Times 26428 – lobster’s off, would you like a slimy fish or perhaps some duck?

41 comments on “Times 26428 – lobster’s off, would you like a slimy fish or perhaps some duck?”

1. DNK EELPOUT, POCHARD, PIANO ACCORDION, BK (barely knew) TORMENTIL. I must confess that I biffed MARKET GARDENER. Oddly enough, I didn’t know that horses had galls, but I did know about plants, so it was just a case of filling in between G and ICISM. LOI SMEE, of all things; wasted time trying to think of a pirate named IMxx.
2. … specialised GK for me. Not much good with plants and fishes. Usually OK with birds (as it were) but DK POCHARD. Relieved that the two long across clues were anagrams. Had to start somewhere!
   1. Pochards are what I call ducks I can’t otherwise recognise. One day I’ll be right.
      1. When I started solving cryptic crosswords in the DT back before Verlaine was even a twinkle in his father’s eye, the pochard duck appeared on a very regular basis, so it is nice to see it making a comeback.
3. I needed 50 minutes and wondered at times if I would manage to finish without resort to aids as there were so many unknown words or references, rather too many to make for a particularly enjoyable solve so I’m not as enthusiastic about it as our blogger.
4. A bit gentler than yesterday and took less than half as long. Quite a few uncommon words, but the wordplay definitely helped. Never even vaguely heard of EELPOUT and a few others such as POCHARD were brought up from somewhere down in the depths. GALLICISM was my favourite and last in.

   Thanks to setter and blogger.

5. Rather messing about for 23 minutes today, especially in the SW corner where MATILDA intruded for the woman, I couldn’t remember what serous membranes were, I wanted to find an anagram of severe and some filler for the forgotten plant, and couldn’t see what 13 was doing.
   Once I’d eventually worked it out, I recognised that I’ve met tormentil here before – it turns up every couple of years or so, and while I’m sure I’ve met it in the world outside, it’s never introduced itself to me by name. In future, I’ll try to remember it for its procumbent to arcuately upright stalks, and latent phlobaphenes.
6. 35 minutes. Not much to say except SMEE is another name for POCHARD.
7. I too found it taxing and entertaining in a refreshing way. 35′. Nice misdirections in a pleasantly-mazed verbarium.
8. Good challenge today. Constructed GALLICISM from the wordplay before making the French connection. Dnk TORMENTIL. Daughter has just bought a MAISONETTE, but that was LOI, loved SMEE. 30’22”.
9. 27:16 of enjoyable solving. I like the previously unknown EELPOUT, presumably the opposite of TROUTPOUT, namely surgically reduced lips. I constructed MARKET GARDENER from knowing that ARDEN is the only forest in Crosswordland but COD to SMEE for its silliness.
10. 17m. I loved this, but I suppose I am what you might call a ‘wordplay lover’: I certainly enjoy constructing unfamiliar words like EELPOUT, and even the familiar terms in this puzzle were mostly resistant to biffing.
    Thanks setter!
11. Zipped through this until last few. Deduced TORMENTIL but did not know it. Apparently it’s the common potentilla. I’ve got some cultivated ones in the garden, who do the Times Crossword and Killer Deadly. enjoyable puzzle, and those hours spent watching the Peter Pan video when the kids were younger weren’t totally in vain. 35 minutes.
    1. Ditto re the Hook video, you can learn something everywhere.
12. “Alfred the Great” is an anagram of “treated HER flag”, not “treated THE flag”.
    1. ta – amended
13. Came in under the hour for the first time this week at 50 minutes, but with AMEE for 22 down. Don’t think I’ve come across SMEE, but if I have I’ve forgotten it. FOsI SUMP and SALAMANDER. LOI, EELPOUT. DNK POCHARD, EELPOUT or TORMENTIL, but managed to construct them correctly. Biffed MARKET GARDENER from the “forest and German” bits of the clue and checkers, but missed the ARK bit. Thanks to George for that explanation. Not too much trouble with the rest, but was saved from ACCORDIAN by a careful check of the wordplay. Nice puzzle
14. The cakes pochard because he spud too late
    So Alfred yells – this really ain’t too great.
    I must go West to meet those flipping Danes
    Before they tormentil my idiom brains.

    15.50 with an idiotic typo in 5d (pout). Other than that put me in the “like” column.

    1. About an hour for me after blogging the QC, but I was very satisfied to finish. I was able to construct the unknowns EELPOUT, TORMENTIL and POCHARD and also didn’t know PLEURAL, but gettable. I was working on _OLL for 25 for ages before 13 fell into place and I remembered YELL.
    2. Bless you , Olivia, we need more found crossword poetry. The verbing of tormentil works for me. I may use it.
15. 26 minutes – feels like Monday. I thought it very straightforward. It has a few unusual words, but none I haven’t encountered before, usually in tough cryptics. LOI was 22, after briefly wondering if there was a pirate called IMME.
    I agree with the blogger that 3 is a lovely clue.
16. Difficult but entertaining. Never heard of EELPOUT (*quickly checks Google to make sure I didn’t say exactly the same thing two years ago, which usually happens*), and spent a long time trying to picture a pirate called IMME, and fortunately not convincing myself.
    1. Re: (*quickly checks Google to make sure I didn’t say exactly the same thing two years ago, which usually happens*).

