Superfluous roue certain to become a tough boss?

43 comments on “Superfluous roue certain to become a tough boss?”

1. Yep, a bit of a doddle this morning: 20 minutes including making breakfast for house guest and making sure the fire was still in (burning, that is). Quick time (which I don’t always like so much) was aided by the fact that 37 whole squares were made up of anagrams + two triple and two double defs, with one of the doubles (8dn) intersecting one of the triples (7ac). Never heard of dimity — has anyone else?
   1. You need to read more regency romances. I recommend Georgette Heyer for her dimity clad heroines. Sorry for late comment. First opportunity to look at this blog.
2. Vinyl: you have 12 & 15 down as 11 & 13. And: am I wrong about 7ac being a triple (one with bad habits / incline / scratch)? If so, my apologies.
   1. Numbers corrected.

      Yes, it is very possible that 7 is another triple. If so, they are in symmetrical spots on the grid, aren’t they? Maybe we solve these easy puzzles too quickly, without appreciating all the subtle touches.

3. 15 min, so an easy start to the week. Was thrown for far too long by ?W?L?T? M?N at 1 ac (A tough one for our non-cricketing American friends). And yes, 7 ac is a triple def. No outstanding clues.
4. 17 mins here. The stewards have ordered a swab but I’ve read my muesli ingredients and I think I’m in the clear (Wait a minute, is niacin folate a steroid?). A pedalo is a “pleasure boat” in the same sense that Charles V’s Holy Roman Empire was Holy and Roman. It does go on water (the pedalo, that is), but usually in circles, depending on the relative strengths of the pedallers, and not very far, which is just as well because you can’t reliably get back to shore.

   I likes the two triples, PEDALO, TIMID and COLLAPSE. And TWELFTH is an excellent word for hangman.

5. 13 minutes, though with a little internal worry that ORRERIES would not be the correct anangram. TIMID from definition, didn’t know that wordplay. I liked the two triple definitions.
6. 11:01 .. easy, but a very enjoyable puzzle. The rat-catcher made me laugh.

   Nice start to the week.

7. 7:10 – pretty routine except the NW corner where 9, 4, 11 (solved in that order) put up a bit of a fight. Only 6D solved without seeing the wordplay when solving. At 17A I fear GOBBLEDIGOOK is wrong, though very forgivably so – “gobbledygook” and “gobbledegook” seem to be the accepted spellings. “I give approval” must therefore be “EGO (=I) + OK (verb)”. I wrote in your version, based on the same logic, but then a mental alarm bell rang.

   As a minor quibble, not really convinced by “appear” in 23D. The anagram of patterns surely “appears” in the cryptic reading. Not terribly important as the word could have been omitted, but “appearing” gets round it. 13’s similar “get made” seems OK, as the anag fodder is two words and hence plural in a way.

   1. Maybe the gobbled-gook was a hangover from Spike in 24249? I read it as “I GO OK” where the verb “go” (as in “and he goes…”) has become a “quotative”; so that the quotative in the clue is “give”?? Have to admit though that this is seriousy stretching the point to which the long bow has been drawn.
      Can’t embed URLs, so here’s the full version:
      http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/ss17/contributions/abstract.php?paperID=678
      Yep, I tend to visit strange websites! A professional hazard.
      1. Your reason for “I go OK” is absolutely fine (and go=say is in COED as informal usage) – it’s just that “gobbledigook” is not a spelling sanctioned by the dictionaries, and therefore won’t be the official answer.
         1. Presumably gobbledegook as opposed to gobbledygook is mumbo-jumbo appearing on a website (never this one, of course) just as an e-furph is rumour or hearsay spread by the internet, as opposed to a furphy, an Australian expression for word of mouth rumour (named after a water carrier, as is scuttlebutt curiously).
   2. 23 *across*?
      1. Quite so.
         1. Yes, quite so.
            I was reading wrongly … as ever!
8. 30 minutes, which is about as good as things seem to get for me these days.

   I also fell for GOBBLEDIGOOK and at 2dn I didn’t know the required meaning of WANTONLY which Collins says is archaic and COED adds “or literary”.

   I never heard of DIMITY and, like George, I also looked more than once at the spelling of ORRERIES.

   I would have agreed with vinyl1 that BRING TO BOOK suggests something more severe than a reprimand but on checking I found that Collins has “to reprimand or require someone to give an explanation of his behaviour” so the setter is excused.

