Times 24650: 1 across, 5 across (I hope) and I 23 down for 21

56 comments on “Times 24650: 1 across, 5 across (I hope) and I 23 down for 21”

1. Try reversing ASSERTS.
   1. Wot?
      No comments.
      Full parsing please.
      1. Full clue: To emphasise this area would show backward states

         To emphasise: def. of STRESS
         this area would show: this answer, followed by A=area, would be …
         backward states: … STRESSA = reversal of ‘asserts’

         Subject of course to the convention that to be is to show, because the answer is shown in the grid.

         1. Many thanks, as ever.
2. Another tough-ish one I thought. 36 minutes. Last in 16 which cost me 5 minutes with 4 checking letters. I must say I like a crossword that begins Despair and Stress.
3. Agreed, another tough one. 76 minutes for me, slightly quicker than yesterday. I was all set to argue that despite the lovely reversals, a BARGEPOLE isn’t used for punting, but I see it’s defined that way in the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary. In my experience bargepoles are used for fending, or for shifting your boat when it’s stuck at the side of the canal. The Concise OED certainly gives it a fending role, and offers PUNT-POLE for what happens on the Cam. I’ll be interested to hear what the approved dictionaries have to say.
   1. I suppose a bargepole is most generally known as the instrument of ultimate non-touchability.
   2. I see you just beat me to it, Rich. I couldn’t find any justification in Collins or COED but I may have missed something as I only had a quick look.
4. I made rather heavy weather of this and for a long time had mostly odd words scattered throughout the grid.

   At 35 minutes it had joined up and I was left with five unsolved clues in the NE corner: 5ac, 6,7,9 & 12. Of course 5ac had to be STRESS but I couldn’t explain it so it didn’t go in. If I’d had a bit more courage over this the remaining clues might have fallen sooner instead of adding another 25 minutes to my solving time.

   I know very little about it but I don’t think a barge is the same as a punt, nor a barge pole the same as a punt pole.

   1. Did anyone else find that today’s clues didn’t quite fit into one page of A4? I thought we were missing 27ac until I later found it left behind on the printer on a separate sheet.
      1. They fitted easily on my first print as I’d forgotten that I still had a 70% scale factor seting from printing some badly-made web page yesterday. Still plenty of room after adjusting to 100% (Firefox 3.5.2).
         1. Thanks. I’m using Firefox 3.6.10. If it happens regularly I’ll just preview and scale down when necessary.
5. 10:45, which should have been just under 10 – couldn’t see wordplay for DESPAIR, and with the big day approaching, I’m trying to make sure I don’t rush into wrong answers. Eventually saw {P.A. = secretary} just as I was deciding that I couldn’t find anything else to fit – searches confirm that there’s nothing else for D?S?A?R. 13 and 10 entered from def. and checkers.
6. ..but then became completely stuck. So I took a break, came back, and at once saw ‘stress’, ‘rocketeer’ and ‘Magritte’. But I had to take another break before I could get ‘caseload’, my last in.

   I didn’t get a few of the cryptics, solving ‘bargepole’, ‘stress’, and ‘keep ones eye on’ from the literals.

   I did not think this was a very hard puzzle, and was annoyed that it took me so long.

7. See quant [2] in ODE.

   sidey

   1. quant¹ in the version available to UK public library members. Or an unlikely-sounding source – the Chinese Scooter Club discussion forum: “Where it was not possible to have a tow path, then the barges were ‘punted’ with a pole. Hence the term ‘Barge pole’. “
      1. Forgot to say that the Concise and ODE defs mention propulsion of the barge, though not punting specifically.
         1. Just seen your supplementary. I think it would be correct to say one might use a bargepole to punt a barge but maybe not to punt a punt. What fun! But who cares, it was an easy enough clue.
8. 39 minutes . Enjoyed this one very much. Ceci n’est pas un navet?
9. After yesterday’s total failure I was quite determined to be slightly more successful today.
   I didn’t get pestle, even though it is not that difficult now I see the answer, all I could come up with was nettle. Still don’t understand why E=quarter, can someone enlighten me please? Oh, short for east, a quarter of the compass?
   The rest went in fairly smoothly, but not with total understanding of the wordplay of 5a, 19a, 10d.
   So to me not a hard puzzle, no obscure words or horrible cricket clues. When I saw the bowler mentioned, I thought, oh no, I will leave that for last, something with that dreaded sport again. Turned out to be a nice painter, solved it from the literal.
   I had to look up vanes, never heard of it.
   Pleased to see a Dutch philosopher.
   1. Quarter: you’ve got it – see no. 5 here.
      1. Thank you, Peter. Will try to remember it.
   2. Isabel

