Times 25937 – people, places and things

64 comments on “Times 25937 – people, places and things”

1. 26 minutes with the SE and the unfamiliar SISKIN last to fall, and TAWSE the only other ‘scarcely remembered’.

   Re the question at 1a, even if I were to read the book or watch the 30s film, I don’t imagine anything could knock Michelle Pfeiffer off her perch. Speaking of birds – and GARCONS – Westlife’s video of their cover of Billy Joel’s ‘Uptown girl’ (starring Tim McInnerney among others)features the toothsome Claudia Schiffer.

   1. You’re on fire this week U. Been tested for monkey glands?
      1. I’ve been skittish ever since I foolishly included three days in Melbourne as part of my Antipodean tour in January. Still scarred from the fist time I visited and the bloke in the bar where I ordered a “pint of beer” screamed to the regulars “This Pom just ordered a PINT of beer!”
2. Forgot to turn it on. But no great difficulties.

   Liked the (sorta) local reference at 17dn. I was there for about 24 hours on December 13th 1975, having worked for the ALP on the (sadly) lost election following the coup against the great Gough Whitlam (RIP).

   Edited at 2014-11-06 05:28 am (UTC)

   1. RIP indeed. Thought yesterday’s memorial service was brilliant. Some of the speeches would bring a tear to a glass eye.
      1. Did either of you see the obituary in ‘The Economist’? An interesting “both sides” view.
         1. “Both sides”? I must have missed one.
3. ‘Scarface’ was Al Capone’s nickname, although I imagine it wasn’t used much in his presence.
4. I, too, had memory issues with TAWSE and SISKIN, although with TAWSE I first spotted the initial letter thing then remembered. DNK SKIN=skinhead. LOI ROWER, where I couldn’t see a connection between rowing and fighting–just twigged now, in fact–or where the RE came in, and where ‘rowdy’ offered itself; it took BATHURST to settle that for me.COD maybe to SCRAMBLER.
   1. I had no trouble remembering “TAWSE”, in commom with most who went to school in Scotland in the 50s and 60s. Some nice surfaces here, in a nicely balanced crossword -viz- one I was able to finish without aids. Gehenna vaguely remembered.

      Edited at 2014-11-07 06:52 am (UTC)

5. But had to cheat for the unknown GEHENNA. Really must get around to reading that Hebrew bible one day. Or not.
   1. I’ve done it; I’d go with not.
6. 28 minutes. There were a couple here that have caught me out in the past but not this time i.e. SISKIN and GEHENNA. My only unknown was BATHURST but the wordplay and checkers left no room for doubt.

   Unless I’ve misunderstood what’s going on at 9dn there’s no enclosure/hidden indicator in the usual sense as ‘shrink’ suggests rather a sort of withering away, more like it’s an instruction to delete.

   Edited at 2014-11-06 07:01 am (UTC)

   1. I only knew this place from crosswords – one ST: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/793250.html, and one daily a month later: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/806821.html
      1. Great town. Home of Ben Chifley, the Bathurst 500 and my brother’s alma mater. And just a few hour’s drive from Steak n Kidney!
         1. Good to see the early settlers took their CRS with them.
            1. Better known here as Old Jack Lang.

               BTW, thanks for not mentioning the misplaced apostrophe. Can’t change it now that you’ve replied to my post, so I’ll just have to live with the shame.

               1. Or is the apostrophe correct? A drive of a few hours… most definitely the possessive… I think?
                  Rob

                  Beaten by GEHENNA (never heard of) & GEORGIE; SISKIN a guess. The rest fairly straightforward 23 mins.

                  1. Should be hours’ I think Rob.
      2. Oh well, at least I didn’t blog them – in fact I didn’t even comment on the ST puzzle which is a very rare event (or non-event). There a ubiquitous actor called Robert Bathurst who at least makes the name sound familiar. Hopefully I shall remember the town now.
         1. I grew up not too far from the Bathurst estate in Glos, home of the Earl of Bathurst. The original earl was “known for his wit and learning”, so presumably residents of Australia’s Bathurst are an impressively erudite and bookish bunch.
            1. Yes, that’s how I knew BATHURST – I used to live in Bishops Cleeve many years ago
               1. I know BC very well, jimbo. I was there just recently. Feels very different, especially now Smiths Industries is no more. Now GE Aviation.
                  1. That’s how I twigged Bathurst too. My parents lived in Ashton Keynes and my cousins in Coates so that rather impressive entrance to the estate, just outside Cirencester, was very familiar.
                     1. This is all making me very nostalgic. I’m now longing to go and sit in a window seat at the Bathurst Arms and sup a glass of cider. Mind you, it’s probably a gastropub by now.
                        1. I was in BC at the end of the 1960s. 20 years later I went back to show my wife the place and to have a pint in an old pub called the Apple Tree in a small place called Woodmancote at the foot of Cleeve Hill

                           What I remembered as a hamlet with a shop and the pub had become a huge housing estate – dormatory to Cheltenham. The pub was still there but was no longer a place I wished to frequent – such is progress!

