Times 26932 – I like the way the Americans say 20 down

71 comments on “Times 26932 – I like the way the Americans say 20 down”

1. …as I thought I was struggling, not seeing obvious answers like ‘orifice’ and ‘tragedian’. Fortunately, I had already solved the most problematic clue in another puzzle. I nearly got hung up on ‘adequate’, but fortunately more than a few of the puzzles I’ve tackled lately seem to involve a ‘q’.

   We used to have ‘tondo/tondi’ all the time, along with ‘Tiepolo’ and ‘trireme’, but they have all been out of circulation for a while. Maybe they’ll bring back ‘estaminet’ and ‘etagere’ next.

2. I was happy to finish in under 30 minutes, so perhaps this wasn’t too hard. I was relying on wordplay for ESCHEAT, TONDI, SIXAIN, though the words looked likely. And I only partially parsed 4a and 8d before submitting. Thanks, George, for the explanations.

   COD to 26a (BARGING IN) and I liked the substitution in 27a.

3. I ended up fairly quickly with everything except SIXAIN, which I’d never heard of. I thought of DIMAIN (with the same wordplay except for AMID but something didn’t seem quite right, and who writes two line poems). So I went away and came back after doing editing a video, uploading it via OneDrive (didn’t go well—don’t ask). Then I immediately though AXIS and a six line poem (I assume that’s what it is, I’ve not even looked it up) is alot more plausible.

   BTW I love the way that readin this blog you get lots of incidental information on people’s areas of expertise: classics, music. Not so keen on having to learn so many poets and obscure composers to do the word. Like Dorset Jimbo, science is more my thing but apparently Newton is the only scientist in crosswordland. Or maybe the ones like Watt or Ampere are fair game. But how about Rutherford, Crick, Watson, Maxwell. I was going to say Darwin but I think he made an appearance.

   1. Euler is crossword land’s favourite mathematician and Einstein makes the odd appearance as a ‘physicist’ or ‘genius’. I agree though, it would be nice to have someone a bit less well known such as say, De Broiglie just to pick one (the wave-particle duality of matter – love it, even though I don’t have a clue what it means), to balance some of the obscure poets etc. we’re expected to know about.
   2. Maxwell was in last Friday – and made a change.
      And Ampere in the Quickie on Tuesday.
      And this one has been in the TLS!
      Part-time chemist is miles off turning tungsten into diamonds (7)

      Edited at 2018-01-11 08:26 am (UTC)

      1. … so it took me a long time to crack this, M. Chemist or physicist? Maxwell wrote that he was “…in reality a mathematician of a very high order – one from whom the mathematicians of the future may derive valuable and fertile methods,” despite him having no trigonometry.
         1. Got there – didn’t he work with the (definitely chemist) Humphrey Davy?
            1. He did. He is best known though for his work on electricity and magnetism, establishing that a changing magnetic field creates an electric field, the basis for the dynamo (and subsequently power generation and electric motors). The maths behind this is one of Maxwell’s four equations and is called Faraday’s Law.

               Edited at 2018-01-11 11:38 am (UTC)

               1. …he did a bit of physics and on the side dabbled with chemistry sufficiently to discover benzene.

                  I think Zabadak blogged this TLS and commented: “Faraday is a part-time chemist in the same way that Leonardo da Vinci is a part-time painter.”

                  Edited at 2018-01-11 01:32 pm (UTC)

         2. Meanwhile in a hospital in London………!
            1. Harry Gregg and Nat became good friends. Name the guy running alongside Nat and the ground, H.
               1. Maybe Tom Finney.
                  Burnden Park?

                  On second thoughts – England training – White Hart Lane?

                  Edited at 2018-01-11 06:45 pm (UTC)

                  1. Almost right, M. Brilliant lateral thinking. Tom Finney correct. England training correct, before playing Spain in November 1955. England won 4-1 at Wembley. Ground Stamford Bridge. I don’t know if that was the original Shed.
                     Perhaps H won’t read this before he replies.
   3. Over the last decade I think consistent comment on this blog has increased the level of scientific content of the puzzle

      At the top of the blog if you click on memories and then miscellaneous at 2008-12-01 you’ll find an analysis of clue topics that demonstrated how sparse scientific terms were at that time

