Times 24325 Trivial Pursuits

36 comments on “Times 24325 Trivial Pursuits”

1. Yes MC – spent much time on EREWHON (and needed aid to get ELEVON)and btw, is there anything more subtle about UTE than simply a hidden word?
   Much quicker than of late, much needed for confidence so it seems churlish to say I thought it a bit mundane.
2. Got home this morning to 16ac WA in the 13ac to find lots of 12ac in this puzzle. Held up on all sorts of things that should have been obvious: ELEVON*, RAN-GO-ON and PASTELLIST in particular. So 27 minutes and much enjoyment. Helped a bit by the four neat anagrams (esp. 24ac; though I had to check “ordinary” — no cap.? — at 17dn) and a few simpler answers: ONCE, CHUFFED, CYPRESS, LOWDOWN.
   Band of the Day: Drum-and-Bass combo, The Snares, featuring Pat, Ella and Amelia.
   * Anyone else considering EREW(H)ON?
   The various grips on a film set do a variety of jobs.
   1. Sorry, this post got moved. The only way to edit is to copy, delete and re-post. By that time, there were further posts.
      Yep, UTE is just included. It’s short for “utility (vehicle)” and, yes, I do actually have one. 2005 Holden 1 Tonner. The German singer Ute Lemper, on a visit to Australia, announced her surprise that we seem to have so many magazines dedicated to her alone!

3. 10:20 – delayed at the end by two:

   ESCHEWED – seeing the “key” as “es” (German for E flat), and then thinking cut=CHEWED was a bit of a stretch. (Although I seem to remember us mentioning H=German for B a while back, es=E flat is probably too obscure for the Times.)

   KNOTTINESS – I think I’d count this as an anagram of (test skin no), even though NO is there with no change – I don’t think “A with B” is used in Times puzzles to mean “B inside A”.

   Ordinary: the parts of a service, especially the Mass, which stay the same every time – the Agnus Dei is always part of the Mass. Also used for a book setting out the order of service.

   1. Peter,
      Is it OK to drop the cap. from “Ordinary”?
      1. I hadn’t noticed that I was copying the spelling given in brackets for this def. of ordinary in COED – which I think implies an optional spelling. Collins and Chambers don’t mention any capitalisation, and the first site I found with this meaning in context has it in lower case.

         Looking in the dictionaries reminded me of the opposite word – the variable parts of the service are “proper” – so the Eucharistic prayer may start with a “proper preface”.

         That’s probably enough religion for a Jimbo posting!

   2. I also had that explanation of ESCHEWED before reading the blog. I wasn’t very convinced by it though.
4. 20:25 for me, about a third of which was spent on the last two, ELEVON and PASTELLIST. Eventually got ELEVON by trawling through the alphabet (thought of it when I got to V for the 2nd letter), and then a few minutes later figured out I had to “lift and separate” electoral roll.
5. 40 minutes today with several guessed from the wordplay as I didn’t know ELEVON, TOURMALINE or AMELIA (in context). UTE was also a guess though I knew I had met a vehicle with some such name before. I completely missed that it is hidden in “reputed” and wasted time looking for a more devious explanation.
6. There were some obscurities today but most of them happened to be at the top of my memory stack. My son broke his patella recently; I watched a film about werewolves on Sunday; I listened to an Agnus Dei yesterday and Henry Raeburn is mentioned in today’s Times television review even though I did not bother to watch the programme featuring him last night. So, on the whole, I’m quite chuffed.

   I had to get Elevon and Fielding’s novel from the wordplay. Luckily Elia is an old crossword friend. I had to get Tourmaline from the anagram but fortunately the page facing the crossword in today’s paper has a full length picture of David Beckham in all-white strip so anagrams were no problem today.

   One technical quibble: I found too many cross-checking Es in this puzzle making answers such as Elevon and Eschewed trickier than they might otherwise be. A quick, non-scientific sample reveals 25 Es today compared with 16 yesterday.

   1. I seem to have found this tougher than most, taking longer than usual and ending with two uncompleted (ute and evelon). This after a series of puzzles I found generally straightforward even though some posters obviously didn’t – and another reminder of how very subjective levels of difficulty can be. bc
7. A 20 minute breeze this morning only delayed slightly by entering THROWBACK in 1ac for reasons known only to…nobody! I don’t recall having heard of ELEVON before, but simple enough from the wordplay.
8. Strangely I found this to be on the easier side of the recent standard at 35 mins, including 5 to get AMELIA and ELEVON, the latter not assisted by my thinking 14 must start with PRO. Must remember ELIA for future reference. I can’t recall seeing it before, although Lamb appears reasonably frequently in one guise or another. I liked TOURMALINE despite its absurdity (or maybe because of it) and RETINUE but COD to DISARRANGE.
9. …for who else has heard of F.R. Leavis and Amelia nowadays?

   Those I got right away, but a lot of the rest was hard. I left after 35 minutes with the SW corner undone, and came back later and finished in another 15 minutes.

   ‘Raeburn’ was just a guess, but seemed likely enough, and a name of ‘Wolves’ for a football team is well within the range of likely. Everything else I knew.

