Times 26128 – now we are five?

38 comments on “Times 26128 – now we are five?”

1. This all went in quite smoothly, although I’d never come across DOOBRY (under any spelling) before. And fortunately I remembered ‘porridge’ from an earlier cryptic or two. Had ‘snare drum’ at first, for no reason other than ‘snare’ fit; but reason soon prevailed. I’d always taken ‘plangent’ to mean ‘loud, strident’–which, I’m relieved to see, it can–but having ‘plan’ made this one pretty easy, too. At the time, THETA seemed to be as George has it, but then isn’t ETA doing double duty as part of the wordplay and the definition? Or is that an &lit? I can never remember what those are. LOI ELOPE, where once again I was slow to spot the hidden.
2. Expected more than one ref (25ac) to the events of this day in 1815. Our cousins elsewhere managed a few more, in fact a semi-theme.

   Pretty sure that 6dn is &lit, all three clue parts signalling the same answer and making up a component of it. I also thought “double duty” until I realised that theta is the 8th in the Greek alphabet.

   As for 13ac (ALPHABETICALLY), I had no idea where to go until I had a few crossers. George to note: all six words in the clue are in alpha order.

   LOI: DOOBRY … totally unknown to me.

   Edited at 2015-06-18 05:14 am (UTC)

3. Several unknowns and semi-knowns, never heard of a DOOBRY, but pretty straightforward cluing.

   Thanks setter and blogger.

4. 44 minutes but strictly speaking it was a DNF as I was unable to solve 5dn until I had checked 1ac and discovered my answer CAVE CANIS was incorrect.DK MALAYALAM but worked it out and enjoyed the unusual palindrome indicator.
   1. Let me pre-empt Jerry and say that I’m pretty sure this was the language that I’d commented on a while back, prompting Vinyl to refer to a previous puzzle where I hadn’t; so if I’ve got the right language, this is no. 3! (If not, maybe George could edit me out of here.)
5. 22 minutes and pretty straightforward for me as these things go.
   I can’t say I’ve ever seen DOOBRY in print so I wouldn’t know if it had an “E” in it or not. Since it’s one of these slang neologisms (can a word 60 years old be a neologism?), I suppose you can spell it how you like.
   A bit unusual to have the same word twice crossing itself (WHERE).
   Thanks for pointing out the craftiness of 13a – obvious really once you see it. Which I didn’t.
6. 14:13 … where would be without setters prepared to put that much work into a clue like THETA, which I’m sure many of us solved from checkers and reverse-engineered later? Chambers offers five other words for T_E_A, but I don’t recall seeing any of them in a daily puzzle … yet.

   For anyone unfamiliar with DOOBRY, it’s the same as a doohickey though often slightly larger.

   1. Have you seen it before as DOOBRY sotira? More usual “doobrey” or “doobrie” and Chambers doesn’t support the spelling in the puzzle – probably Collins does?
      1. I have seen it before, jimbo, but only in my head.

         Fortunately, Collins has: doobry or doobrey
         noun
         (plural) -ries, -reys
         (informal) an unidentified or unnamed object

   2. Personally I think of a DOOBRY as more like a whatsit than a doohickey, even allowing for the size distinction. A doohickey is technically more like a jobbie (the first meaning in Collins, mind!), but to avoid all ambiguity I favour watchamacallit.
      1. I would certainly like to hear Prof. Hawkins’ views on this. He’s very good on .. oh, you know, whatnots and stuff.
      2. I’ve heard of DOOBRIES before, but don’t recall having seen one in print hitherto. I think they’re something like thingies, but more flexible.
7. 35mins here, ending with the unknown PLANGENCY. Felt harder than it was.
8. Reasonably straightforward progress down and across the grid. Like others didn’t bother to parse the over complex THETA just put it in from checkers and “greek character”.

   After all that silly nonsense over Delyth today the Times misses an opportunity to theme the puzzle with a turning point in European history. Do not understand what goes on in this crossword editor’s head.