      1. Indeed, I would agree. Another scientist who appears from time to time, of course, is Max Planck, ideal clue-fodder. I also seem to recall seeing Kelvin in there somewhere. Incidentally, Maxwell was Senior Wrangler at Cambridge, so very much a mathematician. I can still remember the awe I felt as an undergraduate when I was first shown how the wave equation falls out of his EM equations, with a speed of c.Who says the arts have a monopoly on beauty?
         1. I agree. Euler’s identity and the Golden ratio etc are wonders to behold. Unfortunately my musical knowledge is less advanced and I hadn’t heard of sixain. Hey ho another DNF. Great time blogger – I’d hardly started to sharpen my pencil by the time you’d finished!
      2. Yes, especially by you.
4. One of my first in was ‘peckers’ for 18d which I was certain was right until the crossing 21a wouldn’t work. Pity, as it fitted the word play perfectly and I think is a better answer for ‘pigeon’ (but what would I know). Overall took about 40 minutes, but like paulmcl, I spent a long time on my LOI, SIXAIN which was also new to me. Unlike him though I didn’t have to upload a video via OneDrive; why, must have only taken about a week.

   Looked up ‘tondo’ on Wikipedia. There is a Botticelli painting (a tondo) called ‘Madonna of the Pomegranate’. Silly me for not having heard of it. To be filed away for future use.

   Thank you to setter and blogger

5. 8:33. No problems today. I remembered TONDI from previous appearances and ESCHEAT was familiar, although I don’t think I’d have been able to tell you what either meant.
   My nitpick of the day is that a FLOATING CHARGE isn’t actually a liability, but like chopping and mincing it’s close enough.
6. 30 minutes, but two wrong answers having put DIMAIN at 22ac for reasons already discussed above, and having biffed COMPATIBLE at 13dn. I wasn’t happy with either answer so I should have spent more time on thinking them through, however I never heard of SIXMAIN before so I’m not sure I’d ever have thought of it. This is its first appearance since TftT started although it turned up once in a Mephisto.

   Edited at 2018-01-11 06:06 am (UTC)

   1. No, sixain has turned up once before, though in 2007 (23502) admittedly 🙂
      More usefully, it turned up a week or so ago in a crossword yet to be blogged.

      Edited at 2018-01-11 09:56 am (UTC)

      1. Okay, but that was before my time. I started contributing a few months later and blogging in November that year. I haven’t seen the puzzle yet to be blogged.

         Edited at 2018-01-11 10:32 am (UTC)

7. Good puzzle. For some reason, I really liked BAR GIN GIN (even though I’m not crazy about gin). Also enjoyed the clue with brandy. I’ve seen SIXAIN at least once before recently, might have been in a Jumbo. Was glad that ESCHEAT surfaced from the depths of my memory. HOSPITABLE was my LOI, as I could at first only think of COMPATIBLE, though the wordplay didn’t fit.
8. A DNF as I could not get near 18 dn POUTERS tricky old clue at first I was thinking SQUAB_ _ _
   Beyond my ken! Rest of it was good stuff especially when I realised that 8dn began HIGH and not HEAD.

   FOI 4dn GOON which must have been a tad puzzling for our American friends.

   LOI SIXAIN

   COD 10ac CRAIG

   WOD 4ac GIBBERISH

   1. ….if you don’t know who the Goons are, you’re not going to do very well in these puzzles
      1. You dirty rotten swine!
         1. Seller’s sad courage (10)
9. 52 minutes, with a few at the end trying to decide whether LOI 22a SIXAIN looked plausible. I guessed it might be “like quatrain, but with six of them” but the word seemed a bit “on the nose”. I’d have been expecting “hexain”, or something.

   My dictionary tells my SIXAIN is “late 16th century: from French, from six ‘six’.” So it is rather on the nose!

   Anyway, I took a punt and it paid off. Along the way from FOI 10a CRAIG I took a few punts, in fact, on FLOATING CHARGES, TONDI, POUTERS (I’ve seen the things but I had no idea there was a word for them!) and SENESCENT, to name but four. But it did help that I vaguely remembered ESCHEAT from earlier puzzles, and knew that there are about thirty-five abbreviations for nurses, none of which I can ever keep in my head…

   Enjoyed several along the way, especially 26a.

   1. I recognised ESCHEAT and indeed it came up a mere 9.5 months ago: https://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/1710279.html. From my failure to remember BACCHANTE on Monday I deduce the limits of my memory are somewhere betweeb 9.5 months and 3.5 years.
      1. I’m never that sure how my memory is doing, because I went through a period doing two puzzles a day, reaching backwards randomly into the archives to give myself some extra practice, so the puzzle date might have no relation to when I saw the word…
10. 30 mins with the usual quatrain: granola, yoghurt, banana, compote.
    A confidence boost after yesterday’s Bacchantes debacle – despite not being familiar with Pouters or Tondi.
    Mostly I liked: pre-match publicity, accolade for nurses.
    Get in RADA for retraining? Beerbohm Tree would have liked that one.
    Thanks setter and G. And thanks to Vinyl for a list of words to learn…this is helpful to me…more please.
11. 14:24 … going to award myself a time on the grounds that I’m probably never going to write FALFE with pen and paper.

