Times 24918: Bottom,s up

45 comments on “Times 24918: Bottom,s up”

1. … to attend to the wordplay. Shoved in ‘money box’ at 14ac, which seemed to confirm my tentative stab at 6dn (‘consumer rights’), so a win by TKO to the setter. All this in 69 minutes, which makes McT’s time very good or my capabilities very skinny, depending on how you look at it. Thanks to the blogger for unravelling not just 14 but also BACHELOR, which I wouldn’t have worked out in a million years, in spite of having been confronted with a similar device yesterday (EVA, the noted presidential wife).

   It’s probably a chestnut, but I rather liked POETRY.

   1. Hmm … that was on my list for omission on the grounds of severe Castanea-ish-ness.
      1. Someone needs to conker his prejudices, methinks …
2. Mct, I think you mean SE in your intro.

   I got horribly stuck there too and that corner and 16dn proved to be my downfall as once again I took a reasonable (for me) 30 minutes to solve all but four or five clues and as long again to complete the grid.

   The required meaning of TESSERA is in Chambers but not in the Times’s usual sources. It’s in OED with an example dating from 1890.

   I didn’t know KIGALI. Having spotted how the clue would work so the answer had to be GI???I or KI???I, I then tried fitting in every 3-letter female name I could think of instead of going for the obvious. If I’d had the A checker in place it might have made all the difference but unfortunately by that time I had erased the correct answer, ASTRIDE, pencilled in earlier at 24ac, having convinced myself that OUTFALL was the answer at 19dn so ASTRIDE had to be wrong.

   If one was solving 19dn in isolation OUTFALL is as good an answer as OUTWEAR,and possibly a stronger contender because it relies on a more usual meaning of “drain”.

   This error gave me L as the last letter of 26ac which until corrected made that clue impossible to solve.

   When I had done that and finally spotted PARR as the only fish that fitted (at least I knew that word) I spent for ever trying to unravel the wordplay, wrongly assuming that a word had to be ‘beheaded’ somewhere along the way. It was a fine “Doh!” moment when the penny finally dropped.

   1. … Indeed I do. Now corrected. Many thanks. No wonder I end up in strange places!
3. In-solve check with COED and Wiki didn’t help with TESSERAE but stuck it in anyway. Had vaguely heard of Gary Indiana but thought he must be a character from somewhere beyond my ken.
   So a quick solve up to the SE corner where my struggles have been detailed in exact detail by Jack. Didn’t think much of OUTWEAR and SIDE for CAMP is OK I suppose but a stretch.
   1. Whose side are you on? I’m in your camp.

      Not a stretch for me.

      1. Yes, I had figured that out but just trying to solve ASTRIDE with what I thought was none too helpful definition and wordplay when I only had a tentative “I” in place was tricky (for me). Once I had undergone precisely the same contortions as you with the K,G (plus M) options in KIGALI of course the answer came, grudgingly.
4. Defeated by PARR, never heard of either meaning. So in desperation to break the hour, went for TAIL, and then OUTWELL, then submitted with zero confidence.
   Was pleased to suss out KIGALI and TESSERAE, and enjoyed WAGONER.
5. TESSERAE on wordplay only; fortunate error (thinking of ‘aide-de-camp’) led to ASTRIDE; KIGALI from guesswork (and checker). My COD goes to PARR, the ‘wife’ who wasn’t ‘a goner’.

   Thanks, mctext, for a good blog as always and especially for the explanation of RIT.

6. …as I finished with the hugely unlikely trio of ANTHILL (a camp); OVERFLOE (?) and HAKE (a fish). Oh, and I left a blank at TESSERAE, too.

   But I had heard of KIGALI, so knew I at least had that one correct…!

   Thanks for explanation of UNDERWEAR. Now I get it, I think I shall award it my CoD.

7. 25 minutes for this, also held up by the SE

   I had the feeling the setter was trying just a bit too hard to produce “& lit” clues and ending up with constructions that were actually close to being train wrecks – particularly 3A, 21A, 2D

   Not keen on “office worker” for “printer” – printing works are very noisy places. Got TESSERAE from wordplay once PATISSERIE was in place.

