Times 25488 – Goody Goody

22 comments on “Times 25488 – Goody Goody”

1. 24:25 .. highly enjoyable puzzle.

   AUSPICES last to fall.

   COD .. I’m with yfyap on AUTUMNAL – a thing of beauty.

2. Mostly straightforward here too but after 30 minutes I was left with a word missing in each of three quarters and these did for me:DRIFT NET, SPRITZ and (worst of all, with 15 minutes to itself) JILT.
3. 70 minutes, last in 1ac, one wrong (‘sprite’ – not quite prep school slang for squirt, but almost – for SPRITZ), one nearly wrong (‘moderate’ changed to MODERATO), one unknown in respect of part of speech (‘malign’ as an adjective – must have come across it, but couldn’t recall it when I considered it first).

   I thought the literals were pretty well hidden and enjoyed the challenge. MY COD nomination goes to the Aussie patronage.

4. Many thanks, yfyap. A good challenge but defeated by JILT (for some reason, “prison” = JAIL just would not come to mind).
5. Very stop-and-start for me, finally deciding a Shrott sounded most like a small dog, after several minutes of the 47 pondering it at the end. Can’t say I like the clue. 18 too isn’t a thing of beauty to these eyes; a bit obvious and bumpy-surfaced unless I’m missing something. Some interesting clues nevertheless; and there seemed something different about this one overall.
6. 31 minutes, with what appear to be the same hold-ups as others, DRIFT NET, JILT and SPRITZ
   DRIFT NET – trying to work “left free” into the wordplay rather than the definition
   JILT – prisons have too many synonyms, ?I?T too many alternatives, and “drop” feels quite a long way from jilt, though of course it works
   SPRITZ – thrown almost completely by the “small”, not least because it does not seem to be a universal characteristic of Spitze, some of which hunt bears or pull sleds.
   Aren’t DOVEs supposed to be among the more violent avian species? But then a symbol means what you want it to mean.
   I’m afraid I didn’t like the cd at 18 much – maybe I’m just feeling ratty today. My CoD goes to GANGWAY, but not with much enthusiasm.

   Edited at 2013-05-30 08:34 am (UTC)

7. 17:04, and enjoyed my wrestle with this one, apart from JILT – I’m clearly not the only one whose idea of a solving nightmare is _I_T and no obvious way in to the clue…
8. One mistake today (a wrong guess at Sprite for Spritz). No major hold ups with the rest but several in the NW corner eluded me until I figured out Calendar from ?A?E???R.
   Enjoyed this one a lot for its unusual words and phrases such as Prig, A King’s Ransom, Exercise Bike Auspices and Thick Ear.
   I’m with others above in applauding Autumnal – super clue.
9. I found this generally a pretty straightforward solve. I am reassured to be in such distinguished company in taking ages to get JILT as my LOI, although I am still not sure why such a simple clue should have proved so hard!
10. Last was DRIFT NET without understanding it. Enjoyed being misled by “About time that Browning is seen and leaves shed?” and pondering a hitman in a lean-to with a revolver.
11. -I-T isn’t a helpful pattern: my first thought was BIN(prison)T, trying to use the A to get some sort of drop.
    18 was my LOI – the definition was so clear that I thought there had to be some wordplay, so needed all the checkers to confirm.
12. Those short words with common patterns of checking letters are a great way for setters to spike the guns of those who rely on online solvers. There always seem to be far fewer ‘neutrinos’ at the top of the Club leader board on days when we have clues like that.
13. Didn’t time it but 20 or so minutes with AUSPICES going in last as the only likely word that fit the checking letters. Some nice stuff here I particularly liked the clue for THICK EAR and the long definition at 4 down looking like wordplay
14. 17 minutes, the last 6 of which were taken up with trying to work out what JILT was – d’oh!
15. 26 mins over two sessions separated by a couple of hours because of something urgent that came up.

    For a while I thought this was going to be yet another failure but I got there in the end. I had SPRITZ from sp(r)itz at the back of my mind for a while but didn’t put it in until I had finally solved JILT and AUSPICES. When I had the ‘J’ of jilt I was more confident about the ‘Z’ in spritz, although I realised afterwards the puzzle isn’t a pangram because there isn’t a ‘Q’.

16. 20:41.

    No problems with drift net and spritz and not much of a hold-up to get jilt but malign (unknown as an adjective) and apostate added over 5 minutes between them.

    I’m afraid 26 is far from self-explanatory for me. I get the punishment bit and having an ear for music but I don;t see what the thick part has to do with the second half of the clue.

    1. The ‘not fine’ is the thick bit, and the musical appreciation is the ‘ear’. Apostate has been in lots of cryptics lately – could possibly quality as word of the month!
       1. Duh!

          Thanks Sue.

17. No time to post today due to interruption, but a similar experience to many reported above. Went through without much trouble until finding myself facing the 3 clues for DRIFT NET, JILT and SPRITZ. They took a while, maybe 10 minutes altogether for just those. Frankly, all of them are pretty good clues, the best being JILT, I think. Regards.
18. 17:49, but with a careless typo: CALENDER. Drat. A shame because I thought this was a fine puzzle and I enjoyed it a lot. Last in was SPRITZ: I’m not sure I’ve come across the dog before.
19. 12:47 for me, having at last caught up after a week away. I too thought this was a fine puzzle, though I made heavy weather of several clues, particularly MODERATO where I kept trying to fit MODERO (derived in some way or other) around AT!
20. I agree with the contributor above. To define ‘Spitz’as a small dog is quite simply wrong. The ‘Spitz Group’, as defined by the dog fancy, contains a large number of breeds, a few of which are indeed small, but many of them – huskies, malamutes etc certainly aint. (The reference is Wikipedia (what else?)

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