Times 25888 – no hiding place

54 comments on “Times 25888 – no hiding place”

1. 12A is ERNESTINE; ER(NEST)IN-E
2. An earlier than usual solve for me today as I have to be out at lunchtime.

   Some gettable unknowns and I agree with the blogger’s view of Sheerness (and I have been there so…!) Surprised to find that it only took me 12 mins.

3. I think you got the short straw here Pip – quite a difficult puzzle in any event but with some real obscurities thrown in as well

   ERNESTINE is hardly a common girl’s name and ERIN is a tad obscure as well. GUILLERMO is William I think but like you I’ve never met one despite working with some Spanish organisations. CHARIVARI is off the scale – would be a good Mephisto or Club Monthly requiring a dictionary to verify a derived answer

   Some good stuff in the rest of it but I must again question an Editorial regime that allows such a wide variation of level of difficulty and particularly the inclusion of 2D in a puzzle to be solved “on the Clapham Omnibus”

4. A steady but uphill struggle, not helped by putting in HORUS until I saw the CROWS. I have never been sure why there is a collective noun for crows as they are (in pairs) territorial birds, at least in the UK. As they say in the country ‘If you see a lot of crows together, then they are rooks’.
   1. Old Suffolk saying (‘as = it’s) :-

      If ‘as crows ‘as rooks, if ‘as a rook ‘as a crow.

      Paul S.

5. I dimly recall CHARIVARI being the name of a column in Punch magazine. I’m not generally too fussed about the “boy’s/girl’s name” or “place” types of definitions, but ERNESTINE/GUILLERMO/EMMENTHAL are 3 doozies.
6. 26 minutes including several staring at E-N-S-I-E and, more irritatingly B-A-M-N where I couldn’t shrug off ‘bagman’. No problems with CHARIVARI though like K couldn’t have defined it if asked. First came across it in ‘Punch – the London Charivari’. Had never encountered that meaning of RECHERCHE, being more familiar with those in Chambers, but I see it is given explicitly in Collins.
7. 22m. I seem to have had the requisite knowledge for this one. I’ve vaguely heard of CHARIVARI – although I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what it means – but for such an obscure word I think the clue is a bit unfair. Incidentally I think the Jewish man is IRA.
   ERNESTINE was my last in, once I’d figured out that the definition wasn’t what I thought it was. There were a few like that today.
   1. Thanks K, I am a blank canvas when it comes to Jewish names and culture, although I had heard of IRA and missed the reversed bit; I quite liked my ARI explanation, I know a few blokes called ‘Ari in London, eg. Mr Rednapp.
8. 40-odd minutes for all bar ERNESTINE and CHARIVARI -eventuallty got the former but hazarded ‘chavivavi’ for the latter, failing to take sufficient cognisance of the ‘recalled’ in the clue. Avi is of course a Jewish name: the late Avi Cohen of Liverpool and Israel being known to many a football fan.

   Sheerness is on the Isle of Sheppey, of course.

   1. Avi was my first thought too: I was thinking of Avi Shlaim. If that makes me sound a bit high-brow, I thought of GUILLERMO del Toro for 17ac.
      1. Haven’t heard of either of those two. My G. was Guillermo Tell, which doesn’t really have much of a high-brow ring to it at all.
         1. One is a historian, the other directs silly movies.
9. 15 mins. Although quite a few of the definitions were well disguised I thought the helpful checkers offset the level of difficulty to some degree. I saw the wordplay for EMMENTHAL and GUILLERMO fairly quickly, and I had come across CHARIVARI before so it didn’t hold me up for long. ERNESTINE, assisted by the wordplay, was my LOI after CROWS.
10. My husband loves this New Yorker joke but I’ve never quite seen it.
    http://imgc-cn.artprintimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/61/6150/HRCG100Z/posters/george-price-as-long-as-you-re-grant-get-me-a-7-up-new-yorker-cartoon.jpg

    Punch magazine was aka the London Charivari (my grandmother had bound volumes of 19th century Punches which helped a lot on rainy days). I though “about” was very tricky and had “afoot” in there until the very last minute. Not the only one according to the Club Forum.

    1. Unspammed
    2. Just in case you’re still in the dark, the cartoon is a play on a series of ads for Grant’s Scotch, of which
       this is an example. “As long as you’re up, get me a Grant’s”. I don’t really get it either.

       Grant’s is perfectly acceptable as a whisk(e)y for mixing with other things.

       We do the research so you don’t have to.

       PS. Is the New Yorker the Stateside Charivari, by any chance?

