Times 24,277 – Funeral in Berlin

59 comments on “Times 24,277 – Funeral in Berlin”

1. Thanks for blogging early Sotira. I got held up in the NE, not getting the ‘maiden’ reference in 5D, and not getting the FLOURISH=powdery thing in 5A, nor SHEARLEGS (obscure, I think) til late. Took about 30 minutes while grilling dinner here in NY. My last was the mysterious HEAVISIDE LAYER, never heard of it, had to check its existence after entering it with all the checking letters in place, from the wordplay alone. BTW, I thought 24A was more like CAR=vehicle, TRANSPORT=others, ER=hospital, def. ‘worker’. COD’s FRIDAY, TYROL. Anyone who tried this weekends Jumbo had a leg up on the TAOISEACH, which held me up on the occasion because it was an anagram, as I recall, and I couldn’t remember the incomprehensible Gaelic spelling. Much easier today. Regards Sotira, and regards in advance to everyone else.
   1. 24A: I can’t buy your interpretation because:
      (a) a car transporter is a vehicle rather than a worker, in the UK at least. But trying a Google search for “was a car transporter”, I did find a couple of US references to people working as “car transporters” in the first couple of pages of hits – so this part of your reading makes sense.
      (b) more conclusively, hospital=ER is too vague – like that old favourite ENT, it would have to be “hospital department” or similar.
      1. Hi Peter. It would never have occurred to me that a ‘car transporter’ was a vehicle. To me the definition had to be ‘worker’. If the definition is ‘vehicle’, Sotira’s parsing of course makes sense. Over here, a car transporter is a person who’s paid to drive and deliver someone’s car over, usually, a long distance. We call a truck and open trailer that carries a double decked helping of automobiles a ‘car carrier’. I now suspect your UK version of ‘car transporter’ must refer to the latter, or some variation of it, right? Considering I was going after the wrong definition, the idea that I could see wordplay that makes some, if not perfect, sense, and lead to the same answer, is quite surprising. Thanks much. Sotira, comment withdrawn!
         1. You’ve got it – see this Google image search
   2. weird really as dream ticket was in the Jumbo too!
2. It’s a pity Sotira happened to choose to omit 1Across which has two equally correct answer but for the crossing letter in 1Down.

   Insertion of O (oxygen) in DROP (give up) is as correct as
   insertion of O (oxygen) in STOP (give up)
   and both DROOP and STOOP mean sink.

   This is quite a rare phenomenon

   1. Yes, I saw droop/stoop, but left the first letter blank until I got Sahara. As for the rest, I thought shearlegs was a word I’d invented until I checked the dictionary, and though Handiside rang a (faint) bell, I didn’t know about his layer until today. But as yesterday’s anonymous dunce (on VOTE and DADDY,) I was pleased to get through this one in less–though not much less–than an hour. BTW, surely Kevin from NY is wrong and Sotira right on CAR TRANSPORTER, in which “vehicle” is the def., “carts” are other vehicles, “ran” is in the middle, and “porter” is the hospital worker. As a resident alien in the US, I momentarily played with ER as Emergency Room, but it didn’t work and is a bit too American for the London Times, despite the TV series.
      1. Agree. I put in droop lightly and cancelled when 1d solved.
         1. I had SWOOP with “give up” = SWOP which seems as credible as “give up” meaning STOP
   2. not made any easier, by the fact that 1D had two words of 6 letters each starting with S & D. It did cross my mind for a few seconds that the answer may have been the archaic or military “DESERT SAHARA” esp since the checking R in 10A works for both.

      My guess on the bigger picture is that it is not quite as rare as you think though, since there are a lot of words that are effectively the same that can be clued slightly differently – sink and give up are effectively the same concept – and this is something that can sometimes be disappointing in a double def. Add to that multiple spellings and natural derivation and there are probably hundreds of these pairs.

      Having made this sweeping comment, I cannot think of another example off the top of my head, but I am sure someone else will chip in….

