Times 24769: goo goo ga ga and E. L. Wisty!

48 comments on “Times 24769: goo goo ga ga and E. L. Wisty!”

1. Wisty was beyond my ken, and I also hesitated to imagine twisty spaghetti (I was thinking uncooked rather than cooked, I suppose). Luckily it seemed to be the only possible answer. There were a few I entered without full understanding, but I do recall looking at Milton’s 19th sonnet at school, very famous for its final line.
2. ….taking two full LPs of solving, plus ten minutes for ‘tearaway’ and ‘replica’. Many of the literals were very well concealed. I read through the clues and stared at the grid for ten minutes before entering ‘baby talk’ and ‘babble’, the latter in the wrong slot.

   I didn’t like the clue for ‘biopsy’, because ‘by’ is in it as well as ‘Times’ meaning ‘by’.

   The other clues were all excellent. As usual, the blogger has omitted as obvious one of the last ones I got.

   1. It was tricky to choose what to leave out, I’m not sure if there is an obvious one in the whole puzzle. So I went for the two where checking letters should give the answer away.
      1. Heck, I should have seen ‘knocker’ immediately. It was obvious…..not.
3. That’s a phenomenal time, George! A lesser mortal like I had to resort to aids after an hour with only half the grid completed, including SYZYGY, which is a cool word indeed. Among so many good clues, I particularly liked the economy of 1ac. I’m assuming this is ‘through’ as in ‘once we were through, we were able make up time’ – correction welcome. In contrast to Jonathan, I thought the cluing for 5dn was excellent, the presence of ‘by’ with another meaning adding to the thing.
4. After yesterday’s DNF I did at least get through this successfully. But it took an inordinate amount of time – 95 minutes – with a bit of guesswork along the way. I assumed a COTTA was some sort of military helmet, so was disappointed to find we were back on sacred ground. And I spotted Peter Cook lurking in 21, but have never heard of EL Wisty.

   I enjoyed the H and C taps device, although I’m pretty sure it’s been used before.

5. Minor quibble at 23dn – it is the Nicene Creed (or Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, if you prefer) that is most typically sung in a musical setting of the Mass.
   1. COED has “a musical seting of the Nicene Creed” as a def of CREDO
      1. I looked it up in Chambers which has Nicene Creed or Apostles Creed
6. Great puzzle I thought. Another Wisty fan here; so that went straight in. George: you remember his long disquisition on spy cameras inside toilet bowls? Loved that, mostly cos my Dad was disgusted by it.
   Don’t have a time cos it’s my medical driving day and it had to be done at various stops: dentist’s and the Jester Pie shop in Gosnells mostly. But probably close to the hour all up.
   Is the word “peewee” particularly Scottish? Or is the “in Scotland” bit a misplaced modifier for “little”? Help. I’m confused.
   1. More delving into Chambers helps – apparently there are two birds that are PEEWEE – scots form of PEEWIT but there’s also an American tyrant bird.
7. 48 min, even with three assists. Found the whole thing unneccessarily verbose and convoluted, and was particularly grumpy about the continued inclusion of religious arcana (credo, cotta). BTW, could SYZYGY (3 Y’s) appear in scrabble without a raised eyebrow?
   1. It’s valid for Scrabble but you’d need a blank tile because there are only two Ys in the standard English edition.
      1. Doh!! I’d forgotten about the wild blanks.
8. Must have been over an hour of mystified slog. Question marks all over the place. I even forgot E.L., which made TWISTY my last in. Also confused by the Scottishness of PEEWEE and the lost balance, by the by. At least today’s anatomist was one. COD to REPLICA; I know, I know.
   1. Anyone have an answer to this problem?
      1. Chambers lists: peewit or pewit n. (also (scot) peesweep, peaseweep and peewee) the lapwing; its cry.

         Wiki, of course, lists Peewee Herman.

         1. Phew … thanks! What does it look like? Ours are as follows: http://rainforest-australia.com/Magpie-lark.html
            1. http://www.pdackerman.force9.co.uk/birdphotos/nickwattshide/nickwattshide.html

               I hope this works.
               They are gorgeous. Quite common in Holland, here I have seen them only once.

               1. It doesn’t work the way I wanted. It is the last one in the third row.
   2. The balance isn’t lost, the “one” (i) is in the anagram fodder. It’s just a balance.
      1. That’ll teach me to check the anagram fodder more carefully in future. I stopped counting as soon as I saw it had enough T’s.
9. This was the fourth consecutive DNF without aids for me. I completed the bottom half if somewhat slowly but apart from 1dn which went in early I couldn’t get going at the top. As things turned out I should have had more confidence because I thought of both ESPERANTO and INSIDE JOB but couldn’t justify them so they stayed out. I barely understand them now having read the blog especially the JEDI reference of which I know nothing and would never have worked out in a million years.

