Times 24596 – GBS’s Female Officer

27 comments on “Times 24596 – GBS’s Female Officer”

1. ….and I never understood ‘gown’, although I suspected a subtraction clue from a Hindi or Malay word.

   For quite a while I thought ‘frankfurter’ was the only English word that fits in 7 down, but of course it makes no sense. Then I saw ‘Major Barbara’, and got the ‘master’ component and saw it in a flash – but I still took a bit to work out the cryptic.

   The SW is difficult because the clues have so many possibilities. The biggest problem with a clue like 19 is that it has so many possibilities. For example, ‘Say, crew cut run’ could indicate SACRER, if that meant ‘fast reportedly on occasion’ – but it doesn’t. The real answer is much simpler, but you have to get the right end of the stick to see it. Same thing with the ‘oddment’ clue, you want ‘soldiers’ to be ‘or’ or ‘re’, and they turn out just to be ‘men’. My first thought was something like ‘outcast’, but of course it doesn’t fit.

   The only really obscure bit is the ‘Orsino’/’hairdo’/’gown’ crossing, I suspect that will get many solvers today.

2. Agreed, an interesting medium-to-light gauge puzzle. 22 minutes, with most time working out FLOCKMASTER (which, as Uncle Yap has it, should probably be hyphenated?) and GOWN. “Mast” is a bit obscure I suppose; though no doubt known to the barred-puzzle contingent. Only remembered “godown” from Midnight’s Children and, on look-up, it seems to have various possible origins (Mac OED):
   late 16th cent.: from Portuguese gudão, from Tamil kiṭaṅku, Malayalam kiṭaṅṅu, or Kannada gadaṅgu ‘store, warehouse’.
   1. Now that I’ve had a chance to look at the big Oxford, it’s more definite about the Malay origin: giving gadong and godong.
3. To really screw yourself up in what I think is already a toughie, try tossing SANTA BARBARA in to 14 ac on first sight of “holiday island”. Made fairly good progress throught the top third, then stuttered to a halt. Had to use aids on a number of occasions to struggle through in about 90 min. So Uncle Yap, you must be in great form! Two minds about COD. SWIFTIAN and PROPOSITION both have great surfaces, but the latter gets the nod. Set theory indeed!
   1. ….Santa Barbara is a city in California, and not an island at all.
      1. Ah but it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Barbara_Island and was the very first view I had of the US of A arriving from across the Pacific on a glorious dawn morning
         1. Not only is Santa Barbara an island, but it was so named because it was discovered on Saint Barbara’s Day, so it really is a holiday island.

            I found the whole puzzle quite difficult (and in fact couldn’t quite complete it) because, well, I didn’t know about the Shaw play, the Malay warehouse and a few other things, and some more obvious clues were thwarted by having incorrect crossing letters. Ah well, live and learn…

4. Off to a slow start and a full 3 minutes passed without anything going in until I came to the anagram at 6dn.

   After that I made swift progress in the SE and some inroads into the NW and then ground to a halt.

   In the NE I spotted the possibility of FLOCKMASTER which I looked up to see if it existed – it doesn’t according to Collins and COED, but Chambers has it with a hyphen – and then that quarter fell into place without further problems.

   As others have already noted the SW was the most difficult and I took far to long to see PROPOSITION even with all the checking letters except the last in place. Fortunately I knew ORSINO having been involved in a production of Twelfth Night at school. GOWN went in on a wing and a prayer from the definition ‘dress’. I had no idea what the rest of the clue was about before coming here.

   1. Forgot to add, 50 minutes in all with one cheat at 7dn.
5. I thought this was a medium-tricky fun puzzle. At 13ac I wasn’t sure about the singular “squash” and plural “pumpkins” but it seems squash can be used in an “uncountable” sense.

   It was nice at 25ac to see a common cryptic direction (“out East”) uased in its normal sense, a sort of double-bluff.

6. Well, once I got steam up I went through this in under 20mins, so I guess Uncle Yap is right and it wasn’t all that difficult, but it felt hard while I was solving it. cod to Swiftian, such an elegant construction.

   Having been away for some weeks, I have just finished ploughing through over a month’s worth of Times cryptics at four or five a day.. perhaps it has sharpened me up a bit!