10. This was a great crossword as even the obscure answers were able to be derived from the gettable, yet clever wordplay. One question though. As an Aussie, UTE came quickly but I don’t understand how ‘to be defective’ indicates containment, if indeed that is how the clue works. Anyone?
    1. Well I don’t think anybody will claim it’s the best clue ever. Nor do I think that “defective” is a particularly good word to use. I took it to mean that “reputed” was “broken” by removing bits to leave UTE. I can’t see any other explanation.
       1. “defective” is also defined as “lacking or deficient” (COED), which I think makes it OK as an indicator for part of something.
       2. Thanks Jimbo. That does seem to be the best and only explanation for what is a less than satisfying clue. The rest of the puzzle more than made up for it.
          Michael
       3. It could be a very nasty homophone (signalled by “reputed”) where ute sounds like how a Scotsman pronounces “out” as in “Put the wee lamp on Moira, the bulb in the big light is oot, by the way”.

          OK, perhaps not.

          1. I think your idea has merit Penfold. After Widnes sounds like witness in Boston why not?
             1. Because there’s nothing about Scotland in the clue!
    2. >even the obscure answers were able to be derived from the gettable, yet clever wordplay.

       I don’t think 22 can be defended on that basis. IMHO a rubbish clue that’s little more than a literary general knowledge question. As I knew neither the Fielding book nor the nom de plume (and I’m sure I’m not alone) I stuffed that one up, putting Emelia.

       1. Limited sympathy, because:

          You have seen Elia before! See the blog report at http://community.livejournal.com/times_xwd_times/389415.html (found by searching the blog, feeling sure we must have had Elia in living memory)

          More importantly, two things could have got you the right answer without literary knowledge: “A male” – the only part of the answer that’s straightforward wordplay, and knowing that Amelia is a much more common name than Emelia.

          (It’s amazing how often a wrong answer is only off by one letter when it could be two or three.)

11. 16 minutes, and a few sighs of relief, because I hadn’t heard of LEAVIS or ELEVON and had to get them from wordplay. I was more worried about LEAVIS, thinking there might have been an alternative to LEAV(e).

    I don’t often leave kudos to an anagram, but KNOTTINESS is a fine clue.

12. I agree that it was a puzzle of mid-range difficulty, though there were some tricky entries. I snared myself by putting SNAP for 6, making it impossible to get the Scottish artist, until the end when I worked out the latter must be RAEBURN, then slapped in TRAP without too much thought, so 30 minutes with one error.
    I don’t agree that wordplay always led unequivocally to the right answer in the case of unfamiliar words. I guessed TOURMALINE, but TAURMOLINE would have been plausible. AMELIA rather than EMILIA, was better indicated.
13. A Toughie this at 27 minutes and then with one mistake (see above).

    I did like the use of key for esc at 5d and enjoyed 1 across which I thought had to be the name of a defunct football team. I can’t tell you how many times I counted the letters in “Wanderers” and then counted the squares and thought I must have miscounted one or t’other.

    Apropos 26, did you hear about the Lancastrian who was run over by a steam train? He was chuffed to death.

14. Something of an unexpected breeze at 15 minutes.

    I found lots to enjoy in this, interspersed with a few I didn’t know but got from wordplay (apart from UTE which I put in as the only alternative I could think of versus USE).

    Ticks went to KNOTTINESS, TOURMALINE (I like “odd” clues), ESCHEWED and RANGOON, but several others had pleasing deceptions.

    Q-1 E-7 D-7 COD KNOTTINESS (agree with George – lovely ‘gram)

    The single quibble is for UTE – there may be some justification for “defective” but it isn’t strong.

15. You’re right on both counts of course but I still think it’s a poor clue.
16. Still surprised people found this easy in view of the number of obscurities. I knew Raeburn, Leavis and Amelia, but not Ute, elevon, or tourmaline. I knew Agnus Dei as part of the mass, but not that ordinary meant mass; I didn’t know a passion flower was a climber (but am always weak on plants); I didn’t know that a dip was a pickpocket; and although pastellist has an obvious derivation, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the word used. I make that around 10 pieces of fairly recondite knowledge or vocabulary – surely much higher than the average puzzle? bc
    1. The mean was 8 last time we measured it. Go to the top of the blog, click memories, miscellaneous, clue topic analysis.
       1. Thanks Jimbo. bc
17. About 35 minutes last night, so to me a bit beyond average difficulty for me. That’s probably due, yes, to a bunch of unknowns, even though all of them eventually got worked out. I didn’t know the Wolves, RAEBURN, UTE, LEAVIS, ELEVON, AMELIA. Still fun, though. First in GRIP, last in UTE. My COD is PASTELLIST. Regards.
18. 22 min, but had a mental block with KNOTTINESS, and had to get assistance. Actually a very nice clue, but out of pique and curmudgeonliness, I am giving TOURMALINE my COD nomination. Another challenging, but not too much so, puzzle. Agree that ESCHEWED and UTE were less than perfect.
19. Oh, GRIP – I had WRAP for 6ac. As in, “it’s a wrap” – it’s in the bag, on a film set, and when you wrap food you are bagging it up – I see it’s wrong.
    Apart from 10 minutes on ELEVON, and around 5 on UTE, both of which I didn’t know, it took me 18 minutes. But it wasn’t quite a WRAP as I find out my GRIP on the puzzle was not quite complete.
20. I’m not an expert on painting but it seems to me that a pastellist is someone who uses pastels, which is not the same thing as drawing.
    1. So what word would you use? The choice here seems to be between “drawer”, “painter”, and “artist”, as “pasteller” would be a giveaway.

       All three dictionaries either use the word “drawing” in the def for pastel, or describe pastels as crayons and have “drawing” in the def for crayon. So “drawer” for “pastellist” seems perfectly OK, especially when “artist” is already used in the clue next door (7D).

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