Times 25216 – …because it saw Virginia reel

35 comments on “Times 25216 – …because it saw Virginia reel”

1. …but no time, done in dribs and drabs. I had ‘sitars’ for a while before I saw ‘educators’ and realized I had read the clue backwards. I also had ‘university’ for a few minutes before deciding 11 couldn’t possibly start with a ‘v’.

   Never heard of the actor ‘Richardson’, but being so close to ‘Boswell’ my mind naturally inclined in that direction anyways.

   I didn’t get how ‘recalled’ works in 25, just bunged in the obvious answer, but now I see it. COD, though, to ‘Boswell’. I was trying to account for the ‘s’ when I saw the obvious.

2. Quite tricky for a Monday so yet again disproving the theory. I had most of it done in 35 minutes but needed 56 to complete the grid. Much of the problem was caused by bunging in ROASTING at 2dn without thinking things through.

   No unknowns today.

   Enjoyed ‘recalled Asian city’.

   Edited at 2012-07-16 01:12 am (UTC)

3. This should have been under 20′ instead of the 22:25 it took me, as I wasted bags of time on 18d before finally noticing that I’d mistyped 27ac. I also threw in ‘compound’ at 1ac without thinking, then spent ages trying to solve 2d before remembering the without thinking part. Ulaca, I figured ‘I’ was doing double duty: bio minus I, and the definition: I, Boswell, wrote a bio. Some easy clues (25ac, 5d, 19d, say); but I liked 16ac and especially 14d.
   1. Thanks, Kevin. Shoulda ken’d tha’.
4. I wonder if this is going to be a trend: I also struggled, without any great apparent reason, finishing with the BOSWELL/LEAVENED crossing in 51 minutes.

   My careless insertion was ‘university’ – I also struggled with BETRAYAL. COD to FLUTTERINg ahead of PRATTLE. (Note to blogger: that should be RATTLE under P.)

   1. Thanks ulaca. If that’s the only mistake I made today, I did exceptionally well in the circumstances.
5. I have a query with this, as he was Johnson’s biographer, and BIO (so far as I can tell) stands for ‘biography’. His book, in two volumes, was called The Life of Samuel Johnson.
6. And in the rather strange order of NE, SE, SW, NW.
   12ac: is a “pie” (=magpie) like a crow? Not when I last looked.
   2dn: the last pavement artist I saw was in a shopping mall; nowhere near a/the roadside.
   1. My first thought too, but then I remembered magpies are within the crow family so presumably they are like crows in some ways other than appearance.
      1. Hmm, indeed. (Excluding our own Gymnorhina tibicen.) But then, the Blue Jay is also among the Corvidae and it’s nothing like a crow. So your European magpie either is or is not a crow. Either way, it is not “like” a crow.
7. 20 minutes for most of this, but then just couldn’t get 10ac and gave up after another 5 minutes. I was convinced the pacific island was BALI. Brain not working this morning.
   7dn is one of those clues that people often complain about, and in this case I think the clue is genuinely ambiguous without the checking T.

   Edited at 2012-07-16 08:16 am (UTC)

8. Would someone mind helping me with 24d? Also, I’m not sure I understand how LEAVENED works (where does ‘leave’ come from and what’s the definition?).

   Thanks!

   1. Leave as in will someone something (leave it in your will). The definition is ‘transformed for the better’, as in ‘his piece was leavened with humour’.

      Interestingly, 400 years ago, in arguably the best known uses of the word, the prosody is negative and the transformation for the worse: ‘Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?’ (This example is from 1 Corinthians; there’s another one in Galatians.)

      Edited at 2012-07-16 09:26 am (UTC)

   2. 24dn is a reference to the Rump Parliament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rump_Parliament

      In 18dn, think ‘last will and testament’.

      Edited at 2012-07-16 09:22 am (UTC)

9. 45 minutes. A most enjoyable puzzle – excellent it is.

   Reading recently about the Ragtime era, I became aware that the TURKEY TROT was just one of a number of ragtime “animal dances”, others being The Bunny Hug, The Grizzly Bear and The Texas Tommy. And you thought the Sixties were wild?

