Times 24443, The secrets of the hoary deep……

54 comments on “Times 24443, The secrets of the hoary deep……”

1. I got help up for a time since I was convinced 16 down was CLODDISH and that the wordplay somehow got me there from COLD DISH. I didn’t help that I didn’t know WINDFLOWER although it was obviously a possibility. I didn’t note my time but it must have been about 30 mins.
2. And SPIT seemed to be in 3 bits. SPIT = ight rain. Then “ends up” which is TIPS up. But I don’t understand the last bit.
   1. The third def is (Mac OED):
      “a layer of earth whose depth is equal to the length of the blade of a spade” — so nearly a foot deep.
      1. I suspected that ‘spit’ also met some sort of archaic measurement, but could not confirm it through Google. I should have tried a dictionary, but was in a rush.
3. 12 mins, so I’m expecting some fast times from the real purveyors of speed. Long anagrams and some old favourites helped with the time. For example, the Goon LP was in 24,297 with “I’m Walking Backwards …” in the clue. The “Silv’ry Tay” also has goon-ic shades: thinking of Spike in his ankle-length kilt, with Sellers as Queen Vic. Notice that 17ac isn’t blogged, but it’s wonderfully fiendish for a 2-2 answer, with “This is NO” pointing to the literal. And neither is 6dn which may have the anti-archaism brigade out in force later in the day. I enjoyed it but.
   1. i’m still in search of enlightenment on 17ac. I had UH-UH, but not with any great conviction.
      1. Secret = HUSH-HUSH. Take away the two “quiet” bits (SH + SH), reverse the whole thing. This is “no”.
         1. Ah, thanks mctext. A bit laboured, belike.
            I enjoyed this up to a point, but had trouble finishing it off. The combination of BELIKE and another obscure word, LOGE, caused problems. Also couldn’t understand why there’s an ellipsis at the start of 28ac, unless I’m missing something. On the other hand, my part of Sydney is full of agapanthi (if that’s the correct plural) so 14d was no problem. A flu-affected hour-plus.
            1. Ellipsis: because there’s one at the end of 27. I think the idea is that “Chips and peas amalgamated in a capsule going out with 4” might mean something (which seems to work best when you don’t yet have the answer to 4).
            2. I thought ‘belike’ was one of the most obvious bits in the whole puzzle, and I put in ‘lodge’ pretty quickly.
               1. Google serching suggests that loge=”a box at the theatre or similar” is more commonly used in the US than the UK – though COED has “loge” with this meaning. “Loge boxes” at US sports stadia seem to be a rough equivalent of “executive boxes” at British ones. And places like the Royal Albet Hall seem to call them “loggia boxes“.
4. I had most of this within 30 minutes but was unable to finish it off for the best part of another 30. I ended with one error at 25 down where I couldn’t decide between SPIT and SPOT and eventually opted for the latter because it is both a type of light and can be applied to rain. Obviously I didn’t get the cryptic reference to “nearly a foot deep” although I did know the spit/spade thing.

   I thought there were a few obscurities here. I didn’t know WINDFLOWER or AGAPANTHUS, BELIKE meaning “perhaps”, DISH meaning “ruin” or UH-UH meaning “no”. And I’m ashamed to say I had problems with 29. I thought of IN CAMERA which obviously didn’t work but I convinced myself that I was looking for a similar Latin phrase. Not the best start to my week.

   I expect it’s a browser thing, but since Saturday I am having to log in every time I come here. Is anyone else having the same problem? I have not cleared any cookies and my Options setting is to retain them until they expire. Any suggestions would be welcome.

5. Cup of tea by my side, pen poised in eager anicipation, totally deflated when not a single answer after first run through, so grateful to finish at all albeit with help with the botany and lucky guesses at the impossible to justify SPIT and BELIKE.
   The only time I see UH UH written down is in merican novels and even then I have to pause to check if it means yes or no.
   COD to SEEING, ellipsis or not. (…with sight = seeing?).
   1. Yes, “with sight” – I suspect vinyl1 probably meant “including a cross-reference”. If you use sight=SEEING, you’re left with “with” in the clue not doing anything.
      1. Isn’t it just “going out with” = SEEING as in courting, for want of a better word?
         1. Damn – should take more care – yes it is. On the basis that the defs shouldn’t overlap, 4=sight must be the other def.
            1. My thinking was that “with” is used twice, ie. going out with and with sight. Isn’t this even remotely possible? Can’t really see sight as seeing. Still gets my COD but.
               1. My best offer for “sight” is to compare it as a sense with “hearing”. (COED’s def for hearing is “the faculty of perceiving sounds”, whereas the first def for “sight” is “the faculty or power of seeing”).

                  I have established in e-mails to the Times xwd ed that he’s prepared to bend the usual rule against “double duty” on occasion, but these occasions are extremely rare, so I always look for an explanation of the clue that doesn’t involve double duty. All-in-one / &lit clues excepted, of course. And this doesn’t prevent the possibility that an ‘overlapping def’ like “with sight” might be what gets you to the answer.

