Times 26899 – What a fool conceives?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Music: Love, Revisited
Time: 50 minutes

I found this one really tough, mainly due to several answers I simply did  not know.  As in Mephisto or the Club Monthly, it is possible to laboriously construct unknowns from the cryptics, but at least in Mephisto you will have numerous crossing letters to confirm your guess,  Being tonight’s blogger, I ended up having to confirm my potential mombles through post-solve research, and I am pleased to say they were correct.   But they very easily could have been wrong.

I suspect those who had heard of everything in this puzzle might have had a rather different experience, as most of the answers went in very quickly.   Some of the cryptics were quite clever, but it was certainly possible to biff most of the answers, which is what I did once I got going.

Across
1 Ball game’s all over without one got in by Canaries? (9)
BILLIARDS – BI(A(I)LL backwards)RDS, where DBE is indicated by the question mark. 
6 A lot of ginger, say, in jelly (5)
ASPIC – A SPIC[e], a bit of a chestnut with many variations.
9 What could make matrons beam (7)
TRANSOM – anagram of MATRONS, which I believe has been seen before.
10 Finish old cheese item with hard-to-remember name (7)
DOOBRIE – DO + O BRIE, the one I did not know, the UK equivalent of a doodad or a doohickey.
11 Hunger for money (3)
YEN – Double definition, and quite a simple one.
12 Get annoyed with detail in embroidery (11)
NEEDLEPOINT – NEEDLE + POINT in entirely different senses.
14 Short trip that is taken by class (6)
SORTIE – SORT + I.E>
15 Sneak home late (8)
INFORMER – IN + FORMER.
17 Bottom perhaps ruined hat with inane transformation (8)
ATHENIAN – anagram of HAT + INANE.   Bottom, and all the other cast members, were nominally Athentians.
19 Divided affection between Charlie and Nick, initially (6)
CLOVEN – C(LOVE)N[ick].  Charlie is already a ‘C’ in the NATO alphabet.
22 Smooth sailor — with uniform splitting I’m a star attraction (11)
PLANETARIUM – PLANE + TAR + I(U)M.
23 Bread for one of the water birds (3)
COB – Double definition, both a bit obscure but gettable.
25 Shells, perhaps, put back in a cleansing solution (7)
AMMONIA – AMMO + IN backwards + A.
27 Instrument’s a relic, unfortunately possessing little volume (7)
CLAVIER – Anaagram of A RELIC + V.   The instrument played by one of Bottom’s fellow-actors.
28 Trim old penny black (5)
DINKY – D + INKY.   I don’t think ‘trim’ is a very exact synonym here.
29 Nutcracker, say, partly exuded sap when used badly (3,2,4)
PAS DE DEUX – Anagram of EXUDED SAP, where ‘partly’ goes with ‘Nutcracker’, and not with ‘exuded’!

Down
1 The two years together in basic accommodation (5)
BOTHY – BOTH + Y, no problem for me, but maybe for some.
2 Pupil of the French composer in England meeting resistance (7)
LEARNER – LE + ARNE + R. 
3 Where words go together without India’s lack of feeling? (11)
INSENTIENCE – IN SENT(I)ENCE.
4 What propels black sheep to swap places (6)
RAMJET – JET RAM with the components reversed.   Roger!
5 Rising river breaking bank is not one’s first concern (8)
SIDELINE – SID(NILE upside-down)E, where ‘side’ is inelegantly used to construct…’side’!
6 A run past (3)
AGO – A GO, one from the Quickie.
7 Cease cutting hair style daily (3,4)
PER DIEM – PER(DIE)M.
8 Top river site for tobogganing (6,3)
CRESTA RUN – CREST + ARUN, which is a river in either Sussex or Nepal, take your pick – I hadn’t head of either one of them, nor of the toboggen run, but it seemed likely enough.
13 Where to seek help with unruly attendant (7,4)
PROBLEM PAGE – PROBLEM + PAGE in entirely different senses, the section with the Agony Aunts.
14 Damp lawns treated for waterlogged area (9)
SWAMPLAND – anagram of DAMP LAWNS, a very apt one.
16 Privy, in the style of backbencher getting illumination with motion (4,4)
LAVA LAMP – LAV + ALA MP.  I thought ‘loo’ was going to be used to make ‘loop’, but not so.
18 English copywriter under hotel chief (7)
HEADMAN – H + E ADMAN.
20 Inoculant needs a small volume injected into climber (7)
VACCINE – V(A CC)INE.
21 Fish dishes include prime pieces of salmon and cod (6)
PISCES – PI(S[almon],C[od])ES, a rather busy cryptic.
24 Spar containing radium and alkaline mineral (5)
BORAX – BO(RA)X.
26 No military ships will abandon velocity (3)
NAY – NA[v]Y, a simple letter removal-clue.

