Times 24073

42 comments on “Times 24073”

1. I had three-quarters of this filled in after 5 minutes, but still took 14:20 to finish it. The top right corner was the sticking point, with 9D/19A last to go in.
2. Talk about fits and starts. This should have been a doddle, but whenever I got a full head of steam up, something would break. Eventually 15 min, but I feel this was way too long for what was a very kindly start to the week. I expect to see many personal bests reported. The only teasers could be 11 Ac for non Brits, and 14 Dn for non others.
3. Similar experience – started very fast then took forever to finish the S and SW corner. 25 mins in all. No new words.

   Not terribly happy with 18D – MUST seems to not so much a problem for the elephant as for anyone who gets near him, and I’m not sure of the basis for “no-good” for NG. Is that accepted?

   Is3D an &lit? – I assumed so.

   17A I’ve never seen a Gary Cooper film but the name always reminds me of “Putting on the Ritz” -watch the video – pure class!

   http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/f/fred_astaire/puttin_on_the_ritz.html

   1. “ng” is in Chambers as an abbreviation for “no good”
   2. NG (or ng) for ‘no good’ is in Collins, and and informal Brit abbreviation – so is NBG = no bloody good.

      3D & lit? Yes – by way of runner = type of plant shoot or (Brit informal) runner bean or its plant.

      Same view on 18D!

      1. You might be tempted to think that I don’t use a dictionary! I used to use an old (1988) Chambers, but recently invested in a new (2006) COED specially for the purpose. Neither has NG in either the main body or in the abbreviations, nor does the on-line Chambers on the right of the page. I’m afraid I’m not going to splash out on a Collins as well, so you will have to put up with the odd stupid question from time to time.
         1. No problem. Chambers has added it some time since 1988. Both my COED (c. 2000) and COllins (1991) are pretty mature so I look silly occasionally too.
4. 40 minutes here, which was a bit disappointing after a flying start – I had 1A solved before the puzzle had finished printing – and after yesterday’s effort on the ST puzzle where I achieved a PB of 12 minutes.

   I really thought I was in for something similar today as I raced through the LH side. But the SE slowed me down a bit where LEADS = Roofing gave me pause for thought (I checked it out later and it’s fine), and at 28 I first thought of SCREAMER which can mean the same as STREAMER in the sense intended here.

   But the worst trouble was still to come in the NE where I ground to a halt as 5,6,7,8 and 13 all put up solid resistance for far too long.

5. Very straightforward puzzle – about 25 minutes to solve. I liked “perhaps leads” as a definition for ROOFING but the rest was easy really.
6. 7:20 here – another flying start followed by a slow-down. Cooper = Gary still fools me though this must be about its fourth apearance in a year or so. And I should have tried seeing what GONER+U-BOAT or E-BOAT could me made into, earlier than I did.
7. It was, indeed, a breeze, though a few took a bit of pondering – ROOFING, TICKETY-BOO, and I didn’t see SLAVER until I had the V. 21 minutes in all. What’s “up” doing in 26? E L M are the final letters in a normal sequence, without the need for reversal.
   1. I guess it’s up = “into prominence / notice / consideration”, as in bringing something up in conversation. A bit cheeky, but then not many solvers would think MLE was a word, even in a barred puzzle.
8. Same story here, rapid start, then a bit bogged down, then v. slow with the last couple in the Georgie corner (slaver and vindication).

   Was going to query leads for roofing but Jack has already checked it out.

   18:23 all told, Q-0, E-7.5, D-6, COD 11.

9. 6:20, which is pretty fast for me. Between quick and steady all the way through, and then a slight pause to get ROOFING at the end.

   I agree with Dyste on 26: the gratuitous “up” stopped me putting ELM in first time round, as I assumed there had to be a reversal involved.

10. Nothing too difficult here – 28 minutes, which is quick (for me!) The wordplay eluded me in 18d, but there was nothing else sensible that would fit, and 19ac gave me pause for thought for a couple of minutes. Unless I’m reading it wrong, wasn’t 9d a tad rude for The Times?
    1. It’s just your filthy mind. Roger = received as in “message received and understood”, as demonstrated here:
       Cleared for takeoff

       1. I’m not sure whether to be embarrassed or relieved…
11. A decent 6:30 here, although a frustrating and unnecessary delay with the 5A/6D pairing prevented a more impressive time.

    I’ve got into the habit now of accepting instances such as the ROOFING def at 19 and MUST at 18D – once the answers are placed it’s generally a case of “Didn’t know that – so there you go”. I’m very much of the opinion that if the clue gives you enough info to place the right answer it’s done its job.

