Times 24835 – Ex-swimmer Preserved

36 comments on “Times 24835 – Ex-swimmer Preserved”

1. …..so took a break, and came back and saw ‘rupee’, ‘kippers’, and ‘legend’ fairly quickly. ‘Kipper’ has a number of slang meanings, but the one intended here is probably one who kips, i.e. takes a nap.

   I thought ‘Luton’ was very clever, and confirmed my guess of ‘rollmop’, for which I did not understand the literal at all.

   I got the impression that this puzzle was not so easy, but I was just on the setter’s wavelength – unlike the previous two days.

2. 42’, so certainly harder than yesterday for me. The main problem was getting going at all and I needed the canine rat for that! Quite liked the diabolicals today: especially the LATE LIST and the KIPPERS.
   Uncle Yap, isn’t the ordering for 14ac just: IN (as given in the clue itself), DISC, RIM + IN A T{I}E? Hence there’s no inclusive as such?

   Edited at 2011-04-28 03:41 am (UTC)

3. That was me, sorry. Forgot to log in.
4. They say form is temporary and class permanent, and I was back on form today, finishing in 49 minutes. With geography being much more up my street than science, I took to this like a merganser to water, taking even the dreaded DIY clue in my stride. WAPENTAKE (sounds like it could be a division in Japan as easily as God’s own county) from the wordplay, INDISCRIMINATE last in. Much to like, but joint CODS to LUTON and LEGEND for the laughs.
5. Another ouch. About an hour, and then had to go to aids for the unknown (to me) WAPENTAKE. No chance for me to get that one, even with all the checkers. Thanks for the blog, UY. I’m with mctext on the parsing of 14A, but at this moment, I think you’re both saying the same thing. That’s a convoluted bunch of wordplay, indeed. I’m also unfamiliar with HIGH WYCOMBE, LUTON, HAPORTH and ROLLMOP, but I got those, so I consider it a victory overall. I’ll be away for a few days in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, so if I am not heard from, don’t panic. Regards to all.
   1. Well, not quite. Uncle Yap has the IN from “in a tie” as the first element with the rest included. I have the IN (as given in the clue) as the first element. My rationale is that there is no indication of inclusion. Have clarified this (a bit!) in an edit of my original post.
      1. Same difference 🙂
   2. I parsed it as McT did. For UY’s parsing, the wording would need to be “Sweeping in in in a tie I lost by record margin!”
6. Ouch. That woke me up. 31 minutes. Amazing how something like a wapentake swims up out of the depths of the subconscious. Some entertaining word-plays here.
   1. 
      From the US Oxford on the Mac:

      ORIGIN late Old English wǣpen(ge)tæc, from Old Norse vápnatak, from vápn ‘weapon’ + taka ‘take,’ perhaps with reference to voting in an assembly by a show of weapons.

      Edited at 2011-04-28 07:22 am (UTC)

7. The only curiousity today was wapentake which wasa new word for me. Word play solved it for me and finished in 35 minutes. after the rigours of last Friday and earlier this week a delight to get back into the groove
   Lovely blog thank you
   COD to Rollmop too!
8. Yes, back on form here too and helped by some local references, both HIGH WYCOMBE and LUTON being quite near to me. 35 minutes for all but WAPENTAKE which delayed me a further 5 whilst I solved it from the worplay. I have met the word before as an alternative to ‘Hundred’ but I’d never have got it on definition alone.

   The two longh Across answers and 12dn went in on instinct with very few checkers in place and I didn’t hang around to parse them, so that helped things along nicely.

   20dn went in easily following similar wordplay in one of the weekend puzzles.

   After completinig the grid I took a while to see how 23ac worked, initially trying to obtain anagrist by removing letters from European, but eventually the RUPEE dropped.

9. 55′. A lot of recycling in this puzzle: aside from CHAMPAGNE, the current clue challenge, 2d, 24ac, 20d rang bells, and I’ve seen ‘rollmop’ before, and only here. Until now, I’ve (almost?) always known the UK place names used here, but High Thing was new to me; luckily, I was pretty sure of the -combe. WAPENTAKE somehow surfaced from that dusty corner of my memory (high school division) where Witenagemot is stored, and not much else.
   I’m a bit surprised that no one has objected to ‘incarnate’, which does not mean ‘as a human’, but ‘in the flesh’: The devil incarnate may be the devil, not necessarily a human as evil as the devil; Fido may be loyalty incarnate, but he’s a dog for all that.
   1. And Danegeld? That’s on my list.
      Incarnate:
      (esp. of a deity or spirit) embodied in flesh; in human form : God incarnate | he chose to be incarnate as a man.
      My usual source.

      Edited at 2011-04-28 09:34 am (UTC)

10. Full of ambivalence over this one, completed in about 35 minutes. Hard work resolving the (tortuous?) wordplay for several answers which were obtained by definition alone: congratulations, yfyap, on your perseverance and ingenuity – I didn’t show the same stamina.

    Apparently LUTON is still a ‘town’ despite local efforts to make it a city? Took a long time to realise that ‘top’ (in ‘top dog’) meant ‘remove the head of’).

11. Shaved 2 minutes off the PB set on Qualifier 2 a few weeks ago, down to 31 minutes for this one.

    Not entirely sure why or how, but a lot of clues went in on inspection and I solved top-left to bottom-right with the exception of WAPENTAKE which was last in. I think I’ll just put it down to the elusive “wavelength”.

