Times 25627 – Shooting fish in a barrel

49 comments on “Times 25627 – Shooting fish in a barrel”

1. Maybe I was a little tired and emotional after an epic performance of War Requiem last night, but I found this quite chewy, agonising over SPUTA because honestly it sounds less like a Buddhist shrine than what comes up during the ‘morning chorus’ at an old people’s home here in Hong Kong.

   I was particularly fond of the ‘potty’ clue, which brought back fond, if subliminal, memories. Had ‘meagre’ (1ac) and ‘snub’ (23ac) for a while, so plenty of misdirection around for the type who falls for that kind of thing…49 minutes.

2. Also thought of MEAGRE at 1ac which meant that and the reversed poodle were last in. Tried to justify GOOD for the latter but it doesn’t quite work and there’s nothing I can think of that fits with M•A•G•. Liked the charade for HYPO-TEN-USE. And how come BARRY took so long?
3. For a while at the start I thought I was in for a repeat of yesterday’s disaster as I must have read a dozen or more clues before finding one that I could solve. But progress was then steady and I actually gathered momentum towards the end – something very rare in my experience – to finish in 28 minutes.

   STUPA was unknown, though I think I have probably met it before, but the wordplay was helpful so I guessed it correctly.

4. …the only bit of GK I didn’t have. This puzzle would not be so easy for those without a wide range of information – the capital of Canada, what a slow movement is called, who went to the moon in 1969, what gingham is like, etc. Of course, for the present set of over-educated solvers, this is all second nature.

   About 30 minutes for me, I’m not fast and I was listening to a good record while solving, so I didn’t push it.

5. 14:12 .. yes, pretty straightforward one. Last in TINGLES, which doesn’t quite leap to mind when seeing “itches” but I don’t suppose there are too many degrees of Kevin Bacon between them. Fun clue, anyway.
6. It did have a vanilla-y feel to it, but I liked COMMODE and TINGLES. Another initial ‘meagre’, for no good reason; also thought of ‘Axminster’ and ‘hypodermic’ for the same reason, but didn’t put them in. DNK BARRY, but no prob. I actually almost remembered that Ambridge is Archer territory; by now I should know something about them, the Eastenders, and Dad’s Army simply from doing these puzzles. Had to run through the alphabet for LOOT.

   Edited at 2013-11-08 04:24 am (UTC)

   1. Didn’t you watch ‘Gavin and Stacey’?
      1. Not only didn’t watch, never heard of.
7. why include this patronising remark?
   1. What’s patronizing about it? Dave didn’t say “intelligent solver” or “knowledgeable solver” or any such value-laden expression.
      1. I’ve been doing cryptic crosswords on and off for 40 years and would describe myself as experienced. There were lots of good things in this puzzle. I would agree that the remark is patronising and arrogant.
      2. Totally agree that it is patronizing. I have remarked on this before. This is a useful site to check your answers; otherwise the ‘comments’ are just full of posers bragging about how quickly they have completed the puzzle or telling you about their highbrow literature or other pursuits.
         1. I thought ‘Times for the Times’ meant we were supposed to report our time taken, no bragging implied. And blogs call for asides – witty, informative or interesting, yes, but not just for showing off.
         2. Anonymous has said lots of things: others using this site might realise more quickly that you’ve said this before if you revealed who you were last time you said it. We can’t all remember the individual ISP addresses the service helpfully supplies. You don’t have to sign up (though it’s free and makes using the site more fun) but you could just sign, even with an assumed name (like mine!). Then we’d know it was you and be more properly chastised for our bragging and posing. Or not.
            1. *sigh* This sort of offering makes we wonder if anonymous posts should be blocked.

               Dear un-known commenters #1,#2 and #3

               If you really think there is a useful criticism to be offered to the poster, feel free to do so, but please have the decency to speak with at least some form of identity (which doesn’t have to come with a passport-style photo, two utility bills and a letter from your doctor, as is proved by a quick look at any LiveJournal page). Shedding your anonymity, or at least adopting a recognisable persona makes your offering seem much more agreeable, rather than just unpleasant sniping, especially when it leads to other lurkers emerging to say “Me too”.

               Sadly you may not agree; perhaps you are the sort of person who thinks that anonymous sniping is perfectly acceptable, and that the internet should be treated in a different way to any other social interaction? If so, it would be a shame that the comparatively small and generally well-mannered Times crossword community is where you choose to share this view. If you really can’t help yourself, please try to remember that this site is run by individual people; when I started blogging here, I can assure you I didn’t think to myself “You know what, I’d better develop a thick skin before putting my controversial opinions on today’s crossword out there. Never mind the Middle East, this is the sort of subject where you can really offend a lot of people, and I need to be ready for their anger.”