    An enjoyable puzzle with some very nice deceptions along the way.

    Q-0 E-7 D-6 COD 3D NURSERYMAN – well spotted anagram.

12. I didn’t really slow down in this one, and finished in 8 minutes, rather a lot of “this definition could only mean one thing with these checking letters clues” so I was looking to see if I’d made a silly wordplay mistake this, but everything seems to be 11.
13. 6.35. Like Jack I put SCREAMER in first but luckily it was almost at once clear from 23d that it wasn’t right. Apart from that I’m somewhat ashamed to say my most time-consuming problem was finding the anagram of “tenant in commune”. Despite having spotted “monument” immediately. I still had to go down the long path of crossing out letters and staring at the resulting TENAINC without immediate enlightenment.
14. While I accept that trees are part of the plant kingdom, and that they are perennial in habitat, I think to call a tree (elm) a ‘perennial plant’ is rather stretching a point. In any reasonable usage – including by gardeners and horticulturalist – the term ‘perennial plant’ would refer specifically to perennial herbaceous plants rather than woody plants such as trees or shrubs.
    1. Look up tree in a dictionary and you’ll probably find the term “perennial plant” in there somehwere. Chambers online has “a tall woody perennial plant”.

       As far as the Times crossword is concerned the use of a dictionary definition makes a clue perfectly acceptable regardless of any common usage.

15. This would have been a sub-7 PB for me, but for a hold-up with GREATER, of all things. As it was, 8 mins. Didn’t know MUST but couldn’t see an alternative. An enjoyable start to the week.

    Tom B.

16. 
    I agree with Kurihan on ‘must’.
17. 6:15. This is a really quick time for me, but I was disappointed not to have dipped under the elusive 5 minute barrier. It seemed like I had. 19a was the only one to hold me up.
18. 8 mins. Was heading for better, but carelessly put KNOW for 6 down without reading the wordplay, leaving me unable to solve 5 across until I realised the mistake.
19. A Monday breeze indeed! 20 mins for me, which is probably a PB, and could have been faster, the left-hand side of the puzzle falling into place in no more than 6 mins or so. Then got slightly bogged down. Oddly, ELM at 26dn was the last to go in, even though, by a process of alphabetic elimination if nothing else, there could by then have been no other possible answer. But I hesitated to put it in for some time wondering, like others, whether an elm could properly be described as a “perennial plant”. Plainly it can (see above).

    I take penfold’s point that any dictionary definition (however arcane)is acceptable as far as the Times xword is concerned, and have learnt to take my medecine like a man. But I must confess to having a lot of sympathy for sotira’s recent dictum that definitions and other usages deployed by setters should “bear some resemblance to the language as she is spoke” (or words to that effect). On that score, I don’t think we can reasonably object to elm = perennial plant. In a recent puzzle, however, we were asked to accept “search” as a synonym for “put to the test”. Now, that definition is indeed there if you drill down far enough into the entry in Chambers, but I defy anyone to devise a sentence in which “search” could be substituted for “put to the test” and still make sense. “An interesting theory, Mr Einstein, we must put it to the test/must search it”. I don’t think so. It’s true that the present participle “searching”, used adjectivally, could just about yield that meaning (as in “he gave me a searching look”), but “searching” is not the same as “search”.

    Michael H

    1. But I’d also defy anyone to devise a sentence used by anyone other than botanists, where “perennial plant” included “tree”. “Mr Jones dug up all his perennial plants and planted others in their place”. Did he dig up the trees? No.

       If you go by ‘language as she is spoke’ you can have fascinating debates like this which may not settle the question. If you use the dictionary, you at least get a quick decision.