      I’m sorry you have an aversion to cricket (references). I’m afraid that they are a Times crossword fact of life. I suggest that you refer to Peter’s guide under UK References where he provides simple help for cricketophobes!

      Hope this helps.

      1. Thanks James, and don’t take my words too seriously, the aversion is not so much to cricket as to my own stupidity not being able to remember what’s what. Unfortunately I can’t find Peter’s guide, where should I look, it sounds very useful.
         1. http://www.biddlecombe.demon.co.uk/yagcc/
            1. Thanks! Don’t know why I never found it before, I bookmarked it now, so more easily accesible.
10. I think this one was in the hard to see why it felt so hard category (as many hyphens as you like in there). 22 minutes, with an estimated 3 minute break for transfer between trains.
    Not as enjoyable as yesterday’s, but I liked 1d, though it may well have been done before. MAGRITTE was my last in with too many parsing variables to concentrate on one line – I did it, without much clue about what I was looking for, the alphabet way. Then decided it was an excellent clue.
    I’m not touching the bargepole controversy with…
11. Enjoyable and straightforward for me. Not troubled by ‘bargepole’. I assumed ‘punting’ referred to a general means/method of propulsion. Whilst you may, or may not, be able to use a bargepole to punt a punt, I presume you are able to use a bargepole to punt a barge.
12. Foolishly, I printed this off while watching the cricket highlights just after midnight. Had about 6 solved by the time Eoin Morgan reached his hundred and decided to user a solver for 1d in the hope I could eventually get to bed. For some reason I found this infinitely more difficult than yesterday’s faux stinker. Clearly I am not a multi tasker. COD to 1d just for its bare-faced cheek.
13. Got to 35 min and decided I needed a life today, so I used aids for the last 2 missing answers, although they weren’t that hard really. Nice puzzle though. 1d. raised a smile when I got there.
14. I also made hard work of this having to work away at it without inspiration so 30 slightly laborious minutes. Perhaps it’s something in the air. It’s always slightly puzzling when you look back and can’t really see where the trouble came from because with hindsight it all looks relatively straightforward.

    I have no experience of punts or their poles but did once holiday on a barge, spending a lot of time rushing dementedly around opening and closing locks and fending the barge off things with a pole. Sum total of knowledge. Last in MAGRITTE from wordplay, failing to make the connection with bowler hats.

    1. My suggestion for the reason this one is “harder than it looks” is that apart from some single-letter wordplay elements (the result of the Times xwd’s short list of allowed one-letter abbreviations), I can’t find any of the clichéd bits of crossword (or specfically Times crossword) “trickery” that some of us rely on for fast times – no see=ELY, or constitution=TUM. The nearest I can see in a wordplay element is support=TEE, but that hardly counts in days when support=BRA is probably more common.

       I also can’t see any routine answers except a few short ones like ELUDE and ASIDE.

       1. Good analysis which I agree with. It just shows how reflex we become doing these puzzles and how much harder we have to work at it if made to think. Well done setter.
15. I got a new PC last week and I’ve just discovered the default font in this version of Firefox is 18. I’ve changed it to 16 and all is now well.
16. 11:24 on a headache; last in 16dn (CASELOAD).  No unknowns for once, though LEGATO (15ac) was unfamiliar.  Mostly held up by 1ac (DESPAIR), 1dn (DISHONOURABLE), 14dn (MINCEMEAT) and 18dn (TORTURE).

