Times 24895 – What A Treat To Solve

50 comments on “Times 24895 – What A Treat To Solve”

1. Untimed this morning (distractions): but not at all hard.
   1ac = CI (Channel Islands) + VIC (vicar, minister).
   11ac: “BOY minus O (love)” should be “in place of O, insert LEAR”. That’s the tenor of “for”.
   18dn: the whole is “spot” (BLOTCH, blemish), so “blemish” is not one of the possible synonyms for “fluff”.

   Edited at 2011-07-07 01:37 am (UTC)

   1. mctext, you must be having a second or third round of fun after solving today’s puzzle … finding fault with Uncle Yap’s blog

      Apart from CIVIC (your parsing is absolutely on)the rest are, at best, iffy. A + B = C can be rewritten as A = C – B. You may be right to the last comma but then who cares if another route (also correct effectively) is taken?

      From Chambers Thesaurus
      blemish
      deformity, disfigurement, mark, speck, smudge, blotch, botch, blot, stain, discoloration

      potter’s wheel n (a device incorporating) a horizontally revolving dish on which to shape clay vessels such as bowls, plates, jugs, etc.

      I would rather enjoy the puzzle than spent time nitpicking UY’s blog but, then, whatever turns you on

      1. Dear Anonymous,

         I am simply aware that, judging by the pm flow, no small number of novices read this blog, even if they don’t comment. And I think it’s as well they are aware of correct parsings.

         Blemish is indeed what you say it is. This, however does not make it synonymous with “fluff” (the word in the clue signalling BOTCH.)

         As for the potter’s wheel: “… a particular wheel works” is not the wheel itself. Or: POTTER is not “a kind of wheel used in pottery”. The clue has to be read as signalling “trains | potter”. Two defs.

         I shall continue to point out such things where I find them and, as you may know from reading my posts, I have the greatest respect for UY.

         I shall reserve judgement as to what I think of anonymous posters.

         Edited at 2011-07-07 07:37 am (UTC)

         1. Glad you got in first with your corrections to the blog, McText, as I would have made the same points if you hadn’t already done so and then that load of crap would have been hurled at me.

            Anyone reading TftT regularly would know that we correct each other and discuss alternatives all the time and no offence is intended or taken. That’s the only way to learn and progress which as I understand it is the whole purpose of the exercise.

            1. Indeed. And my comments only arrive early because of the time zone I happen to be in.
               1. Well done mctext and thanks to Jack for saving me the trouble of making his comment, which I totally support
                  1. I’m just pleased to see Uncle Y in better spirits this week. I hope he still is after reading all this.
         2. McText is not nit-picking. Just politely pointing out a few minor errors in a manner that helps us all.
            Thanks to him, and to the blogger
2. Nope, that’s not it at all. I did eventually figure out how the clue worked, but the whole puzzle was rather difficult and took 58 minutes for me.

   Now, ‘larrikin’, ‘caravanserai’, ‘satay’, ‘allotrope’….those aren’t things you come across in everyday conversation. You have to use the cryptics to pull these words from the back of your brain or beyond. Which I eventually did. The very obvious ‘Samson Agonistes’ was most helpful in getting started. My last in was ‘ordain’, where I thought the ‘old king’ would be either ‘GR’ or ‘CR’.

3. I think “on” in 12a is the cricket side “on” aka “leg”. The side that is batting is “in”
4. Half an hour for the rest and then another 38 minutes for the SW, finishing with BLOTCH and LARRIKIN – which, like CARAVANSERAI, needed to be dredged from the depths of my memory bank. Thought this an excellent puzzle, despite the two chestnuts at 7 and 10), with a special nod to the Trollope clue for the misdirection. (I had visions of Barry racking his brains over this one!)

   Thanks to both setter and blogger.

