Times 25961 – so were you half of 20 or a 13?

41 comments on “Times 25961 – so were you half of 20 or a 13?”

1. Lots of time in the top left with TUBA, MITE and TIME-WASTER not quite making it until the very end. Loved the hippo clue. No worries with WINKLE-PICKER. Threre are still one patent leather and two suede pairs in my wardrobe.

   Edited at 2014-12-04 01:58 am (UTC)

2. …although I didn’t have a clue about the cryptics for ‘time waster’ and ‘all-consuming’. It’s lucky they don’t ask how you got the answers. I think we just had ‘cosec’ recently, or maybe in a Guardian puzzle, with a similar clue.

   I always think of ‘Louisiana Rain’ whenever I see Baton Rouge. It is not really that good a song, but it is catchy.

   George, you have left out the ‘g’ for ‘good’ in your explication of ‘stem ginger’.

3. First in was 23dn, so not off to a roaring start, but I completed a little over three-quarters of the grid in fairly good time for me. But then I ground to a halt with several gaps in the NW quarter and spent as long again on TIME-WASTER, TUBA, MITE, ENGENDERS and BATON ROUGE.

   Didn’t know CLEVER-CLEVER until a few puzzles back, but knew it immediately this time round.

4. I always mix up sweetbread and sweetmeat (just as well I wasn’t manning the deli the day Hannibal Lecter came in), not least because I don’t know what either means – at least, until I look it up in the dictionary the next time.

   24 minutes for this, helped by the fact we’ve had both COSEC and CLEVER-CLEVER recently.

5. Today is Dim Thursday, evidently, and I celebrated by failing to see just about anything until much later. I mean, how many state capitals are made up of 2 5-letter words? I ask you. I had the PICKER early on, took forever to come up with the WINKLE. I don’t think I knew RIVER HORSE as an English expression, although I knew it translated ‘hippopotamus’. Like the others above, I was helped by the recency of COSEC & CLEVER-CLEVER; ditto for STEM GINGER.
6. My third or fourth best time I think, but it doesn’t count. With just E_E_T remaining and a fast time (for me) looming I saw “put up” and “head of state” and bunged in ELECT without parsing. Oh well.

   STEM GINGER, WINKLE-PICKER and CLEVER-CLEVER might have been more difficult before I began to learn crosswordese, as I haven’t encountered them elsewhere.

   Enjoyable crossword. Thanks setter and blogger.

7. 
   … so a quick one for me today, and all parsed too! A relief after several that I’ve found a bit tricksy… thought I was losing whatever crossword mojo I may have once had…

8. 23 minutes with no major holdups.

   Haven’t winkle pickers been back in fashion? I’ve certainly noticed men’s shoes getting pointier. Maybe not pointy enough to class as winkle pickers.

9. Very pleasing solve. Winkle pickers remained resolutely in fashion with me into the 80s, but I may well have been out of (pointy) step with everyone else. As regards this puzzle, however, I was bang on trend and positively zipped through in what seems like my first sub-ten for ages. Unsurprisingly, I definitely approve of this setter.
10. 14.54, might have been quicker had I not spent all night in hospital with my grandson, who is rather mysteriously ill. Rather glad it wasn’t my blogging week, as I would only just have been writing it up (between dozes) about now.
    I liked ALL CONSUMING precisely because it was a different way of doing things, but there were certainly many clues amongst the longer ones where the splits were a big help.
    Nonetheless TIME WASTER my last in, looking for a game, or possibly game in the huntin’ shootin’ fishin’ limpin’ senses, with no idea how the wordplay might work.
    1. Hope the grandson is doing ok Z. We had a similar experience a couple of weekends ago with our 3 1/2 year-old grandson and quite exhausting and unnerving it was. I snatched up an old book of Telegraph Toughies to pass the time and ease anxiety. No trouble with this one and found it very nice. 12.50
    2. Best wishes for the young fella Z.
       1. And so say all of us, I’m sure.
          1. Thanks all – looks like it’s going to be a bit of a long haul, so I really appreciate your good wishes
             1. Ah. Let us know.
    3. Who cares about crosswords? Hope for better news.
11. About 23 minutes today.

    WINKLE-PICKERs bring to mind Bernard Cribbins’s comic song “I’ve got those wish I’d never bought these flipping winkle picker shoes blues”. (It can be found on You Tube as “Winkle Picker Shoes Blues”)

    Trigonometric functions have been popular recently; I wonder if compilers will venture into hyperbolic functions: there could be fun to be had with cosh, sinh and tanh.

    1. You put me in mind of another song from the ill fitting shoe genre, Half Man Half Biscuit’s ‘David Wainwright’s Feet’:

       I remember clearly how it all began
       I was in the precinct, shopping with my Nan
       Saw the latest trainers and pestered like a fly
       They didn’t have my size but I still got them and that’s why

       Corns and blisters
       Bunions and warts
       David Wainwright’s all out of sorts…

       1. Then there’s the old “You picked a fine time to leave me loose heel”.
          1. Intrigued, I Googled this and found a parody of the Kenny Rogers song here. Worth sharing, I thought: http://youtu.be/vdhxulLH5iI
          2. For years I thought she left him with four hundred children and a crop in the field.
12. Inside the hour – just! which is OK for me. I enjoyed this and got off with a flying start with 24 and 25 my first ones in, meaning the south got completed well before the north.

