Times 25685 – maybe tomorrow’s will be the stinker?

64 comments on “Times 25685 – maybe tomorrow’s will be the stinker?”

1. Nowhere near George’s time … but what do you expect?
   There’s a strong food theme here, though I didn’t pick up on it while solving. Hence last in was TOAST!
   I guess FETID is OK though I’d tend to use FOETID or even FŒTID. And why the question-mark at 11ac?
   Good to see the honey badger getting a reprise. Weasel?
2. 39 minutes with RESIDENCY last to fall. Still looking forward to the appearance of Gargantua’s father, Pantagruel, in the puzzle.

   Took me ages to get SO TO SPEAK but enjoyed it when I did.

3. 38 minutes with some time lost thinking “ovoid” at 7dn preventing 10 and 12ac falling early.

   Yes, 19ac immediately brought Mr Creosote and his “waffer-theen meent” to mind.

4. Never thought I’d finish, and only did finish by virtue of guessing from checkers in several cases, like 4d and 15d (which is indeed a lovely clue, wasted on me). It only occurred to me afterwards that FETID was the US spelling; or have you folks finally seen reason? Isn’t Pantagruel G’s son? I know, I could look it up; and will, if I remember. On edit: He is.

   Edited at 2014-01-16 02:17 am (UTC)

   1. Us Brits? See reason over spelling? Never!

      We like to pretend it’s all about etymological exactitude but perhaps the true explanation of British spelling is we’ve never really cared too much about it (there’s a reason we don’t do spelling bees). I’m reading a Dorothy L Sayers at the moment and last night had Lord Peter Winsey say: “I believe you went and looked it up beforehand. No decent-minded person would know how to spell ipecacuanha out of his own head.”

      It’s why we like dictionaries so much. We need them!

      1. The Oxfords have:

         ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin fetidus (often erroneously spelled foetidus), from fetere ‘to stink’.

         So I stand slightly corrected. Where’s Vinyl when you need him?

         Edited at 2014-01-16 03:16 am (UTC)

      2. Good luck with DLS and her various obsessions: train timetables, campanology…Not to mention dialect-dialogue – Imph’m!
      3. Nice touch sotira to include Lord Peter Winsey in a comment on spelling. His distant relation Lord Peter Wimsey would completely understand.
         1. I think he would, and be much entertained, what’s more, by Jove! Thank you, bigtone. As one of our bloggers would say, I was wondering if anyone would spot that.
   2. So he is, even if he came out first!
5. 12:45 .. a lot of write-ins but fun, all the same. If the stinker’s coming, it’s going to be seriously malodorous.

   And yes, another “waffer thin” memory here, even though I’ve never seen more than a couple of minutes of it. I can’t watch! Mind you, I imagine our resident A&E doc sees worse every Saturday night.

   Last in .. INERTIA. COD .. SO TO SPEAK

6. Some nice words in the grid, and I thought some well-disguised definitions / smooth surfaces. I agree with the gang regarding SO TO SPEAK (after ditching SO IT SEEMS), and I also liked the longish reversal in BURGLAR.

   Edited at 2014-01-16 03:10 am (UTC)

7. …so nestled somewhere between mctext and ulaca. Not sure that’s a healthy place to be.

   Took a while to get ROCKET SCIENTIST, because clearly I ain’t one, but that gave me BIG DIPPER, followed by BABEL and GARGANTUA as the LOI.

8. Rattled through this. Started to watch the video link George, but after the mint went in and John Cleese ran for it I thought I had better do the same… chicken
9. 10m: I seem to have been on the wavelength for this one.
   A couple of bits of crossword knowledge in here: SPEEDWELL and the honey badger.
   Good to see PORK SCRATCHINGS described as a delicacy.
   I’m sure Jimbo will appreciate 6ac.
   I wonder if anyone didn’t think of Mr Creosote when they solved 19ac?
   1. Never heard of Mr Creosote, but then again I’m no Monty Python fan.
      1. I’d be amazed if you hadn’t at some point heard someone referring to a [cod French accent] “waffer theen meent”. Of course if you haven’t seen the film you won’t have had a clue what they were on about!
         1. That’s entirely possible. A friend of mine constantly drops references to the Simpsons into his e-mails, all of which go completely over my head.
            1. That strikes me as perfectly cromulent.
               1. Ha – now that one I DO know!
      2. So there’s at least two of us.

         Edited at 2014-01-16 05:17 pm (UTC)

10. A very enjoyable puzzle with some nicely constructed clues. OK, on the easy side but that didn’t detract from a fun 20 minute solve. Must confess I didn’t really need FLOOD and I didn’t think of the Python sketch.

