Times 25724 – Love is just a one-letter word

Solving time: 11 minutes

Music: Finzi – A Severn Rhapsody, Introit, Nocture, Prelude, Three Soliloquies, Romance, The Fall of the Leaf, Boult/LSO

Please take note of today’s musical program. Excuses will no longer be accepted! Since this is a UK puzzle, knowledge of British composers is likely to be useful. I listened earlier in the week to the Clarinet Concerto that deezzaa suggested, it is really quite a nice piece. I have the Thea King on Hyperion, with the Stanford piece on the flip side.

Now for the puzzle. As we know from know from Mr Mayer’s productions, it is very feasible to make an extremely difficult puzzle with terse clues, so I was a bit alarmed when I first printed this off. However, it proved to be quite a doddle, as I recorded my fastest time by far. It took me two or three minutes at the beginning to study the style, and three minutes at the end for the stubborn last four words, so I did the bulk of the puzzle in less than seven minutes. Naturally, I didn’t pay much attention to subtle beauties, but just wrote in the answers as fast as I could go. This is close to the limit of my solving speed.

I don’t know how beginners would react to such a puzzle. It is full of cryptic cliches that an experienced solver can handle easily, but they may not be so easy if you’ve never seen them before.

Across
1 SHORTFALL, SHORT + FALL, more or less, not very Ximenean.
6 RECAP, RE + CAP.
9 OPEN OUT, OPEN + OUT, where ‘old hat’ = ‘passé’ = ‘out’.
10 BROWNIE, BR(OWN)IE. A brownie would not be called a cake in the US.
11 TRIAL, double definition, and a very feeble one.
12 FRUITCAKE, anagram of FREAK I CUT.
13 TIE UP, TIE + UP.
14 AGINCOURT, AGIN COURT.
17 TEST PILOT, a not-so-cryptic definition.
18 ADDER, [l]ADDER.
19 ASCERTAIN, AS + CERTAIN.
22 AORTA, hidden in [chin]A OR TA[iwan].
24 REAL ALE, anagram of ALL ARE + E[nglish].
25 IMAGINE, I(MAGI)N E[ast].
26 MUSTY, UM backwards + STY.
27 THE SCREAM, T[itian] + HE’S + CREAM. The world’s most-stolen painting.
 
Down
1 STOAT, S[mall] + TO A T. I nearly put ‘snail’ but thought better of it.
2 ONE LINERS, ONE(LINER)S.
3 TOODLE PIP, Spoonerism of POODLE TIP. The literal is cleverly hidden in ‘take care’, so this was the only one that really gave any trouble.
4 ACT OF PARLIAMENT, anagram of AFTER A COMPLAINT. I did not use the cryptic in either of the two long answers down the middle.
5 LABOUR INTENSIVE, LABOUR (the party) + INTENSIVE.
6 ROOST, R + O,O + S[cheld]T.
7 CINNA, sounds like SINNER if you speak a non-rhotic dialect of English.
8 PRESENTER, PRESENT + E.R., as in a TV host.
13 TETRAGRAM, MARGAR(T)ET upside down, just banged in from the literal here.
15 CHARABANC, CHAR + A BAN + C[aught], cryptic not needed by me.
16 UNDERMINE, anagram of MEN RUINED – yep, I never saw the cryptic as I solved.
20 CLASS, C + LASS.
21 READY, READ + [waverl]Y.
23 A-TEAM, A(TEA)M.

88 comments on “Times 25724 – Love is just a one-letter word”

  1. No working out on the sheet at all. Just a note to self about the CD at 17ac — not for polite company — and that TETRAGRAM (which describes said note) was my LOI. Probably the best clue of the day.

    Similar experience to our blogger: initial panic at the economy of the clues followed by swift relief.

    Edited at 2014-03-03 01:51 am (UTC)

  2. 13 mins, about as fast as I ever do. Spent a couple of minutes on STOAT at the end or it would have been a PB.
  3. 24 minutes including parsing, with time lost at the end at 1dn.

