Times 26905 – Dreaming of a blue Christmas

78 comments on “Times 26905 – Dreaming of a blue Christmas”

1. My neurons weren’t doing much conducting this morning. Having come up with and rejected ‘antidote’, I could think of nothing else and finally biffed ANTITOXIN without seeing the wordplay. Having come up with and rejected ‘progenitor’, I could think of nothing else until the end, when I had the X. Having read 27ac, I thought of Sian, the only Welsh female name I knew, promptly forgot it, and wound up with ‘Sperran’ (err in span; I also had the wrong def). Not a good start to the week.
   1. Me too, the same SPERRAN, after getting through the rest OK, total 12′
2. 29 minutes, so a very encouraging start to my week. Stumbled over a couple (-trix, for one) but corrected myself and pressed on to the end.
3. 29 mins for me but I mistyped METRONOME with a P instead of an O and I only noticed after I’d hit submit (but before it had actually started up the actual submission process). Annoying. Spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to see why ANTIVENOM was correct before moving on and seeing it when I got back. I’d never heard of REALGAR so that was a trust-the-wordplay one.

   I have to say that having lived for years near the SIerra’s in California, and hiked in that Sierra Nevada, and the Sierra Nevada in Spain, I have never heard the word SIERRAN. It looks like the sort of word that might just as easily turn out not to be a word, so I wasn’t sure about that one either.

   1. I too live near a Spanish sierra. I have never before heard the very evidently made up word “sierran”. It could maybe be “serrano”, as per for example, ham. But then we’d lack this witless and trying-too-hard clue. Otherwise fun, so why spoil it?
4. ….I discovered I had cut off the last two across clues, and had to write them in pencil across the top. The solve went pretty well until the very end, when I found myself completely unable to make anything of 20 and 25. Unfortunately, I had biffed ‘sierras’.

   I did see ‘Stavanger’ eventually, and even vaguely remembered it, but I had to spend quite a long time playing around with 20 until I saw my error and finished. The ‘s’ ending with ‘notes’ seemed credible, for a quite a while.

   I did find ‘stockinet’ and ‘realgar’ hard to credit, but adopted the Mephisto approach – that must be it. Upon searching for ‘realgar’ in Google, the first result is an offer to sell you some.

   1. I wonder how many people here will have known REALGAR and STOCKINET before…
      1. REALGAR seemed like it was definitely an actual word, but I certainly couldn’t have told you what one was before during this puzzle.

         Likewise I entered STOCKINGS for the other clue at first but when it became clear that a T was needed at the end, STOCKINET did sound like a real word, though, again, I probably wouldn’t have come up with it if you’d ask me to name materials all day.

      2. Stockinet will be well known to the GH (Georgette Heyer) brigade .. sarsonet, too.

         Realgar, maybe not so much

         1. Actually Jerry I think it’s Barbara Pym, not Georgette Heyer. “Excellent women” would have sensible beige stockinet undies and modest locknit nightwear. In Rebecca the narrator turns up at Manderley in a stockinet dress, to Mrs. Danvers’s contempt.
   2. For what it’s worth, REALGAR has come up 3 times, most recently in November 2014 and I didn’t mention it on any of those occasions so I must have known it from somewhere.

      STOCKINET has not come up before, but I knew it because it was a material featured in advertising campaigns during the 1950s and 1960s. I don’t remember the detail now but I think it may have been used for self-supporting stockings and socks, which would fit with ‘hosiery’ in the clue. Additionally it was definitily used for underwear and indeed Collins continues our blogger’s ‘blue’ theme by quoting the example: blue stockinet knickers.

5. Read 9 across definition as Tickling device which didn’t help getting that one. Pleased to find on hitting submit that REALGAR wasn’t a pigment of my imagination.
   1. Ha! Very good.
   2. (“Don’t worry, you will.”)

      Edited at 2017-12-11 09:10 pm (UTC)

6. 26 mins with all guns blazing!

   Guy from the Stable – I knew my poison 19dn REALGAR and 3dn STOCKINGNET – honest!

   FOI 9ac METRONOME! What a gimme!

   LOI 20dn NEURON and not RATTLE after all!

   COD 14ac STANDING STONES

   WOD 4dn PROGENITRIX

   Maybe things are getting a bit easier, what with Christmas and the end of the world imminent.