       Me too, only without the checking.

17. My first all-correct for the week, despite a record number of unknowns.

    SMEE reminded me of the old one about SMEE and GARN, not repeatable here. COD to GO WEST YOUNG MAN, I think, but plenty of worthy nominees.

    Thanks setter and George.

18. … isn’t ‘ungrammatical’. It’s perfectly idiomatic. Maybe setter perversely means it’s ungrammatical in Latin, but this is English.
    1. It’s ungrammatical in the sense that most people seem to use the word, i.e. as a synonym for ‘non-standard’. A phrase like ‘we was walking’ would commonly be described as ‘ungrammatical’, for instance. It would be ironic to be prescriptive about the way prescriptivists use the word!
       1. ‘We was walking’ is non-standard, which can be called ‘ungrammatical’. My point is that ‘It’s me’ is standard English – it’s not idiomatic to say ‘It is I’, in spite of what one’s Latin teacher may think.
          1. Oh, I see what you mean, sorry. I took the ‘ungrammatical’ in the clue to be referring to the absence of the word ‘it’, i.e. saying “smee” rather than “it’s me”. If you’re right about the setter’s intention then I agree with you. I didn’t think even the most diehard of Latinists insisted on that nonsense any more.
             1. However, it’s quite common to find ‘ungrammatical’ in clues used in the sense of ‘may be disputed by hard-liners’. You know, I was just thinking some of our chums will read my post and say: “Oh no, it’s him again!” But not “Oh no, it’s he again!”.
                1. Maybe. Insisting on ‘it is I’ is particularly daft though, so I hope not.
    2. Good point, Joe. I sympathise with the setter and editor — not a lot of people would have thought about that. But you did, and that’s what we’re here for!
19. POCHARDs, LANGOUSTEs and EELPOUTs are the type of thing I’m in cryptic crosswords for: as such, I enjoyed this much more than yesterday’s more linguistically limpid fare. Still a bit rusty from my holidays I’m sure and need to get my head back in the game, but this lovely puzzle definitely redoubled my resolve to do so…
20. 19 mins. I might have been able to shave a couple of minutes off my time if I hadn’t been inexplicably slow to see GO WEST YOUNG MAN. IDIOM was my LOI after SMEE, and they both took longer than they should have done as well. Count me as another who really liked a lot of the clue constructions. As others have pointed out that of 3dn was excellent, but I also thought 11ac was very good.
21. 22 very distracted minutes. I wish I’d been more focussed as it seemed rather good.

    There isn’t a duck-based nina here, is there? Apart form the pochard, there’s a smee (which I think we established is a variant of a smew), and a waddle …. and a sump — which (honest) in caving and potholing can also be known as a duck. And Duck is a sometime pseudonym of Don Manley …. am I overthinking this?

22. 26 mins today. LOI was EELPOUT which I have not knowingly seen before. No problems with the duck, the newt and (unusually for me) the plant.
23. Well having had 2 days trying at the main crossword and drawing a complete blank, my challenge was to get 1 clue today. Well I managed 7 [Nightie, Lasagne, Spud, Alfred The Great, Twaddle, Dramatist, Market Gardener]. So very satisfied today that I have finally made a bit of progress. Looking at the rest of the grid, there weren’t many others that I felt were within my grasp. Benchmark has been set for me now though, let’s see if I can beat 25% tomorrow.
    1. Stefan, that is a situation I remember well, even though for me it was some time in the 1960s. Stick with it and don’t get too fixated on finishing the dam thing.. it will happen in time.
       You have not chosen the best week to get started! They have been quite hard the last few days..
    2. Stefan, We have all been there. I remember being astonished at a guy who could finish the crossword on my half-hour commute. It gets easier over time although I know that I will never hit Magoo/Jason/Verlaine/Mohn expertise. Congratulations and good luck.
24. Good luck and welcome Stefan, keep trying. When I started this I had the added disadvantage of being American, so a lot of things went way over my head. Hope you stick around. As for the puzzle, about 25 minutes, ending with a few extra minutes to follow wordplay to the unknown EELPOUT. As said above, good thing the long ones were anagrams, or it would have been longer still. Regards.
25. this was my type of crossword, much enjoyed it. No unknowns for me but all the more obscure words gettable anyway
26. 11:18 for me – a bit slow considering that there was nothing the least bit unfamiliar, but I’m still feeling under the weather.

    A pleasant straightforward solve.

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