Times 25,165 – We Need Your Empty Bottles

34 comments on “Times 25,165 – We Need Your Empty Bottles”

1. Thought this an excellent puzzle with some well-crafted clues; especially 1dn and 4ac; but most of the rest were above average. Only slight blemish might be “writer” (PEN) with “penning” in clue at 22ac.

   A triple lesson in Times vocab here. ELI (the priest); ELIAS (the prophet); and ELIA (the essayist). Just needed ELY (the See) to complete the lesson?

2. …that kept requiring attention. About an hour minus twenty minutes, more or less.

   I got most horribly stuck at the end on ‘dog’s dinner’ and ‘Notre Dame’, looking for ‘private’ = ‘GI’, and thinking that there was a ‘CE’ container. No to all, so fresh thinking was required.

   I always think of the Elias Sports Bureau, which is probably unknown in the UK…..and in Oz. You could Google it….

3. 
   Agree with yfyap’s assessment: a very fine puzzle.

   Pretty quick time (11:45) but all for nought as I confidently deduced CLUMP at 10a. I think I was thinking of the definition as ‘shoulder’ and a lump as a fool. But I don’t always think about what I’m thinking about.

   1. A lady called Sotira bought
      Times 25165 but it came to nought.
      No metathought.
      1. Exactly my point. I think.
4. 59 minutes – agree with all assessments thus far, but thought EAST ART was pretty weak. Like Viynl, my last two in were the multi-word pair 13 and 26, which says something about my skills or the setter’s, or, probably, both.

   The dog and the set of instructions were both guesses, ‘though crosswordland CAM, as opposed to the river in the other place, was vaguely familiar.

5. Just as I predicted, after 4 under-20′ solves in a row and 2 PBs, I fell apart on this one. After tossing in ‘education’ at 7d, I finally took the time to try to parse the clue, and realized it had to be ERUDITION, which finally enabled me to get 10ac and 12ac. But I also put in ‘togged out’ at 14ac, influenced by ‘got up’ and not thinking it through. (I suppose one could call that a dd of sorts, except that it’s the same d.) Which made 15d impossible, of course. Wot larks. But I liked the clues I solved, at least.
   1. If you did this Sunday’s sub-20 (rather than last Sunday’s), that’s some effort! Or maybe you don’t count the Sabbath.
      1. Oops! I have no idea now how I came up with the number 4, but certainly this Sunday’s 92′ is a bit over 20; sorry about that. But at least I finally finished Sunday’s, unlike today’s DNF.
6. A slight hold-up in the SW (15,17 & 13) extended my time to 35 minutes when I had seemed on course for under 30. Prior to that the only other difficulty had been 9ac where I first thought RUNABOUT which fitted the wordplay perfectly but unfortunately didn’t fill the allocated spaces in the grid so time was lost considering the plural made by adding S = small.

   No DKs today but ‘shoulder’ as HUMP wasn’t clear until I thought of them as verbs.

   Edited at 2012-05-17 06:38 am (UTC)

7. Another straightforward one today.. you wait for weeks, then four come along all at once! Well five, if you count the qualifier.

   I did particularly like 1dn, not so hard but lovely surface… a lot of nice surfaces today.

   Edited at 2012-05-17 08:30 am (UTC)

8. Extended to 25 minutes as I unaccountably put in PACKGEE at 6, the sort of thing that’s commonplace when I’m on line, but this was on paper. I checked and missed it many times, and was about to resort to aids for 12 (LAY GUIDE, anyone) when I saw the error of my ways. I was another who tried TOGGED OUT at 14, too – turned out I was wrong.
   Many pitfalls for the seasoned but unwary traveller: Church was not CE or CH in 26, Heathcliff’s first name was not, after all, required in 1ac, 25 was not a word for a business deal with its I advanced, neither of the years was Y in 19, “short” in 22 did not mean taking the end off something, just that the article required was the shortest one available, and in 8, “[news]paper” clued Express, which in the last week has printed 6 articles on Princess Diana, so surely doesn’t qualify.
   Good stuff, if a little gnarly. CoD to 5: I liked mad east art (sorry Ulaca!).
9. Obviously a wavelength sort of puzzle: 12m here with no real hold-ups.
   I wasn’t familiar with the getting out of bed meaning of TURNED OUT, but figured it could be the opposite of “turned in”.
   I don’t quite get 8dn. I understand the “paper boy’s job perhaps” bit, but the rest of it just seems to be based on a vague notion that a paper boy wouldn’t be very quick, which seems a bit weak, unless I’m missing something.
   1. I think there is an allusion to the Daily Express… that they deliver
      1. Yes, that’s the bit I understand. “Paper boy’s job perhaps” = delivery of the Express. It’s the “not usually carried out this fast” bit that puzzles me. Is the Express known for delivering slowly?
         1. I think the idea is that ‘express’ delivery is something over and above the normal speed e.g. think Pony Express, whereas the paper boy is a lad struggling from house to house mainly on foot to deliver, perhaps, The Daily Express.