   1. “Guy from the stable”: surely that’s just a typo, David. “Guy du Sable,” or “guy of the sand,” is a pun on the name most people know me by, “Sandy” (which has nothing whatsoever to do with my legal name, George William McCroskey, the middle part of which entitles me to “Guy,” short for Guillaume).
7. All very easy apart from what letters to stick on the end of STOCK and PROGENI
   And then also held up by having the more likely looking SIERRAS
8. 12:25, held up at the end in the NW corner where WORKSOP wouldn’t come to mind and I tried all the short females I could think of apart from the right one. Like others I took REALGAR and STOCKINET on trust and was relieved to find they were right. I’ve actually been to STAVANGER so no problems there.
   1. I hope the citizens there are duly grateful to you!
      1. Ha! Actually since my visit STAVANGER has acquired a lot of problems (from a business point of view) as a result of the collapse in the oil price. I’m reluctant to take responsibility for that!
9. A DNF to start my week. All seemed to be going fairly well until I hit the south east corner. I finally sorted out EVADE (couldn’t get Drake out of my head) and SIERRAN, took a punt on the unknown REALGAR, but though I eventually convinced myself that the unknown SVANTAGER might be right, I couldn’t see TEMPERATE before my hour bell went off. Not having heard of the vale and not being sure about the port didn’t help.

   Always seems a bit of a shame to fail more because of a lack of GK than anything else, but some puzzles are just like that…

   1. Sympathy on a disappointing start to the week, and thanks for your message last week. I tried to respond, but it seems that my iPad won’t let me.
10. 14:01 … fiddly words and long clues rather disrupted any flow as I tried in vain for a sub-10 Monday. SIERRAN, STOCKINET, ELISION and a misbiffed ‘antivenin’ put paid to those hopes.

    There was a young man from Stravangar …. is surely an impossible limerick. Isn’t it?

    1. Whose nose looked a lot like a banger;
       While the size of his ears
       Could provoke him to tears,
       And embarrassing outbursts of anger.
       1. Fantastic. I knew the forum wouldn’t let me down.
    2. There was a young man from Stavanger
       Who dropped an embarrassing clanger
       When, golfing at Troon,
       He let go of his spoon,
       Which flew backwards and killed Bernhard Langer

       (Couldn’t resist).

       1. Tee hee. Brilliant! With the added bonus of a crossword staple (the spoon, not Bernhard Langer, even though you just qualified him for admission, you wretch)
          1. A poet who lived in Stavanger
             Was praised as a great Sturm-und-Dranger;
             But alone, in the dark,
             Cried “Sod this for a lark!
             I am sick and I’m tired of this clangour!”
       2. Excellent!
    3. Rhyme with Stavanger?
       Annoyed there can’t be danger.
       Anger management.
       1. Excellent. But now I feel strangely despondent.
          1. Sorry, that was me.
             Don’t be despondent …. things could be worse. You could actually live in Stavanger.
          2. Just to cheer you up:

             There was a young man from Stavanger,
             Who blew off his nuts with a banger,
             Often he rues,
             lighting that fuse,
             And he no longer sings bass but sopranna.

11. I know STAVANGER from the boardgame Ticket To Ride: Nordic Countries, but that didn’t stop me from trying to put STOCKHOLM in first, though to my credit I didn’t get all the way through the word before reality asserted itself. Monday mornings are hard though. 6 minutes and a bit on the clock.
12. 35 mins – with the last 15 in the SE – with porridge and banana.
    Stavanger was ok and I convinced myself Realgar must be real – which left S-ERR-N. I even considered Sian – but bunged in Sperran, since my cousin Sperran is from Swansea (just kidding – she’s from Newport).

    Mostly I liked: Trix and mrkgrnao’s comment above.

    Thanks setter and Ulaca.

    Edited at 2017-12-11 08:39 am (UTC)

13. Easy stroll in the park today. Like Jack I recall STOCKINET but used as bandages and vague memories of REALGAR from previous puzzles. STAVANGER from working with clients in Aberdeen who had business contacts there because of oil industry
14. On the wavelength today, 14 minutes for this real Monday effort, knew Worksop as home town of Lee Westwood, knew stockinet and realgar from somewhere before, our son sometimes goes to Stavanger in his job… my lucky day I guess. Did it top to bottom with 27a last one.

