Times 25110: Daggers drawn

53 comments on “Times 25110: Daggers drawn”

1. No, I haven’t dragged up for the user pic, it’s in tribute to Joyce Grenfell. I’m a big fan so when I saw her name as I was printing the puzzle I tackled that clue first and solved it immediately. Nice to see her mentioned even though she was only part of the surface reading.

   I didn’t find this easy at all. I started well enough but I was unable to complete any quarter for ages and time gradually slipped away. I finished in an hour exactly but still had one wrong at 22 where I missed the point entirely and ended in desperation with GAIETY. I had all the checkers and acquired the G from ‘strong finish’. I didn’t hold out much hope for this having failed to explain the middle four letters, and the definition (wit) would have been a bit of a stretch anyway.

   DK SOCKEYE (so I was surprised to find it omitted from the blog) or the CEDAR of Lebanon.

   Nice to see the revolutionary’s last name for a change as his first has become a crossword cliche.

   Edited at 2012-03-14 02:47 am (UTC)

2. 50 minutes, finishing with the fish (also unknown by me – I wonder, was McT a salmon poacher when a nipper on Merseyside?). Quite a bit of this went in from the literal, so not a puzzle for the purists, I imagine. I’m pleased the scientific fellow had come up recently as I just about managed to remember him once I’d already pencilled in the SAGA_. Bottom half went in first today – I thought the NW was quite cunning, especially the lift-and-separate Tory.

   Congrats to the setter for squeezing in ANTITHEFT but I think the surface could do with the kind of tweaking you always see those Raffles types doing in the movies when they press their ear to the safe waiting for that tell-tale click while turning the over-sized dial.

   1. No fish there but Mersey goldfish. They even had to stop the annual pier-to-pier police charity swim when someone got typhus or some equally horrible disease.
      “Sockeye”, by contrast, is commonly seen on labels in Australian supermarkets. It’s just the red salmon. Thought that was common knowledge. Shows how wrong you can be.

      (Equally surprised — though pleasantly — by Gerrard’s hat-trick against Everton.)

      1. For every Gerrard or Reina, there are sadly for Scousers two or three Carrolls or Downings.
      2. I well remember going from the Pier Head to the Isle of Man (on the “Ben me Chree” or similar) for a holiday aged about 10. 70 miles, and each mile the water got clearer and clearer. First time I’d ever realised salt water was see-through!
   2. Funny, I’ve never thought of Sagan as either an astronomer or scientific; more a cosmologist and a media whore (as they’re known here downunder). I’m almost certainly wrong on both counts, but it’s the way he presents.

      Rob

3. Very surprised to see 11A omitted. For overseas solvers “a shiner” is slang for a black eye and hence “sock eye”. Not a fish I’d come across before, I’m surprised to say. In the same vein at 14D Tetley is a well known brand of tea in the UK.

   Straightforward average puzzle which I enjoyed solving in 20 minutes. Liked 1D and the dear old stately galleon (Jack can explain that reference!)

   1. Maybe the overseas solvers will know SOCKEYE better as it’s common in the US and Canada; its name deriving from an indigenous language. (Though the etymology is conflicted.) And the New Oxford American includes “shiner” (without the “Brit”).

      Chances are you’ve eaten the fish though, Jim!

      Edited at 2012-03-14 09:46 am (UTC)

      1. You’re probably right as it’s a salmon. There are times when I start to worry about my memory. I feel sure I must have seen sockeye before – it’s such a gift for setters – but I don’t recall it.

