Times 26344 – one for the birds

Solving time : 11:53, but the club timer told me I had an incorrect entry. I went back through the grid and didn’t see any typos, so I looked up the one answer I guessed through wordplay. Sure enough, the wordplay guess was close, but no cigar!

A few unusual words today, and one where there are a few alternative spellings that would fit the checking letters, so I have a feeling I won’t be the only one with one incorrect entry.

Away we go…

Across
1 CAMBRIAN: CAM(eccentric), BRIAN(chap). Got this from the definition, had to look up CAM later to verrify irregular/eccentric
6 GALLOP: G(oing),A(way) then POLL reversed
9 DAIL: DAILY missing the last letter, Irish legislature. Apologies for omitting this initially
10 BONDI BEACH: BOND(agent), 1, B(oosting), EACH
11 CHANGEABLE: CHANGE, then B in ALE
13 BYRD: or BY RD
14 REVENGER: V in (GREENER)*
16 ENDIVE: I’VE after END
18 A,TRIAL
20 TREE FERN: REEFER in T(his), N
22 ER,GO
24 CHANDELIER: HANDEL,I in CE, then R
26 MINISERIES: MISERIES(people who moan) around IN
28 AFRO: A(dhered) and then FRO(opposite of TO)
29 SOUGHT: sounds like SORT(type)
30 PROTEGEE: PE,(nurs)E containing ROT,EG
 
Down
2 ABASHMENT: A(bou)T containing BASH,MEN
3 BALANCE: double definition
4 IMBUE: I.E. surrounding M.B., U
5 NAN: N(name), A, N. Can be spelled with one or two A’s, feel free to squeeze two into the middle cell
6 GUINEVERE: EVER in GUINE(a) – potential trap for those not watching the wordplay
7 LIE-ABED: LIED surrounding A, B and E which could be musical keys
8 OSCAR: OS(large), CAR(estate). A touch of definition by example, indicated by the question mark but obvious from the definition
12 BIRETTA: (RAT,BITE)*
15 GOLDCREST: This was my downfall, thinking it was two different words for breather separated by C, I entered GILLCREST. There is a breather (REST) under C(cape), but it’s GOLD(or) above
17 VERTEBRAE: VERT,BRAE containing the third letter of PREHISTORIC
19 IRONING: I, RING(group) containing ON
21 FOLIAGE: F(eeling), O(verwhelmed) then E, GAIL reversed
23 RHINO: RHO containing IN
25 DISCO: hidden in leaD IS COnservative
27 IMP: I then PM(leader) reversed

52 comments on “Times 26344 – one for the birds”

  1. … as yesterday: medium slow. Really liked the two devices in 28ac and 15dn: “to? The opposite” and “or above”.

    Edited at 2016-02-25 03:22 am (UTC)

  2. 22 minutes with a typo. Sorry, Guinevere!

    Lat in PROTEGEE after I finally twigged the hidden DISCO. Nice stuff.

  3. I’d like to nominate myself for dopiest answer of 2016 so far. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the well-known composer BYRY, who travelled by rail in Tudor times from London to Lincoln. Express, no doubt, there can’t have been many stations back then.

    To make it worse, I knew of BYRD, admittedly only through crosswords.

    Also had the less-dopey but still wrong GILLCREST, for the same reason as the blogger. One of those days I guess. One of those weeks in fact.

    Thanks setter and George.

    1. I’m not ashamed to say I considered BYMI (despite Lincoln’s distance from the M1), but fortunately even my oft-addled brain couldn’t suspect that of being a well-known composer.

      Edited at 2016-02-25 11:29 am (UTC)

  4. Biffed rather a few, like 1ac and 10ac. 6d surprised me as it seemed to scream out ‘Biff me!’ DNK ‘miseries’, DNL (did not like) 20ac, but then I wouldn’t, would I? Like Mctext, I liked 28ac and 15d; I’d call 15 my COD.
    1. I got there in the wrong way via M. Thatcher’s “moaning minnies and weary willies”, or whatever it was she said.
  5. I thought this was going really well and I completed all but 1,2,3,9 and 18 within 20 minutes but then hit a brick wall. After 10 or so minutes in the doldrums I looked up the unknown ‘pre-Ordovician’ hoping it would give me a gentle hint to help me on my way but unfortunately it provided the actual answer and having cleared that mental block the remaining words were write-ins.

    Edited at 2016-02-25 05:52 am (UTC)

    1. I wondered why Wales specifically. Then ODO told me:

      ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from Ordovices, the Latin name of an ancient British tribe in North Wales, + -ian.

      Edited at 2016-02-25 06:07 am (UTC)

  6. Reasonably gentle, though I was held up by BALANCE and CAMBRIAN, my LOI. I liked TREE-FERN and AFRO – original wordplay for a fairly common answer for ‘hairstyle’.