    Edited at 2017-12-11 09:20 am (UTC)

15. 18.03, no real hold-ups, except for slight sexist fixation on progenitor. Knew realgar well as a word, the meaning virtually not at all; funny how crosswords (at least Times) remind us of our half-knowledge and allow us, uselessly and satisfyingly, to exploit it.
16. 14.35, so clearly on the easy side. Struggled a bit in the SE corner, partly because I did not know TEMPE (I didn’t know it any of the other times it’s come up either) which left the crossing E for the duck clue a bit vague. Is Dave a fellow or a bloke?
    Like mrkgrnao, I read tickling device in 9, which left far too much to the imagination. I suppose if you stuck a feather on the end of the inverted pendulum thingy and cranked it up to prestississimo it might just work.
    I did know REALGAR, though I thought it might be sticky, and I’d have spelled the material as STOCKINETTE, which turns out to be the same stuff.
17. A nice Monday puzzle time taking 21 minutes with REALGAR constructed easily but LOI STOCKINET taking a bit longer. I have flown to STAVANGER but I can’t remember why. I had to walk to the paper shop to get the paper as Hadley Wood has declared a snow day. The newsagent knows a mug when he sees one and I ended up delivering half the papergirl’s round on the way home. At this stage I have to tell you that the papergirl is in her sixties but normally does the round in her car. There are some long driveways here. Fortunately I’m friends with the dogs if not the people. It was pouring with rain too, so I then had to dry my precious copy of The Times on the radiator before doing the puzzle. The nursing home were the only ones who greeted me.They probably saw me as a future customer. COD ANTITOXIN. Thank you U and setter.

    Edited at 2017-12-11 09:57 am (UTC)

    1. Dammit with such an elevating tale to tell you almost make me change my allegiance from the boring MUFC to BW.
       1. Once upon a time, back in the fifties, we were up there with United. With Dad and his Dad Bolton supporters right back to the turn of the century, it was an easy choice then. Not so natural for my London-born sons, but they’e managed it. I guess Mufc’s concern right now is knocking City off their blankety perch.
       2. My great years as a supporter were following Wimbledon from their Dons For Div 4 days to the heights of the FA CUP win and a long spell in the top division, brought to an end only because I moved to Calcutta and could no longer advise them on the corners.
18. You flew to STAVANGER but can’t remember why.
    There was once an Alzheimer Conference there – might it have been that?

    What’s Hadley Wood got to do with the price of cauliflowers?

    Edited at 2017-12-11 09:57 am (UTC)

