Times Cryptic 29042

83 comments on “Times Cryptic 29042”

1. Failed to finish having put TRY at the end of 1A for attempt, so BLUEBIRD was never going to come. NHO AMBLER. I really liked this and thought there were some clever clues. STARBOARD, STRATAGEM, the NHO but gettable from wordplay DUENNA, TRIBALISM. COD to CANTERBURY BELLS. Didn’t notice there were no anagrams today.
   Thanks Jack and setter.

   1. Ditto. I could not get past Try at the end of 1a.

   2. Ditto

2. Around 40 minutes. A most enjoyable puzzle. FOI NONPAREIL Lots of nice clues like BLUEBIRD, SEMANTICS, TRIBALISM, IRISHMAN etc LIO DUENNA I was able to parse all but one.
   Thanks Jack.

3. 20:39
   I was embarrassingly slow to get LOI BLUEBIRD; like Quadrophenia, I was stuck on TRY for attempt, but finally the penny dropped. I have definitely heard of AMBLER, and read most of his thrillers; a lot more readable than the doorstops of Ludlum et al. DNK the flower.

4. Easier than yesterday’s, which I just worked a little while ago (my printer was out of ink).
   Strange that I didn’t notice the absence of anagrams!

5. Very much not on wavelength today, 37:40 with UMBLER for AMBLER. Old spy/thriller/detective novelists are a bugbear for me; I think the much-maligned classical or literary/poetic references have a much better chance of still being relevant in 100 years than does a thriller author from the first half of the 20th century.

   1. (Note: just realised, later, that at least ‘umber’ works for shade as in ‘hue’, whereas I’d been counting on some dodgy link between umbra and shade.)

      1. That is exactly why I went for UMBLER too!

         1. We fail together!

6. I didn’t find this too bad – I’ve heard of Ambler, saw Canterbury bells, and knew both meanings of mufti. As I wrote in Benjamin Britten, it occurred to me that penultimate E is unchecked, and if you don’t know how Britten’s name is spelt you might go wrong. Strangely, I didn’t see the chestnut yes men at once – that clue has been used plenty of times lately. I finished up with bluebird, an evident biff.

   Time: 17:15

7. A rare sub-15. More enjoyable than yesterday’s, if easier.

8. Poor old AMBLER undid me, so a DNF in which I gave up in about 22. I thought of and rejected Ambler, thinking it was an unlikely name and failing to see shade = amber, so my bad. Otherwise a really nice puzzle, and thanks to Jack for explaining how NONPAREIL, AIRLIFT and BARONIAL worked. I noticed on the QC blog a few comments about this being an easy one, and when I got off to a slow start (FOI EVADE) the pressure was on. But once I got into the swing of it things got easier, until Eric showed up…

   From It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue:
   You must LEAVE now, take what you need, you think will last
   But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
   Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
   Crying like a fire in the sun
   Look out the saints are coming through
   And it’s all over now, baby blue

9. DNF. I thought that AMBLER would likely be my error but instead it was a silly BARONEAL. I thought it didn’t look right, but not knowing a baron of beef I thought maybe there was such thing as a bar of beef and so one was just “one”. Possibly one to which I should have given more thought.

10. I have read some AMBLER books although like his portfolio of work I can’t remember anything about them. But no hold up over his name. LOI was DUENNA since I knew there was a word something like that but I needed all the wordplay to remember what it was. I got called away to dinner in the middle so no time, but it felt fast. I have drunk beer and eaten food in the BARON of beef in Cambridge.

    1. Shouldn’t chaperone have an e in the clue for duenna?

       1. I don’t think there’s a gender difference, merely alternative spellings

          1. In French (it’s a loan word after all), “chaperon” is the spelling regardless of sex, and grammatically it is always masculine, even when the person concerned is a woman; there is no such word as “chaperone”.

             Apparently “chaperon” is, or was, the usual British spelling, whereas “chaperone” is the usual spelling across the pond.

             I am being wise after the event, I have always spelled it “chaperone”; now I know better.

             As for AMBLER, I had never heard of the author and could only answer from wordplay; I was wavering between UMBLER and AMBLER, but decided that, since I have heard of people called AMBLER (it is my next door neighbour’s surname) but never anyone called UMBLER, AMBLER was more likely to be correct – which saved me from a DNF.

