Times 24,261

43 comments on “Times 24,261”

1. Solving time: 23:52

   Had an absolute nightmare with the bottom half of this one, starting with a thoughtless speed merchant’s crass attempt to enter PAINT THE TOWN RED at 17, purely from “stay out all night” – good thing I ran out of white squares! The clues that held me up most were 13, 21, 16 – solved in that order, with 16 alone taking about 5 mins. Various points not understood or not appreciated enough while solving, and now applauded: alight=debus at 1A, DJ = (John) Peel at 17, express=pacy at 21, the whole of 26, “wide cutting blade” for O(W)AR at 27, crush=pash at 8, the whole of 13 and 15, “very great while” at 20.

2. This, for me, was the long-awaited stinker that has been missing for some time in the weekday puzzles. After an hour I had the top half completed and a toe-hold in the lower half and it took me another 30 minutes to finish it bar 16dn which I eventually gave up on and used a solver to complete. Having found the answer I was annoyed I didn’t persevere a bit longer because I had been thinking along the right lines, SH inside ?A?ING, and had even considered that the first letter might be P.

   One of the many places I lost time was at 17ac where having seen “spinning” in the clue I rashly bunged in SLEEP LIKE A TOP and spoiled things for ages at 15dn.

   Some of the clues seem a bit of a stretch and I await other comments with interest, but one I shall mention now is 14ac where the only definition I can see is “work” to which the solution is the title of a play by Bernard Shaw. Bordering on outrageous in my view!

   1. Bordering on outrageous, but here’s the inevitable question: how many other (4,3,3,3) works can you think of? I think the surface meaning’s worth it, and for me this ended the relatively easy top half, so checking letters were in good supply.

      Edited at 2009-06-25 07:47 am (UTC)

   2. I had ‘sleep like a top’ too, but on the grounds that ‘a top’ = ‘a record’ in the sense of the height of accomplishment. However, ‘a log’ fits much better.
3. Had thought Richard’s original holding message might be the equivalent of Captain Oates saying “I am just going out and may be some time”.
   Gave up with 4 done and so will put this down to experience and study the blog with great interest.
   1. I think the best advice is: don’t give up!

      I had only four done too, for quite a while, but continued on.

4. I see now this week’s puzzles have been a lead up to this one. Around the 90 min mark for me, but loved it for all that. Masterly deception; like “brief is to”=”wil(l)”, “dated before”=”ere”, “wide cutting blade” = “o[w]ar” and so on.

   Not being a BBC listener, I didn’t understand the reference to John Peel (he wasn’t in my ken) and I’m still not sure I understand W in CAREW (double is whisky, yes, but…). Fortunately, PSHAW was the only word which fitted into the mess I made of the NE corner on Monday, so when I got the ?S at 16 I saw it instantly. Prescient or what? Too many good clues to mention, COD to ANDY CAPP.

   1. Thanks for pointing out that in 12A the “dated” applies to “before” rather than to “pursuit”. I shall edit.
   2. I think Whisky is intended to be the Whisky in the phonetic alphabet (alpha, bravo etc etc)… though it took me a while to remember that!
      1. Thanks for that. I have lost count of the number of times the phonetic alphabet has stumped me.
5. similar expreience to barry. i found this very difficult. of the ones i did get i still dont understand why the a is dropped from hay in hillbilly.
   1. It isn’t so much dropped as replaced. i.e. make hay’s inside “ill bill” rather than “a”.
6. Got there eventually with much on-line cheating, but found it very unsatisfying.
7. 42:10 .. turned out not to be the puzzle to start at one in the morning! But far too good a challenge to be put aside unfinished.

   ANDY CAPP is just bloomin’ brilliant – one of my favourite clues in … well, ever. Worth a statue of the setter in Trafalgar Square, or this one, at least.

   Terrific crossword.

8. Why does SCUD mean SHOWER? Not in my book. It was my last in, but not happily.
   1. As in passing scud, which can be fast moving cloud or sudden rain, according to Collins.
   2. I had to look this up in the big dictionary after finishing. It is about the 8th meaning, but it is there.
9. thx for your help on that.
10. ….just a brain and a pencil. The only really obscure words were ‘scud’, ‘Ido’, and ‘Maris Piper’, but they had to be if you trusted the cryptic.