12. 23 minutes, so much more like my usual form with a “rather tricky”, following yesterday’s which made me think senility was settling in for good. I was going to comment on the obliqueness of the definitions in this one, but you’ve all got there first, so at least I was right. I thought both the long ones needed a decent guess first before working out how the cryptic was constructed, and INDISCRIMINATE was my last in because I couldn’t get that from the vague definition either – even if I could work out where the definition was.
    I just knew it had to be LUTON, but it took ages for the P to drop as the preserved herring was also a very late entry.
    CoD to GARMENT for the groansome “contents of sleeve”
    1. >CoD to GARMENT for the groansome “contents of sleeve”<

       This reminded me (as so many things seem to these days!) of a very old joke:

       Q. Where did Napoleon keep his armies?
       A. Up his sleevies.

       After not doing one of these for a while, found it difficult to get this one started, but it eventually fell into place in about 31 min. Not too bad considering.

13. Exactly! Not just ‘incarnate’, but ‘incarnate as a man’. He could, after all, have chosen to be incarnate as an aardvark.
    And Danelaw, too, for that matter, and no doubt Sutton Hoo. Dear me, you’ve brought back long-forgotten memories of old Mrs. Havens, who every day in history class added new meaning to the word, ‘incompetent’.
    1. I’d put this in the same quibble-category as LET THEM EAT CAKE. Not strictly accurate, but close enough not to raise any doubt in your mind that you’ve got the right answer.
14. Sure enough, by the time I hit the ‘post comment’ button, 4 more postings had appeared. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I was intending to reply to Mctext’s comment on ‘Witenagemot’ and ‘incarnate’.
    1. “in human form”, as one of the official defs, was enough for me. But not for you I guess. Still, we should also consider “incarnate” as a verb. Chambers reads: “give human form to”. And that’s enough for (and from!) me.

       Except to say (!) that the “Reply” button gets you in the right position.

       Edited at 2011-04-28 09:26 am (UTC)

15. Great puzzle, a little bit more tricky for me than yesterday’s, but much more fun, with lots of entertaining clues. Finished with INDISCRIMINATE, and by that point I wasn’t too worried about how many ‘ins’ were needed, nor where they went! Only unknown today was WAPENTAKE, but this was easily gettable.

    COD to RUPEE today, but there were plenty to choose from.

16. 19 minutes. I enjoyed this a lot: witty definitions, neat wordplay, good surfaces. I particularly enjoyed “ex-swimmer preserved”, “top dog” and “late list”.
    There was the odd thing in here one could quibble over: I thought “it’s essential to” in 16dn and “ascribed to” in 21ac were a little bit awkward, for instance. Marie Antoinette never actually said that. And WAPENTAKE was the kind of hard-graft clue that annoys me if there are too many of them, or if the wordplay is unclear, or if they cross with other obscure words. When none of these things apply, as today, a clue like this is a pleasure – even if I couldn’t quite believe it was a real word!
17. 9:35 for this, an enjoyable workout. WAPENTAKE was new to me, but fortunately the wordplay left little doubt. COD to 9ac
18. Kind of like yesterday, I’m going to fly in the face – I really struggled with this, couldn’t finish it last night and needed to pick it back up in the morning. Needed wordplay to get HIGH WYCOMBE and HAPORTH, didn’t see the wordplay for LET THEM EAT CAKE and as for WAPENTAKE, well “A PENT” sat in the middle for a long time with me wondering what went on the outside.
19. 35 minutes for me, which seems to be a very popular time today. Actually I’ve just tackled the puzzles from the last two days in one sitting and yesterday’s took the best part of two hours. No question in my mind that this was the easier and more enjoyable of the two.
20. One short, again. Never heard of WAPENTAKE, but should have got it. My experience was the opposite of George’s, I spotted the WAKE and the A, so got as far as WAP_N_AKE, but missed seeing the PENT for ‘confined’. Which didn’t seem so dopey until I spelled it out here!
    Very enjoyable puzzle I thought. And always a great blog from Uncle Yap, for whom my respect has deepened now that I know that he can run up mountains whilst quaffing huge quantities of beer!
21. Bit tired after golf in the glorious sunshine so was pleased to have a 25 minute gentle stroll along the flat. If anybody ever suggested I climb a mountain I’d immediately lie down. Can’t imagine running up one – and why do such a thing?

    Liked HIGH WYCOMBE where I learned to program an ICL1301 in 1962 at an old country house called Bradnam Manor. I wonder if it’s still there.

    1. That was me – strange goings on again on the blog site
       1. Bradenham Manor seems to be still going strong, Jim. I went on a marketing course there in the 1980s or 1990s (long after ICT had become ICL) and found it much more comfortable than Moor Hall, Cookham (not too far away from there), which is where I did my ICT 1301 programming course back in January 1963. Happy days!
22. What a relief after the struggles of the last 2 days! This was a smooth and enjoyable solve. Some lol moments. I’ve got ticks by 5a and 13d for their ingenuity. Such fun. 24 minutes.
23. Getting to grips quite well with The Times – took about an hour to get all but WAPENTAKE, which a lot of others have remarked on.
    I had to do a search from the dictionary – is this cheating?
    (If it isn’t cheating, the Kindle e-reader is pretty quick for searching the OED; if it is cheating, the Kindle e-reader is still pretty quick …)
    1. 11:36 here – another desperately slow start before I eventually got going properly. There were some nicely concealed definitions here, but I’m afraid I find the sort of tortuous construction used for both long acrosses (DISCRIMINATE and LET THEM EAT CAKE) rather tedious.
24. About a half hour loving ROLLMOPS and dredging up WAPENTAKE from distant memory. Guessed LUTON having had the checking letters. I should add phiLATELIST
    as fun though a bit of a groaner along with the sleeves thing. I’m making more marginal notes on my puzzle page as I’m tutoring a young woman in Florida who has expressed an interest even to the point of getting Tim Moorey’s excellent book.
    I scan the finished product and email them to her.
25. Am I the only one to invent the old Waptentave division? Thought of trees or flags waving/stirring in a light breeze (then stopped thinking).

    Rob

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