Times 26743 – Beaver pelts and sot-weed

56 comments on “Times 26743 – Beaver pelts and sot-weed”

1. Dear me – I made a right pig’s ear out this with a technical DNF at 25ac which I had no idea whether it was HURON or Heron I plumped for the latter!

   I didn’t think much of cling for the HARD element of 12dn. Nor 18ac CURER. 6dn MUTTER was a bit nebulous – I was half way up the HUMBER!

   Never heard of 18dn CHUGGERS neither has my Chambers. It was first found in print on 26 June 2002 in METRO (London)the work of Keith-Barker Maine (FhT!)

   My main error was confidently entering 5dn as LAUNDRESS when LAUNDERER was required – a costly error.

   COD 7dn PIER (took me while!) WOD 12ac FLUMMOXED

   Vinyl you appear to have missed out 27ac BEEFALO across my LOI and a very fine clue!

   Edited at 2017-06-05 02:36 am (UTC)

   1. You are right about ‘beefalo’, although I remember typing it in as I wrote the blog. It must have gotten deleted somehow, but I have put it back in.
   2. Morning Horryd. Based on your description of your error (HERON instead of HURON), I would describe your solve as a DNF, or a fail, or one wrong, or an heroic near-perfect solution.

      What exactly makes it a “technical DNF”? A lot of people use this term and I never question it for fear of offending, but you’re not such a delicate soul, so…?

      1. Rather like you and TERSE/TERCE it’s a bit of ‘a guessing competition’. HURON/HERON was tricky as noted by George and others! IMO answers should be unequivical (remember MATERIAL/MATERIEL) – thus although I plumped for the incorrect answer it was for me simply a toss-up. and I went for the defintion being at the front and rest of it a bit of a red-herring.
         OK – I did not finish but techically I was unable to definitively state what was actually correct.
         As you aver, ‘not a satisfying way to solve’.

         The equivalent of a technical knock-out in boxing!

         I would like to have seen slightly more rigorous editing throughout.

         Edited at 2017-06-05 04:32 am (UTC)

         1. The answer had to be a lake, with “this” doing the obvious pointing.
            1. Exactly.
         2. Thanks H. I like the boxing analogy, so we’ll agree to call it a TKO.
   3. is in my 12th edition Chambers (2011).
2. 11:28 with the biblical fellow the last in, and I was relieved I got the bits in the right order. Needed wordplay for NEHEMIAH, CHUGGERS and CALENDER. HURON is tricky.
3. I ended up with CALENDER which seemed like it had to be although I had no idea what it was. I biffed HERON before a little niggle made me work out how the clue worked to see which way round it was and change the E to a U.

   I don’t suppose it is deliberate, but you missed out 27ac. Yesterday, which I’m not allowed to talk about yet since it is Sunday, I was determined not to be fooled by “cross” and vainly sought weird animals. I was one day too early.

   I also had no idea what CHUGGERS were, they are just people drinking a lot of beer to me.

4. And a special gold star for the surface rading of 2d. I thought it was very cleverly done.
5. You may have rustlers!?
6. Having finally figured out 21d, my LOI, I failed to notice that I typed it CANDIC. Corrected ‘heron’ at almost the last minute. No idea what a CALENDER was, and never heard of CHUGGERS; glad to see I’m not alone. I typed in HAMPSTEAD, then parsed it; brilliant, as Vinyl says.
7. where y’all have PIER and I had BIER…
   1. PIERROT is a French white-faced buffoon remove the rubbish (ROT) to gain support PIER.
      1. Oh, merde ! I know Pierrot, I should’ve gotten that. It’s been a long weekend… Merci !
         1. Merde happens!
8. Came down to a guessing competition at 11ac, where I successfully plumped for TERCE. Not really a satisfying way to solve, but really enjoyed the rest of the puzzle.

   COD to TABBOULEH. Always reminds me of the T Rex song in Billy Elliott.

   Thanks setter and Vinyl.

