Times 25076 – A 21st century puzzle

43 comments on “Times 25076 – A 21st century puzzle”

1. I’m afraid I cannot share the blogger’s enthusiasm for 6dn, not only because of the strong emotions stirred in me by LOL and its siblings but also because I don’t go a bundle on the definition.

   I had no idea that Eurovision was a station as well as a singing show so bad it almost makes Cantopop seem tuneful.

   Apart from these Meldrewian observations, the puzzle was pretty straightforward, with FULMINATE, appropriately perhaps, my COD for its clever lift and separate device.

   Edited at 2012-02-03 01:48 am (UTC)

2. Fluked a lot of this from the defs: like 1ac where I only parsed the thing post-solve. Wonder if the setter was tempted by IP (internet protocol) for the last bit — in line with the cyberish theme? On the other hand there were a few nicely deceptive defs (“Rail” in 3dn for example and, as Dave mentions, “Flute part” in 11ac). So I’d call this as moderately easy with a few head-scratchers for good measure.

   COD: Who put the logos in the blogosphere?

3. Dave, you left out the ‘tip of P[arcel]’ bit.
   1. So I had. Now fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.
4. 14 minutes, I believe tying my PB. Part of that speed came from not trying to parse e.g. 1ac or 27ac. I’d never heard of Imola, but, like God, it was necessary to invent it. I knew that Flute in 11ac had to be the rude mechanical, and I wasted a few seconds trying to justify ‘joiner’ before seeing the hidden. Like Ulaca, I didn’t know Eurovision was a network, and I share his distaste for LOL and its fellows. Fortunately, I’d imagine the chances of OMG or IMHO showing up in a cryptic are fairly small.
5. It’s a moot point how much shelf-life this track has in the Times crossword, as it ceased to hold Formula One races in 2006. Apart from the odd race, it typically hosted the San Marino Grand Prix, before a number of factors, not least the fact that Italy already staged its own GP at Monza, led to it being dropped from the roster. Sadly, it is likely to be best remembered as the cicuit where Ayrton Senna lost his life.
   1. The Top Gear guys did their bit on Sunday to keep Imola on the map: presumably it’s relatively easy to book now that it’s out of favour? The Senna connection certainly enshrines its reputation as one of the most dangerous circuits.
      1. One of my first in thanks entirely to this week’s “Top Gear”. IMOLA had slipped off my radar.
6. 35 minutes for this one to complete a week of somewhat easier puzzles, for me at least.

   My only guess was IMOLA which may have come up before but wouldn’t have stuck because to me cars racing round in circles is one of the most pointless activities known to man and I have no interest in it whatsoever.

   “Mountain range” = URAL (rather than Urals) came up only a few days ago and caused some comment, and here it is again. And FIAT from only a few days further back.

   The best thing about Eurvosion is that each of its broadcasts opens with the rather fine Prelude from Charpentier’s Te Deum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwU37osOkQA .

   Not being up in such things, when does LOL cease to mean ‘Laughs Out Loud’ and become ‘Lots Of Love’ instead? I’d have thought there might be room for confusion leading to serious misunderstandings in cyberspace relationships.

   Edited at 2012-02-03 04:59 am (UTC)

   1. Jack, the modern family motor car is immeasurably safer than 30 years ago because of the engineering advances developed and tested in F1 and then pushed out into the mass market.
   2. I am with you on this one Jack. Motor racing is fun for the participants but I find it crashingly boring to watch though clearly many will differ. And your car may have a carbon fibre bathtub Jim but mine doesn’t, and I would argue that NCAP testing and similar legislative devices have had far more impact on the slow and stumbling efforts of manufacturers to make cars safer than F1 ever had. And now the legislators are having to make them do the same for fuel economy (exits, muttering & mumbling 🙂
7. 18m for this, helped by knowing all the requisite vocabulary for once. I thought there was a word for flute I hadn’t come across before, but it turns out I’d just missed the point completely.
   Put me in the pro-BLOGOSPHERE camp. And variety is the spice of life so I think terms like LOL are to be welcomed. So joint COD to these two gr8 clues.
   No comments on the DBE in 17ac?
   1. On the DBE, it’s part of the wordplay rather than the solution itself and I don’t think many if any object to that.

