Times 27016 – we’ll do our best

71 comments on “Times 27016 – we’ll do our best”

1. Well, I biffed a few: THE CAT’S PYJAMAS, once I remembered queen=cat (and remembered to use Y, having been marked wrong on a Concise a couple of days ago); SCIMITAR, PREDISPOSITION (parsed that only post-submission), PYROXENE (ditto). DNK that SADDO=loner, DNK PYROXENE. 20ac had a beautifully misleading surface; the appropriate meaning of ‘pants’ didn’t occur to me until the end. COD, though, to PREDISPOSITION.
2. I did find, as did George, that the wordplay was necessary for most of these… aside from THE CAT’S PYJAMAS, which I wrote in with an A for the Y at first, which delayed my getting the rather obvious HAYSTACK. Most devious definition of the day (possibly the week!): “Shock solution”!

   Edited at 2018-04-19 01:33 am (UTC)

3. 8ac THE CAT’S PYJAMAS a slang phrase coined by American cartoonist Tad Dorgan. The phrase was popular in the U.S. during the twenties – as with ‘the bee’s knees.’ I notice pajamas is endemic stateside – from Hindi pai jamas. I would aver it was the okapis who indeed wear the pyjamas. My COD.

   FOI 9dn TOUR DE FRANCE
   LOI 18ac CRADLE
   WOD 15dn MURSUPIUM

   47 minutes which was a whole 20 minutes longer than yesterday’s Oldie. I notice I was about the only one who enjoyed in it. 5dn HAYSTACK is the perfect example of the Ikean clue that would not have been found in 1965.

   A lot of po faces hereabouts. Nothing from Jimbo!

   1. Have another notice! Both Jerry and I expressed enjoyment of yesterday’s antique, Jerry going as far as “love”. Some of us have good taste.
      1. Well both of you overlooked me …..

         1. It’s true my analysis of the entries may not have been exhaustive, for which I apologise. I shall metally add your “quite like” to Jerry’s “love” as a tribute of fulsome praise for this classic.

            1. We must be almost a majority by now, Z! Typical of horryd, to overlook everyone but himself 😉
               1. miaow!)

                  Edited at 2018-04-19 02:53 pm (UTC)

4. 25 minutes, with quite a few at the end sorting out MARSUPIUM (went for marsupial), MAYBE and IMPOSE in the SE, and last one in, the hidden (nothing new there) AKELA.

   Talking of queens, the bee’s knees, yes, but the cat’s pyjamas? Never heard.

   1. I was surprised that you hadn’t heard of the c’s ps, so I went to ODE, where, sv ‘cat’, I found ‘the cat’s whiskers (or chiefly <

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      I was surprised that you hadn’t heard of the c’s ps, so I went to ODE, where, sv ‘cat’, I found ‘the cat’s whiskers (or chiefly <<N. Amer.>> meow or pyjamas [sic])’.
      1. Yes, ‘the cat’s whiskers’ is well known to Brits, but not, I suspect, ‘the cat’s meow’ or ‘the cat’s pyjamas/pajamas’.
         1. In US slang of the 20s and 30s, ‘the cat’s pyjamas’ has a very subtle meaning, describing something that is both amazingly modern and advanced, but not at all sensible or practical. My grandmother, who was born in 1899, would use this phrase in its proper, irony-tinged sense. She may not have lived to see, say, a voice-activated coffee maker, but she had an apt phrase for it.
5. ….as I trotted home in 32 minutes, delayed only by selecting the wrong alternate spelling of the cat’s nightwear. Nothing unknown, and the cryptics were quite easy.
6. I parsed it as you do. It would be odd, no? if ‘Dutch’ meant courage while at the same time ‘Dutch courage’ meant what it means, implying as it does that a Dutchman is inherently not courageous.
7. 46 minutes with most time lost in the SE corner (as with yesterday’s oldie) because I couldn’t think of the cheese to complete LIMB- and this held me up with 23dn. I also missed the obvious MUM containment at 15dn which delayed me on 26ac. Very pleased with myself to come up with PYROXENE as for a while I thought I would need to look it up.

