Times 24220

42 comments on “Times 24220”

1. A late-night 13:31, which feels better than it sounds. About 60% went in fairly routinely but then had to engage lowgeared four-wheel drive. One silly delay with 28/18, when 28 should have been quite easy, but I got diverted by ADVERT and then pondering ‘AD?E?T’ – 18 is just very canny clue-writing. Next were 14 and 3, where the “light rays meeting at a point” meaning of “pencil” was new for me, and the double plural (pencil=rays therefore pencils=(even more) rays) added to the fiendishness (Ruby never seems to come first for lady/woman either). Finally, 13, 6, 7, 4, 5 in about that order, kick-started by giving up on DERBY for the hat. At 5 I’d convinced myself that the second word was going to be SEASON, so I need all the others to unconvice me. BIB=fish in 6D was new too.

   Edited at 2009-05-08 06:09 am (UTC)

2. A similar solving experience to jackkt; 30 mins then another 10 then another who knows how long to get 6,7,10,12,13. SEDER & EAMON ended up as guesses and BIB was new to me also. MATT DERBY/BEANY was eventually the key when I remembered the Beatles “Dig It” and then the others had to be what they were, although the (pr)INCESS construction was inexplicable for a good 10 minutes. I kept trying to remove AD from ADAMANT without success.

   I didn’t find this particularly dull. As Peter points out, there was some canny clueing here, mixed with some obscurities. I liked REBECCA, BENEFACTOR & PARTISANS but I think HASTINGS gets my COD.

3. Held up for ages by putting RUGBY MATCH instead of UNION (which fits the clue almost as well). With the same conviction atht 5D ended SEASON I really struggled with the NE corner but got there in the end.
   1. Do you really look like that AND do crosswords?
      1. Indeed (although the photo is about 5 years old now, actually taken on the top of Half-Dome in Yosemite National Park).
4. Tough (42mins) but I didn’t think it was dull. I thought the clueing was tricky and accurate, and the large number of proper nouns as answers made it interesting.
   The NW and SE corners were not so hard, but the others took some time.
   I needed all the checking letters for MATT BUSBY which was last in. I was going to offer lack of interest in soccer as an excuse, but then I am a rugby fan and still took an unconscionable amount of time trying to think of a game R_G_Y at 14ac!
   10ac is a good example of the anagram fodder being separated with “with” – always a bit deceptive, that.
   I also pencilled SEASON at 5dn until I got the O at the end of the first word which gave it away as a name.
   Nice to see another appearance of a —A-A capital at 21dn – they are a gift to setters!

   1. I stared blankly at R_G_Y too. Inexplicable, especially as I had already correctly deduced that the definition was the name of a game.

      Yes, it’s true that the clueing was tricky and accurate and I appreciate this. I was thinking more of the subject matter. I enjoy references to things that interest me, but of course a setter won’t know these so that’s down to serendipity, but a bit of humour helps to liven things up and I didn’t notice any today. The only laugh I had was at 19ac where my first thought was BROWN before I realised that only four letters were required.

5. 14:11 for me. I wasn’t sure about RAYS = pencils, had never heard of a BIB fish, and tried to invent PARNISTAS as the revolutionaries (but didn’t convince myself enough to put it in). Last two in were TOADY and THE IDIOT (although both looked glaringly obvious in hindsight).

   23A: The point is that the word run-maker refers to someone who’s expected to score a slew of runs, not just one or two 🙂

   1. Is that so, linxit? I’m afraid it’s all sports jargon to me. Out of interest I looked up “run-maker” in the usual books and on-line and couldn’t find it defined anywhere, but there was so much stuff under “Run” to wade through I may well have missed it.
6. I struggled with parts of this. Much of it is straightforward but there are a core of clues that are in a higher league. Even the hidden PERCH at 22D is beautifully crafted (I remember having to stand in class and chant out loud about rod,pole and perch)

   I also entered RUGBY MATCH and that held me up for ages until I got the EAMON of DE VALERA. That is a brilliant clue because DE VALERA was full of venom having been the only leader of the April uprising not to be shot on the grounds he was born in America and so could not be executed by the British.

