Times 24195 – did Michelle Obama pull a 11?

47 comments on “Times 24195 – did Michelle Obama pull a 11?”

1. ….so 42 minutes for me. I thought I would get a fast time when I entered six or seven answers in two minutes, but apparently only the right side was easy.

   I particularly liked 17, although I wondered at first if you were meant to take every other letter of the solution to 3. Would that be a legal clue?

   Now ‘preferment’ is a really old-fashioned word for promotion. One thinks of offering Robert Walpole three votes in the House of Commons in trade for a minor bishopric in Wales.

2. 21 min. No specialist knowledge needed (except perhaps hasidim). No standout clues. I expect that the speed merchants will have a field day. My excuse is that I like to savour the fare.
3. Alternate reading for 17: no reason why not, except: the answer to 3 doesn’t have enough letters. In theory, “3” could mean the text of the clue for 3, but number x-refs (nearly?) always point to the answers.
4. 11:10 – roaring start as far down as 12, then slowed down horribly – not getting long ones 11 or 22 on first look. Last few were 22, 21, 17, 14, 13.

   Didn’t know about ‘steel pan’ before, though easy from the anag.

   With jackkt on the most likely reason for midi. Computers were also mini or midi but not maxi.

   1. Well, I’m glad it’s not just me, Peter. I never met it in all my years of studying and teaching music. I note Collins doesn’t list it and COED has it only as an alternative to “steel drum” (which I do know). Perhaps it’s more widely used on the other side of the pond.
      1. OED doesn’t have “steel pan” – just “pan” and “pan music”.
      2. No Jack, don’t blame us. No steel pans over here either, we have steel drums.
5. Not a lot to say really – a pleasant 20 mins over coffee and toast. Nothing really stood out but bo quibbles either.

   I have to say George’s explanation of MIDI was the one which sprang to my mind, but what was in the setter’s mind is another matter.

   I’m not sure that I can fully explain 12ac – I assumed the reference to “guest house” is to another meaning of “B&B” (bed and breakfast as opposed to bread and butter) but I think I am missing something.

   1. On reflection: MIDI is the version which you can look up, so that’s the official explanation.
      1. Midi system as I defined it is in Collins, COED and Chambers
         1. So it is – I only looked under “midi”. So on re-reflection, take your pick!
   2. I read it is B(READ(y))-AND-B,UTTER with B-AND-B being the “guest house” as you have said.
      1. Thanks Jack. What is the “food” doing? Is it the definition, and “basically reliable” a second definition?

         By the way did my reply to your ST question on Monday make sense?

         1. There are indeed two defs. When solving, I just saw one of them (food, almost certainly), the B&B and the checking letters from the top left downs.
            1. Thanks Peter. When solving I had some checking letters, saw the last definition and the guest house and looked no further. When I reviewed it afterwards I was trying to work “food” into the wordplay. I can’t remember seeing 2 defs + wordplay before (as distinct from simple double defs or partial &lits).
         2. Without wishing to stretch things too far, there’s possibly a sort of link between the two suggested definitions, as “bread and butter” is very much a basic food which one may rely on in certain circumstances. “Food is basically reliable” almost works in its own right as a defintion. I don’t think it’s quite there but for me it’s another pleasing element in an excellent and complex clue.
         3. Hi, Kurihan,

            Yes it was fine thanks and I really kicked myself for not seeing something so obvious.

6. 25 minutes with one wrong. I pencilled in TEMP at 10 although I couldn’t see the wordplay and meant to come back to it but then forgot.

   Nice to see Fred remembered at 20d.

   Although the blogged explanation of MIDI in 18d is in the dictionaries there’s an alternative which may be more widely known. Back in the 70s we used to have mini Hi-Fi systems and slightly larger versions called midi systems. There was no corresponding maxi for the full-size ones as far as I remember, unlike women’s skirts which came in all three sizes. Cars were minis and maxis but not midis, I think

7. A twenty minute stroll in the park.

   I liked BREAD….BUTTER, particularly the clever use of two definitions and a nice wordplay. Also the nice construction of PREFERMENT.

   I’ve never heard of STEEL PAN but it’s in Chambers and was an easy anagram. I also thought of MIDI as the old music system described by Jack. Both MIDI (George) and Midi-system (Jack) are in Chambers. At 20D I read “dancer” and thought “Astaire”, a bit like these psycho tests where the shrink says “bread” and you say either “butter” or “knife”.