   Re 1dn, can ‘dutch’ mean ‘bottle’ on its own? If so, I didn’t know it. Like George, I parsed the definition as &lit but my reasoning was that one might have COURAGE (bottle) after a bottle of alcoholic drink aka DUTCH COURAGE.

   Edited at 2018-04-19 05:12 am (UTC)

   1. I am also not aware of Dutch on its own meaning “bottle”, though Google says there’s a cafe in Georgetown Guyana called The Dutch Bottle, which looks rather friendly. George?
   2. In matters of commerce,
      The fault of the Dutch
      Is offering too little
      And asking too much
      1. I took it that Dutch Courage was the “bottle” that one received after a “bottle” of alcohol. COD for me.
8. 35m; all fell into place pretty easily. Avoided biffing ON DECK at 12a, but did biff “marsupiAL” at 15d, so slowed a bit at the end by trying to fit 16a MAYBE into L_Y_E. Still, at least it looked unlikely enough for me to re-check the crossers fairly early on…

   FOI 1a, LOI 26a, COD 24a PREDISPOSITION, WOD LIMBURGER. DNK PYROXENE, but it sprang out of the anagram fodder surprisingly readily!

9. 18:29 … seemed to get harder towards the bottom. Lengthy delay at the end over IMPOSE, where I was determined to get ‘me’ or ‘my’ into the word instead of the required ‘I’m’.

   THE CATS PYJAMAS is one of my favourite phrases, brilliantly ridiculous. Slightly disappointingly, it seems the phrase may have originally referred to a ‘cat’ as a trendy person rather than a moggy (I’ve deployed my feline avatar in protest) and to the non-nighttime type of pyjamas:

   Pajamas may today refer to women’s combination daywear, especially in the US where they became popular in the early twentieth century, consisting of short-sleeved or sleeveless blouses and lightweight pants. [Wiki]

10. I thought the term Dutch referred to gin .
    1. There are a number of terms involving “Dutch,” such as dutch courage, dutch uncle, going dutch, dutch supper, dutch comfort, all of which originated as pejorative terms at the time of the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 1660s. Mostly they have no basis in fact though one or two do (eg dutch oven, dutch hoe, dutch liquid)
       1. Dickens refers to a dutch clock
          1. yes .. Chambers defines a Dutch Clock as one made of wood, wire and brass wheels in the Black Forest; make of that what you will, but it sounds pejorative to me, or close
11. 25 mins of fun with yoghurt, granola, etc.
    My father used to say “Amo, Amas, I love a lass. Amat, Amamus, she’s the cat’s pyjamas.” Maybe it is not as well known as I thought. (PS I’m starting to think he made it up).
    MERs to day at the “Be”s. Why Be marked? And do I really say Maybe like that? Maybee.
    Mostly I liked: T C’s Ps, Pants, Predisposition, Marsupium and COD to Bottle after bottle.
    Thanks clever setter and George.

    Edited at 2018-04-19 07:16 am (UTC)

    1. ODO has: scar, verb (no object), Form or be marked with a scar.

       I say ‘maybe’ as ‘may bee’.

       Edited at 2018-04-19 07:39 am (UTC)

       1. The only difference I can imagine is whether one says MAYbee or mayBEE; I say both, depending. Neither would affect the validity of the clue.

          Edited at 2018-04-19 07:59 am (UTC)

          1. It was only a M(inor) ER.
             Having run through the Buddy Holly: Maybe Baby, I’ll have you-oo-oo, Maybe Baby, you’ll be truo-oo-oo.
             And then: Mai-beee it’s becawse I’m a Landaner, that I lav Landan town, etc…
             I have no issues with the clue.

             1. After some reflection I have come up with “Don’t drop the armoire against the balustrade as it could scar (be marked).” What a life I lead.
12. Slightly delayed by a misreading of the clue to MAYBE (LOI).
    We say The Dog’s B…….s around here!
13. Having put in MARSUPIAL but retaining a doubt over the parsing I eventually changed it to MARSUPIAM, figuring that mum could be ‘mam’. With hindsight the word form of MARSUPIUM looks more likely.

    I’ve just put my first ever championship qualifying puzzle in the post so fingers crossed I’ll be joining some of you come November!

