Times 25,019 Brothers, Sisters or Tooth Repairs?

41 comments on “Times 25,019 Brothers, Sisters or Tooth Repairs?”

1. Definitely SIBLINGS Jimbo – it’s a play on ‘not only children’. It was my last one in as well after 38 minutes.
   1. Thanks Rich

      So, to be clear, an only child by definition can’t have siblings. I wonder how they would treat “fillings” in a competition?

2. 25 minutes also but with ‘fillings’ on the obscure grounds that most people have teeth but an awful lot don’t and can’t have brothers or sisters…but there’s got to be something I’m missing too. ‘Go to France’ I think is terrible for ‘aller’. A pity about these two, or one if 28 works – a nice lardy-cake of a puzzle otherwise.
3. Ah, ‘not only children’.
4. Quick(ish) solve, for me, spending the last minutes on CHAGRIN and SIBLINGS, where I get the second bit, but not the first (‘practically anyone can have them’).

   I also didn’t get the ME bit of EMERALD, or the parsing of GUINEA FOWL, so thanks for those, Jimbo. Other than that, all quite straightforward today.

   CoD: TAILBACK

   1. Jimbo, I had the parsing on HIGHFALUTIN: pompous = HIGHFALUTIN; HIGH = shrill; FLUTIN = pipin; around div(A). Just a little different from yours.
      1. Yes, I think you’re correct
5. 40 minutes.

   I also don’t fully understand 28 and considered both alternatives suggested in the blog, but I opted for SIBLINGS on the basis that one often thinks of siblings as children but of course the term can be applied equally to adults.

   I can’t find B=bloody in any dictionary (I’ve tried 5!). B____ for bastard and bugger yes, but bloody, no. I suppose it could be a reference to the blood group.

   Not sure I have met the spelling at 12d before. I’m more used to the one in the lyric as set out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragtime_Cowboy_Joe

   1. The above comments were not up when I wrote my first contribution. I like richnorth’s explanation of SIBLINGS as it explains exactly what I was missing. One could throw a spanner into the works by mentioning that SIBLING can also apply to ANY blood relative and this would put the kibosh on ‘not only children’ but let’s cut the setter some slack.

      I had Janie’s parsing of 12dn but hadn’t noticed that Jim’s was different.

   2. I can remember both my grandmother and my mother talking about “that b so and so” and meaning bloody as a swear word. Neither would have used bastard or bugger and would have ticked off my grandfather and father had they done so.
      1. I remember similar Jim and I wasn’t really disputing it but given that words and meanings are supposed to be in Collins or COED it’s odd that this one isn’t. Nor is it Chambers, SOED, dictionary.com, nor even the great OED which only has “b n. (also B) bugger (or bastard) (as a euphemism, sometimes printed b——)”.
      2. I too was a bit surprised by B = “bloody” at 1ac. But I then remembered that In my youth (a long time ago) BF – for “bloody fool” – was a quite common term of schoolboy abuse, though it has a rather mild and old-fashioned ring to it now. A class-mate who was unlucky enough to have just those initials – for “Basil Frank” as I recall – came in for much ridicule. It’s true though, as Jack says, that the abbreviation doesn’t seem to be sanctioned by any dictionary, at least none in my possession. Like others I entered SIBLINGS at 28ac without being able to explain it satisfactorily. Thanks to Richnorth for doing so. Thus enlightened, I find the clue rather good, despite the fact that, as Jack points out, strictly speaking “sibling” can apply to anyone who shares an ancestor (and not necessarily a parent or parents) in common. So an only child could be a sibling in this sense. (I know this only because I’ve just consulted a dictionary.) In practice, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term being used other than in the brother/sister sense.
         1. BF = bloody fool IS sanctioned by Chambers and SOED (I haven’t checked the others) but I’m sure there’s a rule or convention that you aren’t allow to take a single letter from a multi-letter abbreviation or acronym and use it to clue a single word. The single letter abbreviation has to be capable of standing alone.
            1. Yes, Jack, I too have now discovered that BF = bloody fool is sanctioned by Chambers (see my postscript post below), but your point about it not being kosher to pluck a single letter from a multi-letter abbreviation seems to me a sound one. Setter please note! Like you I’m prepared to take a lenient view of the setter’s use of SIBLING to mean “brother or sister”, the only sense in which it is generally used in my experience, whatever the dictionaries may say.
6. 20 minutes for all bar five or six, then another 27 minutes to finish, ending with the three tricky acrosses (BREATHLESS, GUINEA FOWL and the ‘practical’ one). Agreed with Janie on both the parsing of 12dn and the COD. Sort of enjoyed this. Would have enjoyed it a lot if I had slipped under 30 minutes.
7. A decent time today for me (sub 12 mins) but like others siblings was the last in. An enjoyable sprint, really, not stopping to analyse each clue fully until the end.
8. About 12 minutes to get all bar 28ac, then reluctantly put in SIBLINGS without really knowing why, stopping the clock at 15:23. Not a great clue, and I also had misgivings about “Go to France” for ALLER, especially as “Go to the French” wouldn’t have harmed the surface reading.
9. 11 minutes for this.
   I didn’t understand ABBESS and B for “bloody” still seems a little Mephistoish to me if that’s the right explanation, although it’s not even in Chambers. The fact that it’s not in the dictionaries makes me wonder if it’s not a reference to the blood group as as Jack suggests. In any event, as it’s a checking letter there’s not much doubt about the answer.
   I also wondered about “go to France”, and was a bit puzzled by 28ac. I suppose you have to read it as meaning “almost anyone can have them, the exception being only children”. Not particularly elegant but just about works.
   I did Saturday’s puzzle last night. It’s hard to believe that this one is from the same paper!
   1. I think the blood group is just as big a stretch – why does “bloody” equate to “blood group”?