    My only query is “local delicacy” for PORK S…. For me a local delicacy is Dorset Vinney cheese or Whitstable Oysters. Not a product that’s mass produced across the globe.

    1. I read local as meaning pub. Delicacy is definitely debatable though.
       1. I take your point about “pub” although scratchings are eaten all over the world and thus not just in pubs. I also agree that “delicacy” is really stretching things. Filet Mignon is a delicacy; PORK S…. are best avoided!
          1. PORK SCRATCHINGS are a delicacy when made well. The stuff mass produced and sold in packets is revolting, but then that’s true of most things mass produced and sold in packets.
             I was at a very fancy restaurant recently where they served a piece of deep-fried pig skin to which they had applied chocolate. You’ll be amazed to hear that it was absolutely revolting.
             1. I rather wish you hadn’t shared that memory – how could you do that to your palate. Please don’t tell me you were drinking a fine wine with it!
                1. I wasn’t, fortunately. We weren’t allowed to choose the wine for ourselves and it was mostly very weird.
                   I’ll spare you a description of the dishes that contained ants…

                   Edited at 2014-01-16 11:45 am (UTC)

                   1. My wife just brought home a large lump of the same. Very weird food.
11. 10 mins so definitely on the setter’s wavelength. Even though it was a quick solve there were some smiles along the way, particularly 4dn, 5dn, 15dn and 27ac. I finished in the NW corner with GARGANTUA my LOI.
12. Another 10 minuter, but a perfectly good one. There was still enough doubt for me to pencil in, at various points, RIGHT, INFER, and TRAIL before reading the clues a bit more closely. As a student, I went to an informal lecture / Q and A session with Terry Jones; my Q was “which Python scene did he most enjoy doing” to which his A was “Mr Creosote. Obviously disgusting but enormous fun” or words to that effect.
13. What pleasant memories this answer evoked? First came across this bar snack in White Swan in Edgbaston (which we always called the Dirty Duck after this very British habit of the opposite like Little John for the largest man in Sherwood Forest). Nowadays, the only nearby place where I can get this delicacy is when I visit Thailand.
    Thanks, setter for the memories and George for the blog
14. 29min – almost submitted DOUBTLESS at 15dn as couldn’t think of anything else to fit checkers, though not clue. I confess to a quick look at ‘Crossword completer’ to give right answer.
15. Quick start and completed the RHS in ten minutes, then stalled for no good reason, then sprint finish, about 30 m in total. Liked AUNTLESS for relatively short!
    For me, this being a British puzzle and said delicacy being a pub make-you-thirsty snack, I think ‘Local’ is fine, whether or not you can also get them in Spain or Thailand.
16. Just 13 minutes, might have been longer had it been my turn this week.
    Nothing which is basically baked fat and sharp corners can really be called a delicacy, and if it doesn’t have either quality it’s not pork scratchings. I like ’em
    Some neat variations on the answer-as-clue today, with SO TO SPEAK and NEWCASTLE, the latter both my LOI and favourite.
    SPAGHETTI introduced me to the peculiar Russian variant of writing lower case t’s as m’s thus: спагеmmі. Just when I was getting the hang of Russian orthography. That may also be why the Russians don’t have spelling bees either.
    1. Fried skin, actually.
       1. You think? Best ones are a lot more than skin deep and still have shreds of meat attached. Yum!
          1. Mmmm…. I wonder if I’ll be able to pick up pork rind on my way home tonight…
             I’d still maintain that this is frying (look at picture 8) but with a lot less faff.
             Whoever wrote the recipe is completely unrealistic though: “seal the remaining scratchings in an air-tight plastic container” – as if! It reminds me of Delia’s tip for what to do with “left over wine”.
             1. But as they say “We have taken the dish out of the oven to show you what each stage looks like.” Oven fried? 8)
                1. Well yes. Pork scratchings are usually deep fried, but unless you have a deep fat fryer (or enjoy faffing around with a thermometer) this isn’t very practical at home. This method effectively fries the skin in its own fat, and because you’re doing it in the oven you don’t need to worry about the temperature of the fat. Genius: I’m definitely going to try it.
    2. Same here. One of my favourite things.
17. 7 minutes with quite a few smiles along the way – I did think of Dorsetjimbo when I solved 6a – hopefully he’s a little less under water now.
    1. Thank you yes, the waters are receeding although it continues to rain on and off.
18. 11:49 so I agree that this was the fourth in a run of easyish puzzles. This would have been a good week (so far) to shoot for Tony’s neutrino-free leaderboard as I’m all correct in just under 46 mins up to today.

