Times 25519

33 comments on “Times 25519”

1. I took this to be an oblique reference to “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”.
2. Was expecting a Friday horror after the difficulties of Wednesday and (particularly) yesterday. This seemed a fair bit easier; possibly by contrast only. The three overlapping anagrams (THRENODIES, DISADVANTAGED, RECONCILE) helped fill in a lot of white early on. Though the last of the three is very nicely disguised. Had to think a bit post-solve about {ob}SERVANT and PARIAH. COD has to go to the bridesmaid though.
3. Yes, I found this easier than the past few days too and finished without major hold-ups in 40 minutes.

   I’m not completely sure about “expressive” = FREE but I may not have thought of the right context yet.

   I assumed some sort of reference to “the fairer sex” at 20ac which I’m sure must fall foul of modern sensibilities somewhere along the line so I was pleased to read mct’s explanation in which the reference to the film title hopefully allays those fears.

4. For me Wednesday was the horror; at least I finished yesterday’s. The only thing that slowed me down today was which Hebrides, and that required the 4ac penny to drop. DNK SLACK–never used coal–but could think of nothing else. And BOTANY was new to me, too (tried to do something with ‘flora’ for a while). I suspect PAIRING was unfamiliar to many US solvers (I only knew of it from a scene in ‘Little Dorritt’), but the wordplay left little else. PECKER is another UK/US difference; it’s obscene in the States. (e.g., Lyndon Johnson once said, “I never trust a man unless I’ve got his pecker in my pocket.”)

   Edited at 2013-07-05 04:30 am (UTC)

5. 49 minutes and a relief after the previous two days’ hard slog. BOTANY unknown in this restricted sense and SLACK dredged up from my youth. FREE for expressive seems okay given contexts like ‘He’s typically a stuffed shirt but free in his emotions with his daughter’.

   Edited at 2013-07-05 03:04 am (UTC)

6. Gentlemen prefer blondes, surely.
7. Now I see mctext already said that.

   I had one wrong. I put in PURDAH at 1ac, meaning to come back and check since I couldn’t immediately see what one letter change would work, but then I often can’t in that type of clue. But I forgot to go back. Of course PURDAH doesn’t quite fit the right meaning once you think about it a bit more.

   There were several clues where a couple of words were most of the clue, and then all the rest went to define the remaining one or two letters. But since most clues are not like that it was nicely misleading.

8. 
   After about an hour or so, I had two left… two anagrams. One which I saw, but didn’t get right (the unfamiliar THRENODIES), and one which I didn’t even see at 15dn … how irritating! Another DNF.

   Was held up for a while by having parish at 1ac.

   No problem with PECKER, got the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes ref, couldn’t work out second bit of CONSENTED.

   COD: INNER HEBRIBES

9. I made the same association as mctext on FAIR-MINDED.

   I have to say I was surprised to see PECKER = spirits. The fact that two figurative expressions of different origin have a similar meaning doesn’t seem to be a basis for attributing the same meaning to the words. Can we say by the same token that chin = pecker = spirits? Or that chain = leg because of “To pull someone’s leg/chain”.

   It’s in the OED and of course the setter can rely on the dictionary. But it does seem an odd outcome. Just my twopennyworth.

   1. I don’t see a problem with this, as we’re not dealing with ‘two figurative expressions’, spirits being used in its figurative sense only in the surface reading and not in the cryptic reading.
      1. I’m not talking about how it is used in this clue. I am simply saying that although the expression “Keep your chin up” (the literal meaning of which is obvious) has a figurative meaning of “Keep your spirits up”, does not mean that “chin” and “spirits” have the same meaning. “Chin” in that expression has its literal meaning, and is not a figure or metaphor for “spirits”. It is the whole expression which has the figurative sense, as keeping one’s head erect is a sign of good spirits.

         For the same reason I find the definition of “pecker” (beak, head) as “spirits” to be surprising.

         1. I’d say ‘keep one’s chin up’ is in a different category from ‘keep one’s pecker up’, as the first is an unanalysable whole, while, in theory, at any rate, ‘pecker’ can be used on its own, as indicated by Collins, meaning ‘spirits’, outside of this particular idiom.

            Edited at 2013-07-05 08:37 am (UTC)

            1. I disagree. Pecker (nose) and chin are both parts of the face and the expressions are precisely analagous.

               Pecker meaning spirits does not exist outside that expression (other than an odd G&S joke) according to OED citations.

               I suspect it is just that unlike “chin”, “pecker” is susceptible to misunderstanding..

               In any case the expressions ” keep your chin / spirits up” illustrate that being able to substitute one word for another without changing the meaning is not conclusive proof that the two words have the same meaning.

               1. Someone barely touching their food is said to peck at it, and in that sense they are a pecker. I don’t see what chin has to do with it.
                  1. Sorry, please ignore that. Missed the point as usual.
10. An easy 20 minute puzzle where many clues can be solved from the very obvious definitions (1A being a classic example, quickly folowed by 1D).

    15D is by far the best with a well hidden anagram and tricky surface reading

    I well remember SLACK which was cheaper than better quality coal. One of my infant jobs was to stand guard as the coalmen delivered the coal to (a) count the bags and (b) ensure no slack was pushed into the middle of the delivery

    1. Jimbo, I’m not sure that the 1s are quite as easy as you make out – not for people with only 4-5 years, rather than 50+, years of solving experienxce, anyway!

