Times 26943 – I was nearly the King of poets

79 comments on “Times 26943 – I was nearly the King of poets”

1. 26 minutes, so I was pleased to complete within target. I could actually have knocked a few minutes off at the end because I saw STATIONER without understanding how the clue worked so I held off writing it in until I was satisfied with it. No doubt it has come up before but I’m having a problem today seeing how AS = ‘for example’ in 1dn. ‘Such as’ would be fine but ‘as’ on its own?
   1. That usage is not often seen today, but was common in the 17th and 18th century.
2. 30 mins with croissant (hoorah) and Frank Cooper.
   Excellent stuff – neat, good surfaces, clever definitions.
   Only MER (like Jack) is ‘for example’=AS. I guess it is in the sense of “in the same way that…”.
   Mostly I liked: Divers (COD), Topsoil, ‘one’ in stationer, me ducks.
   And a special mention to the headless corpse surrounded by dogs – great breakfast fare.
   Thanks brilliant setter and Pip.
3. Pumpernickel with Hero Orange marmalade – Italian Coffee and yoghurt with crystallised cranberries.

   Salad Cream is not synonymous with mayonnaise – Pip! Pip! 5ac FOI SCREAM!

   LOI DEARIE – Ducks is very South Lincolnshire.

   COD 9dn DAUGHTER

   WOD HOPALONG! Which I’ll do!

   1. Crystallised cranberries roll off the tongue.
4. 49 mins. Found this one easy to start, and tough to finish, especially after biffing GOLF CART in 13a. Ooops. Still, sorted it out in the end.

   I had only vaguely remembered EXEAT from a previous puzzle, and wasn’t sure I’d got the right boat—couldn’t get away from something perhaps involving a punt and EXEUNT, which I nearly tried to cram into the lights regardless…

   Plenty of other question marks in the margins on my way (3d, 4d & 25d to name but three…) from FOI 1a SUPPLIER to LOI 22d DEARIE, so thanks for the enlightenment, Pip, and to the setter for the rollercoaster ride.

5. I did this in 18 minutes without quite understanding the cryptic for STATIONER. The key to solving was in the MICROMANAGEMENT of the puzzle, something I usually frown upon as too much like hard work. I parsed PICKED OUT to involve those raiding reivers who pinched our fine English cattle. A Scotsman once explained to me that they actually came for our women but when they saw them they took the cattle. I must add straight away that I’ve always been very happy with the ladies south of the border. COD to PERUVIAN, with a hat tip to the setter for not mentioning Paddington. Enjoyable puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.

   Edited at 2018-01-24 08:01 am (UTC)

6. So close, but didn’t get Evans, who it seems died in 1976 (before I was born) not 1988, but aged 88.
   1. I thought her ‘a handbag?’ lived on in folklore.

      Edited at 2018-01-24 08:26 am (UTC)

   2. Corrected, sorry got b. and d. mixed – too much information really.
   3. I never heard of her either, but ‘leads’ = ‘vans’ is one of the commonest equivalencies in crosswordland, and ‘Evans’ is a likely enough surname, so it went in quickly.
   4. I saw her in a Stratford production of Coriolanus in 1959. Volumnia to Olivier’s Coriolanus. Vanessa Redgrave played his wife and Diana Rigg and Albert Finney were extras. I know all this because I’ve still got the programme. But quite a lot of it is burned on the memory. She was a very powerful actress. Ann
7. Who under 70 has ever heard of Hopalong Cassidy? On that basis, the clue for 4d should have referred to the former Kent and England wicketkeeper, Godfrey, of that ilk. COD:22d DUCKS.
   39m 47s
   1. Me.
   2. I admit to being 72 but I think I’d have got HOPALONG if I was three years younger. When I was coaching football in my forties, we’s still refer to a player limping from a knock as Hopalong.
      1. I’m still 69 and had heard of.
   3. I have (45). Never heard of Edith Evans though.
   4. Well I was under 70 until last month and I’d heard of him.

      Can anyone remember who sang this song? It used to turn up on Children’s Favourites in the days of Uncle Mac but was not an official theme-song, I believe:

      Hopalong Cassidy Clippity clippity clop,
      Hopalong Cassidy Clippity clippity clop,
      He rides by day, he rides by night,
      His gun by his side ‘cos he can fight,
      Hopalong Cassidy got ’em on the run,
      Hopalong Cassidy hand upon your gun,
      Once upon the trail you’ll bet he’ll never stop,
      So Hopalong Cassidy clippity clippity clop.