3. 36 min, with a couple of cheats. My confidence fell through the floor after getting not a single answer on reading through the across clues. Enormously relieved to get 1 dn at first sight. Much trickier than yesterday. COD: 4 dn FRIDAY.
4. 10:08 for this one. Last in were 7D which just about rang a bell, and the well-disguised reverse hidden at 11A. Full marks to the setter for that one as reverse hiddens are often easy to see. Also struggled for a bit too long with 4A, 5 and 6

   In case of questions, 21D is LATH(strip of wood)+I, a LATHI being a club (weapon) in Hindi.

   My perverse wordplay reading of the day was at 3D where I converted “love” to “0” and decided that was “pointless” as it lacked a decimal point.

   Note for beginners – there are other __GRAVE German nobles like margrave and palsgrave which could have clues in similar style.

   1. That was my interpretation of ‘pointless’, too – for a few minutes, then I saw it as it should be.
5. I took 7 minutes before writing in my first answer today and eventually ran out of time on the way to work with barely half of it completed, mostly the RH side but with some gaps. I polished it off on arrival at the office using a solver. Never heard of HEAVISIDE LAYER, SHEARLEGS, TAOISEACH. I must be a bit dim this morning because I don’t understand the “home economics” reference in 9d.

   I trust this will be the hardest things get this week.

   Off topic for a moment. If there are any fans of Killer Sudoku who are not happy with the recent revamp of the grid design on the Times site could I urge you please to protest directly to the management, alternatively if you would like leave a message on my live-journal account (by clicking my user-name above) I will be pleased to pass on your views. My complaint is that the cages no longer stand out clearly as they did before the revamp and it’s doing my eyes in trying to see them. Their first response was to advise me to make the print larger but that’s no help at all. It’s yet another case of mending something that wasn’t broken.

   1. nothing wrong with off topic, and since you mention it, do you think that they have recalibrated their “hardness” since they reformatted also. Unless I have got more senile over the last few months, their recommended times have definitely had about 20-30% knocked off versus previously (in my mind).
      1. They certainly do seem harder and I even had to give up on one (Saturday’s, I think) which has never happened before. However I’m so distracted by the new grid I’m sure that’s making the puzzles more difficult than they actually are, for me at least.

         Anyone who wants to see what the old grid looked like can see an example at:
         http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/games_and_puzzles/sudoku/article6629796.ece and scrolling down.

   2. After yesterday’s triumph, a grinding 70 mins today, but I’m determined to introduce shearlegs into a conversation sometime soon.

      Jackkt, I’m also a Killer fanatic and I agree with your comments on the grid and will, but that’s not the only change I’ve noticed. Recent puzzles have made it more difficult to fix numbers from the grid design alone, requiring more emphasis on analysis of box contents. As a result I find them harder, but I notice the target times (which I always though were generous) have come down! This is not a complaint – just an oservation.

      Anonymous Nick

   3. there is no question but that the target times have altered in the last couple of weeks. i used to reckon on finishing within half the stated time on the more difficult ones. last week i failed fri and sat very unusual. i agree that the construction appears to have changed. i get physical delivery of the paper and have noticed no change.
      1. Yes, I understand the printed copy hasn’t changed, it’s just the on-line version. Having thought about it further I have concluded the only thing they need to change to rectify the problem would be to have the grid within each block of 9 in grey instead of black, then the broken lines of the cages would stand out.
6. Started with a 4a and then 4d and worked from the the NW downwards. I have to admit to checking the spelling of the crossword setter’s favourite PM and finished with the clothes horse, my smile of the day, and the mousse. 25m so nothing wonderful but enjoyed it all. Saw 24 as ran inside carts, + porter.
7. Thanks Peter for the tip for beginners. Perhaps a couple more would be: Don’t despair when only 2 solved in half an hour (ACTON & thanks to Jumbo TAOISEACH); don’t be ashamed to use any help you can muster.
   Finished in 2 3/4 hours of sheer torture. My Chambers won’t survive until the next edition. Made the DROOP mistake which didn’t help. Never heard of Heaviside Layer, rigel or shearlegs, nor N as abbreviation for knight.
   APPEAL
   If there are people reading this blog who are as slow, or slower than me I would be grateful if you would contribute as I am beginning to feel very lonely.
   1. You’ll see Rigel again, and various other stars – the Arabic-derived names for them make them handly for some odd letter patterns like R?G?L. My guess is that about 13 of the top 20 in this list of brightest stars have appeared in a Times grid.