   All of the above sowed some seeds of doubt which slowed me down whilst solving so I didn’t find it quite as easy as suggested in the blog. Oh, and like vinyl1 I still ended up with one letter wrong (at 17ac).

9. 8:06, with one mistake.  I assumed GOBBLEDIGOOK must be a variant spelling I hadn’t come across.  Googledibbok gives over a million hits for GOBBLEDYGOOK, 95000 for GOBBLEDEGOOK, and 178000 for GOBBLEDIGOOK; restricting the search to the UK evens them out at around 20000 apiece.  But the presence of GOBBLEDIGOOK on the internet seems largely attributable to this song.

   I too found the NW corner the only difficult part.  This was finally cracked by 1ac (TWELFTH MAN), where the apparent shortage of vowels had put me off.  Last in was 2dn (WANTONLY).  I didn’t know DIMITY (4dn) or ORMOLU (22ac).

   7ac (RAKE) is definitely a triple definition, as mctext and Ross Elliot say.  And the definition for 12dn (BRING TO BOOK) isn’t as far off as vinyl1 suggests: the phrase means call to account, and presumably refers to books as sources of evidence (e.g. financial accounts) rather than books into which the police enter the names of those they arrest.

   I agree with Peter’s grammatical point about “appear” in 23ac (TRANSEPT).  My only other quibble is that 14ac (“Steppes under the weather provide easy progress”) lacks a plausible surface reading.

10. Late start, early finish.
    Good job orreries was an anagram otherwise would have needed aids.
    Post-solve checks on LOO as a game,
    DIMIT(Y) as cotton, and like Jack looked up wantonly which has a zillion meanings.
    Have re-read above and no, I wasn’t on the loo while checking dictionary (actually reminding myself of the glories of Sibelius 2).
11. Like others, hesitated over GOBBLEDEGOOK, wrote the E, changed it to I, then my ego came to the fore. DIMITY appears in Under Milk Wood, if memory serves: “I love you more than all the flannelette and calico, candlewick, dimity, crash and merino, tussore, cretonne, crepon, muslin, poplin, ticking and twill in the whole Cloth Hall of the world.”

    9 mins, easy start to the week.

12. 
    Aha! I avoided the GOBBLEDIGOOK trap thanks to my cunning plan. I call it my “Too Stupid and Lazy to be Fooled” plan. If you don’t bother with all the wordplay, or can’t understand it, there’s far less danger of it misleading you.

    That’s my top tip of the day for new solvers.

    1. Er, if you do that, won’t you just put in ‘gobbledygook’?
       1. Happily, I spell it ‘gobbledegook’ by default. But, admittedly, this approach might need some work.
13. 10:58 here, although I also fell for GOBBLEDIGOOK with the “I GO OK” explanation, assuming it was an alternative spelling. Didn’t even think of EGO for I.
14. First sub-10 minute puzzle for ages (9) so feeling fairly chuffed! RAKE and KEENER were last in. Hopefully portends a good week!
    Oli
15. I agree that it was easy, but in view of the number of people caught out by 17 (amongst whom I have to include myself), perhaps not so easy. I also assumed an alternative spelling. As I was racing through the clues I didn’t look carefully enough to spot EGO. I found that once a few letters were in place it was possible to enter several answers with scarcely a glance at the clue. TIMID and MORBID went in last, both pushing my time to 20 minutes.
    The grammar of 23 is faulty, as Peter has noted, and the comma in 11 rather interferes with the cryptic instruction. I thought this was a clumsy clue. The rest were fine, although nothing stood out.
16. a good limber up…i know that it doesnt work like this but i reckon we could be in for some tough ones later in the week…we are being lulled into a false sense of security or is it all just timid gobbledegook…
    i too liked the neVERMINd
    good clue!