   A bit surprised by ignorance of PARR. The fish is a reasonably frequent visitor and after Anne B surely the most famous of the six – because she outlived him

   1. Surprised you didn’t see the red herring in “MOG rotation”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve
   2. A quick google suggests that the fish hasn’t appeared here for well over a year. However it did appear on both 23 and 27 January 2010. This was about three months before I discovered this blog, so I probably either didn’t get the answers at all or put them in without understanding. These days I’d come here, understand the answer fully and probably (given two appearances so close together) remember the word. A reminder of how very helpful this blog is.
   3. The ‘printer’ clue probably alludes to the shared laser printer in an office, not the inky devil’s workplace.
8. Defeated by the SE, like most, apparently. OUTWEAR for drain is skinny indeed: I’m not even sure the more usual way round works particularly well. TESSERAE I got from the the only word that fitted more than the cryptic, but didn’t put it in until I cross checked (fortunately with Chambers) because I simply didn’t know that meaning. PARR was very clever, though of course Anne also survived both Henry and his penchant for cephalotomy.
   CoD to BACHELOR – master at the bar, indeed!
9. Using a cheat I came up with the even more arcane giyani for 20d (administrative capital of the Limpopo region). Yan is a rare girl’s name. Cod 6d.
10. My chances in the SE corner were queered by having OUTFLOW at 19dn (which I think works – outflow = drain, and flow = river).

    After the slightly risque 6dn I was alarmed for a while where the setter was going with 10ac but I finally parsed it right.

11. 27 minutes. Got myself on the wrong track in the SE by putting presto in. After doing the same sort of thing initially with trade war yesterday, which didn’t parse either, at least had just enough sense to take a second look.
    1. And why not? PRESTO means quickly in Italian, which the clue asks for. PRONTO means ready in Italian, which the clue doesn’t ask for.
       Beaten by the SE corner, but got parr and kigali. Didn’t get PRONTO. Never would have got outwear even with all checkers.
       Rob
12. A disappointing return from holiday: 48 minutes, with a rather desperate GARR at 26ac. PARR as a fish was unknown to me but the surviving wife has come up very recently. I’ll blame jetlag.
    It started so well: 1ac must rank as one of the easiest Times clues ever and I had all but about 5 done in under 20 minutes. However like others I really struggled in the SE corner.
    Other unknowns for me today were Gary, Indiana, “canny” meaning “tight” and of course TESSERAE.
    COD by a country mile to the lovely 21ac.
13. Count me in as a member of the “had-difficulty-with-the-SE-corner” club where my last in was OUTWEAR. I am with those above who found the “outwear=drain” def somewhat loose and unsatisfactory (as was “office worker=printer” at 17ac). I can see that in such phrases as “he is beginning to wear out my patience”, “wear out” is roughly synonymous with “drain” or “exhaust”, but substituting “outwear” for “wear out”, as the setter seems to require us to do, produces a sentence that I do not think anyone one would use in practice. Still some good things in this puzzle. I particularly liked PORTMANTEAU and PARR.
14. My experience was exactly the same as McText – galloped along and then ground to a halt in the SE. Very enjoyable – my COD is PARR too.
15. A steady solve until the last few, 45 minutes in all. But I’m one of those who carelessly entered MONEY BOX without giving it further thought.

    I was held up slightly at the end by the definition to 19. I thought of OUTWEAR early on but didn’t enter it because I didn’t recognise the definition, and still don’t. Unless OUTWEAR means the same as WEAR OUT (which it doesn’t according to Chambers) I don’t see ‘drain’ is appropriate.

    I liked the clue to WAGONER, but thought the contrived surface of 2 fairly weak; 9 was also somewhat unconvincing.

    1. I didn’t recognise this definition either, and I was held up for ages trying to come up with alternative rivers. However Collins has “to deplete or exhaust in strength, determination, etc”.
       1. Oh well, that justifies it. Collins definitions are often at odds with those of other dictionaries. To be fair, Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, a very respectable dictionary, albeit with an American bias, gives ‘exhaust’ as the first definition of three for ‘outwear’.
          1. Personally I don’t regard the fact that it’s in Collins as justification in itself. Dictionaries are after all imperfect records of an ever-changing language, and they retain archaic usages as much as they ignore new coinages. I may be wrong but I believe the Times, at least under current editorship, doesn’t regard any particular dictionary as an “authority”.
             However the leap from “wears out” to “outwears” is not much of a stretch, and if (unlike me) you have the wit to see the historical reference in 26ac (fish knowledge notwithstanding) then there’s not much doubt.
             All fair and square I’d say.
16. Could not make anything of 6 down, and never heard of ‘Kigali’, which was about my third guess.

    At least I understood ‘outwear’ and ‘parr’.

17. Exactly an hour for me – a strange mix of the dead easy (mog rotation…) and the rather tricky (yes, the SE corner). COD honours to PARR (notwithstanding her other recent appearance) and WAGONER, although the schoolboy in me liked the cheekiness of 6dn.
    1. Oops, that was me logging on for the first time since the site problems of last week.
18. 16:35 .. agree with jimbo about the ‘trying too hard’ with a few clues, but I still got a lot of pleasure out of this and a few giggles.