         I’m also wondering if “shiner” is a bit old fashioned, another throw back to the times of Joyce G perhaps

         1. I seem to remember it (“shiner”) in American detective novels too. Elmore Leonard perhaps? Let’s see what the US/Canadian solvers think when they come on.
            1. You’re probably right – and it’s almost certainly in Hammett, Chandler and Gardner too. I think it has a derogatory origin having to do with blacks as shoeshine men although I’m vague about how that works. And your comment about “closure” was apt. 23 minutes and I enjoyed Grenfell, Firth and Che. I’m off to open another season of Rhinebeck Abbey so won’t be seen around these pages for a while until we get settled into a regular routine. In the meantime deep thanks to all bloggers and contributors.
         2. And there was Ronald Shiner who was indeed from the times of Joyce G. They worked together in minor roles in Boulting’s The Magic Box (1951) about the invention of the movie camera. Not really similar types though.
      2. I think it was Mr Salter in Scoop who believed that the British agricultural classes lived on a diet of tinned salmon and cider. I can confirm that a tin of SOCKEYE salmon was a treat in our household in the 1950s, so that must have been where I first met the word.
         1. Sorry, that was me. Thought I was logged in.
4. Got stuck interminably on NAMELY, even though I spotted the “to wit” bit, and ON ONE’S TOD took a while, depite the curious T?D third word – for a while I considered that the numbering might have been a mistake (surely not!). Two cutesy definition clues at 20 and 17 rather grated (just a personal thing, I guess).
   No problem with SOCKEYE, and SAGAN is my favourite scientist, not only for his boundless enthusiasm for his subject, but also for his wistful yearning to find that “something out there”. The SETI programme still runs on my computer, crunching the numbers during its down time.
   CoD to PASSWORD, mention in dispatches to CODICIL, and appreciation of Che’s other name turning up.

   Edited at 2012-03-14 09:18 am (UTC)

5. 
   All complete today but with two errors – Passport at 8D not Password and Tart at 18A not Dirk. No major hold ups with the other 30. Enjoyed Sockeye and No-No in On One’s Tod. We had Codicil a few weeks ago which helped me get a foothold in the top left corner. Smiled when I pieced together Antitheft from its components.

   Nice to see Sagan appended to Saturn in the NE. His Cosmos series was before my time but Brian Cox’s recent Wonders of the Universe was fantastic. I took a couple of good photos of Jupiter and Venus last night from my garden. They’ve been very prominent in the western sky above the UK for the past week or more.

   1. Why did he talk like Kermit the frog?
      1. Probably goes back to the boundless enthusiasm thing, combined with the impossible task of trying to hold the search for ETI together when it was less than fashionable. Still the one question I would love to see answered in my lifetime – so far we still only have wildly differing probabilities to offer.
   2. You’re not alone with PASSPORT… I’d guessed FOIL was used in its sword sense and reasoned that it, perhaps along with epee, was a SPORT in the Olympics.

      Hence a DNF.

6. DNF this easy one. Started well but it all ended in tears over NAMELY, MORAY & TIRK. Well, I knew there was a DIRK, didn’t I, which fitted the clue very nicely indeed, but that didn’t make me question PASSPORT for a second. Foil is an olympic sport, I believe. As for NAMELY, I thought the “to wit” was EG inside of something, even after I got the damned eel. And enamel=strong finish was not a connection I was ever going to make. COD to OAKEN. Very apt.
   1. Yep, foil is a sport. NOAD has:
      “the sport of fencing with a foil”.
      Example: “for épée and foil, hits must be made with the point”.
      So I suspect PAS,SPORT is a legit answer.
      1. And TIRK?
         1. … in a context-free sense!
      2. I think I’d get a bit arsey if I came across passport clued as “security measure”.
         1. OK, I wasn’t on best form form today, admittedly, but a password is something which keeps dodgy people out of your computer or bank account and a passport is something which keeps dodgy people out of your country; the difference being…
            1. I can see how easy it was to make the slip but I’m not sure I agree with McT’s “legit clue” assessment.

               FWIW the dodgy people trying to get into my bank account are Nigerian, the dodgy peple trying to get into my country are Australian.

