Times 25099 – eat your greens!

38 comments on “Times 25099 – eat your greens!”

1. ….although I didn’t understand a few of the cryptics, and was not sure of ‘Lorenz’ although the cryptic pointed strongly in that direction.

   You would think that a native like me would put in ‘Connecticut’ right away, but I’m so used to ‘state’ being the two-letter abbreviation I was looking for the literal at the other end of the clue. George, the ‘cut of his jib’ is not an austerity measure, you want a much simpler meaning of ‘cut’.

   I won’t be surprised if UK solvers struggle a bit over ‘dewy’, and maybe the long unblogged anagram, but they’re sure to see the witty ‘Brussels’ right away.

2. A steady but very slow solve for me, coming in at 50 minutes. Most of the clues needed working out from the wordplay, particularly the unknowns (or forgottens) LORENZ and SIMONIAC, but others were much easier, for example CHEMIN DE FER went in immediately from definition, enumeration and a single checker,F.

   I don’t think DADO is wall-paper. It’s the lower part of a wall when decorated differently from the top part and usually separated by a dado rail.

   I hadn’t fully understood 24dn before coming here as I had reasoned that TERN could be nibbled to produce ERN (yes, it is an alternative spelling).

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

   1. Forgot to mention how much I detest clues like 20dn. Ban them, say I!

      Edited at 2012-03-01 09:39 am (UTC)

3. Defeated by the SW corner, where the barely remembered ‘chemin de feu’ (as I originally shoved in before changing it to ‘chemin de foe’) cannot fully be blamed, as I wouldn’t have got DADO (‘dada’ for me) anyway. For one who usually misses hidden words, I was pretty chuffed to get ‘leda’ at 24, only to ‘discover’ post-solve that it was Zeus who changed into the bird and not the, um, bird. So that left me with ‘liesal’ at 27: stories + that well known Kiwi ‘Al’. I can’t look beyond that corner, the way I’m feeling, so COD to FEDERAL – the only one I got.

   Edited at 2012-03-01 02:27 am (UTC)

4. So pretty difficult, especially in the 4-letter department, all of which I pondered for ages with two of the four letters in each. Still don’t fully get the DADO parsing. I was assuming DAD and O. Doesn’t account for the “replace” though. Help!

   Wrote in MUSKRAT without understanding it at all. Can just imagine Noah ushering them on board!

   Suspect that our LORENZ is Konrad, pioneer of ethology. Hence the investigation of behaviour in the clue.

   And just for good measure: the TfT calendar [http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/calendar%5D has gone squiffy again. Shows two entries for yesterday (but only one when you click on “View Subjects” you only get one). March 2012 doesn’t exist!

   1. Da is the least convincing of the cruciverbal abbreviations for father (others being fr, pa and dad). Any advance on 4?
      1. So what’s the “replace” doing? (Very thick today.)
         1. It’s an &lit, as per George.

            Edited at 2012-03-01 04:57 am (UTC)

            1. Still don’t get it. As I said: very thick!
               1. I don’t buy the Da do either. Is it not O! DAD backwards, to replace is to put back or return?
                  1. That makes more sense to me. Though, if so, I’m not too fond of the reversicator.
                     1. Either that or its an anagrind and we have the first authenticated indirect anagram in The Times this century.
      2. pop
   2. I think the clue should be interpreted as:

      ‘appeal to parent’ = ‘o, dad’

      ‘replace’ = ‘move the o to the end’

5. George,

   Not an anagram. Rather a straight charade: NEW (fresh), ZEAL (passion), AND (also).

6. 42 minutes, mostly held up in the SW; TERN was my LBOI; I couldn’t see how it worked for ages, even after deciding it couldn’t be anything else. Surely ternate isn’t a bird, I was thinking. Ditto for CARACAS, which was my LOI; I thought bumping into was just a positional indicator rather than inserticator. Also didn’t know the right Lorenz. COD to TERN over INVITEE.

