Times 24692 – kNICKers in a twist

50 comments on “Times 24692 – kNICKers in a twist”

1. Beautifully blogged! The NE corner was indeed rather challenging, with TANGA and SOLIDUS new to me. A crafty, enjoyable puzzle with some nice misdirections (New College threw me for a bit, until I spotted the hiding monkey). I had figured EARED was something to do with a “dog-eared” page, which is also something “handled”, but I fear the blog is probably right.
2. …’grasps at straws’ and the careless ‘cartoid’, which I kept for a long time. However, I was determined to atone for yesterday’s debacle, and eventually solved it completely and correctly without book.

   I parsed 5 as a triple: ‘very pink’, ‘girl’s temperature’, and ‘giving most cause for optimism’. I also didn’t get it until well into the second hour, but that’s a different story.

   I was not impressed by the quality of some of the clues:

   10. How can ‘heart stopping left’ mean ‘left stopping heart’?

   6. A crib is not really a plagiarism, but rather a schoolboy’s trot.

   15. ‘Thro’ is very tenuous. In the US we write ‘thru’, but I don’t think they write ‘thro’ anywhere.

   On the other hand, the clues that were good were very good indeed. ‘Oubliette’, ‘Brideshead’, and ‘inelastic’ were all excellent.

   1. “Stopping” (10) seems perfectly OK to me for “including”.
      Crib: the Mac Oxford has, inter alia: “a thing that has been plagiarized: is the song a crib from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni?”
      Thro: this is the poetic version I guess.
   2. I’m not a huge fan of “stopping” as a two-way containment indicator, but it happens often enough at the Times for me to consider both possibilities, and we’ve discussed it before – see the comments here
3. Great blog Uncle Yap. Similar experiences top right and bottom left. No idea about the tanga and the Nana. Though I think we should all adopt the word “solidus” in place of the ugly “forward slash”. Anyone else lured into Anagramville at 1ac? Turns out that “boutiques” + R can make “soubriquet” (cf 12ac) — but the def says otherwise. And with little to go on, I was suspecting “dishwater” at 8dn. 44 minutes all up.
   Isn’t 5dn a mix of def #1 (very pink) + cryptic (girl’s temperature) + def #2 (giving most cause for optimism)?
   1. … re 5dn. Apologies.
4. An hour and 25 for this one, with one mistake (I’m the cruciverbal equivalent of a Roman mosaic – always with at least one flaw lest the gods be offended by attempted perfection). This time, lured by the tower at 26, I lost my head and went with ‘traitor’. Last in TANGA, after I had convinced myself that a) a tang could be a smell as well as a taste and b) ‘tanga’ must be a type of underwear they don’t stock in M&S.

   COD to CRIB – a cracking clue.

5. Took forever, and even then got two wrong: grab instead of crib, and traitor for tractor. I considered TRACTOR more than once, but failed miserably to see the double meaning of tower. For me this was the hardest in what has already been a pretty tough week, with Friday still to come.
6. As yesterday, took a fair time over this (more than an hour)but I thought all was fair and very enjoyable with some good words to guess/drag from deepest memory, with last one in, TANGA, falling into the former category.
7. 80 minutes for this i am afraid. probably too early in the morning for the brain to work properly. I liked the bottom half but had a lot of difficulty finally with north west, I guess because Shropshire was almost my last in which is pretty poor of me. Thought Sites at 1 down was poor clue but there we go! first corner to complete was south east then south west and north east…COD either to Bespatter or Inelastic but also Pilgrim Fathers too

   excellent puzzle if a trifle taxing!

   1. I didn’t think much of its counterpart EARED either.
      1. well i got it but agree with you!
8. Off to a very slow start. 5 minutes had passed before my first answer NANA went in, but after that the lower half of the puzzle came together rather well so I was more than half way there after 20 minutes.

   But then I really struggled and only just managed to complete the other answers by the time I reached the office after another 40 minutes.

   Having said that my final answer,6ac, was bunged in rather desperately at the last possible moment and I made the mistake of going for GRAB instead of CRIB.

   Still I was quite pleased to have got SOLIDUS and TANGA without resorting to aids.

9. 39 minutes. Took a while to get started, but once I’d put in TIBER everything proceeded smoothly, if not rapidly. CRIB: I shall forever associate this with schooldays and the master who when setting us a test would always say: “Right class, remove all cribs from fingernails, ties and shirt cuffs”.
10. My turn for a mistake – I invented “TONKA” for 13 across. After a look at ODE I’m claiming confusion with the tonka bean, which is used for its odour.

    It’s an ill wind … – I can use this tomorrow to confirm how the new site displays wrong answers.

    11:10 for my version.

    1. Forgot to say that NICK is a pretty good red herring for 6A when you remember nick (UK) = prison = pen. (US)
       Also saw 5D as a triple def – now sensitive to these after making the same mistake in several reports of my own.