   There are a lot of very UK oriented clues. MATT BUSBY (a famous manager of Manchester United rather than a footballer,Jack). The use of TAIL and even the battle at HASTINGS.

   40 minutes to solve and I think some will find this one quite difficult.

7. I was also bogged down for a while by RUGBY MATCH – it seemed so clearly right that I was reluctant to rethink even when consequently stuck on the intersecting lights. Also had SEASON for some time. 15 mins in the end, as the rest fell into place quickly enough.

   Suspect Matt Busby will be a challenge for overseas solvers and maybe younger solvers as well. “Manager” is not a desperately helpful definition for someone no longer exactly a household name for non Man-U supporters.

8. This was quite a knowledge-based puzzle with 11 proper nouns. I thought I was going to have the same problems as yesterday, with the final two answers being place names. Fortunately, Hastings came quickly and then I fell back on crossword clichés to deduce that the army must be TA so Tirana quickly followed.

   Eamon de Valera may be a bit obscure for younger solvers. I remember a television quiz game called Dotto in the late 1950s that gripped the nation in the way that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire did recently. Contestants answered questions to connect the dots to make a portrait of a celebrity. They were allowed to guess at any point but if they guessed incorrectly they were eliminated. One week an unfinished picture was offered to the viewers at home with a fabulous prize for whoever got it right. Of the millions of viewers, no-one got the right answer. Yes, it was Eamon de Valera

   1. I think the longevity of the Troubles has kept de Valera a reasonably familiar name – particularly after the late-1996 film Michael Collins, in which he was played by Alan Rickman.
   2. 

      Having looked at the standard picure of E de V, I was going to say what an ordinary-looking bloke he was. Then I noticed that apart from the degree of baldness and which way he’s looking, he looks quite like some other bloke round here…

   3. My mum actually played Dotto on screen and we bought a drop-change record player with her winnings. Do you remember Take Your Pick? Slow run today, in between making cups of tea for workmen, but liked the GK clues, husband confirming de Valera for me; last in Hastings, favourite clue 4ac.
9. I’m afraid Busby and Nelson did for me, so had to cheat to come in at 33 minutes. Spent far too long trying to justify The Iliad, and consequently was held up in finding Mr Toad. Lots of tidy clueing. The only totally new word was SEDER, and you were led by the nose to that. No complaints here, in spite of the dusting uf UK centricity.

   PS: I knew of Horatio of course, but not Helston.

10. I needed all the checking letters to get ‘Matt Busby’, but got him. I wonder what UK solvers would make of Casey Stengel or Gil Hodges?

    I, too, wanted to put in ‘The Iliad’, but it’s not a novel, so I didn’t. Eventually, I saw it – “you idiot, it’s The Idiot!”.

    Eamon de Valera, that was an interesting one. I accumulated more and more letters without getting anywhere. I think the key for me was where to put the ‘v’, because suddenly I saw it. It does help to have heard of him.

    My biggest problem was the SE, and the possible meanings of the clue for 23, in particular the ‘unexpected run-makers’. A sudden guess that ‘tail’ = ‘bottom of the order’ in cricket blew open that corner, allowing me to fill in ‘Maine’, ‘Hastings’, and ‘ascent’. But even though ‘Hastings’ must be correct, how does ‘tricks’ = ‘has’?

    My time was 40 minutes, not bad. This puzzle suited me, lots of knowledge and lots of good wordplay.

    1. Aha! ‘Tricks’ as a verb = ‘has’ as a verb, as in having one on. Clever.
11. 18:24 .. which felt pretty respectable after looking through a dozen clues before actually solving one.

    I kinda sorta agree with both jackkt and Jim – it was a bit dry, but also very challenging and thought-provoking in parts. My only quibble was with 28a – is a scent a cosmetic product?

    I’m surprised to hear Sir Matt Busby being talked about as though he were a bit obscure. The Busby Babes are part of sporting folklore, and his association with them and with the Munich air tragedy will likely keep his name alive for a very long time indeed.

