Times 29295 – not in Regent’s Park.

78 comments on “Times 29295 – not in Regent’s Park.”

1. Nice puzzle.

   49 minutes for all but ZOOPLANKTON which I looked up as I couldn’t come up with a word to fit the checkers and didn’t find the wordplay helpful despite seeing ZOOT as a possibility for ‘suit’. It turns out ZOOPLANKTON last appeared here in June 2022 in a puzzle also blogged by Piquet. According to my comment I managed to work it out on that occasion as the wordplay was more user-friendly and the definition ‘ocean swimmers’ was more helpful.

2. 19:28, took much too long to see ZOOPLANKTON. The word itself feels more familiar after you contrast it with phytoplankton. NHO LIGHTSHIP, hence that also took a while. Thought ‘hip’ is more ‘cool’ than ‘really cool’. CHARLOTTE and EWE-LAMB were guesses, and DNK Port Said. Enjoyable but not really much to comment on.

3. 12:31. I thought there were some nice surfaces today, particularly those for ADIEU and AROMA. ZOOPLANKTON evaded me until I got the final checker in, the O of OFFAL, where I had thought the answer was going to just be a Cornish River rather than OF + river.

4. 31:23 for me, a most enjoyable midweek puzzle, with my biology background helping out a lot with ZOOPLANKTON which was an easy write in once I had the Z.

5. Quick today but frankly, a welcome relief after some recent shockers.
   Although not too difficult this is a nicely turned effort with excellent surfaces, from which whoever has been doing the Friday efforts could learn a thing or two.
   Last in was REAL ALE, which is not like me normally..

6. Lovely puzzle which I breezed through with exception of ZOOPLANKTON but with lots of checkers, especially the ‘Z’ I figured it out from ‘plank’ and ‘old suit’. BLOOD ORANGE was a write-in after seeing loo for ladies following’B’. Saw ROSWELL from swell/balloon after yesterday’s swell/wax in the quickie. SUPERCHARGE came after a few checkers were in. ERATO twice in two days. Saw DEUTSCHLAND but had to check the spelling. ULAN BATOR from the anagrist. Perfect Wednesday puzzle. COD. To TOOTH.
   Thanks Piquet and setter.

7. 22.18, nice puzzle. I have never heard of ‘plank’ for ‘idiot’ but I have heard of a pastime known as planking which seems to be pursued by idiots so I figured that was close enough. I fear I may be missing something obvious but I have no idea why EWE-LAMB means dearest possession. There were some lovely surfaces here, like ADIEU and DEUTSCHLAND, and I’m enjoying the feeling of a smooth solve before I get annihilated by the next two days. Thanks piquet.

   From Mississippi:
   All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime
   Could never do you justice in reason or RHYME
   Only one thing I did wrong
   Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

   1. Ewe lamb did for me too: I had ‘pet lamb’ – a term of endearment common in my family (but maybe only in my family!)

      1. EWE-LAMB is biblical with reference to a parable in 2 Samuel. The prophet Nathan tells King David a story about a rich man with many flocks and a poor man with only one beloved ewe lamb. A traveller visits the rich man, but instead of using his own animals, the rich man takes and slaughters the poor man’s cherished lamb.

         1. And often referred to by Bertram Wooster.

         2. Thank you, that was the one thing that was puzzling me too.

8. 38 minutes with LOI ZOOPLANKTON, which I may or may not have heard of before. I needed all the crossers. Earlier, I had constructed ROSWELL and have since convinced myself I have heard of that. I must have read about it in the News Chronicle, aged two. COD to TRASHED. Enjoyable. Thank you Pip and setter.

9. 23:36
   Just over par and in hindsight I think I should have been a bit quicker. Mistyping DEUTSCHLAND made ASPARAGUS a struggle, and I doubted the Z from ZANIEST when trying to piece together my last-in ZOOPLANKTON. Maybe showing my age but I’d never heard of a Zoot Suit.

   A pleasant solve so thanks to both.

