Times 26,403: Going To Hull In A Handbasket, Or Thereabouts

39 comments on “Times 26,403: Going To Hull In A Handbasket, Or Thereabouts”

1. All but two done in about 14 minutes, then stared blankly at the BRIDLINGTON / SAIGON crossers for twenty minutes before resorting to aids. (Of course when I was staring they weren’t the BRIDLINGTON /SAIGON crossers, they were the B___L_N_T_N / S___O_ crossers, otherwise it would have been easy).

   Decided there must be a town named Bafflington (there should be) which made SAIGON a little problematic.

   Just not up to it on the day. Well played setter, and thanks for the blog V.

   BTW, I took “vintage” in 10ac to apply to the port, Saigon being the former name.

   1. Same as Galspray, only it took me maybe 10 or so more minutes to reach the Blankington/Something impasse. I also thought of Bafflington, even looked it up. I don’t know why I didn’t get SAIGON, though, as I’d figured the ON part, and decided it was a port city not a drink. Oh, well, to coin a phrase.
   2. What! No more Saigon? As a 19th century French gentleman, I just can’t keep up with how fast the world is changing. No sooner have I bought one handsome leather-bound atlas than it’s out of date!

      That does sound much more plausible than my crude initial parsing though I must admit. Thanks!

      1. Take comfort, V, that a lot of the residents still refer to it, when they can, as Saigon.
         1. Who’s going to break the news to him about Constantinople?
            1. No, I’m on top of that one. Haven’t called it Byzantium in ages.
2. … got stuck at the end in the NE with the SAIGON / SLOVEN pair. Also wondered about “vintage” in 10ac until the small coin tumbled. And failed to lift and separate “expressed regret” at 11ac, so wondered (wrongly) about the tense. COD to DENOMINATION.
3. I solved all but 8 and 10 in 30 minutes but needed another 22 minutes to come up with them. I would have resorted to aids after 5, or 10 at most, but there’s not much to be done with S?I??? and S???E? unless you are prepared to scroll through hundreds of possibilities carefully considering each as you go.

   10ac looked mostly likely to be the name of a port, and possibly a name no longer used because of “vintage” so it might not have been in the list anyway. 8dn seemed to involve removing N,S,E or W from a European nationality beginning with S, but for ages I couldn’t get past Swiss, Swede and Spaniard none of which would have fitted the bill. This was the answer that eventually came to me and the other fell immediately into place.

   Edited at 2016-05-04 08:47 am (UTC)

4. 16.42, quite good for me in my current dotage. My holdups came in the NW corner, with my last one in being ACHIEVER, after finally twigging the crossing CHEWED UP. I had been ignoring the “joined” in the latter as mere surplusage, so looking for a larger chap than good old HE. I was convinced that the former was one of those smart confession clues, AM BRIGHT or something, or even a bit of Latin: adsum, magister, but it wasn’t that clever.
   With the clever pupil and SECOND PERSON, I wondered if there was a nod towards yesterday’s 11+ tests. At least we didn’t have to define fronted adverbials, which looks like one of those made up, learn by rote phrases designed to make schoolchildren look smart if they can reproduce it and Ministers look stupid because they can’t.
5. The Times seems determined to expose us all to obscure places. The last Mephisto I blogged had the town of Diss in it and now we have East Yorkshire’s own BRIDLINGTON which, like Diss, I have never visited and barely know the location of.

   Must have missed SAIGON turning into Ho Chi Minh along the way so was puzzled by “vintage” – so something learned today.

   Unremarkable puzzle that gave a steady top to bottom solve

   1. Obscure place definition – somewhere you have not visited? I would consider neither Diss nor Bridlington obscure to a British native. I have never visited Dorchester but would hardly call it obscure despite it having a population barely over half that of Bridlington.
6. 33 minutes for this excellent offering (do I detect the Don in Reuben and Malachi?). If one has to slip up on any clue, slipping up on the alcoholic one has the side-effect of making one feel a little virtuous.

   Strictly a beer and wine man, my cocktail was the fishball, something of a street favourite in Hong Kong – in two senses.

