Times 24530: two chances to use my new word!

40 comments on “Times 24530: two chances to use my new word!”

1. George, it’s ‘pick’ – ‘flower’ in the sense of ‘elite’. I was actually trying to figure out where the Pick River is when I realized this. I had the same problem with ‘christen’ – got the answer from the cryptic, and thought it must be some obscure Danish name.

   Fortunately, I remembers not getting the ‘Heaviside layer’ in some puzzle last year, otherwise I would have been stuck. I got the right-hand side fairly quickly, but the left gave me a lot of trouble. I never did see the cryptic for ‘biopic’, trying to use specific sees. Oh, well.

2. That works – I was really torn, I had PICK in my original grid with a question mark, then when I came to writing it up, went “PICK or PINK”, then read through the lists of entries for each in Chambers trying to justify one over the other. If I wasn’t blogging I would have just left it at pick and moved on… oh well
3. Yes, pronouncing ‘vittles’ as ‘whittles’ would have been typical of lower-class accents in Dickens’ day. However, it is not listed as a characteristic of Cockney speech in the Wiki article. Just as a guess, it may be a feature of older West Country dialect.
   1. In the opening chapter of Great Expectations, when Pip meets Magwitch, Magwitch uses “wittles” for “victuals”, “wain” for “vain” and “wery” for “very”, all in one paragraph!
   2. Look again – The wiki article on Cockney speech has: “Some of the [pronunciation] features may derive from the upper-class pronunciation of late 18th century London, such as the use of “ain’t” for “isn’t” and the now lost reversal of “v” and “w” (as noted by Dickens regarding Sam Weller/Veller). This element of Cockney as parody is often underestimated, it dates to a time when Cockneys earned much of their income from the rich, who they then derided at home or in the pub.”

      In Times crossword living memory, I’m sure the V/W switch has just been described as Cockney, along with the sandpiper/sandpaper homophone which also uses a feature that’s mostly “now lost”.

      1. I’m not sure about reversal as such, with its suggestion of a two-way process, but, recalling something read when doing my thesis – can’t get my hands on the source from the office – the substitution of w for v was a characteristic of Cockney of the Elizabethan era.
         1. V=>W is maybe more common in Dickensian Cockney, but here are some others from Pickwick Papers, which I really ought to read one day …

            ‘Oh! You perwerse creature’
            ‘Now vere am I to pull up?’
            ‘Most wotes carries the day’
            ‘What a prowoking little wretch’
            ‘Try an invard application, Sir’

            Not all possible subsitutions are made – “wot” doesn’t become “vot” in z8b8d8k’s quote, and we also get “wery well”.

            1. No flies on Dickens – he left ‘vot’ for stage German.
4. 18 minutes while not sleeping, either from anticipation of election fever or over excitement having watched Spurs coming forth (or third, if things go to plan on Sunday). Sam Weller is from Pickwick Papers, and had trouble with his Vs and Ws. “Vell, then, wot do you say to some wittles?’ inquired Sam” Interestingly, he and his chums played cricket in DINGLy Dell, which might explain the crossing clue.
   DULCET gave me grief: German time is surely Zeit, but that didn’t fit anything, and for a while I didn’t have TAKING to help, trying to work out where the rear of army, Y, fitted.
   DRESS DOWN FRIDAY is very old hat: in City firms of my acquaintance, occasional Fridays are now the day when, for once, you dress up.
   No real clue of the day, but I quite liked FEBRUARY for its somewhat groany soundalike.
5. On Sam Weller, Here’s a sample: the quote above is about halfway down the page
6. Mostly much simpler than yesterday’s, about 15 minutes, except for the last two: DULCET, and the toss-up between PICK and PINK. I went with PICK, a la vinyl’s logic, although it still seems less than perfect, in candor. Those two clues took another 10 minutes. I liked MEA CULPA, and FEBRUARY. Best to all.
7. Yes indeed, what a difference a day makes. 40 minutes for this – after the same time yesterday I’d written in exactly one answer. In fact, i only came up with half a dozen answers over a couple of sessions yesterday, an all-time low. I intend to go back to it one day when i’m older and wiser, whenever that might be.