    I don’t know about being half of 20 or a 13, but looking at some of the times given above, I’d say I was a bit of a 24. Having been incommunicado for a while, it is nice to come back with a relatively gentle puzzle which is much more aimed at my limited abilities than other recent ones.

13. Agreed, an easy one completed in a 15 minute canter with no hold ups

    As to WINKLE PICKER my grandfather used to sit at the table listening to the radio with a huge pile of winkles and a pin-like device that he used to extract the winkle from its shell before eating it with plenty of salt and vinegar. I prefer whelks myself.

14. 9 mins so definitely on the setter’s wavelength. I correctly completed the previous three but all were done late in the evening and I was falling asleep as I was doing them so no times were recorded. This was the first one I’ve done at my preferred time of day since I came back, and it’s probably no coincidence that last night I had my best sleep since Friday. As far as this puzzle is concerned I enjoyed it, and SPACE CADET was my LOI after PHOSPHATE and TUTU. For some reason, and I’m probably way off base with this, I thought of Jimbo when I got WINKLE-PICKER.
    1. You’re confusing brothel creepers with winkle pickers Andy

       In the 1950s Teddy Boys wore brothel creepers – which were very comfortable. Winkle-Pickers were I recall a bit later – 1960s say – and were worn by both men and women – and were the exact opposite!

15. 25’38. Had a pair of winkle-pickers about 50 years ago – haven’t thought of them since. Possibly the one solitary concession to fashion in my life.
16. A pleasant start to the day. Like Jimbo, I prefer whelks to winkles. Same action with a pin/spike/minifork but more food for your efforts.

    Hope that all is well with your grandson z8

    1. Or you can adopt the more direct Blackpool method:

       “When you’re eating winkles
       And the pins are few,
       Smash ’em with a hammer
       Like the Big Pots do.”

       Like The Big Pots Do
       George Formby 1938

       1. If you want a chuckle, and plenty of double-entendres, try Googling ‘The Winkle Song’ – from the old Music Hall days I believe.
17. I’ve been away in London for a couple of days, (so I am just about to print off todays’s crossword, and trying do this note without looking at the rest of the blog!) and meantime the Turkey is now fully basted and starting to cook. There is an update (click on the link, top right of this page) but in summary, we are fully staffed now, clues are starting to trickle in, and the crossword will be launched upon an unsuspecting world on Monday 15 Dec.
    Anyone who has emailed me yesterday or today will get a reply today
18. 10:46 and most enjoyable. I also found it very even insofar as each clue required a little, but not too much, thought (with the possible exception of a couple of the short’uns which were write-ins).

    I’m not normally squeamish about food but whelks just don’t look like something you should be putting in your mouth.

    1. I’m surprised at you being so squeemish Penfold given some of the stuff you northern guys eat.

       The real mark of a genuine cockney is to eat a bowl of eels at Tubby Isaacs in Whitechapel (now sadly closed) but failing eels a plate of cockles or winkles or whelks will do!

19. Today’s was entertaining and do-able for me.
    With the down checkers in place 15 across could only be PHOSPHATE, so in it went. Would a kind soul explain how PH is a pub?

    Certainly not one I’ve ever drunk in.

    Enigma

    1. Public House, as used in Ordnance Survey maps.
       1. Doesn’t appear in any of the on-line dictionaries or in my Chambers or Oxford apps.
          Harumph.
          Grumpy in Perth, aka Rob. 34:08, so unlike everyone else took me longer than normal.
20. Starting with BATON ROUGE then PULL TOGETHER, ending with ERECT just because it was small and not filled in before; a steady solve in 30 minutes, no problem with PH as on maps, a pleasing 6 on my Moh’s Scale of hardness. Having been to Italy fairly recently I can report that shiny winkle-pickers are not yet obselete.
21. Loved this one! My first under-30 minute effort.
    1. Congratulations! A satisfying milestone to reach.
22. About 30 minutes, held up mostly by the crossing TIME-WASTER and WINKLE-PICKER. I forget precisely what the pointy shoe style was called over here but it had something to do with being able to step on an insect in the corner of a room. It certainly wasn’t winkle-picker, and it took a while to see the red and white wine. Follow the wordplay, indeed. Regards.
23. 11:15 for me – tired (yet again!) and never really finding the setter’s wavelength. I must have seen clues like 12ac (ALL-CONSUMING) before, but the penny refused to drop and I had to resort to working through the alphabet searching for a suitable 7th letter. (F for ALL-CONFUSING would have been more appropriate!)
24. Nothing to add except appreciation.Off to bed now.

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