Times 25,213 – A Quiet Work Out

31 comments on “Times 25,213 – A Quiet Work Out”

1. 
   About 13 minutes for all except the unknown CROMLECH, which I never even got close to. I gave it 10 minutes before admitting defeat. Somehow I never think of a croc as a reptile.
2. I thought this was going to be more challenging than it turned out and I completed it in 36 minutes.

   Many answers went in straight from definition including CROSS THE RUBICON, but I relied on wordplay for the unknown CROMLECH (thrilled to find it existed) and to dredge up LORIS and TORUS from the back of my mind

3. I put in ‘cromlech’ without really thinking much about it, seemed vaguely familiar so in it went. I couldn’t get ‘golden handcuffs’ and ‘loris’ until the very end – fortunately, I didn’t guess and put in ‘lemur’.

   Many of the clues were much easier to get from the literals than the cryptics, I struggled for a while to figure out how ‘cross the Rubicon’ and ‘honeycomb’ worked.

4. 19:04; after a really fast start–bottom half done in 5′–I bogged down in the NE. Fortunately I was positive about 7d, which kept me from putting in ‘golden handshake’; I didn’t know the handcuffs, and had to check my dictionary. I also slowed myself down by taking 12ac as an anagram of (stayalso), and throwing in ‘lemur’ at 2d. I’m a bit surprised that ‘cromlech’ was unknown; isn’t Stonehenge a cromlech? (My dictionary equates cromlech with dolmen.) COD to 5d, one of several I twigged to only after filling in the grid; that’s the downside of trying to solve online.

   Edited at 2012-07-12 02:58 am (UTC)

   1. I think there are some for whom Stonehenge is just that round thing beside the A303 which you used to be able to walk round for nothing but now they make you pay merely to get close to. (All without Googling, so probably inaccurate in many respects.)

      Edited at 2012-07-12 03:27 am (UTC)

   2. Yes I wouldn’t have thought CROMLECH such an unusual word, not for Times Crossword regulars, anyway
5. 48 minutes, with the last 20 on the two crossing unknowns, which were quite fair but a reminder to self of why Mephisto and I will always have a Cameron and Clegg type of relationship.

   Probably not alone in having ‘golden handshake’ at 1ac for a spell.

   1. A descriptor that should enter the language. I doubt there’s anyone at all, apart from just possibly young Nick himself, who’d rather be Clegg.
6. Started slowly with the top half, and speeded up towards the end. Finished with the unknown, but vaguely familiar CROMLECH, worked out from wordplay.

   The only other unknown for me today was ORISON for prayer. Lots went in on definition, and then working out how the bits and pieces all fitted together.

   Good puzzle, about the right difficulty for me!

   1. Hamlet came in useful again: nymph in thy orisons be all my sins remembered he says to ophelia before lambasting her for 10 minutes!
      1. My son has secured a part in the school play of Hamlet next term, so hopefully my crosswording skills will be much improved by Christmas! I’ve already told him to watch out for ‘quietus’.
         1. And for one of William’s hidden characters, Horatio’s wife, Felicity, from whom the prince commands him to absent himself!
         2. The words supposedly spoken by a disgruntled member of the audience emerging from a performance of Hamlet always amuse me, though I imagine the quotation is now something of a cliché itself:

            ‘I don’t know why they say Shakespeare was our finest writer. That play was full of clichés.’

      2. Also remembered from one of Wilfred Owen’s poems…’only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle can patter out their hasty orisons’.
7. 32 minutes, CoD 5. I enjoyed seeing economy twisted up in honeycomb, can’t really say why. The serendipity of words.
8. One mistake today – didn’t know the prayer or the monkey spelling and put in Lorus not Loris.

   I’m another who put in Golden Handcuffs initially at the top of the grid – soon corrected when A?C?… didn’t look promising for Face-Saver. Thought Cymbal was an excellent clue.

   Thanks Yap for the in depth blog, especially the Julius Caesar info re CTR and for explaining that answer and the other one I didn’t understand (Numerous).

9. Very pleasant middle of the road puzzle. Thank you setter. 20 minutes top to bottom.

   1A shows the danger of guessing from a definition and probably with G.L in place. “shakes” isn’t “strikes” whereas “cuffs” clearly is.

   I had one of those irritating half memories that Stonehenge is a CROMLECH but couldn’t quite recall the word. Luckily the cryptic is sound.