      Edited at 2018-01-24 09:19 am (UTC)

      1. As you can see by the title of my main post today, I remember it, Jack. To the irritation of my nephew who supports Liverpool from afar and who to be fair was born in Liverpool 8 before being carted off to CERN in Geneva as a toddler, I now insist in calling their manager Clippity clippity Klopp.
         PS I can’t find out who sang it for TV show which is where I know it from. On Children’s Favourites it could have been Mandy Miller of Nellie the Elephant fame or Sam Browne and the Sunshine Kids. “Goodbye Children Everywhere.” Uncle Mac. An old joke rhen had him mistakenly think the mike was off. “That should keep the little b’s quiet for another week.”

         Edited at 2018-01-24 11:02 am (UTC)

      2. I was 57 yesterday and I’ve heard of both Hopalong Cassidy and Dame Edith Evans. The former used to at least be referenced, if not actually appear, in the film Westerns of my youth. The latter and her querulous voice used to turn up regularly on the Parkinson show.
   5. I couldn’t help hearing of him in my schooldays, as he provided an obvious nickname. I think I even had a Hopalong Cassidy cap gun. He was later replaced by David, when I needed to explain how to spell my name – “Cassidy, like Hopalong …” Though David too is probably now forgotten.
   6. Me as well.
8. 14 minutes marred by a typo, and an odd solve where, for once, I careered through most of the across clues without troubling the downs.
   Neither CROFTER nor STATIONER yielded their parsing to my hasty approach, so thanks to Pip for unravelling their secrets. I think we so often get one to signify I that we’re flummoxed by the return journey, but 16 was a decent &lit. On CROFTER, I was bamboozled by taking the F from either for or farmer, and not having a clue where the reversed RETORC came from.
   One of these days I’ll learn to actually use my checking time at the end of the solve.
9. Real fun puzzle – thank you setter. I think I remember when I could hit a LONG SHOT off the tee, sadly just a memory now

   Trip down memory lane with HOPALONG. Saturday morning pictures, Roy Rogers, Tom Mix, Lone Ranger – they don’t make ’em like that any more flower

10. 8:26. No problems, even with my one unknown, the actress.
    Defining salad cream as mayonnaise is like defining sangria as wine. But Chambers calls it ‘a type of mayonnaise’ so I will write my angry letter to them.
    1. To: Editor Chambers

       I notice that your dictionary describes salad cream as “a sort of mayonnaise.” I have to say that here in Royal Tunbridge Wells, while true mayonnaise made with good olive oil does occasionally grace our table, salad cream is something that even the local pub would not deign to serve.

       Faithfully,
       Disgusted

       1. Very good. Mine was going to include the phrase “whilst the definition might feasibly be stretched to include the ghastly substance commonly known as Hellmann’s”.

          Edited at 2018-01-24 09:03 am (UTC)

       2. I’m glad you put in the ‘Royal’. I grew up in Wadhurst but attended The Skinners’ School and have fond memories of the town and surrounding area
    2. I made a bet with myself while solving 5a that you’d have something to say about this! I’m going to horrify you by confessing to keeping a bottle of Heinz Salad Cream in the fridge. Occasionally — just occasionally — I get a craving for the stuff
       1. Oh don’t worry, we all have these little weaknesses. Lord knows I myself use teabags from time to time. I’ve even been known to use cornflour when making custard!
       2. . .it sure beats tartar on North Sea cod and chips
       3. Heinz salad cream is the best thing for both egg sandwiches and fish finger sandwiches. Mayonnaise just won’t do.

          And yes, dear setter, they aren’t the same thing at all

          1. Oh, now the fish finger sandwiches with salad cream sound like a whole new gastronomic horizon opening up for me. Now I”m hungry
             1. White bread is best for fish finger sandwiches, if you are going to start on a whole new sandwich experience
                1. Salad cream and peanut butter together make a splendid sandwich.
                   1. That, Penfold, is possibly the most incredible thing I have heard in the last 24 hours.
    3. Reminds me of the noxious young boy in Fawlty Towers on being presented with proper mayonnaise instead of salad cream, saying “No Salad Cream? What a dump!”
       1. Heh. As most of us seem to be admitting to quite liking the stuff, maybe the obnoxious boy had a point!
11. I started this at work and then drove home, so I have no idea how long I took. But it was a very pleasant solve with the only slight hangup being STATIONER at the end since I couldn’t see how the clue worked and the definition was pretty vague (as &lits often are).

    I didn’t know the poet TASSO but I did know the dame actress (and HOPALONG despite being less than 70).

