Times Cryptic No 29357 — Not half bad

77 comments on “Times Cryptic No 29357 — Not half bad”

1. I did not do well. I did get a lot very quickly, but I struggled to finish. The closed/paper money/domino corner was tough, and misspelt/teasmade was worse. I spent five minutes pondering if teasmade might be a word, and finally just shrugged – the dilemma of the US solver.

   I would suggest that run slow might refer to a footrace, in which case if you run slow, you lose.

   Time: 77:00

   1. That’s what I thought, but Collins has, literally, ‘(of a timepiece) to run slow’!

      1. Yes, or conversely it gains.

      2. I wonder why clocks run slow but, apparently, not slowly. Of course, it would be ungrammatical for us to ‘run slow’ in a race. (Pedant alert: a familiar bumper sticker here in the New Forest says ‘I go slow for ponies’; it drives me mad every time I see it!)

2. Really liked this even though I failed to finish. DOMINO, SHEERNESS and a couple of others did for me.
   But there were some beautiful clues today I thought. As soon as I saw ‘Prime locations’ I saw what was going on, having recently had a clue relating to prime numbers. MISSPELT was excellent but saw it quickly. PAPER MONEY held out for a while but got it from the wordplay. The long one down, DON’T BE A STRANGER held out for ages. Had LLANO from the hidden, isn’t it just ‘Plain’ for the definition? Thought of TEASMADE straightaway but thought it couldn’t be, so held off until more checkers went in. Had TENNIS but didn’t parse, thanks Jeremy. Liked SKYLIGHT and DOORKNOB.
   Thanks Jeremy and setter.

3. Wow, that’s a great time for this one, I’d say.

   48:26 WOE, DIMING for DOMINO. I can’t believe this as two days ago I had 13′ but WOE, DOMINO for MOJITO! Still fairly satisfied with that on this tough puzzle.

   Happy not to be caught out by the prime trick again, and to recognise the chemical element quickly. Would not have caught LLANO if I hadn’t known that Spanish LL can correspond to English PL. Loved the Russian DA – I hope the foreign language components keep becoming more diverse in the puzzles! Quite a few other unknown defs or unparsed wordplay but too tired to think about now.

   Thanks Jeremy and setter.

   1. Is that where Plano Texas gets its name from, then?

      1. I believe ll- would be the regular development from vulgar Latin, and pl- would be a learned or semi-learned reborrowing back into Spanish. So the Texas town would just be a regular Spanish word rather than an anglicised one. A bit like how French has both ‘dette’ (the regular development of Latin dēbitum) and ‘débite’ (a learned reborrowing from Latin back into French later on).

4. Given my early successes mainly in the NW I thought this was going to be easy for a Friday, but progress gradually slowed right down and after 59 minutes I was stuck with NINON, BYES and DOMINO missing and abandoned the puzzle for the night. They fell into place this morning adding another 15 minutes to my solving time.

   I have no recollection of meeting NINON before, but probably have.

   DOMINO and OUTED went in from definition alone and I never fully understood the parsing.

   I’m in the camp that believes ‘To’ means ‘ajar’, not CLOSED , so 1ac grated a bit although I fully accept that through mis-usage the definition has become acceptable. I don’t go along with the suggestion theory that ‘run slow’ has anything to do with losing a race in this clue.

   1. If a clock ‘runs slow’ it’s ‘losing’ time was how I saw it. Agree about ‘to’, always thought of it as barely open.

      Apologies to Jeremy and Jack. I missed that you had the same reasoning for ‘lose’.

   2. My mum and dad always said ‘push the door to’ meaning to close it but not engaging any catch.

5. Hmm, a toughie I thought.
   Agree that 1ac is to do with clocks losing. And to means shut, where I come from (Sheffield). Logical when you think about it: “Put the door to when you go out.”
   Struggled to find teasmade, psychological block probably as I loathe tea.
   Damask is pink not red.
   Knew there were 28 dominoes. But nho ninon, must have missed that one reading Georgette Heyer!
   Both the clue and the blog entry for 24dn mean nothing to me. Some foreign reference, I assume 😉

   1. Fair enough, but not so sure of the logic, isn’t it just as easy to say close or shut the door? Whereas ‘to’ in my world has a specific meaning, corresponding to ‘ajar’, a word that’s not in everyday vocab.