10. 16 minutes, and pleasantly challenging all the way through.
    My mind associated CROMLECH with an image of 3 or 4 stones and a lid, which apparently it was once, but that’s now a dolmen. “Circle” was therefore mildly confusing, but the cryptic confirmed what the crossing letters forced. As has been the case menhir times, the crossword is educational.
    I particularly liked LIFETIME and HONEYCOMB, the latter getting CoD for the unlikely anagram, even if the surface reading was rather weird.
11. Another very enjoyable 30 minute solve. Heard of parachutes and handshakes but never GOLDEN HANDCUFFS. Wondered if there was going to be some pawnshop theme in this puzzle after I’d written in PAWN (reversed) and then UNCLE. Might the word following GOLDEN include BALLS?

    Particularly liked LIFETIME for the definition, and NUMEROUS for the “uncertain utterances”. There was also what I thought a clever feint in STRATAGEM, where I initially took the stone to be ST rather than GEM.

    After twice trying to fit the wrong clues into down lights, I must remember to wear my spectacles tomorrow.

12. 13m, with a couple at the end on the unknown CROMLECH. TORUS was also unfamiliar, although I’ve a feeling I’ve come across it before.
    Otherwise many of these went in from definition with wordplay worked out post-solve: not the kind of puzzle I enjoy the most. This is entirely my own fault of course: there’s nothing to stop me working out and enjoying each clue as I go, rather than rushing on to the next one in a pointless attempt to do the thing as quickly as possible.
13. 43 minutes, stumbling very badly in the NE corner, not helped by the SHAKE rather than the CUFFS. I knew it was wrong when I wrote it in, but by the time I finally made it back to the NE after a sojourn in the south, it looked as locked in as a correct answer. I’ve never heard the expression or the practice it describes. I did know CROMLECH though, from whence I know not, and PARTERRE, so I can’t blame those for a sluggish time; just general sluggishness. COD to NUMEROUS amongst some nicely deceptive, well crafted clues.
14. Solved in two sessions: about 20m in the morning for all but the top right; then, totlly exhasuted after heavy garden reconstruction, who knows — for the rest.

    CROMLECHs are all over “Time Team” and TORUS is an occasional visitor to the Times, so no problems down there. By contrast, I only had FACE-SAVER in the NE corner for quite a while. And I’m standing by my view that the clues were harder up there.

    COD to STRATAGEM for the deception noted by our Lancashire colleague.

15. 16:40, failing to get the long 1 across early on and thus getting bogged down in the NW corner at the end; toying with SUPHOK and assorted variants for several minutes didn’t help.
16. 07:15 for me. Nice crossword, helped by the fact that I knew all the ‘new’ words.
17. Wot! No comments! They are almost as much fun as the puzzles!
    Patniso
18. 29.35 for me so a sub30 at last no doubt helped by knowing all but of the obscurities TORUS, which was easily got from the cryptic. I liked the way the setter mislead me into looking for anagrams- 12a for example. My Cod to LIFETIME which had me searching for a period of being green for a few minutes until I remembered Jimbo’s wise advice to separate every word. Thanks for blog and explanations – uncle for example which I got because it fitted. Mind you having misread surrendered as surrounded I was always struggling! RTBQ as we used to tell students!
19. As most have said, very enjoyable puzzle of middling difficulty. I was among those who temporarily fell, for the reason mentioned by Jimbo, for GOLDEN HANDSHAKE at 1 ac, even though I could see there was no way “shake” could be made to yield “strikes”. Correctly guessed AGAR and CROMLECH, both of which rang only faint bells, via the wordplay but then had to check in the dictionary to reassure myself that both words existed and described real things. CROMLECH was my COD, mixing as it did moderate obscurity with sound wordplay, so there were always two ways into the solution. Like Grestyman, I wasted much time at 21 ac (LIFETIME) trying to think of a period associated with greenness. A classic lesson in the importance of the “lift and separate” rule, which I too often forget.
20. Didn’t know CROMLECH and before giving up I bunged in the even more unlikely FROMLEGH. Oh well.
    1. That was the best I could come up with, too, paulmci, beforeremembering that frogs aren’t reptiles.
21. About 15 minutes, although CROMLECH and PARTERRE were new to me. I also wandered down the GOLDEN HANDSHAKE route until I needed to solve FACE-SAVER, and, yes Tim, I toyed with SUPHOK and SIPHOK before realizing that SIPHON was the answer and that ‘on’ means aceptable, in some way. I agree on COD being NUMEROUS. Regards.
22. 8:41 for me, including time wasted wondering how “giant” could be used to clue DOGE. Nice puzzle.

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