Times 25539 – A Mixed Bag

60 comments on “Times 25539 – A Mixed Bag”

1. I had exactly the same answers as you, Uncle Yap, but when I submitted it online I got one error. If the ‘correct’ answer is assEgai (and I did think about the two spellings while solving) I shall be a bit cross. I can’t see how the clue rules either variant in or out but I felt the middle ‘a’ was more strongly suggested – ‘a chap’ sounding like ‘egai’ seems a stretch.

   Of course, I may just have a typo that I’m not seeing somewhere else, in which case I shall just feel a bit silly (won’t be the first time).

   Edited at 2013-07-29 01:54 am (UTC)

2. Would have been a good deal faster if I’d had less trouble with the race (DNK) and the bridge, which I could do nothing with other than think of letters that could fill the blanks; which gave me ‘client’, ‘fluent’, and at long last, ALBERT. Second Sotira’s remarks on ASSA/EGAI. I evidently chose the ‘correct’ spelling, but can’t remember which it was.
3. Most in quite quickly … then the matching pairs at the top left and bottom right (1dn and 11ac / 20dn and 23ac) held me up for a while at the end. And I had a suspicion that this was a deliberate setting ploy.

   The horse race was unknown and will now be immediately forgotten. Good to see YIN at 14ac.

   Would have been even nicer to have Brisbane (rather than London) for the ALBERT Bridge.

4. An albert is a watch chain.
   1. An most certainly not to be confused with a ‘Prince Albert’, which would be a most unusual way to sport a timepiece.
      1. Now I know what that guy meant when he asked me “Have you got the time on yer cock?”
5. I also got 2 errors recorded. One is 9ac where, being uncertain of the spelling I carefully checked off the letters in the anagram (RACES WE – 2 A’s, 1 E, check!).

   Everything else seems to be OK which is odd. Despite being more familiar with the ASSEGAI spelling I took care and parsed it like ulaca. I concur with sotira’s thoughts on this.

6. When I submitted and found I had one wrong, I naturally assumed a vowel disorder at the races, but to my amazement and confusion I’d got that one right, leaving the only possibility that I’d been shafted by the ASSAGAI (sic). I think I’d go further than Sotira and say I’ll be very cross indeed if that proves to be the case.

   Apart from the race, and the ALBERT chain bridge, not a lot held me up. I must learn to distinguish between clues that I’m never going to get because I’m ignorant and those which I’m seemingly never going to get because I’m stupid. I don’t mind wasting my time on the latter, but somehow the time wasted on the former sticks in my craw. Why is that?

7. In accordance with my new regime I wasn’t exactly rushing to finish as quickly as possible, but this one took me longer over 30 minutes than it should have as I was ages deciphering wordplay and satisfying myself that LADY-IN-WAITING and INTERTWINE had to be the right answers.

   I also wasn’t helped by not knowing ‘boisterous’ = STORMY, or ONCOST – a horrible piece of jargon which somehow I have managed to avoid meeting before despite the last 15 years of my working-life spent in an accounting environment.

   I actually possess an assegai, albeit a scaled-down hand-crafted version as sold to visitors to Natal in the 1950s, so it’s not just a museum piece or crossword puzzle word to me. I have always spelt it with an ‘E’ and all the usual sources confirm that this is the more usual spelling, so I think there is a good case for an alternative answer here on the basis that the homophone element of the clue might reasonably be taken to begin at the fourth letter of the word rather than the fifth. After all, ‘A’ sounding like ‘E’ in this context is not much of a stretch when compared with some of the rubbish we are expected to swallow on occasions.

   I don’t know what “for everyone” is doing in 5ac and I’m never happy with NT standing for a single book.

   Edited at 2013-07-29 05:43 am (UTC)

   1. Continuing the minor gripes, I thought that (17ac) “perhaps” was a no-no as an anagram indicator. Don’t ask why, I just think I have seen that somewhere.
      1. I can’t see a problem with ‘perhaps’, Derek. It passes the Biddlecombe Rule of ‘does it make sense and is it what might reasonably be expected?’ with flying colours, does it not?
      2. Can’t say I remember hearing that, nor can I imagine why it would be so. Of course we’re more used to seeing it as a “get-out-of-jail card” for DBEs, but “perhaps” is in Chambers’ list of anagram indicators.
         1. I must be mistaken. I don’t have any problem with it, indeed when I first started cryptics it was the standard anagrind in the DT. Maybe it’s because it got overworked that it rarely seems to used in the Times.
   2. “I actually possess an assegai..”

      That stopped me in my tracks – I really thought it was filed under “Things That Only Exist In Crosswords”.