               I made a resolution this year to turn off comments attached to nearly everything I read on-line, on the grounds that the small percentage of comments which were useful or witty or informative were usually drowned out by the ill-informed, spiteful and angry. It was giving me a very poor view of the human race, and I’d prefer it not to be the case here.

               1. Amen Tim. The nice thing about this blog and the Club Forum is that they are civil exchanges. Especially when compared with the comments appended to opinion columns, and just about everything else elsewhere. And we’re not “moderated”. On the Forum, if you zap someone’s comment (usually for giving away too much info in a prize puzzle) the form is to say youdunit and why. Mr. and Ms. Anon, you do need to give yourselves some sort of identity.

                  And Pip Kirby is right, the form here is to disclose your solving time (that’s why it’s called “times” for the Times I believe), not to brag about it. Mine isn’t usually bragworthy anyway – 17.58 today though I doubt anyone’s interested.

                  1. I’m interested 🙂

                     You’re one of my ‘targets’, Olivia. I always check to see how you’ve done, along with a couple of others (my ‘hare’ is neilr, though I’m usually trailing miserably in his wake).

                     I know a lot of people check this site to see how some regulars have done. It’s a convenient way of gauging the difficulty of a puzzle.

                     1. Just like to add my support to the regular and identified contributors here. Sometimes I look at the bloggers description (avoiding seeing any of the answers) just to see what I’m in for. In today’s case, Dave’s description encouraged me to work through the crossword without aides and I managed it (if anyone is interested in that – they certainly wouldn’t be interested in my hour+). I fully accept that the ‘experienced’ solvers would be completing in 10 minutes or so and I salute them for this rather than feeling any patronisation.
         3. 
            That’s the thing about a blog: it’s an opinion piece, and a starting point for discussion. As it happens, most of the comments so far have included positive remarks about elements of the puzzle (Anon#1 & Anon#3 being exceptions, only bothering to make remarks about the blogger or the regular commenters while saying zip about the puzzle – a simple “I disagree” and an explanation of why they disagree would have served so much better the cause of human understanding).

            Anon#3 – yeah, busted. We do show off sometimes. I haven’t changed much since the days when there was always a copy of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations artfully tossed on the floor of my room at college (unread, obviously). But then, we all have our less noble traits. Some people, for example, like to read comments on blogs just so that they get themselves all of a lather and loose off self-righteous blasts about how pointless are the comments they’ve just wasted valuable time reading. It’s an ignoble pastime, but not without its rewards, I’m sure. They say that Mrs Thatcher used to wake each morning to Radio 4’s Farming Today. She hated it, but she said there was nothing like listening to a bunch of farmers wingeing about subsidy cuts to get her in the mood to go out and bust some heads.

            Glad you’re all regular readers, anyway.

   2. I suppose I should respond to some of this anonymous sniping that’s been going on. All that was meant by my comment was that all the wordplay seemed very straightforward. If you look back through some of the past grids that have produced lots of quick times, and the comments posted about them, you will see that the top solvers, many of whom post their comments in this blog, find them a little dull and would prefer a sterner challenge. I should also add that personal bragging was certainly not my intention, as I am a long way from being in that group. Of all the bloggers who offer their services here, my times are probably consistently the slowest!

      Also, incidentally, it was in no way intended as a criticism of the puzzle. I said it was a good puzzle for beginners, and it’s important to have those from time to time. And, quite frankly, when I pick up a crossword at midnight, knowing I can’t go to bed until I’ve solved it and then blogged it, this is exactly the sort I’m hoping for!

      Edited at 2013-11-08 09:04 pm (UTC)

      1. Well said Dave and all our other contributors who have so articulately expressed the objectives and spirit of this blog. Long may it continue.
8. All bar one in 30mins, and then a few more for BROADLOOM. Was held up by having ‘singlet’ in for a little while, and didn’t parse: HYPOTENUSE or TRADEMARK, but they were a given with checkers and definition. LOOT went in with a shrug, as I don’t think I’ve really thought of ‘poodle’=’tool’ before.
9. A 15 minute stroll that never really stretched the muscles. Somehow one expects a sterner test to finish the week.

   I can’t remember tool=poodle appearing before so well done setter for that and good to see Neil Armstrong make an appearance.

