Times 25663

Solving time: 49:09 according to the timer, but considerably less in practice. I opened the puzzle, wrote in AARGH and promptly fell asleep. Once I’d woken up, I seemed to rattle through it quite quickly.

When I checked the leaderboard just before 1am, there were already some fast times starting to appear, so I don’t think it’s a puzzle that will delay the experienced solvers unduly. A pleasant enough solve, but no talking points particularly jump to mind.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 OFF ONE’S TROLLEY – dd
9 TRADESMAN = NAMED ART all rev about Seurat
10 AARGH = A + HiGh RoAd rev
11 FOOTY = FT (paper, Financial Times) about 0-0 (goalless result) + lousY
12 SHOW TRIAL = W (with) + TRIo (threesome not quite) all in SHOAL (school)
13 HOT STUFF – dd
15 SING(L)E
17 S(NAP)PY
19 SOME + R + SET
22 OV(gUiLt)ATION
23 B(WAN)A
24 LYDIA = LaY + AID rev
25 ADORNMENT = A + (OR + Necklace Mournfully) in DENT
26 BREAD AND BUTTER – dd
Down
1 OUT OF THIS WORLD – dd
2 FLAT OUT – dd
3 NEEDY = DEE (flower, i.e. river) rev in NY (New York)
4 SEMI-SOFT = (FIST SOME)*
5 RUN + YON
6 LEAST WISE
7 E(A)RRING
8 CHELSEA TRACTOR = (THE CAR)* about LSE (London School of Economics) + ACTOR – &lit
14 TOP BANANA – dd/cd
16 DOWNLOAD = (WOODLAND)*
18 A + SUNDERland
20 S(TALES)T
21 neuTral + IRAN + A – The capital of Albania
23 BANTU – hidden

46 comments on “Times 25663”

  1. Most difficulty was getting started. 3dn seemed a likely place, with N•••Y. Couldn’t do the rest … and so it went, until 3dn was actually my last in.

    So here’s my first and last ever moan about the anti-Australian nature of Times puzzles: 17ac was not S(KIP)PY but it should have been. And I only found that out when I•U•D•R turned out to be impossible at 18dn.

    And everyone knows they’re TOORAK (not CHELSEA) TRACTORS. 21dn: amazing that someone should name their capital after one of the best Holdens ever … almost.

    To compensate, we have FLAT OUT at 2dn which begged for “… like a lizard drinking”. And the wonderfully accidental fact that LEASTWISE (6dn) contains all of “else it’s”.

    1. “17ac was not S(KIP)PY but it should have been.”

      Dare one say that Skippy was a famous Australian helicopter pilot, amongst other things (like being a kangaroo); but in Australia skippy does not mean quick.

      But quick I was… second fastest ever recorded time, 15:47. I think easy, rather than wavelength.
      Rob

  2. Rather bland fare today, which was fine with me after struggling with yesterday’s (which I still haven’t finished). Having never heard of a CHELSEA TRACTOR, I had to wait until the checkers and the ticking clock forced me to accept it. AARGH, an odd utterance to come before falling asleep!
  3. 36 minutes and not much to say excet I was pleased to finish. Got a feeling we had the SUV before, but couldn’t recall it. To me, since the only thing a tractor has in common with a 4×4 is 4-wheel drive, it’s wordplay that doesn’t come off as well as, say, white van man.
    1. This may be pedantic, but not many tractors have 4-wheel drive. Usually only the large rear wheels are driven.

      Jim

  4. 30 minutes, my best solving time this week with no major hold-ups, the longest being time lost considering SPEEDY at 17ac before I had the inside checkers. Not sure I see why ‘bluntly’ = FLAT OUT, assuming it’s supposed to.

    Off to tackle the turkey now and hope my goose isn’t cooked.

    1. From ODO: informal, chiefly North American without hesitation or reservation: ‘she flat out said she didn’t trust her fellow board members’