            Edited at 2012-05-17 01:44 pm (UTC)

            1. Yes, I suppose so. It still seems a bit weak to me but I didn’t have any trouble with the clue so I can’t really complain.
10. 25 minutes for me, mainly spent staring at the bottom half after the top half went in in a fairly straightforward manner. Luckily the pennies dropped to the floor before I had to go back to work.
11. About 40 minutes today and eventually used aids to get DOGS DINNER. I’m still not clear on dog=trouble link. The rest was straightforward enough but took a while to untangle the SE corner.
    1. Chambers has “worry, plague, infest”, which I think is the required meaning. As in “Sarkozy dogged by corruption allegations” or “Romney dogged by past”.
       1. Yes of course; as a verb makes perfect sense. Thanks for clarifying.
       2. That made me laugh! You may have heard the one about the family dog strapped onto the car roof on a long road trip to Canada.
          1. I have, but I must confess it didn’t occur to me. I just googled “dogged by” for some topical examples.
             I’m generally much funnier when I don’t mean to be.
    2. COED has DOG: (of a problem) to cause continual trouble for.
12. Same experience as others, nice steady solve of good standard clues without anything really outstanding.

    Have to record managed 18 holes today for the first time in about 4 weeks and without getting rained on – perhaps the drought has arrived!

13. Made a dog’s dinner of 13dn/19ac. DOG’S DINNER eluded me, probably because I could never make up my mind about the definition (kept thinking it was ‘trouble’); and my knowledge of old-fashioned dances was too limited to work out SARABANDE without the right first letter. Nonetheless a very good, challenging puzzle.
14. Got through this steadily, until I was held up by the last four…

    ROCKETEER went in once I’d corrected ‘togged out’, and BLENHEIM (unknown as a dog) followed.

    Another longish time before BREWERS came to me (great clue, I was convinced it had to finish -US, something like ‘vacuous’, meaning ’empty’ for ages), finishing with the unknown SARABANDE. With this one I was sure it finished -NOE, with ‘eons’ reversed hiding something. Awful when you get so fixated, irrationally, on one way of reading the clue, to the exclusion of all others.

    Anyway, was glad to finish with all correct, albeit in a very slow time.

    Edited at 2012-05-17 04:03 pm (UTC)

15. About 25 minutes. As said above, mostly straightforward today, but qualifying that statement by saying it’s straightforward only to those who solve regularly, and probably not to the rest of creation. Like those who cannot pull the obscure SARABANDE out of the clear blue sky. I did solve that, on first read(!), but only because the dance has appeared in this puzzle enough to lodge in my brain, with ‘cam’ and several other of today’s devices. LOI was DOGS DINNER, where I was trying to fit the devices ‘cop’ or PO’ in, instead of the required ‘DS’. My COD nod goes to BREWERS, which made me smile. Thanks to the setter and Uncle Yap, and regards to everyone else.
16. Good and enjoyable puzzle, as nearly all have said. I seem to be pretty much alone in being unfamiliar with the “set of instructions” meaning of MACRO (17 ac), which was my LOI. But it was getable from the cryptic hints. I too thought EXPRESS DELIVERY a tad feeble. TURNED OUT was an excellent double def, and BREWERS an ingenious near-&lit. Thanks to setter and blogger.
    1. Not alone, Mike.

       It caused much consternation in the Club forum today.

17. 10 minutes – though MACRO went in from definition alone. I thought this was going to be a slog as I only got two or three across answers on a first read-through, then I got to the downs and saw almost all of them on a first read-through. Fun puzzle!
18. Got in late and kicked round in 34 minutes. ‘…saw almost all of them on a first read-through’ …congratulations glh. For myself, I somehow know I’ll never drag myself out of the outer circles of hell.
19. 8:36 for me, at the end of a tiring day. Twice I bunged in a wrong answer on spec going from the first two checked letters and had to change OTHELLO to OPHELIA and EDUCATION to ERUDITION (the former quite quickly, the latter horribly slowly).

    I don’t recall coming across RUNAROUND meaning RUNABOUT before.

20. Had a good time with this one. Couldn’t get DOG’S DINNER and NOTRE DAME. Found the puzzle pretty easy, on the whole.

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