Times 24,127 – We’ve had a letter from a Mrs Trellis of North Wales…

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
One of those where I felt myself on the right wavelength from the off. Several classical references, which always helps me, but which might hold up those who, like Peter Cook, never had the Latin; one word which was unfamiliar to me, but was easily worked out from wordplay. About 15 minutes (with half an eye distracted by the latest adventures of Mr Andy Murray). Q0-E7-D5

Across
1 MATCHLOCK – MATLOCK around CH(urch).
9 NOMEN – (declaratio)N + OMEN.
10 OBSERVING – OB + SERVING; for those unfamiliar with the usage, rivers run, so a river can be a runner.
11 ROLLERS – ER in ROLLS, which is even the right sort of car, very neat.
11 REDCOAT – R(ex) + ED + CO(mpany) + (TA)rev; and the definition is the whole, which is nicely done. I’m sure this sprang straight to the pen of colonial solvers.
13 VERISIMILITUDE – (IVEDELIRIUMITS)*.
17 STANDARD BEARER – on a tougher day, the NORM might not have been capitalised.
23 NILOTIC – this was the one I didn’t know: N(orthern) I(reland)+LOT+I(n) C(harge), derived, as you might have guessed, from the Nile.
25 ORDINANCE – OR + IN inside DANCE (ball).
27 TEMPE – TEMPE(rate); more classical allusion, the Vale of Tempe makes regular appearances in Greek literature.
 
Down
2 TAMIL – a subcontinental language spoken by around 70 million people, though I suppose the most common association is unfortunately with the Tamil Tigers.
4 OPOSSUM – OP(us) + O(ver)S(ize) SUM.
5 KESTREL – KEEL around ST(rait) and R(iver).
6 BORED – BRED around 0.
8 INGOTS – (STINGO)*.
14 ROTTERDAM – ROTTER + (MAD)rev.
15 TRELLISES – TREES around (SILL)rev.
16 PROCAINE – “PRO CANE” – another convention worth noting for newer solvers: ‘number’ here = something which numbs, as procaine does. See also ‘flower’ = river.
18 ABSINTH – ABS + IN TH(is); not sure I’ve previously seen the spelling without a final ‘e’, but it appears to be perfectly well-used.
20 SPROUT – double def. Christmas seems a long time ago now, unfortunately.
24 TONGA – N (knight in chess notation) inside TOGA.

And there we go, Murray has prevailed by default in less time than it’s taken me to write this. Easy night’s work for both of us…

32 comments on “Times 24,127 – We’ve had a letter from a Mrs Trellis of North Wales…”

  1. 22:21 .. Terrific. Who wouldn’t love a puzzle with VERISIMILITUDE tatooed across its belly?

    I was going to nominate 11a, too, so I’ll spread the joy around by going for the (soon to be banned, no doubt) sport of sprout hunting at 20d, which made me laugh. Actually, only last week I found the sprouts I bought for Christmas dinner and forgot to cook.

    Q-0, E-9, D-8 .. COD 20d SPROUT

  2. 36 minutes, but only with on-line assistance. I never felt in touch with what was going around me, but as the clues fell I really appreciated them. A lovely puzzle.
    1. Absolutely the same for me, and the precise opposite of topicaltim’s experience. I just couldn’t get on the setter’s wavelength.

      Three-quarters completed on my 40-minute commute and the rest done in ten minutes over coffee just now.

      Neil

  3. I wrote in the top half with hardly a pause for thought, got 20, 22 and 26 in the lower half and then hit a brick wall. I just couldn’t get into it and ran out of time. On arrival at work I polished it off using on-line aids.
  4. Rather liked Matchlock at 1 across and Bambi too…
    rather simple i thought but got stuck in south east and took 40 minutes finaly having got 75% in about 15%
    Nilotic was tricky as was procaine but finally deduced them!
    Nice puzzle-congrats to the setter
    H
  5. 45 minutes with one wrong. Plumped for NELOTIC; apologies to all our Geordie readers. Thought the Nelots could be related to the Griots. I agree that the capitals in 17 spoilt it somewhat, although it reminded me of clues I hadn’t seen for a long time and which I sometimes lament passing.

    Here in the colonies, Tempe means the Tempe Tip, famous Sydney landfill site, once beloved by scavengers (early prototype recyclers) but now sadly a golf course. Wiki says it derived its name from an early estate and mansion nearby, itself named after the idyllic Greek vale. We colonists can’t resist a touch of irony.

