Times 24639 – ZZ…ZZ…

54 comments on “Times 24639 – ZZ…ZZ…”

1. OK. A bit dull but at least it had some decent surfaces unlike yesterday. Think Peter was being kind when saying that some were not up to the standard one expects. The very opposite of the elegance which I look forward to seeing. (Sorry for the belated rant but no time to comment yesterday). Now off to see if KP can improve on his 2 ball duck of Tuesday. Australian selectors scouring the country for left-arm spinners.
2. Didn’t think this was too dull or too easy at all. Took exactly 40′ and got stuck top right and bottom left. The second not helped by mis-spelling SHERIFF which stuffed up the whole ISLAND/LIBEL thing. The first not helped by not seeing the darn light-inclusive again. Must be one myself. So I’m in no position to complain. Further confession: I didn’t see the piAzza at 15ac and thought it was just a cryptic def: pizzas being, mostly, circular. Any other signs of complete idiocy anyone would like?
   1. I spent some time trying to convince myself that PASTA worked.
3. Sorry to disagree Jack, but i thought this was an enjoyable workout with some decent surfaces. Much smoother than yesterday’s tortuous effort.

   You’re not alone, mctext, I missed the piazza reference as well. In fact I’d bunged in ‘pasta’ until it conflicted with ZINFANDEL at the end. 49 minutes for me.

   1. That’s okay, rich, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been out of step with the majority view here and on the showing so far this will be just another example. I guess I’m looking for something different from some other contributors. I noticed the main concern yesterday was with the surface readings whilst today’s have received some praise already, but (like Jimbo, is it?) this is the least important part of the clue for me and often I don’t even think about it if the answer comes readily to mind.

      What I do like are specific references to particular subjects and especially (and this time unlike Jimbo) to the arts whether highbrow or lowbrow but also to other subjects, and also something in a clue that may spark an idea or bring something of interest to mind, or extremely clever or quirky wordplay.

      Obviously one can’t expect setters to cater for the diversity of every solver’s tastes but it’s enjoyable when they manage a good mix.

      I would agree that today’s puzzle is technically sound though the wordplay is often somewhat basic and I didn’t find much of interest in it. It may be significant that the two clues I enjoyed most, to ZINFANDEL and ABU SIMBEL, were the ones that gave me the most trouble.

      Whilst I have been writing this, but before posting it, I see that Peter has ruled that FETTUCINI is just plain wrong. Fortunately I had little idea how to spell it so having spotted it was an anagram I used up the available letters, bunged it in and never gave it another thought. I have possibly been a bit mean to today’s setter so here’s a reminder that all complaints about this should be addressed not to him (or her?) but to Messrs Collins. If it’s in it’s in and it’s okay to use it.

      1. For crossword purposes, absolutely right. I suspect there are other better-established English words that garble the original foreign version.
      2. I’m in a very similar camp: I barely even notice the surfaces so enjoy a puzzle like yesterday’s and find ones like this, in which the surfaces are better but the wordplay relatively simple, a little pedestrian (a much fairer word than dull).
         Vive la différence!
4. I liked this too.. about average difficulty at 17mins but absolutely nothing wrong with it. I put pizza in quite happily but also failed to notice the pi(a)zza reference, sadly
5. I didn’t think this was boring during solving – answers like MEA CULPA, ABU SIMBEL and other foreign-origin ones add a bit of spice to the mixture – possibly a first appearance for Zinfandel. As does SHERIFF if it’s one of your spelling black spots.

   “fettucini” is just plain wrong, but is recognised as a variant by Collins and Chambers. Oxford aren’t touching it with a bargepole, even in the OED. All pasta names in English come from Italian plurals, which (nearly always) end in -e when the (fem.) singular ends in -a, and -i when the (masc.) singular ends in -o. So one strand of spaghetti is in theory a spaghetto. “lasagna” seems like a similar howler, but apparently it’s at least the singular of “lasagne”, which must be an irregular plural.

   There seem to be a few more -i pastas than -e ones, so “fettucini” is easy to understand, but I can’t remember ever seeing “penni”, “farfalli” or “pappardelli”.