    One may well say “take care” on parting with someone but I have doubts that saying “toodle-pip” instead expresses the same sentiment.

    If I remember correctly the difference between cakes and what in the UK we call biscuits is that cakes go hard as they go stale whereas biscuits go soft. This led to a ruling about the status of Jaffa cakes and whether or not they are liable to Value Added Tax. The decision was they are indeed cakes and are therefore exempt.

    1. Not something I’d eat in any of its forms … but the ODO tells me that, here in Australia, a brownie is “a piece of sweet currant bread”. I shall try to find one and leave it to go stale.
    2. Jack, I share your reservations on 3dn. I have never been convinced by the “substitution test” – just because you can substitute a word in a sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence surely doesn’t necessarily confirm that the two words have the same meaning? My brain’s a bit slow these days so I can’t think of a clear example off hand (maybe I can in time), but it just strikes me as a questionable proposition. This clue adds to my disquiet.
      1. I generally agree with this (as I’ve said before, “damn” and “hoot” aren’t synonymous) but I didn’t mind this one too much on the basis that 1) I don’t think “take care” really means “take care” and 2) I struggle to form any strong opinion about what “toodle pip” does or doesn’t mean!
        1. I think it’s a variation on toodle-oo which may be derived form the French a toute-a l’heure, in any case it most certainly means goodbye.
          1. I’m not sure you can be that certain about it: “à toute à l’heure” doesn’t mean “goodbye”, so if that’s the derivation (which seems uncertain, admittedly) then “toodle pip” means something closer to “see you later”, which is as close to “goodbye” as “take care”. They all come under the general category of things people say to each other on parting, which is close enough for me.
            1. I meant “toodle-oo/pip” means “goodbye”, not that “à toute à l’heure” does exactly.

              I’m still struggling to understand how “take care” translates as “goodbye”. I see it as an additional nicety (as in “goodbye, take care”) not as a standalone substitute. Just as one might say “goodnight, sleep well”, but “sleep well” alone does not mean “good night”.

              1. But if the origin of TOODLE PIP is “à toute à l’heure”, then perhaps that’s what it means. It doesn’t really matter though: the real point I’m grasping for is that none of these expressions really means the same as any other: “goodbye” means literally “God be with you”, which TOODLE PIP certainly doesn’t. And “see you later” has a slightly different meaning again. “Ciaou” means something else, presumably, because it can also mean “hello”.
                So there are no true synonyms: they are all just things that people say to one another when parting and there’s no point trying to draw fine distinctions between them. In this context “take care” seems fine to me: I’ve certainly heard people use it as a direct substitution for “goodbye”.

                Edited at 2014-03-03 07:42 pm (UTC)

  4. Dropping by early due to some shock at finding the puzzle complete in far less than 10 minutes, but I wasn’t timing carefully. I’m sorry to say I still smoke. I poured a drink, lit a cigarette out in the garage, and when the puzzle was done I was still not finished with the cigarette. Strange timing device, but roughly accurate. The only hold up (figuratively speaking) was OPEN OUT since I initially misread the numeration. So I’m with vinyl today: that’s as quick as I’ll ever get through a Times crossword. Regards to all.
  5. 9:35 .. very friendly start to the week.

    Nice to see you’re on the Finzi again, vinyl (I noticed before I read the stern note from teacher!) and better yet on the banks of the Severn.

  6. 21 minutes but my excuse is I’m off work with the ‘flu. 1a put me in mind of Pink Floyd’s ‘short, sharp shock’ (‘though I notice it’s first attested in The Mikado). While there’s an element of brevity in sharpness – through the suddenness – the acuteness is what really marks it out. If this we’re not the case, the phrase (famously used by Willie Whitelaw) would not have the impact it does.
  7. As one of the rookies, I found this easy going – excepting CINNA whom I only remembered after seeing the answer, and TOODLE PIP, which I didn’t know, and so got fooled when the crossers gave the obvious but wrong pup. I did think 27a would have clued better with ‘men’s’ in place of ‘man’s’, hes being plural.
    And, thanks for the Finzi reminder.