61 comments on “Times 26899 – What a fool conceives?”

  1. I was surprised by Mr vinyl1’s time! We often come close but this puzzle shows how Anglo-centric this one is compared to Friday’s effort.

    Done and dusted in 29 minutes – Mondayish for me.

    My FOI was 6ac ASPIC.

    LOI 4dn RAMJET with 1dn BOTHY (Scottish)

    10ac DOOBRIE was a distant memory from my grandfather – I haven’t heard it for years. Not even in my Chambers!

    28ac DINKY is synonymous with TRIM in my very English lexicon.

    8dn The CRESTA RUN was a very English event, even though it was held in Switzerland. It was built in 1884 by Major Bulpett, eventual founder of the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club, George Robertson & Charles Digby Jones. Robertson and Digby Jones planned the proposed course, C. Metcalfe and J. Biddulph, the 5 making up the ‘Kulm Hotel’s Outdoor Amusement Committee’, and the people of St. Moritz.
    Britain first as usual. Even Jamaicans did well at this terrifying event!

    Having BUST A GUT in last week’s Times was most concerning.

    I sincerely wish that ‘American’ would become the official language of the United States and not English! It wouldn’t speed Mr. vinyl1 up but it might make him feel better that he could complete a crossword in a ‘foreign language.’ Am I correct in thinking that just before WWI Congress voted on a bill to make German the official language of the United States!? It was obviously defeated, and now we are all learning Drumph!

    COD 7dn PER DIEM

    WOD PAS DE DEUX

    More Foreign Languages!

    The unfailing London Times- thank-you!

    1. We went to Paradise Island and we also looked over the beautiful western end from our favourite deck on the ship. The middle bit’s dominated by the massive Atlantis development of course. We didn’t get to the casino but we did use the rest rooms! I gather the place was called Hog Island first. Call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye. I never liked The Eagles much though and it is a really impressive development. We didn’t get the Sean Connery/ Thunderball sites shown to us either there or in Nassau so we had to imagine it, a sort of latter day Cowboys and Indians. I was never sure whose side Mrs BW was on. Thanks for the tip for us to go there.
  2. 27 minutes, with all known bar BORAX. And I think I can safely say that I was the only person who parsed it as R and A (for alkaline) inside BOX! No one would believe I got two 1s in Combined Science O-level.
  3. 37 minutes, so not too bad. My only unknown was RAMJET but it was easily worked out. Ulaca, I also had the RA in BORAX from ‘radium and alkaline’ but my first thought at 16dn was DAVY LAMP so I must have been paying attention some of the time during science lessons at school.

    Of the usual sources only the ODO has DOOBRIE and then only as an alternative spelling. All the others (apart from Chambers who don’t acknoweldge the word in any form) spell it ‘doobry’ or ‘doobries’ in the plural.

    DINKY for ‘trim’ seems okay to me with the common synonym ‘neat’ connecting the two, although DINKY usually has connotations of smallness – actual size or triviality.

    Jonathan, you have a stray T at 17ac.

    Edited at 2017-12-04 05:52 am (UTC)

      1. So does mine, now I’ve consulted it. I looked on-line and have always assumed that was the same as the printed edition. But now I see it isn’t as it doesn’t have any of the three possible spellings.
  4. I was in a hurry this morning, so went offline after 18 minutes with 1ac, 1d, 4d, and 5d to do, and they remained to do despite my semi-best efforts on the train, in a waiting room, at lunch, and on another train. I was fed up and about to go DNF in a big way, but just before coming here I took one last look, and got the 4 in about 3 minutes. I must have come across BOTHY once, since I biffed it from checkers before parsing; ditto for CRESTA RUN, where I took the ARUN on faith. NHO DOOBRIE. No, horryd, you are not correct, and it wasn’t before WWI that it didn’t happen.
    1. Same experience on CRESTA RUN. I didn’t know the river ARUN per se, but it did seem odds-on to be the river that Arundel would lie on, if Arundel lay on a river, so that was good enough for me.
    2. Apologies Kevin. It did not happen.

