Times 24241 A Humdrum Affair

40 comments on “Times 24241 A Humdrum Affair”

1. Jimbo’s comment almost identical to mine made before seeing the blog.
   Another (2 days in a row) about 40 mins inc breakfast etc. Difficult for a newcomer to gauge progress with puzzles like this.
   Looked up: Khan as official, rota as court, rood as cross and orts as scraps.
   Blog controversies: European as foreigner? The US bit in Pickerel.
   I suppose that I found this puzzle disappointing is progress of sorts.
2. I must be impaired by yesterday’s imbibing but I cannot see how “Game show” gives PATIENCE two meanings.
   1. I supposed Game as in up-for-it. Chambers has patirnce as the quality to endure suffering, toil…
      I might be wrong.
   2. Transferring text from the comment I was just about to post:

      One or two younger solvers might need telling that show=Patience is from Gilbert & Sullivan.

      (And playing it dead safe, “patience” is a card game for one – “solitaire” in the US)

      1. Thanks Peter. I was so switched off by this puzzle I didn’t think about folk not knowing the G&S bit.
3. 4:40 – an easy puzzle in a decent time, unlike yesterday, and this one must be a chance for Mark T’s first sub-5. Point taken about EUROPEAN, but I’m shocked by Jimbo’s def for CLIPPER – surely you mean “Cutty Sark, for example”?!

   “or American” is arguably unnecessary in 25 as COED has simply “a small pike” as one def.

   I paused a bit over name=WORTHY in 22, but it’s worthy = a notable person. Also had time to daftly put an initial BICYCLE for 15A, maybe thinking of “by cycle” as “in relation to transport” and imagining my own homophone indicator, or just being plain careless.

   1. Cutty Sark: its not that I’m paranoid but these defs by example are definitely getting to me

      As you’ve mentioned 15A we had better say the answer is RE-CYCLE

4. 16 minutes on the train to Gatwick. Got held up by DECOROUS and -COCK for some reason. Didn’t think the puzzle was as bad as everyone seems to suggest!
   Oli
5. Sorry to hijack the blog for a moment, but I recently tried setting a crossword, just as an exercise, since we tend to pan the setters from time to time. It’s pretty hard! Jackkt, magus and barry have road-tested it and provided valuable comments and suggested changes. I can’t post it on the journal, and don’t have a website. It is with some trepidation that I offer it to such a distinguished group of solvers (and setters!) but if you would like a copy please just send your email address to me by LiveJournal mail and I’ll send a PDF.

   It’s just a one-off. I don’t think anyone will find it too easy, and hopefully it will provide some entertainment.

   Jackkt has kindly offered to blog it on his journal page in a week or so.

6. Nothing in the top half leapt out at me so I started at the bottom and worked back. Everything in the South went in on first reading but I got a bit bogged down in the North with 1,2,4, 7 & 14 putting up some resistance. I finished in 35 minutes with a wrong guess at 14. I didn’t think of ROTA, and I wouldn’t have known its “court” meaning anyway. Also didn’t know ORTS but the answer was clear enough at 16.
7. Patience is a card game and also a ‘show’ by Gilbert & Sullivan
8. At first I thought I was in for a very quick solve, but I must disappoint Peter: 8:20, with the last minute spent staring at .R.ESIA (17ac) – and to think, freesias are Rachel’s favourite flowers!  I was also slow to see GYMKHANA (8dn), and it would have helped to be more familiar with GALSWORTHY (22ac) and Gilbert & Sullivan (2dn PATIENCE).  ROTA (14ac), PICKEREL (25ac) and ORTS (16dn) all felt new, and MOORCOCK (11ac) was an educated guess based on “moorhen”.

   I agree with the complaint about “Foreigner” for EUROPEAN (18dn) and the criticism of “or American” as redundant in 25ac (PICKEREL).  The definition of ALMIGHTY (3dn) as “excessive” doesn’t ring true either.  The nearest justification I can find is in Chambers and the Shorter, which both record an adverbial use of the word to mean exceedingly.  This is especially odd given that “excessive” gives a poorer surface reading than the more obvious “powerful”.

   I like the use of “dilapidated” as the anagram indicator in 6dn (MAN OF STRAW).

