Times 25194: There’s X, here’s Y

40 comments on “Times 25194: There’s X, here’s Y”

1. …being stuck for quite a while on my last in, ‘humdinger’. I spent a long time trying to use the ‘ing’ as the end of a word meaning ‘longing’, a completely wrong interpretation of the clue. I finally saw it just as a word that would fit, and backed into both the cryptic and the literal.

   I think the clues for ‘theist’ and ‘cameramen’ have both appeared recently, but I can’t recall exactly where.

   I will imagine that some will take offense at the &lit in 9 down, but it is at least easy to work out from the cryptic even if you don’t agree with the sentiment.

   I really appreciated ‘fray’, ‘bologna’, and ‘toast’, all very original clues – either that, or I haven’t done the puzzle in which they previously appeared!

   Edited at 2012-06-20 02:37 am (UTC)

2. 18:54, although there were a couple I couldn’t justify until I came here: I had to assume that BACH was something British, and that MD had to be an abbreviation for some sort of boss; I simply didn’t think of temper(a). I imagine that if I’d done this off line I’d have figured out–or looked up–some, like 21ac and 24d. We’ve had ALTHING recently, and THEIST, as vinyl notes, although the clue was different. I liked 17d (my COD) and 22d.

   Edited at 2012-06-20 03:45 am (UTC)

3. 31 minutes, but would have been a fair bit quicker had I not written in ‘thrassed’ and ‘bolonga’. I’ll blame Ingerlund for getting me up in the middle of the night, but the result and the possibility of delaying our exit until the semis more than makes up for it.

   I have a vague memory that BOLOGNA popped up as a sausage recently – perhaps, though, in one I did in the ‘back catalogue’.

   Thanks to McT for unravelling the parliamentary clue, which I’m glad I didn’t bother with!

4. I thought 12A was TEMPERate (which seemed a bit weak for “medium”). Didn’t think of Tempera (although it as obvious from the literal given the checkers I had by then).

   Pretty easy. Just under 30 mins for me.

5. 24 minutes for all but 3ac, 18ac, 6dn and 7dn then another 18 minutes to complete the grid which couldn’t happen until I had corrected HarbINGER at 15dn. So 42 minutes in all.

   Mct’s pun at 11ac reminds me of the comedian Jimmy Wheeler. One of the old school of British variety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wheeler.

   Ditto Paul’s comment re TEMPER at 13ac.

6. Pretty straightforward but I enjoyed your egg temper(a) comment mctext! Surely man/island is almost beyond hackneyed by now and I think vinyl1 is correct in saying we have had theist recently. On top of “the easiest clue ever”, I’m almost surprised ALT/key didn’t appear today. COD to Lateral Thinking. Lastly, I like it when a grid is so designed that solving certain clues gives you access to another quadrant and doesn’t box you in.

   Edited at 2012-06-20 07:31 am (UTC)

7. Worked solidly through this in 20 minutes with no hold ups. Good standard fare middle of the road puzzle I thought. I’m guessing there are folk in say Egypt who might object to 9D.
   1. I’m putting it down to good old-fashioned English anti-revolutionary “ideology” – anti-ideology in many Johnny Foreigners’ eyes.

      The type of attitude that helps keep us from the worst excesses of political upheaval?

      1. I read it that the question mark covered the implication not necessarily always being the case.
         1. That was my reading too. As a gloss on Ulaca’s comment, I would only add that along with traditional English distrust of ideology goes an even more profound distrust of the mob, from Waggledagger’s time on. Think of the ease with which Mark Antony in “Julius Caesar” rouses the fickle plebeians against Brutus whom they had been cheering as an heroic tyrranicide but moments earlier. In France, a country with a more violent revolutionary tradition, they are surprised if the mob doesn’t take to the streets and throw cobble-stones about at least once a decade or so. When that sort of thing happens in England, as last August, it is much more unsettling.
8. Another quick one for me today…

   BACH as term of endearment was vaguely familiar; didn’t get the TEMPER(a) ref; ALTHING was a total unknown; didn’t parse TOAST ‘to a T’ bit; guessed at BOLOGNA as type of sausage.

   LOI: EGALITARIANISM; COD: HUMDINGER

   ps, I agree with Vinyl that we have had T+HEIST recently.

9. 16m. Held up for several minutes at the end trying to come up with an alternative for BACH, which I couldn’t believe was a term of endearment.
   I didn’t think of “Fanny by Gaslight”, but it does ring a bell. The sort of thing that is either a gimme or ridiculously obscure, depending on your age.
   We haven’t had THEIST recently, but we have had HEIST, clued the other way round.
10. 18 minutes, so more or less back on form. LATERAL THINKING was a better clue than I thought it was, as it went in without much regard to the wordplay. BOLOGNA held me up because I didn’t think the LOGN bit was an anagram. Dumb.
    CoD to TOAST.
11. Must have been me, then. Took me 60 minutes with obscurities abounding. Althing? Ramen? MD? I should have gone for a walk instead today. COD to TOAST.
    1. I’m intrigued. Is MD for Managing Director (really so) obscure outside the UK?
       1. In the ever diminishing circles I move in, it obviously is. I can’t speak for the wider world. I had enough trouble trying to find out what IPO stood for in the Facebook fiasco. Everybody else seemed to accept it as a given.
12. Solid, enjoyable and on the whole straightforward puzzle. I agree that 8ac was almost absurdly easy – more worthy of the Concise than the Cryptic. Like Vinyl and others, I too recall THEIST cropping up very recently though I can’t remember where. The clueing seemed pretty similar too, with theist in both cases being defined as “religious type” and the HEIST bit of the solution being indicated by “hold-up” the first time round and “robbery” the second. It was neat to have “daylight” serving a double function as supplying both the T of THEIST and also optionally though not necessarily part of the def of HEIST.
13. There is no way 8d is the easiest clue ever. not when we had “Let down, being of lesser status” for LOWER yesterday.
    1. Come on, LOWER managed to avoid any reference to a cow, give it some credit! 😉
14. A nice mix of the straightward – Delft is obviously crosswordland word of the week as it appeared somewhere else yesterday – and some to think about. Following Tony’s instructions yesterday, I took note of the seconds too but finished in exactly 17 minutes.
15. 20 across – recent clue (can’t be bothered to find it) involved religious type taking time off to get hold up (heist) as I recall.
16. Another 7 minuter today, but based on what I read here and on the club forum, I think this was one of those where I clicked with the setter. Certainly nothing which I thought was obscure, at least in crossword terms (those Arians, for instance, crop up very regularly here, though I find they almost never come up in conversation down the pub).
17. 11 minutes during an early lunch break, nothing too taxing here, though I don’t recall seeing MD before, nor did I know one of the meanings of BACH.