               1. And you’d be amazed how easy it is.
7. 14 minutes. Bit of a curate’s egg this. For instance I thought the CD for FACE POWDER was very weak, but the one for LOBOTOMY quite good. The phrase “some strode diagonally westward” in 9ac sticks out like a sore thumb, but things like “some energy’s lacking in strong finish” and the Joyce Grenfell device are very good.
   I’m surprised SOCKEYE caused problems: it’s very familiar to me for some reason. On the other hand I didn’t know the shiner fish. As a result the surface made no sense to me, and the clue was very easy. Much harder if your fish knowledge is the other way round.
8. Very enjoyable puzzle of middling difficulty. Around 1 hour for me. Lots of clever stuff, some of it (in my case) suffering the fate of pearls cast before swine – e.g. ON ONE’S TOD, which went straight in on the hint that I should be looking for a phrase meaning the opposite of “aided”, the elaborate cryptic parsing being wasted on me. Thanks to Mctext for pointing it out. I thought NAMELY, CODICIL, LOBOTOMY, SOCKEYE. MERMAID and SERGEANT were particularly good. It was also a nice touch to give us two persons for the price of one with Joyce Grenfell at 23dn. Initially the only SAGAN (5ac) I could think of was a young French woman novelist, Francoise by name, who had a big international hit with a love-lorn tear-jerker called Bonjour Tristesse back in the 1960s, which dates me a bit, but then I remembered Carl and his TV series. I agree that it was refreshing to have the Cuban revolutionary represented by his surname for once. I can’t recall seeing it before.
9. Similar experience to Koro, with a couple in the SW left blank, and ‘passport’ at 8d.

   Didn’t know the fish or the astronomer (sorry, Jim!). Thought 20a weak (got it early, put only put it in lightly as I couldn’t be sure it was THAT easy).

   Cod: CODICIL (or EXTEMPORE).

   1. A man after my own heart. You would find him interesting. My two favourite quotes are:

      “The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God”

      “An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid”

      1. I’m not particularly familiar with the life and work of Carl Sagan but the statement “an atheist is someone who knows there is no god” is complete nonsense.
         1. I agree with that. I suspect that most people who describe themselves as atheists, including Richard Dawkins, would have little if any quarrel with the first quote attributed by Jimbo to Carl Sagan. Dawkins, I’m sure, would never claim to “know” that there is no God, a proposition as unverifiable and as unsupported by empirical evidence as its converse. He would merely argue that it is more rational to proceed on the assumption of God’s non-existence.
            1. Well actually I would rather take issue with the first quote, because it strips the term “God” of all real meaning. It’s a bit like saying “if by God one means Alex Ferguson, then clearly there is such a God”.
               I don’t mean to be rude about Carl Sagan: I don’t know much about him but I do know he was a great advocate for science, which is of course a Very Good Thing. I just don’t like him calling me stupid!
               1. True enough. As a jobbing atheist myself, I don’t much care for being called stupid either. Of course, anyone can turn themselves into a theist simply by defining “God” to mean whatever they want the concept to mean and which they can show actually exists. I take it, however, your tongue was in cheek in suggesting that Sir Alex , though he indubitably exists, is of comparable importance to the “physical laws that govern the the universe”. Much as I admire his achievements, I don’t think I’d quite go that far! Perhaps all Sagan was suggesting was that it is possible to feel something akin to religious awe in contemplating the physical workings of the universe. Dawkins seems to say something similar in his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, in which he speaks of “the grandeur” of the process of evolution and natural selection. That said, Dawkins comes close at times to equating God with Darwin, who certainly fits the description of “an oversized white male with a flowing beard”!

                  1. I didn’t intend any sort of judgement of Sir Alex! One could equally say “if by God one means a spanner, then clearly there is such a God”. The laws of the universe are many things to many people – mysterious, awe-inspiring, boring – but they are not, in any meaningful sense, a god.
                     1. Unless you are a pantheist! But I agree that one can have an almost religious reverence for, and awe at, nature, without holding the metaphysical thesis that there is a god.