    1. Equal Busby amazement, certainly for Brit solvers. His late 60s European-cup winning team with Charlton Law and Best are sporting folklore too.
       1. My favourite Busby fact is that he was twice given the Last Rites after Munich. His subsequent career was pretty good for a dead guy.
12. Another victim of ‘The Iliad’ at 4dn – this took just under 7 minutes with at least two on that and TOADY. It would certainly have helped to have heard of Eamon de Valera, but Matt Busby went straight in for this “younger solver”, if I still fall into that category.
13. 8:50.  I found the NE corner the hardest, with TOADY (8dn) the last to go in.  Luckily RUGBY MATCH (14ac) didn’t occur to me, but I did spend a while trying to remember what the wretched thing was called.  (I have a hatred of rugby that stems from having been a small boy at a private school.)

    I thought the unusual level of general knowledge in this puzzle was offset by clues that didn’t leave much to chance.  I didn’t know REBEC (11ac), SEDER (12ac), BUSBY (13ac), HELStON (5dn), BIB (6dn), or TIRANA (21dn), but none of them held me up for very long.  I know as little about football as it’s possible to do in England, and even I had heard of MATT BUSBY (13ac).  Overseas solvers may have been left with MATT B.S.Y, but [insert defence of UK-centrism in UK puzzles here].

    Clues of the Day: 4ac (THE IDIOT), 3dn (PORTRAYS), 15dn (GET AROUND), 22dn (PERCH).

    1. But only one hat fits B _ S _ Y, so overseas solvers who get everything else should get it, as I did.
       1. Sorry, yes, you’re quite right – that was the result of a thoughtless edit of my post.  I’d originally written “If I’d been an overseas solver, I’d have been left with …”, but changed it in the interests of concision.
14. 28 minutes here. I found it easy to begin with, then slowed down as did some others. Nothing problematic, though I didn’t understand the TAIL part of TAMIL, nor the BIB of IMBIBE. SEDER was dimly recollected from solving the Listener. The biggest headache was with HIDEAWAY, since I thought “accepted proposal” was IDO.
15. About 40 mins for me.

    There were a few words I hadn’t come across before, but I got them all from the wordplay – THE IDIOT, REBEC, SEDER & EAMON DE VALERA. I needed all the checking letters for this last one, then had to guess at the most plausible possibility and got lucky!

    22 was quite a neat &lit construction, although I’m sure I’ve seen the ASPIRANT/PARTISANS link used before. 10 was a good clue, although I was a little put off having never come across the politician in question, so my clue of the day would probably be 7.

    I have come across REBEC before, but I always get it confused with XEBEC for some reason (a sailing ship) and I have a tendency to transpose the definitions in my head. I guess they’re both words that you would only ever come across in crosswords!

16. I found this one quite tricky – 45 minutes all in all, with a great deal of that stuck in the SE corner.

    I stymied myself somewhat on 15d by sticking in RUN AROUND, until with R????UNION, it swiftly became untenable.

    I liked the mix of easy and harder clues, which gave a bit of a toehold, while still being challenging.

    COD 22ac.

17. I got Matt Busby with only the initial M in place, just as I was called away to lunch; lovely clue that made me laugh.

    Harry Shipley

18. Once i had worked out rebecca (COD candidate) the rest of the hard NE corner fell into place. thought the idiot was a nice clue. For whatever reason Mtt Busby was one of my first clue solves…thought Toady was tricky
    Benefactor and Ascent were well clued too
    around 45 minutes for what was a tough puzzle,,,so quite pleased
19. How long before that’s the post-Cheltenham headline? Not many years I fear … hammered by two today (and counting – where’s Heyesey?), two days in a row for at least one of them, despite a hefty dose of GK in this puzzle.

    There’s a subtle date-related item in today’s puzzle, which I’m guessing is not a fluke. The dance that makes Helston famous takes place today.