    1. Try Googling ‘Hadley Wood cauliflower’
       1. I tried that too. I found that cauliflower is on next Sunday’s lunch at the golf club. My wife did teach at the Hadley Wood pre-school where cauliflowers fluffy were a staple part of harvest. I guess I heard the damn thing nine times, our three children for three years each. If the caulies have any sense they will definitely be sleeping in their blankety bed today. (Blankety apparently doesn’t mean expletive deleted.) I think pre-schools sing that song the world over though, so it’s not a Hadley Wood USP. Snow cauliflowers, H?
19. 18.28 with quite a lot of tiptoeing around possible booby traps. STOCKINGET was what we used to polish cars with before some genius invented microfibre cloths.
20. The now rather usual relatively easy crossword with 2 unknowns thrown in for good measure – well, 3 if you count the female progenitor. Held up for a while with a quickly biffed PLEASANT otherwise nice and quick. LOI NEURON Now off to see if my LONG TERM MEMORY is good enough to find my way to the shops and in the process brave several inches of snow…
21. 22:37, with my usual but unforgivable mental bloc on -TRIX. Guessed TEMPERATE as have never heard of TEMPE as a valley but otherwise steady stuff. Thanks for the explanations, u
22. Very pleasant Monday solve. Vocabulary a little too unusual to make it a real gimme, but as others have found, the known unknowns were clearly given by the wordplay. Tempe is well known to classicists, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it depicted in a painting in a gallery somewhere in Europe recently (I’d love to be more precise, but I need that room in my memory for things like STOCKINET).
    1. Anyone who knows their Keats will be familiar with “Tempe or the dales of Arcady?”, even if they are not classicists. Though I suppose knowing Keats makes you a classicist of sorts, these days.
       1. I’d say it puts you in a very small minority. May the few of you be happy there condescending to each other. Metaphorically of course.
          1. Look, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a go at people who can recite a bit of Keats from their schooldays, utterly wet weeds the lot of them… but do you think the comments section of a blog about Times crosswords is the best place to do it?
          2. I prefer to think that folk who are rude about likeable people they perhaps don’t even know also form a very small minority. You can read the enjoyment being had by the posters on this site, privileged as we all are. Why spoil it?
          3. There was an old man from Stavanger
             Who suffered from scholastic languor
             On LiveJournal posts
             His anonymous roasts
             Gave vent to his internet anger!
             1. Nice one Matt:-)
23. A few words I didn’t know – Tempe, stockinet (LOI), Stavanger, realgar (which rang a vague bell) but all very gettable from wordplay. 6m 34s all told.
24. No problems with this one, except I had to take REALGAR and TEMPE on trust. I also had PROGENI____ until ANTITOXIN hove into view. STOCK____ sat unfinished for a while as, like Z, I thought it finished ETTE, but LTM and SS saved the day. WOMBAT was my FOI, with SIERRAN and then NEURON bringing up the rear, by which time the clock showed 24:25. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and U.
25. I was going at a pretty good clip until I hit that corner where I was sure it had to be “Sierras” and that “notes” in 20d denoted a plural. Rescued by one of the few Welsh names I actually know thanks to the great Sian Phillips. We’ve certainly had STAVANGER before, perhaps in one of the Sundays. 14.17
26. No problem with Stavanger as it’s our twin town, while Tempe reminds me that it was pointed out to us by the tour guide as the bus passed by – it didn’t seem different from the other valleys seen from the main road, so I suppose you need to walk through to appreciate it.
    About 30 minutes, with LOI SIERRAN, after trying ‘Sperran’ as an unknown Welsh name. The site once again has refused to download interactive puzzles to Chrome (or Firefox) -after a while spinning wheel gives ‘Forbidden’ message, so need to go to main site and retry till I get ‘Congratulations’. (At least that means I don’t have an error on my record!)
    1. I have the same problem with the site but only on one computer, and with all browsers on it. It stopped working last week, then a day later started working again for a few days, and now hasn’t worked for 5 days. The site support aren’t any help, so far. One support team member advised that it works fine on his Windows 7 machine so it must be a local issue for me. The Times site works on my Win 7 machine too; and one of my Win 10 machines. Funny that all the other sites I visit work fine, including the Indy crossword!
27. 11 mins so I was pretty much on the wavelength. Like several of you it took me a while to get STOCKINET and to be convinced that REALGAR was a word. Having said that it was actually PLEASING that was my LOI. STAVANGER should have come to mind faster than it did because me and some friends spent some time with a couple of girls from there on a holiday in Majorca in the early 80s.
28. Does anyone else use WOMBAT as one of the finest acronyms of all time? Round here, it’s Waste Of Money, Brains And Time, which comes in handy disturbingly often.
29. Give that the Druids/Stonehenge connection myth has long since been debunked, can anyone explain the ‘Druidic circle’ reference. The best part of a millennium expired between the most recent acknowledged standing stone being erected and the Druids first appearing.
    Still an easy enough clue. A nice Monday workout after a heavy Sunday.
    23’ish.
    1. I’d have thought there’s enough association in folklore for our purposes whether strictly accurate historically or not. In any case there’s a question mark at the end of the clue which suggests that all may not be quite what it seems.
30. DNF in 30 mins. 5 missing or wrong. Stavanger, Sierran, Realgar and Neuron plus forgot to go back to Elision.
31. How is “White’s” an example of an elision?
    1. White is becomes white’s by eliding, I think.
    2. I’m no expert on such matters but I think the idea is that the apostrophe in “White’s” serves as a mark of elision if the intended meaning is “White is”, as the sound of the second “i” is being omitted in speech. Similarly for “White has”. But it wouldn’t be so if the apostrophe is being used to indicate the possessive, i.e.”belonging to White”.
32. 25m on a very busy southbound Edinburgh train, no problems apart from the usual excitements of train travel. Now for Sunday’s offering! Thanks for encouraging puzzle, setter and also to our blogger.
33. Metro, I get. The rest, biffable, probably a gimmme, and deserving of a funny explanation, but has evaded me completely. Could someone supply basic wordplay please. Many thanks in advance
    1. The gnomes of Zurich refers to secretive Swiss Bankers, reputedly living underground counting their money, popularised if not coined by Harold Wilson in his first term as prime minister.
       1. ah! thank you very much. DNK that
34. Been bonkers busy the last two weeks so haven’t commented much (in fact I did all of last week’s puzzles in a marathon sitting while snowed in on Saturday). Maybe all that practice helped as I was in under 8 minutes for one of my fastest times on the club site. No real hold-ups – I liked PROGENETRIX
35. I started this like a train, and really thought that I might be on for a PB, then I started to find problems with the endings of the solutions. I’m relieved to find that others seem to have had the same experience, but sorting everything out left me with a respectable, but not memorable, time.
36. 31:15. I felt this could have been quicker because there were quite a few easy ones like 5, 9, 10 & 11ac, 5 & 6dn but I was held up by half-knowns at 25ac and 19dn and by not seeing the meat in 21ac or the vocal skills in 4dn for too long.
37. Surely “err” is only a verb and can’t mean “mistake”?
    1. Chambers doesn’t agree: “mistake (vi) “to err in opinion or judgement”. But I did twinge a bit when solving.

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