Times 25,636

18:14 on the Club timer, held up at the end by 11ac (followed by a short break spent kicking myself) and 24dn (which I think was more understandable). With the exception of one I can’t wholly unpick, I thought the clueing here was very precise, which, apart from anything else, made the unfamiliar spelling variant at 7dn perfectly fair. As far as I can tell, this is the first time Twitter has appeared in the Times puzzle (at least as something other than the noise birds make). Enjoyable puzzle all round.

Across
1 PLAICE – PLAY, ICE.
4 CAROLLER – CHORUS, A ROLLER.
10 APPEALING – APP(=software), EALING, the West London facility most famous for the classic comedies of the 40s and 50s.
11 GRASS – reverse hidden in endleSS ARGument. I think it’s generally accepted that the later a hidden word reveals itself, the better the clue, by which test this was a very good one; even when I got to the stage of thinking “it simply has to be GRASS=”shop” as in “rat on”, I still couldn’t see how to get there. D’oh.
12 MONKEY BUSINESS – [ON KEY BUS] in MINE, SERIOUS.
14 COWES =”COWS”, such as Jerseys. Even with the capital concealed as the start of a sentence, this one leapt out. (On edit, it occurs to me this might not be the case for overseas solvers, unless they are yachting enthusiasts: though I think for a place of its size, Cowes definitely punches above its weight in terms of recognition…
16 BARBAROUS – BAR, BAR (two pubs), OFFPUTTING, US.
18 SHIFTLESS – SHIFT LESS=”make slower progress”.
20 SCENE =”SEEN”.
21 BEHIND THE TIMES – (HE)rev. in BIND THE TIMES.
25 EXACT – EXAM, COURT.
26 TEMPORISE – RISE after (OP. MET)rev.
27 ANTEROOM – (AREAONMETRO)*.
28 UNREST – (NURSE)* + TIME.
 
Down
1 PHARMACIST – As I admitted in the first edition of this blog, I couldn’t initially parse this, so I am grateful to dorsetjimbo for his explanation below; P=power, HARM=destroy and IS is “apprehended” i.e. caught in the ACT. The solution is obvious, but I’m not sure I can completely parse it: “Drug dealer” is definition, which gives us P=Power, and HARM ACT, with IS “apprehended”, meaning “harm act” has to come from “destroy”. Is there maybe a word missing from the clue or am I missing something obvious?
2 ASPEN – A SPENT.
3 CHAPESS – CHA(=tea), PRESS without the RIGHT. There is a certain manner of jocular speech which would involve referring to “chaps and chapesses”, hence “woman jokily”; very nice use of an uncommon crossword word.
5 AEGIS – G.I. in wAdErS.
6 ORGANZA – ORGAN(=newspaper), ZANY.
7 LOADSTONE – ADS(=notices) in LOT(=among crowd), ONE(=individual). I’d only ever come across LODESTONE, which I’m pretty sure is far more widespread, but as I say, the wordplay was very clear.
8 RASHCRASH.
9 ZIMBABWE – M.B.A. in (BIZ)rev. + WE; the MBA being “appropriate” because it’s a business degree.
13 ASSESSMENT – ASSES(=dunces), MARKS in SENT(=very elated).
15 WHITEBAIT – (WITH)*, EGG, (ABIT)*. The definition is just “fish”, but the clue makes sense, as whitebait is often served as a starter, and I’d certainly regard it as a bit odd to have an egg added to the dish.
17 REST HOME – ESTH. in ROME. The Old Testament Book of Esther is one which is less commonly used as an abbrev. in crossword language.
19 TWITTER – TWISTER with the central S replaced by another T.
20 SET DOWN – SET(=group) DOWN(=sad).
22 DITTO – in DO(party), I, TT(=teetotal, thus possible lemonade drinker).
23 MAINE – 1, NEW in MAE West.
24 MEGA – GAME(=match) but with the ME and GA swapped over. “Wicked” = “MEGA” in some version of cool young persons’ talk (not the current one, of course: parents of teenagers tell me that impressive or desirable things these days are “sick”). The checkers for _E_A seemed 100%, so there surely weren’t very many words which would fit, I thought, but it took me a long time to work out how to get to the right one. I tried to work out how “L” could be swapped for “R” somewhere in a word for “match”, toyed with the possibility that wicked might mean “having a wick” and I was looking for some sort of candle, took away the number I first thought of…eventually the penny dropped.

33 comments on “Times 25,636”

  1. And, with Tim, couldn’t see GRASS for the life of me. “Endless” always pointed somewhere else. (Not having RASH at the end didn’t help either.)