      1. Take hold of the door, Jackkt … when you shut it, you are putting it TO the wall it is attached to. When you open it you are putting it FRO(m) said wall .. to & fro, know what I mean? 🙂

      2. To me ‘to’ and ‘ajar’ are quite different. In the former case the door is touching the door frame, in the latter there is a gap. I would use ‘to’ instead of ‘closed’ in a case where the latch or lock isn’t engaged.

      3. P.S. there is support for both views in the dictionaries: Collins defines ‘to’ as ‘closed or nearly closed’, Chambers as ‘in or into a… closed or fastened condition’.

         1. Yes, I knew both meanings were supported in the books as we have had this conversation before and I remembered it was inconclusive.

            Then there’s ‘On the latch…’

   2. ‘Outfits’ here just refers to groups of people. There are nine players on a baseball team.

      (Sorry, I meant to look it up and forgot to!)

6. 37:17. Wow, that was tough, but very rewarding to complete fully parsed. I liked DOMINO (I didn’t know there were 28 of them) and BYES best. Thanks Jeremy and setter.

7. Sunset Strip-77 minutes. I guessed DOMINO from crossers with no idea what Trump was doing there. I thought of NINES as in dressed to the nines, which I’ve never known the origins of, and saw the hidden. I thought the appliance was a TEASMAID until instructed otherwise at gunpoint. DONT BE A STRANGER may or may not have rung the faintest of bells. COD to REINDEER. There were more Wykehamists than people in my time at New College, but few Etonians. There must have been unconscious bias in the selection process. Very hard puzzle. Thank you Jeremy and setter.

   1. Isn’t it a very conscious bias? I thought there was a close historical link between the two, to the point where there buildings in one are a replica of the other (I may be misremembering this).

      1. William of Wykeham founded both, the school first I think. New College was founded in 1379 and was originally called something like the college of St Mary the virgin of Winchester in Oxford, a bit of a mouthful. It was new at the time so that’s what stuck. The admissions policy back in 1963 when I applied had very conscious bias, and I was attempting a little irony! But northern grammar schoolboys were allowed, particularly on the science side.

         1. Ah sorry, I missed the irony. I would assume that these days the conscious bias is harder to maintain, in a context where the university is under huge pressure to take more kids from state schools.

   2. Hi Boltonwanderer
      Is that Nat Lofthouse holding the FA cup.
      EGN ex Bolton now Lincs

      1. That most certainly is Nat Lofthouse, on the train home after the 1958 Final win.

         1. Aha, now I understand your reference to NATHANIEL a few days ago!

         2. He broke a few hearts that day (mine included), beating the remnants of the Busby Babes in the final. I’m pretty sure if it would be played today, Nat’s goal would be disallowed as he shoulder charged Man U’s goalkeeper into the net, when he was mid air having collected the ball.

            1. That was his second goal of the game. I agree that that goal should have been disallowed. Nat said that he was going in for the header after Harry Gregg parried Dennis Stevens’ shot upwards, bur Nat did go in at a hell of a speed and both ball and Gregg ended up in the back of the net after a mid-air collision. Apart from a shot from Bobby Charlton that came back off the post, United made very little. We were playing against the rest of the nation with the sympathy after Munich all going to United. The pressure though seemed to get to United more than Bolton.

   3. ‘Outfits’ here just refers to groups of people. There are nine players on a baseball team.

8. 22′ 29″, a good puzzle. Nho NINON, and no clue about the parsing of TEASMADE.
   AT GUNPOINT was my LOI, failed to consider the anagram, and had images of Harlequin in my head. COD to MISSPELT.

   Thanks jeremy and setter.

9. 15:31. Super puzzle this, and for me pitched at the perfect level of difficulty for a Friday.
   I didn’t know this meaning of ‘lose’ so thought like vinyl that it must be something to do with a running race. I also didn’t know that there were 28 DOMINOs so I have learned a couple of things today. NINON rang a vague bell.
   For perhaps the first time I saw the ‘prime locations’ trick immediately, so perhaps you can sometimes teach an old dog new tricks.