   1. Look up The Zoot Cat, a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The image will stay with you forever!

   2. The only reason I have heard of a zoot suit is courtesy of The Who – from Quadrophenia:-

      “Zoot suit, white jacket with side vents
      Five inches long
      I’m out on the street again
      And I’m leaping along
      Dressed right for a beach fight
      But I just can’t explain
      Why that uncertain feeling
      Is still here in my brain”

10. Nice midweek cruise with LOI ZOOPLANKTON. But in a moment of confusion I thought it was EYE LAMB that was the valuable possession so one pink square. STAUNCH took much longer than it should to solve the anagram.

11. Powered through this but as with others EWE-LAMB and ZOOPLANKTON slowed me down. I saw the Z at the start and ‘old suit’ in the clue and wisely left it to one side. The English language sure has a lot of words for idiot but once plank came to mind the rest fell in place and I realised I was looking at the wrong definition.

    Only other difficulty was ULAN BATOR which I have always spelt with the As doubled up.

    Liked the anagram for DEUTSCHLAND and LIGHTSHIP

    Thanks blogger and setter.

12. Another fail. After 23 mins had it all done bar zooplankton. That completely escaped me so pressed reveal.

13. Great puzzle, identical time to Rowlie26. After parsing LOI ASPARAGUS I looked around surprised and almost disappointed to find no more to do so hit Submit.
    Loved the science bits right down to the chemical rather than heraldic gold.
    Hip was probably last cool in the 60s but it’s a useful device so all is groovy.
    Thanks piquet and setter

    1. Note to self – was there a late 80s band called Zoot Suit and the Roots? Memory is fickle.

       1. Zoot Money was a singer in the 60s.
          And there were Zoot Suit Riots in the US in the 40s.
          Dunno about a late 80s band tho.

          1. Just googled, it was Zoot and the Roots.
             https://www.discogs.com/artist/1948244-Zoot-And-The-Roots
             Never saw them but remember the flyers. Thats where I know the suit from.

14. Back in the swing after several recent crashes. ZOOPLANKTON LOI, didn’t need to parse.
    Not sure I’ve ever had to spell DEUTSCHLAND before. Liked TOOTH.

    Pip, you have a variant spelling of the capital in your introduction.

    9’58”, thanks pip and setter.

    1. Ulan Bator, corrected. There seem to be plenty of ways to spell this place, all of them acceptable, apparently it means “red hero” in Mongolian.

15. 20.32

    Zoot? Astonished (and impressed) this is a thing, and that it seems to be known by folks. Lack of biology at school meant that ZOOPLANKTON was also a NHO. However, words for “idiot” are rather more familiar to me so once PLANK came, the two missing checkers succumbed to a decent guess.

    Otherwise, agree this was an excellent puzzle. ULAN BATOR was clever, albeit gentle.

    Thanks Pip/setter

    1. A zoot suit is a crazy looking baggy one from a particular era.
       There was an Australian pop band originally called the ‘Pink Zoot’ and the suits – you guessed it all pink. But, no surprise, they gave up wearing them early on and then became ‘The Zoot’.

    2. Being a mere stripling, you wouldn’t remember “Zoot Suit” backed with “I’m The Face”, a single released by the High Numbers back in 1964. It was their debut. Later that year they changed their name to The Who. The rest is history.

       1. Zoot suits must have been a thing for Pete Townshend, see my comment above

16. 16.53, rather a relief after a the first two of this week had me wondering whether I’d lost my mojo. ZOOPLANKTON from diligent application of wordplay, needing the checkers. Before that, “life drifting around” was encouraging thoughts of zombies, but She’s Not There.
    After reading the comments, I’m glad not to be aware of the variants of ULAN BATOR, as I threw it in without bothering to parse.
    Liked the informative blog.

17. NHO EWE-LAMB, but nothing else would fit. Finished all bar ZOOPLANKTON in 30 mins. If I’d stared at it longer I might have eventually seen it (er, it’s the only word in the English language that could possibly fit the crossers, so God knows why I couldn’t get it), but lost patience.

18. 27:29, but with one error. I figured ROYLE was a writer, as couldn’t see anything else to fit the RHYME clue. Submitted nervously as couldn’t parse EWE LAMB or AROMA. Although I work in IT, I’ve not heard ROM for memory for years. Still don’t see that second def for EWE LAMB, what’s that about. (Edit, thanks Jack, Biblical reference, crikey that’s obscure!)

    I had TWEETED for “sent message, where TWEED is a Scots river, Ok “ET” is a bit of a stretch for “returning Irishman”, but “Te” looks like Gaelic….

