Times 25673 – spot the wally

51 comments on “Times 25673 – spot the wally”

1. Only slightly better than yesterday for what is certainly a harder puzzle. So there’s hope. Loved the dot.com device in 11ac. But had no idea ’ow to get ’EISTED in 18ac. Looking for a reversal. Thanks for sorting that George.
2. A toughie that took me almost exactly an hour though with some wordplay not unravelled. I won’t embarrass myself further by listing every detail I missed; I’ll just be thankful I didn’t have to blog it! I’m still wondering if there’s a definition anywhere to be seen at 24ac?

   Edited at 2014-01-02 03:42 am (UTC)

   1. I think it’s meant to be an all-in-one clue, the entire clue is a definition leading to ULTRA
   2. The Ultras (fans > ‘backers’) in Italian football are prone to meeting up withe their counterparts from other clubs in autostrada service stations and generally duffing one another up.
3. Surprisingly found this rather normal – about half an hour or so. I chuckled at 13Down, my COD. Good stuff

4. Haven’t successfully completed a puzzle since last year.

   Was delighted to guess STOA correctly, but failed to see TIGON. Wasn’t thinking of the right sort of cross, so plumped for TUGON with about as much confidence as it deserved.

   Never heard of a Birthday Bump, but what else could it be?

   Good challenging puzzle IMHO.

   1. I associate “the bumps” with Billy Bunter and schoolchildren of that era although I remember them being given to birthday boys in the playground at my prep school in the mid 1950s.
      1. In my Bunterish schooldays, birthday bumps were administered in the dorm on the birthday boy’s bed. This facilitated the administration of serious bumps (one for each year) without injury although the bedsprings occasionally suffered. It was best not to make a song and dance about an upcoming birthday!
   2. I also remember “the bumps” administered by older children on younger ones in the school’s concrete playground. A form of bullying that was officially banned. Luckily my birthday fell in the long summer holiday!
   3. I went with tugon as well. My first in was tau at 2dn and my initial thought was an animal cross but I quickly spotted taut/tau and moved on. Meanwhile, my subconscious decided that any subsequent crosses would also be shape-related and fooled me into going for the unknown tugon instead of the known tigon.

      Stupid brain.

5. Very much Michael Carberry to George’s Mitchell Johnson today – more than two hours of torturous struggle before I dollied one up to mid off with ‘tugon’.
6. DNF – not even close – if it is like this tomorrow, I think I will give up on 2014 and wait for 2015!
7. A difficult one again with a mixture of devious wordplay and a couple of not so good offerings

   I also put in a number on definition and was grateful I didn’t have to really dig out the detail. 27A is very well constructed as is 18A but I got both from definition + checkers

   I don’t like 5D – why should I associate RED with a corner of a boxing ring? And like Jack, despite the comments made above, I’m still struggling to see the definition of ULTRA

   1. I thought there were only red and blue to choose from. But I am to boxing what J.S. Bach was to plumbing.
   2. I think the crux of the point is that the Ultras make up only a part of the club’s supporters – the ‘lunatic fringe’.
      1. I must confess that I don’t really relate to the references to Italian football and I can’t find any clarification in the dictionary. To me ULTRA means extreme and I associate it primarily with other people’s descriptions of political factions that they don’t agree with.

         But being extreme doesn’t for me equate with “lunatic” which is surely more associated with insanity?