   1. Actually saw the anagrind straightaway but alas no help at all so had to cheat (in a hurry this morning). Also had to cheat for HONEY BEAR despite seeing the BEAR immediately. Disappointing after solving the first ten or so without reference to the grid. Consolation to work out “the obvious” SIMON AGONISTES despite never having heard of it.
      All set to moan about BLEARY until mctext’s explanation, his post seeming to me to be perfectly reasonable.
      1. I suppose it’s obvious in the sense that it’s been able to come out of its closet in these more liberal times. And Samson so butch!
         1. Funny you should say ‘closet’, since I was slowed down a bit by ‘poem’ in the clue: it is, of course, in verse, and the clue is perfectly fine, but it’s a closet drama.
            1. I did it for O level or A level, but nobody told me anything about closets. I’m going to Google to find out what it means. Do they recite it in a cupboard?
5. fun, breezy crossword, I didn’t catch my time either, some guests arrived a little earlier than I expected. CARAVANSERAI from wordplay, CIVIC from definition.
6. 17ac: I’d say two defs, one jocular. “POTTER (a kind of wheel used in pottery)” can’t be right. The potter is the artisan being trained in the second (jocular) def.
   1. Surely if you train a potter, you show him/her how to use a particular type of wheel. Can’t see the problem.
7. LARRIKIN won’t be a problem for Aussie solvers. It’s a fairly common word over here, in print at least. Along the way it’s lost its original ‘young rowdy’ meaning – it’s now exclusively reserved for someone who defies authority, and as such it’s one of the biggest compliments you can pay an Aussie.

   A breezy 31 minutes for me, finishing up with BLOTCH. I’d just started to go through the alphabet in desperation, but luckily didn’t have far to go.

8. 31 minutes, with 2d and 18d being my LOI. Why those took me so long, I cannot say; they both came in the final 2 minutes and both produced that all too familiar ‘Gregg, you twit!’ response. I’m glad that I’m not the only one to think of the Eustace diamonds at 24ac; not knowing the word ‘allotrope’ helped, of course. On the other hand, ‘eastern inn’ was enough to yield CARAVANSERAI–I was helped, as so often, by Gilbert & Sullivan (well, Gilbert):
   Hold! Ere your pirate caravanserai
   Proceed against our will to wed us all,
   Know we are wards in chancery,
   And our father is a Major General.

   1. Here’s another CARAVANSERAI, from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
      Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai
      Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
      How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
      Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.
9. 55 minutes for this one, most of the last 15 spent stuck in the SW corner trying to get started on 18,19,29,23 and 25. Once BLOTCH was in the others followed on swiftly. I had thought TRAIL at 23 ages before that but couldn’t make any sense of the wordplay so it didn’t go in. At 25 I was distracted by TEDDY BEAR which was obviously not the answer but I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

   Prior to that it was a slowish but steady solve.

   I am saddened to learn that CASHBACK exists as a single word and is in the dictionaries

   1. I was unfamiliar with what I take to be a UK-ism (or was it imported there from the States? – it certainly hasn’t reached Hong Kong); ugly word indeed.
      1. I tend to see the US as the fons et origo of all ugly neologisms, but then I’m not in a position to hear or see what the Brits are producing on a daily basis, so who knows? In any case, I can understand fatback, feedback, hogback, kickback, ridgeback, etc., but what the hell is the POINT of ‘cashback’? How does it differ from ‘cash back’? Someone please make it go away.
         1. I’ll bet it’s a Tescoism, along with BOGOF
         2. The OED has CASHBACK as an incentive in business dating from 1973 in the US but although they list it as one word the example quoted from NY Times has a hyphen. The other meaning,overpaying by card and receiving cash as change, is said to be chiefly British dating from 1988.
10. 18 minutes, including a curious hiatus once the top half was entered and nothing wanted to go in.
    DENE was my first shot at 4d, which would have been just as good. I’m still not convinced by STAKE OUT, as I struggled to reconcile “take out” with “separate”, probably because it’s more associated with more resonant uses in dating, fast food and killing.
    Add me to the list of those who was relieved not to need a Trollope novel – how piquant to have an arts clue that required a scientific answer!
    Even if I needed almost all the crossings, CoD today to the Spooner – can’t resist ’em, and it made up for the (very slight) disappointment of yesterday’s not-Spooner.
11. My first encounter with the word was as the title of the album by Santana.
    Mike O.
12. Not a difficult puzzle – about 15 minutes to solve – but well crafted and a pleasure to work on. When solutions can be derived from tight wordplay it’s always a good sign – take LARRIKIN for example, a word I knew but only once I’d derived it.

