Times 25219 – hmmmmmm

36 comments on “Times 25219 – hmmmmmm”

1. George: likely to be PREFER (charges in the legal sense).
   Back later when my wood stain dries.
2. 25:42, and I think a full 5′ of that was spent on 6d and 18ac: I foolishly threw in ‘put off’ at 6ac (‘to’ in ‘puff’), ignoring the hyphen, and in fact the clue. As so often happens when I do something like that, I forgot to go back and actually think about the clue, leaving me with P_U_ as the first word. (I also threw in ‘Siamese’ at 17d, until reason prevailed.) As the poet says, dumb. Could make neither head nor tail of ‘moreish’ (I’m currently reading Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’, so I was wondering what was addictive about Thomas More. He himself, it would seem, was addicted to torturing possible heretics.) Thanks, George, for the enlightenment; but I could do without the clue.

   1. I think the meaning is a bit more ‘leaving one wanting more’, as it refers, inter alia, to something you can’t stop eating once you’ve started. Quite a few things in my case, including chocolates and cheese balls.
      1. Or, according to John Cleese, Edward VII. I so didn’t think that it was a word that I didn’t even try to look it up; more fool me.
         A gallows is (was) also referred to as a gallows-tree.
3. “Sort of railway” (23ac) … hmmm. Suppose the “[steering] system, using a fixed cogged or toothed bar or rail engaging with a smaller cog” might count. Just.
   1. I recall RACK AND PINION railways from O-level history: railway pioneers thought there would be not be enough friction between the driving wheels and the rails. On steep gradients such as Snowdon, the system really is necessary.
      1. Thanks John. My history needed a brush up! (Though I have been up Snowdon by rail.)
4. PREFER rather than preset.
5. No time for this, as it was done in between doing other things, but certainly quite tough. Couldn’t justify the PINION at 23, but the expression rang enough of a bell for me to put it in, ‘though I had no clue what it meant until Wikipedia revealed all.

   I associate ‘tree’ more with a cross (eg Calvary) than a gallows.

6. But those references are to actual trees used, faute de mieux, as a gallows.
7. 23 and a half minutes, with a lot of time blown in the eastern reaches. CUT-OFF was cleverer than I thought: even when I thought of it, I wondered why cut-off = blow. Equally, I credited both 22ac (would you believe PREPAY?) and 15 (another GORE/Y) as poor clues, about which I was going to complain.
   I needed almost all the checkers for GALLOWS HUMOUR. Tyburn Tree should have sufficed as the locus classicus but I got fixated on gallons.
   TIME TRAVEL might just be my CoD – couldn’t decide whether it was fine economy or dodgy definition.
8. 33 minutes which would have been well sub-30 but for problems with the intersecting pair at 12dn and 15ac.

   15ac was going to be my first in as G-OR-E until I noticed that G-OR-Y would have been equally valid so I decided to wait for checkers. Unfortunately the clincher that proved the answer had to be something else entirely didn’t go in until the 33rd minute of solving time.

   Another clue tackled early that needed a checker to clinch it was 7dn where I saw a valid case for both TWO and OWT if one disregards the punctuation in the clue as I believe we are supposed to do.

   Fans of Westerns, Marty Robbins, Frankie Laine and Mack David & Jerry Livingston will be familiar with ‘Hanging Tree’ as a synonym for ‘GALLOWS’.

   Edited at 2012-07-19 06:44 am (UTC)

9. I seem to be going downhill. A little over an hour for this. Hadn’t heard of rack and pinion; and like a smart alec looked for tomb something for leaving present. Couldn’t believe d-t– in 6. Altogether, glad to get there: quite a tester. 9 a nice description I feel of the setter’s smile.
10. Steady and on the whole fairly straightforward solve, which ran into a bit of trouble only in the NE corner where I’d impetuously entered GORY at 15 ac. Unlike Jack, I wasn’t sufficiently on the ball to spot that GORE would be equally valid, making both solutions unlikely, plausible though they seemed at first glance. It was only when struggling and failing to find a synonym for “hostile” at 12 dn beginning T-G that the penny dropped. At 9 ac I wasn’t sure why GALLOWS should be a tree (thanks for all the explanations above) but the solution couldn’t have been much else. I thought “leaving present” a first-rate cryptic def for TIME TRAVEL. My CoD.
11. 35 minutes to fill the grid, check the parsing, realise that it was PREFER and not PRESET, and correct my mistake.