8. 15 minutes exactly on the club leaderboard. This is only 1.33 Magoos (and 1.4 Jasons today) so clearly I was on the right wavelength for this one.
   It did feel like quite a tricky puzzle, though, and I took care to understand the wordplay before putting answers in rather than relying on my dodgy spelling for words like EISTEDDFOD.
   I also remember birthday bumps, although the practice seems to have died out now.
   ULTRA seems fine to me as an &Lit, albeit a bit clumsy. I think it’s just a reference to extremists, rather than Italian football fans specifically, and whilst extremists aren’t necessarily lunatic it seems close enough to me (perhaps with an implicit reference to ‘lunatic fringe’) and the question mark signals the slight obliqueness.
   I loved the pointless employment website.
9. 32 mins and I really struggled to get on this setter’s wavelength. I had the most trouble in the NE, most of it of my own making. At 7dn with R???R for the first word I couldn’t get away from thinking “razor” as a homophone of “raiser”, and it took me ages to see the obvious. I wasn’t confident enough to enter TIGON at 10ac without the G checker because I kept thinking that the “couple” in the clue was going to be a homophone of “two” rather than “tie”, which I finally saw just after I’d finished the puzzle. PUSSYFOOT was my LOI because I didn’t see the anagram fodder, and with Hedges in the clue and ?U? at the start of the answer I kept thinking of Gus Hedges from Drop The Dead Donkey even though such a reference would probably only occur in a Guardian or Independent puzzle. EISTEDDFOD and JOB’S COMFORTER went in from the definitions, so all in all it wasn’t my finest solve ever, but it felt like a tough puzzle.
   1. I initially put in CREED for 5D, thinking it in some way referred to Apollo Creed from the Rocky films.
      1. I thought of him too and even when I put in credo I Still thought there might be some link.

         Edited at 2014-01-02 01:12 pm (UTC)

         1. Same here but I was keeping quiet about it.
10. Just under the hour: I almost gave up after about 40 minutes, with less than half done. Then I saw that the box in 6dn was HIT, not SET and the top half went in as soon as I saw 5 was CREED rather than CREDO (never saw how to parse it, or several others). Rest then followed with some help from aids to suggest possible words to fit checkers.
    Not worried about ULTRA – ‘lunatic fringe’ came to mind after spotting the word.
11. Well, I gave up after 45 minutes with three-quarters done and a complete block, and rather than leave it for a refreshed mind later had to come here and see what it was. And what it was was by and large very sharp, rapier-like, in my view, so congratulations to all the regulars who made it. On birthday bumps, in 1980 I was the form-master of a mixed sixth-form class in a London comprehensive and as the names in the register were accompanied by birthdates, when a boy’s birthday was imminent I’d give the word a few days before and he’d get the bumps (everyone seemed to know what it was). They challenged me to let them know my birth-date so I gave it – it was several months ahead. I was convinced they’d forgotten it but I’m telling you, 37 bumps was not a joke.
12. Such a comfort to find others struggled with this one too – I took 16:21 to sort it out.
13. 29:34 but with tugon.

    Tricky stuff with credo, pussyfoot and eisteddfod not fully parsed and Job’s comforter and stoa unknown.

    I recall the bumps involving catching the “victim” rather than letting him or her hit the ground but then I went to a grammar school.

    1. My comprehensive school students were similarly considerate; but a “bump” that ends in thin air, after several repetitions still packs a wallop.
       1. Hence the bed I guess. And this was not throwing in a blanket (a la Tom Brown) but arms and legs held. It was not bullying in my world then. There were many other things that were.
14. My subscription to the Times Crossword Club expired on December 31st, and I don’t really want Tim Montgomerie’s Times, so off to give the Grauniad a try from now on- yes, it may be a difficult transition to a different style.
    I’d like to thank everyone for all the useful tips for the novice over the last 3 years.
    BW
    Andrew K (occasional lurker novice cruciverbalist)
    1. I don’t see why online solvers of the Times Crossword should expact to have the puzzle and yet not the paper. When I go to the paper shop in the morning I don’t ask the newsagent to cut me out the puzzle. The Times crossword is part of the paper. And personally I’m rather glad that that applies online now as well as in the world of the newsagent …
       1. The reason online solvers might expect to have the crossword available to them without the paper is that that’s precisely what the Times Crossword Club offered them previously (at a sensible price).

          One of the things websites can offer (those designed by competent professionals, at any rate) is selective access to different sections of the underlying data. Why shouldn’t The Times take advantage of that rather than being bound by the limitations of yesterday’s technology?

          1. Of course the reason is that they think they will make more money that way, and sadly they’re probably right. Even if 75% of current Crossword Club subscribers find a 300% price increase too much to swallow, they’re still making more money.
             It’s brutal but you can’t fault the commercial logic.
             I hope you keep your subsription!
    2. Andrew, have you tried simply following your usual bookmark to the Times Crossword Club’s website? You might find you still have access.
15. Well Andrew K, good luck: that journal’s xwd is a daily hymn to inconsistency, as today’s Gordius puzzle may tell you. Not that I’m biased or anything.