   Solving time: 8:14

   1. I’m wondering if BARGIPOLI could be an extremely long, very rigid kind of spaghetti?
      1. The Italians seem to go in for humour in some names – my favourite is “dischi volanti” (flying saucers) and “messicani” (from a vague resemblance to sombreros) as names for this kind.
   2. Why an irregular plural? Seems quite regular to me.
      1. Sì, sì. Scusate il mio italiano orribile.
   3. The 9th and 11th editions of the Concise give ‘fettucini’ as a variant of ‘fettuccine’.  The Shorter at least used to give ‘fettucine’ as a variant, but didn’t stoop to recognizing the ‘-i’ solecism.  The ODE gives no quarter, and nor (as Peter says) does the OED; but the most recent citation in the latter is from 1964, so it will be interesting to see what they do when they get round to revising the entry (if any of us are alive by then).

      It’s unclear what the role of a dictionary should be in such a case – foreign imports are rarely pristine – but I suppose a ‘non-standard’ or even ‘erroneous’ label would be a reasonable compromise in a dictionary that aims to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

6. Tough but fair – and fun – I plodded home in 82 minutes, positing ‘racebell’ for my plant with a lack of confidence that proved not to be misplaced on going to aids.

   Held up a little by not entering RAMPART until I could see the cryptic and by the strange spelling of ‘fettuccine’ as FETTUCINI. Still on a culinary theme, I didn’t spot the piazza either, but it makes a decent &lit, anyway. Much to like, but COD to BUZZ.

7. 30min and I had done all but the artist – duh! I managed to convince myself that the CE was at the end of the word not the beginning, and even getting the Z in the middle didn’t help.

   Unusual to see a crossword with two ZZ’s in the grid. ZINFANDEL must have been a challenge to clue.

8. Angered seems to be a decent fit for this anagram too.
   1. If you’re well tuned in to Times crossword clues, I think you have to reject “angered” – the clue doesn’t quite suggest an adjective, and for ANGERED, I think the clue would have been more like “Danger – exploding energy might make you this”, though I suspect a Times setter could find a more elegant phrasing.
9. What piazza? Solved in a steady 16 minutes, with a slow start trying to get going in the NW as usual, but eventually leaving it to the final run in.
   I don’t see how we can be sniffy about a misspelling of fettucine, supported as it is by Chambers, general use et al. We had “yer” for “your” yesterday, which led me to expect bruv, gonna, wivaht and any number of estuaryisms once they make it past the censors.
   Favourite clue ABU SIMBEL – nice clue structure and a memory of the overwhelming impact as you walk around the corner and meet the family face to fa..er..toe.
   1. That’s the ‘square’ without the ‘a’ (‘not a square’).
      1. Sure, I know that after coming here, but thought the clue worked well enough without it (pace some blasphemous rectilinear variations on the circular cheese on toast theme). I thought PIZZA immediately, thought the clue justified it adequately as a cryptic definition, didn’t therefore bother to justify it further by looking for alternative wordplay.
10. 15m. Very straightforward, and I agree a little dull. Nothing wrong with it though and I liked PIZZA.
11. 20 minutes for a straightforward solve of a very middle of the road puzzle. I’m not sure “dull” is the right word, perhaps “pedestrian” Jack in that it was perhaps uninspired and rather commonplace with answers treated in the most obvious of ways in the cryptic?

    Like most I like a clue to have a reasonable surface reading although I do my best to ignore it when solving. This is truer for the daily puzzle than the bar crosswords. I don’t think the daily puzzle should have surface readings that are complete gobbledygook, and indeed they rarely do.

    1. Just checked the meanings in the SOED and the first definition of ‘pedestrian’ is (esp. of writing) prosaic, dull, uninspired. I think they all cover it. Maybe it was seeing all those Zs that nearly sent me nodding off.
12. No serious hold-ups and pleased to be able to use my newly acquired knowledge that ‘I’ = current so soon! Untroubled by consequent spelling of ‘fettucini’ (lots of Google references to show misspelling is common); interestingly, searching for ‘fettucini’ in online Oxford Dictionaries takes you to ‘fettuccine’ (no alert to original misspelling) with a note that you should ‘Spell fettuccine with a double t and a double c; it is an Italian word’.
13. A pleasant 16 min. I think just a wavelength thing. Rather surprised to find nothing left after the recorded time.
14. At a tad over 35 minutes I found it straightforward, but by no means dull or pedestrian. In fact I enjoyed it, with a goodly few ticks about the place. On the topic of dunces, not only did piazza escape me, but I chucked in ROUND, thinking a round of sandwiches, before finding it fitted with no other answer. In my defence, I can only say it must have been the lingering effect of doing an Australian Women’s Weekly cryptic crossword in a doctor’s waiting room this week. If you ever think you have cause to complain about a Times crossword, I’ll send you a copy, unindicated anagrams and all.
15. Surprisingly easy for a Friday I thought and one I would have finished unaided if it wasn’t for misspelling MAE CULPA (sic) and then looking blankly at R?M?E?T for RAMPART.