8. Forget this fuss about a weird African missile – the burning question of the day is why Sotira is calling me Uncle Yap.
   1. I wondered that too but thought it best not to intrude!
   2. Lo siento, ulaca! I realised as soon as I logged in this morning. One thousand apologies to both you and yfyap. I can only offer in mitigation that I was so miffed by the whole ASSAGAI/ASSEGAI situation (Assegai-gate? Assagate?) that the balance of my mind was disturbed.

      It would be safe to say that Uncle Yap’s blogging style and yours are not readily confused, except by a very stupid person.

      Edited at 2013-07-29 11:32 am (UTC)

      1. No hay de que! As soon as I wrote the totally out of character ‘this sunny Monday morning’ I had a premonition that things would turn out funny. An assagai and a Prince Albert later and things have totally unravelled.
         1. You know, that’s probably what fooled me (and Andy Borrows, below) – I always think of Uncle Yap as the blogger for whom even Monday mornings are sunny!

            I’m cautious of using ‘assagai’ and ‘Prince Albert’ in the same sentence. And I’m definitely not typing them both into Google!

9. 16:49, but one wrong with ASSAGAI. I followed the cryptic, so how stupid can you get?
   The TLS does this all the time, I suspect as a kind of tie-breaker. I suppose the galling thing is that, with a “leaderboard” as currently constructed, there is no way of defending your position. That goes double where there’s a prize at stake. Does it matter? Dam’ right it does!
   That aside, I enjoyed this one because although much sideways thinking was needed to spot either of the elements of the clues, they still fell fairly quickly and encouraged one to feel slightly smug. “Well played, Setter, you nearly got me there!”
   CoD to JUNIPER, though I bet it’s been done before. I shall, however, feel slightly miffed all day.

   1. The TLS does this all the time, I suspect as a kind of tie-breaker

      Surely it only does it where there’s an identifiable right answer?

      1. Well, no, not really. Some examples from the recent past:
         11. Venetian nobleman suggesting Dr Brodsky’s technique for aversion therapy as recorded by Burgess? “Correct” answer LUDOVICO, the technique spoken of. LODOVICO is Shakespeare’s Venetian nobleman, so it depends which way you take the “suggestion”.
         25. Not weighty reasons, they say, for repeating the same old idea (10) Correct LEITMOTIVS, not LEITMOTIFS. How are your homophones?
         1. Apostle shows bright light on Greek horse (9)
         ARCHIPPOS/ARCHIPPUS – depends how you take your Greek, translated or transliterated. Another example of the genre this week: 15. Apicultural god with an eye for Mrs Orpheus (9)
         Last week: 19. Bishop answerable for precipitation? (7). Two alternate spellings, no wordplay, unchecked. The “wrong” spelling is the one most often used in conjunction with the precipitation thing.
         Since the TLS usually takes me longer (I have to look some things up!) it’s depressing to see the leaderboard come up with one mistake when arguably it isn’t. I don’t know what happens when the prizewinner is considered: I assume all online entries with a “mistake” are not in the running. I haven’t won yet, so that can be the only explanation!

         1. Crikey, how annoying.
            In your first example LODOVICO seems much the better answer to me. In the second saying “motives” suggests LEITMOTIVS but I had not idea you could spell it like that and that’s not how it’s pronounded anyway, is it? The third is all Greek to me and the fourth… I’ll get back to you…
            I won’t be racing to try the TLS any time soon.
            1. LEITMOTIV is a German word. In German a V is pronounced like our F.

               1. In the spelling, the F and the V versions are both possible, and you are quite right about the pronunciation of either. Given that the homophone is “light motives” which would you pick? Your life depends on making the correct choice…
         2. I’ve come to treat the TLS puzzles with a certain offhandedness, and not only for the weekly spelling lottery that Zabadak describes. They have also been known to misspell an author’s name, wrongly identify an author, and even have a blatantly wrong answer go uncorrected for weeks until PeterB intervened. The scoring is bizarre because it almost always takes longer than the cryptic but it’s scored like the concise. I’ve never won either – do they count online entries?
   2. It matters, as well, for anyone struggling to get onto The Tonys, as I do (struggle, that is) every week. Fortunately, Lord Justice Sever hears appeals with scrupulous fairness …

      Edited at 2013-07-29 11:44 am (UTC)

10. Exactly 20 minutes, so a straightforward but enjoyable puzzle for me.

    Can’t say I had a very cultured upbringing so my knowledge of ASSAGAIs comes solely from Charlie Drake’s “I Bent My Assagai.” (Don’t bother looking for it on You Tube: it’s “of its time” and should remain there.) Frankie Howerd was another comedian who came to my aid when I was pondering 12 and trying to think of a suitable word for introduction: “The Prologue.”