                           1. Oh my goodness – Woodmancote. A colleague of my father’s called Anthony Murray who was an exceptionally good cook lived there. His Sunday lunches were spectacular and his son was rather good-looking…. What a shame about the pub.
                        2. “Set in the picturesque village of North Cerney right on the edge of the River Churn, the Bathurst Arms offers the intimacy of a traditional Inn, combined with the high standards of food, wine and accommodation, expected by today’s discerning traveller.”

                           Yep.

                           1. Oh dear. But thank you. I shall show how discerning I am by not going back.
         2. It was only familiar to me from Robert Bathurst. I mainly remember him for Cold Feet.
7. Tiffin? Niff? Bathurst? God help me, I’m an American. But I was thrown on parsing “La Mer” by thinking of the Charles Trenet classic, a “big hit” in its day, which I just sang at my karaoke club a couple hours ago.
   1. I thought of Debussy, but would much prefer to have thought of Charles Trenet. Your Nom de Guerre suggests you’d be a natural for that iconic voice.
      1. I was trying (and failing) to remember exactly when the Trenet song came up fairly recently. There was some discussion, either here or on the Forum about the Bobby Darin/Kevin Spacey version too.
8. 
   About 30mins, but I was mombled with a Wrong Letter: gehanna.

   SE corner was most tricky, with the u/ks BATHURST, TAWSE and GEHENNA all criss crossing. Oh, and I took some time (often the way with foreign words) to get GARCON, despite having taken a French degree many years ago.

   1. I thought I was all correct until I read your post, but now I see I was another GEHANNA.

      Other than that, 24 minutes most of which was spent on the bottom half.

9. 17.42 today, with the thought that paper would have been quicker, though I haven’t worked out a way of doing a direct comparison. The right hand fringe in French and Strine were my last pair, but I remembered the latter from my struggle with the much harder ST clue from nearly 3 years ago.

   Edited at 2014-11-06 08:18 am (UTC)

10. 23 minutes. I find I’m still allergic to the phrase of 6 dn. after the ‘Titanic’ film director yelled it at the Oscars. Neat clues, nothing arresting.
11. 12:33.. main hold-ups were of the self-inflicted variety (like throwing in ‘pilferage’, just because it’s appeared quite a lot in recent times).
12. Very straightforward 20 minutes today with no queries or hold ups or stand out clues. Words like CINNA crop up so often that they become a knee jerk reaction after a while.
13. 18 minutes so in the middle of the peloton today. Jim has already made my observation about CINNA – I wonder how many times Tony Sever has encountered him over the years? SCARFACE, TIFFIN and GEHENNA also contributed to a rather period feel. Nice to see a skin as an example of errant youth though, instead of the customary ted. With an initial B, a terminal T and a skimpy knowledge of Australian toponyms I put in BALLARAT and spent a while trying to parse it, forgetting that I had once been given a parking ticket in BATHURST and my grandfather had for a time been the Earl’s head gardener.
    1. Ever since Jimbo began wearing that hat, setters are too scared to clue delinquents as Teds.
    2. >…
       >CINNA – I wonder how many times Tony Sever has encountered him over the years?

       I’ve lost count. I first came across him at school (Julius Caesar was a popular play at Dotheboys), which set me up for the many times I’ve encountered him in crosswords over the years.

14. A quarter of an hour; helped by knowing Kipling’s The Winners:

    Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
    He travels the fastest who travels alone.

    Forgot about Debussy and thought only of Charles Trenet at 22; always liked his songs, particularly La Mer and L’Âme des poètes (which features an early synthesizer, the Ondioline).

15. 12 mins. I wasn’t 100% sure about BATHURST but the wordplay made it seem the most obvious answer. I was held up a little by the SCRAMBLER/LA MER crossers, and then GEHENNA was my LOI after GEORGIE. After growing up on Merseyside I had no problem with remembering SKIN=skinhead.

    Because of an imminent house move followed a trip to the US this will be the last puzzle I comment on until the early part of December. I hope I don’t miss anything controversial, and it’s a shame I won’t be able to put in my twopenn’orth about last Saturday’s prize puzzle.

    1. If you want to message me through LJ with your twopenn’orth, I’ll be happy to post it on your behalf (if I remember). Good luck with the house move … they usually go nice and smoothly (just remember to pack the cat and the strong liquor last).
       1. Thanks for the offer Sotira but I’m running out of time, and I’ve now thrown away the puzzle with my notes. I remember it was very tricky and there was the cluing error, but I’m not giving anything away by saying that because it has already been mentioned earlier in the week.
16. Back to my more usual 60 minutes or so today, and didn’t get Bathurst to boot. I also parsed GEHENNA differently, with GENA around HE and N for note, although I see that the round isn’t quite as rounded in my version.

    I only vaguely remembered SISKIN but put it in from the wordplay, and spelled CINNA wrong initially, going for a Y instead of the I. I also didn’t know TENT for red wine, but what else could the answer be?

    All-in-all, I was glad to complete as much as I did. Thanks blogger for filling in the gaps.

    1. TR, tent for wine is a bit of a chestnut so is worth remembering.
17. A rare sub-20 for me at 18.13 and all correct even GEHENNA which I parsed as GENA around HE and N and no reversal in sight! My stroke of luck for the day. I was watching a family of siskins feeding on the well stocked feeders at the very pleasant cafe near Low Force on the River Tees in Co Durham in July. Beautiful little creatures that I had never seen close to before.

