Times 24800

50 comments on “Times 24800”

1. This is simply bin = THROW AWAY, where pitch = THROW (as in baseball, so the Americans are catered for) + ‘where visiting team plays’ = AWAY.
2. Good time,Dave, despite distractions – took me just on an hour and a half, with EMITTER last to fall.

   The cherub and antelope from wordplay; STUD from the definition. TRANSKEI from a bit of both. Many good clues – this was an excellent puzzle – but if my mitt was twisted, I’d give the gong to EMPTIED.

3. Darn difficult for me today; around 7.5/10 degree of difficulty. But there are some ace clues in here once worked out. And some seriously good deflections from the main path: boy not in gear; making a bob; important office staff. But my COD does to DAY-LEWIS for deflecting me from its anagram with only 4 words! Now that’s style, O setter!

   On edit: oh … and … 42 minutes.

   Edited at 2011-03-18 06:42 am (UTC)

4. Around 44 minutes on the club site, with 2 wrong and an interesting line in interruptions. One of the clues I messed up was MOTEL – ironic, as I’m staying in one. But I think I should get a
   pass on that as, before typing it in, I had to check to see who was trying to get into my motel room at 11pm. He was very persistent, very loud and, as it turned out, very drunk. I’m in Scottsdale, Arizona and it’s ‘spring training’, which seems to consist mostly of drinking copious amounts of beer – against which idea I have
   nothing at all, but still… (poor chap was very apologetic and I think I managed to convey the idea that rooms starting with a ‘1’ are generally found on the first floor so with luck he’s found a bed to collapse on by now – I just hope it’s his).

   I wasn’t going to post anything this week but as I saw my first actual roadrunner out by the Salt River today I couldn’t resist the opportunity to give Wily an outing. Needless to say, my ACME patent bird trap failed miserably and it was Roadrunner 1, Sotira 0. Pretty much the same result with the crossword.

   Tough puzzle with some bravura stuff. TRANSKEI last in (never heard of it) and COD to EMPTIED for the def.

   1. For the first time for a while I had a bit of spare time this morning, and Boy! did I need it. Under 2 hours but not by much but had to cheat for ORIBI. Hard for me but never a slog. MOTEL as a chance for driver to crash might be an old cruciverbal joke for all I know but it made me laugh.
      Great to see an early comment from Sotira. I usually have to keep coming back to the site until she presents herself.
      Thanks setter, much enjoyed.
5. At exactly an hour I had only 9dn and 22dn outstanding and couldn’t get either without resort to aids. Admittedly I should have seen ORIBI but I tried three solvers before finding one that offered TRANSKEI and I’ve never even heard of it so I think it’s a bit unfair for a weekday puzzle. As things turned out I had got as far as considering TRANSK?I so I could have been only one letter short.

   I also got 3dn wrong as I put EVICTOR without being able to explain it but couldn’t think of another word for one who puts out that fitted the checkers.

   Once again I’m glad it wasn’t my Friday.

   1. Yes, apparently Downer started in 1950 at Hatch End with an two-year intake and then moved to Shaldon Road in 1952. I was at Downer in the 60s and just wondered if you might have been there at some time when you mentioned Harrow. Not far out – HA2 to HA8 is only about 3 + 1/2 miles.
      1. I think some of my friends at prep school went on to Downer, but that was 50+ years ago and I can’t remember their names.
6. I also went with evictor, rejecting e’er for still (which I still do) and not seeing mitt. Held up for ten minutes by putto and egos and glad to get them finally. 36 minutes with the one wrong. Enjoyable – liked this one. But is Day Lewis hyphenated?
   1. It’s “Day-Lewis” according to the Penguin Encyclopaedia.
   2. Either according to Wikipedia, which is odd. I too raised my eyebrows at ‘e’er’ for still.
      1. I’ve now checked six of my own reference books and they all say it’s with hyphen and for all his extensive family. I think we can take it that the setter was justified in putting the hyphen in.
   3. From the online version:

      ‘In 1927, Cecil Day-Lewis eliminated the hyphen from his writing name as a gesture of “inverted snobbery.” But according to his son, Sean Day-Lewis, he tried to restore it at the end of his life when he mistakenly came to believe that Day had Irish origins.’

   4. One of the definitions of “still” here is:
      (Literature / Poetry) Poetic and dialect always
      I can’t think of an example though.

