – and so did our fathers I suspect
         2. Yes, that’s the one. It is/was very famous across many decades so I’d be very surprised if your parents don’t know of it.
10. 25 minutes, held up by 5 in the end by COACH, HOEDOWN and SLEEPER, the last by wondering how it worked. Both first and second of the aforementioned were good, but not as good as ROBIN HOOD and ERNEST. Great stuff.
11. 14:36 .. fun puzzle. I’m another who took the (erroneous) Woody Allen route to SLEEPER. Good job they don’t make us show our workings in the margin.

    Last in: BILGE

12. …except for my big struggle with ‘stage’ and ‘hoedown’, which should not have been that difficult. I was able to put in ‘hoedown’ immediately from the definition once I had all the checkers.

    The only word I never heard of was ‘Dungeness’, but the cryptic gives it to you.

13. Same as most others with 1D going in from 6-3-6 and getting things off to a good start. Also got E-M the other long down from “writer” 6-9 with E and H in place. Missed the “Ming Way” bit at the time – well spotted George.

    Dungeness is famous for having to build a new lighthouse every so many years as the sea lays down shingle at an enormous rate and strands the old ones back up the beach

14. Dungeness, not too far from me, is famous for lots of things, such as:
    – being Britain’s only desert
    – a huge nuclear power station
    – one of the country’s best bird reserves
    – where a gay film director lived and gardened..

    not to mention two good pubs.. a remarkable place!

15. 25 minutes and no red mist descending near the tape. In the hoedown clue is ‘hold’ the plural verb for ‘he’d’ and ‘own’? Seems a touch odd if so. I’m sure the setter had Czech doubt in mind. 8’s ridiculous and delightful.
16. Not so easy a time as others, about 30 minutes. I thought SLEEPER meant the Woody Allen film too, but I had already really screwed up at 16, faced with ??I?H, I went with LEIGH, which I was sure must be correct for the altogether unknown BBC person. That held up the film even further. Finally straightened it out and guessed at the spelling of REITH. COD to HOEDOWN, agreed. Regards to all.
    1. I think we had Mr Reith in a previous puzzle. I seem to have remembered him.

       I wasn’t the blogger, or I would really remember it.

       1. Yes it was over 2 years ago, here at 11ac:
          http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/446395.html?thread=5661371

          This has also reminded me of the name of the blogger who used the impossible drawer’s ‘Drawing Hands’ as their userpic. I was trying to remember earlier this week.

17. 21 minutes, so a comparative struggle, but one I enjoyed, 8 down in particular. I also assumed the dodgy character had to be a tout, but I don’t suppose it matters, really.
18. 10:32 for me, with around half that time spent on COACH, HOEDOWN, BACKSPACE (a complete mental block here, since BACK–A-E looked probable) and SLEEPER.
19. I think I was on the wavelength today. 22 minutes and no serious hold-ups, although there were a couple that were so obvious from the checkers that I didn’t bother to work them out. I think everything has already been said about this puzzle. I’m late commenting – busy day + choir practice (Mozart Requiem. Yum Yum). (From sublime to gor-blimey, as they say, I bought a Doris Day piano/vocal album last week. I thought it would be just the job for my Friday singalong group. But the keys are all wrong for communal singing – some go down to the F below middle C and others go up to top C. Very operatic! Certainly not the keys the divine Doris would have sung in. I was hoping for “The Deadwood Stage” but no luck, though “The Black Hills of Dakota” is included. Who said they knew Doris Day before she was a virgin?)
    1. Oscar Levant – great quote!
       1. Brilliantand memorable. I’ve never heard of him, though
          1. Probably well before your time.

             Very eccentric genius – pianist, composer and wit. Worked with George Gershwin.

             Appeared in Doris Day’s first film Romance On The High Seas

             1. I’ve just googled him and wonder where he’s been all my life. I was in my 30’s when he died so can’t understand this gap in my GK. Maybe because my 20s passed in a haze of domesticity. There seems to be lots of witty Americans of that vintage. Must be the Jewish influence. But thanks for the reference.
20. I believe 5 down sounds like ‘Czech Tout’ – a tout being a ‘dodgy character’.

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