    Having said that, I had a pretty tough tme with this one, a true beast, with its occasional weird word, including JOB’S COMFORTER, of which I had not hitherto heard. In all, a good caning, and 48 minutes.

    Maybe this is something to do with my having indulged over Xmas and New Year in the extreme sport of drinking German beer, in Germany, with Germans. Whatever, I wish you all an excellent 2014.

16. DNF .. About 40 minutes to figure out everything except SAND, and I just couldn’t for the life of me see where that was going so I gave up. This puzzle was just too clever for my festively-challenged brain. I’m off for a walk in the bracing (-21) air to clear the cobwebs.
    1. In a competition of dnfs, yours would be higher up the table than mine. We’re having a touch of brace in the air right now but nothing, I guess, in your league.
       1. Honestly, I’m not showing off (about the cold). It’s gruesome. My only consolation is that there are plenty of people a bit further west who have it 20 degrees colder! Brrrrrrr
17. Had to break away from this with PUSSYFOOTS and ESCAPE KEYS still missing after 25 minutes. Don’t know about anyone else, but my keyboard only has one of the latter, and I’m putting that in for the feeblest excuse of the year to date.
    Very tricky stuff, and congrats to George on a comprehensive blog. My favourites were jobs.com (which exists, by the by) and EISTEDDFORD just for having a brave try.
    Lost a bit of time towards the end looking for the missing X and Z
    This 21 of ours is sometimes a bit of a 9, so thanks and Happy New Year to all 11s and 27s!
18. Sorry – maybe I’m missing something obvious, how does “couple in van” = “em” in 28 across?

    Thanks for all the great blogging
    Alistair

    1. ‘Couple in van’ merely means the first two letters, where the van is the front.
19. ‘van’ means vanguard or front (of empress)

    so you guys didn’t get the bumps as kids? i did. doubt i could do cryptics without once being dropped on my head . .

20. Half an hour with two wrong – TIGON and SAND – still don’t feel that SAND is a synonym for polish. After you’ve sanded, then you polish? Loved the JOBS one.
    Well blogged sir, I had a few in correctly without knowing exactly why.

    And a day without rain!

21. DNF after an hour so gave up. Needed George’s blog for help so thanks for that. I had a feelng that this puzzle was in places impenetrable but now seeing the explanations it feels as if this was the setter’s equivalent of diving to get a penalty in places with some for me obscure definitions or cryptic : 24a as mentioned by others and 5d. Hope the setter’s called Ashley!
    1. If the setter’s Ashley, the editor would have to be Howard!
22. After yesterday’s success way, way way off the mark.

    Ah well! Proverbs 16:18.

    Incidentally, I remember being given the “bumps” on my 21st birthday at an army camp in the middle of Salisbury Plain. And I still bear the scars…

    1. Without trying to turn this into some sort of shoot out, I have always gone along with Proverbs 9 : 9.
       :-))

       Edited at 2014-01-02 10:47 pm (UTC)

23. Enjoyed this puzzle immensely. Thank you setter. Finished a few moments ago while watching last night’s Sherlock, 11.5 hours after starting at breakfast.
    FOI Leaf Mould, LOI Pussyfoots.
    Thanks George for decrypting Eisteddfod & Jobs Comforter.
    1. Best mind TV on at the moment, in my opinion.
24. Much enjoyment, but I echo pipkirby’s comment that I entered several correct solutions without knowing why. I also had some ingenious parsing that was completely wrong, like trying to justify ‘rogir’ for a sort of homophone for ‘Roger’ indicating the radio acknowledgement of a message heard. Why do I try to make life so complicated?
    Many thanks for the untangling blog.
25. 15:18 for me, so once again a bit slow but not a total disaster. A most enjoyable puzzle with lots of ingenious clues. Thank you, setter.
26. Doing this a day late – otherwise engaged yesterday! Too many went in unparsed, such as EISTEDDFOD and BEDFELLOW, and trying to parse them held me up – over an hour in total, although a thick head did not help!
27. ….solved over two days, all correct and complete, about 5 or 6 hours total time!

    I didn’t understand bumps and ‘eisted, but everything else was clear. They do have strange customs in the UK!

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