   1. Pfft, I’m an old dog, you are barely middle-aged, K..

      1. Ha, it’s all relative! I’m old enough in crossword-solving terms that I don’t often learn new things like this very often any more. Mind you I have been forced – reluctantly – to learn ‘cycling’ relatively recently…

10. Gave up on the hour with DOMINO and four answers in the SW corner missing. Biffed without understanding CLOSED, DOORKNOB, SKYLIGHT. Wouldn’t have got the NHO NINON or REINDEER however long I’d looked at them. Pleased to have got as far as I did, though unsatisfying when you’ve not understood the parsing. Liked TEASMADE and BYES, though.

11. What a brilliant crossword. I fully agree with PJ about 18ac. Although it took me 50m, there was great satisfaction in completion.

12. 27.51, confirming this was tricky. Almost caught out, not for the first time, by I for IODINE, but the “prime locations” trick looks set to become the fastest to become a chestnut in cryptic history, though initially I tried to to justify clue from “this one”. Otherwise close attention to clever wordplay was neccessary (was anyone tempted to write to the editor complaining?) throughout, finishing with (B) YES.

13. 30.55 WOE

    Stuck on NINON TEASMADE and TENNIS at the end then finally saw the IN ON thing and remembered NET for clear. My parents had a TEASMADE but always thought it was spelled teasmaid.

    My error was DEMAND for DOMINO seeing something to do with Democrat and a 28 day demand for a bill payment. Total nonsense of course.

    Saw the misspelling clue – a good one as were a lot of them including the very neat TILL.

    Thanks Setter and hats off to Jeremy for the time and doing the ever tricky Friday blog.

14. 22:42, enjoyed teasing out the trickier elements of a clever puzzle, even if not at a speed which bodes well for my prospects tomorrow. A useful reminder to look hard at every word in the clue, anyway…

    1. 22.42 is ok so long as the other two are around 18! Best of luck!

15. 60 mins but time was irrelevant, I just enjoyed the ride.
    Slightly annoyed how long it took to spot To = CLOSED and the Prime trick again but better late than never.
    The periodic table is a thing of beauty to me so enjoyed IODINE but also REINDEER, DOMINO and COD MISSPELT.
    Disliked the recurrence of ETON but thats nitpicking. Thanks and well done all round.

16. From LLANO to TEASMADE (there’s one in my spare bedroom, but I’ve no idea if it still works!) in 39:56. Now I need a lie down! Oof. Got 1a after getting CLONED. DON’T BE A STRANGER was an early write in. Thanks setter and Jeremy.

17. 40:10 – very slow to catch on in places, particularly the clever 18ac where I spotted the misspelling in the clue fast enough but didn’t have enough faith to think it must be deliberate. Good workout

18. 34:25

    Tough but enjoyable – did pretty well in reaching about 3/4 done in 20 mins – had 8 remaining at that point: 1a, 4d, 10a, 21a, 22d, 17d, 26a, 20d. Got TILL, thought about NHO NINON which gave both TENNIS and TEASMADE before realising that 26a might be an anagram (hadn’t had a clue as to what motley was doing there). Like our blogger, CLONED, helped with CLOSED (though I couldn’t quite see the rest of the wordplay) – finishing with DOMINO.

    Thanks PJ and setter

19. DNF, defeated by DOORKNOB (I put DOORJAMB), which in turn stymied DOMINO, though I’m not sure I would have got it anyway. ‘Trump and co’ for US feels a little… whimsical, let’s say, even with the question mark.

    – Took a while to get HERE because I forgot that 1 isn’t a prime number so was looking for a word starting with C
    – Didn’t fully parse VALENTINE as I thought ‘can move ultimately’ was giving ‘ne’, so I couldn’t account for the ‘tin’
    – Like Jeremy, I had to follow the instructions to get the unknown TEASMADE
    – Not come across NINON before but the wordplay was kind

    Thanks Jeremy and setter.