    12ac (THEREFORE) was a brave attempt at an &lit., but I don’t think it works as a definition, even taking the question mark into account.

    Fans of Timothy Dalton and/or Jennifer Connelly – in my case, both – may have seen the mediocre film ROCKETEER (6dn).  (If you don’t like the IMDb redesign, help is at hand.)

    Clue of the Day: 18dn (TORTURE), with a hat tip to the definition in 19ac (MAGRITTE).

17. Well, I must say that I thought this was a very good puzzle. It took me about 40 minutes, with most of the fun coming near the end. Mark, I thought THEREFORE did work as an &lit, as did TORTURE, and I especially liked the two long downs at 1 and 10. But special credit to the splendid STRESS, my last entry. To the setter: from me, thank you kindly. This is one of those puzzles that reminds me of why we do these puzzles. In addition to that, MAGRITTE was brilliant. Best regards to all.
    1. (1) Is THEREFORE a reference?
       (2) What is the function of “mostly” in the definition?
       1. Hi Mark. “Therefore” seems to certainly be a word commonly appearing in a logically proven proposition, is it not? “Reference”, meaning “a word commonly used” in a particular context, does work for me, even if not exactly precise. “Mostly” appears to me to be a direction to drop the “M” from “theorem”. That’s my opinion, for what it’s worth. Best regards.
          1. (1) I’ve never seen or heard “reference” being used to mean a word commonly used in a particular context, and it’s not given in any dictionary I have access to (including the brand-new draft entry for the 3rd edition of the OED).

             (2) On the cryptic reading of the clue, “mostly” does indeed do what you say it does; but an &lit. clue is supposed to work both as a cryptic indication and as a definition of the answer, and it’s the latter that I’m concerned with here.

             1. You could make a fairly desperate plea that as every word but one in “Reference in logically proved proposition” is exactly right, “mostly” is telling you that the preceding parts of the clue are mostly right.

                That, in combination with allowing “reference” to mean what it conceivably might mean rather than what it really means, is the best I can do as Counsel for the Defence.

             2. I took “mostly” to mean it’s not commonly seen outside the context of a formal argument. Then again, maybe someone has done a study and found that it’s the most frequently used link word between consecutive lines of unintelligible symbology in proofs; a clear winner over “hence”, “so”, “we see that”, “we have”, “similarly”, “clearly” and “after a moment’s thought” in that order.

                Reference in the sense of “a mention” is presumably the idea, but in that context “referenced” would perhaps be better. For the sake of an &lit, is not some compassion for the setter allowed?

                Given that Collins has “reference = the relation between a word or phrase and the object or idea to which it refers” there’s a doff of bowler to Magritte here as well, isn’t there?

                1. “therefore” may be mentioned (i.e. used) in proofs, but that kind of mention isn’t what “reference” as noun or verb means – otherwise vurtually all books “reference” the definite article, the verbs “to be” and “to have”, and other common material.

                   More latitude does seem to be allowed for &lits. When this is harmless latitude like applying descriptions like “at heart” or “essentially” to almost any word, I don’t mind (though I much prefer the ones that avoid doing this), but a mismatch of meaning like this makes the clue rather a disappointment for me on close inspection. For me, if &lits are to deserve the extra credit they normally get, they have to work just as well as other clues are expected to – if that means fewer &lits, fair enough.

                   1. I do wish LiveJournal would catch up with Facebook, YouTube, etc.  All I want to say here is “Like”, “thumbs up”, or – one for the Usenet veterans among us – “me too“.
                   2. The current trend in scientific writing is to reference even the most banal of statement, leading to even more turgid prose and unreadability. I’ve often joked that soon “the” will have to be properly referenced on all occurrences to the originator of the concept. So, we seem to be on the same wavelength in that respect.

                      Collins allows a less formal meaning of reference in its “mention” or “allusion to” as a separate entry from formal references in a paper (say). Couple this with the dual meaning of reference being the citation itself and that which is cited, leads to “reference = that which is mentioned”, which can’t be too far wrong, can it?

