Times 24,192 – cheers

Author   foggywebPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 31 mins

This is my final post as the regular Monday blogger. So thanks and farewell, although I’ll still pop in and say hello.
I’ve been doing this for about two-and-a-half years and it’s been great fun. I’ve also learnt a great deal – both general knowledge and crossword knowledge! When I started doing this, I’d only been doing the Times crossword for a few months and normally took between one and two hours to complete a puzzle. Now I do most of them within thirty minutes or so. It’s all about practice and learning to think in a crossword way.

To say thanks for all the support and fun, I made you a crossword yesterday. Disclaimer: I haven’t put one out publicly before, so am not sure of the difficulty level – also because I did it all in one afternoon and evening, some of the clues are first drafts i.e. pretty lame! Anyway, here’s Silly Words by Foggyweb (changed the link as you might not want to read the comments before attempting).

Today’s puzzle, then.
Only one I wasn’t sure of was LOLLARD. That took a while. Things I have learnt previously from crosswords: SISAL, NEY, ORLANDO GIBBONS, SOUSA, YIN, ARC. Things that came quickly OT=books, NE=Tyneside, TEE=supporter, L=lake. And probably loads of other things that you just get to know…

Across

1 MO,ORLAND[o] – MO is the state, Orlando Gibbons is a composer.
10 A,MB,U,LANCE,CHASER – MB=doctor; U=posh
11 RA(DIAN[e])T
13 SMUDGILY – anagram of ‘Mild guys’
15 SO,USA – John Philip Sousa is the composer of the Washington Post.
18 R,ON,DO
20 TE(L)E,CAST
23 H(EN,BAN)E – HE is the man; EN is French for in.
26 VIRGINIA,CREEPER
27 SA(YIN)G – YIN is a Scottish form of one.
28 PORRIDGE! – Well, porridge is the final answer today and it’s also in the final clue in the Foggyweb special.

Down

1 ME(AG)RE
2 OM,BUD’S,MAN
3 LOLLARD – struggled with this. A lot. LOLL=HANG,A,DR reversed. I’ve not come across Lollardy before.
4 N,O(NE)T – N=north; NE=northeast; OT=Old Testament
6 EPHESUS – hidden word.
8 NO(RSE)MAN – RSE are the regularly letters of ‘trusted’ and ‘no man is an island’.
14 IN,TREP,ID – IN=at the crease in cricket; TREP=PERT lifted and ID=DI up.
17 ARC,HIVES
19 [in,n]OVATION
21 COMPEER=COMPERE with the last two letters switched.
24 NE[RV]Y – RV=Revised Version (Bible) and Ney is Michel Ney
25 MACH,O

33 comments on “Times 24,192 – cheers”

  1. Thanks and farewell Steven – you were pretty 14D to volunteer as a weekly blogger when you had just six months experience of the Times puzzle and most of the orginal seven had ambitions of making at least the Grand Final in the Championship; but you’ve done as I hoped and shown that regular practice (plus some careful analysis) makes the puzzles doable and enjoyable.

    9:42 for this one – I suspect others may go faster as there were some dead-end ideas – an unhyphened ‘set-aside’ as a def-guess at 1A (blown away by 2D), failure to spot the quote involved in 8D and hence time wasted wondering if “an=NO” had wandered in from Mephistoland (it hadn’t – an is not NO, not even in Chambers).

    In case the structure of 15 triggers an old story, the story of Sousa’s surname coming from an Ellis Island garbling of “Mr So, USA” is just a story.

  2. 20 min. I thought that I had reviewed and sorted out all the oddities, and then found that I had not adequately understood 1 ac (Although the answer could be picked up from the checking letters and the definition). Indeed the NW was again something of a hold up, and this seems to reinforce the recently propounded theory that 1 ac is expected to be somewhat in your face. COD: 8 dn. I loved the charmingly oblique nod to John Donne.
  3. Thanks Foggyweb, 32 minutes for me today so I hope to emulate your improvement over the coming months.

    Thanks also for explaining Moorland and Norseman, which I got just from the definition. I am ashamed not to have thought of Orlando and I struggled for a long time with Stanley Gibbons and even Edward Gibbon.