    Thought DUNCE was very nicely hidden. I’m with the others who interpreted PIZZA as a cd not as PI(A)ZZA.

    Peter – Times puzzle book 13 arrived in the post yesterday. I’m guessing the puzzles are from 2004/05. When you wrote this blog single-handedly did you cover any of the more recent puzzles in that collection?

    1. The introduction will tell you that Book 13’s puzzles appeared in 2005. That probably means there are about 6 puzzles that coincide with the embryonic beginnings of the blog. For that number (and my first efforts), I didn’t think it was worth asking Richard Browne for a list of the original puzzle numbers. If you get stumped for explanations of answers, I should be able to help by e-mail.
       1. Thanks Peter. I’d not got as far as reading the intro, but did have time to notice that the grid to the specimen puzzle at the front didn’t match the clues !!

          I’ll drop you a mail if I can’t fathom any answers. I think I should be OK though – I’m expecting the style of clues to be the same as today’s.

          1. Always read the Amazon reviews before you buy …

             You shouldn’t see any major difference to present-day clue writing. Apart from indication of def. by example (or not) that should be pretty much true all the way back to 1995, when Brian Greer finally killed off the old-style quotation clues.

             1. Interestingly enough, I have just opened Book 1, and for the first ten puzzles I have four or five where I have not finished two or three interlinked clues. Granted I have moved on if I stared at something for more than 5-10 mins, but they definitely seem a lot harder than the current crop.

                This may be a misnomer, as it could be a different style rather than strictly more difficult (as people keep trying to pull on school exams these days) however given this was only 2001 (I believe) then I am surprised at the difference.

                Are there any things to look out for that just dont exist today, or that may stump someone who is grounded in 2008-2010 grids.

                1. I think difficulty differences between current and 9-year-old puzzles may depend a lot on your experience (and I can’t remember whether you’re an old hand or not). For me, the puzzles of that era feel easier as a result of the more strictly Ximenean clue-writing style in force when Brian Greer and Mike Laws were in charge. But there are probably other little differences related to nothing more than the passage of time, which may make the old puzzles different enough from today’s to make them harder for solvers “brought up” on puzzles since 2002, when Richard Browne took over as xwd ed.
16. 27 minutes. Liked PIZZA, MANIA and MEA CULPA. Puzzled when FETTUCINI went in, but thought it was just the difficulty I always have with Italian words – can never spell prosciutto when that appears in crosswords.
17. …no major difficulties. I didn’t notice ‘fettucini’, although that non-existent word seems to be printed on the boxes of a number of commercial products. The actual pasta always calls itself ‘fettucine’, but frozen meals made with it seem to favor ‘fettucini’.

    Curiously, I had to think long and hard over ‘subdue’, which should have been obvious.

18. 13:20 .. uninspiring end to a meat and potato week. For some reason this didn’t feel quite like a Times puzzle to me, but then I had the same feeling yesterday, so maybe it’s just me. Perhaps there should be a Setter’s Revenge blog where they can say things like “Thought Sotira was a bit rubbish this week”. On second thoughts, that’s a terrible idea.

    Best thing about today’s puzzle is Jackkt’s blog title, which made me smile.

19. A straightforward enough 45 minutes or so, last in 6d / 8d. COD 18d, for the lovely surface reading, and if only because I thought it must be REBELsomething for far too long!
20. Having given up on yesterday’s I was beginning to think I was the dunce by the time I got to the bottom of the across clues with only one answer filled in! Fortunately the downs came very easily and then the whole crossword came together very quickly.

21. 25 minutes, which left me time to go back to the two unsolved clues from Wednesday’s puzzle, where I finally settled very tentatively for PLUM and GAMBOGE, which I see are correct.

    I found this pretty straightforward, though Abu Simbel rang only the faintest of bells, but the wordplay was pretty clear.

    I really don’t like clues such as 15, where the deletion operator precedes the operand with no linking preposition. “X not A” is awkward but acceptable. “No A to/in X is fine”.But “Not A X” is dreadfully stilted in the cryptic reading.