    Thank you to setter and blogger

  7. Whizzed through this but hit the buffers with 19a for an eventual 30-minuter.
    I had the actual answer early on, but spent an inordinate amount of time trying to fit the medical ATRIAL and the legal COURT with the clue (chambers -> inns of court?) After going through the alphabet to ensure there weren’t any other words that could fit I eventually plumped for it. Only afterwards did I twig the other meaning of court.
    Not keen on two random names in the clues: Brian and Gail, but at least I could biff the answer first.
  8. 14:27 … much more my thing today. By a happy coincidence I looked up goldcrests in my RSPB bok of birds just yesterday when I thought I saw one in the garden (turned out to be a goldfinch — I’m hopeless on the little ones). Had a giggle at ERGO and appreciated the misdirection in DISCO. Thanks be to the setter and George.
  9. 19:13 on treeware for a change. Like mctext, I got to 26ac via moaning Minnie’s. Overall, a slightly odd puzzle. After all, there can only be one answer to Arthur’s wife, regardless of the rest of the clue. Ditto a 4-letter Tudor composer. Thanks for the blog, George.
  10. 15m, of which fully 5 staring at 26ac. There is something about this word: I seem to struggle with it every time it comes up.
    No problems other than that. I didn’t know CAMBRIAN but it was easy enough from checkers and wordplay, and misreading 6dn as ‘author’s wife’ deprived me of an easy biff.
    1. I’m afraid it looks as though you’re suffering from “vocalophobia”, a condition I’ve written about here. There is no known cure; indeed if anything it gets worse as you get older.
  11. 15min = LOI 26ac: I think it is hard to see because final -i-s gets you looking for the plural of a word ending ‘y’.
  12. After 2 days of being too busy to blog and not doing puzzles until evening I come back to a very easy offering. 1A a write-in, 9A same, 10A same and so on. Don’t time myself these days but under 15 minutes. No stand out clues.
    1. Even when you did it was always to the nearest 5 minutes. Given your scientific bent I wonder if you used to use a Heath Robinson contraption involving golf balls and wellingtons.
      1. No, I found that too wasteful of golf balls so used to measure the change in the angular displacement of the sun and then round the computed time elapsed to the next higher multiple of 5
  13. Agree with Jimbo, but enjoyed it, 15 minutes or so, no slip-ups, lots of write-ins like Arthur’s wife and 1a, 15d, 24a, 17d; LOI was AFRO.
  14. Very plain sailing but with a few standouts like ATRIAL and MINISERIES. And O, I did like ERGO, AFRO, RHINO and DISCO.
  15. I too was tempted by GILLCREST – glad to see the excellence of that company – but, having various debacles still fresh in my memory, I sat back in my chair and spent the minute or two required to work it out properly. It didn’t hurt that GOLDCREST is the only choice that looks like an actual bird, so I was able to surmount the wordplay and hit a virtuous submit button, at 11 minutes something.

    This was, while not extraordinarily hard, a very wordily clued puzzle, and I don’t know about the rest of you but it always takes *me* longer to sift through everything under such conditions. Which makes the great Magoo’s sub-4-minute time today extra worthy of remark. You’ve really got to know your cryptic crosswords to be able to zero in so fast on the things that matter with so much visual noise to contend with…

  16. Twenty minutes. No problems today apart from it’s been Naan in most Indian restaurants I’ve been in. The Peshwari type looks too sinful but probably not as bad as the paratha I usually have.
  17. Around 30 minutes for this one avoiding any errors. Also liked 15d for the “or above” device and 28ac for the opposite of “to”. FOI NAN closely followed by BONDI BEACH, BYRD and IMBUE. Saw CAMBRIAN from the checkers and eccentric once I’d got BALANCE. Hadn’t a clue about pre-Ordovician! Had to think for a minute before associating ATRIAL with Atrium. Toyed with EGAL for the English girl up at 21 down but couldn’t justify Fellage or Follage, until the penny dropped and GAIL presented herself. LOI MINISERIES. John
  18. About 30 minutes. I enjoyed it. Thought I had Firecrest this week in a crossword? Loved Byry and Bymi above …. better than that Tudor songsmith Justin Bybr?
  19. Felt like a bit of a struggle today, with very few write-ins (6d a notable exception) but I got over the line in 9m 41s so it can’t have been too bad.

    LOI was DAIL, and COD for me was GOLDCREST thanks to that lovely hidden ‘or’. I also enjoyed the mental picture for ERGO.

  20. I found most of this easy, but not having latin spent a long time with LO and ELY before seeing 14a. Agree with the overall view that the occasional 50 pence words salted into what is otherwise straightforward cluing gave this an interesting flavor.
  21. More like the usual Monday puzzle. I was held up by 1 and 15 for a while (15’s a nice clue), but many, like BYRD and the Aussie resort, were thrown in without more than a moment’s thought. With 1 I thought the chap was IAN, so was looking for a 5-letter word for eccentric. I should have thought of CAM from the word go. All done in under 25 minutes, but felt I should have been closer to 20.
  22. 13:04. I never really got into my stride with this, forever thinking of the wrong thing first, e.g. Eccentric = CARD at 1 and loose cash = an anagram of cash at 11.