   No great problems in this one, although I had no idea who Sam Weller was. My favourite was SKIN-TIGHT, a nicely worded clue.

8. Back to 24 minutes, relieved about Heaviside, sorry nothing about Election (unless mea culpa or dodo. Mouth?). Off to vote.
9. Taking meaning ‘intriguing’, captivating, winning, etc. is found in Henry James. In one of his books, there’s a music-hall style joke, where one of the characters is referred to as ‘very taking – indeed, he was always taking something’. In other words, the active version of the more common ‘taken’.
10. DNF. 50 minutes less than yesterday, but the same no. of non-completions (8). Did the east first, excepting DULCET, which I never saw, and then, having got HEAVISIDE from the wordplay in the s-w, failed miserably to spot POKER, even though I had P_ _ER and had tried inserting AI and PI.

    The hippy corner was toughest of all, not helped by failing to get DINGLE, as I didn’t look in ‘found in’, since I considered these to be functioning as the signpost words, and so concentrated my search beyond them.

    COD to BIOPIC

11. Whizzed through the puzzle apart ffrom the North West frontier which had me rather stumped…thought all of the following were quite dificult…Amused. Julian Year..i hadnt seen Mouth early on which would have stopped me playing with Hooked for 1 across which doesnt work as well as Amused i admit. Clue of day Dulcet for me…jolly vitty!
12. Another struggle but I completed all but one without resort to aids in exactly an hour. The one I didn’t get was DULCET. I think because I speak some German and have spent a lot of time in the country I was looking for something more complicated than it turned out to be.

    Very little flowed today and after about 30 minutes I ground to a halt with gaps in every quarter. The first real breakthrough was getting DRESS-DOWN FRIDAY which enabled me to complete the RH side other than the one already mentioned. And solving WHITTLES from its definition rather than the Dickens reference proved to be the key to the NW corner.

    I didn’t understand BIOPIC or PICK before coming here but I hadn’t spent much time thinking about them as I was just relieved to get within a clue of finishing.

13. 10:16, also finishing in the NW corner – we’ve got a cross-pond difference on the location of the “hippy corner” – here they gather in the SW, with Totnes possibly our hippy capital.

    I guess WHIG at 13 might just count as an election special in a puzzle with medieval calendars, lady chapels and the Pantheon.

14. 17 m. Appreciated less-usual meanings in some clues – flower, trap, commit to, intriguing and glad of blog explaining 20 properly. Liked 9, 15, 17, but I pronounce that month feb’ry, or feb’rary, without the ew sound of brewery. Another for the homophone debating chamber, love whirredploy.
15. OK, so I picked PINK, and was totally becalmed in the NW until I went for assistance for WHITTLES. Never a Dickens fan, so didn’t have a hope here. And for some of us, FEBRUARY sounds nothing like Fe + brewery, and occurs in summer, while JUL 1 is in the middle of winter. Oh well!
16. Another real devil for me. After just over an hour I still had two unsolved. I had to cheat for 1ac (didn’t know what a cat’s paw was) and didn’t get 4dn at all for the same reason as ulaca. Another example of tough clues making you miss easy ones I suspect. I could do with another easy one!
17. 24:20 with dulcet and taking last in but I have pink at 25 thinking it was something to do with pinking shears.

    I thought the misdirection of “found in” at 4 was very clever – it took me ages to look in the right place for the hidden word. Very much enjoyed skin-tight and dress down Friday but thought 27 was a bit of a stretch. I don’t normally have a beef about “dodgy” homophones if it’s a common pronunciation but I’ve never heard February rhyme with brewery.

    George, undertaking is passing a vehicle on the “wrong” side on a british motorway. Often essential if some git decides to hog the middle lane.

    Duck Soup is in my top 5 films.

