Saturday Times 26340 (20th Feb)

27 comments on “Saturday Times 26340 (20th Feb)”

1. I had three DKs but got all those answers from wordplay, so no complaints here: BORGES, ACETONIC, DIAZO. Also SNAIL as a verb.

2. 18:43 .. some tricky vocab and spellings. Dithered over DIAZO and MYOSOTIS, among others. But my longest delay was with my loi SADIST. As you say, linxit, quite TLS-y.

   I do like to be reminded of expressions like MAKE OLD BONES, which seem to be on the wane, more’s the pity.

   btw, Andy, I nominated yesterday’s puzzle for inclusion in the Memories’ ‘Good Puzzles’ section. Any chance?

   Edited at 2016-02-27 11:17 am (UTC)

   1. Absolutely – best puzzle this year easily! I only got around to it on the way home yesterday, which turned out to be ideal crossword-solving conditions – a broken-down train at Watford, a trespasser at Milton Keynes, then a potential suicide on the tracks up at Wolverhampton meant the journey took 90 minutes longer than usual. I finished that, then a couple of Jumbos from the pile and three or four Guardians too (I’ve been slacking lately).

      1. Great. Thanks, Andy.

         You’re probably the only passenger on that train to have used the word ‘ideal’!

         1. Yep, I don’t mind the train being delayed – on the way in I get to be late for work with a cast-iron excuse, solve more puzzles, and get a refund for the journey. On the way home ditto – with a takeaway rather than Sue’s cooking!
            1. “On the way home ditto – with a takeaway rather than Sue’s cooking!”

               Sue doesn’t read the blog, then.

               Edited at 2016-02-27 11:54 am (UTC)

               1. Andy is clearly long buried under the patio. Long suffering Sue has successfully taken over the blog for months but blew it with the “ideal” train journey exaggeration. Personally, I am locking my doors and changing my name to Sotira.
3. Despite having equally propitious solving conditions -a long train journey- I found this puzzle largely beyond me.I see from the blog I got four clues correct.On the other hand I had Italians for 7d which led me to try Desire at 5a; this is what happens when desperation sets in.
   The good news is that I was on the right lines with Masagaly for the unknown African and Aidzo for the unknown copy.
   And the train was on the right lines too -on time! David
   1. Well you did better than me -only got 24a and 19d. Not for lack of trying -gave it 70 mins before throwing in the pen.Never heard of the expression “make old bones”, did not know diazo, who Gideon was, the word malagasym,myosotis or Miss Otis, and imago.
      1. “Make old bones” is normally only ever heard in the negative, e.g. “You’ll never make old bones if you carry on driving like that” (she said to her boy racer grandson).

         As for the other words, well, you know ’em now! Next time they appear they’ll be easy write-ins.

         Edited at 2016-02-27 05:48 pm (UTC)

   2. Well, how do we do it? Experienced solvers react automatically to certain elements of clues, things they have seen many times before. This enables us to get the ‘easy’ answers, and provides crossing letters for the elusive ones.

      Let’s see how this would work in this puzzle.

      10A – ‘Vehicle’, short answer, think ‘car’, ‘bus’, ‘sub’, ‘van’. For a long answer, something starting with ‘auto-‘.

      12A – ‘Indian’ is usually ‘Ute’, ‘Cree’, or ‘Sioux’ in a homophone. Islands in cryptics? ‘I’, ‘ait’, ‘Cos’, ‘Elba’, ‘Crete’ come up often. Bingo!’

      18A – A chestnut for sure! All experienced solvers will have seen all three elements many times before, including this very clue.

      21A – Battle sites are often ‘Mons’ or ‘Somme’.

      26A – French writers are usually ‘Gide’ or ‘Camus’, who is ‘sumac’ backwards.

      2D – An obvious enclosure of either ‘er’ or ‘um’. A 3-3 enumeration for ‘get angry’ should suggest an immediate possibility.

      11D – Army officer at the beginning is either CO, Col, or possibly CIC. ‘Fellow-fighter’ screams out for ‘ally’ a common word ending. A write-in for most.