      I also welcome BLOGOSPHERE and have no problem with text-speak as long as it has made one of the source dictionaries. LOL is in Collins as “Laughing out loud”.

      I posted earlier in the Forum but will repeat here for anyone who’s interested that the OED has a reference to BLOGOSPHERE going back to 1999. It’s in my earliest Collins (2007) and COED (2006) so I can’t see any reason to object to its inclusion.

      1. Does it make any difference whether it’s part of the wordplay or the solution? I thought a DBE was a DBE however used, but then I’m not often bothered by them.
         Interesting and rather surprising that BLOGOSPHERE goes back to 1999.
8. Some might say that crossword-solving is a strong candidate.
   1. Indeed they would, and I know a lot of them!
   2. Just to combine the two, crossword solving was what kept me awake and interested while driving through the daily M11 traffic jam which resembled F1 racing in its processional nature, if not in its average speed. Not sure whether, on balance, it added to road safety. Probably wouldn’t have been pointless if I had been spotted by the traffic cop.
      1. Sorry (again) me – must remember to log in when on a different computer.
9. 15 minutes enjoyable solving, after a slowish start when I could only enter the two visiting Italians.
   Do others find that Mephisto/Listener conventions are sometimes diversionary here? My last in was EXEAT, because “No longer” in those is usually a signal for a obsolete word.
   The patter of meat salesmen on my local market is anything but idle talk, ENMESH would come from “get” rather than “gets” and I was going to comment on the DBE at 17ac but these seemed a bit churlish given the excellent “Flute part” and “Rail unit”, right up there with the best of deceptions.
   Sadly for me , BLOGOSPHERE went in on checkers rather than the neat cluing – I had a nasty feeling on first view that “modern postal area” might turn out to be Humberside or some such.
   Hard to pick a CoD, but THISBE just shades it for me over FULMINATE.
   1. Yes, I do. EXEAT was my last in and for exactly the same reasons.
10. 
    Must be a wavelength thing, as I found this one dead easy and finished in well under 30 mins, so must be close to a PB. Also managed to parse all the clues en route, too. Only unknown today was the President, but that was pretty clear from the clue. Happy to see I’d remembered FIAT from a very recent puzzle.

    And, yes, Jack, a friend embarrassed herself recently when she ended a text about someone’s death with LOL, thinking it meant ‘lots of love’. Hmm.

    A good end to the week!

11. An easy but fun puzzle. I enjoyed all the modern references. Also not keen on “they involve suction” as a definition. Knew about Flute so had no problem there. 15 minutes to solve.
12. I’m not an expert on rules and conventions but I think it must make a difference because otherwise a setter’s job would be very much more difficult and solving would be all the duller. I think in the past I may have complained about the odd example like today’s and been persuaded of the error of my ways buy other posters.
    1. Maybe. To my mind it makes no difference how they’re used: it’s more to with how readily the category comes to mind from the example. So, as discussed here, “Tamil” used to define “Asian” would strike me as sloppy whether or not it was the solution, whereas I’d never object to “Old MacDonald” for “farmer”.
       I’m not sure about “butter” for “fat”. It strikes me as a bit closer to Tamil than Old MacDonald but it didn’t cause me much of a problem.
13. Two PBs in the same puzzle is something – especially given that it’s not in the very easy category – so Congratulations, as Cliff once sang at Eurovision, to Janie and Kevin.
14. I enjoyed this crossword and I am also in the pro-blogosphere (in fact, pro-anything that makes me chuckle) camp. Quick and easy, but also fun. And I appreciate Dave’s implied compliment since no new words for me today. Did not however know about thisbe = flute part but entered it confidently enough.

15. I was delighted to knock this one out in under 15 minutes having badly lost my crossword mojo earlier in the week.

    I’m struggling to see exactly how 20 works. If the definition is “trap” and the link word is “gets”, what is the purpose of “in”?