7. 25 minutes, but I thought this was a weird mix of the blindingly obvious: BRUSSELS, NEW ZEALAND SANDWICH ISLANDS, VINDICATED; and the can-you-guess-what-it-is-yet: CARACAS, SIMONIAC (unknown but gettable from simony) and the 4-letters, which seem to have been particularly obscurely clued.
   We always called the thin strip of wallpaper that separated the top of the main wallpaper from the ceiling or the architrave DADO (which has to be O Dad backwards, surely?). As such it would have been above head height, I see we’ve been wrong all these years, or right and waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. Dialect use?
   RULE is rather clever, but I thought it a rather dumb cutesy definition at the time. CARACAS I could’t parse, so thanks for that.
   CoD to AVARICIOUS (“divers” gets me every time) with a side order of the chucklesome FRIENDS, though it’s probably an antique.
8. 25 minutes for a puzzle that never caught my imagination. Had never heard of SANDWICH ISLANDS being an alternative name for Hawaii – invented by Cooke I see from Wiki. No doubt after today I’ll get advertisements for exotic island holidays thrown at me.

   Don’t really understand DADO but got DEWY without any trouble. Agree its Konrad LORENZ who investigated animal behaviour.

9. An anagram? I think not.
10. An improved performance today at 38.35 of which some 7 minutes testing to see if there was something more likely than DEWY which floated to the surface quite quickly. My COD to FRIENDS for making me smile but I thought there were a number of contenders today including BRUSSELS and TERN.
11. 26 minutes here, but the best I could do for 21ac was DADA. I know what a dado rail is, but had never clocked that the bit underneath it is called a dado. In our house we have the rails in places but the bits underneath are the same colour as the bits on top. Don’t ask me why: not my department. I still don’t really understand the “to replace” bit of the clue.
    Otherwise numerous unknowns to slow me down but nothing overly taxing. I wonder if the old name for Hawaii came from the Earl. It must be a bit annoying to lose the islands and be remembered only in the name of a quick lunch.
    1. I’m pretty sure that vinyl1 nailed this above with ‘replace’ pronounced ‘re-place’ indicating the change of order.
       1. Yes I agree this must be the way it’s supposed to work. I can’t say I like it: “replace” doesn’t really mean this, and I find the construction clumsy. Still, I should have got it from the definition.
12. Done in two sessions as I had to escort an interview candidate to another building mid-solve. A probable total time of 14 or 15 minutes. Held up by 1d mostly. I did like 28a and 24d.
13. 33 minutes. No major problems here – although it took me a while to remember Dewey. I made myself an expert on DADO rails having put them all the way up the hall/stairway when I moved into this house 30 years ago. (Btw, I used glue which seems to have worked perfectly well since they’re still in place) The main reason for said rails was that I couldn’t manage a 12ft run of wallpaper. It’s much easier if you break it up and decorate the bottom of the wall separately. I think dado rails are also known as “chair rails” from the old days when chairs were always pushed back against the wall and brought forward when required. The rail protected the wallpaper. Technically a chair rail is a bit higher than a dado rail but that’s splitting hairs. Here endeth the lesson in house decorating. I would have a liked a Welsh clue or two in honour of the day but this puzzle has turned out to be one for our colonial cousins! I’m sitting here festooned in daffodils having spent the morning playing Welsh airs at a Dewi Sant coffee morning. Now off for some alcohol. Iechyd da!
    1. Back in the land of the livingish…

       It’s funny what you think is going to be omissible and non-controversial. Probably from growing up in Australia, Hawaii as the Sandwich Islands has been well and truly engrained on the consciousness with the Captain Cook connection, so I didn’t give it a second thought. Sorry if I omitted one that solvers found difficult.

       As I said in the blog, I didn’t know the definition of DADO and got it from the wordplay, and used one of the chambers definitions (wallpaper) that fit the clue.

       Tricky crossword, good comments, feel free to keep ’em coming!

14. …as I’d never heard of him, and had wasted far too long on one puzzle anyway.

    Found this tough, but, for the most part fair, with unknowns (SIMONIAC, LORENZ, S ISLANDS) going in on wordplay. I too assumed a TERNate was a type of bird.

    Lots of misdirections (stroke, divers) led to lots of PDMs.

    Last in were the 26/28 pair.

    COD: MUSKRAT.

    1. Me too, eventually got all but Dewy, not good on US elections. Almost an hour sitting in showroom while car was being serviced, gave up when it was ready. Lots of nice clues, CoD the well clued anagram for those islands.
15. 
    I didn’t find this one easy, so thanks for explaining everything George. Defeated in the NW by Musingly and Muskrat and also didn’t get Rule, Dado, Brussels and Simoniac. The latter/simony are new words to me. Must remember Ark for vessel – I think we’ve had that before. I put in Sin on the
    basis of the def and have just realised the intended meaning of founder (= sinking ship, not creator). Guessed Dewy from the checkers and def.