   1. The meaning of ‘almighty’ he is using is early 20th-century slang, as in ‘he made an almighty stink about the poor quality of the puzzle’.
      1. That usage is still current, but it doesn’t show that “almighty” means excessive – any more than similar examples would show that “enormous” does, or “huge”, “massive”, “whopping great”, etc.  You can make an almighty stink about something without going too far.
         1. I think “excessive=>ALMIGHTY scrapes through when you see from COED that excessive is “more than is necessary, normal or desirable” and use a generous interpretation of “or”.
            1. Interesting. ‘Exceeding(ly)’ has weakened to mean little more than ‘very’, but I struggle to think of an example of ‘excessive’ used in this way (i.e. meaning ‘more than normal’). In fact, I think I could say ‘This cake’s exceedingly sweet, but not excessively so’. ALMIGHTY held me up for more than a few seconds, because of this definition.

               Tom B.

9. Just 28 minutes for me, the last five on moorfowl, er, moorlark, no, make that moorcock.

   I would think the toughest one should have been ‘gymkhana’, it took a while to bring that to the surface of my mind. Otherwise, no real difficulties.

10. I was quite surprised to finish this and did not find it as easy as most people suggested. There were a lot of obscure definitions, or part definitions: Khan, Worthy, Rota, Picker, Cock, Ort. I felt as though I was making up many of the answers so it was not until I finished that I convinced myself that it was all correct.

    Also, there was a high natural history quotient, which is not to my liking, although the setter resisted the temptation to clue Mint and Patience as plants. Jimbo is probably right about this being boring because, when I got Patience my mind started to wander to a brilliant Araucaria puzzle which had that word as the key and then went off in three different directions, card games, G&S operas and virtues.

    1. Plants – reminded about pickerel weed, a pretty flowering pond plant sure to feature in some puzzle now.
11. 10:07 .. “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”
    1. >”Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”

       Or as they say in these parts: “If tha’s nowt to seh, seh nowt”

12. 9 mins, didn’t know this meaning of ROTA nor the G&S ref. – I must be a ‘younger solver’ (good news!).

    Tom B.

13. Jimbo probably didn’t intend to pay the Times setters a compliment this morning, but think about it. This (to me) perfectly OK puzzle with good surface meanings is “as easy and boring as it gets” – i.e. the vast majority will be harder and more interesting than this. Except for whoever comes along to tell us they couldn’t do this puzzle (to whom I’d say: just wait for a different one which is easy for you), this seems like good news to me!

    Europe: My old Collins (the only one of the usual three to define it) gives this meaning as well as the geographically accurate one: “Brit. The continent of Europe except for the British Isles – we’re going to Europe for our holiday.” Although not very PC, I think this justifies foreigner=>EUROPEAN for Times crossword purposes (and is more likely to be the intention than anon’s ingenious idea).

    1. As to the setter I didn’t really give him/her a thought. I personally found the puzzle easy (no harm in that) but also without interest or stimulation and Times puzzles are usually better than that. For all I know that was the brief to which the puzzle was set.

       I must mix in the wrong circles. We don’t talk about European holidays but rather continental holidays or more usually we name the country. If somebody local said to me “we’re going to Europe for our holiday” I’d say “Bournemouth?”

       1. Real-life example: on the BBC TV coverage of European Parliament elections last night, one of the BBC commentators used this meaning, though he immediately apologized for doing so.
14. I’m inclined to agree with dorsetjimbo’s assessment, though perhaps the ‘boringness’ is a consequence of the easiness, rather than a reflection of the clues. I found it rather too easy, solving it in 15 minutes, which is probably a record for this slowcoach. Only 7 and 8 held me up for any time at all.
    There seems to be an unwelcome introduction of extraneous words in hidden word material (21 – ‘the’). It’s possibly justified if the phrase is a title of some kind, otherwise not, in my view.
15. OK, so I haven’t tackled the puzzle regularly over the last week or so, but computer hardware problems have pretty much fouled up my internet access anyway.

    Rather than wedge a mallet in the CD drive, I retreated to the local cafe with a copy of The Times and a biro and got through this during one coffee, which translates to about 10 minutes and scalded lips.

    Like Pete I think this is a perfectly decent tryout for newer solvers, and many of the clues are quite smooth.

    Unlike Pete I think the setter has deliberately exploited the EUROPEAN=foreigner idea by using “rupee” in the ‘gram fodder. In fact it’s one of four I ticked as potential CODs before settling on 3D.