    I still have my grandfather’s pocket watch and ALBERT, with a fob inscribed “Cannock Catholic Fete 1904”. It would probably cause curvature of the spine if I wore it regularly: not for the working man the slim, elegant timepieces sported by the aristocracy; no wonder British watchmakers, like motorcycle manufacturers half a century later, went out of business.

11. Just under 10 minutes, and I guess I should count myself lucky I’ve never come across the variant spelling of ASSEGAI. As it was, I just went for the one I knew, and thought it would be contentious in the way homophones regularly are, without realising there was a more clear-cut dispute to be had.

    I suppose it’s the sort of things which on Twitter would attract the hashtag #FirstWorldProblems, but as z8b8d8k observes, it’s quite annoying on-line, where there is no way of defending valid alternatives. (Those of us who do the TLS are especially familiar with the coin-toss which ensues when foreign names appear).

    Anyway, before coming here, I thought it was a perfectly good Mondayish puzzle, even if offering that view now seems to be answering the question “Apart from that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”

    Edited at 2013-07-29 08:52 am (UTC)

12. I filled in the grid in 12m 21s, but intuitively went for ‘assegai’ at 7d, which works for me as a homophone, though I can now see that the less common spelling with an ‘a’ probably fits the clue more comfortably. Just to show how daft I can be, at 6d I failed to see the reference to ‘mother’ in the use of ‘dam’ in the clue but got the correct answer by taking the ‘b’ from the front of ‘bother’ as a euphemistic form of ‘damn’, which would involve a further homophone. I really must follow Jack’s example and revert to not solving against the clock, which tempts me to shove in answers without proper consideration.
    George Clements
13. 17m.
    As I solve on my iPad in the morning, which tells you where your errors are if you make a mistake, I can confirm that the “correct” answer is ASSEGAI. Like Sotira I considered both options and plumped for ASSAGAI, which fits the wordplay better. I can’t see how it could possibly be disallowed in the competition.
    Combined with the ambiguous clue for the obscure CESAREWITCH (where do you put the vowels?) this made for rather an irritating puzzle.
14. Not for the first time the contentious elements of the crossword passed me by completely, possibly because I only knew one way to spell the pointy thing. I thought it a nice start to the week.
    Cesarewitch was our best attempt in the 1830s to translate Tsarevitch.. a timely warning that words transliterated from foreign languages are often tricky, especially if the language in question uses a different alphabet
    1. But, after all, the word ‘tsar’ is derived from ‘Caesar’, which the Romans pronounced ‘Kaiser’!
       1. If you say so, vinyl.. I am impressed that you know how the Romans pronounced anything! What came before 78s?
15. 10 mins but with ASSAGAI, which as far as I am concerned is perfectly valid and fits the wordplay better. I have been caught out by the alternative spelling before, and that was in a puzzle in which the wordplay was actually much clearer, but I had gone with the only spelling I knew. The editor should never have allowed this clue.

    I actually started off slowly and the first across clue I saw was TIP, which then gave me JUNIPER, the J checker gave me OBJECTIONABLE, and I went through the rest of it pretty quickly, with the ATTEND/ALBERT crossers my last in.

    1. This has happened to me too, which is why I was aware of the alternative spelling, but I can’t for the life of me remember where, even with the aid of Google. Probably a Guardian or FT puzzle, because the Times seems to prefer the E version consistently.
16. There’s something in the air today. Eileen over at fifteen squared was called Peter O by the first contributor.
17. I forgot to add that when I first saw the blog, and without looking too hard at the left hand corner, I also thought it was Uncle Yap. Very strange.
18. 18 minutes and as topicaltim have never seen assagai though with the e on any number of occasions. One feels however the setter might have gone for a different weapon. Easy Monday.
19. 14:08 – I have only seen the spear with an E. My main hold up was how to spell ‘that’ race and Albert. Luckily he is quite near the start of the alphabet – the stuck solver’s last resort!
20. I completed most of this in 30 minutes, but was delayed by 1dn and 9 (Cesarewitch, completely unfamiliar), and even more by 23. I wasn’t 100% certain of ATTEND for 20, so I could only count on the L and the E of 23. Although ATTEND was the obvious answer I had a suspicion that it might be something else, with a different meaning of ‘show up’.
    In the end it took me 45 minutes.

    Initially I entered ASSEGAI, but changed it to ASSAGAI. With two valid solutions it’s not a good clue, in my judgement.

21. 13:55 and I’m another who struck lucky having only ever seen the spear spelled with an E. I had to rely on the wordplay to assure myself that prorogue and abnegate were the mots justes and trusted to luck that bish meant mistake.