    Lots of one-liners among the clues so I thought this an excellent puzzle, with TIME TRAVEL just winning by a head.

12. Annoying one this one on two counts – one a lack of knowledge on my part and the other perhaps on the part of the clue.

    Rushed through the whole fairly quickly before stopping on 22 and 23. I had RACK AND from the outset, but was not 100% sure on the exact term, so waited for checkers. With the checkers I knew it was PINION, but given that I had probably never seen it written down, it was a toss up between PINIAN and PINION. Given that I did not know the term for “stop moving” this was no help, and it was one where it had to be guessed. Luckily I picked the right one.

    On 22, I threw in PREFER on the basis that it was probably the best guess given the letters and it sort of equated to advance. Why I dont like this clue is that both parts are obscure (to me). It is fine (for me) to use one obscure part to complement clearer wordplay or to mislead in the definition, but if the other half is equally obscure it becomes a question of vocabulary one-upmanship, which detracts from the “working things out”, “level playing field” qualities of a good cryptic.

    I have no doubt many will take the diametrically opposing view to this and say that part of the skill is accumulating “databases”, so this is very much a personal view.

13. 18:35 after trouble in Geordie-land: after much staring into space I corrected PUT OFF, when I realised that “puff” fitted the “blow” part of the clue, but the definition simply couldn’t be justified. That explained why I’d struggled till then with COUP DETAT, which went in swiftly, and then my LOI was TIME TRAVEL. I may be out of step by saying I thought that particular clue was decidedly underwhelming at that point, though that may be entirely down to my failure to get it, and the degree of misdirection involved actually makes it brilliant…
14. Shouldn’t 6 down have been notated as (4,1,4) ? D’etat is really two words . . .
    1. This is something which comes up for discussion at regular intervals (the last time it followed the inclusion of COTE D’AZUR (4,5) in the daily puzzle a couple of months ago). The trouble is that it seems to divide opinion pretty equally, and either choice makes someone unhappy. Personally I’ve become used to the convention, but know at least one person who gets into an irrationally angry mood whenever it turns up.

       Anyway, whether one agrees with him or not, the Crossword Editor is clearly with those who prefer their apostrophes unenumerated, so that is how it is…

    2. I think there’s a convention that apostrophes are ignored in the enumeration because to include them would give too much away e.g. 4,1’4. But treating the abbreviated words as completely separate in the enumeration e.g. 4,1,4 would be wrong in my view.
15. A smidge under the 17 minute mark for me. I too dithered over PREFER or PRESET and with the ending of 13a as it took a while for the penny to drop about the second word in 6d. Excellent puzzle
16. 12:16 .. this felt like a wavelength puzzle, and it was certainly on mine. Only real delay was CUT-OFF and its offspring.

    I enjoyed ADDITIVE (even though I hate the word ‘moreish’) and TIME TRAVEL – a clever exploitation of an over-familiar phrase.

17. 30 minutes.
    I mostly loved this puzzle, finding it chewy with lots of “aha” moments, never getting stuck for too long. It was a little bit spoiled for me by PREFER: I agree with fathippy2 on this clue. The “advance” meaning is not exactly obscure, but it’s uncommon, and I didn’t know the legal term. So the answer went in last, and with no confidence.
    The other clue that held me up for ages was FURLOUGH, but in that case there is no obscurity in the wordplay so getting the (unknown) answer was a satisfying moment.
    Is 18ac terrible or brilliant? Brilliant, I think, on balance. No terrible. No, definitely brilliant.