      “The House debated this proposal (that Bills be printed in both English and German) on 13 January 1795 without reaching a decision, and a vote to adjourn and consider the recommendation at a later date was defeated by one vote, 42 to 41. There was no vote on an actual bill, merely a vote on whether or not to adjourn. Because the motion to adjourn did not pass, the matter was dropped. It was from this roll call on adjournment that the “German missed becoming the official language of the USA by one vote.” legend sprang.”

      If only Bob Corker had been around then!

  5. 45 minutes, with everything at least heard-of, if not exactly known. Luckily I remembered enough about A Midsummer Night’s Dream for 17, knew PAS DE DEUX had something to do with ballet, and had heard of an oojimaflip, I mean a thingummy, no, a DOOBRIE (though I’d have spelled it “doobry”.)

    Roger RAMJET hadn’t sprung to mind until I came here, so thanks to Vinyl for putting that particular theme tune in my head, probably for the rest of the day…

    FOI 2d LEARNER, and for the purposes of economy, LOI, WOD and COD to BOTHY.

    Edited at 2017-12-04 07:39 am (UTC)

  6. I too thought this was Mondayish but not overly so, with 6 minutes on the clock and a few extra seconds as I hesitated over my LOI CRESTA RUN. I may know nothing about sports but at least BORAX was completely familiar without any “help” from A for alkaline.

    I am however quite concerned about my experience on the Sunday Times cryptic yesterday – arriving to the puzzle at 12.05am, I discovered it pre-filled with gibberish and with almost 5 minutes already on the clock! The unsympathetic ed Mr Rogan suggests that I may have been sleep-solving, and it is true that I don’t necessarily wait to sober up after a convivial evening before tackling the puzzles, but I do sincerely believe that there was something badly amiss with the site on that occasion. Has anyone else ever encountered such a phenomenon?

    Edited at 2017-12-04 07:39 am (UTC)

      1. It’s a risky strategy unless you’re Magoo (I respect his abilities enough to imagine he probably CAN solve crosswords in his sleep).
    2. On the ipad edition I’ve recently found the Sunday crossword partially pre-filled. I think it has retained some answers from the previous Sunday.
    3. Probably too late in the day now for quiz time but I intended to ask earlier if anyone could name the famous play that contains the line “I love borax”, which in my experience always gets a laugh. Google has taken the fun out of this sort of thing, unfortunately.
  7. Having it all done and dusted in 34 minutes I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. But woe! Having put in SPECIE for 14a and originally TRAINEE for 2d, I ended up with the neologism LEARNEE instead. It seemed so obvious at the time too.
        1. I think a “learnee” is one who has receiving a drubbing from a man yelling “I’ll learn you!”
  8. 16:03. I found this very Mondayish until suddenly it wasn’t, with five or six clues that more than doubled my time. DOOBRIE was one of them: a perfectly familiar word but not exactly what you expect to find in one of these crosswords. My last in was PROBLEM PAGE, not an expression I can remember seeing before.
    1. It was a popular expression back in the day, especially in the heyday of Marje Proops as the Mirror’s agony aunt in the 70s.
    2. I did almost plump for PROBLEM CASE but fortunately even in my bemorninged state I could tell that that didn’t quite satisfy the wordplay.
    3. 23:19. I had a similar experience, getting stuck on DINKY, DOOBRIE and PROBLEM PAGE. Not helped by being convinced 6d was “BYE”, but 6a had to be ASPIC, so I had to relent and put in the correct (but inferior) answer. I knew of the Cresta Run from TV Winter Sports coverage. A bobsleigh is terrifying enough, but I can’t believe the ones who go down it head first! This is what it looks like as you do it (if you can!).
  9. 14:50 … last in the puzzling PROBLEM PAGE — about the last place I would go to seek help! Some really interesting vocabulary in this, I thought, and some entertaining clues.

    Fun fact about the Cresta Run — “the decision was taken by the Membership at the Annual General Meeting in 1929 to ban them [women] from riding, for reasons that are not clear. The Membership has not sought to change this policy.”* Spoilsports.

    I liked the Doobrie Brothers reference, vinyl.