                  Edited at 2010-01-25 11:22 am (UTC)

               2. Well, that’s what I thought it was: ‘going out with’ is one definition, and ‘sight’ is another. I don’t see anything wrong with ‘sight’ = ‘seeing’.
                  1. Me too – I should have made clearer above that I was using “best offer” to describe my attempt at a crisp explanation, rather than the least worst of a set of near-miss defs.
6. Struggled a bit with this – 11:42. Fell into the false fodder trap for a while at 2D – “hand over avenger” is the right length, and then was convinced for a while that the end would be NERVE, possibly “one’s nerve”. Also had a wrong stab (not entered, fortunately) of MASH at 12. Another trap fallen into at 9D – looking for (brat made)*. Getting AGAPANTHUS from the final ‘this’ was a better moment.

   Final bother wth 25D where I didn’t know (or maybe remember) the ‘spade’ part, and felt that a spot of rain and tops=ends were nearly as good as the correct spit and tips. Spit = “light rain” (i.e. a light fall of rain) is clear from Collins, not quite so clear in COED which just has “(it spits, it is spitting, etc.) light rain falls”. So my final answer was a case of the fairly desperate championship contestant’s logic: “if it really is a 50/50 guess, you may as well guess quickly” – sometimes followed by the realisation that it’s not 50/50 and you’ve backed the wrong horse.

   Edited at 2010-01-25 09:11 am (UTC)

   1. I’m in good company then! Fell into all the same traps as you, also considering HASH at 12ac. My better moment was thinking McGonagall when seeing Silv’ry River, but otherwise a slow, woolly-headed 19:11. A lot of good clues, but my favourite was 17ac UH-UH. How many times has SPACESHIP appeared recently? At least three or four times in the last fortnight that I can remember.

      Seemed pretty tricky for a Monday to me anyway, so well done mctext and fmks for your fast times.

7. The older you get the less likely a pb – and today when 1a solved at sight I glanced at the clock and 8 minutes later 25d was in. You could say I was somewhat surprised. The next pb will be harder to come by. I cannot work out why I found it easy.
8. I thought most of this was pretty standard fare although I had to take an educated guess at BELIKE. As Rich notes, AGAPANTHUS are like weeds in Sydney suburbs. As for SPIT, as a kid I used to look after the vegetable patch in the garden and the books always stressed that one had to dig the soil two spits deep for root vegetables.

   Wonderful to be reminded of the appalling genius of McGonagall!

   1. Indeed, and you will always remember the date of the Tay Bridge disaster – “the last Sabbath day of 1879”

      Harry Shipley

   2. > Wonderful to be reminded of the appalling genius of McGonagall!

      Though perhaps not on Burns Night?

9. This could be a lack of broadness of my understanding, but does SPIT work for “light rain” on its own – ie if it was a verb it would be “lightly rain” and SPITTING as an adjective seems to be the other usage. I dont recall hearing of “being out in the spit” or anything like that.

   Also, silly seems a little misleading for CHILDISH, hence why i also spent time on things like CLOTTISH and CLODDISH. The logic here being that to be a child or like a child may at times imply a lack of many adult traits, however the slightly derogatory term SILLY may be a little too much.

   1. Collins has “a light or brief fall of rain, snow, etc.” I can’t think of any real-life examples either.

      Both Collins and COED support childish=silly in the def for childish: they have “foolish or petty” and “silly and immature”, respectively. Someone like a child in a good way is usually “childlike” – a distinction made in many a sermon.

      Edited at 2010-01-25 12:30 pm (UTC)

10. Collins defines one meaning of ‘mega’ as slang for extremely good, great, or successful. Also one definition of ‘spit’ is a brief, scattered rainfall or snowfall.
11. I completed most of it in 15 minutes with little difficulty, but struggled to fill the NE quadrant, having only 11, 17 and 7 for a while, then I got 13’s author, after which the rest fell quickly. 25 minutes altogether. WINDFLOWER was the last entry, not a word that I’m familiar with, though FLOWER was obvious at an early stage, but I did recognize the other flower at 14. I missed the precise definition in 17, though I had little doubt about the answer from the wordplay. I was also tempted by CLODDISH before entering WINDFLOWER.
12. I really struggled with this for some reason stopping the clock at 33 minutes.

    I’d associate “not all there” with lack of mental stability rather than lack of intelligence.

    At 9d for too long I was trying to construct an anagram out of “brat made” so clever misdirection there.

    Do megatarts work in superbrothels? That’s my COD anyway – mega as a slang term for “very good” works fine for me.

13. 22:58 .. found this tricky throughout.

    Like Barry, I always have to stop and think when I see ‘uh-uh’ in American novels, especially as a few authors also use ‘uh-huh’ for agreement, and I’m sure I’ve seen ‘uh-uhn’ as variant of the negative. All very confusing.