       1. Thanks, now I’ve had it explained, I am still struggling to see why it’s hilarious! And I used to read the NY, loved most of the cartoons. I remember the one about the two hot air balloons in the sky over a suburban landscape and the caption was something like; ‘Oh God, Henry, it’s the Wallenbergs – we’ll pretend we haven’t seen them’. Well, I laughed, anyway.
       2. Whisky, no question!
          1. I cannot but agree! Just being hospitable
             1. I can’t see how a drinker of whiskey could possibly be offended. It’s just a different product.
    3. Now that I’ve seen Z’s explanation, I rather like the New Yorker joke. I have a special relationship with 7 Up since I used to be (possibly still am) next to it in the London telephone directory. It clearly lends itself to advertising parodies since I also rather like “Snow White thought 7 Up was a fizzy drink until she discovered Smirnoff.”
11. 
    All done ok, but several unknowns today:

    – Wasn’t sure if it was SHEERNESS or Shearness
    – Didn’t really know that ABROGATED meant revoked
    – Never heard of CHARIVARI, but worked out the wp, and guessed at IRA
    – Dnk: CHANTER = pipe, or NAPPER = head, or General GRANT

12. …which I parsed differently. The ‘sides’ are A and B, ‘active’ is ‘out’, and the literal follows.

    Well, at least I got all the answers. ‘Charivari’ I just put in from the literal without thinking too much – I believe we’ve had it several times. ‘Ernestine’ didn’t bother me either. I was expecting everyone to be complaining that ‘chanter’ was too obscure for ‘pipe’, but no one has objected.

13. Thanks Jack. Sorry, I meant to say – good blogging! 25.50
14. An uphill struggle most of the way although the LH side was at least a steady solve and I even knew CHARIVARI from somewhere though I’d have sworn an Italian rather than French connection if I’d been asked to define it.

    On the RH side, for a long time I had only DRAWN in place and having got stuck completely I retired hurt until the morning. On resumption things improved but I still needed assistance to come up with ERNESTINE and I had the unexplained AFOOT at 22ac.

15. Tough, but enjoyable, challenge, with possibly, as others have said, a few unfair obscurities. That said, I personally don’t mind quite wide variations in difficulty from day to day.

    My experience was similar to Jack’s with the LH side and the two long down clues falling reasonably quickly. It helped that I also happened to have heard of CHARIVARI (like Olivia via the Punch magazine connection), but I had no idea that among its meanings was the one required here. I then got bogged down on the RH side where I had to resort to aids to finish. CROWS went in on the cryptic parsing alone. I couldn’t for the life of me see how it could mean “murder”. Do we now need to keep a list of the more obscure collective nouns in the top drawer of our desk?

    Some good stuff. I liked BEES KNEES, RIGMAROLE, KIDNAPPER and TRESS (like Pip I wondered initially why a tress had necessarily to be “long”, but most dictionaries offer “a long lock” or something similar as one of the definitions). ENTENTE CORDIALE was also nice, mainly for its smooth and mildly provocative surface read.

16. There were delights in many of these clues for me, to the extent that I didn’t really experience anything as particularly obscure. I suppose you could point at CHARIVARI as being a little out there, but I’ll excuse it for IRA v IRA – that’s well seen by the setter. But ERIN’s certainly not, so I’m with the editor here: there has to be SOME work for us solvers to do, and it shouldn’t be a race to finish in any case.

    See you at the Championships.

    Not.

    29 minutes.

17. Took the best part of an hour over this. The setter seems to have an obsession with names, and some obscure ones at that, in 12 and 17. then a couple of ARI’s, plus Ruth and Nancy. I’m happy with ARI, RUTH and NANCY, which are all part of the wordplay, but ERNESTINE and GUILLERMO make me give a thumbs down to this puzzle. What’s wrong with dictionary words, even the odd unusual one like CHARIVARI? I don’t particularly like anonymous names in themed cryptics, but at least setters have the excuse that thematic constraints force the odd name into the grid. Here it’s the writer’s choice to put in a couple of obscure names, one of them foreign.
    Oh well, at least most of the clues were enjoyable, even if some of the answers weren’t.
18. A tad under 20 minutes, with the toughest being ABOUT for me. It had the feel of being one of those where the answer felt vaguely unsatisfactory and the real answer, once the penny dropped, would fit better. In the end, I assumed it was only a double definition after all, and the “active” was only there to confuse the issue, or perhaps a fragment of an earlier version of the clue (Active before fighting in the opposite direction?)
    Guillermo felt more Italian than Spanish, but the wordplay made it easy enough. Charivari, like others, via Punch (what a strange piece of shared knowledge that is!). I thought it a clever clue, hough “Jewish man” could give almost anything. Ernestine from the Muppet show – there’s true celebrity for you.
    I’m delighted to see (from the ever reliable Urban Dictionary) that there is no reliable origin for BEES KNEES. It always conjures up in my mind some East End Ira shrugging “it’s the business”. Is it OK to say that?

    Edited at 2014-09-10 12:21 pm (UTC)

19. Had to guess Charivari and Guillermo. And surely we can have a better definition than ‘place’ at three down – and it’s not even the usual spelling (Emmental) ! Enjoyed the rest though.
20. 29:59 and I’m sorry to say I didn’t care for this much. As has been suggested having two random names and a foreign town clued as “place” all in the same puzzle is poor, IMHO. I just got lucky with charivari with IRA being another name just tossed in as a bit of a cop-out.

    I caused my own problems as well by forgetting Ares and failing to make the ruth/regret connection.