    Edited at 2014-03-03 03:57 am (UTC)

    1. “The man’s” here = “the man is” = he’s.
      “The man has” would probably work too: “He’s [got] a big hat on today”.

      And a BTW to Vinyl: you have this blogged with the wrong clue number. Should be 27.

      Edited at 2014-03-03 05:29 am (UTC)

  8. Thanks for the name-check Vinyl (while you’re at it, try Finzi’s choral piece Intimations of Immortality).
    Nice gentle start to the week – if it takes me a mere 24 minutes, then there’s going to be an awful lot of super-fast times.
    Nice anagram at 4d.
  9. 12 min here, including an interruption for a phone call, so definitely at the easy end of the spectrum (and it felt like it). My daughter has expressed an interest in crosswords so I may take her through this as a starter.
  10. 10m. Nice straightforward puzzle for a Monday morning.
    Here’s a handy tip for inexperienced solvers: it can really help if you read the clue. I wasted a couple of minutes trying to think of the name of a famous statue for 4dn.
    Note to self: listen to some Finzi.

    Edited at 2014-03-03 08:00 am (UTC)

  11. 11’9″, with my LOI inexplicably ACT OF PARLIAMENT, possibly expecting a more specific example, such SETTLEMENT. An equally inexplicable TEST PAPER at 17 didn’t help. One of the perils of not-bothering-with-the-cryptic solving is that it includes an element of not-happening-to-get-it-right entering.
    Now look, I know about jelly/jello and all that kind of confusion, but just what would you call a brownie in Manhattan assuming it wasn’t “brownie”?
      1. The current sickly flat thing is, no doubt, but I remember being given – and in fact helping to make – chocolate brownies when I was just a wee lad in Sheffield. They involved oats, and cocoa..

        Edited at 2014-03-03 10:06 am (UTC)

      2. In the US brownies would be different from both cookies and cake, but closer to the latter. This clue would, however, easily pass the ‘crosswords is crosswords’ test.

        In the US, cookies can be either hard or soft, the distinguishing features being that they are sweet and eaten with one’s fingers. Cake is also sweet, implies a loose crumb, usually a larger size, and requires a fork. (As an aside, cake isn’t a pudding, because pudding implies gooey). Biscuits are a particular kind of slightly informal breakfast or dinner roll, usually slightly savoury, and with a crumb similar to a scone – except for old Southern beaten biscuits, which are pretty much like hard tack. K,NY and other Americans: did I miss anything important?
        Now you know why I can’t wait to get back to civilised London next week.

        Edited at 2014-03-03 12:11 pm (UTC)

        1. Mrs Penfold made some brownies yesterday (for the first time). They (it) came out too gooey to start with so she put it (them) back in the oven for a bit. I find the term confusing as it appears you make it as a block and then chop it up, so why is it “brownies” rather than “a piece of brownie”?

          For the record she also made a Victoria sponge and set fire to an oven glove.

          Quite what any of that has to do with the puzzle I have no idea, but I just thought I’d mention it.

          Edited at 2014-03-03 12:55 pm (UTC)

          1. Brownies rather than piece of brownie because they are always cut into pieces immediately post baking, regardless of whether they will be served immediately or later. I think Mrs P61 should have just cut the sponge into pieces and declared it a blondie (they exist). In my house that would have been a success.
        2. Biscuits are where I get confused. I was just reading an American novel, set in the South, where someone wandered in eating a breakfast of sausage on biscuit. I’m still struggling to get a grip on what that would look like. Or taste like.
          1. I can understand the worry – sausage on a UK biscuit would be an eye-popper. The closest you probably get in the UK to the fictional breakfast is a sausage roll – except that the pastry in a sausage roll, on its own, is be a little more buttery/lardy and not as flaky. Imagine a scone without any sugar, disk shaped, and with the crust a little less crusty, and you’re getting close.
            (And, it can taste pretty good).

            Just a note: see what happens when we all finish the puzzle in record time and have a little time on our hands? Diversion into all manner of discussion.

