Times 24786, Placeholder

33 comments on “Times 24786, Placeholder”

1. I don’t know how typical of crosswords 50 years ago this is, but it’s a strange experience to solve. It feels more like a cross between a cryptic and a concise, with some clues consisting entirely of an oblique definition while others just seem to make a vague link between two concepts. I assume 18ac is BICKERING but I am not sure why, unless there is a quotation I’m missing; and 24ac, if the answer is RED-HEAD, is equally unclear, although I am familiar with the idea of painting the town red. All in all, seems a bit less rigorous than today’s fare.

   FWIW, as they say on the internet, 24 mins.

2. I rather enjoyed the forty-year-old offering. I think a red-head would be wild enough to paint the town red (oh for the pre-PC age, gone for ever). I too don’t see why bickering; but liked filibusters, and the whole nostalgic exercise. I was in my last year of school then and had only got into the Observer crosswords, if I remember rightly. 20 minutes FWIW, LOL.
   1. I put RED LEAD as a component of paint.

      I actually knew the Othello quote and the Julius Caesar character which came as a nice surprise but my last in was the Forster reference because I know all his novels and there wasn’t one that fitted. It stumped me until thought of a word that fitted the checkers and then remembered his work Aspects of the Novel. Prior to that I was trying to connect Forster with ALPACAS which seemed an unlikely pairing.

      1. I did think about red lead, but it isn’t hyphenated.
3. My God, fifty-year-old offering. I’m more antiquated than I thought.
4. Help! I could use some advice. I did today’s qualifier in 11m 50s and wonder if it is even worth sending off the cheque. Last time I did this (a couple of years ago in a similar time) I was met with a deafening silence. What do fellow solvers believe to be the approximate cut-off point?
   1. I was going to ask the same question, although this puzzle took me 17 minutes so in my case it’s a more academic question.
   2. Well, it took me 49 minutes, so I certainly won’t be flying to the UK in October!
   3. Peter used to discourage giving times for the qualifier puzzles as they may influence others’ decision of whether to enter or not. I think it’s probably a good idea to restrict comments to Easy/Average/Tricky
   4. On penguin’s scale this one was easy.

      Time alone is no real guide. Last year I qualified with a slower time than yours but on a harder puzzle. You also need to take into account the number and calibre of likely finalists attempting each puzzle. I think PB once suggested that the usual suspects who missed out on automatic qualification will enter with the first qualifying puzzle, thereby rendering it probably the hardest to qualify from.

      I’m in a quandary myself as I finshed today’s relatively quickly but given the dynamic described above I’m in half a mind to wait for the next puzzle.

      1. “Suggested” is the key word – if people think that the first qualifier is the most popular, they may do another one instead. There’s a possible big change this year. If comparative numbers at London and other regional finals in the 1990s are any guide, the number of people wanting to compete may be much higher this year, making it harder to qualify.

         On the other hand, it should be a bit easier to reach the final stages. 1996 champion John Henderson is now a Times setter, so won’t be competing. I’ve also decided to hang up my Times Championship boots. I’ll be there as an interested spectator of course.

5. 19:24 for the retro puzzle, but like jackkt I went with RED LEAD.

   RED-HEAD is much better, given the era, and sounds rather James Bondish (“as long as the collars and cuffs match”, I recall him saying when asked if he preferred blondes or brunettes). I could imagine Connery’s Bond saying “Must dash, M, I’m off to paint the town with a red-head.”

   BICKERING does seem like half a clue, but that’s where the great schism arises – should puzzles be entirely susceptible to analysis or should a little space be left for intuition (and the challenge of trying to imagine one’s way into the setter’s mind)?

   Nice to be reminded of Desdemona’s Willow Song. The “poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree” used to be a favourite of English teachers trying to drum alliteration/head rhyme into resistant young brains. Incidentally, in checking the quotation online I came across a wonderful example of why some things are best left alone – see the ‘modern’ version on this page:

   http://nfs.sparknotes.com/othello/page_248.html (that “Put these things over there” reveals the poetic heart of a mud-flap in whoever got their hands on old Spokeshave here).

   1. I’m afraid I don’t begin to understand why the answer should be RED-HEAD. Unless I’m still missing something, if I were expected to solve clues like this one daily I would swiftly give up and find another hobby.
      1. I think we’re talking about a different era when the assumed perspective was entirely male. And no Times-reading chap could be expected to head out for a big night on the town without a beauty on his arm, and (the idea still has some currency) redheads were certainly assumed to be fiery and, er, fun.

         I may have it wrong, but that’s just my reading of it. Different times, different rules, in crosswords and elsewhere.