      Ugly

  5. Agreed, an easy puzzle with 1A and 1D opening up the grid for a lazy 20 minute solve. Not keen on 22A. I don’t think “one standing” defines “ovation” and OVULATION, which doesn’t just occur in humans, is cyclical rather than monthly. No real stand out good offerings.
  6. . .. but wrong, as I wrote in ARRGH. Nothing else to say really but at least this clears the decks for sotira’s (sorry, our) Turkey.
  7. 25 minutes, so a bit of a struggle, mostly in the lower half where TIRANA, SOMERSET and STALEST held out for a long time. Not sure why, except that in TIRANA I spent a lot of riffling time trying to compute a neutral country with the internal letters TIRAN. Not obvious when you don’t see it. ARRGH (aargh!) in with a query about the extra R, so a fail, really.
    Oh well, I did rather well yesterday, so shouldn’t complain.
  8. 24:41 on the club timer.
    I enjoyed this puzzle more than most, it seems. I like it when you can get unknowns from clear wordplay, so I particularly enjoyed RUNYON… and BWAMA. I wonder if I can claim this: it fits the wordplay and appears to be a place near Kigali, albeit one that exists only in weather forecasts. Hmm.
  9. Gave up for a time on the 4dn. anagram but on return got it and then ‘hot stuff’, the two last in by a mile. Poor showing today, probably about 50 min. in all, but at least I’ll get one straight off on the cat-herder’s special. Great image by the way!
  10. A short hour here, taking forever to see the tractor due to all the letters for theatres and trailers hanging around, and lack of parsing led to the ARRGH error. Was hoping to have HOT FLASH to go with OVULATION, but no dice. I wouldn’t have solved it, but I think I would have liked to have seen mct’s drinking lizard (so long as the second definition didn’t refer to the English cricket side…). Off to the Turkey, with bated breath

    Edited at 2013-12-20 11:24 am (UTC)

  11. 11 mins. Three of the four long answers were write-ins and the rest of the puzzle flowed from there. I confess that I didn’t bother to parse my last two entries, CHELSEA TRACTOR and SHOW TRIAL, because the answers looked obvious with the rest of the checkers in place. I’m sure such an approach will come back to bite me soon.
  12. 30 minutes. At last a puzzle that gave me little difficulty. I’ve no idea what a Chelsea tractor is, nor does Chambers,but it was easy to workout with most of the checked letters in place. I agree with the criticism of “one standing” for ‘ovation’.
  13. As a Swahili speaking resident of Kenya I was thrilled to see two words from this part of the world. Swahili is a Bantu language, didn’t know Bwana was an officially recognised English word, though it is, of course, well known. What a remarkable language English is, it takes in words from every part of the world and uses them effortlessly.

    Enjoyed the puzzle and as always, much enjoyed reading the blog and all your contributions. Visiting this site is one of the highlights of my day. Thank you to all of you for making it such a fun site. Merry Christmas to all and a happy new year.

    Nairobi wallah.

    1. Merry Christmas to you, too. It’s lovely to know someone drops by every day in Kenya.

      What was that radio programme way back (Radio 2?) that linked up people around the world, especially in the forces? Especially at Christmas? Or am I imagining it?

      1. sotira,

        Two way Family Favourites, in my day presented every Sunday by Jean Metcalfe, Cliff Michelmore’s other half. And no problem with swapping my bit of turkey!

        Nairobi wallah, you demonstrate your point perfectly by introducing a bit of Hindi into your name which everyone here will understand.

        1. Thank you, bigtone. That’s the one. It felt quite magical at the time, actually hearing people on the other side of the world (and I seem to remember frequent, very entertaining failures of whichever phone line they were using).
          1. It was through this that I learned about BAOR (British Army on the Rhine). Is there anything left of it and if so, why?
            1. Indeed the BAOR still exists, because after all you do need somewhere spacious to play with tanks. But I believe they now have set a deadline for final withdrawal of troops from Germany..
        2. Thank you big tone, as a Hindi speaking Indian wallah springs to mind easily. I wonder if anyone has compiled a list of words from unusual languages which have come into English. It would be a fun list!

          Re the radio programme, my only knowledge of it is from a really funny Dad’s Army episode when Capt. Mainwaring and team have to appear in the programme. Loved that show.

          Nairobi wallah

          1. Nairobi wallah,

            There is an enormous list of Hindi/Urdu-derived English words on Wikipedia. If I give you the link, I think I get deleted as spam but I am sure that you can find it. I always wondered about the derivation of ‘pundit’.

            1. I remember being told from childhood that pundits were found in Kashmir only and that it was a title for an educated person, usually Hindu rather than Muslim. In Kashmir they were sought out for expert advice on matters of law, culture, etc. You may know that India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was given the title Pundit, probably because he was educated at Harrow and Cambridge. I believe the word originates (as so many Hindi words do) from Sanskrit, Pundita, again meaning learned person.

              Will chase up that wiki list on Hindi/Urdu words, thanks for that.

              Nairobi wallah

  14. Congrats to jackkt for some very good Xmas puns re the forthcoming gourmet (or should that be gourmand) treat, forward to which I am also most enthusiastically looking. I have promised myself that if I do not get right to the meat of it straight away, I will just wing it.

    We were not clobbered today, as some of us were expecting after a tough week. That was good, but it wasn’t the most thrilling puzzle ever, for me I should add. As to the Englishisms, why not? Crosswords, or certainly cryptic ones, are most assuredly English, and are quite rightly laden with Anglocentric references.