    Hard to go past VERISIMILITUDE, but I liked the wordplay at 28.

    1. It was a very different type of puzzle Paul and I’m not sure you can compare them with today – or indeed any puzzle that comes after the adoption of the Ximenes rules. No such things as blogs in those days so we had to wait until the next day to get the answers. We would then sit around in a group with a variety of reference books and try to understand how the clue gave the answer. We didn’t always succeed and that “we” included an English teacher and a Classics teacher. So have fun but don’t take it all too seriously. However, you may understand why folks like me don’t want the puzzle to regress back to those old days of effectively “anything goes”.
    2. Jimbo’s right that the puzzles were very different. When trying the book’s puzzles, I had more mistakes (5) in the 70s than the 80s or 90s (1 each), but times were much the same. In the 60s I managed a couple of puzzles complete in OK times, but the rest had at least one mistake or unsolved clue, with 60/61/63 all about 8 clues short and untimed. In the 50s, a couple of full puzzles again (slower I think), but then 5 about half done, and 3 a quarter or less. Some of the 30s/40s puzzles have no answers written in or only one or two, but I might have given up fighting by then. It looks as if I completed the 1932 puzzle, but I could have given up and cheated.

      My impression from memories of what Tony Sever has written/said about the older puzzles is that given sufficient lierary knowledge and being used to the (lack of) rules that used to apply, at least some of the old puzzles were quite easy.

      Edited at 2009-01-20 01:42 pm (UTC)

  6. A game of two halves, as they say. Like Jack I got the top with no real problems but then struggled with the bottom. After a cup of coffee suddenly they were obvious. How could I have found PLEASES, SINAI and HANDSHAKE so difficult let alone ROTTERDAM and DUNGEON? About 40 minutes in all.

    There’s a typo in the e-version at 1D were it should be “crawl” and not “craw l”. Some nice word play and entertaining clues – good all round puzzle.

  7. It seems to me that two things changed at the start of the 70s — the demise of Adrian Bell whose cluemanship originated in a very primitive era (just think of Torquemada’s raw undisciplined genius!), and the arrival of times crossword editor Edmund Akenhead along with a new breed of solvers who had grown up in a more developed era. I’d like to research this sometime –oh and glad you’ve been enjoying my puzzle!
    1. If I can help in the research let me know. I would add the publication of the Ximenes Bible by the way.
    2. Akenhead, who took over in 1965, was in the right place at the right time but must take a lot of the credit for getting a good chunk of the Ximenean rules adopted in daily paper puzzles. But there’s much that youngsters like me don’t yet know, such as changes in the number of setters and the times when particular rules got fixed.

      Now that the Times archive is on-line, we’ve at least got many puzzles available as silent witnesses.

    3. Adrian Bell’s real demise wasn’t until 1980, and his wikipedia entry says that he set Times puzzles until 1978. I have a vague memory that he set the 50th anniversary puzzle too, which would have appared in 1980 though he could have prepared it much earlier.
  8. About 45 mins. I’m with Sotira on this. A splendid puzzle. Of some difficulty, but easier I thought than yesterday’s. Judging from comments above, that seems to be a minority opinion, which only shows, I guess, how important it is to tune in straightaway to the setter’s wavelength, which I didn’t yesterday. I too love verisimilitude at 13ac, which was my first answer to go in, largely, I think, because it immediately triggered boyhood memories of going to see “The Mikado” (my Dad was a G&S nut). Other G&S nerds will also no doubt remember Pooh-Bah, Lord High Everything Else in the town of Titipu, justifying an outrageous lie he’d just old as “merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative”.

    Michael H

  9. Similar experience to several above. I filled most of the top half pretty quickly and was pleased to get 13 immediately with no help from letters in the grid, but then ground to a halt in the bottom half. ROTTERDAM comes up often enough that I should have got it far sooner, but I convinced myself from the R that the port was RIO and the answer was some unsavoury character from an opera. TEMPE and NILOTIC, both unfamilair, were the last to go in at the end of an hour.
    Lots of trickery in the clues, the best for me being 10 (didn’t know the river) and 15.
  10. Solved in 9:09, taking a while to get going but thinking that was a decent time in the end. Delighted to see the river Ob as a 2-letter alternative to the Po, remembered since I was about seven from the schoolroom world map, but I think making its Times xwd debut today. Also took too long over ROTTERDAM, starting off with “something inside RIO”, and jotted down ‘horses?’ by the ‘bay’ in 15, though I didn’t spend any time trying to choose one.
  11. About 36 minutes, like others temporarily stumped by the SE corner where suddenly remembering that number could mean anaesthetic opened things up after a while spent foolishly trying to justify dudgeon for 19.

