Times Cryptic 29160 – Sat, 22 Feb 2025. If you can get past 1 across …

38 comments on “Times Cryptic 29160 – Sat, 22 Feb 2025. If you can get past 1 across …”

1. 28a is also an anagram of ‘corrects my guise’. No hope of getting 1a and had to reveal. Everything else came in the end but have to wonder how ‘Koala Bear’ made it into the crossword considering there’s no such beast.
   Thanks B.

   1. ‘Koala bear’ is in Collins; ODE says it’s ‘widely used’. I don’t know about ‘widely’, although I think I’ve seen it.

      1. Yes. I looked at the dictionaries too just to see what they said. I know it’s used by people outside of Oz but it’s still incorrect. Perhaps the clue could have included ‘commonly called’ or the like.
         Thanks.

         1. I suspect the term “koala bear” is more related to the stuffed toys where “koala bears” are akin to “teddy bears”. Lots of these are sold to overseas visitors as well as locals and it is the closest reminder of the koala. It’s difficult to see them sold as “koalas” but tacking on “bear” makes them into a familiar thing like “teddy bear”. They are sometimes listed as “koala teddy bear” or “koala bear teddy”.

            1. I think this is a good point Kenso and goes some way to explaining the apparent misnomer. But in this case the definition of “tree dweller” points unambiguously to the creature itself, not the stuffed toy.

               1. I have never heard the tree dweller ever referred to as anything other than a koala in Australia. While acknowledging that the term does exist the the Australian National dictionary, the Macquarie notes Usage: Although the koala is superficially similar to a small bear, there is no zoological justification for the term koala bear

                  1. Thanks KG. 🐨

         2. Yes, there’s a degree of latitude to which dictionaries are entitled and then there’s downright wrongness!

            We’ve been here before and at this point I usually defer to Russell Crowe’s erstwhile father-in-law for his take on the matter…

            https://youtu.be/Ut3m1n4uJgk?feature=shared

            1. Brilliant! Says it all.

            2. Do people who call the things koala bears think they’re bears? Does Collins? Mutatis mutandis, sea horses, red admirals, … Since (I assume) Collins only says, correctly, that ‘koala bear’ is (sometimes) used to refer to koalas, it’s not wrong.

               1. “Your” is often used as an abbreviation of “you are” but I don’t think that usage has found its way into the dictionaries yet.

                  1. Is that usage or mistakes? I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d written ‘your’ in error on occasion, as I do ‘there’ for ‘they’re’ sometimes. But if it’s become a usage–like ‘better’ for ‘(ha)d better’*–then I’d expect dictionaries to recognize it.
                     *which I hate

                     1. I’d say it’s a mistake. Like koala bear!

               2. Then the setter should have requested ‘something referencing a tree dweller’.

            3. That’s what came to mind immediately.

               I smote my forehead as the blog revealed shindig, a patchy trawl for a lingo ending on o having of course failed.

               Two attempts failed despite getting one across, so thanks for the workout setter, and more thanks to blogger.

2. I knew the old man, although it took a moment to recall it; I started with PALAEO- but quickly corrected it. DNK that RISER, DNK SCRUMPY. I liked ELFISH, ANAEMIC.

3. I really liked this one, particularly for the sometimes tricky parsing exemplified by 1a which certainly wasn’t my FOI. Others I enjoyed working out were the two ‘It’ clues at 27a and 28a, KOALA BEAR (although I agree with what Quadrophenia says about the term), BERIBERI and PINSTRIPE.

   The only TAMARA I can bring to mind is the wife of an ex-PM here and she was definitely not Russian. Still, I looked it up on the AI machine which confirms the name “is commonly found in Russia and other Slavic countries” and “It’s quite a timeless and lovely name!” And here was me thinking how dry and emotionless AI is.

   Thanks to branch and setter

   1. I recognised the name from Tamara Ecclestone.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamara_Ecclestone
      I think her mum must be Croatian, Slavic I suppose, and her dad used to run Formula 1.

4. This doesn’t seem like it should have been so difficult, and I had seen Pithecanthropus several times before – setters do like 15-letter words, the more unlikely the better. I was very slow on cosmetic surgery, although I did realize it was an anagram. Tamara is the Russian adaptation of the Biblical name, so it is Hebrew in origin, unless of course you’re talking about the Cornish-language Tamara.

   Time: 51:34.

5. I had all but four answers in 31 minutes and got three of those when I returned to the puzzle later, but I failed on 1ac as the wordplay was too hard for me to bring it to mind.

   It has appeared a few times before, most recently on 15th December last year when I pointed out that it is used as an example of an IKEA / charade type of clue in our TfTT Glossary: Ancestor of mine: the fellow isn’t able to get personnel work (15): PIT + HE + CAN’T + HR + OPUS = Pithecanthropus (ancestor).

   I completely missed the complicated wordplay for KOALA BEAR but have no problem with the definition as it’s in common use, or was when I was growing up.

