Times 25273 – Supporting A Scholar

50 comments on “Times 25273 – Supporting A Scholar”

1. With Jack on this … not an easy week so far. My main hold up was the URCHIN/CUBOID pair. (Our cross-pond friends may not like the latter, as they do tend to say |ˈboō-ē| — as Trekkies will well know.)

   Not too happy with “salad” = ROCKET (16dn). I should be very upset to order the salad and get a bowl of nought but rocket.

   1. I’m guessing they’re using ROCKET as ‘a salad’ (vegetable), rather than as a mixture of ingredients. The SOED has SALAD down as “a vegetable or herb that can be eaten raw” and also “spec. Lettuce. (dial. & US.)”
   2. or so I thought too, but Collins also has ‘salad’ as “any green vegetable used in such a dish (the normal definition of ‘salad’) esp. lettuce”

      Edit: Sorry, DJB, you posted while I was writing.

      Edited at 2012-09-20 02:05 am (UTC)

      1. I can just imagine the maitre d’ pulling out the dictionary after my complaint!
      2. .. and thank you, jackkt, for my favourite comment subject line in a fair while. Matter of time before a steakhouse pinches the name (if they haven’t already).
         1. It was number 9 in the list of the 10 “best” one-liners at this year’s Edinburgh fringe:

            1) “You know who really gives kids a bad name? Posh and Becks.” – Stewart Francis

            2) “Last night me and my girlfriend watched three DVDs back to back. Luckily I was the one facing the telly.” – Tim Vine

            3) “I was raised as an only child, which really annoyed my sister.” – Will Marsh

            4) “You know you’re working class when your TV is bigger than your book case.” – Rob Beckett

            5) “I’m good friends with 25 letters of the alphabet … I don’t know Y.” – Chris Turner

            6) “I took part in the sun tanning Olympics – I just got Bronze.” – Tim Vine

            7) “Pornography is often frowned upon, but that’s only because I’m concentrating.” – George Ryegold

            8) “I saw a documentary on how ships are kept together. Riveting!” – Stewart Francis

            9) “I waited an hour for my starter so I complained: ‘It’s not rocket salad.” – Lou Sanders

            10) “My mum’s so pessimistic, that if there was an Olympics for pessimism … she wouldn’t fancy her chances.” – Nish Kumar

            1. Thank you so much. But I have to say that jackkt’s delivery – with the “ain’t” – is superior.
2. I hated this one from start to finish. In contrast to the blogger, when the setter puts the hardest word in the 1 Across slot, it comes across to me as unkind at best, or arrogant otherwise.

   A lot of the attempted witticisms didn’t really fly with me, and I had too many half-queries on clues to be able to sure that I’d got them right. In the end, I hadn’t on 3 occasions.

3. 27:49 .. after a run of bad form, and not much enjoying recent puzzles, I loved this one.

   A whole bunch of clues tickled my fancy but I’ll give it to DEFRAYED for sheer impudence.

   Last in .. BYRD, as a penny or two dropped.

4. Third outing for the Colonel this week and he very nearly came on Monday too. I seem to have completely lost it at the moment.

   I had about 2/3rds solved with 30 minutes but with gaps in every quarter. I was unable to get 1ac without resort to aids and only then did I work out 1dn although I didn’t know the word or had forgotten it. If Uncle Yap is right about 29 (and I’m coming round to it) then I had it wrong which is maddening as I thought of DEFRAYED before rejecting it in favour of BETRAYED.

   27ac relies on a meaning of RUST I can only find in SOED which describes it as ‘figurative’.

   I’m really looking forward to blogging Friday’s puzzle!

   Edited at 2012-09-20 01:35 am (UTC)

   1. Could you elucidate a bit on rust = not be used? I’m a bit flummoxed by this.
5. I thought this was an excellent and imaginative puzzle, even though it did for me too. HEBRAIST, CUBOID and IN FOR were superb, but PUTRESCENT (economically cued by ‘high’) took the biscuit for me.

   I was terribly slow to spot SPOONERISM (reward for knocking that type of clue, perhaps?) and needed to cheat to get finished after my hour was up.

   Not all is lost – I learnt a new 3-letter tree. Thanks to blogger and setter.