    Aren’t they?

    Much love to all at crimbo. It’s a delight coming here, and I thank you all, setters, bloggers, commenters alike.

  15. A fairy sprightly 16:05. I got the two 1s early doors which certainly helped. Just had a bit of a hold up at the end in the NW.

    I enjoyed this puzzle anyway, with quirky terms like aargh and off ones trolley and the fine &Lit at 8 all adding to the fun.

  16. 12:02 .. light breezy puzzle, just the thing to restore the confidence after the bruising of the previous few days. The enumerations for the long answers at 1a and 1d make them so much easier – I wonder how quickly we would solve them if it just said (3 words) or (4 words).

    A couple of notes re the Christmas Turkey:
    – apologies for a couple of late changes to clues which I didn’t have time to run by the setters concerned. These were the result of ‘trial feedback’. If I’ve messed up your clue, I humbly apologise.
    – some people were having trouble downloading the PDF. I’ve changed the download link to simplify things.

    1. I will, in public, fall upon my sword and confess that my inattention to my LJ message box caused a gap in communication. SO, Sotira, whatever you felt you had to do is OK with me, and probably everyone else too. I will also, in public, salute you for throwing yourself into the breach to put this together, and spreading the holiday cheer for the second year in a row. Thanks much (and sorry about the missed response).
      1. Thanks, Kevin. No problem – communication was always going to be the hardest part of the exercise (and accounts for my ‘cat herding’ analogy in the puzzle post!).

        It’s actually three years in a row (but who’s counting?) and, as in the previous two, I’m thinking ‘Never again’. But … if I should happen to do it next year, I’ll start earlier, that’s for darned sure.

        I owe a vote of thanks to George who helped me out at the eleventh hour last night (literally) when I was all of a panic trying to get the thing finalised.

  17. Under the hour for all bar SOMERSET and CHELSEA TRACTOR, which took me another 20 minutes.
    I’m not sure about WISE in 6dn as the opposite of ignorant. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  18. I wouldn’t have called 16:54 sprightly but if it’s good enough for Penfold …. Don’t think it helped doing it several hours later than usual and at home. I enjoyed the aargh and the chelsea tractor.
    1. I did say “fairly”, and it was relative spriteliness compared to Z8 and Keriothe against whom I customarily benchmark myself.

      By your own standards I can see why you might balk at using the phrase but as it’s you and as it’s Christmas you can be sprightly on this occasion.

  19. Did this pretty late last night, and the last in was CHELSEA TRACTOR – didn’t completely see the wordplay for BWANA
    1. Bachelor (BA, rather than BSc) shackling (around) WAN (white) = master in Africa, is how I saw it.
  20. could some kind soul please explain the top banana clue to me, CEO I get, but why on hand?
  21. About 25 minutes, ending with SHOW TRIAL after I finally saw CHELSEA TRACTOR. It’s appeared before, either here or somewhere else. Light and breezy overall, although I was slowed a tad by wondering about what one was off in 1A for a while. Regards.
  22. A pleasant solve, with a Monday-ish feel to it. Did about half of it squashed tight on the Northern Line tube “in my head” and wrote in the answers half an hour later. Altogether, on various morning commutes, about 35 minutes.

    1ac and dn were write-ins, and opened up a lot. Continuing this week’s literary theme more than somewhat is the evergreen Damon RUNYON, and I note that we are still dropping in on Balkan capitals!

    Question for the experts: why does 17ac get a question mark and not 19ac?

    1. It’s acceptable to define a word via a superset that contains it, hence Somerset can be clued by “Cricket team”, Ljubljana can be clued by “capital”, gravadlax can be clued by “Salmon”, etc. It’s more controversial (for Ximeneans at least) to define a word via an example of that word, the so-called DBE (definition by example), e.g. “Mata Hari” for spy (though this was in the wordplay rather than the definition), “young Arab” for foal, “stroke” for rower, etc. To take the edge off DBEs, setters often use a question mark or “say” or “perhaps” or “for example” etc, though (as per the Times style guide) this has not been enforced under Richard Browne’s editorship.

      I don’t know why Mata Hari got both a “say” AND a question mark, as the surface wouldn’t have changed appreciably with just one or the other.

  23. 9:00 for me. Somehow I was left feeling slightly dissatisfied. Some of the surface readings were a bit weird (“Trim a gold necklace mournfully …”, for example) and I’m inclined to agree with dorsetjimbo about “One standing” = OVATION. I hadn’t realised that “download” and “woodland” were anagrams so I liked that aspect of 16dn, but once again the surface reading seemed weak.

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