    Generally smooth sailing especially as I Got ZOOPLANKTON early from Zoot suit, and LHS was pretty mild.

    1. I had tweeted as well, but I quickly erased it. Is ET an Irishman? No, he’s an alien!

19. A fairly easy puzzle I thought.
    22a Real Ale; I was slightly worried as this seemed a bit weak?
    28a Deutschland is quite hard for me to spell. Five consonants on the trot seems too many to be right.
    3d Roswell, NHO but I have because I added it to Cheating Machine some time ago. It was thoroughly forgotten anyway.
    COD 4d Half truth.
    6d Ewe lamb. I doubted this but is in CM so has come up before. Wiktionary says “A poor person’s sole possession (in reference to the Bible, 2 Samuel xii).”
    11d Zooplankton. Not sure I knew plank=idiot.
    My thanks to piquet and setter.

20. 45′. Wrote in TWEETED on first pass without working out the reversing Irishman, and then took a bit of time to undo that. EWE LAMB needed all the crossers and a bit of a shrug. I knew zoot and once I worked out plank I could complete my LOI. Nice puzzle, thanks Piquet and setter.

21. 35:27 and no typos today so I’m finally up and running for the week!

    LOI was EWE-LAMB. Both senses of this were total NHOs for me – I’m more often found reading the NME on the tube than the KJB in the cowshed 🙁

    COD to PRIESTLEY – brought back memories of my GCSEs!

22. NHO plank = idiot, but although I would only have thought of ‘thick as a plank’ in retrospective parsing it now seems to fit OK. I was stuck on this with all the checkers so looked it up and the word was very unfamiliar. Otherwise pleasant and reasonably straightforward. Setters who have to fill a grid and have E_A_O are stuck with ERATO and this word must have been clued hundreds of times, difficult to come up with new ideas. 46 minutes.

23. Just about the right level for me, got them all in the end without aids.
    As for Roswell, it was inside a restricted area known as ‘Area 51’, which was used for developing and testing a whole range of secret weapons (including the U2 spy plane, I believe). It suited the US military to appear to investigate reported UFO sightings in the area seriously, as it distracted outsiders from what was really going on.

    1. The joke in the US, now almost 10 years old, was that even the looniest conspiracy theorists had to admit that there had never been an alien landing at Rosewell when the 46th President, who famously couldn’t keep his mouth shut about any classified secret and who loved to display all manner of knick-knacks which no one else had a chance of having (eg, Michael Jordan’s shoe) never showed off a piece of ET’s ship or a non-terrestrial claw or something.

24. Did not so well with this one also – about half the clues, but no excuses.
    Liked the ZOOPLANKTON where the ZOOT suit suggested itself once ZANIEST had been obtained for 11ac. Clues were mostly fair.
    But otherwise cannot honestly say there was much to amuse/entertain.
    Understand the sentiments of others though with a ‘reasonable’ puzzle.
    Not sure about RHYME for ‘correspondence’ – although I can see how it works at a pinch. Would be grateful for explanation of LIGHTSHIP – in context.
    AROMA as ‘pervasive quality’ would be stretchy if not for other wording in clue.
    Everyone seemed to know ULAN BATOR based on ‘capital’ – maybe its the ‘U’ that gives it away, or maybe it has occurred before here.
    Still do not follow EWE LAMB, and PLANK not used for idiot in Oz – although there is a Tasmanian saying ‘thick as two short planks’.
    Apologies if there are any crossings with other posters.
    Thank you Piquet and setter.

    Well, I said no excuses, but does look like I was offering some.

    1. Only Tasmanian? “Thick as two short planks” is a frequently used expression here in Blighty – more frequently used than “thick as a brick”, which I’d never heard until my beloved Jethro Tull brought out the album of that name. Maybe it’s a regional thing – I’m a southerner; JT were basically from Blackpool.

       1. Didn’t Princess Diana once describe herself as being “thick as a plank”?

       2. Before moving en masse to Luton, where they bumped into no-nonsense local lad Mick Abrahams, an equally strong character as Ian Anderson. ‘This Was’ was recorded with him in the line-up. And you can tell, because after this, as a rival to Anderson, naturally he had to go, allowing Anderson free rein for his whimsical folk fantasies and flutey stuff.
          By the time of ‘Minstrel in The Gallery’ on top of ‘War Child’ it was all getting a bit tedious, although obviously he’s laughed himself all the way to the bank in the meantime.