17. Just under 15 minutes for an easy puzzle and that included checking the dictionary for the spelling of GOBBLEDEGOOK when it was clear that ..DYG.. didn’t fit the wordplay. I also never heard of “dimity” but knew The Earl of Orrery and his clockwork planets. A number of chestnuts and no real crackers, unfortunately.
    1. Fairly easy and might have had a PB if I’d been timing myself and willing to hurry, but it was a heavy weekend and I was in a slothful mood. My spelling of gobbledegook fortunately agreed to the setter’s. bc
18. 12d – bring (to book) does not “match” with delivering – should be bringing to book, or deliver, which mars the clue.
    1. The definition in 12dn (BRING TO BOOK) is just “reprimand” – “delivering” is being used as a link word.
19. 6.57. No real problems although I put in GOBBLEDEGOOK on the strength of the checking letters and definition as I just assumed it was the only spelling – so lucky for me it wasn’t clued for the ‘Y’ version.
    Had never heard of dimity and only realised the wordplay for 6 on reading vinyl1’s blog. That’s my clue of the day. Remembering to try a Q before the two U’s in the SE corner helped to make it a fast solve.
    1. Well remembered – though in 22A, the ?????U pattern is probably an exception. There are certainly no words in Chambers ending “QU” other than abbreviations and prefixes.
20. well in COED and Collins, the -E- and -Y- spellings seem to have equal status, so if one of them is OK as an answer, so is the other. I think the existence of a commonly misspelled version which happens to fit the wordplay is an unfortunate coincidence rather than a deliberate trap.
21. Noted Peter – I didn’t notice that one as I solved the clue right off – also a pointer that if the word start is ??U then if it is a Q the first letter is only going to be A,E or S which might give a possible hint for crossing clue
    1. It might, but my guess is that seeing ?QU… will probably get you most of the answers that (e.g.) AQU… would have got you. I’m a bit wary of rules like “must be an A E or S” because of the possibility of a proper noun or unusual word that breaks the rule – in the very tough Saturday puzzle just blogged, would you have guessed P or Q for a “?S” word?
22. Three of us, not raw beginners, had a go at this at lunchtime. After an hours hard labour and about a third out, we thought gosh this is hard. We looked at the “This puzzle should be very easy for everyone but the rawest beginner” and were immediately demoralised. We then looked at the answers. 8d where does the mourning come in please? 13a Well yes but as they say on who wants to be a millionaire, the answer is only easy if you know it. 15d -we didn’t think we would have got that if we’d spent all day! 22a Having only the fourth letter, we couldn’t get it. 19d Having only the 2nd and last letter, again we were stuck.
    Tommorrows another day ..
    1. I’d take any difficulty ratings by the blogger with a fairly big pinch of salt. They can only assess the puzzle based on their experience, and experienced solvers are pretty good at forgetting exactly how much they’ve learned over the years. Easy for A, hard for B is commonplace even among the people who are supposed to be experts.

       I confidently expect you to be posting a “wasn’t that hard!” comment fairly soon when the boot’s on the other foot.

    2. to keen is to wail in lamentation, especially for the dead.

       I sometimes find it demoralising when I am really pleased I have almost finished a crossword, and the experts proceed to say it was boringly easy. Oh well, I just have to practice more and get better, which will happen with the help of this blog.

       Today I put in rash instead of rake, and therefore didn’t get keener. When I read the blog, and changed rash into rake, the answer was obvious (to me).

       Isabel

    3. 1. I must not be very good, because it takes me an hour and a half to do the puzzles Peter and Mark do in 15 minutes.

       2. On this one, my pencil flew through the clues without a pause for 8 or 10 minutes, leaving me only a few to chew on. Last in were ‘quarto’ and ‘lock’, not knowing the Rugby position slowed me down.

       3. The literals are not at all concealed. You could do most of the puzzle from the literals, and not worry about the cryptics until the last few.

23. Regards all. Mostly easy, but I was delayed in the NW area. Had most everything in less than 15 minutes, but then had to stare at the INFORMER/TIMID pair for another 15 minutes; I never heard of dimity, and had no previous idea that grass=informer. Never heard of ORRERIES, PEDALO or ORMOLU either, but they didn’t present any problems due to the clear wordplay. Got INFORMER finally from wordplay, and then TIMID from definition. And now, alas, I must also report that I fell into the GOBBLEDIGOOK trap, using the same reasoning as others describe above. Best to all, see you tomorrow.
24. I enjoyed this which I found on the easy side, 18m mins, very fast for me. Liked WANTONLY, INFORMER, GOBBLEDEGOOK (in looking at the blog see I was luckier than others with this one, seeing ego = I)
25. 8:05 – Yay – beat Mark for once by one second, and made the same mistake (IGOOK). Didn’t know VAMP was a verb, nor did dimity cross my brain. I thought some of the surface meanings were not very natural, but the clues were all sound.
26. 8:05 – Yay – beat Mark for once by one second, and made the same mistake (IGOOK). Didn’t know VAMP was a verb, nor did dimity cross my brain. I thought some of the surface meanings were not very natural, but the clues were all sound.

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