            1. Thanks, Paul. I think I’m getting the picture. If I ate sausage, which I don’t, I might try one. But I can at least imagine it (and smell it – see Thud n’ Blunder’s later post).

              I do like these dog days where there’s nothing much to do except chew over cookies and biscuits.

              1. I once flew from England to Spain on a Danish plane. Breakfast was sausage on a bed of grated raw vegetables. Now that was weird. I think I’d have preferred sausage on biscuit, even if it had been a custard cream or Garibaldi.

                Edited at 2014-03-03 04:06 pm (UTC)

    1. So I guess that means a brownie in Manhattan would be called (insert drumroll) a brownie. Or am I going crackers?
      Thanks all for entertaining enlightenment!
  12. Yes, very quick bere today, too, with the rhs going in first, followed quickly by the lhs. TOOTLE PIP added a few minutes at the end.

    Good luck with getting your daughter interested, Derek. I have tried several times, unsuccessfully, with my sons. I have fond memories of sitting with my dear old Dad working on it together…

  13. I tried to listen. Now I shall forget again. Sorry teacher. You can punish me next time.
  14. Probably an iPad PB, and would have been quicker if I had not scribbled in CHARABANG.

    I understand that this is the first crossword under the new editorial regime (happy to be corrected). I appreciate that it is a Monday but I hope that this puzzle is not indicative of the future.

    Edited at 2014-03-03 08:38 am (UTC)

  15. Wish I’d timed it accurately – went in like a dream & might have been a PB. Ideal for learners to gain confidence. Agree hope not typical for the future.
  16. Held up in NW and especially by trying to parse stoat. 23.36. I see ‘short’ as a tone of voice here, being short with someone. In crosswordland toodle pip and take care are close enough as goodbye synonyms. I agree with bigtone’s comment. Maybe the EU has outlawed anything beyond a single twist in a cryptic clue.
  17. 10 minutes without pausing and largely ignoring the cryptics. Some of this is really feeble.

    TOODLE-PIP is very old fashioned upper class slang for “see you” and I guess the phrase “take care” is currently in fashion.

    1. Same here and I think that’s the correct parsing, given “had” and the fact that a.m. usually means IN the morning.
  18. Thank goodness I managed to get my husband to stop saying it. The only person I know of who says “toodle-pip” is Bertie Wooster. 10.50. Is the Hudson still frozen over up your way Kevin?
    1. Hello Olivia. It is pretty frozen, but the Coast Guard keeps the shipping channel open, and commercial traffic continues on the river. It’s supposed to go down to 0 degrees F (again) tonight, so it’s got another chance to freeze. We’ll see.
      1. When I’m in NY I’m on the West Side, and I can tell when you’ve had real cold because I can see the flotsam and jetsam (broken ice floe) drifting past. I’ll start looking.
  19. 11 mins and not much to add to the comments already made. I finished in the NW with OPEN OUT.
  20. The old-fashioned “Monday puzzle”. Nothing wrong with that, as long as they happen on a Monday and not too often. As someone who has a long To Do List on this particular Monday, I was quite happy only to be detained for six minutes something.

    Re: K from NY’s timing system, I’ve given up for years now, but I used to be an enthusiastic smoker in my youth, especially when the crossword was a treat saved for the pub. Pretty sure I thought I was Sherlock Holmes, and always enjoyed a good, tough, three-snout puzzle.

  21. 12 minutes. I really found the clues far too easy and rather uninteresting. The long entries at 4 and 5 needed no thought at all once I had one or two letters in place. I had to dig out an old puzzle to pass the time.
  22. Mounting excitement as I felt a PB coming on (which for me would be to break the one hour barrier or – homage to Tim – a two snout affair).