    Edited at 2012-07-19 10:47 am (UTC)

18. Advantage anyone with a vestige of legal training and a knowledge of Trollope’s Barchester (the Rev. Slope on the look-out for a rich preferment).

    Slowish 30 minutes because I had trouble with the R&P railway. I only knew the term from boring car ads on US television describing some sort of fancy steering mechanism meaning zip to me. So in the end I googled to check.

    The John Grant obituary is now on the club website for those of us non-subscribers to the main UK Times website. Also on the Forum, PeterB has included the number of his last crossword. A fine and elegant example.

    Edited at 2012-07-19 02:22 pm (UTC)

19. 25 minutes steady solve after first full round of 18 holes in weak sunshine for a long time. I had no problems with PREFER or TIME TRAVEL, just marched steadily on from top to bottom. Nice puzzle I thought.
20. Also about 25 minutes, ending with ELEANOR/RACK AND PINION. In the latter, I took ‘stop moving’ to signal ‘Pin’ only, and was confused by the -ion part, and like Olivia connected the term more with cars than trains. With some checkers, TIME TRAVEL and PREFER went in without any trouble with alternatives, but I’ll drop my vote in the “didn’t like ’em” box. I did really like FURLOOUGH, however, so COD to that. Regards.
21. I agree with Sotira: a wavelength puzzle – but a wavelength I never really found, finishing in another miserable time (14:29). I rashly bunged in PREPAY for 22ac; I wasted time trying to justify either GORE or GORY; I tried to make and anagram out of HOSTILE KING; … Not a good day!
22. Solved this in the car on the way to Lytham this morning where I’ve had a wonderful day watching golf.

    Like George I made the Preset not Prefer error. No major hold ups with the rest. Needed all the checkers to get Upgrade and it took me a while to spot the Category anagram.

23. 28.28 so a rare sub 30 for me and a steady solve throughout with no major hold ups. I was thankful for Previous discussions on apostrophes which made COUP D’ÉTAT straightforward once the checkers were in.
24. After a couple of months where i thought i was losing it, or the crossword was getting harder, i think its done a “jet stream” and settled back to be more “normal”. Did this in 30mins which is pretty good by my standards. Enjoyed it too. Really nice puzzle!
25. I was stymied for a long time by entering PUT OFF (TO inside PUFF = blow) at 5 across. It seemed a bit iffy at first, but then the light dawned! BLOW can be used as an expletive. Read this way (= “To hell with having to keep to deadline”) the clue seemed rather clever. Oh dear – too smart for my own good!
26. Help please – I still don’t fully understand THREATENING in 12 down. Is “obsession” meant to indicate “thing”? And I don’t like what appears to the implied repetition of “consumed”.
    R. Saunders
    1. One’s obsession is one’s “thing” – he collects train numbers, that’s his thing

       Yes, there is a sort of double usage of “eaten” which the setter would doubtless justify by referring to the “?” at the end – I agree it could irritate purists

27. Thanks, I had overlooked that meaning of “thing”.
    R. Saunders
28. Don’t understand advance as a meaning of prefer, and I don’t think it’s mentioned in Chambers.

    Surprised about quite a few solvers being thrown by moreish – restaurant review cliche, that. I suppose addictive isn’t strictly synonymous, though… “this is moreish” only means “this is tasty enough for me to want more of it”, whereas “this is addictive” means “it is possible to develop a dependence on this”.

    TIME TRAVEL was solved by my wife, who says she can’t do cryptic crosswords but plainly can.

    LILLIPUTIAN was the first one in but PREFER prevented me from finishing this one, unfortunately, and I was stuck on RACK AND PINION for quite a while too.

    1. Chambers has “to advance or promote over the head of colleagues”, but I don’t like this: “advance” on its own without the “over” doesn’t seem to get you to “prefer”.
       Perhaps the intended meaning is “to put forward, offer or present, for acceptance, etc”, which is “archaic”, but just about works.
       Whatever… I don’t like the clue either!

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