    COD to 22 now I see how it works as I wanted the “exhortation” to apply to either ER or GO and hence couldn’t parse it.

    Seeing BRAE at 17 reminded me of Graeme garden and Barry Crier as Hamish and Dougall clueing Braveheart in the sound charades round on ISIHAC.

  23. My composer of the day was AIRD as the good old A1 goes that way . I think words like revenger and abashment need to be binned : anyone who is aware of them would probably select better synonyms .
    1. I think that’s a bit harsh on revenger, since the Revenger’s Tragedy is still being performed 400 years after it was written. And abashment isn’t *that* ugly.

      Edited at 2016-02-25 03:26 pm (UTC)

  24. 35m steady solve after a slow start. ATRIAL and the TV programmes took a while to surface. I had RABRO at 23a for a while until the hidden at 25d invited a rethink. Also had VERDEGREE for 17d for no better reason than it sounded green and as though it ought to exist. Liked GOLDCREST and AFRO very much – good puzzle and blog today.
    1. I put RABRO in initially, but it didn’t look right so I took it out again. Thank goodness, given the amount of trouble 26ac gave me even with the I from RHINO in place!
  25. Considering I didn’t have a single answer after my first read through of the acrosses I was quite happy with my eventual 12 mins. I’m going to enjoy my few days of solving during the day. Like Keriothe it took me a while to see MINISERIES and it was my LOI after GOLDCREST.
  26. Around 15 mins so by my standards on the easy side. A steady solve with no real hold ups or unknowns and unusually for me – biff free. LOI was “abashment”.
    1. My time would have been an embarrassingly slow 39 minutes, were it not for the fact that I’m too old to be embarrassed. At my age it’s not how long it takes, but whether you can manage it at all.

      On an only tangentially related note, I have just eaten emu (emu steak, to be precise). Given that emus crop up with unnatural frequency in crosswordland, I was toying with the idea of trying to eat every animal or dish that has appeared in the Times puzzles. RHINO would obviously be logistically difficult (though I hear it tastes OK), but I’m sure GOLDCREST (perhaps with ENDIVE) would make a straightforward canapĂ©. Plan B would be to focus instead on crossword-mentioned beverages – a sort of “Drink-along-a-Cryptic”. On balance I think I prefer plan B.

      1. Easyish except for the hard part – another GILLCREST. Having seen the answer I’m fairly certain it’s come up in the crossword before. Knew Canbrian the geological period, and that Cambrian meant Welsh – unlike McText who claims to have been brought up across the road from Wales.
        Re: emus
        There used to be an emu farm half way between Perth and Busselton. Every time we drove south we’d stop for fresh emu pies. Lovely.
        And just 2 days ago my niece flew to Exmouth to go diving. Bought some lunch in the supermarket in the centre of town, went outside to eat it, and an emu wandered by… in the middle of the shopping centre.
        Rob
  27. Not much to say today. About 20 minutes ending with ATRIAL/GOLDCREST. No real puzzlers, although I am not familiar with the composer BYRD. No point in complaining about the not really homophone at SOUGHT, so I won’t. Regards.
  28. Initially had ‘abasement’ at 2d, but realised it didn’t parse and corrected to ‘abashment’ – a much less familiar word which looks like one that Dr Thud might use after pursuing Plan B.
  29. Although I felt I was on the setter’s wavelength today, I could see all those Es and Is building up in the answer to 26ac and so approached it (as my final unsolved clue) with extreme trepidation, particularly as I’d blown a half-decent time yesterday. But to my amazement I spotted MINISERIES comparatively quickly and so finished in a respectable 7:22 (admittedly a lot slower than Magoo, but at least faster than that verlaine :-).

    I have happy memories of singing Byrd motets in my college’s chapel choir, so no problem with 13ac.

  30. I’m a regular quick cryptic solver as I have found the main puzzle in the past to be very challenging indeed – often lucky to solve any clues at all. But today I had a late night go at this one and, working slowly and steadily, found it a very straightforward solve in 50 minutes! I can’t quite believe it. All this QC work must be paying off!
    1. Congratulations, pearlygait! We have all fought our way through the foothills before getting nearer to the summit.
  31. Actually BYRD turned up in 26330 (9 February) clued that time as ‘sacred musician’ on account of all the church music he wrote. Regards.
  32. A goldcrest is not phylogenetically a warbler according to wiki, so I was put off initially entering this answer until I came to realise that the definition was not specific.
  33. I’m a few weeks behind in my solving and wanted to check the explanations for 1181 on Saturday December 12th. Did the solution get published? I can’t find it in the archives.
    Thanks,
    DB
  34. But it is a homophone. Maybe not for Americans, but you speak a different language to that which the crossword is written in.

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