    The parsing of 18 is probably Ron (Reagan), do since R is a bit feeble for Republican leader.

    I thought sale was a bit of a stretch as a definition of betrayal. I also thought Geordie’s old woman was a bit too specific for Mam since it is a dialectical use that is widely used throughout Britain.

    1. “Mam” is also used throughout Wales, whichever language is being spoken – probably because “mam” is the Welsh word for “mother”.
      Dafydd.
    2. {sell=betray} is in COED, so seems fair game for conversion to {sale=act of selling=betrayal}

      Geordie MAM – true enough, but what does the setter do? Give you “old woman” alone, which is poor with no dialect indication, use “dialect” or something else, probably well-worn, to indicate unspecified dialect, choose something potentially more interesting but over-specific, or use the latter with something like “perhaps”?

      Gibbons possibilities – watch out for woodcarver Grinling too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gibbons=STANLEY, but the only objection I can imagine is “advertising!”.

    3. I think Foggy’s right, Lenny. R=Republican is listed both in Colllins and in COED. If ON were to be clued by RON (Reagan) then “being shown” would be redundant.
      1. I think you’re right about the construction, with “being shown” being ON, as of a play or TV programme. But Lenny’s right about where the R comes from – if Republican gives the R on its own (which is OK as you say), then “leader” is redundant.
        1. I was just about to concede defeat gracefully to Foggy and Jack when Peter declared it a draw. I can just about see “being shown” = on so the (semi-)redundant word is “leader”

          I must have got carried away by the fact that, since June 5, 2004, it has been permissible for Times setters to clue Ronald Reagan. Still, he is the answer to question 4 in today’s Times 2 quiz.

          1. Right. So surely it boils down to “Republican leader” = “R” (i.e. R is its first letter) and “being shown” = “ON”, which is exactly, presumably, how Foggy read it in the first place?
  4. I took 30 minutes but still had one or two unexplained when I came here, not that I had actively researched them after completion, just thought about them for a few extra moments.

    I cannot believe I have never met MO for Missouri so I must have forgotten it, but I’d have thought it a memorable abbreviation once learnt because it’s not an obvious one. I didn’t spot the reference to “No man is an island” so 8d was another one that puzzled me. And I’m not sure I have met COMPEER before, but at least Marshal Ney didn’t catch me out today and I knew LOLLARD.

    CREEPER for “bootlicker” at 26? I’d have thought that was just a CREEP.

    Thanks for all your past blogs,Foggyweb. I have enjoyed reading them.

  6. 20 minutes plus a night and an hour to sort out PORRIDGE and COMPEER. How can one be so convinced that one’s entries are correct as to be blind to mistakes such as COMPERE? .

    Thanks to Foggy for blogs, and for “Silly Words” – 35 minutes’ fun and (to me) education. I recommend it; you might learn something!
    Dafydd.

  7. 14 minutes for me, no great difficulty but a little slower than my top speed. All of the ones that might be obscure to some (Ephesus, Lollard, Gibbons..) I happen to know, and the only one that held me up was VIRGINIA CREEPER, which waited until I had the opening V and then sprang to mind.

    A book written about Rotherham in the 50s has the title “Weer’z Me Mam?” which suggests it must have been (and possibly still is) prevalent around here as well.

  8. 15 minutes – best wishes Foggy! Similar experience, LOLLARD seemed to be the only plausible answer, but I’ve been wrong on ones like these before. Similarly COMPEER from wordplay, MOORLAND from definition and wondering where the Gibbons would fit in. It may not be a first timer, but I got a smile out of 10.
  9. An above average 40 minutes, where the NW corner gave me by far the most grief. In particular, the intersection of 1ac / 3d. Just right for a Monday I thought – challenging enough, but not too rigorous! COD 26ac.
  10. 12:05 for me. Nice gentle start to the week after Saturday’s stinker. I put in quite a few from the definition without bothering to decipher the wordplay, in the interests of speed.

    Nice knowing you Steven. Stay in touch.

  11. 15:59 .. A couple of those minutes were spent staring blankly at _o_r_d_e until the penny dropped. I’m another who didn’t understand 1ac, but the checking letters were a giveaway.