    14ac. What’s brown and comes steaming out of … ?
    20ac. David Byrne’s chapter in How Music Works (“How to Make a Scene”) comes to mind and is worth a read.
    3dn. After amalgamation with the Girls’ High, our dear old art teacher, Fatty Williams, had to change his sign off to “That’s all chaps … and chapesses”. (Testimony to the word in actual use.)

    Admissions: read the “egg” in 15dn as WHITE and the def as “fish cooked”. And wanted 19dn to be a variation on GRIFTER. Sad eh?

    Edited at 2013-11-19 09:07 am (UTC)

  2. Managed most of this in 30mins or so, but needed a lot longer to get my last three (MEGA, RASH and GRASS). Glad to see I’m in good company. How often is it the sodding hidden word that catches me (and clearly others) out?

  3. At 1D its P-HARM-AC(IS)T so that “is” is “caught in the act”=apprehended

    Another good entertaining puzzle with 11A an outstanding example of a hidden word. I didn’t parse it until I’d finished the puzzle. 20 minutes of good fun.

    1. Well done Jim, I knew someone would be equal to it. Mind you, I might quibble that technically the parsing leads to PHARMTHEACIST, though I suppose a newspaper headline might drop the definite article.
  4. Thought LOADSTONE a bit sneaky; I’d written in LODESTONE, thinking that DE might be a type of notice (possibly a D-notice) so it took a while to get GRASS. Finished in half an hour, though, so I’m happy and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the puzzle.
  5. I found this easier than yesterday’s.. but I can’t properly parse 1dn either..

    on edit, now I can, thanks Jimbo..

    I also meant to say I don’t like loadstone much, even though the OED insists lode/load are interchangeable. Just doesn’t look right..

    Edited at 2013-11-19 09:25 am (UTC)

  6. Just over 18 minutes, and a very similar experience, right down to leaving GRASS to (almost) last – I needed it to get RASH, though I’m not sure why.
    I’m likewise at a loss to explain 1d in full. No doubt someone will have posted the answer before I finish my entry.
    Two early Z’s threatened a pangram, but it was not to be.
    I am left to wonder how many correspondents immediately thought of Uncle Bulgaria during the solve?
    WHITEBAIT gets my CoD because it took some time and crossers to unravel, but was one of those smooth clues that remains consistent to its theme.

    Edited at 2013-11-19 09:57 am (UTC)

  7. Mostly solved within 30 minutes but the remaining stragglers took it to not far short of an hour in total. I had all the same problems as mentioned above including being unable fully to parse 1dn or explain GRASS, other than by definition, until the very last moment. I agree 14ac was feeble in an otherwise pleasantly diverting puzzle.
  8. One of my quicker efforts, although without parsing everything so thank you tim. LOI 3D where I did the wordplay but could not believe the result. Was initially in the LODE camp until I ended up with G_D_S

    Edited at 2013-11-19 09:36 am (UTC)

  9. 13m. A lot of this went in on definition, but I enjoyed the range of references, with Esther and MEGA in the same puzzle.
    My thought process in solving MEGA was absolutely identical to yours, Tim. My kids say “epic” at the moment.
    I didn’t understand 1dn and I’m not sure that “caught in the act” and “apprehended” mean the same thing. The answer was obvious enough though.
    Like others I wanted to put in LODESTONE and the actual answer looked wrong.
    1. My 20yo daughter is still in ‘sick’ mode for outstanding. I suspect that her elder brother has moved on.
  10. Just under 30m – held up by LODESTONE too, so GRASS was LOI.

    Thanks for clarifying 15d, where I thought the WHITE came from ‘egg’, but couldn’t see how to parse.

  11. 13 mins and all parsed, although I admit that GRASS was parsed post-solve and I see I am in good company.

    COWES was my FOI, I then saw WHITEBAIT immediately, and after that the answers came at a steady pace. The NW corner was the last to be completed and in the order I entered them PHARMACIST, CHAPESS and PLAICE were my last three in. I don’t have a problem with “apprehended” as a definition of “caught in the act”. I have come across both spellings of lodestone/loadstone before so I wasn’t tempted by the more common one.

  12. Another excellent, witty and inventive puzzle. I too had not met the LOADSTONE variant of “lodestone” before, which held me up for a bit in the NE corner. PHARMACIST was very good – a nice example of the obvious def being misleadingly almost too obvious. Thanks to Jimbo for explaining the “is apprehended” bit of the clue.
  13. 35 minutes; solving progress similar to yesterday’s. MEGA was my last entry, my thought processes being aptly descried in the blog; eventually I went through the alphabet for the first letter and the penny dropped when I got to M. I also took a while to see the hidden GRASS. I liked the anagram for 15.
  14. 21 ac reminds me of a Times puzzle in the good old days when the paper was available in print only. The clue for this exact phrase was “Square, like this puzzle.”