    1. Hence the “Middle Lane Owners Club”, who even have their own website.
       1. Brilliant.
    2. “George, undertaking is passing a vehicle on the “wrong” side on a british motorway. Often essential if some git decides to hog the middle lane.”

       Not sure it’s quite that simple. Undertaking is where you are in the same lane as someone, then go past them on their inside and then cross in front of them again. For it to be justifiable the option of passing on the outside has to be impossible. I’m not sure there are many situations,in normally flowing traffic, where this is the case.
       Merely passing someone on the inside, while not recommended, is not quite the same thing.

18. Dress down Friday. A military expression. Personnel qwere/are allowed to dress casually on a Friday in order to get away quickly f0r the weekend without having to go back to barracks to change.
    1. Really? The origin stories I can find trace it back to business/government practice in Hawaii, spreading to the rest of the US and then this country. The military strikes me as the kind of environment where plenty of people are still on duty on Saturday and Sunday, so the notion of Friday being the end of the working week isn’t really there.
19. quite bamused by the ‘hippy’ stuff. Quite unable to discern any particular orientation in the xword itself. My understanding is your hippy was in a permanent drugged stupor in an unspecified darkened room never to be seen for fear of being persecuted and or arrested. Either he attained junkie status and eventually died or passed through crusty, pikey mutations to become a new-ager, eco-obsessed and or a green politico. In any event they are everywhere and nowhere (baby). Centralised government is like for squares (some black some white) man! Hippy chicks are another matter but they do seem to be fashion victims whatever era you care focus on. I just playing with stereotypes here just in case you’re taking me seriously.
    1. This goes back a while, I like to invent new strange terms, and so I divided up the quadrants of the crossword in American terms, so the north-west is hippy corner (Oregon and Washington today), the north-east is Yankee corner, the south-east is Florida and the south-west is California. Or variations of the sort.
20. A bit of a dog’s breakfast this one. Some good, a lot average, some not so good. I need to practice writing whirredploy (love it George) so there we are and by no stretch can I get FEBRUARY to come anywhere near “brewery”. Good to see old step function in again. Have seen WHITTLES before so no problem there. 20 minutes to solve.
21. I find a quiet pleasure in the sound of February thst in the lightest way maintains the link with its spelling, like a left-hand reminder on the piano with a natural elision on the right. All right, Pseuds’ Corner, but I don’t know how else to say it.
    1. My beef with this homophone would be that while that accent in brewery is on the first syllable, in February it’s also on the first syllable, which is ‘Feb’ not ‘brew’. Again, if one is the kind of person who likes to pronounce English words as they are spelt (or to claim to do so), then, while the primary accent would stay on ‘Feb’, the secondary one would have to fall on the third syllable, i.e. ‘air’. Either way, the stress pattern is the main problem here.
       1. The secondary accent in February doesn’t have to fall on the third syllable (it would be barbaric if it did). The ‘bruary’ of the word is a soft but pretty well accurate homophone for ‘brewery’, such that if it’s detached as in a clue-play, it’s close enough to stand for the other. But this is maybe a very English-English thing.
22. Another real devil for me. After just over an hour I still had two unsolved. I had to cheat for 1ac (didn’t know what a cat’s paw was so googled the meaning, which made it easy) and didn’t get 4dn at all for the same reason as ulaca. Another case of hard clues making you miss the easy ones perhaps. That’s my excuse anyway.
    Thought BIOPIC was a great clue… once I’d figured out the wordplay.
    I’m hoping for a nice easy one some time soon.
    1. Apologies for the double post – something weird happened that must be related to posting from a Blackberry.
23. Having spent 37 years in the military I believe I can comment on their customs.
24. Fair enough, but you didn’t tell us that before.
25. Easier than yesterday, but still a challenge for me. Didn’t really care for the homophone in 27, but I still need to open my mind ‘homophonetically’. I liked 7dn for its clever simplicity. Also I got a smile from 9ac. Couldn’t get 11dn.
    1. Does your nic mean we have another US solver here?
       1. Yes, another US solver here!

Comments are closed.