    COD to INDIANA, just for being different and funny (well, in my head it is).

    Last in PARR, to the sound of a penny dropping.

19. Missed out with OUTWEAR and PARR as well as CRANNY. Is it me, or do other people not like the definitions in 3,21, and 9? I know all setters do these kinds of things, but I like a definition of some kind, not ‘for this’ or ‘for these’.

    I was pleased to get 15 from the wordplay, and enjoyed 10.

    Regards

    Andrew Kitching

    1. I think the awkward situation with 3 and 21 arises because the setter is trying to make the whole clue the definition – and not quite succeeding

       However, 9 is not quite the same. Here the definition is “vigorously” and “with these smash and grab” seems fine for HAMMER AND TONGS

    2. See blog: “… but requiring the pronoun to accomplish it, as in 3ac and 21ac”.
       1. Would it not be an improvement to relax the strict “replacement” idea for fully blown &lits. It is clearly sensible for one word or short definitions to match the tense and construction of the answer, but where a potentially clever clue which would widely be applauded when the penny drops, gets contorted by the desire to create a definition which is grammatically perfect, this surely detracts from the quality.

          21A is a great example, since the coincidence that the letters “mog rotation” contribute to the answer is overwhelmed by the clumsy nature of the &lit. for me the first part on its own would have sufficed and worked far better, even though it wasnt exactly the right part of speech. Perhaps the catch-all question mark at the end would allow for this liberty, as it does in other perhaps not quite correct constructions.

          1. In retrospect I agree with you that this clue would have been neater without the last bit , but whatever the technicalities, I enjoyed it on the train, and when a quick google in the office revealed (as I expected it to) that “mog rotation” meant something or other I enjoyed it again.
             Perhaps I’ve been doing the Guardian too much.
20. I gave up after an hour with ASTRIDE and KIGALI still to fall. I wasn’t helped by thinking the latter had to begin with a G. Went back after an hour and got them straight away. My first Xword since returning from a week away so my obtuseness is probably due to lack of practice. Must try harder.
21. Count me among those struggling in the SE, which I finally got through, except I had never heard of KIGALI and was stuck on ‘GI?A?I’, so I wasn’t going to get it anyway. I resorted to aids and found it right away. Not helped by starting with CONJUGAL VISITS instead of RIGHTS, but the ‘V’ crossing in 18A made me soon realize that the ‘visits’ part had to be wrong. Those on my side of the pond are probably familiar with the song ‘Gary, Indiana” from the musical “The Music Man”, which gave me the quick push to separate Gary from Jones. Everything else, OK by me. COD to SCREW UP, for the concise surface. Regards to all, and thanks for the blog as well.
22. “Me too” sums it up. Did myself no favours with OUTFLOW (a better answer than the required one) and a desperate ANTHILL. Had to cheat to get home.
23. Very tricky here in the NW as well as SE. Britpop an unknown am glad to say, underwear too clever, so no idea where 10A was coming from.
    I thought 4D CANNY for TIGHT was dubious , and surely in 19D if OUT=AWAY and WEAR=River, then OUTWEAR must=DRAIN or have I missed something? Never heard of Portmanteau word or Tessarae; perhaps in these circumstances aids are acceptable.
    Congratulations to Blogger rather than setter
    MIke and Fay
24. Doh! I’m putting it down to the heat. I assumed 20D was going to be some African money which I didn’t know rather than a capital city which I knew perfectly well. Having worked through the alphabet assuming that the first letter was G, I eventually plumped for GIGALI as my best bet – but still didn’t spot KIGALI. I finished in 17:51 with that one mistake. That clue alone must have cost me 3 or 4 minutes, and the SE corner as a whole about 8 or 9 minutes.

    Tomorrow’s supposed to be cooler, thank goodness.

    An excellent puzzle – my compliments to the setter.

25. I agree with Jimbo that this puzzle was straining a little bit. And although I did put outwear, I still don’t follow how drain = outwear.
    1. US Oxford (NOAD 2) seems straightforward enough to me:

       “Last longer than;
       • exhaust; wear out; wear away”.

26. This word and clue are actually very unfair. If you don’t know the answer you can’t get it from the rest of the clue, as there are too many alternatives, ie G or K for grand, and Nan Pat Pam etc as well as Gal. Any combination of these could be an obscure African capital.
    1. Not being able to deduce an unknown-to-you answer from the wordplay does not make a clue “unfair” – let alone “very unfair”.

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