         I find the idea rather fun, but that’s just me.

         1. Thanks. At least it goes to show that we’ve advanced in some ways in all that time. We are less chauvinistic in attitude to women and have better clues in our Times crosswords. The primary requisite of a good clue is that you know for sure you’ve got right when you’ve solved it. Several fail on that score in the 1961 effort.
            1. I can’t disagree with that last point. I certainly hope they’ll be publishing a ‘solution’!

               Regarding the old story about the Eton provost who completed the puzzle while boiling his morning eggs, you do find yourself wondering ‘Yes, but how did he know he’d actually got it right?’

               1. Hi Sotira, Jack. I agree with Jack on this one, because, I think, red lead is (or was) a paint component necessary for the paint to be red, thus needed for the town painting activity. I’d think the red head would be a fine addition, but not truly necessary. Regards.
                  1. Hi Kevin,
                     It’s getting interesting now: I’m counting down the minutes to the ‘solution’. Not often we have to wait for a ruling.

                     I did actually put red lead myself, but have come round to the more entertaining possibility. I kinda hope it’s the ‘James Bond’ solution – a red head as a ‘necessity’.

                     1. I’m not expecting RED-LEAD to be correct because of the hyphen. According to the usual sources (and who knows what they went by in 1961?) it can be hyphenated but only with reference to ‘red-lead ore’ which is not the chemical added to paint.
                        1. Well then, drumroll please! Sotira, my mother is a true redhead, and I can’t really root for the solution to imply she’s out running around town with a tuxedoed master spy. Nevertheless, she was in the right age bracket c. 1961, and quite a head-turner, so she tells me. Anything’s possible, I suppose. Jack, judging by the 1961 clues, I don’t think a hyphen would even enter their minds.
                           1. Thank you to mctext for publishing the solution above. I’ve never been so disappointed to have got the answer right (in my original solve).

                              So, Kevin, you’re in the right camp (but that doesn’t mean you can stop wondering about your mother – you think she tells you everything?)

   2. Ah, Sotira, I love the Okay.
6. So, I see today is a qualifier day and I’m like, whoopee, a two puzzle day. Always makes work go quicker. Then I open up to find they’ve merged the qualifier with the daily. Sods. This, and we now don’t get extra jumbos on bank holidays (what do they imagine we do with our time? Socialise?). It seems to me like another nail in the coffin of our beloved institution. Soon it will be one a week. And twenty sudokus a day. It’s like 1984. Help us!!!!!!!!!!
   1. We did get a jumbo on the last bank holiday; and we did get two crosswords today..
7. Can anyone explain 21d?

   I put INDIA on the basis that it was all I could think of that fitted.

   I’m in the red-lead camp too. Red-head makes about as much sense as bickering.

   I cheated on the Shakespeare and just guessed at the Forster.

   1. There is such a thing as ‘India paper’ – very thin and strong (see Wiki). Not exactly a cryptic clue, except perhaps insofar as the stuff isn’t necessarily or even usually made in India.
8. Did anybody else put mail-coach rather than mail-train? Seems to me that either is equally valid.
   This held me up till I eventually got compartment.
   Ron
9. About 20 minutes to wander through the nostalgic puzzle: very weird. Ron, above, I had MAIL TRUCK before I corrected it to get BOARDER and CANTATA. All in all, a very free-form kind of meandering train of thought from the old time compiler.

   On the penguin scale, the qualifier was easy. My printer ran out of ink, so I did it looking at the computer screen. In deference to the ‘no time’ rule, I’ll state no time, but even without paper or pen it was very quick, although with one not understood fully. Regards to everyone.

10. There is an expression “when the bickering stops, and the fighting begins”. but I cannot track it down.
    1. PS “the talking stops and the fighting starts/begins” appears copiously.
11. I started struggling with Times Crosswords in 1963 when students got a special discount on the newspaper. It’s funny how strange this puzzle now seems to be. The changes in the crossword must have been very gradual because I never noticed it at the time. Quite a quick solve for me at 23 minutes. Wasted time pondering RED LEAD, which I’d got but wasn’t satisfied with. Likewise BICKERING. Fun though.
12. 8:19 for me. Like falooker I took advantage of the Times discount for students. I’m not sure if this was a peculiarly easy puzzle, but I certainly found the crossword a lot harder then!

    Surely “where there is fighting” is simply a (boxing) RING, which is how the word BICKERING ends.

    RED-LEAD was spelled with a hyphen in Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary (note the hyphen – those were the days ;-).

13. They should put you in charge of the webcast.

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