    But, ’twas not to be. Did not know Tetragram, and (unforgivably having strutted and fretted my hour upon the stage in a ramshackle performance of Julius Caesar many years ago) forgot Cinna and did not pick it up from the homophone or the three checkers in place! Feel a complete Charlie, of the type who might say “Toodle Pip”…

    Edited at 2014-03-03 12:13 pm (UTC)

  23. About 10 minutes, and I can only recall one previous instance of it being this easy.

    Like vinyl1 at first glance I was concerned at seeing the many short clues but when the two long answers went straight in I thought it might be a quick one.

    Didn’t know CINNA but was easy from definition. Thought that the reversal of Margaret for TETRAGRAM was neat. Otherwise not much worthy of comment.

  24. Just five minutes for me which is not quite personal best (although I still can’t believe I got that!) –
  25. 7:11 which I think is my second-fastest solve.

    I was slowed (if that’s applicable here) by 9 where I didn’t see where the hat came into things and 17, where I failed to spot the enumeration and was also looking for a word such as accused or defendant.

    I agree that the upside-down Margaret was neat.


  26. My memory conspired against me. I was convinced Cinna was a poet and not a conspirator in the Bard’s ‘Julius Caesar’. But all’s well that ends well. Managed a sub 30 minute solve which, for me, is a rarity.

    Enigma

    1. The mob mistook Cinna the poet for Cinna the conspirator. So your memory served you right!
      1. So a bit like Life of Brian? “He’s not a conspirator. He’s a very naughty boy.”
  27. Enjoyed the sensation of speed until I hit toddle pip, Tetragram and cinna. These taking a large portion of the overall 35 minutes.
  28. First time I ever came across this site. How on earth do you people become so fast at solving these puzzles? I’m pleased with myself when I complete one without resorting to references. Timing myself doesn’t come into it!!

    1. Welcome to this site! I think the answer is practice! I know that I’m getting quicker all the time, but am still overjoyed when I can finish it ‘without aids’, whatever time it takes!
    2. Yup, just practice. Maybe something of the joy of crosswords (see some of the mildly grumpy comments above about easy stuff) is lost when the seasoned hack, spotting all the tricks of the trade, solves almost without looking. But I doubt it. Dam’ thing’s an addiction. Looks like you’re hooked too – and very welcome .
    3. As I did this in under 10 minutes I’ll take the liberty of counting myself as one of “us people” and give you what is purely my own view.

      Janie’s right in that practice is probably the most important factor and I’ll come back to that in a sec.

      I’d also add:

      The right sort or warped brain
      A recent study concluded that you need “fluid intelligence” to be good at cryptics – the ability to manipulate stuff in your head in a certain way. Some very bright and knowledgable folk may struggle because they possess the “wrong sort” of intelligence. If you can solve these puzzles at all then you’re off to a reasonable start.

      General Knowledge
      You don’t need to be Fred Housego but a decent armoury of trivia helps. Whilst one of the great things about cryptics is that there’s generally another way to solve a clue if you don’t know the word, if you can spot the answer without having to piece together the wordplay that will improve speed. Just take last week: where many of us had to take an educated guess at the composer Finzi, others knew him so were able to solve that particular clue more quickly. Bone up on composers, plants, ducks, ports, poets, scientists(!) and Scottish towns…

      Wavelength
      Speed on any given puzzle can depend on getting onto the setter’s wavelength, which is sometimes just down to luck. For instance, “bar” in the wordplay could lead to a number of things, like pole, counter, ban, pub or be an exclusion indicator. If your first thought is the “right” one then you’re tuned in.

      Technique
      Some very able solvers choose not to go for speed, preferring to savour the challenge and pausing to parse each clue fully. For the “speed merchants”, however, short-cuts are the norm: read the next clue while filling in the previous, go with gut instinct and don’t bother to parse, don’t cross off clues you’ve solved, start with short or multi-word answers, look for anagrams to get started, start with a clue that will give you the first letters of several others…

      Practice
      Only with practice can you learn the little tricks that are vital to a fast solve. You’ll then be able to:
      – spot the definition;
      – quickly identify what clue type you’re dealing with;
      – solve anagrams without writing a jumble of the letters
      – recognise conventions – anagram indicators, reversal and inclusion indicators, single-letter abbreviations, alternate letter and deletion indicators etc;
      – ignore the surface reading and just see a clue as a coded instruction;
      – unstick yourself when you’re stuck – is it a pangram? could that U be preceeded by a Q? What if the definition isn’t what I think it is?
      – generally spot what’s going on very quickly.