   ‘Picked up’ as a sounds-like indicator in 4dn? Hm.

   I agree with mctext that the clue to 15ac is confusing and in common with vinyl1 3dn eluded me until almost the very end.

   I’m afraid the trick at 25ac eluded me too. I just thought they’ve ballsed up the on-line clues yet again.

   1. 4th DNF in a row for me, too! Found the RHS went in ok, and then some of the LHS, but it was painful! Got 25ac, but didn’t see the trick either. Roll on tomorrow, the end of a tough week of puzzling!
10. Apologies for sticking this under today’s comments, but there was sufficient interest shown in the matter yesterday to justify giving it a slot where it might – unlike the AV – actually be read!

    In 1950, C.S. Lewis gave a lecture called ‘The literary impact of the Authorised Version’ (pdf file) in which he reflected on the influence of the AV on the English language. While citing examples of words that have been assimilated into the language, such as ‘beautiful’, ‘long-suffering’, ‘peace-makers’, ‘scapegoat’, his main thesis is that the AV’s literary impact has been less than is supposed. He also predicts, accurately it would seem, that in the future it would be mainly believers who would read the Bible – in any version.

    ‘For the Bible, whether in the Authorised or in any other version, I foresee only two possibilities; either to return as a sacred book or to follow the classics, if not quite into oblivion yet into the ghost-life of the museum and the specialist’s study. Except, of course, among the believing minority who read it to be instructed and get literary enjoyment as a by-product.’

    1. So: we get back in the wardrobe?
11. Like jackkt I didn’t notice the letter spacing at 25 – I just thought it was a double def.

    I’m surprised no-one has pointed out that in golf the rough is not a hazard!

    At 6dn I had not heard of the Milton poem, and took it as a reference to Samson Agonistes although I suppose it is a drama rather than a poem.

12. Time same as yesterday, 23 minutes, but a very different challenge. Yesterdays was on the erudite side, this was sly and cheeky taking a lot of liberties. IN A BIG WAY, indeed!

    The rough may not be a Hazard on the golf course, but whenever I’ve played it’s been both a familiar location and a constant hazard.

    I’m not really sure where the complaints about religious articles are going. Is CREDO really such an arcane word? It isn’t if you’re a choral singer or have any interest in great music. COTTA is just a word which even many (most?) “religious” folk would not know: why should it become surplice to requirements? The cluing was fair enough, I thought.
    For me, the Times is about the wonderful, wacky, complex, English language in all its magpie glory, surely better suited to the playfulness and punning of cryptic cluing than any other. The Authorised version of the Bible, Shakespeare and all the other Desert Island choices are the rich reserves we draw on – or should we confine setters to the 1000 word vocab of our dear sister paper?

    Nice to have the proper anatomist today after yesterday’s, though.

    CoD to SPACED OUT for making it through editing.

13. Wait for Jim!
    1. A bit loose but fair enough I thought.
14. I thought this was going to take me forever, because my first in was 17ac MAGNUM. However this then gave me the the first long one at 1dn and then I immediately got the second at 10dn and that gave me a solid foothold. 22 minutes in the end.
    There are several liberties and some looseness in here as already noted, but I like a bit of this sort of thing because it makes you think on your feet and provides entertainment. Better than a Ximenean grind for my money.
    The usual smattering of unkowns (COTTA, YIN, WISTY, this particular CREDO) but none of it gave me any real trouble. Like z8b8d8k this is what this puzzle is all about for me. If I didn’t like seeing unfamilar words I’d be complaining pretty much every day. I dislike it when obscure knowledge (by which I mean stuff I don’t know) is required to solve a particular clue, but that wasn’t the case today.
    One minor correction George: Massenet is not best known from any of the things you mention. He is of course best known for appearing in the Times crossword.