8. About 35 mins for me. If the surfaces were any smoother the ink wouldn’t have stuck to the paper. I see I didn’t have a complete understanding of BREAD AND BUTTER. I got it from the “basically reliable” and thought the first bit was some reference to food served in guest houses in great lashings. Apologies to the setter. All their cleverness for nought. I liked CANNONBALL and mnay more besides but COD has to be QUEENSLANDER for parochial reasons.

   As for texting it always amuses me to see devices which have enough inate intelligence to land a rocket on the moon being used as little more than a morse code device because nobody can afford to actually speak into them. (safety concerns aside). I have attached mine to a stick and use it to beat out messages on a steel pan. Coverage is surprisingly good.

   1. One of those where half-way through I was regretting not carefully noting my start time as a PB seemed on the cards, but then slowed down at the end. “Relate”, “athletic” and “broad brush” all took a bit longer than they should have, taking me up to a still-fairly-fast-for-me 20 mins or so. bc
9. I’m astounded and somewhat disturbed. I stumbled on this site while googling something else and I find people that can do the the Times crossword in hideously short times, often in the early hours of the morning.

   I allow myself 30 minutes in the morning by which time I may have completed two-thirds of the clues (three-quarters on a really good day). I sometimes look at it again later in the day and can usually complete a few more but with diminishing returns on time. I rarely complete the whole puzzle.

   Trouble is, now I know you’re here, I my resolve may weaken and I may be tempted to take a peek…..

   Nick

   1. Welcome, and don’t feel ashamed if you end up coming here to find out what the missing answers are. I certainly started out by having to pull stunts like that to even BEGIN the crossword, let alone finish it. It took me a good two years before I could finish them reliably, and another five years after that before I could count myself as anything approaching a speed merchant.
   2. Hi Nick – I have a bit of a luxury being in the US, I can print it off at 7pm my time – I started it at 7:30pm so I was probably in “good brain” mode. Enjoy the discussion, I’m just waking up to find that there’s a whole new world of midi and it’s enthusiasts!
      1. Yeah, same here – but have you noticed how the Monday puzzle was not available until 8 PM?

         It seems like the Times site still has a few kinks in it.

   3. I hope you’ll get used to the times reported and not worry about them too much. There are some very quick people here – see the “About this blog” link (top of page) for more information – and finishing a puzzle in say 45 minutes is a lot closer to finishing it in 10 or 20 than many people realise.

      heyeset, lennyco and glheard have said everything else I would have written here.

10. Courage, Anonymous Nick. This site is a bit intimidating when you first find it. I found it a few months ago and its main effect has been to help me to go from being someone who fails to finish on most days to someone who finishes nearly every day. Times are not so important, unless you are in training for Cheltenham. I finished in 35 minutes today. If I ever get below 10 minutes, I shall wonder what to do with the rest of my lunch hour.

    This was a quite straightforward puzzle with the only serious difficulty being in remembering the plural of Hasid. I toyed with Hasidic, for a while with the music system being the homophonic CiDi. Otherwise problems were of my own making: Failing to remember that Fred Astair had an e on the end, and not getting the hidden word Central until the very end.

11. 19 minutes for me, with the biggest problem being tiredness – I ended up not heading for bed with the print-out until after 4am, and struggled down the left-hand side. I had taken BREAD-AND-BUTTER to be def-wordplay-def, but wasn’t sure I was right.

    OPEN-TOP held me up, since I’d figured out “nothing on page” and it was clearly the first two letters, OP; so the definition had to be “old exercise book” and I couldn’t think of one. Nothing seemed particularly difficult, though, my brain just wasn’t in top gear. It rarely is at stupid o’clock in the morning.

    1. Apropos of BROAD BRUSH – I think the wordplay is ROAD+BR(itish) inside BUSH, the Australian wilderness which is most definitely an uncultivated area.
12. Just came to and was surprised to see this many comments. I did not know about the other (I guess, original) version of midi.

    Steel pan was in the mind, maybe it’s more common in the Caribbean? I didn’t put it on the blog because I thought it was an obvious anagram and a well-known term.

    I completely missed that there might be more to BED AND BUTTER than a definition + slightly dodgy cryptic definition.

13. I whipped through the top half of this in maybe ten minutes, then got myself more and more stuck in the bottom half, eventually giving up when the number of corrections exceeded my ability to actually read what they said. Doh!
    1. Using a pencil instead of a pen is solving the wrong problem! With any good clue, once you get the solution it should be obvious that it’s the right answer. Although that is not always the case the Times cryptic is not far off.