                      And yes, I’d agree with you (me two?) that all clues, including &lits, have to stand up to scrutiny. We’ve probably all thought of cracking clues which fall down because of an apostrophe or plural which is required in the cryptic but not the surface, or vice versa.

18. 34 minutes of 1A, 5A & 18D but I got there in the end. I wasn’t helped by a couple of rash entries, THESAURUS for 12A and SPOTTED for 2D (the second of which at least seemed reasonable), but also had a big empty SE quarter for a long time.
19. 30 minutes, much of it very enjoyable. I particularly liked the way dishonourable and pestle worked but have to give my COD to Magritte.
20. 23 minutes. Another enjoyable puzzle in which difficulty came from ingenious clues rather than obscurity. The only thing I didn’t know in this was “canned” meaning “drunk” but it was clear once I had all the checkers. I liked 1dn and the clever “quarter pounder” in 26ac.
21. 15 minutes , a game of two halves. About 12 minutes for first half and felt it was going to be a long plod then got 1a and that led to 1d and the difficult SW corner. Black marks for failing to see the hidden RINGTONE or the MINCEMEAT anagram quickly enough but happy to get the tricky CASELOAD and my COD , MAGRITTE.
    Last in PESTLE another clue which I liked.
22. I struggled horribly with this, eventually getting home in 50 minutes. Seemed to me to be as difficult as yesterday’s!

    I had COMBINE for a while at 20D and KEEP……IN at 10D. Neither could be correct, I correctly concluded. I am avoiding Bargepole arguments! COD to STRESS.

23. What a fine crossword! There were some magnificent surfaces, for example 17ac, 26ac, 21dn and indeed 1dn. congrats to the setter.

    I only know bargepole from the untouchability aspect, and I confess I see barges and punts as fundamentally different animals.. but I punted up and down the Cam for years and only ever called it “the pole.”

24. 29:28 .. really pleased with myself for remembering ‘potted’ for ‘drunk’ – which caused me ten minutes of problems at the end trying to make 8a and 11a work before remembering that just because you’ve inked something in doesn’t mean it’s actually the answer.

    Pretty enjoyable again, especially DISHONOURABLE, PESTLE and the splendid MAGRITTE.

25. Took me all day, off and on, but mostly off. I thought it splendid, despite the trouble it caused me. MAGRITTE was last in. STRESS is highly original, but COD to TORTURE.
26. Well, this felt like a stinker to me! Only managed half during a concerted effort lunchtime, managed all but 8 in bits and bobs this afternoon, which swiftly fell into place while half watching TV. Lots of nice clues which, in retrospect, shouldn’t have been so hard. Pleased to have persevered without recourse to aids.
27. Quick scan on here before bedtime to see if anyone else had tried to ram in SCHADENFREUDE into 1D, which I thought may have crossed at least one others mind. Perhaps I am just odd!

    Had the R—E at the end, shameful loss was “almost” shameful joy, and for some reason FREUD almost inferred coldness…FROID(?)

    ….no perhaps this was unique. Anyhow, at least there were seventy two other checkers to disabuse me of this notion. Other than this, went fairly smoothly into half of eastenders so perhaps 15 mins….

28. I thought 9 across was Chink (opening) not click? What do you think?
    1. Clue: Opening of coconut: beat or hit it off. For CLICK, I can see a complete explanation:

       Opening of “coconut” = C
       beat = LICK
       or = “is the same as”
       hit it off = CLICK

       For CHINK, I can only see (Opening = CHINK) and chinking something being just about OK as to beat or hit it. “of coconut” as an intro to the beating seems over-specific and inaccurate – to chink is to “make or cause to make a light , high-pitched ringing sound, as of glasses or coins striking together” (not coconuts!). And there’s definitely no role for the final “off” in the clue.

       So although CHINK has some relevant stuff in the clue, CLICK it must be – it’s now just past midnight and the solution confirms this.

       On a practical basis: given the combined knowledge and crossword experience here, any wrong answers in the original report are normally spotted in one of the first few comments. I can’t recall any time when we’ve had a wrong answer still there in the evening.

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