    COD Athletic

20. At least the single-letter element definition didn’t catch me out, but the prime location one did although I’ve seen it before. This was very difficult, especially in the SW corner, and at one point I really thought I was going to have to give up, but after struggling on and using plenty of aids I managed just under 100 minutes. Actually these aids are probably counter-productive because they cause one to abandon thought. The explanation of the players on diamonds completely defeated me, no doubt something to do with baseball. Oh well, I suppose to complain would be silly: after all there are endless clues about cricket.

    1. I found years ago that using aids is addictive.. easier not to, imo.
       I agree with you about 24dn and surprised the reference was not explained.

       1. I guess to +J this is obvious!

          1. No! I meant to look it up and simply forgot!

          2. ‘Outfits’ here just refers to groups of people. There are nine players on a baseball team.

       2. ‘Outfits’ here just refers to groups of people. There are nine players on a baseball team.

          I’ve amended the blog.

       3. I’m sure you’re right about aids and the regular cryptic puzzles like this. But I do find it virtually impossible to do Azed and Gemelo without my electronic Chambers handy, and can in fact solve them reasonably quickly using this aid. After all, if one doesn’t have it but just a copy of Chambers one is forever trawling through the dictionary for the crazy words. Why not ease the process of doing so?

          [This was meant to be a reply to jerryW above, not to +J.]

    2. Using plenty of aids is giving up!

21. 56:40 and I was happy to be under the hour. I think if I’d twigged ‘motley’ sooner as being the anagram indicator then I would’ve got AT GUNPOINT (LOI) much faster, but alas I was the one in motley today.
    Really liked the penny drop of DOMINO as well as HERE and TILL. Very clever setting indeed.

22. 16 seconds over the hour. Hard, but not as difficult as I thought it was going to be after getting nothing in the NW initially. I then did my usual trick of heading to the SE where things weren’t quite as tough. More or less parsed all except for DOMINO which I had no idea about.

    Overall just what a Friday puzzle should be like.

    Thanks to Jeremy for the excellent blog and to our setter

23. 35:22 . It did seem like a wavelength puzzle, managing to clock some of the more leftfield synonyms quite quickly helped.

    TEASMADE- I must never have written it down or read it but it has always been TEASMAID in my head

    DOMINO – Caused difficulty. Given the similarity with the crossing letters for 28 DAMASK I thought there was something similar going on to CLONED/CLOSED. Never knew how many dominoes there were anyway.

    MISSPELT- I spotted the “typo” straight away and thought disappointing for The Times. It ended up being one of my last ones in. I would always worry such a clue would be corrected by an editor.

    COD: TILL

    Thanks blogger and setter

    EDIT: Completely shocked to discover this was a John Henderson offering. I didn’t swear once.

    1. No worries, I more than made up for your absence 🙂

24. Very clever stuff from the setter. Some great clues, particularly misspelt and byes, but I biffed and failed to parse nines and closed.
    On the plus side, I know how to spell teasmade (not teasmaid) and I will never again be caught out by the prime device.

    1. ‘Outfits’ here just refers to groups of people. There are nine players on a baseball team.

25. Hard for me (and everyone else).

    My lack of staying power/time meant I threw in the towel after 30 mins with about 5 or 6 to go.

    DNF

26. I didn’t get DOMINO. And I’m considering boycotting any puzzle that mentions Trump.

27. Tough, as some say above. NHO NINON and couldn’t see why 25 was ETON, so DNF. Wasn’t convinced by DAMASK for red but put in from wordplay. Many years ago we had a TEASMADE by the bed, but now I have to go down and make it every day as Mrs p can’t carry the tray upstairs. I thought ERNES were just eagles and ospreys were sea eagles. Nearly a great puzzle.

28. DONT BE A STRANGER went in straight away and I considered this a good omen for a Friday crossword …….oh well!

29. No time as completed in two sessions am and pm. Well over an hour, but failed on IODINE where I put a hopeful INDENT in without much optimism. I has been used on numerous occasions for Iodine, so I really should have got it. Frustrating to get so close on what was a really stern test.

30. I feel like I did very well here, though I don’t have a time to give because of unusual solving circumstances. So, this took two pints of Outland stout in The Ship and Shovel, Charing Cross, having had quite the battle to find a newsagent that actually still sells newspapers in London. All parsed, too, surprisingly enough.