      I’m sure there are other factors as well. If you want to improve your speed it’s prboably worth investing in a “how to” book.

      Sorry for waffling.

    4. If you’re an absolute beginner, read one of the how-to books about cryptic crosswords so that you have a basic idea of all the clue types and some of the most common abbreviations. After that, it’s a combination of practice and making sure you understand all the parsings, the latter of which this site is invaluable for.
    5. Hi Ian
      Welcome! I too am pretty new here (I’d been tracking the comments for a few weeks – and rapidly improving my game as a result – before finally popping my head up above the parapet about a month ago).

      Fully endorse the other comments from Janie, z8b8d8k, and penfold. Until recently, a calendar was more useful than a clock in monitoring my completion times (if, indeed, I ever completed).

      Started tackling the Times last September, after a couple of years of doing my apprenticeship on an easier cryptic – viz. Sydney Morning Herald – where I slowly picked up most of the basic cryptic conventions. Initially, I could only do about a quarter of each puzzle: more frustrating was that when I checked the solution next day, in many instances I still could not work out how it was derived – which is where this site is utterly invaluable!

      After a couple of months I started getting close to completing the odd one, then one red letter day in November I actually finished one! (OK, it took pretty much a whole weekend, but hey…)

      Since then, been improving further and now complete say 75%, with some around the two hour mark – a rate of progress over 6 months that shows the importance of practice and the benefit of the insights you will pick up here.

      Doubt I’ll ever become (and frankly don’t aspire to be) a speed merchant, but thoroughly enjoy the challenge and the satisfaction of visible improvement. Good luck!

    6. If you go along with the theory that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at anything, then some of us are well on the way to that status simply by a) doing at least one crossword every day and b) not being dead yet. There are other things which help, and have been well explained by Penfold, but those two will get you a good bit of the way.
    7. Thank you all so much for your replies, welcomes, advice and encouragement. I’m most grateful.

      @penfold_61: Not waffle at all. Thank you for taking the time to provide such insight.

      @mohn2: Is there any particular book recognised as the bible?

      1. This site’s founder (now Sunday Times crossword editor) Peter Biddlecombe, put up a list of key books on an Amazon page: http://astore.amazon.co.uk/petescrypcros-21

        I believe the Tim Moorey is still the go-to book. Personally, I learnt by just hacking away at it, which is probably not the most efficient way to learn but might be the most fun — you get more of those Hallelujah moments when the light finally dawns on a cluing device.

    8. One of the best ways (sadly a bit late for you now, no doubt) is to start young. I started on children’s crosswords at around 5 and was attempting cryptic crosswords (admittedly with considerable help from my older brother and sister) from 6 or 7.

      After that you need plenty of practice (to get those 10,000 hours in as soon as possible :-). And even if you become a competitive solver and complete the crossword without having completely understood all the clues, it’s always worth going back over them afterwards to make sure you’ve understood them all. This blog wasn’t around when I first attempted the Times crossword, but I wish it had been.

      As for books, I suggest Tim Moorey’s How to Master the Times Crossword; or you might like to try Alan Connors’s amusing Two Girls, One on Each Knee. Or, if you’re prepared to stump up a little more money for a used copy of a book now sadly out of print, I’d recommend Alec Robins’s Crosswords in the Teach Yourself series (Watermill Books currently have a copy on sale – via either Amazon or AbeBooks – at £19.72), though I suppose it’s possible that it may seem a bit dated nowadays.

  29. 32min, which is on the fast side for me. Spent ages trying to think of a four-letter animal… does “toat” mean something in some strange dialect? But then the penny dropped. Never heard of Cinna (which is odd, considering that there were so many of them), and worked my way through the alphabet to be sure there was no alternative. Enjoyed “tetragram”, even though I’d never encountered the word before.

