Times 25529: Voici l’Anglais avec son sang-froid habituel*

43 comments on “Times 25529: Voici l’Anglais avec son sang-froid habituel*”

1. ….since while solving a Guardian puzzle earlier in the day, I was wondering why ‘backchat’ never appeared in these cryptics….and there it was! Well, I didn’t have any trouble with that, but I slowed down after half an hour with three to do, and limped home with ‘burden’, ‘cyclamen’, and ‘charm’. The wrong kind of ‘spell’, and the wrong idea for ‘around’ made these difficult.

   I thought the puzzle was pretty good, with a nice mixture of clues. Someday, some setter will come out with a puzzle with an entirely new set of non-obscure words that have never appeared before.

   1. >I was wondering why ‘backchat’ never appeared in these cryptics….

      Well, not since 11 August last year with 1dn in No. 25,239 (“Second bird getting sauce (8)”), anyway.

      (I know – you were just testing 😉

2. I found this straightforward, helped by seeing the two long down clues quickly. LOI 8dn, having not previously come across one of the meanings.. also nearly put Engels for 9dn until I parsed it properly.
   Entertaining.
3. 16:44 .. very nice stuff. I do like a puzzle where every clue fits on one line (at least on my screen). And some nice surfaces, like the one for CRUISER.

   BANDITTI was new to me but easy enough to figure out with the wordplay.

   Last in … BURDEN. I didn’t know the choral meaning but nothing much else seemed to fit with ‘oppressive duty’.

4. I thought this was going to be easy, then I thought I’d never finish, with 17d, 1ac, and 25ac resisting vigorously. Finally thought of ‘lip’ as the definition, and finally realized that ‘in the morning’ didn’t mean A______M. I knew BURDEN, but I was thinking of chorus=singers, so that took a while. Has anyone used ‘top-hole’ since Bertie Wooster? COD to CRUISER.
   1. Well at least it raises the tone a bit after yesterday’s ‘ta-ra’!
      1. … The Wik tells me that Scotland was once called the Kingdom of Scone for similar reasons that Ireland was called the Kingdom of Tara. Coincidence?
5. 32 minutes, with a bit of time lost by dint of shoving in ‘grubiness’ (sic) at 25, which made the rather natty PINSTRIPE difficult. Nothing else to add which hasn’t already been said – nice puzzle.
6. I struggled to get going (again!) and dozed off with only 6 words in the grid. On returning to it somewhat refreshed I worked steadily and tidily through the remaining answers. It felt a bit strange, having called THUMBNAIL to mind when thinking of ‘small picture’ at 18ac, to find it was the answer needed at 23ac. Didn’t know, or more likely had forgotten, BANDITTI.
7. From Poe’s ‘The Raven’:

   `Doubtless,’ said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
   Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
   Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore –
   Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
   Of “Never-nevermore.”‘

   1. Ah, I see why I didn’t know BURDEN: my entire knowledge of Poe comes from The Alan Parsons Project’s concept album Tales of Mystery and Imagination and they left that bit out of The Raven!
      1. But you probably know the song of the Jolly Miller.

         There was a Jolly Miller once lived on the River Dee.
         He worked and sang from morn till night
         No lark as blithe as he.
         And this the burden of his song forever used to be:
         “I care for nobody, no, not I. And nobody cares for me”

         1. Not sure if this means I had an incomplete childhood but I’ve never heard of it!
      2. Whereas I never heard of the Alan Parsons Project. Eugene Wrayburn in ‘Our Mutual Friend’ mentions the Jolly Miller, but in the plural: they care etc.
8. 18’30” including checking for typos – heaven forfend they should put the championship on keyboard.
   INTUITIVE caused the significant hold up because I had the equally authentic INTUITION (the writer has “on”) so ENGELS was inaccessible and I was looking for “a German” to give EIN, condemning the clue to obscurity. Crossers to the rescue.
   In my experience, GADGETs are often useful only in parting the gullible from their money, usually costing something ending in 9.99 and disappearing into the forgotten drawer.
9. Took about an hour or so, but was pleased to finish (albeit with a careless ‘banditty’) as it took a very long time to get going…

   I found the NE corner tough, as I didn’t know the second meanings of SCONE or BURDEN (tricky that they crossed), and couldn’t parse SCARAB;

   FOI: INTUITIVE; LOI: ANGELS

   A family story that my 18yo will never live down: having heard about the native Arctic eskimoes he took it upon himself to ask his Canadian teacher in front of the class if she was a NITWIT! She saw the funny side, he was only 5!

   1. Just as well he hadn’t been taught ‘Athabascan’…

      Edited at 2013-07-17 06:11 am (UTC)

10. This is one of those “meat and two veg” puzzles where one works steadily through a nutritious but somewhat uninspired offering. The only difficulty is the SCONE BURDEN crossing where both are the same style clue and each has a somewhat obscure meaning to one thread. Other than that just do what the cryptic tells you and the answer emerges. 20 minutes to solve.
11. I thought that this was going to be my fastest for a long time at 17m 52s, then I checked the blog and found that I had stupidly and overhastily entered ‘banditty’ at 1d. All the more annoying since I know the word ‘banditti’.
    I think I shall have to revert to not timing myself, and be more careful.
    George Clements
12. Didn’t know the musical BURDEN or the BANDITTI but the clues didn’t offer many other alternatives. Similar feelings to Sotira re the one-line clues.
13. 23 minutes, held up at the end by backchat which I rather like. Little to comment on, all rather one-two-clunk (‘spell “desirability” ‘ etc.) without that dash of malicious humour to prove one’s alive. – joekobi
14. 15m. Fairly standard stuff but the Times standard is of course high. No real hold-ups and only one unknown: one of the meanings of BURDEN. I’ll leave you to guess which.
    Actually I didn’t know about the Roman history of Nîmes either, but “in France” was enough.
    1. Way back, my young family and I made our way into the amphitheatre at Nimes, still much used for concerts and bullfights. Nobody stopped us getting into the centre of the arena, where we played Christians and Lions. The Lions won. A fabulous place, far more complete than the Rome version
15. When ‘qiviut’ first appeared in Chambers, the derivation was given as ‘Imit’: an unlikely way to represent the sound of musk-ox wool!
16. 17 mins. I didn’t see either of the long down answers as quickly as some of you did, which is disappointing because neither of them were that hard in retrospect. Count me as another with BURDEN as my LOI due to not knowing the chorus meaning.
17. 9.29 – did know BURDEN didn’t know BANDITTI.