             1. Thanks. I did wonder?

11. 34 minutes. I nearly slipped as Vinyl suggests but as soon as I wrote in BRITTAN it looked wrong and I changed it to BRITTEN. No such problem with AMBLER though; my dad had a copy of Epitaph for a Spy on the shelf when I was young. Maybe I’ll get around to reading it at some point; having just finished Horse Under Water I’m on a bit of a classic spy novel kick at the moment.

    NHO a baron of beef but I’m in Cambridge next month; perhaps I’ll pop into the pub, purely to cement the word in my mind, of course…

    1. If you like Deighton I suspect you’ll like Ambler.

       1. Ta, that was the nudge I needed to reserve Epitaph for a Spy at the library!

    2. It’s many many years since I visited The Baron but from its website it still looks good.

       1. I wandered past it yesterday before the sun was over my yardarm, so I didn’t pop in but I can at least report that it’s still there and looks good from the outside!

12. 12:43, with AMBLER known from previous puzzles, and DUENNA vaguely remembered after a bit of thought at the end. A slow start had me jumping around the grid for a foothold, but it came. Nice puzzle.

    Thanks both.

13. 24 minutes with LOI BARONIAL. COD to SEMANTICS. I don’t believe those birds you are seeing over the white cliffs of Dover are BLUEBIRDS, Vera. Yep, I remember Eric Ambler. A steady and pleasant solve. Thank you Jack and setter.

14. 8:57. No problems this morning. I had most of the knowledge, and where I didn’t (the word for a camel, or the fact that LAVE was once a word in English) it didn’t really get in the way.
    I had heard of the ‘baron of beef’ but I didn’t know what it was. Now that I do I want to roast one!
    I went through an Ambler audiobook bingeing phase recently and listened to all that were available. Unlike LukeB I have a weakness for this sort of thing: I have binged Le Carré and Len Deighton in the not-too-distant past, and I’m also a sucker for detective fiction (Chandler, Hammett etc).

    1. Ah I bet it’s all great stuff, just a typical bias against the unfamiliar!

       1. I wouldn’t call it great literature, but it’s low-effort and I find it very entertaining. For some reason I find serious literature very difficult to listen to on audiobook, so I tend to alternate between reasonably serious non-fiction (history & biography) and fluff!

       2. Ambler was a good writer of dialogue, motive, character-driven set-pieces, and depiction of the times. But I felt in the end that his plots were lacking, somewhat fanciful, and containing no great startling surprises once you knew how the characters were going to behave. His heroes are similarly flawed, and not really in a good way. It all became an exercise in cynicism.

          1. I agree entirely, and enjoyed the books enormously.

          2. Or to put it another way, ‘you had me at good writer of dialogue, motive, character-driven set-pieces’.
             There is a place in my life at least for this sort of fluff, particularly on audiobooks which I listen to on my daily commute.

15. 39 mins with last four answers all in the NE once I had seen the see, if you see what I mean.

    I agree, much more fun than yesterday’s and, yes Jack, I hadn’t heard of Ambler, but managed to guess right.

    Thanks Jack and setter.

16. 20:18

    A few unknown elements (BARON, DUENNA, CANTERBURY BELLS, AMBLER) but mostly a steady solve. Like Kevin I was slow in getting the very straightforward BLUEBIRD.

    I forgot to post yesterday but an extremely stupid typo did for me and I so shut my laptop in a bit of a huff.

    No such troubles today. Thanks to both.

17. 28:01 with about 5 minutes getting 7dn TRIBALISM. I feel like a fool now, I had TRIM and ISM at the end but couldn’t get either the Indonesian island or the full word. Eventually I —finally— got TRIBALISM and realised Bali was the island, which I’ve heard of without knowing where it is. I was also slow to get BLUEBIRDS.
    NHO Canterbury bells but Canterbury was obvious so Bell(e)s came easily. Eric Ambler was and is a favourite author of mine.
    Thanks setter and Jack

18. Books by Eric Ambler (and by Robert Ludlum) can be found in large quantities in dusty second-hand bookshops and in charity shops. I agree that they are unlikely to last in the canon of literature.

    Flew through this puzzle in 9’44”. Isn’t there some debate over the Vera Lynn meaning of BLUEBIRDs?