    Today’s award for Most Interesting Injury goes to a middle-aged cyclist who attacked a kerb stone with his head. That, in itself, is not particularly interesting or original. However, when he regained consciousness, he was hyperosmic, meaning that his sense of smell was hugely increased. Oliver Sacks reported something similar in a patient (can’t remember the cause). My man was completely overwhelmed by smells that I could barely detect. We (and then the neurology mob) tested him on a few things out of curiosity, and it was extraordinary – he could tell which of four different people had briefly handled an envelope, for instance.

    Sadly for him, a hospital ward is not the best place to suddenly develop olfactory hyperacusis. However, his episode only lasted a couple of hours. Makes you wonder, though, what our brains are doing with all that olfactory information the rest of the time.

    1. How interesting: something like that was occurring in Powell and Pressburger’s astonishing (not just for its time, 1946) movie “A Matter of Life and Death”, originally commissioned to make Brits and Yanks like each other. A key bit of plot is David Niven’s inexplicable scenting of onions. It indicated damage to the relevant part of the brain, round which weaves a tale of love, life, death, Anglo American relations and the whole dam’ thing.
      1. The first mention is at around 44.30. But the whole film is worth watching!
        1. I shall add that to my list of films to watch.

          I really wish this man’s condition had lasted a little longer, to allow a more detailed assessment. We did consider whacking him on the head again, but the neuro guys wouldn’t have it.

  30. Sorry to see that nobody else got off to a good start with snail at 1ac -s ‘on the nail’?. Works better to my mind!
    1. Me too! In fact so sure was I it held me up for 4 minutes at the end trying to get 9 and 11 across!
  31. Saved this for an afternoon trip out on the far reaches of the Metropolitan Line, and completed well before Finsbury Park … Mostly write ins, with the parsing lolloping on behind like a friendly dog, starting in the NE with RECAP and proceeding clockwise until I finally had to think about STOAT (my CoD) and OPEN OUT. Even for a Monday, 4DN was disgracefully easy – and we’ve had 5DN before. Many times. Many many times. Never mind. Enjoyed TOODLE PIP and FRUITCAKE. And remembered the unfortunate CINNA.
  32. Very tame even by Monday standards. Have to admit to not having come across the Roman polititian though, but straight in from cryptic after the ‘A’ checker.
  33. 20.18 so quite straightforward by my standards. I scuppered the sub 20 which is always an event to celebrate here in Darlngton by being so darn sure about SNAIL for 1d – agreeing with the parsing just above. Hey ho – always tomorrow!
  34. Happy Bunny with my time, but a pretty vanilla puzzle. Stand out clue for me 13d.
    Re. thud_n_blunder’s unfortunate patient, the thought occurred to me that olfactory super acuity would be a real problem for those with flatulent dogs (inter alia).
  35. So the new crossword editor has let us off lightly with the first puzzle of his reign.

    However, I still managed to screw things up by rashly bunging in AURAL at 11ac (an over-elaborated attempt at using “hearing” both as definition and for ‘sounds like’ “oral” (= “test”)). I then had a brainstorm at 1dn, thinking of S = “small” and the old chestnut TO A T = “exactly”, but failing to put the two together and wasting ages trying to think of a 5-letter animal beginning in S and ending in A. It was only when I got to the next old chestnut at 2dn (which really had to be ONE-LINERS) that I realised that AURAL was wrong. Eventually I got going, but struggled to a disappointing 6:09.

    I think I must be missing something obvious at 9ac, as I don’t really understand OPEN OUT = “unpack”.

    1. I took it in Hamlet’s sense of ‘must I like a whore unpack my heart with words’; at the time I was glad to get this one as I realised that SNAIL for 1d was wrong, but on reflection perhaps OPEN UP would be more synonymous. Also there is the sense of unpacking a complexity such as a poem or an exam question: ‘there’s a lot of ideas to unpack in Yeats’s The Second Coming.’

      Edited at 2014-03-04 07:45 am (UTC)

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