21. Did not get ERNESTINE and had CHADIVADI thinking the name to be IDA rather than IRA.

    Having had less than half done after 30 minutes I was pleased to get anywhere near to finishing with this one even if it did take well over the hour.

22. I was about last night. Active, I was. No-brainer.
    1. How many letters?
23. Sorry Malc – I don’t know how I came to miss your Punch reference which certainly clocked in ahead of mine!
    1. And I did the same to Mohn, albeit by a shorter margin 😉 By the way, I don’t understand that cartoon ..
       1. All I know is that it convulses husband. I think it may be a spoonerish reversal along the lines of – as long as you’re up, get me a Grant (i.e. a make of whisky or bourbon, the which beverage the general was said to be partial to). Yes, I know.
24. About an hour on all but CHARIVARI which I had to come here for. I saw GUILLERMO and EMMENTHAL quite quickly from the checkers and word play but, like most of you, dislike that type of clue/answer. Excepting CHARIVARI I found this all possible to solve which is, I suppose, good, but it wasn’t much fun.
25. No trouble with 12/17a or 2d (there used to be a pub called The Charivari near my old home in Brum). Took ages over 16d, couldn’t get my mind off ‘enamorate’ for fancy (noun), so ended up just over the hour. Not bad for a relative novice.
26. OK, I must admit I fell in love with this one quickly because of Lily Tomlin’s ERNESTINE character – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o

    Had to piece EMMENTHAL, CHARIVARI, ABROGATED, ENTENTE CORDIALE and SHEERNESS together from the wordplay, which was excellent throughout, though I didn’t go back and try to parse CANTERBURY TALES which went in… well from enumeration mostly.

27. I got through this in 30 minutes, but with one wrong: CROWS escaped me. I guessed CROSS for no really good reason. I didn’t know of ‘CS’ as a gas, at all, and I didn’t know a bunch of crows constitute a murder. So an educational day it is for me. I actually enjoyed fighting my way through the others, especially CHARIVARI, ERNESTINE and EMMENTHAL. I do agree, though, that ‘place’ is a bit too dry a definition for the latter. Regards.
    1. Congratulations Kevin on living a riot free, sheltered life… CS (a complicated chemical so named after surnames of its discoverers) is No. 1 used worldwide for riot control and was also used to flush the VC out of their tunnels. I’m sure US cops have it.
       1. Good grief! Sounds like horrid stuff. Apparently, yes, I have lived riot-free. When US mobs are encountered the most often heard of weapon to encourage dispersal is termed ‘tear gas’.
          1. The chemical formula for tear-gas is something complicated which is usually abbreviated to “CS.” That’s exactly the stuff.
             1. I think CS is more specific than tear gas. Mace is described as ‘tear gas’, for instance, and I don’t think it’s the same stuff. I’m no chemist so happy to stand corrected!
                1. At risk of TMI; MACE is a spray containing CN (phenacyl chloride) in a solvent. CS is another chemical (with a longer name) also delivered in a solvent which evaporates quickly. Both are kinds of ‘tear gas’ with similar effects, CS more intense and persistent perhaps. Banned by treaty for use in warfare (because of fears of reprisals by worse agents like SARIN) but legal for civilian use. Which is rather bizarre. I was once a chemist, now just a mine of useless information.
                   1. TMI? Certainly not. Thank you.
28. 12:54 here for an interesting and enjoyable puzzle.

    No problem with ERNESTINE as I recall the journalist Ernestine Carter, and (like glheard) have fond memories of Lily Tomlin as Ernestine on Laugh-In.

29. It’s all been said, but I enjoyed the puzzle.
30. Oh dear. 4.8 Severs for me. I enjoyed this one a lot – several nice pieces of misdirection. My COD would have been ENTENTE CORDIALE, had not our blogger mentioned that it had appeared before.

    I didn’t know that Ares was a god of war (I was expecting Mars, and was wondering if the mares of nightmares were “troubles”), but then I doubt he’s ever heard of me either. Nor had I encountered “napper” as a head. Like some others here, I knew CHARIVARI (though not its meaning) from Punch – my father wrote for Punch for a while, and we had many bound volumes. Quite why the word stuck in my head I don’t know.

    Today was enlivened by two additions to my growing list of benign objects with which people manage to injure themselves. The first was a mouse (computer variety) – a gentleman managed to inhale the mouse’s ball while attempting to blow dust out of it. Given the scarcity of be-balled mice these days, I am hoping that this will go on record as the last ever near-fatality attributable to a mouse-ball in the UK. The second was a Pritt Stick, and I am not going to sully this forum with further details. It’s things like this that make the job seem very nearly worthwhile.

    1. You might have heard this word in a certain song. The first time I encountered it in a crossword I realised I’d heard it many times without ever knowing what it meant.
       Any old iron, any old iron, any, any, any old iron?
       You look neat, talk about a treat
       You look dapper from your napper to your feet.
    2. You are Victoria Coren-Mitchell and I claim my five pounds.
       1. A quick peek down the front of my shirt tells me I’m not…

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