    1. Certainly in speech I think the negative uh-uh has a “n” on the end and a falling cadence; as yes I think it is a rising one.
       1. Sorry for being a day late and a dollar short with the timing here, but, in American, ‘uh uh’ means no, ‘uh huh’ means yes. The pronunciation of ‘uh’ is slightly different when moving from the positive to the negative.
14. Another slow woolly head who tried till the very last drop of lanolin to make a word from “brat made”, so snap to penfold. I ended up with question marks all over the place but only the last bit of spit, loge and McGonagall finally defeated me. Roll on Tuesday.
15. I found this only moderately difficult ( which by my standards means somewhere between 30 and 40 mins), apart from one or two clues, so was chuffed to discover that even some of the speed merchants struggled a bit. I shared Peter B’s experience with 9dn and 25dn. I wasted much time on the former trying to make an anagram out of “brat made”, and, being ignorant of the “depth” meaning of SPIT, was torn on the latter between SPOT and SPIT both of which seemed to fit the rest of the clue almost equally well. In the end, luckily, I plumped for SPIT on the grounds that it was closer to meaning “light rain” than SPOT and that its reverse, TIPS, was closer to “ends” than TOPS. WINDFLOWER was a guess from wordplay. I particularly liked the ingenious and amusing UH-UH at 17ac – though evidently from comments above it is not to everyone’s taste – which I nominate for COD. I was astonished that Vinyl thought it too easy to be even worth a mention – but on reflection I guess that “uh-uh” suggests itself as a synonym for “no” more readily to an American than a British ear. A rare occasion, belike, of the Times cryptic favouring Yank rather than Limey solvers.
    1. Yeah, I just shoved a few of the four-letter ones in from the literal without thinking about them too much. The checking letters don’t leave much choice.
16. Just under 30 minutes.

    Agonised over SPOT or SPIT at 25d but plumped for the right one. However, SPOT can mean ‘[spot]light’ and I have heard people says ‘it’s spotting with rain’.

    Wanted to put in ‘TURN IN ONES GRAVE’ early on because of the reference to ‘late’ but couldn’t see the wordplay for a long time, so held back.

    Liked EVERYWHERE because of the clever build up of the wordplay. Got AGAPANTHUS only from the wordplay.

17. 19.30. Unlike Vinyl I found this of above average difficulty. I thought 17 was a fiendish clue and more difficult as I struggled to get 8 as well. A bit embarrassed not to see the Tay reference as it is less than a mile from where I sit (doesn’t look so silv’ry today I can tell you).2,15,20 and 22 all took some thought and as with many of you I ended up taking a 50/50 on SPIT over SPOT without getting the ‘foot deep’ reference
18. I knew I was in for a hard time when the two easiest answers were the names of flowers. I finished with Impaired after finally abandoning the idea that the answer was an anagram. Unfortunately, I also Spot, on the toss of a coin.

    I also had ah-ah at 17. I always say uh-uh when I mean yes. No wonder no-one understands me.

19. A little against the trend I had no problem with this and finished in just under 15 minutes. I found quite a lot of it was a bit old hat with both SPACESHIP and THACKERAY making encores after fairly recent appearances. I guessed BELIKE and the Lily from word play. I think UH-UH is a clever piece of word play but like others wasn’t quite sure what it meant.
20. No real problems here, just under 20 mins and would have been less but for 17ac.. I feel a bit grumpy about it, partly because it’s not an idiom I’ve come across in practice, but mainly because I failed to work out the wordplay properly, until reading the comments here 🙂
21. Its all been said. a relatively fast 38 minutes for me. liked it but as many have said quite a lot of relatively easy clues.
    around 5/10
    childish was my answer of the day to the COD
    liked that one!
22. 25 down = a digging reference!
23. started drunk, finished with a hangover, put in WILDFLOWER for 20 instead of the correct answer. Let’s chalk this up as a poor start to the week for me and hope it’s better by Thursday.
24. Started sober, finished…well, I didn’t. Couldn’t get UH-UH and spent a long time worrying about SPIT. 8D EVERYWHERE is my COD.

    Tom B.

25. I found 24 rather tricky, since both ROW and TEAR have two different pronunciations. And despite the comments, I still can’t see why 27 runs on into 28.
    1. But “tear” sounds like “tier” (row). Ellipses: they do this sometimes. Usually it adds nothing to either clue. Though beware: sometimes it does.
       1. Thanks. I did eventually solve it. The tricky part for me was that ROW can rhyme with with either SO or COW; and the answer can rhyme with either TIER or TARE.
    2. Addition to previous comment: If you drop the ellipses, 28’s clue becomes “Going out with 4”. This and the translation to “Going out with sight” are the sort of nonsense mocked by John Grant (Times xwd ed 1983-95) when he said “the most damning thing you can say about a crossword clue is that it could only be a crossword clue”. Adding this text to 27’s clue makes it more plausible, though not a great deal more.
26. 
    The solution appears to be HUSH-HUSH reversed without the “SH”, but what is the literal?

    Mike

    1. “It is ‘no’….”

       Punctuation added.

27. Do you not think that the use of out and out Americanisms should be discouraged? Especially ones as vague as UH UH.
28. Wiktionary lists both “uh-uh” and “unh-uh” as ways of saying “no.” This, however, is rubbish. If one says “unh-uh” here in the US, one is indeed understood to be saying “no.” If one says “uh-uh,” one is understood to be stalling, stammering or stuttering.
    Wiktionary is wrong, and the setter – if an American – should have known better.

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