    2. I took rhyme metaphorically – history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.

    3. A lightship is like a floating lighthouse for shipping navigation. Most familiar in the UK from the Shipping Forecast, e.g Channel Light Vessel Automatic.

    4. My usage question is thinking of porridge as the time or the sentence, not the prison itself.

       1. I queried that myself after solving but then found the dictionaries have it well covered.

          1. I had checked with the online unabbridged OED, which only has the time sense. I don’t have easy access to the other sources.

             1. From Chambers: porridge – jail or a jail sentence

25. Right on the wavelength, sped through. Ewe-lamb known and remembered from previous puzzles. Zooplankton known, plank maybe?, and zoot suits known from “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, a school-prescribed book and the most powerful novel I have ever read . Trickiest part was trying to get Priestlie to parse, with only P and I crossers and thinking clerks not clergy.
    Anticipating a brute tomorrow 😉

26. Was pleased to find I had completed this one. ZOOPLANKTON took longer than it should have to come, but my real concern was EWE-LAMB; given the checkers, I couldn’t think of anything else and so eventually wrote it in; I guessed that it might be some biblical reference, which I see from one of the comments above that it is, and my biblical knowledge generally isn’t bad, but this was effectively a NHO for me and I had no confidence in my answer at all.

    An enjoyable puzzle.

27. 20:20 – I also toyed with EYE LAMB until the obviously correct EWE bobbed up from the depths. I don’t recall Wooster using it, but that – rather than the bible – was undoubtedly the source of the memory. A very enjoyable and polished puzzle.

    1. Not him, one of his lady loves used the term in relation to him.. I remembered it from that.

28. 23:56. No big dramas with this one and enjoyed having something more approachable than some of the other recent offerings! Had to biff quite a few so thank you for the blog to help parse them properly. ULAN BATOR caused a mild hiccup with some variation available on the spelling.

29. I stumbled around on this, essaying wee lamb and tweeted, and putting the wrong alternate letters from auntie in zest – that’s not a word! Correction came slowly, but thinking of zoot suit and supper was the key. Not my best, but all correct.

    Time: 38:19

30. ERATO was my inspiration at the start of this puzzle, having drawn a blank in the NW. A clockwise progression followed, with a tentative WEE at the start of 6d. LAMB came quite a while later, and it then required SUPERCHARGE to provide the EWE LAMB penny drop moment. I used the wordplay to ensure I had the required spelling for ULAN BATOR. LIGHTSHIP evoked the strains of Hughie Jones’ Ellan Vannin. #Less than a mile from the Bar Lightship, Ellan Vannin by a wave was hit#. Surprisingly I spelled DEUTSCHLAND correctly first go. ZANIEST provoked the memory of the Zoot suit, but it was a while before I managed to replace NIT with PLANK as the idiot and arrive at LOI, ZOOPLANKTON. No problem with ROSWELL. 21:13. Thanks setter and Pip.

31. DNF after two attempts, back in OWL club with EYE-LAMB

    – Glad to see I’m not the only one who bunged in TWEETED for 12a before rethinking to EMAILED
    – Still not sure I understand the definition for SOP – is it bread as in money?
    – Relied on the wordplay for the unknown PRION
    – Didn’t know CHARLOTTE as a pudding
    – NHO the zoot suit, so ZOOPLANKTON eventually went in with a shrug

    Thanks piquet and setter.

    COD Deutschland

    1. I think it’s bread that you soak which is called a sop

32. I enjoyed this, but I’d rather have a REAL ALE. Unfortunately I’m denied that pleasure for a week due to antibiotics for an infection left over from my recent gout bout.

    I biffed my LOI.

    FOI COB
    LOI ZOOPLANKTON
    COD DEUTSCHLAND
    TIME 11:10

    1. The advice not to drink when on antibiotics is advice I have always ignored, without observable ill effect thus far.

       1. I heard somewhere that such (bogus) advice was given to sailors with STIs because it was feared otherwise they would go out, get s**t-faced and do it all again before the antibiotic had had a chance to work…have a beer Busman

       2. You’ve never been on metronidazole then?

33. 11:32. Moderately tricky one, fortunately all within my ken.

