Times 26920 – music on top of music

67 comments on “Times 26920 – music on top of music”

1. “Way to take stuff to market” is a perfectly straight (not to mention boring), if rather colloquial, definition for TRADE ROUTE; the only tricky thing about it is that, if you’re like me (and I’m afraid some of y’all are, poor things), you wasted precious moments of your (vacation, as well as solving) time trying to see something remotely clever there.

   I had to relent, as it was the only thing that fit my checkers—as was TEMPORAL (I bet Jack or someone could tell me the last time this detail of the English parliamentary system appeared here; it seems new to me… not to mention Dr. Who–ish!).

   My FOI was AYER, not that I’ve read him, or much of the analytic philosophers at all.

   Memorials are made of many different materials, so I was reluctant to put in BRASS even though I had all the checkers. Isn’t that silly, though…

   My typographical background gave me LEADING. I’m glad it’s good for something these days. But I’ve never heard that term used for ellipses within lines. In my experience, it has meant vertical space between lines.

   I beg to differ with George about MIRABILE DICTU as an anagram. Seems to me it’s one of those things that has entered, or at least has more than one foot in, the language. In any interview or talk show on France Info, I hear “grosso modo,” which is equally Latin, and when copy-editing I never italicize “ad hoc” (let alone “ad lib”), “ipso facto,” “pro bono,” et cetera.

   I was up a tree with King Charles, had to look up where he hid.

   Edited at 2017-12-28 02:41 am (UTC)

   1. The brass clue refers to a specific type of memorial that was found on the floors of English churches between the 13th and 16th century:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monumental_brass

      1. Ahh… thanks! That makes it a lot less arbitrary (and provides another bit of British history to remember. I will, too).
   2. On LEADING: my graphics-designer wife tells me that the spacing between lines is pronounced “ledding” and was named after the additional lines of lead (the soft metal) needed by typesetters to create the space.
      1. Yes, that’s correct. George or I should have mentioned the pronunciation. And I was being polite, but, having seen George’s emendation, I feel compelled to point out that it is never (properly, at least) used to refer to ellipses.
2. …with my only difficulties involving the difficult King Charles clue. My suspicion that ‘King Charles’ referred to a spaniel proved unfounded, but I still nearly biffed ‘cloak’ before seeing how the clue worked.

   My other problem was thinking that 5 was DUST L _ T _ R, which is very difficult to solve. When you get stuck like that, the only solution is to erase the letters you’ve put in presumptively and start from scratch.

   I’m glad you managed to enter the 21st century, George, as I didn’t hear back after I sent you the script and instructions.

   1. Sorry about that – after looking at it I figured there was no way to know if it worked until I used it, which wasn’t until today. Thanks for passing on the details.
3. I decided that the use of the word ‘sound’ in 21ac meant ‘sounds like’ so I put CHOKE. It was only when 10d refused to respond to treatment that I figured something had to be wrong somewhere.
4. For me 6dn was practically a write-in as soon as I had the final “u”. Evidence of a mis-spent something-or-other, I suppose.

   On the other hand I hated the history lesson required for 21ac. He might have hidden in a clock for all I knew!

   1. It was a write-in for me when I read the definition, but I’m going to confess that I came to the blog this morning mostly in the hopes of seeing some apoplectic fury on the subject of this particular clue…
5. Like Guy I wondered at the brass memorial, and like George I cursed the non-English anagram. It might just as well have been any randomised arrangement. I was surprised to see two musical forms in the grid, and again to see ‘son’ defined as ‘boy’ twice in the cluing. Otherwise, they all went in quickly as I saw them, just it took quite a while to do some of the seeing.

   Edited at 2017-12-28 04:43 am (UTC)

6. I am so glad that you have descended from the above beast and are sharing your (undoubted)
   wisdom in the user-friendly format.
   1. If you are the same anonymous commenter who has left me a number of messages about this in the daily and Mephisto blogs, congratulations on your victory now kindly FOAD
      1. If you respond to gentle leg-pulling with a vicious response like that I’m glad I.m not a chemistry student in North Carolina
7. My solving time once the grid was started was half-an-hour but I have to admit I needed 7 minutes before that to find my first answer.

   I have a strong dislike of foreign expressions clued as anagrams (especally ones I don’t know) and I was only able to guess 6dn correctly when every checking letter was in place, by which stage there was very little doubt where the remaining letters had to go.

   TEMPORAL has come up twice before in the main puzzle in the TftT era, in 2010 clued as ‘passing’ and in 2012 as ‘worldly’, so on neither occasion with direct reference to the House of Lords. Of the three, today’s definition seems the most straightforward to me, but only because I knew of Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual.

   In my world its ‘ditchwater’ that’s dull rather than DISHWATER. Both are found by Google, but only ‘ditchwater’ is in Brewer’s so I’d be inclined to take it as the original, whilst ‘dishwater’ is a corruption that has found its way into the language.