    Thanks Foggy for all those mornings on the red eye shift. I’ll take a shot at your Silly Words later.

  12. 22 minutes, but I was very unsure of LOLLARD and wondered if LULL could be indicated by ‘Hang’ (i.e. a pause). I’m also thoroughly ashamed that I didn’t understand 1 ac, taking ‘state’ to indicate LAND, and wondering what gibbons were MOOR_. As I rather like the music of Orlando Gibbons’ and his contemporaries I should have seen it. Everything else was straightforward.
  13. Similar story to Vinyl1 – raced through the entire top half in 5 minutes, then took the best part of 20 more to finish, with porridge/compeer/charge being the last triumvirate to succumb (hadn’t previously come across in charge meaning under arrest).

    Foggy – hope to see you on the new clue writing site – if the clues in “Silly Words” are of the same standard as your offerings on the old site it should be a belter.

  14. For my entry see Penfold’s above. Identical, except I thought No Man was probably somewhere in the Irish Sea, as in “That’s Man, and that’s No Man”. COD 10.

    I have done all bar the porridge clue in Silly Words, although I had to Wiki the theme. A pleasant diversion from what I should have been doing, so thankyou for that.

    I too will miss the little boy.

  15. Thanks Foggy for all those early Monday mornings and please don’t disappear completely.

    An easy starter to the week, 20 minutes to solve. Like many others had to guess MOORLAND from definition, LOLLARD and COMPEER from wordplay but none of it difficult. I should have remembered the Gibbons composer but just forgot him! I also liked NORSEMAN and the clever use of “no man = island”

  16. Many thks for clue clarifications thru the last few weeks since I found this blog. It has amazed me how different and how similar solvers minds work to my own.
    I wish you well
    Nicp01
  17. Perhaps I am an oversensitive lawyer – but I would have thought it gracious of the setter to modify 10 to read something like “unscrupulous lawyer” – we are not all ambulance chasers you know; and prosecuting serious crime at the Old Bailey is far from well paid!
    1. That crossed my mind as well, but I suspect editing to fit space is the most likely explanation. Then again, although most non-lawyer people are probably aware that not ALL lawyers are completely without morals and scruples, the most commonly *expressed* view is still reflected in the old story of a ship sinking, and sharks eating all of the people thrown overboard except for the lawyers. Why not them? Professional courtesy.
    2. It’s a fair cop m’lud, but society is to blame …

      I guess the setter managed to slip a bit of anti-lawyer prejudice past the editor. If we’d been in Australia, the Abe Saffron defamation judgement might have helped as a deterrent. If you know any Australian lawyers, the same clue should be in the syndicated version of the puzzle in The Australian in about six weeks …

        1. I’m still trying to process the concept of an “oversensitive lawyer”. I’m going to have to rethink my entire world now.
  18. My story similar to others: raced through the top half and then slogged through the bottom. Didn’t see the ‘Orlando’ part of 1A til coming here, and had to google to see any connection between ‘PORRIDGE’ and prison time. Had also entered ‘compere’ at first, so needed to correct that before finishing. About 20 minutes for everything except PORRIDGE and COMPEER, and another 20 minutes for those. Best wishes to you Foggy, with many thanks. Regards as well to everyone else.
  19. Thanks for all your blogs Foggyweb. Looking forward to trying Silly Words when I get a chance.
  20. Thanks for all your bloggys – you always left some good ‘uns for me to sweep up.

    There are 7 “easies” here:

    5a Reduce a period of instruction for announcers (6)
    LESSEN. Sounds like LESSON.

    12a Determination of work out (7)
    RESOLVE. Sometimes what is needed in these parts.

    25a Giant insect on Geordie’s old woman (7)
    MAM MOTH. Some of my Welsh schoolfriends also referred to the Mater as Mam.

    7d For making rope, this ultimately is not quite everything (5)
    S IS AL(L). Nice clue.

    9d Shifting barley at sale (8)
    BETRAYAL. Anagram of (barley at). Sale as in “sell down the river”?

    16d Not prevented, but pup doesn’t misbehave (9)
    UNSTOPPED. Anagram of (pup doesnt).

    22d In which an offender may be given responsibility? (6)
    CHARGE

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