       Also thought Princeton was a university rather than just “college”, but their own website indicates that they use both names: “Princeton University is a vibrant community of scholarship and learning that stands in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations. Chartered in 1746, Princeton is the fourth-oldest college in the United States.”

    2. I can certainly confirm that the new site displays the answers you got correctly in blue, and those you didn’t get in black. Although it doesn’t display wrong answers as such. It only gives the correct solution, just colour-coded to indicate which letters you had wrong.
11. Golf rained off again but some compensation in this very good puzzle that I really enjoyed wrestling with for just over 25 minutes. Now how does an old git like me know what a TANGA is when all these young bucks are claiming ignorance? Unfortunately it’s because I think I’ve blogged it in a Mephisto – how boring can one be?
12. Around 20 minutes total today, with the last few put in quickly after the break between trains. I thought this was tough, and CRIB was only put in with reservations. I liked the triple clue ROSIEST, BRIDESHEAD and my Cod INELASTIC
13. 43 min in the end and very happy to finish without aids, since I had only about half a dozen filled in after half that time. Catching the monkey suddenly unlocked the rest of the bottom half, and OUBLIETTE dropped the penny for SOUBRETTE as well, after which the top half eventually followed. Last in was a guess at TANGA.
    Do I detect the presence of a lady solver here? No cricket, no football … but quite a few girls, not to mention their underwear!
    1. Assuming you mean “setter”, my guess is not – I’m fairly sure than Joyce Cansfield, the sole lady on the Times team, writes puzzles that I find easier than this one. You could take an interest in ladies’ underwear as a sure sign of a bloke!
14. Fairly pleased that I had no errors as there were a whole load of answers that I either did not know or could not justify. There was bound to be a mistake in NANA, SOLIDUS, TANGA which I was most shaky on, but then I also did not know OUBLIETTE, SOUBRETTE, EARED, and most surprisingly (or d’ohingly) the construction of either BRIDESHEAD or TRACTOR which both seem blindingly obvious in retrospect.

    This was definitely a case of playing badly and scraping victory.

15. No claims today as very little time and used aids liberally once seeing only NANA and CLUTCH… on first read. Just popped by to give my respects to the setter for some lovely stuff notably for me CRIB and the delightful TRAINER. Also to observe that sometimes in the more challenging puzzles my mind ceases to function on the easier clues, eg I had BRIDESHEAD in mind without seeing why until the checkers left me in no doubt and so worked a bit harder on the parsing. Pathetic.
16. 9:23 online. I thought ‘tanga’ might cause problems, being favoured by the younger ‘end’ of the female spectrum.
17. 30 minutes today for my first all-complete-without-aids solution in three weeks.

    I thought INELASTIC and TRACTOR (last in) in particular were excellent clues. Got SOUBRETTE and OUBLIETTE from the wordplay. Didn’t know the dog reference to NANA.

    Knew CRIB from school – copying someone’s work.

    TANGA: Last time I looked tangas were for sale in the mens’ underwear department at Marks & Spencer!

    In Robert Harris’s “Lustrum” which I read recently some of Cicero’s foes are executed in an oubliette.

    1. Yes, I must check out the menswear department next time.

       Phenomenal time, by the way.

18. Very pleased with myself today after reading comments above – 14:41 and no aids (I never use them). Took ages to get Brideshead which must have been about the easiest of them all – failed to spot the anagram (!!!)
19. No particular difficulty here, c25 mins meaning on the hard side of average. A bit surprised to see some of the clue criticisms.. it seems technically bang on, to me. And some lovely surfaces again.. I thnk it takes a great deal of skill to produce clues that read like 28ac and contain a convincing ten letter anagram.. or 24dn, for that matter.
20. First puzzle I’ve had a chance to do in one sitting this week and a fairly laboured 25 minutes! Some relatively simple ones seemed to take an age.
21. Another excellent and challenging puzzle – for me rather harder than yesterday’s, though that doesn’t seem to have been most people’s experience. INELASTIC, BRIDESHEAD, SHROPSHIRE and PILGRIM FATHERS were among many first-rate clues. Like some others, I don’t much care for the way “stopping” is used at 10ac, but, as Peter B says, we should be on the look-out for it as its use as a two-way containment indicator is now well-established in Times puzzles.
22. 35 minutes. This felt at least as hard as yesterday’s, so I was surprised at this time when I looked at the clock. I solved undisturbed on an aeroplane, so it makes me wonder if the distractions of solving on the commute are slowing me down.
    NANA from distant memory and TANGA from crosswords past. SOLIDUS, SOUBRETTE and OUBLIETTE were unknown and they all slowed me down, but the SE held me up longest and BRIDESHEAD was the last in.
    Another very good challenging puzzle.
23. 27:55 .. A case of scrambling for footholds for me. A very serious work-out.

    Last in NANA/AMMAN.