   1. Ditto re KOALA BEAR. I was completely unaware of the controversy over its name, thought of course I know that technically it’s not a bear. But then many animals have vernacular names that don’t reflect their scientific classification.

      1. I have “Yuk” against Koala Bear, not quite sure why. Perhaps I took agin the ko=fell.
         Wiktionary thinks the bear bit is obsolete. I think the toys were always referred to as bears, but I have been told the real animal is not at all cuddly, so don’t try.

6. I can’t quite see the equivalence between WHIMSICAL and ELFISH. To my mind the former is playful while the latter is malevolent.

   1. Wiktionary thinks elfish=mischievous, so not really malevolent?

7. Can’t help feeling that the setter was ‘extracting the urine’ with 1a- pity, it spoilt what was otherwise a good challenge.

8. 1a was bifd, but remembering the Charles Mingus album Pithecanthropus Erectus was very helpful for the answer and immediately helped with the down clues that had eluded me hitherto. Mostly quick, but held up a bit at the end by TAMARA, where I wasn’t expecting such a ubiquitous name.

9. 102 minutes WOE. This seemed extremely difficult, though I have been distracted recently. Failed at the end with SHIVE. When the pink squares appeared I immediately thought of SMITE. I’d probably do better if The Times’ website had a feature to fill empty squares with random letters and colour them pink. Thanks branch.

10. Around 35 minutes

    Struggled with 1a but finally saw what was happening; vaguely remembered it and teased it out.

    COSMETIC SURGERY was brilliant and a nice puzzle overall

11. 1a Pithecanthropus wasn’t going to come so I cheated. He rang a rather faint bell when he arrived from the Cheating Machine.
    COD the anag at 28a, Cos. Surgery.

12. No major problems here, though I needed most of the checkers for PITHECANTHROPUS and had to trust that pith=vigour.

    – Can’t ever recall seeing DARKLING before, but luckily the wordplay was kind
    – Not familiar with SHINDIG meaning row – I’d only use it to mean a party
    – Didn’t (and won’t) worry about a KOALA BEAR not actually being a bear. – it’s a term that’s used, and as others have noted it’s in dictionaries, so I have no problem with it

    Thanks branch and setter.

    FOI Operated
    LOI Pithecanthropus
    COD Cosmetic surgery (one of the best clues I’ve seen in a long time)

    1. Re: DARKLING – Not sure whether ‘before’ means ‘ever’ or ‘in Xwds’. If ‘ever’, Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘The Darkling Thrush’ (dated 31 December 1900) is a delight.
       Yes, COSMETIC SURGERY is good, although ‘guise’ rather does signal anagram fodder.

13. I got stuck on 8d, trying to make sLATINg work as a meaning for row. Elfish was COD for me with a clever surface meaning for any Tolkien fan, though he’d have spelt it differently of course.

    Thanks to setter and all bloggers – have been reading for a while but this is my first time commenting!

14. Thanks for the Chambers pointer for PITH = vigour.

    I see now that the “Some first names” section at the back of Chambers tells me that TAMARA is Russian.

    The complete OED online has:

    “KOALA (noun): In full, KOALA BEAR. An arboreal marsupial mammal…”

    …which is the same as my 1990 Concise OED.

    As mentioned above, the current ODE advises that “bear” is regarded as incorrect by zoologists, but that’s clearly not filtered back to the big OED.

    Certainly in UK English, I think KOALA BEAR is widely used – it’s appeared several times on times.co.uk. And in the pre-1986 “Times Archive”, science correspondents are happily using it in articles about diseases in Australian wildlife etc.

    I think there probably are other examples in zoology, botany, anatomy etc where taxonomically “incorrect names” are used. Annoying for academics, but interesting stuff for crosswords.

    But (to confuse species further), I can see that KOALA BEAR certainly ruffles feathers in Australia!

15. How much can a Koala bear? Groaning at Dad Joke permitted.

16. The Australian Football League has 18 teams, no relegation, like NFL not EPL.
    One of the teams, the Brisbane Bears, was established in about 1990 to expand the game into other areas. Except they weren’t in Brisbane, their stadium was in the sticks 150 km away in Carrara. And they weren’t bears, their animal mascot was a koala. So Aussies do use “bear”. At least PR types do, Scotty from Marketing and his ilk. Normal people wouldn’t have a bar of it, everyone called them the “Carrara Koalas”.

17. I am old enough to remember the Russian athlete Tamara Press.
    Tamara Press https://g.co/kgs/cPs2hK8

18. Here in Oz we have an excellent newsreader on the ABC called Tamara, so it should have been easy for me, but I failed to link the clue to a name and had no idea of its Russian origin. Having cheated on 1a I had little difficulty with the danglers (apart from SHINDIG, which was an excellent clue). Slow going throughout, but had to smile at 27 and 28a. Good puzzle, but a bit above my pay grade.

19. Australians sometimes have fun with visitors by warning them about “drop bears” which look for all the world like koalas – until they leap onto your head from a gumtree and bare their fearful fangs!

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