    1. I took it to be working as a semi &lit.
    2. 19 minutes after being hung up on blogosphere and finally (as others) exeat – too many possibilities. Re enmesh, maybe ‘gets in’=’brings home’. Modern words have their interest but lachrymose beats them all.
16. Wish I had timed this one but under 10 mins. Showed my age when trying to justify vergent as bloke having taken the bird as Di. Shocking.
17. Oh dear, melrosemike has fallen asleep on his keyboard…

    Didn’t time this but all the acrosses except FIAT and HOME SWEET HOME went in on a first look so I knew it was on my wavelength – FIAT was my last in though. Definitely under 10.

    IMOLA from wordplay.

18. Apologies to melrosemike for deleting his post, but it contained lots of white space. It read as follows:

    Another PB! About 25 mins, which won’t cut much ice with the speed merchants, I know, but is outrageously fast for me. Fun puzzle, and surely one of the easiest Friday offerings for some time. I suspect, as Janie suggests, it was partly a wavelength thing. I very much liked BLOGOSPHERE, LOLLIPOPS, FULMINATE, EXEAT and THISBE. I had expected the last to trigger the sound of gnashing teeth from the Dorset area over yet another obscurish literary (and Waggledagger to boot) reference, but was pleased to note that it had passed muster even there! The clue’s “Flute part …” opening was delightfully deceptive.

19. Thanks, Dave. Don’t know how that happened! Actually, I didn’t notice any white space on my screen, which makes it even odder. Perhaps I did fall asleep on my keyboard, as George suggests!
20. Quickish time for me at 19 minutes. I spent a couple of those minutes trying to parse PARSNIPS. I keep forgetting the abbr. for “tin”. My girls’ grammar didn’t offer chemistry so that must be my excuse. Count me as one in favour of the LOLs and the BLOGOSPHEREs. It’s good to see this puzzle being inventive and incorporating the more familiar terms from the digital age. Although I’m far more at home with literary references, I enjoy the occasional foray into the 21st century.
21. First sub-10 minute solve for a while. Nice mix of the very new and quite traditional. I hate an ugly neologism as much as the next man (in my last job I sighed deeply whenever an invitation to a “webinar” hit my in-box) but a puzzle which doesn’t adopt the legitimate language of the digital age will end up with too many references as dated as the long-dead Beerbohm Tree, which would be far worse.
22. Got through eerything rather quickly, in 15 minutes or so, excpet ROTHERHAM, which I didn’t get at all. I went to the computer after a period of blank staring. I had been trying to fit something like RETNEWHAM in, but that just didn’t look enough like a real town, so I threw in the towel. Just as well. COD to BLOGOSPHERE, and regards to all.
    1. Don’t beat yourself up for not knowing Rotherham, Kevin – it’s hardly well known over here. You’ll doubtless know its big brother Sheffield.

       I discovered Rotherham because I live about 15 miles from a town called Wimborne which has a Minster. Intrigued I looked for other Minsters and discovered Rotherham! I can’t say I recall much else of note in the place, which is a centre for steel production.

23. Thought this would be my first completed Times crossword, but it was not to be, I just couldn’t get the last few answers. Thanks for the blog.
    1. Keep trying, you’re going to get one soon.
24. Apologies to anyone expecting to see a blog post from me.. it was accidental, and I have deleted it…
25. 7:55 for me.

    I wasn’t sure about PATTER = “idle talk”, but it’s supported by Collins (1986).

    I seem to remember that the HAYES that came up in Jumbo 948 (22 October 2011) was the president rather than (say) the place a few miles west of Ealing, but I don’t have the clue to hand.

    My one minor quibble is with “Seeing” in 1ac: although it’s needed for the surface reading, I don’t feel it contributes successfully otherwise. Am I missing something?

    1. From Jumbo 948: 51. US President’s confusion evident to audience (5)
       (I prefer today’s clue to that one)

       I agree with you about 1ac (but would not care to try to produce a better effort!)

26. 19.23 here and my best for a while. Like others I think this was a wavelength connect for me though no unknowns today and no real hold ups beyond parsing the obvious from checkers PARSNIPS

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