   What is it with obscure printing terms all of a sudden? ‘Orphan’ yesterday and LEADING today!

   SOED informs me that the agent noun REASONER dates from the 16th century but I don’t recall meeting it before.

   At 27ac before newly-arrived checkers proved me wrong, I thought I had found a new philosopher to add to the list I can count on the fingers of one hand, namely {p}ARKE{r}.

   Finally, thanks for using the new format, George. The gap in the underline in double definitions is fine as it stands, but alternatives would be to insert an extra space or even a forward slash.

   Edited at 2017-12-28 06:38 am (UTC)

   1. Leading is hardly obscure as it is a term used today by many word processors – not just the printers of old.
      Lateral spacers – ems and ens – are fairly common in crossword clues: the term for vertical separation is not that obscure. Surely kerning is the obscure word in this category – it describes the usage of separators by the printing fraternity. Has kerning showed up in ‘The Times Xword’ at all, to your knowledge?

      Dishwater is bound to take over from the rural ditchwater, as ditches disappear and dishwater is, like the poor, always with us.

      Wishing you a happy and prosperous 2018

      Edited at 2017-12-28 08:03 am (UTC)

      1. The kerning discussion seems appropriate, given I was initially confused by what a “modem aid” would be in 3a.

         Reminds me of another neologism: keming…

      2. I think you are forgetting that the default definition of ‘obscure’ at TftT is any word, meaning or reference that the contributor doesn’t happen to know!
      3. A ‘kern’ is also medieval Irish infantryman, so watch out for some sort of tricky double definition.
8. The Royal Oak. Plenty of pubs are named thus after King Charles hiding up an oak tree from the skinheads
   who were after him, innit! So Mr. Browndog history ain’t boring if you visit the pub slightly more often!

   1ac CLOAK therefore my COD.

   FOI 27ac! AYER – I am a big Dorothy Sayers fan, as I am from the advertising fraternity – ‘Murder must Advertise’ etc…

   LOI 7dn SEESAW Doh!

   WOD GLUTTON and here we have LUTON actually with two Ts – as our American Cousins would have it.

   Talking of which, aren’t all words in ‘The Times Crosswords’ formed by anagrams – generally foreign words – to our American friends?

   I note King George showing a seasonal dollop grumpiness and brevity.

   My Aunt Millicent had a pet peeve – funny little thing – lived on chocolate buttons and cat food.

   My time – King George V.

   Taxi for one!

   Edited at 2017-12-28 06:39 am (UTC)

   1. CROAK not cloak!
9. 14:16 … and a nice challenge in parts.

   I definitely had the same experience as Guy, looking for something ingenious in TRADE ROUTE. This felt like another revival of a trick from the past, where the answer to “What’s so cryptic about that?” is “Aha! Nothing! That’s what’s cryptic about it!” I’m fine with that. Setters have to do something when sites like this one are making the tricks of wordplay commonplace.

   Less keen on LEADING, which went in with a shrug. The MIRABILE thing wasn’t too bad, as these things go. I just went for something that looked like Latin.

10. 25 mins with yoghurt, granola, blueberry compote – and much more of a confidence boost after yesterday.

    However – looking back I don’t see many ‘Mostly I liked’ but several ‘??’ – e.g. Leading, Trade Route, Temporal, Supply=mains, Ditch v. Dish (water).

    Thanks setter and George.

11. Some tricky bits and certainly a bit of an antiquarian feel, but nothing too complex once you got past that.

    Can I get mohn2’s script from you (or from mohn2)? Now that the circumstances of my subscription have changed I suddenly realise there’s no reason I shouldn’t be joining the state-of-the-art!

    1. I have sent you a copy of the email I sent George.
12. Surprised that no-one so far has mentioned the appropriateness of 22ac, this being Holy Innocents day. Good puzzle, agree about 6d, O level Latin not helping. Couldn’t get SEESAW, brainblock. Thanks gl and setter.
13. 34 min 45 secs with one typo. Disswater for Dishwater.
14. Biffing GOURMET early on didn’t help. Felt that TRADE ROUTE was a trap into which I had fallen but, no, it was just a simple clue. Logically it had to be AYER.
15. …weren’t verified in my answers to this puzzle. Too many were derived using the falsification method, particularly 1 across where I had ‘Tats’ in honour of what my old dog and I used to call our walks together until a CONCERTO spoilt the happy memory. I tried TRADEs north and south before ROUTE. I did finish in 38 minutes, starting late after watching cricket highlights. I”ve never tried BRASS rubbing but it seems a fitting way to pay tribute. BRASS when used to mean cash evokes two very different images: the flat-capped Yorkie saying “where there’s muck, there’s brass”, and Chrissie Hynde as a waitress. Gonna use my, my, my imagination. Good puzzle. Thank you George and setter. * I meamt to say I’m in the ditchwater camp too. DISHWATER is weak tea.