    In 1dn is the “out of” device oft use to denote a subtraction? Whilst “out of ammo/petrol or whatever denotes a lack thereof does it really work for dropping a letter?

    I thought 17 was just weird but really liked 28. “Welcome to the firm young man… have a fish on me”

    For anyone who doesn’t understand Tim’s title (and who doesn’t have the excuse of being overseas) shame on you!

    http://www.g0akh.f2s.com/isihac/Postbag_Page.php

    Q-0, E-7, D-8.5

  12. 14.08, a fair recovery on a grid where I managed to make TWO mistakes. First of all I put TURKEY at 20d, thinking something like “‘Turkey shoot’ definitely means something. What a nice easy clue.” I ought to know by now that this kind of woolly logic often spells disaster. The other one – I’m ashamed to say I initially wrote OPPOSUM in at 4d, which led to some wasted time trying to explain how PO=very big.
  13. 10.28, The comments on ‘supply’yesterday meaning supple-like made me think of my own favourite misleader ‘number’ and , lo and behold, up came 16 today and I still was misled! I also, like Sabine, wrote in turkey for 20 almost immediately which caused a bit of a hold-up. I liked 10 , Ob =Russian runner and 23 , NI lot = provincial group although I agree that Geordies as the Nelot is better. Also 8 was a good example of a concise but excellent clue
  14. 6 hours and five minutes. Realised last night I couldn’t spell VERISIMILITUDE to save myself and slept on it. NILOTIC and NOMEN were new from wordplay.
    1. It’s an unofficial attempt to provide an overview of how we found the puzzle in addition to the solving time:

      Q – Quibbles
      E – Entertainment Value
      D – Difficulty

      Obviously it doesn’t really help because it’s still subjective, but the time on its own doesn’t reveal if you found a puzzle, say, very difficult but also highly satisfying, or more entertaining than usual while not being especially tough.

  16. Being rather new to this blog, I was also unfamiliar with the nomenclature. A follow-up question: Is Q the actual number of quibbles, or degree on a scale. I assume E and D are rated on a 10 high scale.

    Timothy in NJ

    1. Just the number, though sometimes people score 1 for two or three minor quibbles. Others are out of 10.
  17. Tim’s thought about the relevance of a grounding in the classics raises an interesting point. Does anyone else feel that there is an indistinct yet palpable division between solvers with a predominantly arts or linguistic grounding, and those with a background in mechanistic and logical disciplines (As gleaned from their occasional comments in this blog).

    Puzzles which one division find easy prove harder for the other. I suspect the really fast solvers will be those who have one foot firmly in each camp.

    2. I think there are those of us who consciously and methodically deconstruct every clue and after a pause (or two) arrive at an answer and then there are the rapid solvers, who have somehow managed to hard wire this process into their brains, making it an almost subconcious one. I think to be really fast you have to be able to just look at V————- and know the answer is verisimilitude, either without looking at the clue or with a quick confirmatory scan of it. Perhaps the sprinters amongst us can enlighten us. I myself am quite content to plod along, but for those aspiring to speed I suspect the answer doesn’t lie in practice or knowledge base alone.
  18. Many solvers, and many quick ones, turn out to be in analytical rather than arty jobs. That was seemingly true in the UK when crosswords were only partly cryptic (those Bletchley Park code-breakers who had to qualify with a twelve-minute Telegraph solution), so I guess this is because most people see a crossword as a problem to be solved. (Rather than because cryptic clues need analytical skills to solve.)

    But arty knowledge certainly helps!

    “Just looking at V————- ….” is an exaggeration of course. Just looking at V?????M?L????? and “apparent reality” for me, followed by the corrrection of ‘verisimultitude’ – good thing that didn’t fit! It’s nice to think that you need some special talent to be really quick, but practice, starting young, seems to be the key. That, and working out the right times to think carefully and take a bit of a punt.

  19. I haven’t seen this capital letters device before. The clue seems very feeble to me – is it just me?

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