       Solve it at your own pace, write in the answer – in indelible ink – only when it is clearly right, the times will soon come down. Pay no attention to the speed merchants here, they don’t really enjoy it as much, you know 😉

       1. There have been cases in the past where I had two crossing answers, both of which were quite obviously correct, but which clashed. In the Listener that might be a good thing, but not here!
14. Time of 13:40 rendered meaningless by a pretty moronic mistake. Something possessed me to put ‘astride’ at 20d. I think I was thinking about Norse or Germanic mythology and some half-remembered dancing goddess called Astrid, but clearly I wasn’t really thinking at all. Especially mortifying as Fred Astaire is in my very small pantheon of heroes.

    I comfort myself that at least I didn’t parade a document entitled “Top Secret Note to Self – Don’t forget to Raid 28 Acacia Avenue tomorrow, 6am. Take SWAT team. Also, buy Milk” in font of the television cameras. At least one person’s feeling dumber than I am today.

15. I love the image, kororareka. I hope you’ve worked out how to play “I’m on the train. Yes. The TRAIN. Don’t know. Should be on time. Might not be. I’ll call you LATER. Bye.” and that old favourite “Yes, I’m still on the train … the TRAIN …”
    1. Trains are particularly good, because people think I’m just another tube musician. On a good day I can send “I’ll be home in 5 minutes, put the kettle on” and earn enough for the fare at the same time.
16. Like a number of recent puzzles – a good start; followed by a steady middle section with 3 left at 20 minutes, and then a long pause staring at the last three waiting for inspiration.

    BROAD-BRUSH and HYMN were the last in.

    I liked the clues to ATHLETIC and QUEENSLANDER

17. 14 minutes – but in my haste, put in ASTRIDE rather than ASTAIRE. So, good time, but no good at all otherwise! I blame the less than conducive atmosphere of the ante-natal ward.

    CANNONBALL made me smile the most.

    Oli

18. 19 minutes. Last in was 14 – like PaulWW I can’t see what initiates is doing in there, unless it can mean to go in front of.

    I really liked the athletic clue.

    1. Apparently, ‘initiate’ is an acceptable synonym for ‘introduce.’ I wouldn’t have thought so myself, but on those grounds we can’t really argue with it.
19. No need to bring your own milk, sotira but some sugar would be good if you get my drift. Look forward to seeing you.

    O. Bin-Liner
    28 Acacia Avenue

20. 17:06 for me, mainly because I was stuck on the last two for at least 5 minutes: BROAD-BRUSH and HYMN. Could have kicked myself when I finally saw HYMN was just the last letters of four words.
21. What a great site! It’s good to know I’m not the only saddo who considers the Times crossword to be the highlight of my day. Having an incentive, my speed is improving now. 27 minutes today, which is good, for me.

    Thanks to everyone, and particularly those who take the time and trouble to explain the clues.

    1. Welcome! Hope you find our babblings helpful.
22. About 30 minutes for me, no quibbles. Horrified by the fact that, as one of the Americans, my last entry was BOSTON TEA PARTY, for which I needed all the checkers. Like others I danced through the top and the SE, but stuck fast in the SW for a bit. COD is ATHLETIC. Regards.
23. Same here re: Boston Tea Party! I enjoyed this puzzle though–especially the shorter answers. I also liked Queenslander. Never thought of elate=transport, but got the answer from everything else.

    (It was also amusing to complete on a plane to the UK full of Brits giving me strange looks because I was reading The Times one day late…)

24. A nice steady solve with FOI and SOI at 1d and 1a and POI and LOI at 21d and 20d. Practically no marginalia so not much working out involved.

    There are 7 omissions from the blog:

    12a Food largely prepared in guest house, say, is basically reliable (5,3,6)
    BREAD AND BUTTER. I got this from the crossers, enumeration and literal “food”. Jackkt gives the word play details in his comment above.

    15a Percussion instrument played in last bit of The Planets (5,3)
    STEEL PAN. Anagram of (planets e). E = last bit of THE. No-one seems to claim this instrument. I don’t think it is a regular in an Orchestral Percussion section? Is it a Steel Drum? I use mine for cooking rice.

    19a Charge a shilling to take boat (6)
    A S SAIL

    25a Not late home, anticipating fun (2,4,4)
    IN GOOD TIME

    3d Book accomodation with extensive view? (4,2,3,3)
    ROOM AT THE TOP

    5d Check woman I’m taking out (8)
    VAL I DATE

    20d Dancer taking a step with bearing (7)
    A STAIR E

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