    Congrats to anyone who tackled this one first thing in the morning and/or without benefit of alcohol. Not sure i’d’ve finished this in my normal circs.

31. Got 2/3rds done, after a fair slug of time during a flight.
    Got DOMINO by doing a bit of maths and coming up with 28, also the same number of ties in a Round Robin tournament of 8 teams, like the current Women’s Cricket Cup.
    Although boycott Trump and Co looked like MAGA-NO might work.
    Couldn’t parse SKYLIGHT, that “cutting” doesn’t work for me.
    Got TEASMADE on the basis that I could only think of one bedroom appliance.
    I figured CLONED would be the clue to the hard 1a, but couldn’t see beyond RE- something. 1a was fiendish I didn’t see either of the elements or that sneaky “to” for the definition. But did see the even smaller “I”
    NHO LLANO, thought of it as well. Or that DAMASK was red. Or NINON, where I wanted LINEN to work.

    COD MISSPELT, and I think “necessary” is probably the most commonly misspelt word, maybe along with “Febuary” and “seperate”

    1. What about ‘misspell’! (And ‘committee’.)

       1. Occasion for me.

32. DNF by a long way for the second day in a row, but there are some great clues here: thanks to our blogger for the excellent explanations. I especially liked the ‘prime locations’, which I’m not sure I’ve seen before (and didn’t get this time).

33. In my early days of doing crosswords there was an instance of an 18 across type clue which was ruined by an eagle eyed proof reader who corrected the misspelling. I am not sure what that says about today’s Times.

34. Terrific puzzle, too good for me. Most of the left-hand side undone, but enjoyed Jeremy’s parsing, tx for that. MISSPELT, BYES, TILL standouts.

35. Can’t give a time because I was interrupted by the arrival of my sister, but it was a slow business. In my case it was NZ sauvignon that subsequently eased the process. LOI HERE – very clever!

36. Failed to finish! Cd not find paper money and had no domino number info. Was trying to g to make doorknob into a word ending in jab! Teasmade is a bedroom appliance? Failed! And Ninon? But the rest was really fun! Loved misspelt and Don’t be a Stranger, even loved Allowing! Time well spent, thanks all! Cx

37. 72:49. that was really tricky. lots of NHOs. LLANO, NINON, DAMASK (in the sense of red) … worth the effort for MISSPELT. thanks for a great puzzle.

38. Hats off to much of the brilliant parsing on display here, and no dictionary trawls required either.
    Shame the surfaces are a bit off, which gave it the look of a ‘crowbar’ job, with a resulting lack of elegance to it. 7d must be the longest and most tortuous clue ever devised for a 5-letter answer. And even after all that effort, the surface doesn’t make a lot of sense. Similarly, no real need for ‘what looks like’ in 12a. ‘I eat after ten’ looks nice and elegant to me. And makes sense too.

    Why is YES the second option? It’s almost always the first (‘yes or no’).
    Why is the definition HERE? It’s got a bit of a nebulous quality just sitting there without any other qualification other than the primes thing.
    I think if you’re going to include a deliberate misspelling it should be hinted at with either a ‘maybe’, and/or put NECCESSARY in inverted commas. Otherwise you could easily take it as a typo. Then again TBH, knowing The Times generally, you still could.
    Wasn’t aware of the noun definition of MOTLEY (jester’s clothing).

39. DNF
    Gave up after 70 minutes, with NINON, EPICENTRE and HERE unsolved.
    COD to MISSPELT

40. 24 across yet another clue for Americans – baseball reference.

41. Whilst I understand the cleverness of this puzzle, I was not up to its level: did not get CLONED or CLOSED, DOMINO, DOORKNOB, HERE , NINON(NHO), or IODINE ( not of a scientific bent). Although that last would have to be one of my favourites for COD. Enjoyed being forced to put pen to paper to figure out clues like DISSOLVE, SKYLIGHT and MISSPELT, biffed a few (5d, 26a, 16d) and was amazed to see the renaissance of the TEASMADE, which I though had died a polite death after the 50s. Victory to the setter.

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