9. 7:59 but apparently a week’s holiday in Spain has relaxed me a little too much as I cheerfully plumped for HERON over HURON. Need to get back in the swing! This puzzle looked like it was going to be easy at first and then quickly revealed itself to have hidden complexities and depths of character, excellent stuff for a Monday I thought!
10. I agree with others that some of this was hard, although I finished it in 39 minutes which is not so bad for me these days.

    I can never remember the various names for hours of prayer but TERCE came to me via the homophone once I had all the checkers in place. I also needed all the checkers before settling on what seemed the most likely placement of the remaining anagrist at 16dn, the type of clue that continually annoys me, particularly when the words or references providing the checkers are obscure, like BARTH and ASTOR clued as “famous paper editor”. CALENDER from wordplay only.

    Edited at 2017-06-05 05:56 am (UTC)

    1. Since so many people have not come across this before it might be worth pointing out that it is derived from “Charity muggers”. Authorised licensed begging, Jonathan says, but I wouldn’t count on their being either of those things. More than likely they are after bank card details.

       Edited at 2017-06-05 08:20 am (UTC)

11. the website seems to be rejecting entries for some ‘error message’ reason so here is my tuppennyworth.< A flourish of biffing got me to an AA clear round at the end followed by 10 mins of googling to clear up the parsing and half knowns . Can’t provide an image for 8d leaves me wondering what they look like . They must still be used. Not easy monday fare. Of the last week i’d say saturdays has been the straightestforward.>
12. A fail, technical or otherwise (in case the tournament referee is watching). But I’m glad to see I’m in good company with HERON. No excuses — I just didn’t really bother parsing it as my focus was on ‘harder’ things like How do you spell NEHEMIAH?, Is a CALENDER a thing?, Do I know any Danish kings? and Is it TERCE or TIRCE or … ?

    If this is our favourite setter of a theological disposition, I always seem to have trouble with him.

    Anyway, about 22 minutes with the mistake. Roll on Tuesday, I say.

    1. Straight fail. Please pay more attention to the clues.

       Tournament Referee.

    2. I, too, figured this was probably one from, er, let’s call him Corleone.
       1. One might say it has his dabs all over it…
    3. I prefer to think of myself as “mad, bad and dangerous to know company”…
13. 45 mins (with Fat Rascal) then gave up – not bothering to try to spell the homophone for Terse and DNK Calender. A bit tricky – with Barth? Astor? had to be, but who knows them? Not a good start to the week.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
14. 14:22. NEHEMIAH was the anagram that annoyed me: it didn’t even occur to me that TABBOULEH could cause problems. Just goes to show, one person’s obscurity is another’s commonplace. I got the biblical chappie’s vowels in the right order by association with JEREMIAH, which seemed a reliable enough route in so my initial annoyance abated.
    We had KRAFT paper a while back, and I commented at the time that I knew it from professional encounters with the paper industry, and that I looked forward to GLASSINE appearing. Well GLASSINE is a grade of super-CALENDERed Kraft paper, so this somewhat niche knowledge of mine has served me well of late.
    1. Funnily enough I knew the name from American Football. I saw some footage in the ’80s of some guy named Nehemiah doing something special (can’t remember what).

       The very excited commentator screamed “Nehemiah was a bullfrog!”. You don’t forget lines like that.

       1. Presumably Renaldo “Skeets” Nehemiah (one of those once heard, never forgotten names), who was the world’s best sprint hurdler before moving to the NFL. Obviously he had blistering speed, but was at the major disadvantage of never having played the game before: unkind fans might suggest that the special thing you witnessed was him actually catching the ball for once…
    2. I will confess that even as I was entering the (easily spellable, by me) NEHEMIAH, I was wondering “how long will it take for keriothe to complain about this?” Hopefully NAHUM at least will pose no possible problem in future though.
       1. I wouldn’t guarantee it. Of course I could go and actually learn the books of the damned bible, but I would consider that undignified, in fact verging on cheating, and I wouldn’t expect jackkt to try and memorise lists of delicious and nutritious Mediterranean salads.
          Besides as I said even if you don’t know it I think you’ve got a good chance of getting this one, (Jeremiah, Obadiah…) and it doesn’t seem to have caused problems even for those who hadn’t heard of it.