    1. Good luck with the entry – mine went off today too (didn’t trouble the scorers sufficiently last year to grab an automatic spot).
       1. Likewise here. I intended to give up after last year, but maybe (pronounced to rhyme with baby, as per Buddy Holly) my recent retirement will find me in a more relaxed state of mind on the day !
14. 26 minutes, held up at the end by an errant marsupial until the MAYBE M displaced the L. Also similar to Eniamretrauq, I tend to use the canine version of THE CAT’S PYYAMAS. COD to PYROXENE, as it needed alchemy for a mineral to emerge from such unpromising material. Good puzzle. Thank you George and setter.

    Edited at 2018-04-19 08:07 am (UTC)

15. A quick solved spoiled by taking 22 minutes to complete, most of the footling around coming on the right hand side, SCIMITAR and EMACIATED being my last pair. On another day they’s be write-ins. I also spent quite a while wondering whether CARDLE was a thing at 18 across, which would seem to indicate a state of d’ohness which is hopefully temporary.
    I quite like “bottle after bottle”, but I might need to be careful who I admit that to.
    1. Ha! I wasn’t going to confess until your coming into the open encouraged me: I even went to the dictionary to see if the verb CARDLE exists. Doh! indeed.
    2. that reminds me: where is Verlaine, this week?
       1. According to Twitter, he got knocked out of a quiz, and went home to a sick child who kept him up all night, so I guess he’s slightly preoccupied at the moment.
          1. Got to love Twitter…
16. Enjoyable mid-range difficulty puzzle. Slight hold-up caused by RAINFALL, which never really convinced me, even before I saw that the F had to be a D. Chastened by this, I even managed not to biff MARSUPIAL, correctly spotting that the definition seemed to suggest I needed something a bit like that, but not actually it. Not sure if I’d heard of MARSUPIUM before, nor PYROXENE, once I saw them, I recognised them as the answer, which makes them well-clued, I think.
17. I was wondering if many people might biff MARSUPIAL instead of …..IUM but judging by the comments, no-one did. I biffed ON DECK for 12ac because of “playing cards” but had to change that, too. I did like MAYBE. 37M 01S
18. I was a marsupial dimwit which held me up several minutes at the end. 29’15. Have come to the conclusion a good crossword keeps alight the counterintuitive thus rescuing civilisation.
19. The Mirror answered every time
    “Oh Madam, you’re the Queen sublime
    You are the only one to charm us
    Queen, you are the cat’s pyjamas.”

    Roald Dahl’s retelling of Snow White

    A slow 44′, with DUTCH COURAGE nearly last in. I have read the comments carefully, surely it’s just a cryptic clue? i.e. after drinking alcohol…

    Thanks gl and setter

    1. I think you’re right regarding DUTCH COURAGE.
       1. Me too! I think it’s a straightforward cryptic clue, allowing the setter to pun with ‘bottle’.
20. No problems and while solving felt that I could trust the setter so relaxed with the unknown LIMBURGER and MARSUPIUM. COD to SCIMITAR for the “one German with” bit.

    Scimitars were made by Reliant (like the Robin, Rialto etc we recently discussed).

    1. The Reliant Scimitar had come to my mind when we had Rialto. I’ve no idea what it was like to drive but it was an attractive car (helped by the fact that it had four wheels).
       1. So attractive that Princess Anne owned 7 at one time or another, and Chas at least one. Not sure that’s a recommendation, but it certainly boosted sales.
          1. I couldn’t bring myself to buy one because of the fibreglass body.
             1. I got a lift back in one from the factory at Tamworth after leaving the dreaded Supervan for free remedial work. A lovely ride, but the owner was unhappy with its reliability.
       2. My father had one .. it was actually rather a fine car. He took it back to the dealer, because it had a fault with the automatic gearbox, as a result of which the dealer managed to accidentally drive it right through the back wall of the garage and out into the field behind. The fibreglass body was surprisingly easy to repair!
       3. Yes; I’ve always liked the look of the Scimitar.

          One popped up in an episode of Shoestring I watched just last night, in fact. Maybe that helped with the solving. There’s all sorts of fine cars in the show, From Eddie Shoestring’s terrifying orange Cortina estate on up.