20. I’m assuming tickety-boo means hunky-dory, or something akin to it. I first put in ‘tickety-noo’, as in ‘loony’ reversed, but that didn’t look like anything you UK folks would say, so I went with ‘boo’. Overall I did everything except 5A/6D and 18D/27A in about 12 minutes. 18 was the last, since I hadn’t heard of the elephant frenzy before, say 20 minutes altogether. So today’s is both educational and enjoyable. I agree a tree is not usually spoken of as a perennial plant, but that didn’t hinder solving, so a case of ‘no harm, no foul’ to me. I’m impressed that no one has called ‘Baton Rouge’ obscure, indicating your collective knowledge of US state capitals is better than many Americans’. Regards to all, see you tomorrow.
    1. Olduns might remember the song “Everything is Tickety Boo” composed by Johnny Mercer and Saul Chaplin for the 1958 film Merry Andrew, starring Danny Kaye.
       1. New to me, but found on Youtube. I’d love to know what the line really is when he’s next to the bus, which sounds like a surprising obscenity.
    2. I am in New York as well, and after thinking about it, I discovered ‘tickety-boo’ deep within the recesses of my mind. It is 1930-60s slang, so I probably saw it in some UK novel or murder mystery from that period. It sounds like the sort of thing you might find in Muriel Spark or early Ruth Rendell.
21. Well here I was feeling really pleased with myself for having finished a whole crossword in one day, only to see that it was a breeze for the rest of you.I’ll never catch up.
    Susie
    1. Susie, congratulations on finishing. You don’t need to catch up. As with any game or pastime, the average person doesn’t expect to play like the pros, but just hopes to get to a standard at which they can enjoy the game. Some people on this blog post exceptional times, but I suspect that the vast majority of solvers are happy just to complete a puzzle in the day. Just keep at it, and use the blog to make sure that you understand the analysis of each answer, and you will find that you will improve. I have only started doing puzzles regularly for the past 3 months or so, and have improved from “mostly finish within the day” to “practically always finish within 20-40 mins” which suits me fine. Just keep at it and enjoy! And if you don’t understand, just ask – people will be only too pleased to help.
    2. Hi Susie, may I add my congratulations to Kurihan’s. When I started (Oh so long ago) I was beside myself to be able to answer just the occasional clue. It was a long time before I managed to complete a whole puzzle (and the warm feeling persisted for a considerable time). The road has been rocky, and I still suffer infuriation, embarrassment and delight in equal quantities. I would have it no other way.
    3. Susie, if you’re happy to just finish the puzzle on the same day as you started, that’s fine. The point is to have fun, not to worry about whether you’ll ever solve the puzzle inside a particular time limit. You can use the quoted times just as an indicator of difficulty. If this is one of the first times you’ve finished the puzzle on the same day you started, feel pleased again when you do that twice in the same week.

       Most of the people posting quick times have been doing this for a very long time (I started in 1976), and have the considerable advantage of starting when they were fairly young. They may also have taken extreme steps like solving more than one cryptic puzzle every day for a long time.

22. True, Peter, nobody, other than botanists, is likely to refer to a tree as “a perennial plant”, but the latter is an accurate technical definition of the former, and “perennial plant” could be substituted for “tree” in any sentence containing “tree” and make some sort of sense. However, as you say, the reason for the “dictionary is always right rule” is precisely to prevent setters becoming embroiled in enjoyable, if potentially endless, discussions of this kind!

    Michael H

23. I had much the same experience as everyone else, easy left, hard right. About 20 minutes.

    The cryptic for ‘elm’ was so easy, you don’t even need to read the literal definition.

    The definition for ‘Baton Rouge’ is quite amusing, and I was able to use it to figure out that 23 must be ‘u-boat’ and not ‘e-boat’

24. Real olduns may remember an earlier song, “Keep your thumbs up, and say it’s tickety-boo” from WWII, probably about 1941 or so – I think Gracie Fields sang it. John
    1. I’m sure I have heard this song, John, but can’t find the lyric on-line. There are a couple of references to “Put your thumbs up and say ‘Ticket-boo'” but no indication of who sang it.

       Actually my point in mentioning the song from Merry Andrew to Kevin_from_NY was that it was written and performed by Americans so US audiences of a certain generation would have been exposed to it. In the film, Andrew, Danny Kaye’s character who sang the song,was supposed to be English, and I assume it was the American makers’ idea of a typical, authentic English phrase.

25. http://tickiteeboo.tripod.com/id10.html

    feels right to me.

26. A nice friendly one with nothing obscure but with a Russian dancer, a couple of London places and a gas-guzzling US sports car.

    There are 8 “easies” not in the blog:

    1a Promise a convent has broken (8)
    COVENANT. Quite a thinly disguised anagram there!

    10a American lawyer’s energy sufficient for deed (5,2,8)
    POWER OF ATTORNEY

    13a Clock put back (4)
    DIAL

    2d Plight of very old wife (3)
    V O W

    6d Raise common fund – the knowledgeable are in it (4)
    LOOP. Are you in the loop?

    16d Girl goes to metropolis to reveal the truth (8)
    VERA CITY

    20d King has worry over queen being more powerful (7)
    G.R. EAT E.R.

    24d List of options produced by people going to university (4)
    MEN U

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