    Anyone else write in CHER at 1 across secretly hoping that the conditions for her inclusion may have been met?

    1. Come to Wales, bach. We keep a welcome in the hillside. Have you read Dylan Thomas? “Under Milk Wood” has the line “Johann Sebastian Mighty Bach. Oh Bach Fach”. (“Fach” is a variant of “Bach” – Welsh mutates some initial letters – very confusing for dictionary users!) Are you wishing that Cher has dropped of the twig? Shame…
       1. Quite disconcerting when you’re singing about Calvary and suddenly it’s become ‘Galvary’.
          1. Although I know quite a lot of odd words and phrases I’ve never learned Welsh. I think it’s those mutations that put me off. These days it’s compulsory at school. My lot had to do Latin (Much more useful for crosswords)
    2. No, but did put in BECK without second thought, and left it in there for good! I suspect it fails on the basis that Jeff Beck is still alive, since I was (fairly) happy with the idea that beck as in nod or beckon could be seen as an “affectionate address” !!
    3. I think Cher fails, as the clue specifically states “musical great.”
18. About 30 minutes, ending with TEMPER, since I couldn’t see the wordplay. I had the same few unknowns as others, BACH, MD, and how to parse TEMPER, but no other problems. Applause to BOLOGNA (the clue, not the sausage) for the enjoyable ‘constricted’ trick, and my COD nomination. Regards to all.
19. Just under the half-hour; maybe a bit tired after work. Couldn’t parse toast. All seems very straightforward once it’s done. Nowt of note.
20. 15:14 .. slow to get the longer lights. Fun stuff.

    I was happily reminded of Back to Bologna, one of the last of the late Michael Dibdin’s Zen mysteries – as entertaining as all the others but with a neat postmodern twist. It’s a beautiful riposte to the “too clever by half” strand of European intellectualism. Highly recommended.

    1. Love all of Michael Dibdin. Was gutted when he died. Can’t believe no more Zen. And the BBC cancelled the TV series after only 3 episodes. As an opera buff, I am particularly fond of “Cosi fan Tutte”, the jokey one set in Naples. The BBC series was all set in Rome but one of the nice things about the books is that each one is set in a different Italian city. Better than a guide book..
       1. I share your feelings about Dibdin, and about the early demise of the BBC series which I think was rather misunderstood. Perhaps one needed to have read the books to understand the fatalistic humour and the necessary position of the tongue in the cheek.

          Incidentally, Back to Bologna was the last one I read. I can’t quite bring myself to read the final one, End Games, knowing there are no more to come. Sentimental me.

          1. The title sounds prophetic for a final novel. But the book is a worthy addition to the series rather than a depressing finale. I put it on my kindle to read when I felt in a elegiac mood. I hate it when authors die before their time.
             1. You’ve almost persuaded me to dive in. Soon, I think.
21. 49 minutes with one mistake, since the only battle I could think of for 26 across was TROY. I thought it might be derived from DESTROY by knocking out the left flank.No, it didn’t convince me either. Completely overlooked FRAY – more familiar with AFFRAY.
    1. Glad someone else fluffed that, I was feeling a bit sheepish after spending 10 minutes trying to shoehorn the letters ‘sr’ or ‘de’ into the final answer. Oops.
22. Very enjoyable. 25 minutes. No trouble with Mr Brook/Mr Little. Dylan Thomas’ birthplace is less than a mile from here and the word crops up in “Under Milk Wood”. You still hear it said, but not as often as stage Welshmen would have you believe – similarly with “look you” which I’ve never heard outside Ffluellen in Henry V. Nice to see DELFT (although the clue is hackneyed) because I was there 10 days ago eating lunch in a brown cafe while the rain hammered down outside. I’ve been there before in the sunshine, Vermeer weather, and know it’s a lovely town. Just not this time. (Btw, am going to start adding my name. Live journal wouldn’t accept it when I joined) Ann
23. 42 minutes, so quite easy, and I spent the last 15 of those trying to justify TOAST (not seeing the spaces in TO A T) and BACH (I know the musical great, of course, and the Welsh word BACH, but not the Welsh address BACH — fortunately I left it in and it was right). I forgot to justify HUMDINGER, just as well as I wouldn’t have managed. And yes, constricted BOLOGNA is the best of today’s bunch.
24. 8:25 here for a pleasant straightforward puzzle. I expect I’ve come across BOLOGNA sausage in crosswords before, but I’m more familiar with “polony”, a regular feature of Dotheboys school meals back in the 1950s. And I’ve actually eaten RAMEN in Japan (on my one trip there), so no problem with 2dn.

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