      Incidentally, Rigel is the sixth-brightest star in the whole (Northern hemisphere) night sky, and (usually) the brightest in Orion.

      N=knight is a crossword cliché – I’m a bit surprised that this is the first time you’ve come across it. But I’ve seen similar surprising comments from beginners before, which maybe shows how many clichés there are.

   2. I can’t give you a time, one hour is the maximum amount of time I have got to dedicate to solving the x-word during the week. And very very rarely I have all the answers in, and just finish with help of this site.
      N = knight was new for me too.

      Isabel

   3. i gave up with only a third completed all in the se corner. normally i would use aids but too busy today. have no idea why good is in 6d. shearlegs heavyside layer rigel and lathi all new to me. cod 13d.
      1. I don’t know if you saw Mark’s initial comment (appears directly below this) that Good is superfluous, that’s enough explanation for me. There gave been a number of redundant words recently,which upsets the purists.
   4. I did not post a time because I did not complete the puzzle without aids. I did have all but ‘Heaviside layer’ after about 90 minutes, and in fact had ‘Heaviside’ but not ‘layer’. So I was close to finishing on my own, but I had to Google ‘Heaviside’ to complete the answer.

      So is 90 minutes slow enough?

   5. Not quite as slow as you Barry but still a painstaking 100 mins for me, they’ll be running marathons as quick as that soon! Unheard of shearlegs and heaviside layer killed me but I eventually got there. I’ve bought 3 Times Crossword books (10,11,12) and it’s gradually getting easier (26 mins record). They were taking 3 and 4 hours 3 months back!!

      Thanks,

      Mat Wilson

8. 11:51.  Last in were IRONSTONE (15dn, unknown), TAOISEACH (22ac), FLOURISH (4ac), and SHEARLEGS (7dn, unknown).  My only other unknown was LANDGRAVE (13dn); it helped that we’d had “palsgrave” on Wednesday.  I knew HEAVISIDE LAYER (8ac) from Cats.

   I was held up by thinking 22ac would involve the more common crossword PM North; by writing in STREET as the second word of 1dn (SAHARA DESERT) before realizing there weren’t enough Ts; by the delayed example-indicator for “maiden” in 5dn (OVERDONE); and by the superfluous “good” in 6dn (ROAST).  19dn (DORSET) and 21dn (LATHI) both use the strangely weak “may” in the wordplay, which is usually taken to involve description (e.g. “is”) or instruction (e.g. “must”).

   Clues of the Day: 17ac (SINISTER), 1dn (SAHARA DESERT).

9. 19:03 here. Last in was SHEARLEGS, which I’d never heard of and looked unlikely in the extreme, but in the end had to be right. I was also slow to get 11A (couldn’t believe it took me so long to spot a reverse hidden).
10. Like most, I had trouble getting started, but then I saw ‘Rigel’, ‘Landgrave’, ‘lathi’, and ‘car transporter’. It is not clear why a ‘porter’ is a hospital worker, rather than a building worker in general, but the answer is evident.

    After 60 minutes, I still had 7 left, so I took a break hoping they would be obvious when I returned. Not quite, but I was able to put in ‘heat wave’, ‘taoiseach’, ‘clothes horse’, ‘mousse and ‘indigent’ in short order. I had been trying to do 9 down as the names of 3 schools put together with little to show, before realizing it was an anagram.

    I was left with 7 down and 8 across. ‘Shearlegs’ was possible from the cryptic – what else could it be? I got ‘Heaviside’ as well, but couldn’t quite see the rest. I was thinking of a mountain lake area, and wanted it to be ‘Heaviside water’ – a place, no doubt, that Wordsworth climbed up to and wrote a famous poem. But ‘wat’ cannot be made to work as ‘put down’.

11. I made a mess of this one too, with no time recorded once it obviously exceeded the hour. I know Heaviside for his function but not his layer, and like vinyl (we must stop visiting the same dead ends) was fruitlessly looking for water until I realised even that was pointless. I even struggled again with TAOISEACH; you’d think once in one week was enough. Another Setter 1, Idiot 0 day. I very much liked to see DULCET making an long overdue appearance.
12. I’m relieved that I didn’t see the possibility of ‘droop’ and ‘desert Sahara’ for the 1s, which would have compounded the struggles of an already overtired mind.