    * http://www.cresta-run.com/ride-the-cresta/facts-about-the-cresta/

  10. 21.04, with a lot of time spent on my last DOOBRIE, not thinking of DO for finish, taking rather as D for finish of old. I eventually gave up, sneaked a peek in electronic Chambers where it wasn’t, re-checked all the surrounding clues laboriously, then DOOBRIE popped in from nowhere I could identify. Not sure whether I cheated or not.
  11. No problems but not many answers came into my head on first reading of a clue. DNK DOOBRIE but BRIE is always a good starting point for cheese in a crossword.
    My ST experience was similar to Verlaine’s; grid full of gibberish and 50 minutes on the clock but mine was after completion.
  12. After my travails of last week I was pleased to have an easier one to start this week. I didn’t know BORAX and I’d only heard RAMJET via Roger. I didn’t realise how old the Roger Ramjet cartoons were – I see that it took 14 years for them to reach the UK after first appearing in the US in 1965.
  13. 18.05 for this game of two halves. The top half flew in including DOOBRIE, thanks to the cheese, but my brain froze for a while in the lower half. PROBLEM PAGE broke the log jam and the last few fell in a flurry. Lots to like including the ad man and LAVA LAMP.
  14. 14 mins. I didn’t have any trouble with DOOBRIE even though that isn’t how I would spell it if I ever came to use it. I had the most trouble in the SW quadrant and finished with AMMONIA after the ATHENIAN/HEADMAN crossers – for a while all I has was A and N checkers which was a little disconcerting.
  15. I was one of the lucky ones who had heard of all the answers, including DOOBRIE (which is common enough in the UK, and surely as familiar to US solvers as doodad or doohickey to UK ones) and BOTHY (though I was a bit unclear on its meaning). RAMJETs are wonderful things – they’re essentially jet engines without all workings stripped out, relying on forward speed to push air into the engine where it is mixed with fuel, burned, and spat out the back end, which makes it go faster, which pushes more air in… a sort of glorious positive feedback.

    I got through this one in 23 minutes as soon as it appeared online. I really must get out of this habit of doing the cryptic last thing at night – it leaves me with nothing to do the following day apart from work. Very enjoyable puzzle.

  16. The only pause came at 10ac, which is a word I’ve certainly used in conversation, but never been called upon to write down. Now I think about it, I’m not sure exactly how I would have spelled it, but it wouldn’t have been like that*. Happily, the word play and checkers made it pretty unambiguous which version was required. Fun puzzle.

    I suspect I was helped because dinner table conversation on Saturday included a collective attempt to remember which berries were “real” and which ones were crosses which carried the names of the people who created them, like Logan and Boysen. As a result, the dewberry may have been at the front of my mind already. And you’re right, those long winter evenings really do fly by…

  17. A hastily biffed RAMROD held me up no end until I got the NEEDLE which then propelled me rapidly towards the end. PROBLEM PAGE unfortunately needed help after much head scratching. I can even remember when LAVA LAMPS were all the rage. Haven’t seen one for decades. BOTHY very familiar – who remembers the BOTHY BAND? try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgXwIIHAmaw
  18. 45 mins on iPad on train back from that London.
    Crumpets with orange marmalade in Fortnum and Mason at St Pancras. Very good.
    Mostly I liked: doobrie.
    Took too long to see: Billiards, Dinky and Headman. Also had to invent Ramjet – but if there is such a thing, I guess it will propel.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  19. Thought it was spelled ‘doobery’, a word my dad used, he was born in 1924. 25′, seemed like hard work for a Monday. Thanks vinyl and setter.
  20. Home from holiday this morning on the red eye, flying back from the ultra-swish Newark Airport (why is its code EWR?) and decided to do this rather than read all the correspondence, bills etc I should be working on. Neither of us has dared go on the bathroom scales yet. I found this Mondayish apart from from the unknown and biffed RAMJET. I’m far too old to remember Roger and my children too young. I didn’t help myself though by remembering there were such things as ROMSEY sheep and thus tried to make a Romney propeller, swapping places from south to north. I knew DOOBRIE, BORAX and that use of DINKY. 28 minutes. COD PROBLEM PAGE. Thank you V and setter.
  21. My FOI YEN went in at sight, but my LOI, DOOBRIE took at least 5 minutes of my 26:26. Like Z I started off with the D as end of old, but eventually saw OBRIE and decided DO would do nicely for finish. I hadn’t realised that Bottom and his friends were Greek, but the anagrist and checkers made it inevitable. I’ve seen both TRANSOM and ASPIC in very recent puzzles, so no problems there. I’ve been in a BOTHY on Handa Island, a bird sanctuary off the west coast of Scotland, a few dozen miles south of Cape Wrath. It’s the only bit of shelter on the island and is used by the RSPB person when they stay there. A very enjoyable if slightly Anglocentric puzzle. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
  22. Mondayish for me at 11:35. Would have been quicker but for considering everything but NAVY as the key to unlock 26.

    Loved the doobrie clue.