      16D – ‘Chinese period’ is almost always ‘Ming’ at the end of a word. That give you half of it right off.

      17D – ‘was first’ is almost always ‘led’ at the end of word.

      My FOI was actually ‘Borges’, I was a big fan of Ficciones as a teenager. But the clues are analyzed were write-ins as well.

      1. Nothing much to add – about an hour & I had to use the dictionary to confirm myosotis – but post of the day to vinyl1. That’s the sort of jam packed review that all newbies (or relative newbies, like me) need to read.

         Edited at 2016-02-27 10:35 pm (UTC)

         1. Yes , thanks Vinyl one -please prep a similar one for when this week’s Saturday is blogged. Getting nowhere slowly!
            1. Sorry, there is no even one vaguely chestnutty clue in that puzzle. They’re all highly original and very difficult to crack. My grid is complete, but I am not sure about one answer and I’m very surprised I was able to finish at all. Brutal!
      2. This was really good Vinyl so (assuming you agree) I’m going to post it into my next Thursday’s QC blog. Thank you and aren’t we having a strange “winter”?
         1. Sure, just correct the bad typo in the last sentence. I think I changed my mind about construction in mid-stream.
            1. Thanks much – will do. O
4. When I first knew him my husband couldn’t stop laughing when I used this term for cleaning the rugs. Like Sue Linxit evidently, he doesn’t visit this website….. Never mind that the machines were invented in the US by the Hoover company, over here the activity is known as “vacuuming”. I haven’t got any Hoovers but I have got 2 Electroluxes and an almost new Dyson that my extravagant NYC neighbour threw out and I rescued, knowing exactly how expensive they are. I soon knew why she got rid of it.

   As someone pointed out on the club forum, MYOSOTIS was pretty difficult if you didn’t know the song.

   Oh yes, yesterday’s puzzle was a keeper. And the TLS was very hard too (and good). 17.37

5. 🙂 LOL
6. Our ‘enry had (has?) a twin brother, also a boxer. Until I got used to it, it was disturbing to go into the shops in my nearby village of Farningham and find myself effectively standing next to the great man. Agree with Olivia, a great puzzle but not a touch on yesterday’s.

   Edited at 2016-02-27 02:52 pm (UTC)

   1. Was the twin brother called George? George Cooper, Henry’s brother, used to run the local greengrocer’s when I lived in Wembley in the late 60s. Looked like Henry. Nice man who used to give my little boy fruit to nibble. I was delighted to see Henry featured in our crossword.
      1. Looked just like ‘enry, almost as beaten up. Yes name was George, Can’t think what he was doing in the butchers at Farningham but there he was. On edit perhaps he was buying meat.

         Edited at 2016-02-27 07:55 pm (UTC)

7. 24:33. I made heavy weather of this puzzle, but I enjoyed it a lot. I didn’t know DIAZO or MYOSOTIS but both were gettable from wordplay. Mind you as Olivia says the latter is a real toughie if you don’t know the song.
   I was surprised and pleased to see GRUNTLED: if it’s good enough for Bertie Wooster it’s good enough for me.
   14ac is an expression I have only ever heard with reference to wine: ‘it’s delicious now but I don’t think it will MAKE OLD BONES.’

   Edited at 2016-02-27 05:50 pm (UTC)

8. When my father-in-law was machine-gunned during the war, an army medic said to him “you won’t make old bones”. He is now 97 and still going strong.
9. I didn’t know DIAZO but it was easy to work out. Apart from that there was no major problem. I enjoyed the reference to the lady who was unable to lunch today, Madam. A slowish but steady solve. 34 minutes. Ann
10. This wasn’t such a poor crossword despite its mistaking Americans for Indians and labelling your friendly neighbourhood sadist ‘deviant’. Pleasant memories of ‘Enry’s ‘Ammer and a young Mr Clay didn’t really make up for those shortcomings. A bit snarky perhaps, probably in reaction to the overblown praise for yesterday’s clever but bloodless offering.
11. I remember the ammoniacal smell of these prints from my time in the aircraft industry – the process had superseded the use of blueprints, and it gave a positive image. They were still referred to as ‘prints’ though.

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