12. I managed to resist my usual incorrect biff today when I avoided LOOMING rather than LOOKING. Otherwise all quite straightforward. Count me as another who didn’t think salad cream was a type of mayonnaise.
13. No unknowns today .. I can sympathise with those who haven’t heard of Hopalong Cassidy, but Edith Evans turn as Lady Bracknell is so famous as surely to count as required general knowledge. As for long shot, I wish 🙂
    Actually Pip I did think there were some rather biffable clues including both the long ones .. I never did notice that 26ac was an anagram!
    Mayonnaise is one of those things where, if you’ve never had the home-made version, you would have no idea how good it can be

    Edited at 2018-01-24 09:25 am (UTC)

    1. I am familiar with the ‘handbag’ rendition but never knew the name of the actress.
       1. Same here, though I had heard of HOPALONG Cassidy, despite my tender (45) years.
14. 16:07 … almost nothing biffed here and a bit of a slog for me working through the copious wordplay. No complaints, though, and I did enjoy the Pict and especially the surface for DEARIE.

    Edith Evans and Hoppalong Cassidy both names I knew without necessarily knowing anything else about them. I’m not sure that counts as ‘knowledge’

    1. It does in my book, would do in a quiz show.
    2. Didn’t know her saying ” A handbag?” in The Importance of Being Earnest, S? It’s on You Tube.
       1. I knew that pretty well, and knew of Edith Evans, but wouldn’t have known offhand they were the same person!
15. LOI DEARIE which I enjoyed. I ,too, was distracted by LOOMING. Salad cream is a prerequisite of prawn cocktail, isn’t it? Oh no, sorry, I meant mâconnais.
16. Very enjoyable 19m today. I was attached to MOD for six years and can confirm it really does still exist. Long time back used to be Ministry of War (think Profumo).

17. Very fast for me, as Pip said nothing too obscure. I ended with EVANS, missing the Dame Edith ref, and totally missed the cryptics for STATIONER and PICKED OUT.

18. DNF, missing 6d & 9d after having ‘legatee’ for 12a, being ‘leg’ (member) ‘a tee’, thus ‘one receiving money from family’. Does anyone sympathise?
    John Mac
    1. I thought LEGATEE was the obvious answer, and was quite mystified when the the equally obvious DAUGHTER conflicted. I suppose legatees don’t only get money from family, but I still think it perfectly acceptable.
    2. It fits, except you can’t account for the A in the answer. That continues a discussion that has been going on here the past few days though the other way round, where there are often too many extraneous As in the clues.
    3. I had to double check on DAUGHTER when I looked at the clue for 12a.
19. 13 min 19 secs.

    My best time since returning here after last year’s Championships. Perhaps the regular practice is starting to pay off?

20. Biffing is all very well but when it throws up STAND ONES GROUND, not so good. Luckily VACUOUS eventually put paid to that. Just under 20 mins of top-to-bottom solving of a pleasant puzzle so thanks setter and pip.

    Edited at 2018-01-24 11:39 am (UTC)

21. Certainly an immortal verse. Tasso, maybe?
22. 21’10. Last in 10, annoyingly. Quite a raft of Hopalong responses, in which I share. Every crossword is a bit of an archaeological dig I suppose, though generally word usage is the main thing to show its age. But old Cassidy lives. (Klippety Klopp a good monicker, boltonw., with those terrifying bear-hugs.)
23. Must have been on the wavelength today, a few seconds under 15 minutes is fast, and quicker than some of the folk I’m never quicker than. Unknowns were Evans, but it was a write-in, salad cream – must be a UK thing but sounded reasonable, and long shot as a guess rather than something the bookies have a Very Large number next to. Liked the grantee, took a minute or two to be convinced stationer could be right, LOI was the aforementioned long shot after getting Hopalong – heard of from childhood TV (I’m 57). Thanks setter and blogger.
24. 12:56. Thought I was on for a PB for a bit but slowed down in the bottom half. I too had a mutter about 5a, but I confess I do like salad cream on a hard-boiled egg. Dearie me.

    Edited at 2018-01-24 01:22 pm (UTC)

25. Me too:-) @66
26. I considered looming too, but the wordplay indicated otherwise…
27. …but amazingly, I understood the cryptic for ‘scream’ even though there is no salad cream in the US. I didn’t understand the cryptic for ‘stationer’, but I see I am not the only one.

    No one has pointed out that an ‘exeat’ is weekend leave from a public school, in the UK and some commonwealth countries. I vaguely remembered it was something along those lines.