    Apologies for the somewhat peremptory blog on an interesting puzzle – for once I was hoping for a simple one. Looking at this again after a night’s sleep, it doesn’t appear any easier. I’m struck especially by the geographical range of the etymologies, the mongrel heritage of the English language on full display.

    Vinyl – if Wordsworth didn’t write ‘On Heaviside Water’, he should have! It’s a lovely name.

    Jackkt queries the ‘home economics’ of CLOTHES HORSE. I didn’t think it the most satisfactory clue, but read it as “a frame which serves economy in the home”. Talking of which, don’t tell me nothing’s changed for the better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQm1C_iTIJM

    1. The reference in 9dn (CLOTHES HORSE) is surely to home economics as the “science” of household management.  (To those who know Greek, or at least the etymology of ‘economics’, it’s an amusing phrase.)
       1. … and then I clicked on the YouTube link.  Sorry!  You might be right that it’s meant to be a space-saving pun.  I just read it as a reference to a piece of equipment for one of the standard home economics tasks (cleaning, cooking, sewing, etc.).
          1. I think a rather wooly clue is the only culprit here.
       2. Yes, hoi oikou nomoi.

13. Hi all

    I’m a relatively young solver (30), and have been using this blog for about 6 months now to get me into cryptic crosswords. I’ve found the site exceptionally useful, and just thought i’d let Barry know that you’re definately not alone lol!

    I can generally complete about half to three-quarters of most puzzles at the moment, usually in a time of about one hour.

    However, i just couldn’t get going today, and after much staring decided to get back to working on a paper for my degree. I thought this was quite difficult, and if i don’t manage to get some checking letters then i currently find it hard to get going.

    Thanks again for a great site

    Sean

    1. Welcome Sean. See, I knew there were fellow strugglers out there but thought I was the only one with the presumption to comment. I am concious that my contributions have no value other than to remind the experts of when they first got the bug. I took up cryptics after reading an anniversary article in the paper which, thank heaven, mentioned this site. Slow as I am it is rare now for me not to finish (usually with some sort of aid if only to check answers) and this progress is entirely down to studying this excellent blog.
       1. Straight off, I can think of two other things that make your posts valuable: (1) for beginners, it’s good to see strugglers as well as sprinters; (2) for those who try to teach these things, it’s useful to see what can cause problems for non-experts.  (Incidentally, a low Did Not Finish rate earns you ‘intermediate’ status in my book – speed is much less important.  Well done!)
       2. I’ve read the Times since A levels just over ten years ago, but satisfied myself with the Times2 crossword for most of that time. I only started the cryptic in earnest 6 months ago, and this blog has been invaluable.

          I haven’t completed my first puzzle yet, but i came close last week or the week before, on one of the easier ones with about 4 answers missing if i remember correctly. Literature and older references often let me down. I’m studying for a degree in science, so i enjoyed Rigel.

          Interestingly, my mother-in-law bought me a mephisto book of puzzles from the Times. I think i’ll leave that to one side for the moment lol!

          1. Mephisto and similar puzzles are a different challenge, but if you have the time required, and the inclination to look up lots of strange words in Chambers, they can help your daily paper solving. I could finish puzzles of the Mephisto style before I could reliably finish the Times puzzle.
             1. thanks for the tip, i’ll probably take it on holiday with me at the end of the month. (As long as i don’t take a text book my wife won’t kill me!!)
                1. Not sure whether taking a large red dictionary would count as any better! For Mephisto tips see this report and a couple of links therein.
          2. Is this revenge for all those mother-in-law jokes?
             Seriously though, I got advice from Peter and Jimbo to have a go at Mephisto, advice which I thought absurb, but as ever they were right that the puzzle really does help with solving wordplay in the daily, just as Times2 will help with solving via definitions. What is more it is expected that you use aids, notably Chambers, so no need to blush.
14. Some guesses here (HEAVISIDE LAYER, SHEARLEGS) but all worked out in the end. No idea of time since rain stopped play at several points, but I reckon over 40 minutes, which was disappointing after a speedy start.