    1. I’m banking on you, Peter, to prove the old adage about age and cunning overcoming youth and enthusiasm. Dirty tricks (getting ’em drunk the night before the tournament, tripping them up on the way into the hall, feigning senility, breaking their pencils, etc) are all perfectly acceptable behaviour for the older solver.
20. 23 minutes, and the wordplay must have been good (though I was grumbling about the proper nouns last night) as MATT BUSBY (I thought maybe he was the dance guy), EAMON DE VALERA (waiting for ERMAN VE DALOEA to be a person), TIRANA were all new, and HORATIO NELSON appeared elsewhere recently but I had no clue how the wordplay got there.
21. I’m glad I had the afternoon off to do this one. I found it very hard to solve, yet when I got the answers, they seemed so obvious. I didn’t get bored with looking back, either. I think these are signs of a good crossword.
22. First real failure since starting. NE ascent beyond me
    (done at Oval so no chsnce to cheat).

    Like Peter convinced of season for Nelson but would suggest that Helston’s dance elevates it beyond total obscurity rather than making it “famous”.

    Crushed by not thinking of Busby after dismissing Matt Derby.

23. Sorry for the late post but busy today. When i did this last night I flew through the entire left side straightaway, then another 30 minutes on the right, getting the SE first, and ending in the NE. No problem with Eamon de Valera, perhaps due to being Irish American. My last two were the crossing IMBIBE and MATT BUSBY. Above average difficulty, but the only one really tough for the outlanders is Manager Busby, in my opinion. Regards all.
24. Late again, but this is the first time I have had at a computer since finishing on the tube home. Amusing tale to tell though.

    Left it with the two NE most clues remaining after the morning and sat down on the tube home still at a loss and not making any headway. Clearly the “obvious” call of an anagram of “childs” was a loser, so I really had no idea, until I looked up for my trademark gaze into the distance and the bloke opposite was reading “The Idiot”.

    I kid you not to say that I had actually never heard of the book, but in that moment of wierd coincidence it all made sense, and TOADY fell in quite quickly. Of course I had to then speak to this chap and tell him what had happened – he looked a bit embarassed, and luckily my stop arrived so I hopped off.

    Seemed amazing at the time – less so now – but still worth a mention.

    1. Sounds better than sitting next to someone doing the Times and deciding whether to tell them about the wrong answer(s) they’ve confidently inked in. I try it once in a while and usually escape without injury. Very careful opening though: “Excuse me … Do you mind if I say something about your crossword?”.
25. The setter of this puzzle (who thanks you for all the comments) once finished solving a puzzle by filling in AKITA, and was then introduced to such a dog for the first time a few hours later. Always good to know that crosswords do relate to the real world as well as to reference books!
26. I’m sure that’s the very same clue that I saw for this only a few days ago. Can’t have been in The Times, for otherwise it would have been jumped on more than just once. Can’t think where.
27. An intriguing and fine puzzle – not at all dull. But am I alone in questioning the clue to SEDER?
    “Prophet introduces daughter to ceremonial meal” surely is indicating D in a word meaning ceremonial meal, otherwise the “to” is completely superfluous, indeed unfairly misleading. I put SEDER without really imagining it could be correct and was astonished to discover it was in fact the right answer.
28. I don’t know much about the Helston Floral Dance – or whatever – but I do know that the Blue Anchor brews its own beer and it is very fine. When you go there first as a teenage geology student on a field trip it is likely that the local beer is going to be of more interest than the local dancing traditions.

    I’m with the later comments that did not find this at all dull. I like sporting clues too – good to see the tail wagging at 23a.

    There are seven omissions:

    9a Contrary way poet writes? (7)
    IN VERSE

    22a Aspirants for revolution? (9)
    PARTISANS. An &lit where revolution is the anagram indicator and part of the literal.

    26a Name a new ruler for Eastern city (7)
    N A N KING. Did you enjoy Nanking? I don’t know, I’ve never tried it.

    28a Maybe promotion of a cosmetic product (6)
    A SCENT

    15d Avoid travel (3,6)
    GET AROUND

    22d The rod received by improper children (5)
    PERCH. Hidden in last 2 words. The same as a rod or pole or are they something you can catch it with?

    24d State what is most important for folk to hear (5)
    MAINE

Comments are closed.