15. About 40 minutes, pleasing after a run of DNFs. However, wordplay for ESPERANTO, INSIDE JOB (I’m with jackkt on ‘jedi’), REPLICA eluded me (thanks for the explanations) and went in on presumed definitions; COTTA, INCUS, SYZYGY (which I wrongly assumed to be the name of some newly discovered moon around some distant planet) were unknown and went in on wordplay. So satisfaction muted by lack of full appreciation of what was going on – or, for that matter, what I was doing!
16. 42 minutes. A brilliant puzzle, one of those that I’m almost sorry to finish. Lots of ticks and a double tick for LOCKJAW. Nothing hackneyed and something to appeal to every type of solver with references to satisfy the literary, scientific and the medical mind. Milton, E.L. Wisty, SYZYGY: can anyone complain? (By the way, SYZYGY appeared in the crossword about ten years ago around the time that there was a conjunction of the planets.)
    1. I wonder if John from Lancs, or anybody else, could tell me how the word SYZYGY was clued in the times ten years ago. It seems to me to be extremely hard to clue!
17. We really enjoyed this too – about an hour, perhaps our Celtic heritage helped. Good to be reminded of Peter Cook – but what would younger solvers make of this clue?
    1. Leaving aside what defines a younger solver, but speaking as someone who’d never heard of E.L. Wisty, _W_S_Y and “describing spaghetti” was more than enough for me once I’d got 25ac and eliminated TWIRLY.
       Then I looked it up and discovered something funny.
       The perfect Times clue.
18. After yesterday’s epic fail I only managed the NE with help from a friend (I receiprocated an a few others. Chuckled at SYZYGY (one I had looked it up to confirm and thought ESPERANTO and BABY TALK were great!.
19. 21:46 .. for a lively puzzle.

    Last in REPLICA .. COD HANDICAP

20. 17:12 online with one silly typo.I didn’t pick up on the Wisty relevance. I am all for the inclusion of more up-to-date (I mean second half of last century of course) and popular culture usages so nice to see Cook as Peter instead of Captain James.
    Enjoyable solve
21. A lot I didn’t like much about this. Unlike the rest of the world I find it a shame a Peter Cook character makes it into the Times (crossword); Harry Enfield next? Several clues seemed a little dodgy to me. Still, a good test, despite the febrile chuckliness passing for deftness and wit. About an hour.
22. This was a slog for me. I didn’t seem able to get on the setter’s wave-length. Stared at the grid for ages before slowly chipping away at it. Didn’t enjoy it much until I came to Mr Wisty. For that I will forgive the setter anything! Hobbled home without aids in just under an hour.
23. Yikes! Another overnighter for me, having to finish the NE area this morning, ending with MASSENET. I hadn’t seen the hidden, and was only alerted to it by reading George’s blog: incredible time, by the way. I didn’t see the H and C trick either, but should have. I also will plead to US-based ignorance of ‘Wisty’, Scottish birds, Scottish yins, the ‘ken’=range part of 20, and that the Jedi are a (sham) religion over there. General ignorance of the INCUS bone and Milton’s poetic topics were another problem. So, no wonder it took me a long time (he says to himself). On the plus side, I get quite an education doing these. Overall time probably c. 90 minutes. Very clever and inventive clues, Mr./Ms. Setter. Regards to all.
24. After stumbling home after dinner, I stared at this for 12 minutes and came up with naught but SYZYGY, so I decided to wait for morning, and somehow finished in an additional 30 minutes, but with more flagged clues to ponder the parsing of than ever before. Never did get Wisty, yin, Esperanto, handc, and jedi until reading the blog. I wouldn’t have thought of the Jedi as a bogus religion (isn’t that a tautology?). MASSENET was one of the best hidden clues I’ve seen.
    1. Your’s might be. Of course, mine isn’t. And my daughter and husband (surname Knight) are Jedi (it says so on their census form). Real is as real does, and though I haven’t seen them in their COTTAs there are several versions of the Jedi CREDO – here’s one from the excellent Wookieepedia. The 2001 census discloses 390,127 Jedi in England and Wales, which (counting “none” as a religion and Christianity as a single body) makes it the fifth largest group. Conceded, truth isn’t determined by votes.
25. The wordplay for ESPERANTO and INSIDE JOB raised an eyebrow here, but what really got me tutting was REP-LIQUOR. Part-homophones are one of my great bugbears, particularly as they often take no account of stress in multi-syllable words.
    Nonetheless great fun, particularly the risque clue for UNRIG.
26. 13:08 for me. I had difficulty finding the setter’s wavelength – for example it took me a long time to work out REPLICA – but I’ve no complaints about a very fine puzzle.
27. Just wanted to say a quick thank-you for your explanations. I am new to the Times crossword and am determined to train my old brain to solve one in full. Even having read the solutions, there were loads I couldn’t figure out, so thanks for the insight. One day I’ll get there!
    1. We welcome new solvers.

       Many of the new solvers who have started reading this blog have reported that they start to finish puzzles after a couple of weeks of studying our explanation. It is mostly a matter of practice and learning the usual tricks.

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