7. After yesterday, when I blew 2 clues, I approached today’s in a more leisurely manner, helped by the fact that I couldn’t get many of the clues–always a good way to slow down.Slowed down to well over an hour, although I didn’t bother to time it. Wavered endlessly between EVICTER (e’er surrounding vict) and EVICTER (ever surrounding ict); not a lot to choose between the two, really, especially as they’re both wrong. Wavered endlessly between EROS and EGOS (the former being a reversed hidden, but a pretty dumb solution, the latter seeming to me to be too obvious given the definition). Finally remembered TRANSKEI (for the longest time could only remember Orange Free State, Natal, and the other one), and then took ages to remember that Brits don’t know how to spell ‘curb’. There were some excellent clues here, but I was in no mood to appreciate any of them.
   1. Brits can spell “curb”. . .and also take the hint in ‘broadcaster’s”.
8. Crikey!27 minutes, with EGOS and OWNER OCCUPIERS going in on a wing and a prayer, and TRANSKEI dredged form memory without working out the cryptic – “ran” had to be in there somewhere, the rest too clever by half.
   Very stretchy definitions today, I thought, especially howler in 12a, which despite the patent anagram refused to yield until I had most of the crossers and poet’s still for e’er in 3d.
   Lots to like, though: the crashing driver, making a bob, the important office staff as examples.
   CoD for cluing JAMES JOYCE without a single J
   1. SPLIT ONES SIDES as ‘to be a howler’ is especially clever, as ‘howler’ conjures up images of wolves or dogs. ‘Howled’, for one, would have put everyone on the laughter scent much sooner.
9. My copies of The Poetic Image (1947) and Collected Poems (1954) are both under the name Cecil Day Lewis.
10. … even though I didn’t manage to finish it, and got 2 wrong!

    Should have got PENELOPE, and put in JAMES PEACE (? author unknown to me, and, for all I know, to everyone else, too: JAM + anag of ESCAPE + E !), which then led to EATER for the mammal – tenuous, I know…

    Managed eventually to get TRANSKEI (despite never having heard of it, but this time it existed!), after having first ROAD, then CURB for 15ac.

    Also had heard of neither the African runner, nor the poet (just the actor D-L).

    Lots of good clues today, lots of contenders for CoD, but for me PUTTO wins the day.

    Good start to the weekend, have a good couple of days everyone, see you next week!

    1. I considered ‘James Peace’, but I already had ‘otter’, and decided that couldn’t be wrong.
11. A hangover-induced hour here: my slowest time for ages. I found this incredibly difficult from beginning to end. My first in was 26ac, and what followed was a slow and painful grind culminating in about twenty minutes trying to find an alternative to TRANSKEI. I’d worked it out from the wordplay, but couldn’t quite believe it was right, particularly as I couldn’t for the life of me think of a word that would fit K_R_. Last in PUTTO, which I’ve never heard of but isn’t an especially difficult clue.
    One to forget for me, through no fault of the setter’s mind you.
    1. Didn’t we have ‘putto’ a couple of months ago?
       1. So we did.
          This puzzle would be so much easier with a functioning memory.

          1. Well, at least I remember the ones I blog!
       2. November 2010 in 24689 we had the plural PUTTI
12. DNF. Defeated by PUTTO (unknown), EGOS, ORIBI (unknown). Could not parse wordplay for TRANSKEI (but it couldn’t be anything else): so, thanks Dave for a good blog which explained this and other nuances I’d missed (notably ‘shepherd’s maybe’). Hope the distractions are good distractions!

    Minor point: 25ac is ‘TO WIT’ (‘that is’); ‘tow it’ is what you’re doing with the trailer.

    1. I was attempting to explain the wordplay, maybe I didn’t make that clear enough.
       1. thanks for taking the time to blog for us all today. It is much appreciated.
13. Great puzzle. 20 minutes, no, wait… an hour and 20 minutes. Completely flummoxed by just about every clue. Last in JUMPER & JAMES JOYCE; I was looking to fit BUS in there. Nice to see the return of the OTTER clue. Take your pick for COD MATRIARCH, no… MOTEL, no… TO WIT…

    1. ..and went to bed. Got up at 5 AM, put in ‘jumper’ and ‘James Joyce’, went back to sleep. Two hours later, worked out ‘Transkei’ and ‘kerb drill’, so all correct, but did not understand the clue for ‘James Joyce’.