    In addition to blinking with regularity, we are encouraged to have a program on our computers called Workrave which encourages us to do all sorts of stretches and head moves and all sorts in the hope that we won’t get RSI and the like – you do get very strange looks when you use it though!

18. Following on from the management training experience I shared with you last week, I’ve just done some (thankfully much shorter) ‘elf and safety training (when sorrows come, they come not single spies…). This includes (honestly it does) the following advice:

    Remember to blink regularly

    Sorry, off topic I know but I thought you might enjoy it.

    Edited at 2013-07-17 11:07 am (UTC)

    1. Well, thank heavens you did. I can’t even remember the last time I blinked. I’m going to print that one out and stick it to the wall over my computer.
    2. Perhaps you could set up your computer/device to flash blindingly every few seconds. That should do it.
       1. Wizard idea! That should certainly help with the headaches …
19. 24 minutes to success with the second meaning of BURDEN a learning experience, as other have said. My CoD 18 ac for the nice topical surface. A top hole puzzle!
20. 30.24 so average for me. Enjoyable though with problems In the places already highlighted except for BURDEN which was familiar in this sense from Chaucer’s Pardoner who when singing had the Summoner ‘bearing to him a stiff burdoun’ – one of Geoffrey’s more graphic inuendos.
21. Two missing today and in opposite corners: Burden & Teensy. Banditti and Top-Hole both unknown but wordplay clear.
    Loved the Black Cat at 1ac.
22. I had a lot of problems and interruptions yesterday so was seriously distracted. (One of the problems was my bank telling me my savings account was empty when I knew there was over 28 grand in it. I think my slowish time can be excused. I did the puzzle while they were looking for the money!!) Today all was right with the world and I managed this in 21 minutes, which is a good time for me. A steady solve with no hold-ups. Have quoted “The Jolly Miller” above as a good source for BURDEN. Some of you lot must have sung it in school. Ann
    1. HI Ann. Having had many similar run-ins with banks over the years, including their insistence that a dead person’s signature (at the bank) was essential to release funds, I’m sure I can help with your difficulty. If I could have your account details…
       1. Thanks for your offer but I did finally get the problem sorted. But for a while I thought I’d been cleaned out!
       2. I should have read your reply more carefully! Very funny…
    2. >Have quoted “The Jolly Miller” above as a good source for BURDEN.
       >Some of you lot must have sung it in school.

       Yes indeed – in fact I’d probably have quoted it myself if you hadn’t got there first.

       By coincidence, I’ve just gone back to Vaughan Williams’s arrangement of The Water Mill by Fredegond Shove (who, as far as I know, has yet to appear in the Times crossword, though her surname is clearly begging to be used :-). I was given it to sing by one of my old singing teachers, Richard Standen at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, as he’d worked on it with VW himself, and had (I believe) been one of the first, if not the first, to record it. It’s a strange poem, but it works for me as it paints such a vivid picture. (Perhaps you know it anyway. You can find VW’s setting on YouTube.)

       1. I don’t know it but will definitely have a listen. I haven’t come across Fredegond Shove. It looks like a German name. VW had good taste in lyrics I think. One of the reasons I love singing “The Sea Symphony” is the Walt Whitman poems. And Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Songs of Travel” was a favourite in our family. I used to play them for my late brother who was a very good amateur baritone. Btw, I surprised myself when I found I was able to remember all the words of “The Miller of Dee” in spite of not having sung it or heard it for almost 60 years! Stuff you learn young tends to stick.
          1. FS is in wikipedia (as is Fredegonde – redirected to Fredegund). I’m absolutely with you as regards VW’s Sea Symphony, one of the best sings going, with Whitman’s poems inspiring VW to his best. Songs of Travel too – great stuff, both to sing and to play. I’m particularly fond of The Vagabond, but perhaps that’s everyone’s favourite.

             I can certainly recall two verses of The Miller of Dee, but some versions seem to include others which I don’t remember at all. It’s wonderful how the stuff you learnt when young sticks, but alarming how the stuff you learn later vanishes so quickly. (Sigh!)

23. Oh well, I put in BANDITTY thinking that “heard” was just part of the surface, didn’t know the word.
24. Still of the pace with a slightly disappointing 10:12 (but at least I’m getting faster – said he, tempting fate).

    Some nice clues, but am I the only one worried by the apostrophe after “Robbers” in 1dn?

    Afterthought: part of the reason for my slow times could be because I’m on the flightpath out of Heathrow at the moment, and with the windows wide open beacuse of the heat, the noise (every couple of minutes) is more disturbing than usual. (I’d thought I might have a late-night bash at the final Championship qualifier just now, but we’re currently being buzzed by a helicopter for some reason so I think I’ll leave it till tomorrow. Sigh!)

    Edited at 2013-07-18 12:14 am (UTC)

25. 22 Ac Language once used by investigator pursuing extremists (5)

    A _ T _ C

    I had ATTIC in my mind – and was (of course) unable to justify it. Sadly, it did not occur to me that I might be wrong.

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