    Edited at 2017-12-28 12:00 pm (UTC)

16. Relatively easy top to bottom solve with the exception of 6D where I needed the checkers. I then checked in a dictionary before entering in the grid. Fully agree with George and others – poor clue writing to use an anagram of a foreign phrase.
17. Enjoyed this, including 6dn even though my distressingly poor latin led me to mirabile ducit, initially .. and, only now do I see MAINS = supply, as in “Is the house connected to the mains?” .. I admire your confidence George that folks would get that!
    It is easy to criticise words and clue constructions you don’t like, but I suppose no setter will ever please us all of the time. I’m just amazed whenever I see anything new or original at all, after 50 years or so of solving. Just think how many crosswords published ..
18. Nothing to moan about here. The usual couple of DNK’s which were gettable having got the rest of the letters. I liked CROAK – rather clever I thought.
    1. whoops thought I was logged in!
19. 22 minutes, enjoying croak especially. Mirabile dictu is rather good: it’s not science, it rolls off the tongue, and I knew it. What more can you want?

    Edited at 2017-12-28 11:07 am (UTC)

20. Mirabile dictu is one of the (few) things which has stuck from my classical education, so following the rule already stated above, I pronounce it to be completely fair and well within the scope of “general” knowledge. I was expecting more of an argument over DISHWATER versus DITCHWATER; I have no great problem with people who have adopted the former, as I’m much more likely to find myself pouring that down the sink than I am to be standing by the side of a country lane. Just don’t get me started on the massive idiots who say “If you think that, you’ve got another thing coming”.
    1. See also ‘the proof is in the pudding’.
       1. And pretty soggy it is too, especially with all that leading and kerning around.
       2. I try not to think about that one, as it’s especially bad for my blood pressure. Even worse than actual pudding.
21. 26.02. From childhood till now thought the dull thing was ditchwater. Mirabile dictu worth rescuing in my opinion, a lovely sweep to it. Does anyone here own a racehorse? Though Horribile d. might be more satisfying for its owner to hear as it smashed the opposition. Maybe they could be twins. Good to see the writer Dorothy getting a mention.
22. Late entry today after watching the Test for most of the night, just like old times with the Cookie Monster in indestructible form and Broad catching the same virus and carting it (inelegantly, of course) all over the place. England have two good days in a row, mirabile dictu.
    Anyway, the grid took 15 minutes to fill, mirabile dictu, and even extra mirabile dictu no typos or errors, though I knew not this version of LEADING.
    I agree with the consensus that 26 isn’t cryptic at all, though it may be worth noting that stuff has a specific sense of woollen cloth, so perhaps that’s it. Nah.
    Thanks for essaying the template thingy, George: I might even try it myself. So far, with my more clunky method, I have issues formatting the clues in the same shade of blue, and the resultant patchwork is scarcely dignified
23. 23:32. I don’t mind anagrams for foreign or obscure words as long as you can work out the answer with confidence once you have the checking letters. I thought MIRABILE DICTU was in that category. I had DUCIT initially but GLUTTON put the U in the right place.
    I think 26ac is leading us to think of a method (way) of taking produce to a physical market in a town square, so the answer might be a van, or a horse and cart, for instance. In fact what we are looking for is a physical route (way) for taking produce from one country to another (from Asia to the European market, say). I’m not going to defend it as the finest clue ever, but I do think it’s cryptic.
    1. You almost convinced me until I found your explanation more cryptic than the clue.
24. P.S. could I get the script for the blog format too, please? It might save me a bit of time, particularly as Sunday’s puzzle was a jumbo!
    1. A copy of the same email also sent to you.
25. 27 minutes, of a steady solve, nothing unknown even the king in the oak tree. I don’t have a problem with MIRABILE DICTU – is Latin “foreign”? It’s a phrase we use in English I thought.
    Was delayed at the end by a mis-biffed GOURMET which made MAINSTAY tricky and 17d my LOI.
    Verlaine if you don’t get the javascript and instructions let me know and I’ll forward it.
26. I must confess that I came here to moan about using an anagram for a foreign phrase. I’d never heard of it, but once I had all the checkers I was relatively confident of DICTU, and MIRABILE just edged MIRABELI for the first part. No classical education here.

    I’d not come across the alternative definition of LEADING, so hopefully that will stick in my brain longer than these things generally do. Oh, and I was most of the way through writing DITCHWATER before realising it didn’t fit (and that itch-dwaughter didn’t quite work).

    9m 34s all told.