6. Ouch. 47 minutes…highly enjoyable.
7. 25 minutes again, but forgot to go back and check 29 where I had impatiently written BETRAYED. I could kick myself for that, particularly as I was thinking only the other day (when we had LAURELS) of Mr Pooter’s unsuccessful little joke about his shirt collars:

   May 26 Left the shirts to be repaired at Trillip’s. I said to him: “I’m ‘fraid they are frayed.” He said, without a smile: “They’re bound to do that, sir.” Some people seem to be quite destitute of a sense of humour.

   Lots of ticks today, particularly for the down clues, but did anyone else wonder what the apostrophe s is doing in 19? Ah! I see keriothe did.

   Finally, allow me to share my favourite COLE PORTER song, a particularly poignant one from 1944.

   1. I wonder now and then whether you might be the acceptable face of Jack’s Colonel. (It might just be the userpic.)
      1. I can see what you mean. Fortunately John’s delightful contributions to TftT bear no relation whatsoever to the malevolent ones of the original Colonel who used to join us occasionally.

         The cartoon I use is “A quiet half-hour with the Times” by H M Bateman (1922).

      2. Well, my long-suffering wife will confirm that this picture of Jack’s Colonel was me to a tee last week when I was unable to fasten the collar of a dress shirt I’d not worn for years.
   2. Have you heard the one about the piece of string who goes into a bar? The barman says, “we don’t serve pieces of string in here”. So the piece of string goes outside, ties himself up and roughly separates all his strands at one end. He goes back in and the barman says “aren’t you a piece of string?” And the piece of string says, “no, I’m a frayed knot”.
   3. Surely as it reads it’s at once readable and more syntactically cunning?
      1. The surface is definitely better as it is but how do you think the syntax works? I can’t see it.
         1. Werl…as it is we’re (mis)directed to some kind of grubby hat and overalls; otherwise it’s merely an odd announcement in an odder word-order. Unless I’m missing summat. Ah – at long last I see the problem. I suppose for the sake of readability the apostrophe s elides somewhat: is that which.

            Edited at 2012-09-20 01:19 pm (UTC)

            1. Sorry, I don’t think I’m being clear. It’s the cryptic syntax which I don’t think works. Without the ‘s (and with an implied “which”) the wordplay works: “baker [which] slovenly clothes”. The ‘s mucks up the syntax.
               Our comments have crossed! If “that which” is what’s missing I think it’s a bit more than eliding somewhat!

               Edited at 2012-09-20 01:26 pm (UTC)

               1. Yes, it’s stretching a point. Lovely word, slovenly. Clothing as in baker has s.c. might have done it.

                  Edited at 2012-09-20 01:50 pm (UTC)

   4. Thanks for the link. I love this song as well. I like to play it on the piano when I’m slightly tiddly – the change from major to minor always gets me. Ann
8. Uncle Yap is right about early clues setting the tone: I romped through Monday’s believing it to be easy (most, apparently, didn’t), and today, convinced by not getting either of the 1’s that this was a sticky, wrestled steadily through a series of challenges. Not sure of time, as I omitted to record a start time, but felt like around 25, with the 1’s the last 2.
   Much enjoyed, though, despite the surfeit of rocketry, with CUBOID raising a chuckle. Incidentally, I recognise the US pronunciation of buoy the object, but how does it work with buoy the verb, especially in this past tense? ˈboō-ēd?
   Didn’t see CROCKERY as a DBE until Keriothe mentioned it. Clearly, the crossword’s going to the spaniels.
   CoD to DEFRAYED, with its cod definition.
9. 32m. Curious puzzle this. I thought some of it absolutely brilliant, but there were bits that really grated.
   In the brilliant category for instance: PUTRESCENT, DEFRAYED, CORRAL.
   In the “this annoyed me” category:
   > “rust” for “not be used”
   > the very vague “character” for “chi”
   > the whole of 16dn. “Cry” is obscure, “salad” for “rocket” is oblique at best and to cap it all it’s a DBE. I saw the answer almost immediately but couldn’t quite believe it so it was one of my last in
   > 19ac. I suspect I’m missing something here but I can’t see what the “‘s” is supposed to be doing
   1. ‘Baker slovenly clothes’ would indeed seem better.
   2. I agree on every point – no need for me to write my comment now!
   3. You’ve written my blog for me Keriothe. Absolutely with you. 25 minutes with a mixture of smiles, grimaces and nods of appreciation.
10. Did Not finish.