10. 21 minutes to all-complete except for L_O_ which I stared at for ten minutes before resigning. I suppose – now I know the answer – the clue just about holds up.
11. This frees me up to work on sotira’s reference to Kevin Bacon.
    1. I’ll warn you, it’s pretty highbrow. You’ll need several degrees at least to understand it.
       1. ie 6. I was thinking rhyming slang

          Edited at 2013-11-08 12:14 pm (UTC)

          1. Look here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon
12. When I checked my watch, I was surprised that only 15 minutes had passed, as I thought I was struggling with many of the clues. Not as chewy as the last two, but only 4 minutes difference for me- barely a point on Mohs.
    I had trouble parsing and completing HYPOTENUSE, because I apparently can’t spell the word, and had WOODEN at first at 29ac – “without emotion” and d-m the rest of the clue.
    The potty was a decent example to ST setters of how to do a potentially scatological clue without – erm – scatology.
    I agree with Jim on the inclusion of ARMSTRONG – his death last year, making him eligible for inclusion in this particular Valhalla, occasioned much sorrow. A true hero undiminished by the small minds that claim he never did it.
    CoD to TINGLES for the alphabetical gymnastics.

    Edited at 2013-11-08 10:30 am (UTC)

    1. Snap. I can’t spell it either it seems. Neil Armstrong – the right stuff indeed. Lance, not.
       1. Fortunately, from a crosswording point of view, Lance is Undead. I wonder how he’ll be clued when he becomes eligible? Cyclical cheat, perhaps? Stimulated tourist?
13. A steady solve today from FOI Macaw to LOI Trademark with only a couple of doubts along the way (Loot and the unknown Stupa).
    Took a while to parse Agitprop and to settle on Blathered, for which I also considered Blustered and Blabbered.
    Good to see an appearnce of space legend Neil Armstrong. I don’t recall him in the grid before since his death on 25 August last year.

    Edited at 2013-11-08 10:37 am (UTC)

14. 19 mins with, inexplicably in retrospect, at least the last five of them spent on the ARMSTRONG/ANGLE crossers. Armstrong should have been a write-in even without the final checker but I’d convinced myself I was looking for something asteroid/comet related and I could have kicked myself when I saw the answer.

    STUPA went in from the wordplay with fingers crossed, as did LOOT.

    Yes, naughty posters adding your times to a “Times for the Times” blog. As Basil Fawlty said, what did you expect to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window?

15. 30 minutes. I agree that the clues were somewhat lacklustre, with some quite weak surfaces in places (eg 15a,23,7,9,19,20); ‘good condition’ seems to me a vapid synonym for ‘bloom’. ‘On the money’ is new to me (I see from Chambers that it’s US slang); however, having visited numerous Buddhist temples, I’m very familiar with stupas, so 16 was one of my first in.
16. 14 minutes, undoing myself entirely by banging in HYPODERMIC without being able to parse it, but not seeing any other possibilities. When I then ground to a halt on all the clues intersecting with it, I had a stab at an answer which actually worked with the wordplay, which turned out to be a much better idea.

    I stopped listening to The Archers when they threw Nigel Pargetter off his roof, and now turn over to 6Music a little earlier than before. Feel free to judge me on either of these facts according to whether it makes me seem too highbrow / not highbrow enough.

17. Having spent most of the morning on and off fighting with an exceptionally tough crossword in another place, this experienced solver (and wearer of gingham school dresses in her youth!) didn’t mind at all that the Times only took me 6:54 to solve. It is good to have a range of difficulty levels throughout the week as how else would beginners ever get started on solving the Times, or indeed any other cryptic crossword.
18. Not the hardest of Friday offerings, certainly, but an enjoyable 30 mins. One or two clues were very easy – e.g. 27A (MARCHER) – but some clever and witty stuff too. I particularly liked COMMODE, ANGLE and HYPOTENUSE. The combination of “prize”=LOOT and “poodle”= “tool” at 3D was neat.
19. Vanilla perhaps but still a pleasant taste. 20 minutes and for once no problems.
20. 14:34 on the club timer. Quite quick, but then I am awfully clever. Nothing of substance for an experienced solver like me. And I had all the necessary GK*, because I’m terribly highbrow and well-educated.
    Now please excuse me I have been composing a sonata in the style of Scarlatti and I must finish it this evening.

    *Except STUPA. I didn’t know that.