      If the setter is of a certain age he/she may not even have looked in the dictionary – just assumed it from personal knowledge.

      If it was a Mephisto blog I’d be complaining because it certainly isn’t in Chambers

      1. I agree that the blood group is a stretch, more so in fact if B really is an abbreviation for “bloody”. It’s just not a commonly seen abbreviation so I’d have expected the setter and/or editor to confirm it in the dictionaries. Perhaps it’s a case of both being “of a certain age”!
      2. Although B on its own is not listed in Chambers as an abbreviation for “bloody”, I now see that BF is listed as an abbreviation for either “brought forward” or “bloody fool”, which perhaps gets the setter of this particular hook.
         1. I remember a hand-painted sign at a fruit farm which advertised: “Pick your own b currants”, causing a certain amount of hilarity.
10. Not too hard but seriously stuck in the Dorset/Devon/Cornwall quarter: 19dn, 22dn, 28ac, with only TURRET (25ac) to show for my efforts. The last (SIBLING) is a complete let-down and just a bad pun on “only children”. Editor: forbid this sort of ****{e} eh?

    The parsing of 20ac defeated me also: but there could only be one answer. How cryptic is that? {Thinks: probably too much for me.}

    Great clues for B(re)ATH,LESS (11ac) and CAN,ADA (29ac). Either could be COD. But maybe the former for the shades of a pommy’s towel?

    1. … but a pommy’s towel would be SHOWER LESS.
11. Whist not liking ‘b’ for bloody – it doesn’t seem ‘right’ in this crossword, you will find b.f. In Chambers as abbreviation for ‘bloody fool’. I’ve seen others on this site justify things on far less!
    John.
    1. Good spot!
       If this is the explanation I’d say it’s definitely Mephisto fare and a bit amiss in the daily crossword. I think I’ve read somewhere that the policy is quite tight on which abbreviations are acceptable and which aren’t.
12. 32:23 in two sessions.

    I wrote in ABBESS almost immediately, but I can’t even remember thinking about bloody=B.

    My biggest fear was that the part of London would be too obscure for me, but once I had most of the checking letters I was surprised to find that I knew it.

    I solved SIBLINGS pretty near the end, but it leapt out at me when I read the clue aloud.