          Edited at 2017-06-05 03:41 pm (UTC)

15. 26′, dnk CALENDER. TERCE a late entry, slow to get past prime and compline. Meaty for a Monday. Thanks vinyl and setter.
16. I slaved over this, despite every single clue looking unsubtlely like a crossword clue, so 9: A (A) chimney (LUM) at home (IN) has a (A) particular chemical (definition). The whole thing took me an unspectacular 36 minutes, and my current dodgy, bits missing eyesight threw in a one typo, two error mistake. In an iron-clad “follow the printed instructions” set, that was especially unsatisfying.

    Mind you, some “follow”s led (a bit) up the garden path: I had RUMP for the joint at 26: Joint (definition) with fracture (CRUMP) — avoid cold initially (ignore the C).

    In addition, the world this inhabited turned out to be pretty much the world I inhabit but don’t expect many others to bother with, where ASTOR is an editor, BOND a spy, BARTH a theologian, NEHEMIAH a man of God, TERCE a prayer time, CODEX an antique book, more often than not a copy of the gospels, TABBOULEH a salad only my missus would eat, ORANGEADE comes on the Corona lorry and FLUMMOXED is local code for bamboozled. Mutterings from Dorset encouraged?

    Edited at 2017-06-05 08:49 am (UTC)

17. 45 minutes and with fingers crossed for CALENDER, which fitted the cryptic. HARD PALATE in correctly, incorrectly parsed. 23a – anyone remember Jusoda? The theological stuff was easier for me having done the divinity second degree a career lifetime after the Physics one but must have been tough for many. Karl Barth’s trinitarian formulation stuck in the memory just about long enough for the exam. The CODEX Sinaiticus was frequently referred to. NEHEMIAH and most of the books from the second temple period seemed to me to have been written to justify the priesthood. Well the victors do write the history. Give me the earlier prophets like Isaiah and Hosea. I’d heard of TERCE and that’s all. Thank you setter fot testing the memory and V for the impressive blog.
18. 10.37 but with the stupid bird. Not only does my world seem to resemble Z’s (except I love tabbouleh) but having grown up in a village dominated by a paper mill CALENDER was a write-in. Alan, if you imagine a giant mangle you’ll get the idea.
    1. Have you been there recently? The chimney is now a joke, covered in white stuff to deal with things falling off.
       1. Yes, a sad sight.
19. 19 minutes, spotted the lake not the bird okay. LOI terce was a guess, the rest all cool.
    1. Sorry that was I, don’t know why tablet had logged out.

20. Needed to come here to understand how ALBUM worked, to learn about Karl Barth and David Astor and to find out what a CALENDER is.

    All but the top right in 30mins, then another 10 or so to finish it off.

21. Having successfully (as it turned out) navigated the tricky waters of TERCE and CALENDER and the rest, I got carried away by operating on the edge of my working lexicon, and went aground on the speculative HOMESTEAD. My logic, such as it was, mainly centred on the word HOSTED sort of appearing in there, and er, well what else could it be, and, er…yes, I’ll see myself out.
22. I agree that this was a toughie – 12m 11s for me, but with an error. Having got lucky on BARTH, CALENDER & TABBOULEH (never heard of it, let alone the spelling of it) I plumped for TURSE instead of TERCE. If I’d thought of the latter I’d probably have decided it looked more plausible, but it didn’t come to mind.

    No problem with CHUGGERS – whom I’ve grumbled about many a time – or NEHEMIAH.

    Classic joke: who’s the shortest person in the Bible? Knee-high-miah.