34. Nice crossword and a return to sanity after 3 of the last 4 puzzles being a little on the hard side.

35. Failed on PRIESTLEY and PRION, which makes me a bit of a Malcolm Gladwell outlier.

    Or, alternatively, a plank.

36. 36 mins (again!). Bertie Wooster certainly referred to a ewe lamb – possibly sans hyphen – describing an only child, I think. Two Eratos in as many days! Re antibiotics: on no account drink booze if on Flagyl – you’ll be as sick as a dog.

    1. One of his lady loves (Madeleine? not sure) used the term, referring to him …

37. 32:18, but had to look up my LOI, ZOOPLANKTON. I had never heard of the ZOOT suit.

    Thanks piquet and setter

38. An enjoyable crossword that took me 43.44 to complete. PRIESTLY followed by PRION were my final answers, but I was delayed mainly by ZOOPLANKTON which had to be carefully constructed from the clueing. I thought of a zoot suit quickly enough which helped, but the word itself was unknown to me.

39. It’s amazing the connections you make and the ones you don’t. I once played in a band playing 40s and 50s proto r’n’b, called Zoot after the suit worn by aficionados of the music. Yet I somehow completed this moderately easy puzzle unable to parse 1 down, not seeing old suit = zoot. It should have been an absolute gift.

40. I had the GK – nothing really abstruse, but still a wide range running from Prion through Zooplankton to Ewe Lamb via Ulan Bator – but it still took a longish while to get all the white squares filled. And last night there was no useful baseball on TV to provide the excuse of background distraction.

41. About 40 minutes for a DNF due to another typo – SUP FOR SOP. Grrrhh.
    NHO ZOOPLANKTON though I should have, no doubt, but it had to be.
    No one else remember Zoot Money and his Big Roll Band?p
    Thanks to setter for a pleasant stretch of the old brain muscle and to Piquet for blog.
    Now I’m off to get TRASHED on REAL ALE.

42. 33 minutes, but I put ULAN BOTAR. Never heard of the place, sounds ghastly.

    I remembered ‘zoot’ from Back to the Future, when Marty refuses to return to 1985 wearing a zoot suit.

    Thought the ADIEU clue was very neat.

43. NHO EYE LAMB (in either context) and consequently guessed wrong. Also couldn’t work out ZOOPLANKTON, which annoyed me after I hit reveal. I even thought it had to begin with ZOO but couldn’t work it out.

44. Zoot suits appear regularly in the earlier James Ellroy novels, usually worn by Mexicans.

    Where I come from plank was used to denote slow wittedness or lack of intelligence, ie, thick as a plank.

45. 25:43 I had WEE LAMB for 6dn and that really slowed me down getting 1ac, when I finally realised it was CHARGE, I had no idea what the E-E could be and was close to putting EYE in desperation but a final alphabet trawl got to W and although it’s not a phrase I know, it had to be the answer.
    Thanks setter and blogger

46. When I search ZOOT on my itunes library, I get Arkansas by Zoot Money (from a great collection of Pub Rock called Goodbye Nashville Hello Camden Town); and African Challenge by Zoot Simms from a reggae album called Studio One Roots. Zoot Simms — aka Noel ‘Scully’ Simms — evidently named himself after the US saxophonist Zoot Sims (with one M). Both tracks are good. Arkansas is a slow ballad first performed by Eggs Over Easy, who were the original pub rock band. Oddly, they were American. I see Zoot Money, who died last year, also took his name from Sims. 17’02” so I was on wavelength. Prions I remember from Mad Cow Disease. Oh yes, and there’s also a Muppets character called Zoot.

47. Just for completion, the Zoot suit originated in African American communities in the 1930’s. One should see photos.
    The Zoot is a hoot!

48. Had no patience for ZOOPLANKTON to hit me, so another look-up there. Started off well with ERATO, COB and EMAILED ( originally’tweeted), then slowly worked around the grid, smiling at one or two of the clues: COD to ADIEU, but liked OFFAL too (was at first fixated on FOWEY). Also liked TOOTH a lot. Altogether a pleasant solve ( or near-solve!)

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