    Thanks jack and setter.

    1. I wondered about bluebirds and the white cliffs, and there is a suggestion that blue birds might be seen as swallows, as they are blue-backed and are, after all, harbingers of better times. but I doubt Newyorker Walter Kent was thinking that way: American bluebirds are indicators that everything is satisfactual, and might just as well be indigenous to Yerp. (See also the robin feathering his nest in Cherry Tree Lane).

       1. The likely explanation of bluebirds over the white cliffs is that it’s an American song written by two Americans who didn’t know any better, and first recorded by Americans – the jazz trumpeter Bunny Bergen and his orchestra with vocals by Lynne Richards . Vera Lynn’s recording was a cover version.

          1. Born in England during WWII I am very familiar with the song; I have never wondered at the impossibility of the bluebirds flying over Dover. The point seemed to me to be that at the time – 1941 – there were many things that could not as a matter of course be expected to recur in the lifetime of the hearer. There may not be bluebirds and there may not be, for example, a ‘Jimmy’ safely tucked up in bed.

             However one of Mrs JdeBP’s hobbies is reading Regency romances with a critical eye, in particular those written by American authors. We get racoons in our gardens, poisonous snakes in our woods and gophers digging holes in our bridleways… So my explanation may be unnecessarily contrived.

             1. You don’t have to be American to come up with a howler. Catherine Aird was an English murder-mystery writer, and she had a baronet in the court of Queen Elizabeth I.

                1. 🙂. I did not know this but I hope I would have looked it up. The Facebook group Mrs JdeBP frequents refer to NAT (‘not a thing’, as poisonous snakes in English woods) and NTS (‘not the same’ as in ‘bequest’ and ‘behest’). Personally I would include ‘interest’ and ‘disinterest’ but that distinction is a cause no longer worth fighting for IMO.

       2. The song does contain that wonderfully evocative line, at least to someone my age, “And Jimmy will go to sleep in his own little room again.” Beautiful songwriting.

          1. Yes, it occurred to me afterwards that I may have done the songwriters a disservice as I think bluebirds are traditionally associated with good things, and that’s the reason they were used as a symbol of hope in a dark time despite any apparent geographical anomaly. So I checked with my AI assistant and here’s what they wrote:

             Bluebirds are commonly seen as symbols of:
             Happiness: The cheerful blue color and their joyful songs contribute to this association.
             Hope: Bluebirds often arrive in the spring, signaling new beginnings and renewal.
             Good fortune: In many cultures, spotting a bluebird is considered a lucky omen.
             Peace: Their gentle nature and calming presence contribute to this symbolism.

             Overall, bluebirds are seen as harbingers of good tidings and positive energy.

          2. POI 1a. From Google: The songwriters: Nat Burton / Walter Kent, of Vera’s “Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover” were completely unaware that the UK has no bluebirds.
             UK has adopted the expression bluebird at least in “big ticket” computer sales, as one of those where the customer rings in and asks for the stuff. Not on anyone’s target list. Happens rarely. Leads (or should) to drinks all round.

             1. Can you please explain this a bit more? I’m aware that in sales in some industries, walk-ins who aren’t on the CRM system already are much-coveted rare birds. But don’t quite get the computer connection.

19. About 20 minutes.

    Is there any reason for the question mark in the clue for AMBLER? It put me off for a long time, especially as I hadn’t heard of Eric Ambler.

    – DUENNA and CANTERBURY BELLS were unknowns that I had to construct from wordplay
    – Not familiar with a baron of beef but BARONIAL was clear enough
    – Was glad I didn’t have to know what artiodactyl means to get CARAMEL

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    FOI Reign
    LOI Ambler
    COD Bludgeon

    1. I thought the question mark was unnecessary

20. Never on the wavelength with this, and threw in the towel at 40 mins with BLUDGEON and IRISHMAN missing. Should have got both but was vexed by that point, having spent ages trying to make SEMIOTICS work and wrestling with the NHO CANTERBURY BELLS.

21. 16:44, but as well as UMBLER instead of AMBLER, I mis-spelled STRATEGEM again! Not a good day. Thanks setter and Jack.

    1. I initially did the same (yes, I didn’t know how to spell STRATAGEM either) but, unusually for me, having biffed the answer, I then parsed it and realised that STRATEGEM didn’t parse and that the correct spelling had to be STRATAGEM.