       Glad to know they didn’t send you up the chimneys as a kid…. 🙂

       1. Of course, point taken – that’s going to be true of much of what I say about these puzzles

          As to going up the chimney – don’t be so sure. We lived in the old servant’s quarters in the attic of a very large old Victorian house and birds used to build nests that blocked the top of the chimney. This was best cleared using a sweep’s set of brushes at the highest access point in the house by somebody thin enough to complete the required manoeuvres…

          1. As long as you didn’t go up in the buff I think we’ll allow that.
11. 14 minutes (NATDHSPW*) with the NE corner taking the longest to fall. (*Not Accurately Timed (ie no seconds) Due to Having Simultaneously Pretend to Work).

    I did like the Bridesmaid clue.

12. I too had LICKER before deciding it must be FILAGREE, which I had originally dismissed because I’d thought it was spelt ‘FILIGREE’and was not aware of the second way to spell it.
    35 minutes no problems with the rest, including PECKER – my Australian uncle was forever urging people to keep theirs up.
    How’s the golf Jimbo, hope things have dried out now… as they have here at last.
13. 21 mins mid-morning.

    My LOI was AIRBORNE and I must have spent about 4 minutes at the end staring at _I_B_R_E. For some reason I couldn’t get “disburse” out of my mind, and my only excuse for not seeing the obvious is that I’ve been trying to avoid anything even vaguely royal baby-related for the last several months and I switched off when I saw the surface.

    THRENODIES is a word that always reminds me of Titus Groan. When I saw SLACK I wondered if Jimbo would have a comment, so thanks for not disappointing me.

    1. Always reminds me of JP Donleavy… think it was The Ginger Man I first saw the word. Don’t remember it in the Gormenghast books.
       Rob
14. Back online after two weeks’ cruising in Norway/Arctic (scenery was amazing) and a busy week at work. Beginning to tackle all the crosswords I’ve missed. Wednesday’s barnstormer will be hard to beat.

    Nothing too problematic today but I needed all the checkers to get Pariah and Airborne. The latter clue very apt given the imminent arrival of William & Kate’s baby.

    Dave – thanks for explaining Inner Hebrides. I couldn’t suss how that clue worked. Remembered slack coal from a previous puzzle.

    1. Gentlemen who prefer blondes should go to Norway!
15. 22:34 (FK) .. I never quite got in tune with this one, struggling especially with the ‘easy’ ones. COD ..PEDOMETER – nice surface.

    If I may digress … C’mon, Andy!

    If I may digress further … due to public demand (in my fevered imagination) I’ve published a list of BASCAAs (Best Adverse Solving Condition Acronyms and Abbreviations) which can be found here: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/989109.html

16. Couldn’t choose between PARIAH & PARISH, so eventually chose latter, with SALLYING at 3d without quite being able to parse clue.
    Just after the war, we needed to buy nutty slack because all the good coal went to the railways etc.
    My excuse for a long time is DOH (dozed off halfway) – after needing to get up in the small hours, didn’t go back to sleep for a while.
17. I’m another who never really got attuned here. 30:07 with no extenuating circumstances to report by way of an acronym. The long clues put me off a bit I think.

    Like Sotira I took too long on some of the easy ones. Take cupid, for instance. I knew it was silly minus saint after C, and I even thought of stupid, but SAINT almost always causes a wobble. When I thing ST it’s S, and when it’s S I think ST.

    The wordplay for filagree saved me as I, too, only knew the “i” spelling.

    Slack from popular culture; wasn’t Ken Dodd always going on about nutty slack?

    COD to EXEAT for lover having gone.

    1. And Larry Grayson about Slack Alice?
18. I want my pecker (in this context at least) to be my nose rather than my chin for some reason, so out of sheer bloody-mindedness I’ll disagree with ‘anonymous’.

    Quite liked this, especially in comparison with the evil Wednesday offering, so I’m feeling somewhat blessed. And looking forward to some ale this evening, where I will try to remember some of the incredibly funny acronyms in the thread above.

    Have a lovely weekend,
    Chris G.

19. I was *that* close to WUNIS after celebrating the 4th of July. Did this while waiting for my computer to boot up at work, which takes anything from 3 minutes to half a bloody hour.

    Odd puzzle, since I put in a bunch of not only completely incorrect words, but ones that didn’t fit the enumeration. Was sure 11 was Chlorine (CL), and 22 across was CONDONED (sounds like CONNED, ONE, D). Perfectly plausible from wordplay, just didn’t fit into the spot. Oh well…

    Eventually got there from one definition of PECKER (not the one that is in most use here), definition for SERVANT and INNER HEBRIDES.

20. About 40 minutes to DNF, due to having absolutely no idea of PECKER, and having to look it up. Also, I spelled THRENODIES as THRONEDIES. My excuse is that it was done late at night after cleaning up the disorder left by guests over to view 4th of July fireworks visible from our deck, conveniently arranged by the municipality. And of course, that required me to be ‘convivial’ all evening, which slowed down the brain a tad. I suppose we can acronym-ise that as just plain “TC” (too convivial). Regards to all.
21. After plodding through most of this puzzle very slowly but at least reasonably steadily, for the second time this week I lost the plot with about five clues to go. This time I can’t really pin it on any external event (apart perhaps from not yet having acclimatised to the hot weather) so will have to ascribe my miserable 15:37 to ULP.

    I was a bit fazed by FILAGREE, since (like others) I’ve only ever seen it spelt FILIGREE, and I made desperately heavy weather of SLACK and PECKER for no good reason.

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