Times 25,283 – Bottom Drawer Sparks Ultimate Urge

39 comments on “Times 25,283 – Bottom Drawer Sparks Ultimate Urge”

1. Thanks Jack
2. Also 20 minutes, with the SW giving easily the most trouble. I can’t spell MADELEINE, preferring an A in the lower middle, so parsing was impossible until realised there had to be a mistake: it’s now my CoD. HEIST was entered with great reluctance, same reason as Jim. Mugging might be a major crime for the victim, but it’s not a heist in the way that a bank job or a Great Train Robbery is.
   I didn’t take ATTENDANT/page as a DBE, certainly not in the way EVENT/high jump is (justified by the ?). In my Thesaurus it’s a direct equivalent.
   Good to see LIGHT YEAR defined properly as distance rather than time.

   Edited at 2012-10-02 10:03 am (UTC)

3. I have it as S (small) inside NET (ultimate) EGG (urge) with “collect” as containment indicator.
4. Ultimate NET and urge EGG around S
   1. Sorry, no sign of Jack’s reply before I started typing
5. Once again I failed miserably at the final hurdle to beat the 30 minute barrier because of a couple of tricky clues. I had been on course for sub-20 for most of the solve.

   I just didn’t know XHOSA and couldn’t think of a prophet that fitted the wordplay so I was sunk by 1dn. ANNIE ended up as last in (once I had the checker from 1dn) because I didn’t know the alternative to “lorimer” at 2dn and there was nothing really to indicate that my answer was wrong. There is a type of ship called a “coaler” for transporting coal so why shouldn’t there be a “limer” for transporting lime?

   I didn’t know SARDINE as a stone but the answer presented no problems. I’d never have parsed 14dn in a million years.

   I am unable to find TESTIMONIAL defined solely as “character” anywhere.

   Another mostly very enjoyable puzzle on the easier side but with a sting or two in its tail for me.

   Edited at 2012-10-02 08:36 am (UTC)

   1. Chambers (2003) – character: “a formal statement of the qualities of a person who has been in one’s service or employment, a testimonial”
      1. Must type faster.
   2. You may not find TESTIMONIAL defined as “character” but you can find “character” defined as TESTIMONIAL. Chambers has “a formal statement of the qualities of a person who has been in one’s service or employment, a testimonial”.
6. 13 minutes. Another straightforward one, in spite of the unknowns Hosea, LORINER and SARDINE (the stone that is: I’d heard of the fish). Similar hesitation over HEIST but it was clearly the answer.
   Oh, and thanks for explaining TASTE: couldn’t parse that one and was trying to fit the country lass TESS into it somehow!

   Edited at 2012-10-02 08:50 am (UTC)

7. I liked the way in which the setter starts the grid with an X. 1d was not a problem as my scientist-cum-artist wife once painted a pastel of a Xhosa woman but I had to come here for a run-down of 6, count ’em, clues. As with jackkt, I would never have parsed 14d in a month of Sundays and had never heard of sardine as a biblical stone. Loriner was obvious from the wordplay but, again like jackkt, I was familiar with lorimer. He used to play for Leeds United. I think my COD has to be 19ac with its one-letter definition. My avatar today is our dogs. I need to be reminded of what they look like before they arrive from Sydney two weeks tomorrow. They’ve been in kennels for the past 4 months.
8. Another straightforward solve, though several solutionss -e.g. MADELEINE, NEST EGG – went in without full understanding of the wordplay. Thanks to all for explanations here. About 30 mins. I lived for a while in South Africa, so XHOSA posed no problem. I had the same problem as Jack with “character”=”testimonial”, but the setter appears to have at least one dictionary on his side, Personally, I’ve never seen “character” used in this way except when followed by the word “reference”. I didn’t see “page/attendant” as a DBE at 10 ac; the two words seem to me close enough in meaning to pass muster as synonyms.
   1. ‘Character’ is pretty common in the 18th and early 19th century, the sort of thing you would find in Fielding or Dickens.
      1. I’ll take your word for it, Vinyl!
9. …and I needed all the crossing letters before remembering ‘Xhosa’. ‘Loriner’ and ‘larghetto’ also were slow in coming to mind. ‘Madeleine’, however, was my last one in, as I believe for a long time that ‘capital’ was the literal.

   A good-quality puzzle, where you have to trust the cryptics to get the unknowns.

10. Darn difficult I’d say. Equally fooled as others by “character”=TESTIMONIAL. Couldn’t parse MADELEINE for the life of me. Knew Jim would baulk at the DBE for EVENT (as did I). Also with him on INNKEEPER. Yet another advert for the anti-CD campaign?

    Liked the XYLOPHONE clue; if only because of the difficulty of clueing the word; well overcome here. Is there not, Jim, a serious use of the xylophone: etymologically and technically, anything sounded from wood?