          (Haven’t spotted my personal 70s favourite, the Jensen Interceptor, yet…)

          1. Edd China restored one in Wheeler Dealers on Discovery Channel. Worth looking up if you have access
             1. Thanks! I’ll see if I can track it down.
21. 20:15.

    In passing, on page 33 of the Daily Mail today is what is posted as the world’s hardest crossword, apparently taking 2 years to solve. Looks pretty straightforward to me and not particularly elegant.

    1. Agree
22. What a contrast to yesterday’s Oldie! This provided all the wordplay components required or, in the case of the cryptic and double defs, maintained a precise control of the clueing. Maybe a little too controlled for some tastes?

    Anyway, quite quick for me at 26 mins. Thanks, George, for nice blog.

23. Glad to back in 2018 with this one, which took me just a whisker under the half-hour to finish. For some reason, I was left with 26ac as my LOI, and could not see it for the life of me. However, it yielded almost immediately to an alphabet trawl.
24. …and just as well, since I’m teetotal at the moment due to medication. Hopefully it’s temporary – I am, after all, a CAMRA member !

    FOI DRAWS
    LOI GASPS, which I found tricky.
    DNK PYROXENE, but it was easy enough to parse.

    Biffed marsupial but spotted and parsed correctly as soon as MAYBE became clear.

    I agree with Sotira that the bottom half was tougher than the top, but 10:17 saw me home.

    COD DUTCH COURAGE

25. 8 minutes bang on, and it felt like it should have been quicker – I spent a long time getting GASPS, MAYBE (I’m glad I’m not the only one who had MARSUPIAL crossing!) and finally IMPOSE. I actually considered IMPOSE fairly early on, but the façade = POSE bit didn’t click until right at the end.
26. Makes the top ten list of the world’s smelliest cheeses. I spent time trying to make “mayze” an insect (after sorting out marsupial/um that is). 18.23
    1. That may be why John Cleese didn’t think of asking for it at Mr Wensleydale’s cheese emporium. I was surprised that there were several here who hadn’t heard of it; even as wee children, whose cheese experience was limited to cheddar, American, Swiss, and Monterrey Jack, we all knew of smelly Limburger.
27. 14:00 with no hold ups. MARSUPIUM LOI done from wordplay. I’d heard of THE CAT’S PYJAMAS but I’d no idea of the phrase’s origin. Like Philip, 1d my favourite.
28. I originally biffed ON DECK and MARSUPIAL, but had a rethink when I couldn’t make any sense of 26a and I solved 3d. DRAWS and a lot of the NW tripped off the fingers, but then, as usual, I slowed down and had to start using the grey matter. The feline night attire also went straight in from enumeration and the E from AKELA. My pseudo LOI was AMIGO, which allowed me to correct LLASU to LLAMA, Doh! Shows how the setter had engendered trust in the wordplay though. Liked the devious HAIR SPRAY. 31:13. Thanks setter and George.
29. 22 minutes, after a tricky start not helped by putting in ‘marsupial’.
    LOI ‘maybe’, and me an entomologist……
30. 22 mins. Half asleep today. LOI MAYBE; spent too long looking for buzz words. Great blog, cheers.
31. I don’t often post as I rarely have anything to add and I haven’t today really but I must say how much I enjoyed the Dutch Courage clue. One I shall long remember. I enjoyed the very precise word play which enabled me to finish in a good time for me while enjoying a sunny chair in the gatrden. Caro
32. About 20 minutes to finish with MARSUPIUM (corrected from -IAL) and MAYBE. MARSUPIUM makes sense as a place for a ‘roo, but it is new to me. Other only issue was failing to remember how the UKers spell PYJAMAS, so HAYSTACK took a little extra time. Regards.
33. 14:15. Another really good puzzle. I managed to avoid the MARSUPIAL trap but not the RAINFALL one. The feline nightwear was perfectly familiar to this Brit. Liked 1dn.
34. 27:13. A very entertaining puzzle. Definitely the bee’s patellas or the feline night attire. Needed the checkers for 25ac where the anagrist first let me to consider oxy- and then neo- before getting the correct deployment of letters.
35. 29 min 36 secs with one slip up. Marsupiam.

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