    Of course I thought of Monty P at 19 but I also immediately thought of Hitchhiker’s at 6d. It’s funny how the mind plays tricks. I thought “fetid” was the 2nd word of the Vogon’s poem but in fact the relevant passage is:
    The Vogon began to read — a fetid little passage of his own devising. “Oh frettled gruntbuggly…” he began.

    A couple of early thoughts slowed me a bit. THE PLOUGH at 1a based on the first part and racket for the first word in 5.

    I daresay there’s dictionary support for rock and loud music being synonymous but in my house the opposite is true. Whenever I put on anything more dangerous than George Michael Mrs Penfold asks (i.e. tells) me to turn it down, or in the case of Radiohead or Led Zep, off.

    Enjoyable puzzle.

19. I always get irritated when I see reference to Rocket Science being something wonderfully brainy. Rocket ‘Science’ is relatively simple – Newton discovered the Laws of Motion about 350 years ago, and the maths is very well known and relatively straightforward. What’s clever is Rocket ‘Engineering’, building and controlling a vehicle to get from here to Mars, land safely and send data and pictures back.
    Ron.
    1. The first reference to Rocket Science in Wikipedia is: “Aerospace engineering, a colloquial term for a primary branch of engineering”.

       I think for the average person it includes all the clever stuff associated with building, deploying and operating space vehicles.

       Hope this eases your irritation a little.

       1. Indeed. As David Lloyd regularly points out in his cricket commentary, “it’s not rocket surgery”.
          1. Love Bumble. As well as his commentary, he’s the funniest after-dinner speaker I’ve ever heard.
20. All correct today with FOI Dauntless and LOI Gargantua. Spent a while trying to justify Ovoid at 7dn and initially had Trail at 23dn which delayed getting So To Speak (fun clue).
21. A rare sub 20 at 19.02 today so definitely an easy one. Held up by 1a and the two long ones but once the cryptic clicked it all fell into place. Easy but not a dull one for me with some neat clues here and there. I seem to recall that Gargantua’s Feast was Mr Polly’s favourite book in H G Wells’s novel. At least that is where I think I remember it from – O level literature class with the inspiring Monica Daffodil Davies some 46 years ago!
22. 25.51 after a day’s work. I taught ‘The History of Mr Polly’ about 46 years ago – nice to think Monica Daffodil Davies was a fan too. Of course it won’t have been opened in a classroom for many a year.
    I often find certain exchanges in the blog a touch wearying but the pork scratchings take the biscuit.
    1. Shan’t make you any, then!
       1. But would you bake or fry them? And would he get a waffer-theen meent to follow?
23. 
    So quick it could have been a PB for me… no unknowns, all except PORK SCRATCHINGS parsed along the way.

    Not much more to add to what’s already been said (except *small voice* I too like pork scratchings…)

24. About 20 minutes, ending with PORK S… because I think we use the term ‘pork rinds’. I had to change TREADWELL to SPEEDWELL to get it, though, so I understand George’s blog comment all too well. Regards.
25. I think this may be a PB – very happy to break under 45. Would have been quicker if I’d spotted the two long ones earlier which only went in with plenty of checkers and I worried over gargantua a lot thinking it was GO from ‘half gone’ for a while before seeing it was half gone from GUlp. Practice seems to help – tonight, in a crossword blitz, I did yesterday’s Times in 67 minutes, today’s FT in 51 then today’s in 44. Not a 5dn but brain well exercised.

    Edited at 2014-01-16 11:27 pm (UTC)

26. 8:06 for me. I started all right, but then had a hiatus of about three minutes as I struggled through the middle-order downs before finishing at a brisk pace.

    Mr Creosote came immediately to mind for me too, though I had another ghastly senior moment as I tried to remember GARGANTUA.

27. Funny how the mind works, I did not think of Mr Creosote when I solved 19a, but he came immediately to mind when I read the clue for 2d.
    A very pleasant puzzle: I too await the 6d one that must come.
28. may 26ac be a triple def?
    1. That did cross my mind but I’m not convinced that JOLLY on its own is sufficient for one of them.
29. sorry, hate anonymous, my name is geoff stocker. so which cricketmatch wereyou watching?
30. Started this on the Northern Line at about 11.00 pm tonight. Over two thirds of this flew in straight away, and I mopped up the rest later on at home, say half an hour in all. Pleasant, straightforward. When’s the stinker?
31. Sorry, that last anonymous was from me.
32. 22 minutes – which is good for me. Busy day so a very late comment.
33. Still further evidence..

    http://life.nationalpost.com/2014/01/16/in-praise-of-cryptic-crosswords-they-may-keep-the-brain-young-and-social-life-lively/

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