    I very much enjoyed the image of the Pilgrim Fathers cracking open the Special Brew on board the Mayflower. Well, they were Brits… long journey ahead… whatcha gonna do?

24. 39:16 – A steady solve. A few went in from wordplay alone (SOLIDUS, SOUBRETTE, OUBLIETTE) as the words were unknown. At least, in the case of the latter two, I’d heard of the word but had no idea of the meaning.
    PILGRIM FATHERS was my first in, leading to 14a/14d. I then proceded roughly anti-clockwise, finishing with 10 & 1d.
    I’m with Yap on 5d. I’m not convinced about using Very to clue a superlative, so I think it’s ‘Very pink girl’ = ROSIE.
25. Another of the 39-minute bunch of reasonably fit joggers with little or no sprint. Slow start here for me as well. Excellent course: good to finish.
26. I struggled on this one, had to sleep on it and come back in the morning – also put in CARTOID without thinking. Stuck for a long time in the left hand side, PRIAM opened it up for me.
27. An odd one for me, in that while I found it incredibly difficult while solving, I finished in my quickest time this week (45 minutes), if with two mistakes (fairly desperate stabs at GRUB for 6ac, and TRAITOR for 26ac).

    I didn’t see the wordplay for 28ac and 22d, so consider myself lucky to have guessed correctly. BTW – is BRIDESHEAD a real country house, or just a literary one? It gave me some pause for thought when entering, as I wasn’t sure if the definition would stand if it was just from the novel?

    11ac left me feeling immoderately pleased with myself, having got from the wordplay with no idea what it could possibly mean, or even where the definition was.

    Oh, and 13ac could well have got me into trouble in work when I Googled later to try and find out exactly what kind of item of underwear it was.

    COD 4d.

    1. It’s only literary, as far as I know. The house used in the both TV adptation and the feature film was Castle Howard in Yorkshire.
    2. The Times feels no need to highlight fictional things, and I doubt any other puzzles do either. Classic example: detective = MORSE.
       1. That’s true, thinking about it. Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s a place rather than a person that’s thrown me?
          1. There is a bit of a difference. If asked to name real-life detectives, my list would probably stop after Jack Slipper (died 2005 so if we get detective=SLIPPER you read it here first) so fictional detectives are no surprise, but I can think of more real stately homes than fictional ones.
             1. Interesting that we don’t recall the names of real detectives. They hog the headlines for a while and then, probably gratefully, lapse back into anonymity. I would venture Alan(?) Pinkerton as an obvious one, George Oldfield who eventually captured the Yorkshire Ripper by accident and Lizzie James, the assumed name of the honey-trap detective who went after Colin Stagg in the Rachel Nickell murders.
                1. I was daft to miss Pinkerton. George Oldfield is possible Times xwd material, having died in 1985 but I doubt they would use him, and I’m sure Times is too nice to remind the Met about honey-trapping Colin Stagg.
             2. There’s Fabian of the Yard and Mr Whicher, both real detectives, I think. Both offer possibilities for good clues.
                1. Judging by the results of a simple Google search and with reference to Wikipedia it seems that Robert Fabian would not be remembered today but for the early BBC TV series “Fabian of the Yard” starring Bruce Seton as the eponymous hero.

                   Considering the series finished in 1956 I think there might well be many justified complaints (though not from me) if his name were to turn up in a modern Times cryptic.

28. It took me so long to get this even half finished that I gave up in the end. I had carnage in for 19d which screwed up the south east. Nothing was really on my wavelength so I didn’t really enjoy the puzzle.
29. Finally finished after 3 attempts. In the end I was left with a quartet of 4 & 5 letter words: PRIAM (who?),NANA (what?), AMMAN (where?) and TANGA (when & how?). COD to INELASTIC among a host of good ‘uns.

    I thought the Darling could be a reference to Grace, but it turns out she didn’t have a dog of any historical note. I must have been confusing her with the Grace Darling of Newfoundland, but her dog was called Hairy Man.

    1. Darling as in the family Peter Pan abducted. And we in NE England lay claim to Grace Darling as the heroine of the Farne Islands, daughter of the Longstones lighthouse keeper, who went to save the crew of a vessel (the Aberdeen, I seem to remember?) stranded on the rocks.
30. This took me 45 minutes but I confess to needing aids for OUBLIETTE. I don’t think I’ve ever met this word before, and I couldn’t guess a likely arrangement of letters even with all the checkers. A lot of very good clues here, especially BRIDESHEAD. I had seen TANGA in an earlier puzzle somewhere, or that would be new as well; we don’t have them over here, I don’t think, or we call them something else, but I don’t hang out in the underwear aisle, either men’s or women’s, so I can’t shed any more light. And re 3D, I believe it is true that the reason the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth was that they were actually running out of beer. Water in barrels on board often fouled, so beer was the on board drink of choice. Regards to all, including the setter.

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