    Very easy until the handful of crackers that needed a whole different level of thinking. As often, I’m in tune with Myrtilus — ADEQUATE and BEST IN SHOW being the standout clues for me.

    Last in SIXAIN

12. Right on wavelength, 19 minutes today, with fingers crossed about SIXAIN. POUTERS and the possibly known TONDI solved exclusively from word play. COD SENESCENT. The clueing was generous but answers like ESCHEAT at the edge of my knowledge made this very enjoyable. No GRIPEs at all. Thank you George and setter.
13. Quite quick considering three words were new to me. I would have been quicker if I hadn’t put in PROPELLER at first.
    I suppose “Security from torpedoes?” would be a bit tough for FLOATING CHARGES.
14. I must have been ‘on the wavelength’ today as I find everything straightforward apart from my LOI, the unknown SIXAIN. It was one of those final clues which causes me to pause thinking that if it doesn’t sound like a word (which SIXAIN didn’t to me) I probably shouldn’t go for it but got lucky this time.
15. 12:34 I thought I was in QC-land for a lot of this, although a few (SIXAIN, FLOATING CHARGES, TONDI and POUTERS) were derived from the wordplay rather than known. I liked ADEQUATE, but my favourite was the boozy 26a. Chin chin. Thanks George and setter.
16. Pretty quick this one, quite pleased with my time. I did think some of the vocab might prompt complaint but I like the obscure words. Now we sadly no longer hear from Tony Sever, we have a vacancy in the “Surely *everybody* knows that?” department that I might look to fill 🙂
    1. You’ll also have to master being disappointed with your 7 minute solving time, Jerry, but otherwise go for it. I do miss Tony’s contributions. Wonder if he ever pops by for a read.
       1. Ha, yes .. but not my strong point unfortunately. Maybe Verlaine, or Mohn.. I’ve not been under 10 mins so far this year and if I was, I can’t see me being disappointed about it!
          Yes I miss Tony both here and on the crossword club forum. The forums seem to have imploded rather, lately.
17. Another dozy solve: maybe one day I’ll wait until I’m properly awake. Despite studying Land Law (my oath, it was dull) I had forgotten what ESCHEAT meant, though it seems apposite that most of it is cheat. SIXAIN I might have remembered, and thanks to Gothick Matt, I now realise it looks more likely in French. Along with TONDI, those are the words the native spellchecker redlines, always a good indication that we’re straying into arcane, stuff only crossword solvers need to know territory.
    I have no idea what FLOATING CHARGES are, but they do look quite a lot like liabilities: close enough for economics and crosswords
    20 minutes today. Told you I wasn’t properly awake.

    Edited at 2018-01-11 09:42 am (UTC)

    1. Close enough for crosswords, I agree, but a FLOATING CHARGE is security designed to make sure a liability is paid, and not a liability in itself. If you gave your watch to a pawnbroker to secure a loan you wouldn’t call the watch a liability.
18. 1D was a write in so off to a good start. Likewise 8D from definition and 4-11

    Like others the reappearance of TONDI revived memories of all those obscure artists we used to meet nearly every day like dear old Tiepolo. Definitely not missed.

    Knew SIXAIN from Mephisto-land. No other problems in a middle of the road puzzle

19. Was dubious about SIXAIN, believing the word to be SESTET, but this turns out to be only the last six lines of a sonnet. Had never heard of FLOATING CHARGES, so nearly LOI. 20’31”, thanks gl and setter.
    1. Funny you should mention SESTET…
20. Got through this one by the skin of my teeth, in 28 minutes.

    ESCHEAT – half-remembered from its previous occurrence here. TONDI – completely implausible word that shouldn’t exist. SIXAIN – ditto.

21. 28.03. Held up at the end by sixain, annoyingly for a versifier. Neat puzzle. Still slightly amazed by the bar-gin-gin.

22. 25 or so mins for all but SIXAIN, and then quite a few more for that. Followed the wordplay for ESCHEAT, TONDI and POUTERS.