    Watching your fellow Dorsetshireman, M. Clunes, on TV as I write. Though he’s in the Shetlands.

    1. For serious use of the XYLOPHONE see Dame Evelyn Glennie. She’s an astonishing lady who, though profoundly deaf, feels the music through her body, as she explains here.
       1. Great examples. So I now have to say that Jim’s “musical instrument used in teaching music to children” was a bit off the cuff. No?
          1. What do you expect at eight in the morning!

             Anyway, my comment is accurate if not wholly complete

    2. I wondered the same about the xylophone. Does a vibraphone count?
    3. I think the QM signals the DBE adequately.
       1. I’m always unsure as to whether “?” signals DBE adequately. It would seem to be more-or-less OK when, as here, it follows the actual def. Otherwise, I suspect it’s a wee bit of a liberty.
11. 15:48. I was delighted and a little surprised to find that my unknowns – Xhosa, loriner and larghetto – were all correct.

    Thanks to Jimbo for the explanations for attendant and Madeleine and the second meaning of sardines.

    Ref 1 across, is there a famous xylophonist nicknamed Bax? Bert Baxendale or some such? Otherwise that leaves “requiring this?” as the definition which kind of works with “in pieces” but not with the rest. Reg Baxenthwaite?

    1. There is a composer.
       1. Ooh thanks. That’s close enough for me.
12. Finished well outside 30 minutes. Question the use of “I” in 28 ac. Humbly suggest: In ecstatic showing approval is broadminded. Was dubious “character” could be testimonial but put it because it soon became the only word that would fit.

    Enigma

13. Bit dry, bit dull, and some recondite words, by my book at least, that led to a rather unexciting and tricky solve. Nearly 45 minutes for me today, and I’ve been faster than that on much harder stuff, which is annoying. But never mind. We’ve had some good uns recently.

    CoD: tough, but probably LIGHT YEAR for the correct def.

    Chris Gregory.

14. 54 minutes, with similar comments to most others. A strong Biblical feeling to this, with Hosea, Dan and Lot, too, if you take it with a pinch of salt as his wife did.
15. Defeated by SW. Kept seeing 14 as Madeleine but couldn’t see why though staring me in the face. Subsequent brain-freeze with clear win to setter.
16. Around 35 minutes, with the same difficulties as others have already mentioned. Couldn’t parse MADELEINE, SARDINE as a stone, and for me, XHOSA, which was clearly the answer, but I stuck myself with the feeling that ‘primarily for adults only’ was giving me the ‘A’, not the ‘X’. Yes, quite boneheaded. I did parse TESTIMONIAL, though, quite clearly, so it went straight in although I do share the opinion that ‘character’ doesn’t really mean that. Regards.
17. 25 minutes, sardine LOI and didn’t know why until I read the blog. Otherwise a decent medium difficulty puzzle IMO. My CoD XHOSA for finding a 1 dn and ac beginning with X. Reminded me of best holiday ever in SA, I suspect a return visit would be disappointing.

    Edited at 2012-10-02 04:43 pm (UTC)

18. Thought I was going to rattle through this in record time, but found I couldn’t parse ATTENDENT and MADELAINE, and once the creeping doubts set in, I was done for. I finally finished in about 35 minutes.

    Useless fact of information: did you know that grenades were so called because of the French word for pomegranates, which they originally resembled? (A bit like those fizzing spheres you used to see in Mad magazine). I was hoping that pomegranates might be associated with GRENADA, thereby giving an extra dimension to the clue. Unfortunately the place seems to grow only nutmegs.

    1. Apparently they do try to grow pineapples there which is quite appropriate given the military slang for ‘grenade’.
19. 35.40 for me. Another straightforward and steady solve. 2d unknown but gettable from cryptic. 1d went in straight off thanks to Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. My COD to 19a for well disguised definition.
    1. Yes, Mandela is probably the most famous Xhosa on the planet.
    2. That’s where I remembered it from too.
20. 41 min 12 secs.

    Sticking Lorimer in, before discovering my mistake, slowed me down but I managed to complete all but one clue in about 25 mins. I’m glad I stuck at this as I finally derived Xhosa, which I’ve never heard of before.

    Edited at 2012-10-02 09:43 pm (UTC)

21. I only got Xhosa because I read somewhere recently that someone’s favourite clue ever is ‘Butcher has ox tongue (5)’. I must agree that is a fine clue.
22. 24:36 Slowed down by 2d and 18d; knew ‘lorimer’ but not LORINER, ‘sard’ but not SARDINE; both struck me as a bit on the obscure side. Like Jimbo, I didn’t/don’t equate a heist with a mugging–well, they’re both violent thefts, but still. 14d was my LOI, and it took me quite a while to parse it. COD to it, and also 13d.

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