Times 24316 – Off for a lie-down now!

24 comments on “Times 24316 – Off for a lie-down now!”

1. Took forever on this one — a fraction over an hour. I was so busy making a dog’s breakfast of it that I almost forgot to make the literal variety. And only finished with two wordplays not completely understood (9ac, 19ac). But, looking back, a quite wonderful puzzle and a treat for the retreating little grey cells. COD to PEASANTS REVOLT which will surely go down in the books as a classic &lit. alongside “I rifle tubs at sea (10)” and the few genuine others. But I also liked the clue for THOLE (shades of a certain teabag advert) despite the peculiarity of “makes” as the link in this context. But I’m prepared to thole that.
   Quibble: the inferior planets aren’t always warmer than the Alps. The temperature on Mercury at night can drop to as low as –200º C.
2. 19:47 – took ages over 1 a, trying to make VOICE and FORCE fit as second words, also the CILL in 9 and CLEO in 2.
3. Despite spending much of 2 hours 15 mins thinking of excuses for not finishing, got there in the end with no mistakes , a few guesses, and some aids. Once I had sorted out (and looked up) the anagram for ANTLION I knew I was going to have to treat this as a sort of beginner’s Mephisto. Only the snooker clue on first run through until MEDICI 20 minutes later. Enjoyed it as one might surviving 15 rounds with Joe Frazier, beaten and bruised, but pleased nevertheless.
   COD to SLIGO, BOW (Blogger of week) to Jack. My deepest admiration.
4. Well over an hour and then some. The NW frontier remained terra nullius for a long time. Last in the diabolically difficult FINISHING TOUCH. I still don’t get how the CILL finds itself between SO< and ATE at 9ac. Is “going to” the inserticator? I’m missing something, aren’t I? I had no idea how ORALLY worked until coming here. I thought it was “all is inory” (variant spelling of ornery?). As for TASTE BUDS, I’d like the time spent on that back please. I had PRIME CUTS as a working hypothesis for some time, and then WASTE CUTS, before I realized I wasn’t supposed to parse it at all. A good workout none the less. COD to 8d, a cracker.
   1. 
      I thought “worried going to block” just meant attach one to the other without stipulating a particular order. At least that was my take on it and having thought of that I decided not to look for anything more complicated as my brain was hurting by then.

      I’ve probably been a bit unkind to the setter in my opening comments. It IS technically a very clever puzzle.

      1. So it’s “going (on)to”? I can’t say I’m impressed, but at least I can stop looking for an inserticator. Congratulations, by the way, on your efforts today. A tour de force, in the circumstances.
5. Found this one a real slog, even with aids. The torment wasn’t even alleviated by a hidden word clue! I never got going and couldn’t get any of the long answers round the edges. Still don’t quite understand how 1ac and 1dn fit the definitions. PEASANTS REVOLT is a cracker. Liked SOLID and PANDA CAR too and learned a few new words – THOLE, FACTIOUS & INFERIOR PLANET. Thought of OSCILLATE from the definition but couldn’t get the wordplay. I’m more comfortable with the simpler clues like BLEND, VIGIL, VOICE & SLIGO at the moment.
6. 30:14 .. Phew! indeed. Like jackkt I pencilled in ‘inaction’ but felt the need (quite out of character) to explain the wordplay before moving on, which was just as well.

   Not my favourite kind of puzzle (‘technical exercise’ is right), but good for the soul.

   First in BLEND, last in TASTE BUDS.

   COD hard to see past the revolting peasants, but I enjoyed OPINION, too.

   Well done and thanks, jackkt – service above and beyond.

7. ….but no real time, since done while watching a rerun of the Barclays.

   Quite hard, and I didn’t see the cryptics for half a dozen of them, including even ‘Peasant’s Revolt’.

   I had ‘lionant’ instead of ‘antlion’ for a long time, which really didn’t help.

   I thought the clues I did understand were brilliant, so maybe we’re just not clever enough to see what a great puzzle this is. In particular, ‘inferior planet’, ‘factious’, ‘outspread’, and ‘telephone’ were all enjoyed as solved.

8. Not many posts today. Is everyone still struggling with this or is it just that it is a bank holiday weekend? To judge by the comments above, I finished quite quickly. The only snag is, I got one wrong. I correctly guessed Donative and Thole, which were new words to me. They are new to my spellchecker too, which is flagging them both as errors. Then I added Oscillate, without understanding the wordplay (thanks Jack). Finally, on a roll, I got Captious for 19. Good definition, wrong wordplay. I could probably have spent a lot longer and still not have got factious. It looks like a misspelling of fractious. Also I do not think facetious is a very close synonym for “light-hearted”.

   I seem to have failed by one on several occasions over the last couple of weeks. If anyone has any strategies for avoiding this (other than a brain transplant) I should be grateful for suggestions. The problem may be endemic to crossword solving since Peter, on the rare occasions when he dons his dunce’s cap, almost always has only one wrong.

9. Very, very hard. So much so that in the forty minutes I allow myself for the crossword during the week I had completed less than half!

   This would have been much better set for a Saturday: it may then even have been rated as a classic.