    It helps to have heard of Carew and Rilke, and you will notice the poets are placed in symmetrical spots.

    I think the correct interpretation of 12 is: pursuit = ‘quest’ and ‘having dated before being introduced’ = ‘put in an archaic word for before’.

    I do have some quibbles, however,

    In 16, ‘grabbing some clothing’ = ‘pawing’, and ‘button it’ = ‘sh’, but where is the containment indicator?

    In 19, can ‘ratify’ really = ‘check’? In the sense of vote approval, this is a stretch.

    In 5, can ‘throw up’ = ‘find’? The sea may throw up some treasures, but you find them while walking on the beach.

    Possible mistakes: ‘sleep like a top’, already mentioned, the mythical bird the ‘scrame’, and starting 4 with ‘beggars’ instead of ‘begging’.

    I really liked this puzzle, but only because I finally finished, and nearly understood it. The only wordplay I don’t seem to have gotten is how ‘wide cutting blade’ = ‘oar’.

    1. in 16d, the def is “Grabbing at”, which clothes “button it”.
       1. Aha! I always overlook the obvious, that’s why my times are not as good a Peter’s.
    2. “Cutting” is a containment indicator, so GOT,O(W)AR.
11. A hugely enjoyable 30 minutes of solving, and my favourite setter’s usual mix of sly definitions and cracking wordplay construction. Too many ticks to make a COD nom anything like easy – DEBUSSY, BEGGING BOWL, QUEEREST, SLEEP LIKE A LOG, ANDY CAPP, GO TO WAR, DRY-EYED, STICK EM UP, TWO HUNDRED, PSHAWING, LEONID, SCUD were all highly satisfying.

    Great stuff!

    Q-0 E-9 D-7 COD 9A BEGGING BOWL

12. After an hour I had to use a dictionary to get Pshawing and Leonid. I’m glad I did because I might have stared at it for another hour without getting Pshawing, even though I had correctly parsed it. I’m a bit ashamed about Leonid though. It is my name in Russian. I also see, on looking it up, that it is a meteor in the constellation of Leo. I shall file that away for future reference.

    Up to then, I was quite pleased with myself having successfully deduced Carew and Rilke from the wordplay despite never having heard of either of them. I was a bit surprised by the word Debus and the spelling of Begorra without an H but, on checking, both seem to be acceptable.

    I liked the deceptive surface for Andy Capp, a character in the Mirror not the Express.

13. Glad everyone else – or almost – found this an extreme toughie. In my case, completed only with the help of aids, and even then there were four or five solutions for which I did not fully understand the wordplay until visiting the blog. I agree with Sotira that ANDY CAPP is brilliant. It had to be the answer once the checking letters were available, but I never came within a million miles of spotting the wordplay, not to mention the misleading reference to the Express rather than the Mirror.
14. There is an alternative spelling Pushtuns giving crush = push which seems a closer synonym to me. Chambers gives for example squeeze, squash, cram as some push synonyms which look a lot like crush.
    1. I am very glad I didn’t think of PUSH-TUNS, because you are right that there are meanings of “push” that are very close to meanings of “crush”, and are not dated slang like “pash”. I really don’t know if it would be accepted as a valid alternative in a competition, and I would be interested in what Peter or others might think.

       Incidentally, I noticed in Chambers that there is a Shakespearean meaning of “pash” as “to strike, to dash, to crush”. In a Listener that might be significant, but not in a Times cryptic.

       1. I think PUSH and “crush” are too far apart in meaning for PUSHTUNS to be an acceptable alternative.  Sure, if you push something you might thereby crush it (as long as there’s something behind it), but the two are essentially different: to push something is to apply force to it to move it, whereas to crush something is to apply force to it to compress it.
       2. I think PUSHTUNS would be ruled out, because Pushtun is only listed as an alternative to Pashtun in Chambers, not COED or Collins (still the main references for the Times puzzle).

          Plus what Mark says …

15. 9.45 – I hesitate to put this time because it is a bit hard to believe given the difficulty of the puzzle. I can only explain that I knew the Shaw play and ANDY CAPP and have seen 16 and 25 before, looked for the Q before U in QUEEREST,didn’t consider TOP for LOG in 17, and entered that and 1a,7,9,21 and 22 without fully or even partly understanding the wordplay.Also the checking letters seemed helpful to me in many answers so one just seemed to follow another. Last to go in was LEONID ,I saw the fit and managed to work out the wordplay from there.That is my COD although I think it was a great puzzle overall.
    On another day could have been happy with 30 minutes for a puzzle of this standard.
    Good blog Richard , must have been fun!