13. 15 minutes, with similar misgivings about SIBLINGS, though I suppose the “not only children” twist redeems an otherwise rather weird clue.
    COSY caused difficulty because of the obvious CO=company leaving SY to be accounted for as a character, reversed or not. Yves St, perhaps?
    Being d’un certain age, B for bloody went in without concern for the omissions of dictionaries, and Anon John is right about bf being hallowed in Chambers.
    Otherwise, “nothing trite Homer bout” as we used to say in Bristle. CoD to LARDY CAKES in memory of the superb examples sold by the bakery in Bourton-on-the-Water before it switched from bread to rocks and stones.
14. Most done in 20 minutes, but the remaining handful took another 10 minutes, with CHAGRIN the last entry.
    I didn’t understand 28. I understood the definition, ‘not only children”, easily enough, but but couldn’t make much of the first part of the clue, and still can’t. Unless I’m missing something it’s extremely vague.
    My other query has been raised above. Since when has “bloody” indicated B in The Times cryptic? Since today? I had thought there was a fairly restricted, standard range of acceptable abbreviations available to Times setters. Not so, it seems.
15. An 18:08 marred by a bit of a cock-up on the keyboard front. Anyone for a HOURU or a SUBLING? (I suspect the Marquess of Bath might turn to either when a wifelet walks)

    Perfectly happy with B for bloody – my mother uses it all the time (what greater authority is there?).

    1. Said Alex Thynne is also known for his sibling rivalry of course – what did you make of 28A Sotira?
       1. Good point re. the bonkers Marquess.

          28a.. A nice idea but… for the adjectival meaning of ‘only’ to work it surely, as Tim says below, needs a ‘but’ or a ‘though’. But then the pun is gone.

          Would it have worked as:

          Not only children but practically anyone can have them.

          ?

16. 10:37 with the aforementioned queries in my mind too about “b=bloody” – does that mean that b=bull as well, since B.S. must be as good an authority as B.F.?; “aller=go to France” – presumably the reading must be “To France i.e. as far as the French are concerned, ‘aller’ is ‘go’; I put in SIBLINGS without even considering FILLINGS, which would require the clue to be simply a statement of fact, and so un-cryptic as not to pass muster; perhaps an adjustment along the lines of “Practically anyone can have them, but not only children” would have resolved the ambiguity?
17. An enjoyable 10 minutes for me, especially as I didn’t get on well with yesterday’s puzzle at all.
18. Sounds like it’s all been said – 11 minutes, ABBESS from definition, TAILBACK from wordplay and SIBLINGS from checking letters.
19. About 35 minutes. No problem with ‘B’ for ‘bloody’, since being over here allows me to simply assume that if it’s that clear a part of the wordplay, you folks must use it that way. No problem with BELGRAVIA either, but holdups on why a scapegoat is holding a can, and how an American football player got into 5A. Our traffic jams are ‘back-ups’, and TAILBACKS pretty exclusively athletes, related to the halfback, quarterback, etc.
20. I managed this one in 55 minutes, which is a record for me. I struggled in the SW for the last 10 minutes with HOURI, SHOT and SIBLINGS(LOI)until I spotted the hidden HOURI then the others dropped straight in. I did have to think about SIBLINGS and didn’t quite get it so thanks for the explanation. I also failed to parse COSY, GUINEA FOWL and BAVARIAN correctly, so yet again it’s a pleasure to come here and have it explained. Thanks Jimbo.
21. 10:14 for me, with the last 2+ minutes spent on SIBLINGS. Eventually the “not only children” part dawned, but I was still a bit worried about “Practically anyone can have them”, which seems a little weak (unless I’m missing something).

    No problem with B = “bloody”, though I suspect it’s used rather less nowadays than when I was young.

    1. Was expecting you at any moment, as noted.
22. ….although Tony hasn’t been yet. My time was 38 minutes, and I put in ‘Belgravia’ straight from the anagram, so no problem there. The ‘siblings’ clue was also well understood, and ‘abbess’ was my first in, although with doubts about ‘b’ = ‘bloody’.

    As Kevin notes, Jim has failed to identify ‘tailback’ as the UK-centric clue that will give overseas solvers trouble. I don’t think ‘tailback’ refers to a traffic jam anywhere but in the UK. Over here, everyone will think of O.J. Simpson whenever ‘tailback’ comes up.

23. 25′, with some time wasted justifying EMERALD to myself–finally remembered REME. Also finally remembered LARDY CAKES, having thrown in ‘layer cakes’ without noticing the D problem. I thought 18ac was lovely,but my CODs go to 17d and 19d.

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