   1. My wife and I watched the 1959 version of Ben-Hur at the weekend on cable. Before the main feature, we watched a documentary on the geneis of the book and the films, which included shots of the 1925 pre-Code version (okay – a little after ragtime’s heyday), in which the slave girls in the triumphal parade were all topless.
      1. I don’t know if you are familiar with the film, but Gold Diggers of 1933, made just before the Hays Code came into full effect, is pushing at the boundaries with the Busby Berkeley routine Pettin’ In The Park; though it would be regarded as family viewing today.
10. Definitely tricky for a Monday. I made a meal of the NE corner by misreading 7 dn. Like Vinyl, I initially took the clue to mean that the I in STAIRS had to be relocated to produce SITARS, rather than the other way round, and took some time to spot my mistake, which caused no end of problems..
11. Managed 9 holes before the heavens opened once again. Course in terrible condition, not even fit for a TURKEY TROT (Christmas golfing competition in which the prizes are turkeys)

    I found this difficult and never really got on the setters wavelength. I agree 7D is completely ambiguous. All in all a frustrating morning.

    1. I came unstuck, too hot to think or play golf. Put in SITARS instead of stairs and never got it back in shape, 3 clues DNF. But have danced 18 holes for a turkey many times.
12. 14 minutes, slow start on this one but it slowly came together – the LEAVENED/BOSWELL/MEAN trio held me up but were my last three in seeing all at the same time.
13. Me too with the slow start and the SITARS slip but it all came together in a smidge over 15 mins.
14. I thought this puzzle was difficult and was pleased to come up only two short (Boswell and Leavened) after a morning’s effort. Pier came to mind readily at 12 Across once I’d got the checking letters because I was in Llandudno this weekend and spent a pleasant hour on Saturday on the North Shore pier, Wales’s longest at 700 meters. Yesterday the views from the top of the Great Orme to Anglesey, Snowdonia and a distant Isle of Man were spectacular. It was great that for once in this washout summer two good days’ weather coincided with a weekend.
15. 14:35, ending with 22a (MEAN).  Made a complete hash of this by writing APOSTROPHE in at 15d instead of 14d, and got annoyed by the ambiguity in 7d (SITARS/STAIRS), but otherwise found this a nice steady solve.  Unknowns: magpie (12a PIER), Ralph [though I did know of Ian] RICHARDSON (13a), TURKEY TROT (20a), Norma (26a ABNORMAL).
16. I thought ‘here’ removed any possible ambiguity, but in any case it helped me to the correct answer.
    1. I thought “I replaced in flight here” could be read as a definition of SITARS. Having said that it wasn’t clear to me what the “here” was supposed to be doing!
    2. I expect ‘here’ was intended to disambiguate, but I don’t think it does the job: ‘flight here’ could have been cluing STAIRS in roughly the same way that ‘instruments from India’ was cluing SITARS. (An imperfect parallel, sure, but stranger things have happened.)
17. Solved this in a break during an interminable drive down the M1 in the rain. 39 minutes. I think the point of 14 is that the book title has no apostrophe. This is indeed too complicated or arcane I’d say. I don’t really like the ‘it is’ in 17: unneeded and tending to blur. Good to see the non-cricket batting. One of my favourites pupil-howlers was in a young lad’s story when someone talked his way out of a difficult situation without battering an eyelid.
18. 23 minutes, with nothing much happening until I got to the bottom, clicked into the setter’s style,and started to enjoy it hugely.
    On the actor, though I’m very much aware of Ralph as the Supreme Being in Time Bandits, I’m drawn more to Ian. My namesake? You may think that, I could not possibly comment.
    PRAYER BOOK I thought a feeble clue even by CD standards, but ‘ and ORIGINAL were excellent. Not having seen it before the former gets my CoD.
    1. I thought there must be a word-play I hadn’t seen. It seems clearly sub-Times without it.
19. Not a cakewalk at about 40 minutes, but an enjoyable solve. I also had SITARS at first, but the EDUCATOR set me straight. I enjoyed APOSTROPHE, BOSWELL and the TURKEY TROT. Regards.
20. Indeed. I only knew it because it came up in a previous puzzle (24661 in 2010) in which the answer was also APOSTROPHE.

    Edited at 2012-07-16 04:57 pm (UTC)

21. And the clue was almost identical:
    “It’s crazily included in Finnegan’s Wake – perhaps too crazily”.
22. 10:25 for me – falling for nearly every one of the setter’s traps, plus some that s/he probably didn’t consider (like bunging in UNIVERSITY – glad to see I wasn’t the only one).

    No problem with STAIRS though. As a very experienced solver, I take the view that “here” after “flight” in the clue makes the answer unequivocal. Beginners (and non-beginners!) might like to note for future reference.

    All in all, an excellent puzzle. My compliments to the setter.

23. The song, of course, DOES have an apostrophe, which perhaps spoils the clue slightly, but then again most people know the book (if not through having read it!)

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