Times 25917

50 comments on “Times 25917”

1. ….as I struggled a bit with ‘you wait’ and ‘three, four’. In the US, it’s ‘three, four, shut the door’, which has better scansion. I finally remembered ‘Just You Wait, ‘Enry ‘Iggins, Just You Wait’ from My Fair Lady, and triumphantly wrote in the final answer. Nothing else was very difficult.
   1. I suppose it depends on what one’s used to but ‘knock on the door’ sounds better to me because it repeats the four syllable pattern of the previous line.

      Edited at 2014-10-14 01:16 am (UTC)

      1. Also you get the “rat ta ta tat” rhythm in the British version.
   2. Have known “My Fair Lady” for decades but only realised a couple of years ago that the title is a rather clever pun. The way a cockney would pronounce the word “Mayfair”.
      1. Truly a “doh” moment then! It took me about 30 years to get there.
      2. I too have known “My Fair Lady” for decades (I remember passing by the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane – where Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison were starring in it – on my way to see Flanders and Swann at the Fortune Theatre on an early visit to London in the late 1950s), but hadn’t twigged the pun until I read your comment!
2. Another with SHYSTER last in. Very grateful for all the clear(ish) anagrams.
3. 15ac did for me; put in ‘three-hour’ for no good reason, but ‘knock on the door’ was meaningless to American me. Spent a lot of time trying to make ‘tosh’ or ‘bosh’ work at 6ac; I’m always slow to get the ‘for’ clues calling for a substition. LOI LLANO, after getting BLAH.
   1. The Wik tells me that it may have US origins.
      ” … the rhyme was used in Wrentham, Massachusetts as early as 1780″.
      That seems to be the earliest recorded instance.
4. …done in by Bob Dylan. Or done in by mis-hearing a Bob Dylan lyric.

   I was certain he sings “the cops are puttin’ the screws into him” in Hurricane, which I think is my only exposure to this expression. He actually sings “puttin’ the screws TO him”.

   Anyway I went for IN instead of ON, and was wrong on all counts. Now I sit like Buddha in a ten-foot cell, an innocent man in a living hell.

5. 30′ – the nursery rhyme reference went over my head as they mostly do, and I’m feeling Galspray’s pain, since a little ignorance (in this case, of Bob Dylan) proved helpful in getting the answer to an ‘idiom’ I’d not heard of either. ‘Turn the screw’, yes.

   Finished in the NE with LLANO (only vaguely familiar – sounds more like an animal or what it drops), YOU WAIT and BLAH, the last two in particular very nice clues.

6. 14;13 … nothing exactly difficult, but quite a few clues where the solution or the parsing hovered just out of reach for a while.

   Last in SECESSION.

7. 45mins or so, all correct, ending, as others, in the LLANO, BLAH, THORN corner.
8. 18 minutes so well below average again. Or is my average coming down? I’d like to think so.

   Also finished with BLAH and LLANO.

9. BTW, I’m not very churchy, but is there a nice bit of misdirection in 2dn? I seem to recall that the hymn at the end of a service is called the Recessional, so I assumed that RECESSION (which fits in well until you get 1ac) could mean the “act of leaving church”.

   Quite clever if it was intentional.

10. 13m. Fortunately I knew the expression at 9dn: if I hadn’t I expect I’d have opted for ‘in’.
11. 14 mins. THORN, LLANO and BLAH were actually my first three in, and I finished back in the top half with THREE-FOUR after RESTART. I thought 9dn was excellent, and 11ac wasn’t bad either.
12. 18.42: no special hold-ups, though MISADDRESSED tried to be MISDIRECTED (even though it didn’t fit) because “MEDIC IN a muddle” suggested some of the letters. I find it tricky these days to abandon what seems like a good idea for a clean run at a clue.
    Apropos “just you wait, ‘Enry ‘Iggins”, is there such a thing as an earworm pun? Whenever I hear the thing, my mind springs straight to an imagined admonition to Saddam Hussein – “just Kuwait…” Nasty.
    I particularly liked THREE FOUR – but then it worked for me. “Ze second bar of silence is in three four, giving ze whole verk a qvasi Viennese flavour” (Dr Klaus Domgraf-Fassbaender or possibly Professor von der Vogelweide on Bruno Heinz Jaja’s Punckt Kontrapunkt). “…it alzo forms a crescendo, since it is the only time during the piece when all of the instruments have ze mute off”.

    Edited at 2014-10-14 09:40 am (UTC)

    1. Gerard Hoffnung for those scratching their heads.

       Z8’s not going on the cart just yet…

       1. Victor Borge’s more my level.
          1. …wrote in three flats – constantly on the move. But I was brought up on Gerard Hoffnung.
             1. The Bricklayer letter to the Oxford Union ranks as one of the funniest stories ever.
13. I certainly considered RECESSION thinking along those lines before spotting the correct answer.
14. It took me some time to get started. Thereafter not too difficult. There were few if any “write in” clues, nearly all providing a lively challenge. The nursery rhyme reference at 15A passed me by (thanks to Jack for the explanation). I particularly liked YOU WAIT and PUT THE SCREWS ON.
15. Inexplicably held up in the SE corner by VOICEMAIL. 42 minutes. Ann
16. 20 min. – LOI was 1ac, having also been trying to do something with MEDIC until checkers excluded possibility.
17. 15:25 finishing in the YOU WAIT / LLANO / BLAH corner.

    I think I need convincing that the voicemail clue works as intended – I can’t quite see how it’s supposed to hang together.