    Hebraist, Putrescent, Rusticity (Rusticise), Defrayed (Betrayed), Aflutter and Byrd all did for me. 🙁

11. All correct today with FOI Chewy and LOI Cole Porter. Slow solve but never got stuck for too long.
    Loved Cuboid. Mayfly from definition without knowing either the May (tree) or Fly (smart) elements.
12. I’m not so sure of it myself now that I look at it again. Collins has RUST (vb)as “deteriorate through lack of use”. SOED has it as a noun used figuratively to mean “inactivity, neglect”.
    1. I don’t think this is really such an unusual definition of “rust”. Think “my French is a bit rusty” and similar phrases.
13. Gave up after 31 minutes with betrayed wrong anyway but totally stumped by 15. I’d convinced myself that “High Society” was the def and it referred to a tree dwelling (or similarly loftily accommodated) folk in Gulliver’s Travels or some other classic book I haven’t read.

    Pity as I’d been flying all week up to today.

    1. Just noticed the connection: “High Society” at 15ac and “Cole Porter” at 20ac!
       1. Well did you ever?
14. And from his Scouse period:

    I get a Kick out of Yews

    1. Wunderbar!
15. DNF due to CUBOID, which I obviously didn’t get at all. Everything else, about 25 minutes. I had trouble with PUTRESCENT, since I can’t see why it means ‘high’, but the wordplay led me there, even though I had to trust that society meant just ‘S’, which I don’t recall seeing before. The mct and Z8 comments on how we US folk pronounce ‘buoyed’ are close to correct, as I read them: ‘boo’, rhymes with too, then ‘eed’, as in weed, without the ‘w’. I also didn’t know the rocket salad ingredient. Sotira, Cole Porter himself would have appreciated your song title. Regards.
    1. “Putrescent” = “high” in the sense of smelling bad because rotten.
       1. Yes, that’s the sense of “high’ we don’t use over here.
    2. You might know rocket as arugula, Kevin.
       “High” in this sense is most commonly encountered in relation to game birds, which are routinely hung for quite extended periods of time (two weeks is common for a pheasant, for instance) before cooking. Basically this means letting them rot, and how rotten – or “high” – you like your game is a matter of taste.
       1. Arugula, eh? Well, I know arugula, but I never knew it had another name, and I certainly would never have guessed rocket. And thanks for the background on the treatment of game birds, which I confess doesn’t sound too appetizing to me, but sounds a bit similar to aging beef, which some restaurants and butchers do over here, to break down membranes and tenderize it, I think.
          1. It’s a similar process, and they do the same with beef here. The difference is that beef is hung by professionals in carefully controlled – and refrigerated – conditions, whereas game birds are often hung any which way by people at home. It does sound quite revolting, but I can assure you that it makes for a much better taste and texture… up to a point.
             1. I will accept your assurance, but I don’t plan to test it.
                1. I can’t say I blame you! I would recommend paying attention to this with beef though: it really makes a very noticeable difference.
16. I’m with Sotira on this one. A challenging top-class puzzle. Around 60 mins for me. HEBRAIST, PETULANCE, PUTRESCENT, DEFRAYED, CORRAL and IN FOR were all brilliant. CUBOID must surely be one of the best and most objection-proof homophones in a long while (to expect homophones to cater for every variety of US pronunciation as well seems to be asking a bit much of the setter). I don’t agree with any of the other quibbles – “rust”=”not be used” and “rocket”=”salad” seem entirely fair to me. But then how boring it would be if we all reacted to every puzzle in the same way.
17. Most enjoyable: well done setter, and thanks. Some wonderful clues such as 22ac, 29ac, 25dn
18. …is actually a cabbage, I was amazed to discover, and not a lettuce.
    But it’s still salad of course.
19. 11:04 here, for another delightful puzzle – my compliments to the setter. I should have been faster, but tiredness after a rather exhausting day (including 45 minutes in a noisy MRI scanner) took its toll, and I made heavy weather of some easy clues.

    I share others’ doubts about 19ac. The best I can come up with is

    Baker “‘s slovenly” clothes

    but that’s hardly very satisfactory. Fortunately it’s compensated for by all the other goodies.

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