27. I submitted at 28:34 only to find that I’d omitted to go back to 24a which I’d left as L_A_ING. Another couple of minutes before coming here convinced me that it should be LEADING, although I had no idea about the typographical meaning. I also biffed GOURMET at 25a, which delayed MAINSTAY and REASONER for a while. TEMPORAL and MANSARD were both words I couldn’t have defined in the sense required but I followed the wordplay. I’ve heard both DISH and DITCH used in the term at 5d. I suspected quite early on that 6d was going to be a Latin phrase, but it was only after 18a, 22a and GOURMET at 25a went in that I saw DICTU and the rest of the anagrist jogged a memory. Quite helpful that GOURMET had the required U in the right spot. I didn’t linger over TRADE ROUTE as I had checkers and didn’t think too deeply. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and George.
    Back to porridge and grapes with 100% columbian today after the more upmarket experience while staying at the daughter’s. Must go shopping for bananas….

    Edited at 2017-12-28 01:10 pm (UTC)

28. I have been having difficulty with the above RN in lower case looking like an M. It didn’t seem too much of a problem until today’s crossword. 3ac and 15d. I was stuck on 3ac as I had modem instead of modern and on 15d I had tum instead of turn. Does this bother anybody else?

    Brian

    1. Yes, I have learned to peer at the letters very closely in cases like this. They might try a different font.
    2. Me too.
    3. Yes! me too .. in whatever font they are using (Times house font I suppose) rn is virtually indistinguishable from m
       .. on edit: not so great in this font either .. why can’t everyone use Tahoma?

       Edited at 2017-12-28 10:30 pm (UTC)

29. 14 mins so pretty much on the setter’s wavelength. LEADING was my LOI with fingers crossed because I don’t recall ever having come across the printing term. I almost always work out anagrams in my head but I struggled with MIRABILE DICTU until I wrote down the anagrist and deleted the checkers.
30. One to me would be appreciated too.
31. 38:49 here, so pretty straightforward in the end though it was a bottom-to-toppish solve which doesn’t always bode well. FOI 11ac. 24ac entered from checkers and “most important” no complaints but in my opinion more unfair as a clue than 6dn where anagrist, instruction to anagram and some understanding of the language and etymology of words at least give you a shot. In the former if you don’t know the obscure (i.e unknown to me) printing term, you are entirely reliant on the other Def and any helpful checkers. Bit of a delay at the end where I couldn’t see seesaw or LOI brass for a while. King Charles in the Royal Oak oddly remembered from Billy Bunter floundering in a history lesson with Quelch on the Commonwealth.
32. Will it work for a Mac user?
33. 13:39, delayed a bit by:
    – “Modern” at 3a looking like “Modem” on my printout
    – not knowing a Lord Temporal from a Time Lord and
    – not knowing the latin thing (surprise surprise).
34. Like DISSWATER :-))
35. No problem with LEADING since my school had an old letterpress press and so we used real lead to space the lines of text. I vaguely remembered the latin but I also was convinced it was the latin for miracle (and there was even a C to hep mislead me) so I needed all the checkers to get it. I guess it was a write-in for anyone who knew the phrase once you had the fnal U. Got held up for ages for some reason at the end on BRASS and SEESAW. No idea why. I kept seeing BUCKS and wondering why it had anything to do with a memorial. Oh well, go thtere in the end.
36. It should, since it executes in the browser, not in the operating system.
    1. In that case please will you ping it my way too. I normally solve the Jumbo on paper but this might change my habits. Thanks
37. It took me 29 minutes to make one mistake (inexcusable “cloak” for CROAK at 21ac) – would that I had been fast enough to have made none.
38. 45m on a pleasantly quiet train heading to London. Nowt to add to the preceding comments other than a thank you to our setter and George
39. Nice puzzle, though I’d not heard of the printing thing. I had certainly heard the Latin phrase, and I’m surprised it’s not more generally familiar to all, since (I think) it appears fairly often. The phrase is far more familiar than where King Charles hid, although I biffed it as the only sound that fit. Regards.
    1. A search of TftT since its inception suggests that this is the first time that MIRABILE DICTU has appeared as the answer to a clue although it has been used three times by contributors, in 2014, 2016 and in September this year.
40. I rather liked the wrong-footing of the uncryptic 26a: it’s kinda fun that I spent a couple of minutes looking for the complex wordplay.
41. 15:40 without reading glasses visiting my sister in the Mendips and forgetting to bring them. I agree with rn and m in the font used. I thought Mirabile Dictu was fine, but then it was a phrase I remembered rather than having to rely on the wordplay alone. I also thought 26a a bit weak and barely cryptic. I usually struggle with this grid and it’s 12 and 13 letter answers but not today. Thanks for the lesson in pronouncing “LEADING”. I always thought it just referred spacing in front.
42. Definitely “Ditchwater”, but fortunately the rest of the clue gave me the answer to what can only be a misheard lyric.

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