7. 28 minutes and quite glad to duck under the half-hour as there were several nifty turns to negotiate. COD 19 as a lovely example of sending one in the wrong direction. One looks for shadows when the outline’s there. Thanks to Uncle Yap for his spare, informed, exact document. The Cabinet of solvers, if I can put it like that, is an awesome thing.
8. 30 minutes. Thanks for explaining GOWN; I knew those letters were stored somewhere in an eastern warehouse but could not bring its name to mind.
9. 21 minutes, not counting the changeover at Stratford (perhaps I should – mental tickover seems to be important as my remaining clues went in quickly once perched on a “seat”). Decent set of clues this: I liked 23, spending time trying to think of all the prevailing sea currents I’d forgotten about since Geography O level: EPIDEMIC is my CoD. Last in the HAIRDO/GOWN crossing, the former because it really could have broken down in too many ways, and the latter because I got gown = dress and wanted to work out how the rest of the clue worked – which I did. FLOCKMASTER looked made-up but plausible. Anyone complaining about the bespectacled Duke?
10. 21:20 here. Most of it went in fairly quickly, but I rashly put in SANTA BARBARA thinking it was probably some lesser-known West Indian paradise, even though I could only see half the wordplay (note to self: stop doing that!), which made 12D a very difficult PROPOSITION. I also had FLOCK???TER for a long time, but didn’t think of MAST until I had the A in place. No problem with GOWN, as I knew GODOWN from Noble House by James Clavell.
11. Quite a struggle here (16:42) – only 22 out of the acrosses on first look, and 4, 5, 25 of the downs. Falsely justified MAJOR in 14 as “not clubs”, major suits in bridge being spades and hearts – I’d long ago decided that “play” had to be the def, and that it wasn’t one of the old Shakespeare favourites.

    I suspect the “this was quite easy” are the ones who saw the answer to 1A easily and never realised it was a tricky puzzle.

12. This was tricky with a nicely varied set of clues. I was grateful for the one or two clichés thrown our way – The GI in amigo and the only 2-letter poem I know in the wordplay for Swiftian. I particularly liked Epidemic. I spent a lot of time trying to get tide backwards into it rather than Medi.

    The unlikely-looking flockmaster was my last one in. A post-solve check confirms that the new Oxford Dictionaries site has it as one word. When I googled the word to find out if it existed I got a reference to Sheep! Magazine : The Voice of the Independent Flockmaster. Love the exclamation mark.

    1. Published, no doubt, in New Zealand?
13. This time let down by ignorance. I’ve never heard of Major Barbara (GBS was deeply unfashionionable when I was at university) which made 14ac a difficult clue. I had figured out how the wordplay worked so perhaps I should have persevered.
    GODOWN and MAST were thoroughly unheard of for me so those clues went in on a wing and a prayer.
14. A puzzle of of middling difficulty for me. Certainly not easy. FLOCKMASTER was also my last in. I first entered STOCKMASTER, which made 7ac even tougher than it already was. Lots of ingenious and inventive clues – I particularly liked EPIDEMIC, NETWORKING, GOWN, FACE and HAIRDO. Interesting to see a further foray into sexual slang with NOOKIE, not long after we had “a bit of the other” producing BORDELLO, if I remember correctly. My only minor gripe was the (to me, superfluous) role of the personal pronoun “I” in the clue to 2dn (UPHEAVAL). Seems to me that this clue would have read better along the lines of “You, say, have changed in China’s revolution”, or something of the sort. But excellent puzzle otherwise.
15. 31:45 which is slowish for me but was pleased with an all-correct finish after yesterday’s tribulations.

    Gown and the mast part of flockmaster put in based on gut instinct alone.

16. 4th qualifier seems strangely familiar.
17. 21 minutes. I know the word godown from working in the Jute trade a good few years ago where the raw material came from godowns in Calcutta or Dhaka. Stupidly had SANTA BARBARA in as a holiday island. That made 12 more difficult and that was last in. Good puzzle. Off to Spain for 10 days so will pick up the Times there and enjoy my solving but won’t be near a computer so no comments for a while.
18. Couldn’t finish last night so I retrieved it this morning and guessed my way through to the end, finishing with CARPET, TAP and GOWN. Didn’t know the Malay origin word, ‘mast’, the 1A phrase from wordplay only, and many other very tricky devices. I’m actually surprised that my various guesses were all correct. Uncle Yap, nicely blogged, but I can’t say this was easy; quite the opposite. Over an hour all told. Regards all.
19. About 15 mins-ish.

    A small point: I think the analysis of 14ac has to be BARBAR *instead of* C in MAJORCA rather than BARBAR in MAJORCA without the C, otherwise there aren’t enough ‘in’s in the clue.

    The answer ONE-HORSE TOWN reminds me of an excellent clue for ONE-HORSE a couple of years ago, can anyone remember it? I badly paraphrase it as ‘Mean what old Scandinavian rings’, but it had a better surface than that.

20. Much the same as others. Steady enough progress without ever really moving quickly. Had to guess GOWN. 30 minutes to solve so a tad on the tough side for me.
21. I had no real trouble with this puzzle: 32 minutes is better than my average.

    Giggled at NOOKIE, no problem with HAIRDO/GOWN etc but paused for thought with JUST THE JOB and PROPOSITION, my COD.

    Very nice challenge!

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