28. SAMOSA, constructed from the bottom up, was my FOI, with the rest of the NW rapidly following. I tried to make something of a reiver at 2d, but soon saw the PICT bit. 10a was an easy biff after M and IC, but I parsed it immediately afterwards. Fortunately I had DAUGHTER before looking at 12a, otherwise LEGATEE would’ve gone straight in. HOPALONG went in early, and only the number of available squares stopped me biffing PARAGUAYAN at 20a. The Roman road put me on the right track there. At 5a, “a lad dropped” screamed SALAD at me, even though I share the group opinion that it’s not at all the same thing as mayo. There is a bottle of it in my fridge, but it was brought by the Grandkids, and is well past its sell by date. I must get round to binning it! TASSO was constructed from wordplay, and although Dame Edith was my LOI, I slapped my forehead metaphorically when I saw the construction. I liked DEARIE. A most enjoyable puzzle which took me 27:27. Thanks setter and Pip.
29. EXEAT. At my boarding Prep School over 50 years ago, we had three EXEAT days every 12-week term, when parents could come and take you away. The Headmaster was prone to say that while the primary translation of EXEAT was ‘Let him go”’, it also meant as pip says ‘he may go’, the implication being ‘he may not’. Happy days!
    1. It is 3rd person subjunctive of exeo (I depart) thus the impersonal imperative, ‘that he/she may depart’. I don’t think it means he may or may not.
       My daughter had exeats from Malvern GC when we lived in Isle of Man and connecting for one overnight was an expensive, logistical pain, even though the meeting-up was welcome. Staying in school was frowned upon. I think they were invented for the teachers’ benefit not the pupils or parents.
       1. I am not saying that he was correct but he certainly used the expression ‘he may go’ as ‘he might go’, with the implication that ‘he might not go’ if bad behaviour.
30. Knew Hopalong, didn’t know Dame Edith. Enjoyed the rest.
31. Gosh I’m late today! 15 mins for me, with unparsed STATIONER and CROFTER going in as ‘couldn’t be anything else’. I too remember Exeats when my parents used to come down to Sussex to take me out, and I was car sick a mile down the road. Happy days!
32. Good, crisp puzzle. Great blog. Cheers. 25 mins.
33. 23m of which a pesky 3 convincing myself that STATIONER was indeed correct – so I’m claiming a totally unjustified almost sub 20 which makes me feel so much better about life. Excellent puzzle, blog and discussion today – I have no opinion on the salad cream/mayonnaise debate though the latter always brings to mind Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman. I did particularly like the DAUGHTER clue so COD for that and special thanks to setter today. Great puzzle!

    Edited at 2018-01-24 05:07 pm (UTC)

34. 13:20, this time hurtling away from London (hooray).

    I’ve heard of both Edith and Hopalong and I’m only 56 3/4.

    1. Did you begin your hurtle from Platform 9 3/4?
35. Well, Goodness me! Looks like I was wrong. It seems most of you youngsters out there have heard of Hopalong Cassidy. For my part I’m amused by the image I have created for myself of Dame Edith Evans keeping wicket for Kent and England while Godfrey Evans plays Lady Bracknell on stage!
36. Now I was sure STATIONER was going to involve an anagram of ARTIST, but actually I never did figure out exactly how, so essentially I biffed it. Never heard the expression FIGHT ONES CORNER and I didn’t know the exact connotation of EXEAT but put it in anyway. And HOPALONG Cassidy was on television when I was a fan of Captain Video (and perhaps 9 years old), a very long time ago. Google and crossword land seem never to forget. I liked DEARIE quite a lot. Oh yes, I needed 45 minutes today.

    Edited at 2018-01-24 07:27 pm (UTC)

37. I joined in the collective Minor Eyebrow Raise at the foodstuff, but it seems that any complaints need to be addressed to lexicographers, not the setter. Just for the record, I enter my 50s with a working knowledge of Dame Edith and Hopalong, if by “working knowledge” you mean I know their names (beyond that, I might struggle).
38. Let the record show that this 41-year-old had heard of Hopalong Cassidy and knew he was a cowboy but would not have been able to pick him out of an identity parade (of other cowboys). I had to labour at this somewhat taking 37 mins at lunchtime to do just over half and 25 mins after work to do the rest. Like gothick_matt I also threw in a golf cart at 13ac which delayed looking and Hopalong. 16dn my LOI by a long chalk – took ages to make sense of that one. 22dn my second to LOI by a slightly shorter chalk where ducks for anything other than the feathered kind was simply not on my london-centric radar until suddenly, it was.
39. I count myself fortunate for having a typo in 3d, since it means I don’t have to curse myself quite as much for having an inexcusable “except” at 7d. I blame it all on Bruges, which is where I find myself at the moment – the jet lag (it’s only about 1800 here) is killing me.

40. I’m loving the idea of a cowboy identity parade

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