       So, I’ve learned three new things from today’s crossword: the correct spelling of “stratagem”, the fact that “chaperone” can be spelled “chaperon”, and that there was once a thriller writer called Ambler, not that I shall be reading any of his books; thrillers don’t thrill me.

       1. If you remember that it’s MEGA TARTS backwards (a fact often made use of by compilers) then you may never need to worry about its spelling again.

          1. Marvellous. I’ll try to remember that! Great Strategy:-)

22. 7.55
    Quite a geographical/religious one today. Slow start after a couple of days’ break gig-going, but biffing the two long downs got me back on the move.
    LOI BLUDGEON
    Earworm of the day: Clifford T Ward’s ‘Wherewithal’:
    “You are so NONPAREIL
    You introduce a new elation in my life
    But you are so nonchalant
    I don’t suppose this new sensation will materialise.”
    Beat that, Oasis.

23. 15.48 filled with fun, and the odd stumble. My first thought on 7d was that neat would give TIDY, and though it didn’t work that way, it led me to invent TRIBALITY, which meant my sweet at 20a had an impossible Y in the middle. I then struggled with STRATAGEM, with the more strategic part of my brain insisting that should be an E in the middle. All resolved eventually, thought for a finale I nearly entered an invented FRISEMAN (from somewhere in Holland?) which works with the wordplay if not with reality.
    I’m now stuck with Zip-a-dee-doo-dah all day. I didn’t know it was undone.

    1. Another tribality here.

       1. And another Friseman

24. I will be passing the Baron of Beef in Cambridge on Friday so will nod my head in RESPECT as I do so.

    1. Why pass rather than pop in?

25. 13.20 . Nothing to scare the horses today. Particularly enjoyed the long anagrams which filled the blanks encouragingly. Liked alarm.

26. 13:10 – all the required knowledge among what seemed like a fairly high chestnut count, though in retrospect perhaps no more than its fair share. Happy to get the right vowel in B Britten.

27. Not as quick as I hoped to be after seeing Jackkt’s heads up that it was on the easy side, eventually crossing the line in 39.03. Potentially tricky answers such as DUENNA have appeared many times over the years, so I was quite familiar with that, as I was with AMBLER having read a few of his books many moons ago. My pleasure at having completed the puzzle was short lived however when I discovered I had misspelt BRITTEN with an A not an E. This is particularly annoying as I spent a few moments considering the spelling, knowing that I had misspelt it before. My flawed logic told me that as I had got it wrong before, it’s not what I may think it is. Unfortunately it was!

28. During the Battle of Britain British planes were painted a sort of pale blue underneath,perhaps bluebirds were spitfires and Jimmy was a pilot.Then the lyrics make more sense

29. 25a StratEgem, oh dear, can’t spell, fortunately corrected by reading the clue for a change.
    POI 26a Leave. Wiktionary has “lave (archaic except literary, poetic)”. I have no problem with archaic words as long as they are flagged in the clue, and somewhat guessable.
    1d Baronial. I too have never knowingly eaten, but it is a memorable name, and I HHO.
    9d HHO Eric Ambler, I think my mum was a fan, I never read him though. I think he’s been here before as well.

30. 23:42

    Completed on leisurely lunchtime trudge around the outskirts of Lancaster. Nothing really held me up for long but single-thumb-typing into phone while also checking for inadvertent typos takes a while longer than entering on laptop.

    I have heard of a BARON of beef though probably couldn’t pick one out in a line-up; CANTERBURY BELLS needed some checkers to recall (seen them somewhere here before?); spent a few moments trying to remember Indonesian islands – helped that I had the A checker; feel too that I knew of MUFTI as a Muslim something-or-other.

    Most pleased with the finish though, seeing NONPAREIL from the middle three checkers, which gave BARONIAL, then SEMANTICS which left me with the author. Fortunately aware of Eric AMBLER – never read but certainly have an old Penguin of his somewhere in the garage – might have to dig it out…

    Thanks Jack and setter

31. 31:38, so not that easy. Lots of fine words to enjoy. WOD BLUDGEON

32. Random names, and backwards at that combined with words only found in crosswords. Thats ny feeble excuse for failure.