    I can remember hearing the name of the horse race on Grandstand or World of Sport many moons ago but I’m not sure I’d have been able to spell it correctly without the fodder and checkers.

    1. Not a reader of Jennings then – young Penfold?? He was always making a ‘heck of a bish’ of things.
       1. Gosh! (etc) I used to read Jennings a lot so that particular expression obviously didn’t stick.
       2. Me neither… hampered by not knowing bish was a word, and not knowing sib was a word. Guessed SOB (sob sister is an example of a sister) which required the mistake to be bosh – unknown, but not unreasonable.
          Rob
22. That is really bl**dy irritating. And I didn’t like the puzzle all that much to start with. There. I’ve got my own back.

    Annoyed of Gregory.

    1. Your allusive reference to Hitler’s minister for armaments reminds me of Clive James’s words after this man’s death:

       ‘Speer cheated the rope, cheated the world and yet further insulted the shades of innocent millions. Those of us who live by our brains should remember his example, which serves to prove that intellect confers no automatic moral superiority. Otherwise we will meet him again in the Infernal Regions, and be once more confronted with that look of puzzled concern, as if there were something difficult, ponderable and equivocal about the rights and wrongs of tearing children from their mothers’ arms, piling their little shoes in heaps and pushing their twisted corpses into ovens.’

23. Er, I just did the crossword in 15 minutes without a hitch and completely unaware of all these intense wrangles. Never even thought about 7D after reading “weapon…..holds up animal” starting A.S and do not own one.

    Managed not to confuse Ulaca with UY, had heard of the bridge in both London and Brisbane, knew the horse race and never gave Albert Spear a first let alone a second thought. Ignorance can be such bliss.

    1. Er, lucky you?
    2. 21 minutes, knew the watch chain and the horse race and believed ASSEGAI was the correct spelling… not a bother. Just thought SIB and BISH were a bit weak… is SIB a recognised abbr for sibling?
       1. Yes it is. According to COED it’s chiefly with reference to zoology but Collins has it without that qualification.
24. Didn’t get to this last night and it took me two looks today – mostly held up by that top left corner… CESAREWITCH from wordplay, ALBERT from one definition and ONCOST because it sounded like it should fit. Gulp.
25. About 25 minutes, held up at the end only by having to guess at the bridge and at where the vowels went in the race. I didn’t know of either. I actually followed the wordplay for the spear, but before finishing I saw it again and said, “well, that doesn’t look right” and changed it to the normal spelling. I didn’t know of a variant spelling, despite being led there by the wordplay myself, so I understand the expressions of unhappiness here. Regards to all.
26. Some interesting vocab in this one. Last couple of minutes on the ATTEND/ALBERT crossing. Only knew the E spelling of ASSEGAI, CESAREWITCH familiar from somewhere (uni quiz machine maybe).
27. Again had error message when trying to play, so came back later after switching from Chrome to Firefox Unfortunately clock starts before puzzle opens successfully, so there’s about an hour and a half elapsed before I could start included. Actual solving time roughly 25min, including 5min to decide that 7d had to be ASSAGAI, as per ulaca’s parsing.
28. What an incredibly obscure puzzle. Only one mistake despite never having heard of CESAREWITCH (once I had the ITCH it was not too hard to recognize a Russian name and then at least CESAREWITCH seemed better than the other permutations of A and the Es), ALBERT as a watch chain or as a London Bridge, for that matter, although it seemed plausible, the Scottish YIN, ONCOST, and undoubtedly there are more. Defeated by SIB (I had SOB instead, as in “sob sister”), but then BISH was new to me, too. Only ASSEGAI was no problem, because I didn’t know the other spelling. And I had an early morning and was so tired while solving that after submission I started to look up ASS in the dictionary because I could no longer connect it with an animal — I did wake up however before I finished typing in the word.

    Edited at 2013-07-29 10:19 pm (UTC)

29. A disappointing 11:14 for me (ISOBARS took me two or three minutes!), but with ASSAGAI, which seemed slightly more likely from the wordplay – though I didn’t spend more than a few seconds thinking about it. ASSAGAI and ASSEGAI have long been on my list of difficult words, as have several of the many possible spellings of the eldest son of the tsar and the one way of spelling the horse-race.

    Glad I didn’t think of SOB, which I rather like as an alternative answer.

30. Not only assagai but also oncost which I don’t get as overhead (with 25 years in accountancy that was new to me). Finally Finisterre was unclear to me, I don’t like the f/m swap coming after the ‘minister’ part. It’s an easy clue but not sure it’s well-constructed. Not one of the best.
    1. not heard of oncosts? I can see why you prefer to be anonymous!
31. Albert is also a type of watch chain which would provide the dd for the cryptic.

    I agree with you on 7d.

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