23. My COMPATIBLE got changed into HOSPITIBLE
24. which was unfortunate. Otherwise a very enjoyable, but fairly easy outing.
25. Nothing new in my world: I remembered the existence of ESCHEAT and POUTERS and TONDI, even if I might have struggled to define them without any context; which left me with a choice between DIMAIN and SIXAIN, and I chose the latter because it looked closer to quatrain. Definitely on the obscure side, but given that most people appear to have got there successfully from the wordplay, all fair.
26. 12:55 with heavy reliance on wordplay for ESCHEAT and SENESCENT. SIXAIN, on the other hand, fell right into my lap given where it recently appeared.

    Keriothe got there before me on the technical point about a floating charge, but as is so often the case it’s the lexicographers we need to be calling upon with our torches and pitchforks, not the setter and editor.

    1. Mr. Penfold please send your postal address to Lady Sotira for your prize!
       1. Done squire.
    2. I didn’t actually look earlier but I see ODO uses the word ‘liability’. As I already said I think it’s close enough for a crossword but certainly not for a dictionary. Now where did I put my pitchfork…
27. No time, as completed in multiple sittings, but like others, I was held up by SIXAIN. Unlike others, my first thought was DIZAIN which could have worked except for not fitting with the wordplay – how inconvenient.

    Lots of other new stuff for me in here too, so thanks setter, and blogger. I managed to parse everything OK, but did have to check a couple of answers in the dictionary, so a technical DNF.

28. One of my quicker finishes at 20:16, despite the number of half known words. SIXAIN however went straight in due to a recent encounter as mentioned by others. SENESCENT was vaguely familiar, as was ESCHEAT. TONDI was by wordplay entirely. I hadn’t come across the expression at 1d, but it was easily gettable. The rest of it just floated into place. A very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and George.
29. For me, the least difficult solve this week, say around 20 minutes. I ended with SIXAIN, like others, and I’d never heard of it. I never thought of ‘amid’, only ‘axis’, else I might have strayed. Regards.
30. I did about two thirds of this in 25 mins on the train this morning and polished it off in 15 mins at lunchtime. Bit of time at the end wondering if exficious was a word, I had fleeting charges in for a while rather than floating charges, but sanity soon prevailed. Giber-ish felt a bit of a stretch. Sixain remembered from a recent appearance. Tondi and escheat known only from crosswords. Pouters unknown. I liked the drinks in 26ac, the person not working in 18dn, the pre-match publicity in 21ac and my COD 5dn.
31. DNF
    Having put in Escheat and Tondi purely from the wordplay I raised the white flag and admitted that this setters vocabulary is clearly far superior to my own. The livejournal spellcheck is equally mystified.
32. Edison and Tesla often appear, as well.
33. Things were ticking right along, even with the unknown or barely knowns, until I got stuck in the SW. Didn’t think of the easy Marc or the ripe in Gripe, so spun my wheels on the more difficult words. 35 min.
34. Around 30m and a pleasant solve. My pick of the day is BAR-GIN-GIN, very drole. Thanks for blog and the puzzle today.
35. DNF, since I couldn’t see what pigeons might have to do with pouting, so I made up the word PRUTER instead, an onomatopoeic description based on the sound a cooing pigeon makes (perhaps). And of course a blooming flower might be said to be in rut. Rather doubtful about SIXAIN, but the wordplay was clear, and of course I did not understand how NOTORIOUS arose (but the definition was clear). I knew ESCHEAT only from the excellent History of English podcast which has been brightening my walks for the last several months.
36. Enjoyed the crossword, and also the early jazz (or jass) that I was listening to while I solved. It is quite incredible what you can get on Youtube free of charge. I searched for Original Dixieland Jazz Band and was quite surprised when the first track I selected automatically rolled on to other really interesting short films. All of this is to suggest that I would have been much quicker but for the welcome distraction.
37. 23 mins. Good blog and puzzle, cheers.
38. Enjoyed the crossword, and also the early jazz (or jass) that I was listening to while I solved. It is quite incredible what you can get on Youtube free of charge. I searched for Original Dixieland Jazz Band and was quite surprised when the first track I selected automatically rolled on to other really interesting short films. All of this is to suggest that I would have been much quicker but for the welcome distraction.
39. 20 min 23 secs.
40. 20 min 23 secs.
41. Hi,
    I’m a Newbie here, and very late I know for this puzzle, but why does PI mean very good?

    The blog is great BTW, adds so much to just doing the crossid blindly. Thanks to all contributors !

    1. Welcome!

       “pi” is allegedly an informal British abbreviation for “pious”, i.e. devoutly religious. No, I’ve never heard anyone say it either, but it’s in my dictionary…

       Do keep on coming, and don’t be afraid to join in.

42. Allegedly! Thanks, I’d literally never have known.

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