    Nairobiwallah

    1. Nice clue. Also the good old days because you could fold the paper twice and have the crossword neatly displayed for solving. Even though I only ever solve on-line nowadays, I know people (traditional paper-solvers on the daily commute by train) who are still annoyed on a daily basis by the placement of the crossword inside the back page and across the natural fold.
  15. 10:10 but with one silly error, so thank you very much Tim (in the way that Margot says thank you very much Jerry) for emphasising that the wordplay for 7 was very clear, thereby making my LEADSTONE look even sillier than it already was. I did have a QM on the basis that I wasn’t happy with let for crowd but as per I didn’t do anything about it.

    Very nice puzzle, thanks to setter and blogger alike.

  16. Around 30 minutes today after a PB 17 minutes yesterday. I’m too old to think I’m actually getting better at these crosswords so probably back to my usual hour for the rest of the week. I get very few “did not know”‘ but many “did not think of” problems when solving.
  17. 25m but DNF as could not think of anything for ?e?a at 24d despite trawling through the alphabet! So thanks to the blogger for that and other explanations. Oddly GRASS was my second one in. Enjoyable and inventive puzzle for me
  18. About 14m here, no problems with GRASS, RASH or MEGA, which all went straight in. I was a bit annoyed with LOADSTONE even though I knew it was an acceptable alternative and trusted the wordplay. I have to admit not parsing PHARMACIST correctly, but all the letters were there and it was 2nd or 3rd in. In fact, what kept me?
  19. 20 minutes for all except MEGA. Another 4 minutes before that particular penny dropped. Enjoyable puzzle. Ann
  20. 43 minutes after being held up for ever on NE. Initially rejected loadstone as wrong spelling, then grass as unparsable (best hidden I’ve seen). Still, got there in the end.
  21. Would have been under the half hour, but when I looked at the blog I realised that I had left 24d to return to. Fortunately, Tim’s preamble did not give the game away and I was able to go back and solve the clue without seeing the answer. Obviously, in competition conditions it would be an uncompleted puzzle. I was another one who initially went for ‘lodestone’, and took a while to see ‘grass’.
  22. Another DNF with *E*A unfinished because ignorant of MEGA to mean wicked, otherwise 21 minutes, no other issues in a pleasant medium level puzzle.
  23. What started as a pleasant morning and evening commuting amble ended in a game of chicken, with the setter and me trying to outstare each other. The setter won, defeating me on the two short clues at NE and SW. I should have got RASH – that was just too silly for words, but MEGA would have meant going through all the letters of the alphabet until the penny dropped – or not. Sometimes life is just too short …

    Otherwise, Mrs Lincoln enjoyed the play: there was some witty and elegant clueing, with MONKEY BUSINESS in BARBAROUS ZIMBABWE quite APPEALING.

  24. 13:47 for me, desperately tired after another busy day (as most of my Tuesdays are at the moment). I’d have left it until tomorrow if that wasn’t going to be busy as well.

    Like you I took ages to see GRASS; and MEGA – my LOI, by which time I was so exhausted that I initially imagined it merely swapped the M and G of GAME so couldn’t see how the clue worked! And I only twigged PHARMACIST after I’d finished. I wasn’t familiar with LOADSTONE either, so (like others) I wasted time trying to justify LODESTONE.

    No complaints though. I’m sure I’d have enjoyed it very much if I hadn’t been so darned tired.

  25. Lubricated with an acceptable* Pinot Grigio. Had I been sober, I’d have probably had misgivings about “LOADSTONE”; as it was, I didn’t question it, although if asked to spell it I’d have said “lode…” without a doubt.

    “MEGA” held me up for a long time, and was my LOI. No doubt, over the coming years, things that are really good will become “giga”, “peta” and “tera”. Or perhaps the term “sick” (as noted by our blogger) will evolve to become “critical”, “in resus” and “oopsie”, as we medics say.

    GRASS was well-concealed, to the point where I failed to parse it and moved on, forgetting to go back later. Shame on me.

    I abandoned my personal game of “use all the answers in conversation with patients” today. “RASH”, “ASSESSMENT” and “PHARMACIST” would have been too easy, whilst neither “ORGANZA” nor “ASPEN” ever stood a chance. On the plus side, though, Tuesdays in A&E are picking up – it seems that Cambridge’s pubs and clubs have launched a “Tuesday is the new Friday” campaign which, along with a bit of frost and drizzle, have kept us amused here. Today’s brainteaser is “What’s got five legs and no lights?”**

    *Technically, the word “acceptable” is redundant.

    **Three cyclists.

    Edited at 2013-11-20 12:03 am (UTC)

  26. Got there in the end but fell on my face at the finish with a careless ‘enact’ for ‘exact’.
    Didn’t parse Grass, Monkey Business or Pharmacist – put them in from checkers and definitions.
    FOI Rash.

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