    I also disliked the otiose ‘what’s’ in 17. The clue would work better with a final question mark, so that the words after ‘Lose’ pose a question, to which the answer is MISPLACE. However, I can see an argument for interpreting “what’s left” as “that which is left”, thus identifying L, so I mustn’t be too critical. On the whole the clues were fine, with far better surfaces than yesterday’s.

22. 15:30, nothing to report except that I, too, missed the subtlety of pizza. Well done to those who spotted it, especially Jack.

    Shame I wasn’t around on Tuesday to offer my thoughts on the subject of Leeds United. I was interested to note the appearance of “red scum” in one of the clues in the same puzzle, it being Leeds code for Man U.

23. Unlike yesterday, I had no problems with this puzzle. 23 minutes to finish with (of all things) BRAN!

    I had to work out ZINFANDEL and a misspelt SHERIFF was always possible. COD to ABU SIMBEL (which I visited in the 1950s!)

24. Rather enjoyed this even though I agree that it was a bit vanilla. The definitions seemed pretty clear throughout, and this made the process of solving much more mechanical than is sometimes the case. Finished in 25 mins, which is fast for me. Or so I thought – I guessed at ‘racebell’ for 8dn, so no points for me.

    H(andel)

25. About 15 minutes to get through this ending with AQUARIA. I too overlooked the subtlety of PIZZA, which I think now upon its being explained by Jack is a very clever clue. Overall I thought the surfaces today were very good, even if the answers were often telegraphed. Best regards.
26. ABC have reported that since introducing the pay-wall, the Times’ circulation has fallen below 500,000 for the first time since 1994 so the hoped for switch from e-based reading to buying the paper has not happened (surprise, surprise with so many alternative news sources out there)
    1. I didn’t know the Times was hoping for this kind of switch. The figures here show other broadsheet papers with similar reductions in circulation.
27. 9:15, with the last 2 minutes spent on 27ac (FANFARE) – which wasn’t really my fault, as the clue failed to indicate that “to match” was needlessly specific.  (Stream-of-solverness: “Match, match. TEST? Doesn’t fit. FIANCE? Just had that. GAME? MATE?”, etc.)

    I thought the definition for LIBEL (25ac), on the other hand, was underspecific, it being central to the (usually understood) meaning of the word that libels are false.  And the cryptic indication for ABOVE BOARD (14dn) surely rested on a mistake: the chairman may be above the rest of the board, but he is still on the board.

    Clue of the Day: 3dn (MEA CULPA).

    1. Collins and SOED both have ‘chairman’ as being “over” the board and Collins has ‘libel’ as ‘any defamatory or unflattering representation or statement’. Once again complaints to the dictionaries may be in order but I think the setter is exonerated.

       I agree ‘to match’ in 27ac may be over specific. Its omission or a question mark might have been in order.

28. I’m puzzled – my “11th ed (revised) 2008” only has the -ine version – maybe this is one of the revisions? Agreed about the tricky role for the dictionary though.
    1. I’m using the electronic version of the 11th edition, which doesn’t claim to have been revised, so yes, perhaps it was one of the revisions – in which case it will no doubt have been a conscious decision to try to buck the trend.
29. For more on PI(A)ZZA see Jonathan Crowther’s A-Z of Crosswords, p.190 in the entry by Virgilius (Brian Greer)
30. 13 mins, a couple spent on getting SUBDUE at the end, for no very good reason. I immediately thought of Tubular Bells as well, which ages me.

    Tom B.

31. Does any dictionary really try to be prescriptive?
    To do so would be like King Canute, or his modern-day successor, the Académie Française.
    1. No dictionary is fully descriptive: a lexicographer has to decide what to allow as usage and what to dismiss as error.  To take just one example, the only dictionary I know of that acknowledges ‘recieve’ as a variant spelling of ‘receive’ is the OED, which lists it as having been in continuous use from the 16th century onwards but labels it “now nonstandard”.  (It’s not just spelling, either: dictionaries can be prescriptive about the meaning of scientific terms that are widely used in other ways.)
       1. I don’t agree with this, I must say. In language there is simply no such thing as error. There is only usage, and the job of a lexicographer is to record this as best as he/she can, recognising that any dictionary has to set certain boundaries as to what “accepted” usage is. This is always a matter of judgement but outside the worlds of crosswords and scrabble a dictionary is never an authority.

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