    1. One thing LiveJournal doesn’t have, but definitely should, is a Facebook-style “like” button 🙂
       1. Thanks!
          Keep it to yourself but really I’m just watching telly.
21. Keriothe: Good luck with all that. I don’t have a time to report due to the missus wanting to talk to me mid solve, but other than STUPA and “tool” as “poodle”, which I didn’t know at all, everything came easily enough. I think it’s very hard to read this blog most days and come to the conclusion that the regulars are a group of patronizing highbrow posers, quite the contrary. And I think all usual commenters here have in their minds that what we are discussing is, after all, a crossword puzzle. In that vein, by the way, TINGLES was good. Regards to all.
22. The whole RHS and two outliers, the rather pathetic MACAW and WATT, went in on my 10 minute journey into town this morning. A short stare at the remainder elicited feelings of difficulty ahead. However, on returning to the fray at 7.20 pm at the 77 bus stop outside St Thomas’s Hospital, all the rest went down like ninepins in the ten minutes before the bus arrived.

    So yes,I agree that the “experienced solver” may well feel a bit disappointed. Perhaps the snipers may not know that there has been a run of relatively straightforward offerings recently, so daveperry was perfectly justified in making his factual and polite comment.

    BTW, what idiot, sorry, enlightened forward-looking NHS administrator, decided that St Thomas’s should be called St Thomas’. All the signage looks just plain wrong. Yet another poke in the eye to venerable tradition. Who cares?

    1. Old enough to have been taught grammar at school, I’d say “an illiterate idiot.” But it might be that the official style guide of the NHS mandates Thomas’ nowadays, hence the necessary signage change.
       27 mins with a slowdown at the end to get Gingham Broadloom Armstrong and Angle, the last, embarrassingly, requiring an alphabet trawl.
       Rob
23. What is “extra” doing here? It marginally improves the surface I suppose, but seems to me to be quite unnecessary, indeed almost unfair. [Attire having to accommodate one stone extra brings grief].
    1. Strictly in terms of wordplay I tend to agree that it’s superfluous but it improves the surface more than marginally in my opinion, so that the reading makes some sort of sense – not that it needs to of course, but it’s sometimes pleasing when a surface reading does.

       In this case, one assumes that the attire is designed to accommodate a person of a certain size but if they overeat and gain an extra stone then its fit may be affected and bring grief, so to speak. Explaining it like this labours the point, but as a fleeting thought as one solves it’s quite amusing in my opinion and this justifies the inclusion of the extra word.

       Edited at 2013-11-09 06:28 am (UTC)

24. 8:36 for me. I made another ridiculously slow start but eventually got going and finished at a reasonably brisk pace.

    I’m entirely with crypticsue about welcoming a range of difficulty in Times crosswords. My only regret is that I’m often so darned slow to solve the easy ones these days.

    I also heartily agree with Londiniensis (for once!) about St Thomas’s.

    Edited at 2013-11-08 11:05 pm (UTC)

25. …who has ever actually tried shooting fish in a barrel will have discovered that the first one is easy. After that, you really need to be quite fast.

    Well, I blew it. For some unexplicable and inimaginable reason I put “TEAMMASTER” for 6d, which demolished “NOSEBAG”. Still, everyone makes mistakes, which explains why my insurance costs more every hear. I didn’t find “no real substance for the experienced solver” to be patronising (that means ‘talking down to’).

    STUPA was a bit of a guess, but inevitable given the crossing words and the wordplay.

    BARRY took a while too – but only because it had an unexpected vowel and I was trying to convince myself that PHRWY was a Welsh town, which it may very well be. The entire Welsh ‘language’ seems to have been made up one night in a badly-lit pub using the unplayed letters from a game of Scrabble. No right-minded person would have given places names like Llanybydder or Pynys. No wonder they haven’t really got on in the world.

    Rainy here, which means that I may win my bet that our first admission after midnight will be a cyclist or motorcyclist rather than the normally abundant PAFO (p*ssed and fell over), which will make a pleasant change. You do get a better class of casualty as the weather deteriorates.

26. I can’t give a time tonight as I started the puzzle during the concert interval at the Sage and completed it later. Thanks to Keriothe and thud n blunder for the laughs.
    As I have been encouraged to, I will sign up, just so I don’t continue to appear as Anonymous – even though I do identify myself.
    Thanks Dave for the blogging, it was a fairly straightforward puzzle by Times standards, and I like the way that, in previous blogs you have been prepared to be open about clues you found intractable.
    George Clements

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