    It’s refreshing to see an alternative for co = company in LICIT. My dad worked his entire career for ICI in Teesside, Wilmslow, London and Runcorn.

    Liked Friends and Tie for unsettled match.

    1. I spent 6 weeks several years ago rolling out 340 new PCs for Uniqema at the Wilton Hilton, and was in there a couple of weeks ago swapping a disk in a storage system for a Dutch Company, Sabic, who now have office space there. They still get plagued by the Canada Geese. Going back 37 years or so we used to get calls to fix, maybe, a calculator at ICI Wilton. No contact name or phone number!! The petrol was always cheaper at the site garage, although Escort Mk2 valves didn’t last long on it.
16. Alice Roosevelt Longworth called him the little man on the wedding cake on account of his Hercule Poirot appearance. Even Hoover didn’t like him much and made fun of his moustache. There’s a famous photo of Truman holding up a copy of a Chicago newspaper headline that reads “Dewey Beats Truman”. In the midst of the current US election season, “ou sont les neiges d’antan?”. 28 minutes after getting myself in a muddle with -ist instead of -iac as the pardon purchaser.
    P.S. Only just found this site – a leap year glitch perhaps?

    Edited at 2012-03-01 04:02 pm (UTC)

17. Not too tough, but held up at the end with DADO and MUSKRAT, my LOI which I didn’t understand til coming here. It went in from the MUST around the reversed ARK and not getting the pair business at all. If ‘replace’ in DADO means ‘turn around’ or ‘put the front at the back’, it’s not too good, but I don’t have a better explanation. About 25 minutes all told. Thanks to the setter for the Yank-friendly items today, which all (CT, the Islands, Tom DEW(E)Y, and maybe even FEDERAL) all went in pretty much immediately. Regards to all.
18. 21:39 for me, with the last few minutes spent pondering DADO. I’m afraid I don’t really go along with any of the explanations that people have given so far, but haven’t been able come up with a better one myself. The surface reading isn’t particularly good, so I suppose it could be that the clue’s been misprinted. Maybe the setter will enlighten us.

    The LORENZ in 27ac must surely be Konrad, as pointed out by mctext and dorsetjimbo. I’ve probably still got my copy of King Solomon’s Ring somewhere. Great stuff – or at least so it seemed when I read it back in the 1950s/1960s.

    1. I had thought that there was “old” missing between the “to replace” and “part of wall” of the clue, which would at least be specific about what was being replaced, but it doesn’t help the surface.
       1. Interesting thought. I’d certainly have been quite happy with “old” in there; and I think it does actually improve the surface reading slightly too since it’s not unusual to replace something old.
19. This one was harder for me. Back to 90 minutes in two 45 minute spells separated by a visit to the pub for a few pints of Magnet Ale. I sat with a totally empty grid for 20 minutes until SADNESS clicked, then CONNECTICUT fell and I was off. I was torn between RULE and ROLL as in bed roll, and actually crossed RULE out and changed it to ROLL as my LOI. I struggled to parse DADO but got it from the definition. Remembered SIMONY from a recent puzzle, so got 9d from that and the checkers. I got DEWY from the wet definition and an alphabet search without knowing the candidate. Mulled over Hewey Louis and Dewey as pointers but discounted them. LORENZ went in from word play only. I was pleased to finish this one albeit with one wrong.
20. I tried this online, having done a couple of the easier ones this week that way, and of course this was a lot slower. Logged off after 30′, finished up at home in another 15. I knew LORENZ because of his work on imprinting; a book I have on child cognition has a lovely old photo of him being followed by a flock of ducks, for whom he was Mama, having removed their real mother just before hatching started. I join jackkt in condemning 20d-type clues, of which this one was an egregious example. All these years I’d thought it was Dorothy Parker, not Alice Longworth Roosevelt; thanks, Olivia. (Roosevelt also said–or maybe it was Dorothy Parker–“If you have nothing nice to say about someone, sit here next to me.”)

    Edited at 2012-03-02 03:35 am (UTC)

21. Some of you may not remember ancient American elections, but you ought to remember Mr. Dewey, thanks to an infamously wrong headline in the Chicago Tribune following the 1948 election: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman.

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