    Edited at 2014-10-14 12:22 pm (UTC)

    1. Oh dear, so you may have noticed that I didn’t either so I was somewhat vague in my explanation. If anyone can nail it forensically then please feel free to do so.

       Edited at 2014-10-14 12:59 pm (UTC)

    2. I read the second half of the clue as a sort of one-item to do list:
       > To do for dominion over galaxy: turn son to dark side
       > To do for someone to hear ‘fellow’: voice ‘mail’
       I’m not sure I’d call that forensic.
       1. I thought it had something to do with singing a voiceover for an actor/actress (to do it for them). Not particularly happy with this explanation though.
          1. I didn’t get it either until hours later when I concluded that VO (virtual organization) = system, “ice” = do for someone and then mail/male. Communication being the definition. Far from sure about this so I await correction.

             Around here blah standing alone means bland and boring, we need 2 or 3 of them to mean nonsense. 17.57

             1. That works for me, especially ICE= ‘do for’ – we’ve had that recently. But does VO=virtual organisation? Is it a THING or indeed a ‘system’. My dictionary only gives (Royal) Victorian Order, which doesn’t seem to help much.
       2. Thanks K, I think I just about see it.

          Jack, I’d just assumed you were being brief on the basis that it made perfect sense to you and required no further explanation.

          1. It was something of a case of blogger’s blag I’m afraid, but I thought “to do something for someone to hear” might = VOICE as a verb, and “male” (fellow) sounds like MAIL. That seems to make double use of “hear” though, so I ran the two together in my explanation.

             Edited at 2014-10-14 10:45 pm (UTC)

    3. I rather thought the problem lay with the word “system”. Substitute a synonym such as “process”, or instead just the word “something”, and Keriothe’s “to do list” works perfectly well. I went so far as to imagine it might be a misprint for another word, but couldn’t think of a close enough suitable one. It’s a pretty uneasy sentence as it stands, even for a crossword clue!
18. 43m today but at least all correct. Grateful for the blog as THREE FOUR went in on the basis that it was a time and fitted. I thought 23a worked in that if you voiced the mail you would hear him (as well as the male/mail homophone) so that ‘to do for’ was to to do his voice. Did enjoy YOU WAIT.
    1. Yes I see exactly what you mean about 23a – but then the “for” is sort of left hanging about. Rather a pesky clue and I don’t much care for my parsing either.
19. This only works for me if ‘voice’ is a verb in the Hollywood sense, as in Darth Vader being ‘voiced’ by a certain Mr. Jones.
    1. I wondered about that too.
20. That was rather fun – did it in a coffee break at work, seemed to be around 10 minutes. I had PUT THE SCREWS TO originally, but changed it to ON after seeing 28. I had not heard any other version of the nursery rhyme so I rather liked “three-four”.
21. DNF as didn’t know LLANO and didn’t see the answer even with all the checkers.

    I didn’t get any quality time on the train this morning as I accidentally sat next to a certain Under-Secretary of State for Transport who was travelling the UK’s busiest line and looking to engage commuters to hear gripes and suggestions. Laudable effort from her and she was very engaging, but put me somewhat behind, and I haven’t been able to catch up since. Not sure if I would have guessed at LLANO in any case.

22. About 20 minutes, no real problems, though I had also originally “PUT THE SCREWS TO” and had to change it later. THREE-FOUR was LOI after I did actually remember the nursery rhyme. Like vinyl, though, my memory says ‘shut the door’, but I figured, hey, close enough. Clever clue. Thanks for the blog, and regards.
23. 25 minutes, with VOICEMAIL unparsed (and still not fully understood in spite of reading all the above wisdom).
24. DNF due to llano even though I have seen it before in a clue for Llandudno with “fail” inside so doubly annoyed. Other than that straightforward and fun. Three-four unparsed, thanks blogger
25. Spent a lot of time fitting TOSH in 6A, since I was unable to decode 7D. Some clues like 7D, 27A were too wordy. More time wasted thinking over synonyms for CHEATER in 5D.

    Quite a few repetitions in clues – type in 13A, 5D and 12A; sporting arena/venue in successive clues 18D and 19D.

26. 9:38 for me, so slightly better (relative to other Championship competitors) than yesterday.

    Like others I couldn’t parse VOICEMAIL at the time, but was reasonably happy to insert a notional “what” before “to do” when I thought about it afterwards.

    An interesting and enjoyable puzzle.

27. 43 minutes, with the last 20 spent on the north-right (or top-east) corner.

    Never heard of Llano, and I put in as my LOI with little hope of success. I thought it would have to be Welsh, since I couldn’t think of any other so-called language that’s so poorly thought out as to consider “ll” a viable way to start a word. On the other hand, I don’t remember seeing any flat bits in Wales, which made me doubt. As my geography teacher once pointed out, Wales looks small on the map but if you steamrollered it flat nobody would mind much.

    On the plus side, no references to cricket or to obscure stages in the life-cycle of the salmon; on the minus side, nothing for the geek in me.

    No COD for me, but my least-liked clues were THORN and OPERATIVE – the latter because apostrophised mockney clues halways hirritates me (sorry, setter).

    I am in a grumpy mood, as you may have deduced. Today’s customers were an endless and irritating shambles of mundane injuries.

    1. Hint: what is just about the first thing you learn in Spanish class?

       Answer: ¿Cómo se llama Ud.?

       Edited at 2014-10-14 11:36 pm (UTC)

       1. Sadly, I never took Spanish. I would have guessed it means “how is your llama?”
       2. Dos cervezas por favor.

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