    1. That’s a great time, John. And thinking about competitive times has reminded me that I also need to do the qualifier that’s in today’s paper so that I can get to Cheltenham in October.
16. Wow, after two days of failure, I come back with a PB of 22 minutes and all my guesses are right. This is a wordplay masterpiece, as I needed wordplay to get ARMS AND THE MAN, CAREW, MARIS PIPER, RILKE and PASHTUNS. Nice challenge.
17. 40:09.  Another very late night, but this would have been a slow solve anyway, and I was relieved to be able to finish.  The last seven minutes or so were spent on PSHAWING (16dn) and finally the unknown ANDY CAPP (21ac).  Other unknowns were THROW UP meaning “abandon” (5ac), PASH (8dn), LEONID (20dn) [I know this one only by his surname], CAREW (22dn) and SCUD meaning “shower” (24dn).  IDO (25ac) and BEGORRA (2dn) were known but unfamiliar.

    Well done to John Marshall for such a fast solve!

    Clues of the Day: 9ac (BEGGING BOWL), 26ac (RAPSCALLION), 1dn (DEBASE), 7dn (WILHELM).  19dn (GRATIFY) would have been on the list if RATIFY meant “check”, which it doesn’t.

18. I rate this puzzle very highly indeed…managed it somehwere between 1 hour and 90 minutes which i consider to be a major achivemement…i loved the Andy Capp clue-absolutely brilliant…Thought throw up was rather obscure and this held me up rather a lot…Saw debussy but didnt get the word play for ages…Rather liked Leonid too..congrats to the setter and the bloggers today…enthralling read!
    one to remember
19. 19 mins here, solved on the train this morning. Luckily I knew the Shaw play, I’d heard of RILKE and CAREW, and had PSHAW in another crossword earlier in the week. I certainly didn’t expect to see anyone under 10 mins, so I’ll add my congratulations to John M too.
20. Isn’t the wordplay LES(T)
    1. Hadn’t thought of LEST. How would that work for “not so”? I was thinking “less [ridiculous]” = “not so [ridiculous]”
21. I am still pshawing as we were without phone/computer till now. Long solve, over 45 m; corrected top to log but did not get pash right (Pushtuns I knew unfortunately so looked no further into wordplay) and gave up on pshaw! But lots of good clues so enjoyed it really. Roll on Friday.
22. This was not a puzzle to do after golf and then immediately being dragged off to Tesco by ‘er indoors. About 40 minutes and struggled where everybody else did. A bit too much reliance upon obscure poets to really get me cheering but a good, difficult puzzle that I’m glad I didn’t have to blog.
23. greetings from sunny corfu – when i eventually got this it was a stinker for me too. Actually got a lot done quickly, but as usual was left staring at 16 and 22d in the SW corner and 6/8/10/12 in the NE for an absolute eternity. put in CAREW as it probably ought to be without picking up on the long winded wordplay for W. put in LES without really knowing why, and then truly gave up on the remaining four.

    Must get into the habit of sticking it out to the bloody end, but this was effectively 40 mins with 4 wrong/unfinished – my excuse is that the sun was too alluring !!

24. An hour plus last night, but left left 5A/10A/8D until this morning, where I finally guessed them correctly. I had thought 5 was THROW IN, not UP until I realized I needed a ‘P’ for PUSHTUNS/PASHTUNS, and I then checked to find the unknown ‘infatuation’ meaning of PASH. I’m surprised I got a lot of this, since there seems to ba a load of UK peculiar stuff: BEGGING BOWL, MARIS PIPER, ANDY CAPP(although he was syndicated over here), PASH, John Peel. I didn’t see a lot of the wordplay til coming here, esp. ‘debus’, CAREW, Mr. Peel. I liked STICK EM UP, PSHAWING, and the wonderful LEONID. Regards.
25. On revisiting, I now appreciate that this was actually a really good one. My excuse for sniveling earlier that I had a head cold dulling my perceptions.
26. The style here felt very much like Paul to me. Some cracking clues but tricky – took me a shade over 10 minutes, which won’t worry Mark Goodliffe.

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