    Perhaps someone has already commented, but surely the first part of the wordplay for 24a is RAN in CARTS (others, i.e other vehicles).

    If the answer to 21 is LATHI, there’s no “may be” about where the I goes.

    1. That’s what my blog entry is suposed to indicate, but the required space makes it a little hard to see. I’ll add a note.
15. Completed in just under the hour.

    This was a day where I had to rely on the wordplays a lot more than the definitions. Took a long time to get started and continued slowly but reasonably steadily thereafter.

    I think the vocabulary required today tended more towards the range needed for prize puzzles and barred puzzles, but I also thought that the cluing throughout was of a high standard. I don’t think there was a phrase or word that was completely new to me, but a few of them haven’t seen the light of day in my everyday conversation for a long time.

16. The layer named after him but his co-discoverer Kennelly remains even more obscure. I won’t clutter the blog by repeating what has been already said,just to say it’s a bit of physics that reminds one that we live a thin cocoon of atmosphere where human life is possible as opposed to the 99.99999% of the universe where it isn’t.
17. I’m with the group who had TAOISEACH in the front of the mind from the recent Jumbo, and that really helped knock off the Florida corner. CAR TRANSPORTER from wordplay, didn’t know the term, HEAVISIDE LAYER too (there are different terms for this region of space).
18. Found this the toughest in ages. I had droop for stoop and didn’t know rigel, heaviside layer, ironstone, or shearlegs. Ended up giving up with several clues uncompleted.

    Re killer sudoku I haven’t found the new grid a problem but agree that Fridays was tough-ish, Saturdays the toughest in months, and suggested times were much lower than I’d expect. OTOH I nearly always complete the puzzles in a fraction of the time suggested. While it would be nice to put this down to my being exceptionally clever I’m afraid the real explanation is that suggested times have been much too generous for regular solvers – some correction is probably in order. I also suspected that Friday/Saturday might be not so much an increase in difficulty level as a change in style, needing a slightly different approach – a new setter perhaps?

    If I were making representations to the editor I’d lobby for two grades of difficulty at the start of the week. For experienced solvers, arguably only Friday, Saturday and occasionally Thursday are worth bothering with, which means no puzzle 4 or 5 days a week – probably the main reason I started doing the crossword regularly. bc

19. Tough. About 40 minutes with aids, with shearlegs, indigent and Tyrol last to fall.

    RE Sotira’s preamble I did get 1d straight off but it didn’t help much. Rigel cropped up in a puzzle I tackled at the weekend (prize puzzle so can’t say which).

    Jimbo would be doubly miffed at missing this one due to the Dorset reference.

    All in all, not a lot of fun had here.

20. Thought I was starting to get the hang of this yesterday, but a significant setback today. Not helped by going for SNOWDROP at 4 across (and me not even a skier) having got the O from 5 down. Also glad to read that I’m not the only one to have found Killer Sudoku much harder at the back end of last week!
    1. Keep in mind that ‘snowdrop’ is also a slang term for a Military Policeman in the US Army, due to his white helmet.

       It is sure to come up sooner or later!

21. Difficult but not that difficult
    rather odd that Taoiseach came in today as in the jumbo and yesterday we had dream ticket which was in both on Saturday and Sunday!

    some unusual words today
    eg Rigel

22. Hi Could someone explain why when the clue says “without” you have to insert the letter instead of removing it?
    Thanks Gerry.
    1. This is based on the old-fashioned usage without=outside as in “there is a green hill far away without a city wall”. But Mark T has pointed out sometime in the last few weeks that this is is rather flaky – outside in this sense doesn’t have the “surrounding” meaning which is really needed to indicate the insertion.
    2. If you like, you can read one of my rants about this here.
    3. If you see
       Without as the opposite of within
       then the penny will drop
23. Don’t feel lonely old man. I am often at sea (although not an anagram). Sometimes it flows, sometimes congeals. May I suggest you look it the crossword as a fencing match – epee rather than foil or sabre – and not wrestling: Raffles v. Inspector McKenzie.
    (And if they win its because they cheated, so there!)

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