       Besides considering ‘James Peace’, did anyone notice that the anagrist in 19 could make ‘recepts’? You could also glance at 10 and put in ‘Des(demo)na’.

       I’m glad Cecil Day-Lewis is not considered an obscure writer, although we have not heard from anyone yet. It is ‘kerb drill’ that was the most difficult for me, since we don’t have them in the US and if we did we wouldn’t spell them that way.

       This is really a fine puzzle, in my view. Every clue is challenging and every clue makes sense – eventually.

       1. We don’t really have “kerb drill” in the UK either. I’d never heard the expression before, and from a bit of googling it appears to come from a UK road safety campaign that was introduced in 1942 and replaced by the “Green Cross Code” (which I do remember) in 1970.
          1. I remember kerb drill from my 1950s schooling, when we were exhorted to ‘look right, look left, look right again, listen – then quick march’
             1. As Anonymous says, we did indeed have KERB DRILL in the UK. “Look right, look left, look right again” is forever imprinted on my memory.
14. 24/30 without aids today in about an hour. Failed mostly in the SE corner: BLOODSTAIN, OWNER OCCUPIERS, ORIBI, ELSIE, DIP INTO and DOGGO all missing. Should have got doggo – we’ve had it before and afterwards I looked up what it meant – and am embarrassed to have missed the hidden answer. Thought TO WIT was the best of the clues I managed.
15. These are my favourite putti in art. Check out the chaps at 4, 7 and 9 o’clock. An artist with a sense of humour.
    http://www.oil-painting.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/800px-Andrea_Mantegna_0641.jpg

16. When you have to find 3 or 4 different words or abbreviations and then have to put them together in one particular way to give the solution, you know you’re dealing with the Times. 1hour 15 here, which is probably very good by our standards. An enjoyable puzzle. Another vote for that US import ….Motel.
17. Bags of respect for the man who meets his commitments in the face of distractions, but if I remember the story, doesn’t Thos do his doubting at the resurrection?
    1. Yes, he does. I was getting confused with Peter’s denials.
18. 20 minutes with 1 lazy mistake (EVICTOR) which I now see could never be, so should have followed the old rule that if you can’t justify it then it must be wrong.
    Also had ID EST at first for TO WIT (see above).
    Some enjoyable clues today
19. I had to recover from root canal filling before tackling this – just as well that I did because this is the best crossword for some time. Well disguised wordplay, clever and misleading definitions – this is how they should be. Never heard of TRANSKEI but derived from wordplay and then checked in Google before entering. Likewise PENELOPE (though kicked myself because I have come across this reference before). Thank you setter and well done Dave.
    1. Doing this was like having a root canal.
20. I agree this was a very good puzzle, although I guessed wrong for the antelope, and needed aids for the KERB DRILL. CURTSYING is just wonderful, as was much else. I knew of the TRANSKEI, but I couldn’t see the wordplay for the longest time. So it’s setter 1, Kevin nil today, but I enjoyed the ride. Regards.
    1. I recall that we have had ‘oribi’ within the past year or two, but I may be wrong. You would think it would come up in US puzzles, with all those nice vowels.
21. I’m quite glad nearly everyone else found this puzzle difficult. I thought it was just me being stupid. I did it early this morning but haven’t been able to get to the blog till now. After 20 minutes I had only a few answers scattered over the grid. I wasn’t helped by trying to fit BOAT DRILL into 16a. I was thinking of crossing the channel not the road. Anyway, reached land in 49 minutes. Felt a distinct sense of achievement.
22. Everything you could hope for in a Friday puzzle – or in my case a Friday and early Saturday morning puzzle. Very testing but very enjoyable. Needed an aid to get the antelope – I’d invented an onivi – which can now take its place on the Times Crossword Ark of Rare Beasts.
23. 15:01 for me. A delightful puzzle – my compliments to the setter.
24. Back to Earth with a vengeance today. DNF, but thought all the clues were fair. Particularly liked CURTSYING, after cheating to get it.
25. Agree – best for some time – another unknown animal to remember!!
26. Some top clues all employed in the SAME puzzle – the Stuxnet of the crossword world. Please pass my congrats on to the compiler.

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