7. 21′ one left, dnk ines, missed wordplay. Some really nice clues today, COD SLOVEN.
8. Beaten by SAIGON – stared at it for ages and no inspiration. Bit of luck with BRIDLINGTON even though I didn’t know whether it was north or south, east or west. I liked WIGEON, one of those (to me obscure) ducks that occasionally come up in cryptics – a ‘scaup’ is another that comes to mind for no good reason.

   Thank you to setter and blogger.

9. 25:11. Reading comments above I see that the non-natives are at a disadvantage today as I biffed BRIDLINGTON quite early. I was held up at the end by SLOVEN and STOOLIES, the latter unknown.

   SAIGON is mentioned often here at work. When someone is looking for our team manager Sai and asks “Where’s Sai gone?” answering with “Vietnam” never fails to amuse. Though I now see the response should be “nowhere, since it’s been renamed Ho Chi Minh”. I’ll use that next time…

10. You’d have thought, given that No 2 son has been living there since last November,10a wouldn’t have been my second to last solution entered, but it was.
11. SAIGON and SLOVEN the hold-ups, solved by going through Europe looking countries beginning with S, what the Fat Controller would have wanted. Enjoyed BROADSHEETS. COD DENOMINATION though for me a denomination is a sub-set of a religion. Under the half hour.
12. Sigh. After my encouraging progress yesterday, this one was something of a setback for my confidence. I stared and puzzled for the hour, and got just seven answered. The DNKs or nearly-DNKs didn’t help; I know MALACHI and REUBEN are biblical names, for example, but I couldn’t tell you more than that about them. I did at least puzzle out the unknown DON CARLOS. Ah well. Maybe tomorrow there’ll be something more on my wavelength.
13. 11m. I found this straightforward, but it involved very little outright biffing so it was an enjoyable puzzle. No problems with either BRIDLINGTON or SAIGON: I had much more trouble with the ACHIEVER/CHEWED UP crossing pair.
14. For some reason I was shown as anonymous on TfT even though I was definitely logged in to LJ. Very frustrating! However, after closing Microsoft Edge, which refused to post my comment, and using Chrome, I am now logged in. That was 20 minutes of my life wasted!
    I completed this one in 45 minutes but the last 15 were spent on the CHEWED UP/ACHIEVER crossing. Like Z, I was looking for some sort of pupil’s confession for ages, but the penny finally dropped when I saw WED. I’d been reluctant to write in DAW as I couldn’t relate it to a flier despite the clear wordplay, but I suppose it’s all to do with Jackdaws. No trouble with Bridlington as I’ve worked there often, and I got SLOVEN quite early although I was wondering how the (sloven)IAN was accounted for until V explained it. FOIs ARDEN and BROADSHEETS, then the SE filled in fairly easily. LOI ACHIEVER. Liked WIGEON and MALACHI.
15. . . . Of steady but laborious iPad poking. BRIDLINGTON from the crossers, DNK that SAIGON was a port and simply guessed CHOO-CHOO (on the app version, there is no hyphen in the enumeration; don’t know about elsewhere). Thanks V for the unwordy blog.
    1. The enumeration is shown correctly in the Club version and on the new newspaper platform when viewed on my desktop.

       On the subject of demarcation of word-breaks and hyphens, this is now supposed to be available (but optional) on the new platform for traditional computers and all devices that use the App. Access to the control is via the “burger” menu. I mention this because I understand it’s a recent change so others may not know about it. Unfortunately it doesn’t extend to printing lines and hyphens on the hard copy, which is a shame.

16. Like everyone else it seems, a steady solve until the two crossing cities, one for a while was the plausible BOTTLINGTON (I would take a vacation in BOTTLINGTON), until I pieced together SAIGON based on it being something else, then BRIDLINGTON slid in with a question mark. My turn to blog tomorrow, maybe there will be an 18th century viceroy crossing a Welsh hamlet.
17. Around 30 mins today. No major hold ups and no DNK’s for an enjoyable but quite tricky solve. Did spend a little time trying to fit “nark” into 13 ac. LOI was “achiever”.
18. No problem with Brid (as the locals call it) despite taking the scenic route via Broadstairs and Barnstaple. They do a rather exciting speedboat trip from the harbour which is cheaper, more exciting and less dangerous than anything on offer at Alton Towers.