  23. Complete in about 20 minutes with at least 5 trying to find a word to fit p_o_l_m (doh!!) otherwise may have geen a PB. I suspect I’m old enough to know the vocabulary and also things like Ramjet and other terms. I think this is the first time that I have completed faster than the blogger, so a huge thank you!
  25. 37m with trouble in the SW especially V’s simple letter removal clue. I also took ages to get SIDELINE as well. Most enjoyable perhaps because the ‘unknowns’ were all ‘known’ today. At least eventually! Good puzzle and blog today – thank you!
  26. I had the same experience as vinyl today, getting through most of it but delayed by several unknown items: DINKY, BOTHY, DOOBRIE and the CRESTA RUN. I believe BOTHY and the CRESTA place have appeared before, so they seemed at least possibly familiar when they occurred to me. DINKY and DOOBRIE from the wordplay only. So overall I had to spend 30 minutes or so filling them in, but also like vinyl, pleasantly surprised to find them correct. Regards.
  27. I couldn’t get to this till late, as I went out before 7 US time, and I wondered if a few clues that stubbornly resisted solving were really hard or if I was just too sleepy. So today I looked at it again, and still had to cheat for CRESTA RUN (where last night I had drawn the line separating the two words in the wrong place) and make sure DOOBRIE was a word, as I’d never heard of either of them. I confess that BILLIARDS was one that hung me up last night, as it had looked like an anagram for “Ball game” until I had the S in SIDELINE. That seemed to me a clever cryptic definition, on top of the other wordplay, so there would be no straight definition in sight… but then I find that Wikipedia lists snooker, pool, etc., as “target sports” in the entry for “ball game.” Whodathunkit?!
    1. Huh? Isn’t “black” there to clue “jet”? As for the other clue, I don’t believe it’s the done thing to give away competition answers while the competition is still running.

      Edited at 2017-12-04 09:32 pm (UTC)

  28. Nothing to frighten the horses, and, in mitigation, I claim that my slowish time was due to the distraction of listening to a rather good recording of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony on Classic FM as I was solving. My wife and I heard the same work played by the Royal Northern Sinfonia last week at the Sage, Gateshead, and it was terrific.
    Vinyl obviously finds listening to music while solving is not a problem: I wonder how many solvers find it an aid, and how many, like me, find it distracting?
    1. I enjoy listening to music while solving – there’s nothing like sticking a nice symphony on and settling down to the Jumbo on a Saturday afternoon. I am pretty sure it is more of a distraction than an aid though. I cannot concentrate on more than one thing at a time and so find myself variously drifting into one and out of the other during the course of the afternoon.
    2. I do find music helpful, but my music for actually listening to is quite different from my music for solving/working to.

      My morning session with the Times puzzles is more often than not prefaced by telling my Amazon Echo thingy to play random Miles Davis tracks…

    3. I can’t listen to anything when solving crossword puzzles but have no problem when working on sudokus. I wonder if different parts of the brain are involved for the latter.
  29. 26:52 so quick for me. Nice and Mondayish. Dnk cob for water bird but knew the loaf. Vaguely heard of bothy and ramjet but wordplay was helpful. Lucky to spot the second word in 13dn just before attempting a laborious alphabet trawl. This one flowed nicely without getting stuck anywhere. Very satisfying.
  31. Another puzzle which I really found it hard to believe that I had solved it correctly, since it was full of obscurities requiring the wordplay to solve them. In particular, I had never heard of BOTHY, CRESTA RUN and the river Arun, for that matter, nor DOOBRIE (well, maybe just a little). As for the latter, you might be amused by the Wikipedia entry for “deubré”, which, yes, is related.
    1. That’s atrocious! It looks French, but it ain’t! Invented by a guy at Nike, who, it would seem, was oblivious to the fact that the “eu” in French doesn’t have the sound represented by the double-O in “doobrie.” But he must at least have known that the acute “e” isn’t pronounced “ee.” So maybe he intended to change both vowel sounds. In the dumbest-sounding way possible!
  32. Hi V1 … I just found this as the last comment on last Saturday’s blog:

    “This is not connected with this crossword, but please PLEASE, where are the blogs for Cryptics 26,880 and 26,898, and Jumbos 1292 and 1295??? All I can find is random discussion on the Answerbank and such, where the problems aren’t usually the same as mine!

    “I do appreciate how hard it must be to keep up. I couldn’t do it, but as far as I know you wonderful people always have until recently. Is this a temporary hitch?”

    Anything I should tell him?

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