    Q-0 E-5 D-4 COD 3D ALMIGHTY – Easy but good surface, and the use of “need” is excellent.

16. What’s wrong with EUROPEANS as foreigners? If you use RUPEES then EUROPEANS are foreigners…
    I thought this was okay, but it is a different style from the norm. My old mum (RIP) used to say A change is as good as a rest….
17. 25 minutes, so about the same difficulty for me as yesterday’s, though I wouldn’t describe it as boring – for those of us who sometimes struggle, a mix of the easyish with the stinkers offers some encouragement that we’re doing OK!

    I didn’t fully understand 9ac, 23ac, 2d, 15d, 19d before I came here, but the answers were plain enough to see, anyway.

    COD 11ac.

18. Around 6 mins for all but MOORCOCK, DECOROUS and CONSORTS and another 7 for these three. I toyed with MOORHAWK and MOORLARK before COCK suddenly forced its way in.
    I tend to disagree that this is a good one for beginners, there’s too much obscurity eg ORTS, ROT, PICKEREL and the opera
19. Had 3 left to fill after 10 minutes, took another 5 to get freesia and decorous and then a further 5 to decide I hadn’t a blooming clue what 14 could be so I gave up. For an obscure answer I think rot=corruption is a bit loose. Bah.

    COD orangery.

20. 10:20 for me, including having to take a phone call half way through and pondering other possibilities for ROTA at the end. I also spent far too long on 3D, insisting at first that it had to end in -LY.

    Personally, with an easy puzzle like this that’s done in 10 minutes or less, there isn’t enough time to get bored with it. I agree that there weren’t any blindingly brilliant clues today, but I didn’t find much to quibble about either.

21. About 35 mins for me, which I thought wasn’t too bad until coming here. I wasn’t particularly bored, but I’m easily pleased. In fact I ticked EUROPEAN, ALMIGHTY, ORANGERY (for its Monets), DECOROUS and gave COD to REMEDIAL. The surfaces were good on the whole. Pity about the ORTS. And having missed ROT the other day, I spotted it quickly.
22. Another 8 minute canter, that’s about as fast as I get I think, if I write any faster it’s illegible.

    Not that I have the clearest handwriting in the world on a good day, oh well.

    GALSWORTHY from wordplay and a whim, the rest jumped out, agreed this would be a good one for new solvers. We’re probably going to get a stinker soon, since it’s my turn on Thursday my money is on then.

23. Mostly easy, but not boring for me. About 25 minutes until guessing my last two entries: GYMKHANA from the wordplay and checking letters, never heard of it, and PATIENCE from checking letters alone. I hadn’t known either the G&S reference or the solitaire sense of PATIENCE. So I learned a few things, and thus avoided the boredom reported by Jimbo. No problem for me re: the ‘-orts’, the fish, or the ‘ALMIGHTY’=’excessive’. COD: DORMICE. Regards til tomorrow.
24. 6.45 – might even have been quicker if I hadn’t instantly wanted 1 to be UPGRADED. Agreed it must be fairly easy for old hands but in addition to Jimbo’s three obscurities ORANGERY ,PATIENCE and GALSWORTHY might have caused problems for some.
    I didn’t even blink at the European-foreigner clue – Oops I must be a Little Scotlander
25. I agree with Peter’s justification of ‘foreigner’ = ‘European’ – it made me smile when solving. And I have to agree (though it gives me no pleasure) with Jimbo’s verdict on Newcastle; in fact the bottom five probably all deserved to go down this year. A shade under four minutes for the puzzle, including some time wondering why ‘medial’ should indicate FACE, with the ‘cock’ of MOORCOCK last in.
26. About 14 for me – the last three or four deciding whether ROTA was right.

    I did not help myself by putting in UP THE SPOUT instead of ON THE ROCKS. Some drinks are up the spout, surely!

27. Pickerel are American fish of the pike family (ie a small pike) but they’re not the same thing as a pike. Pickerel are not native to Europe so the “American” is valid and necessary.
28. Got held up a bit by ORANGERY once I got fixated on ORANG (Malay for “man”, as in orangutan). Didn’t know ROTA in this meaning. The “ingenious” explanation of EUROPEAN, as being a foreigner when dealing with rupees, seems correct to me.

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