   1. Exactly what I said at #2 above and agree wholeheartedly. (Though there is a Napoleon in one clue.) As noted, there’s a suitably themed puzzled in the other place.
      1. Apologies Alec – meant to say I agreed with you but forgot by the time I came to post the comment!
   2. Aw, where’s your romance, Jimbo?
9. 10:23, but with CAVE CANUM. This is particularly irritating as I took care to work out the wordplay, knowing that my non-existent Latin was likely to trip me up. Unfortunately said non-existent Latin took over my typing fingers and then stayed on duty to prevent me spotting the error when checking my answers.
   Pfft.
10. 20 mins. Nice puzzle.
11. 18 mins. A biffed MALAYALAM was my LOI after THERMAL/ENGAGED/GROWL. I had thought of it a fair bit earlier but wanted all the checkers just to make sure. I definitely should have seen the palindrome indicator. Eejit. Even though 25ac was the only nod to today’s anniversary I thought it was an excellent clue.
12. This spelling is in Collins and ODO.
13. Anyone know of the nuances between a doobry and a doodah?
    1. A question for the Camptown ladies I believe.
       1. One of those occasions where I feel the absence of a “Like!” button on this site.
14. 20:36 which is quite fast for me, so it can’t have been too hard. I don’t know my greek alphabet well enough to know theta is the 8th letter. 6d finally makes sense to me. Like others, I thought DOOBRY had an e in it. I liked the doggy menace at 1a.
15. 25:46. I thought this continued a recent run of harder than average puzzles, which is a good thing in my opinion.

    Don’t think I’ve ever seen DOOBRY written down before, though I’ve heard it said often enough, often qualified with WHATSIT. As in, “What’s that thingummyjig called? You know, the doobry whatsit”.

    1. Aargh, forgot to log in again.
16. I kept nodding off, so a rather slow solve in 45 minutes. At one point I came to a complete halt, but getting 17 got things going again. A bit different from yesterday’s sprint.
17. I think a doobry is the same as a thingummybob, as in the Gracie Fields song:

    “It’s a ticklish sort of job making a thing for a thing-ummy-bob
    Especially when you don’t know what it’s for
    But it’s the girl that makes the thing that drills the hole
    that holds the spring that works the thing-ummy-bob
    that makes the engines roar.

    And it’s the girl that makes the thing that holds the oil
    that oils the ring that works the thing-ummy-bob
    that’s going to win the war.”

18. Eighth letter The T add a makes eight Greek letter ?
19. 23 mins with, surprisingly for a classicist, 1ac being my LOI having misread it as 5,4 and thus tried to think of a phrase starting with “civic”.
20. I sympathise with our blogmeister today having had five errors, all typos, in one puzzle a couple of days ago. I took 17.20 for this over two widely space sessions (desperately racing to ready the house for kitchen conversion starting on Saturday with destruction of the old one).
    The two long ones caused much grief: I had ALPHAPETICISED for one and an improbable VALENTINE PARTY (so nearly an anagram) for the other. I suspect only the quotation marks will save our setter from a Sir Tim Hunt (no, not CRS) situation. Holiday indeed!
    The Napoleon clue was weird. Wouldn’t he have said bon dieu…? Mind you, there was that unfortunate incident with his cough and 1,200 Turkish prisoners, so maybe he wasn’t as clear as all that.
    1. >…
       >The Napoleon clue was weird. Wouldn’t he have said bon dieu…?

       He would if he was saying “Good Lord”; but if he was just saying “Good”, he’d have left it at “bon”.

21. bout 25 minutes for this, ending with a big question mark after entering DOOBRY. No controversy from me over how to spell it, as I’ve never seen or heard of it before today. Only problem today: my confidently entered first one in at 9A, LOYAL (hidden) accompanied by my inner thought, “well it must mean that as well as courage over there”, had to be almost immediately discarded. No tippex here, I just write over my mistakes. Regards.
    1. Confidently entered STEEL for 9, which even now I think is a much better fit for BOTTLE than is BRASS (=cheekiness, not courage).
       Sub 20, so easyish.
       Rob
22. About 30m so an average puzzle for me. No problem with DOOBRY which was always followed by ‘firkin’ when used by he old electrical engineer I worked with for one long glorious summer in 1978. His ‘pass me the DOOBRY firkin’ has been a stock phrase in the household ever since!
23. 9:39 here for a pleasant, straightforward puzzle.

    As someone who’s not keen on themed puzzles, I reckon that 25ac (nice clue, BTW) was ample commemoration.

24. Thirty-three minutes with BONGO DRUM my LOI, though it should have been quicker. I never did get around to parsing THETA (it seemed a bit messy, but had to be right), and didn’t get the palindrome pointer for MALAYALAM.

    As for DOOBRY, it’s common enough in British English (or at least in English English), though it seems to have fallen out of use recently.

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