    Like others my heart sank when I read “Trollope novel” before the “diamond, for instance” (thank you setter) triggered the solution from the definition. Laughed out loud at the bunny hare.

    1. A student once told me her essay was late because her rabbit died. I didn’t criticise because de mortuis nil nisi bunny.
       1. My mum once had a student give her a note, purportedly from one of her parents, saying “Lisa can’t do games today because she has forgotten her games kit”.
13. Straightforward, sub 30 minutes. TRAINSPOTTER my COD. Thanks for all the comments and elucidation of the various wordplays. 14ac needs to be parsed as ‘A VANS’ (= ‘a vehicle’s’) etc to yield the ‘s’ in CARAVANSERAI.

    Can anyone explain in what context ‘the bar’ = ‘the rail’? Yet again my ignorance is letting me down …

    1. Gymnastics and ballet would be places to consider.

       Edited at 2011-07-07 08:52 am (UTC)

       1. Thank you. Two places unvisited and untested in a lifetime. Walking the dog is much less demanding!
14. 20 minutes. An enjoyable solve and again pretty standard Times fare. Which, for the avoidance of doubt, is a compliment of the highest order.
    As vinyl1 says there were a number of words you don’t see every day but ALLOTROPE was the only unknown for me.
    My first thought for 25 ac was HOUSE MARE. You know, a bit like a lap sheep.
15. I was very busy at work today and didn’t quite get to finish, so thanks for the blog UY.

    How odd to find a stray troll on this site of all places

16. Initially, this outstanding site shows everything really simply before you all get above yourselves (7)
    1. Dear Anonymous,
       Perhaps I should say one finds fault, for starters.
17. Perhaps on behalf of a few of the other lurkers who don’t post (ref. mctext above) I should like to thank Uncle Yap and many of the other regulars for their enlightening and entertaining contributions to this blog.
18. Thankyou, for this very enjoyable site.
19. Just back from the eye hospital after some laser treatment to the left retina. Very dilated so cannot read that well until tomorrow. Thanks everybody for pointing out errors (rather welcome as it means I learn things as well) which I will attend to tomorrow after the eyes get back to normal.
20. Arcane?

    To “Fluff” something can be said to “Botch” something, put around lake, gives “Blotch” or spot.

    “Immaculate” to quote our blogger.

    1. But not to “blemish”. That was the point.
21. I was doing OK until I hit the SW corner and came to a grinding halt. I had to put the puzzle down and read a chapter of Inspector Montalbano. It must have cleared the mind. I saw BLOTCH and it all fell into place. A lovely puzzle but maybe a bit too challenging for me. 49 minutes.
22. Too tricky for me, this one … Too many gaps in GK / vocab (the poem. the unruly youth, the diamond etc), so needed to resort to aids to finish.

    I always enjoy the discussion on this site, and find the debates re parsing/language immensely enlightening. I like it that generally any disagreements are dealt with in a respectful and supportive manner – long may it continue!

23. I’m also a lurker who reads the blog most days. Think it’s excellent. Thanks!
24. I am a “lurker”, too, who seldom posts, but could not let the reference to the excellent Inspector Montalbano pass without a nod of appreciation. I can’t say he helps me much with the crossword, though…
25. 8:33 for me. I made a slow start, wasting time trying to think of a 5-letter word meaning “milkmaid” (related to DEY?) for 1ac; and I lost a few more seconds trying to make something out of EUSTACE for 24ac.

    A delightful puzzle, with 17ac both my LOI and COD.

26. Me too, now that I switched to on-line solving. I think it is because I don’t have a hard copy lying around. Still have problems with loss of focus, and knock-on unwanted changes of direction. And of course, the with the near mandatory typo. But it does save paper and ink. This was a cracker of a solve, thankyou setter!
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