    Edited at 2014-11-06 12:44 pm (UTC)

18. A rather sprightly 9:30 with all of the top left unusually filling itself from the off. My main delay was deciding on the correct middle letter for Gehenna. One of those art experts would be able to discover layer after layer of As and Es alternately overpainted.

    Cinna and Bathurst only known from crosswords, tawse from wordplay.

    George, an oast house (two words) would be found on a hop farm rather than near the brewery.

19. 9:04 with the teensiest application of Tippex. Not only did I remember CINNA from O Level English, but I think he is Crosswordland’s conspirator of the month as he turned up somewhere else recently. Don’t ask me where – I solve far too many cryptic crosswords to remember that.
    1. It was in the most recent Jumbo Sue – I only just got around to it yesterday.
20. Tripped up by guessing GIHENNA… Have been through BATHURST, but couldn’t parse it – clueing THURS by ’24 hours’ seems pretty average to me
21. 16m. I’ve been away in remotest Scotland so unable to solve or comment for the last few days, and I felt strangely out of practice on this.
    A few things in here that I’m sure I’ve come across before but wouldn’t have remembered without wordplay: GEHENNA, LA MER, SISKIN, TAWSE.
    I didn’t know BATHURST as a town in Australia, a village in the Cotswolds, a pub or an earl. Fortunately I knew it as a street in Toronto, so it looked OK.
22. 35 minutes to be all done (GEORGIE almost LOI) except G-H-N-A, which required the use of an aid to discover; have now read the Wiki article and will remember it next time. I firmly believe it doesn’t exist (the hellish after-death place, not the ancient Hebrew valley near Jerusalem).
23. 20 minutes, ending with the crossing BATHURST/GEHENNA. Nothing really outstanding, but I hadn’t known of the TAWSE before, so a bit of education there. Regards.
    1. I may have bored the group before, but TAWSE and education do not sit well with me and my boarding school life in the early 60s. At least I knew what it was.

       Otherwise, an enjoyable 27 minutes of iPad playing.

24. I knew SISKIN was a word but had no idea of its meaning. Guessable though. Apart from that no real problems although I never knew a SYCAMORE was a maple. I learn a lot from this crossword. 24 minutes. Ann
25. Managed to break the hour for this one but was doing other things at the time so perhaps could have shaved a few minutes off. Enjoying the discussion about Bathurst as I play squash with a chap who recently told me that he used to live there. I was aware of the name as I went on holiday to The Gambia recently and discovered that the former name of its capital Banjul, was Bathurst. I googled it a couple of weeks ago and discovered that it was named after Henry Bathurst, the secretary of the British Colonial Office. Remembered Cinna from a recent crossword and Tawse was a vague recollection from somewhere. Also DNK tent as a wine despite drinking a considerable amount of the stuff. Considered the made up Importion for a while and I haven’t even opened a bottle yet!
26. 32 minutes here, with LOI being PANTO, unparsed (I was trying to parse it in terms of “pants” meaning “rubbish”, and failed). CoD RESERVE, because it’s succinct, but I suspect it’s come up before. Never heard of “Tent” as a wine, and had only half heard of CINNA, BATHURST and GEHENNA, though all were fairly clear from the wordplay.

    For some reason, it took me a long time to get into this one – my first 15 minutes gave me just three answers. But then something must have clicked into gear because it was relatively quick after that.

    My sympathies to guy_du_sable over being American – this one did have a few peculiarly English phrases. But stick with it – there’s only a reed-layer’s fistful of English phrases that appear more than once in a castler’s moon. Once you get the hang of them you’ll be solving like a thurrock’s chatterknock.

    One question: what is this “Club Timer” of which our esteemed blogger speaks? Not that I’m ever likely to feature in any but the lowest percentile…

    1. Hi thud, if you have any kind of online subscription to The Times you can solve via the Crossword Club website –https://www.crosswordclub.co.uk. If you solve online, rather than printing the puzzle, your solving time is automatically indicated. If you choose, you can then submit your solution to the Club Leaderboard (which you’ll often hear referred to on these pages) which gives you both instant notification of any errors you’ve made and a chance to see how your time compares to others’. It’s a good motivator, even if you’re not bothered about the competitive side of things. You soon find yourself recognising the names of a few solvers of similar strength to yourself (or a bit stronger) and can take a bit of satisfaction on those days when you manage to overhaul someone who’s usually a bit ahead of you.

       Edited at 2014-11-06 08:59 pm (UTC)

       1. Ah! That all makes sense. I do solve online, and use the timer there, but I never submit with the Leaderboard. Perhaps I should start.

          Thanks!

27. Stopped for tiffin half way through then returned to xword.
28. 11:36 for me, feeling tired after a busy day. Like malcj I wanted 17dn to be BALLARAT, and was a bit worried when STOPWATCH ruled it out, as my knowledge of Aussie towns is sadly limited – but luckily I was familiar with BATHURST (though perhaps only because I’ve met it in crosswords).

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