                        Edited at 2012-03-14 07:56 pm (UTC)

      2. Nice stuff. If I were an atheist, a seahorse would be enough to make me wonder … Let alone 35 species of the marvellous things.
         1. ulaca, seahorses make me wonder as well. But they do not make me believe in a god or even think about one.
            1. Why seahorses? weird inefficient little things at the end of an evolutionary cul de sac? IMO there are many more amazing examples of the genius of the evolving gene. As an atheist, I take issue with Mr Sagan’s comment although he does water it down with ‘by some definitions…’. I cannot prove there is no God (or indeed Gods) but find no need or reason to ‘believe’ in one / them. [End of mini-rant]. I liked this puzzle but didn’t find it easy, took ages to finish on extempore and (the brilliant clue) antitheft.
               1. I think Sagan’s passion for the ETI search has strong analogies, which may give insight into his comments on “God”. At present, we lack the hard evidence, despite all the searching. Depending on how you fiddle the numbers in the Drake equation, the probabilities spread from virtually certain to no chance.
                  There is even disagreement as to what would count as satisfactory evidence.
                  In the meantime, there are plenty of people who claim certainty, such as the Scientologists or abductees, and others who would assert with equal certainty that there can’t be, on a religious or philosophical basis. Saagn would, I think, have regarded both groups as deluded.
                  I’d love to be around when incontrovertible evidence is found – it might even answer the one about God as well.
                  1. Incontrovertible evidence is only going to found in one direction. I think I’d love to be around too, but it rather depends on which alien movie I’ve watched most recently.
         2. Subatomic particles obeying the laws of physics, and arranging themselves into nice neat atoms, are sufficient for me. Why should they do that? They’re too small to give it much thought.
10. Tetley is also, of course, the name of a former brewery in Leeds (whilst the name survives the beer is now brewed in, I think, Burton or Wolverhampton).

    Without having to think too hard about it (having been a student in Leeds and returning to the area 11 year ago) I’m pretty sure I’ve drunk more pints of the bitter than cups of the tea over the years, by a factor of roughly 1000.

11. 32:50 so I didn’t find this at all easy. Particular problems were not remembering yer man’s name in Ulysses and piecing together antitheft (my LOI). I’d considered both aft and tithe early doors but didn’t think to try them together.

    Thanks for explaining on ones tod McT as I couldn’t see how that worked.

    I knew the fish (from a restaurant menu I think) but not the Lebanon/Cedar connection.

12. I found this harder than the previous two days, quite a few clues I couldn’t get. I wanted to put FACE POWDER in but I thought it was too easy for a Times clue! I put in SARDINE instead of SOCKEYE not knowing the slang meaning of shiner and trying to justify sardine from its alternative definition as a mineral stone.
13. 20 minutes, very quick start, but really struggled at the end with BLOOM, MORAY and (then kicking myself) BASS. I put FACE POWDER in with very very light lettering hoping and didn’t pull the trigger on it until almost all the checking letters were in place. Liked PASSWORD a lot and GUEVARA.
14. Well, I found this one (and yesterdays) somewhat easier than of late but frankly, “easy” would be a step too far.

    Either the crosswords are getting harder, or I am getting softer. Not sure which..

15. Done in snatches, more or less OK till end when threw in gaiety for wit (thought a g. might be an old term for a pun or similar). Enjoyable puzzle. And enjoyable theological discussion. I’m on the anti-Sagan side – both quotations to me make unwarranted jumps – a false profundity. I find 17 a bit eerie.
16. Andrew K
    One wrong! Put in B(r)AGS at 15ac: trumpets equals brags and bags are bagpipes maybe???
    Regards to all
17. 11:42 for me. Another depressingly slow start, and a senior moment to finish as I took several seconds to remember LOBOTOMY (with the possible OLOGY ending not helping). Nice puzzle.
18. ….I was in the wrong centuries of astronomers, 16th, 17th, and 18th, and suspected wrongly that ‘drawn-out’ referred sneakily to drawings.

    I did see ‘Moray’ right away, perhaps because they have slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen. But I did need the cryptic to put in the correct vowel for “on one’s tod”.

19. Hard for me (85 minutes) but I did manage to drag all sorts of vaguely remembered wisps of words from my brain (SOCKEYE is one) and work out the wordplay to rescue me in other places (DIRK, ON ONE’S TOD — my English comes from the wrong side of the Atlantic, so no rhyming slang), so all correct. Whew! Last in were NAMELY, which I rather liked, and MORAY, a lucky guess since I didn’t know the firth, just the eel.

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