   JamesM

10. 30 minutes. With four long perimeter entries I thought this could be an easy day.Not a chance! Was still left with three of these and some more after 15 minutes.
    Wordplay to 17 completely beyond me. FACTIOUS a totally new word – fractious, yes.
    Very difficult and not as enjoyable as these stinkers often can be. 8d COD
11. Really enjoyed this puzzle. Pleasantly surprised that for once I didn’t find it as fiendish as quite a few others seem to have done – that is to say, that it took me about 60 mins, compared with the 25 to 30 mins that for me would qualify a puzzle as straightforward/easyish. So not without difficulty but not a stinker in my view. That said, I had to make educated guesses here and there, and didn’t fully understand some of the wordplay before coming here. Good blog, Jack. Thanks
12. Once again I couldn’t get into the Times site this morning so had to go out before I could tackle this. I didn’t start until well after lunch and then took some 40 minutes to complete it.

    It’s interesting that a puzzle which is mostly technically sound and really quite difficult somehow manages not to deliver great satisfaction to many solvers. Like others I found it hard to like and a bit of a slog rather than a joy to wrestle with. No Doh! moments just detailed analysis and synthesis. Perhaps as Jack says its the lack of humour and interesting topics.

    Very well done Jack, one to be proud of mate.

13. A stinker of a puzzle which I didn’t have time to finish owing to a busy day. So I came here and marvelled at the answers.

    This comment is actually about the word ‘prelims’ in yesterday’s blog, which for the same busy-busy reasons I’d only just looked at. It’s not just a US definition of the preliminary pages (title, title verso, contents etc) in books, but ubiquitous in the UK publishing industry. Having spent my working life there, I put it in straight away.

14. Same experience as others: very hard, well over an hour, and I needed aid at the end to get PANDA CAR, which I hadn’t heard of before. My on-line dictionaries all show it as chiefly Brit., so I absolve myself somewhat for that. First entry: BLEND. I didn’t know THOLE, cill, or the snooker reference. I add myself to the list of those who didn’t get the ORALLY wordplay until reading here, thanks jackkt. You deserve a blogger’s award for this effort, by the way. In addition to 8D, I also appreciate OPINION, OUTSPREAD, for A.D.=’these days’, and VIGIL, for the def. ‘through the night, one kept’. On the other hand, I didn’t like the ‘Time big beast…’ surface in 14D, clunky, and I agree with Lennyco that facetious=light-hearted doesn’t quite ring true. Enjoy your holiday weekends (ours is next week). Regards.
15. Quite a few late entries, so i dont feel quite as much of a loner as I often do when i read this after getting home, when everything has been condensed in the 7-11am slot.

    Had to do this at any available opportunity, since it wasnt getting finished in the usual time, so approximately 50 minutes worth. I reckon you probably have to add some on for multiple time slots because I am sure your brain is subconsciously thinking about bits in between without you knowing about it. That would explain so often why you return to a grid and “suddenly” see three or four things quite quickly.

    Anyhow – I thought todays was an excellent puzzle, because it was hard, but yet none of the content was unreasonable nor reliant on unknown vocabulary. It is one thing to struggle with unneccessarily difficult words, and another with especially clever deception. This was very much the latter, and having plodded slowly through bit by bit, there were many kick yourself moments and plenty of ah!s. My only gripe as above was the wording of 9a, as if anything the word block is both the insert indicator and the content. Funnily enough, I dont think the use of onto as suggested above would have made the surface that much worse (it isnt a great surface to begin with!)

16. Couldn’t finish it last night, couldn’t finish it this morning, and had to use aids over lunch to get the last few out, so well done setter in constructing a brute! Needed help for PANDA CAR, PEASANT’S REVOLT and FACTIOUS, and kicking myself for not getting REVOLT as an option for the second word of 8 when trying to work it out as an anagram.
17. the last four days have undoubtedly been my worst since finding this site, i have struggled, even when using aids, to finish. todays was the worst of the lot and clues like 9ac just seem gratuitously difficult with no uplift when finally solved.
18. I really don’t like the sort of puzzle where I spend more time trying to work out how I can manipulate the clue to fit the answer. No “hoho” moments to lighten the load either. This just felt like a slog – with the single exception of PASTORAL EVENTS – which was glorious.
    At least two hours to complete – and with several pieces of wordplay needing illumination from the heavyweights on this site.
    TGIF!
19. I’m relieved that others found it as hard as I did. After 20 minutes I think I had only 3 answers in the grid, then slowly moved forward until all but 1a, 2 and 7 were left to do. After an interruption I returned to it and discovered the anagram in 7 that I’d so stupidly missed, then 2, then 1, the wordplay to which I didn’t understand (as was the case with 17 (horrible clue), 1d (didn’t like the definition), 6 (missed the snooker connection).
    Ten minutes over an hour in all.
20. Hmm, general agreement that this was a tricky one… I was out most of yesterday so didn’t get to finish it til late. I guess I can see why some might not have warmed to it, but I wasn’t conscious of any feeling of being short changed while doing it. And “pastoral events” is an absolutely premier league anagram, worth a special journey as the Michelin guide would say. Better than “Alpine Frontier,” if only because it is by no means certain to be warmer on an inferior planet.. half of Mercury is down towards -200degC
21. Could some kind person explain how ATE = ‘worried’ in 9A (oscillate) explanation. thanks.
    1. It’s the past tense of Eat, Harry, as in to cause to worry, to make anxious.

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