23. I chugged away for 49:18 on this one and managed to negotiate the traps nicely. DNK BARTH, TABBOULEH, NEHEMIAH or CALENDER, but trusted the wordplay and juggled the vowels correctly where necessary. Spotted the U substitution so got the lake rather than the bird. Liked HAMPSTEAD. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and V.
24. It was the PEDICAB/CANDID crossing that held me up. I just couldn’t see the vehicle. 40 mins to there and then another 10 minutes until the penny dropped. I thought it was clear at 25a that the answer had to be a lake. I didn’t remember BEEFALO but the crypic made it gettable. Enjoyable puzzle. Ann
25. 22:25. When I got the rather clever 1ac straight off I though I was going to enjoy this but it turned into a bit of a slog. As ever seems to be the case these days I got horribly stuck in the SW corner, eventually using RECLINE to unlock everything.

    Like K I entered NEHEMIAH on the basis of it looking a bit like Jeremiah. Tabbouleh and chuggers are well-known enough to me for them to have caused no problems. I did look at the HURON clue several times to make sure I was comfortable and I can see why others jumped the wrong way. Is this what Val Law used to call a double helix?

26. Meant add, V, that I don’t think you have the parsing for 3d quite right. It’s a case of putting I in an anagram of men he a h – there’s no indication than he goes in an anagram of men.
27. Plenty of DNK’s to hold me up, although I did know TABBOULEH as I sell the ingredients in my shop. My blind spots today were LAUNDERER
28. why does it do that to me? and BEEFALO. An excellent challenge for a Monday. Now back to that unfinished Mayer from yesterday…..
29. Hi all. About 25 minutes, using wordplay for all the unknowns already mentioned (BARTH, ASTOR, CHUGGERS, CALENDER). LOI was PIER which I only figured out a bit afterwards. I got the lake, but it took a couple of passes through the wordplay to see that it was what was required. TONGUE-TIED was quite good. Regards.
30. Hi all. About 25 minutes to get through, using wordplay for all the already mentioned unknown items (BARTH, ASTOR, CHUGGERS, CALENDER). It took a couple of passes through the wording of the clue to see the lake, but put in HURON. LOI was PIER. TONGUE-TIED was quite good, I thought. Regards.
31. 19 mins. I trusted the wordplay for the same unknowns mentioned by several others. It took me a while and most of the crossers to remember TABBOULEH, but I had no problem with NEHEMIAH. BEYOND was my LOI after the HAMPSTEAD penny finally dropped. I’m another who had been considering an unparsed “homestead” because of “hosted”, and I’m glad I stuck with it. HURON gave me no problems because I read the clue properly ………..
32. I couldn’t see much on my first pass through the clues and wondered if it was going to be one of those days. Fortunately a few answers then started to go in such that after 30mins on this morning’s train ride I had only a handful of blanks in the NE and SW remaining. They were all polished off in 4 mins at lunchtime. FOI 9ac. LOI 26dn. DNK Calender so grateful for word p!ay there. Astor and Barth half knowns. My reading of the substitution and def in 25ac only pointed one way. Nice to see lummox make an appearance. I feel slightly unmanned by admitting a more than passing familiarity with Tabbouleh (if real men don’t eat quiche I’m not sure that they’re wolfing down fancy salads from Waitrose instead) but that clue caused me no difficulty. Nice surfaces at 27ac, 29ac, 16dn and COD 2dn.
33. 9:00 for me in a rather sluggish clean sweep. No problem with any of the answers, even the foodie TABBOULEH, which I think Giles Coren must have mentioned a few times in “Eating Out”.

    Judging from the presence of TERCE, BARTH, CODEX and NEHEMIAH, I’m guessing that the setter might be The Donald (no, not that one, for Pete’s sake). Anyway, my thanks to whoever it was for a pleasant start to the week.

34. A heron is not a wader. According to my bird-book the family is Ardeidae – ‘bitterns’ and, yes, ‘herons’ Managed to correct heron to huron by looking at the cryptic which did not justify the bird as answer.
    Like Jackt I hate obscurities clued by anagrams. Tabbouwotsit is a complete NHO, (I doubt you could get it anywhere in my neck of the woods, and I don’t therefore regard referring the spell-checker as cheating.
    So there!

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