    I did have trouble with Saigon though and had to leave it blank. I figured it might be “something on” around something but “a single” for just “i” was a bit cheeky.

    I’m happy to keep the Yorkshire coast a secret from everybody else – don’t want grockles clogging up the likes of Staithes and Runswick Bay.

    Edited at 2016-05-04 12:51 pm (UTC)

    1. Sshhh!!

    2. Ah, Staithes! Your secret’s safe with me with respect to this fabulous hideaway, beautiful harbour, great cottage lanes, fine pubs, cute river, all hidden in a blink and you miss it cleft in the coast. Protected from cars, relegating them to the top edge. My lips are sealed. M m m. I know nothing, I say nothing. Nothing!

       1. One of my customers ran a data processing operation from the cottage next to the slipway. He had a load of NEC PCs and some Dell servers and storage. I used to love going there as I was provided with multiple cups of tea and biscuits and could gaze out over the harbour while I worked. I was even allowed to take my car down and park it in his yard. Happy days….

          1. Wow! Parking by the harbour! Privilege indeed.
             No mobile connection we could find too. Almost the highest state of bliss.

             1. Yes, that was another bonus. My office couldn’t get hold of me to hurry me along to another job 🙂
19. This QC-er was only 4 clues away, which is a good result – especially as there are no comments here saying “Pish! What an easy crossword!” (which generally happens on the rare occasions when I solve the 15×15. Maybe I’m getting better?
    1. Undoubtedly, but try to wean yourself off the Quickie at some stage. Six years ago I was at the stage you are at now. To kick on from there you need to be willing to spend a goodly time thinking through the clues before coming here. There really is no substitute for doing the hard miles!
    2. Also a QC-ear moving up a division today. Got my come-uppance, with only about 6 clues in the 30 mins I gave myself, though FOI was BRIDLINGTON.
20. 8 mins of knock-free solving, and I must have been very much on the setter’s wavelength if I could do a puzzle faster than today’s blogger. ACHIEVER (biffed but parsed post-solve) was my LOI after REUBEN, and I confess that I also biffed/parsed post-solve RIPOSTE. When I was 7 my parents took me to BRIDLINGTON for the day when we were spending a week in Scarborough, it rained all day, and I’ve never forgotten the experience so I didn’t have a problem bringing it to mind, especially as I could also see bridling/checking. I can understand why so many of you had a problem with SAIGON without the middle checker.

    Edited at 2016-05-04 07:31 pm (UTC)

21. Dismal failure less than half completed, never got on the setter’s wavelength, I need one of these every now and again. In my defense I didn’t get a good run at it but reading the blog I think it was on the trickier side for me.
22. 9:46 for me, helped a little perhaps by having lived in “Brid”. (The east coast of Yorkshire is familiar territory: I was born in Scarborough, have lived in Saltburn-by-the-Sea (where my father was a major in the Home Guard during WW2, thus outranking Captain Mainwaring in Walmington-on-Sea :-), and used to spend a week’s holiday every year with an uncle and aunt who lived in Filey; and my great grandfather was vicar of Hollym cum Withernsea. BTW, only the last of these is anywhere near Hull.)

    An interesting and enjoyable puzzle. My compliments to the setter.

    1. May I ask when/where? My parents have had a house up by the golf course since the early ’70s and I spent most of my childhood there. Circumstances meant that I ended up moving back to Saltburn in December after many years away, and I’m now renting a flat in what used to be the Zetland Hotel.
       1. On Windsor Road. Although I was born in Scarborough, my parents (and older brother and sister) were actually living in Salturn at the time. I think we must have moved from there not long after my father died in 1948 so I have very few memories of the place.

          I hope you’re not too unhappy to be back there.

          1. Living here again after twenty-odd years feels like I’ve gone round in a circle, which isn’t the most enjoyable sensation. But I do appreciate being able to wander along the beach or through the Valley Gardens, so it’s a mix of good and bad.

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