33. Failed on the cut of beef, but otherwise all correct. I’d heard of Eric Ambler- I think he’d also written some film scripts too, and he wrote the forward to one of the paperback editions of Sherlock Holmes short stories in the 1970s.
    I noticed the lack of anagrams.
    Nice puzzle. The left side was considerably easier (bar the beef) than the right.

34. 29 mins mainly due to interruptions. I thought the BARON NHO was because I’m veggie but apparently not well known. COD CANTERBURY BELLS

35. 31:43 with a bit of cheating. Had to look up artiodactyl to make progress on 20a as CARAMEL doesn’t spring to mind for me as a chewy sweet. Having NHO either Umbler or Ambler as an author I looked up both to check. That level of assistance to get to a time (in minutes) of about half the snitch is about on par for me.

36. Was I the only one to put a lazy”nimble” for nibble, having seen the words Quick, bishop and river?

37. Very enjoyable puzzle despite sleepily putting NIMBLE instead if NIBBLE. I also had SEMIOTICS instead of SEMANTICS for a while, which led to me trying to justifly Cronenberg as a see. I liked BARIONIAL , BLUEBIRD and STRATAGEM.

    Had an enjoyable night in The Baron once. I was told it used to be the local of Clive Sinclair, the C5. ZX80 man.

    Thanks to Jack and the setter

38. 47.08 – much slower than Jack who I quite often keep pace with. I liked CARAMEL and NONPAREIL. NHO of DUENNA which I needed to look up. Nearly went for WELSHMAN but couldn’t think how SLEW meant FLAG. I had lots of fun putting together CANTERBURY BELLS (another NHO). Thanks both!

39. I found this harder than yesterday’s. Also thought the clues were neater. 36 minutes.

40. Not on wavelength, or didn’t have the GK, or both.

    A horrible struggle for me. Got there with a guessed AMBLER (glad I didn’t think of umber).

    Glad I was miles outside the top 100 or this would have been a dark red stain on my SNITCH.

    26:25

41. 13.35. My quickest for quite a while, but it was pretty straightforward wasn’t it. Not a criticism: I enjoy a confidence booster from time to time.

42. 16 minutes. Particularly liked 3dn (Benjamin Britten)

43. Certainly over the hour as is per normal for me. I rarely finish before that but never time myself. What’s the hurry? I suppose knowing the writer Eric Ambler rather dates one. I didn’t know that The White Cliffs of Dover had been penned by two Americans. Little Jimmy must have been a child evacuee. The lovely presenter of CH4’s ‘A Place in the Sun’ Jasmine Harman always reminded me of Vera Lynn.

44. Very enjoyable, I thought. Though I was slow to start, happy to finish with BLUDGEON my LOI in about 40 mins.

45. Eric Ambler’s been reissued by Penguin and his books are reguarly on sale in the classics section of airport bookshops. That’s where I picked up a couple recently, and I liked them very much. Pre-war Europe. Lots of atmosphere. Good to learn finally what DUENNA means. 15’49”. Many thanks.

46. Three short, NHO DUENNA and I thought chaperon without an e was masculine.

    I went for Winchester Bells at first, it was a NHO.

    Was all backwards with BLUEBIRD, another TRYer.

47. I frequently agree with Jack on the difficulty or otherwise of the crossword but today’s was a polar opposite for me. I struggled throughout to get on wavelength, and even when the L hand side was completed I had barely anything on the right. It took the C of SCATTY to get the see and the flowers which set me off again for a very slow finish ultimately.

48. 19 and change for me so this justified its 75 Snitch rating.

    Many bibulous hours in the Baron of Beef as an undergraduate, so that gets a big tick from me. Many thanks Jack.

49. Love the word bibulous, Templar! There is also a Baron of Beef inn right here in Victoria (Oz!) in the hills – once visited and hugely enjoyed, both the meal and the Elizabethan atmosphere. But that was many moons ago: it may not exist any more…
    Thoroughly enjoyed this: had most of the GK, but I was another who stuck doggedly to TRY at the end of 1a, thereby missing both the bird and the first letter of BB. My downfalls were NIBBLE (!) and SEMANTICS, forgetting that
    ‘Celebrities ’ aren’t always ‘stars’. More-or-less my level crossie, so more of this, editor!

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