Times 27025 – Lessons to Learn

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Today I will be doing something that I have never done in my six years of blogging, namely, offering advice to the setters and the editor. This is something that I am loath to do, and I do it not because I feel in any way superior to this fine body of men and women, but because I feel it is my duty. Look at it this way. If you were strolling along a path in the Alps and saw the 45th President of the United States of America in front of you, wearing his baseball cap and composing a tweet, oblivious to the world around him, and then you looked up and saw someone about to roll a giant rock onto his head, what would you do? Well, I think we all know the answer to that. However much it hurt, you would shout out a warning. Why? Because it is the right thing to do and that trumps every other consideration.

I’m not one for naming names, but I happen to know who today’s setter is, because he’s a regular setter, well known for his scientistic belief system. And I mean that not in a pejorative way: everyone is entitled to their own wacky opinions and deserves our full respect for holding them. All I will say though is that I hope we have used up our quota of tedious scientistic references for the rest of the year. Take 19 down as an example. The setter instructs us to put an ‘unknown’ in an unchecked square. Well, the field of unknowns is large, and there is simply no way of knowing that there is a better answer than the one you first thought of if you don’t know the word. And let’s face it (and I don’t think I need to conduct a poll to assign a place to this answer’s place on the guessability scale), who in their right mind – unless of course they are a fellow traveller in the setter’s scientistic sect – is going to chance on the so-called correct answer?

Before continuing, I would like to reiterate that I have the greatest respect for setters and editors of all types and persuasions. Those who have read my witterings all these years will know that the comments I feel compelled to make here will hurt me far more than it will hurt them. But sometimes, as John Wayne tells Monty Clift in Red River, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

ACROSS

1 Maestro after formal wear clothed by worker in Next (8)
ADJACENT – DJ ACE in ANT. No product placement please, especially now I have sold my shares in Next.
5 Reverend nearly accepts uniform with new cloth (6)
VICUNA – N U in VICA[r]. Two points here: 1) the word should have a tilde over the N (please update the software); 2) the setter has missed a trick for a punning reference with Lama/Llama.
8 Invention concerning food product made from woodchips (10)
FIBREBOARD – FIB RE BOARD (food)
9 Lose penny from pocket? That hurts (4)
OUCH – [p]OUCH
10 Imbue wordplay with a twist, trapping learner rising in standard (8,6)
UPWARDLY MOBILE – L in anagram* of IMBUE WORDPLAY. Well done, setter. You have resisted the temptation to clue an obscure word or phrase with an anagram and thereby call down the eternal ire of Jupiter Praescriptivus.
11 Never time to back overthrown saint’s oppressors (7)
TYRANTS – reversal of NARY T (time) + reversal of ST. Top clue with no unnecessary tricks or obscurities. More like this, please.
13 See an elk run (7)
VAMOOSE – V (vide) A (an) MOOSE (elk). We’ll let you off the obscure abbreviation of a Latin word this time, but will monitor future use.
15 Student’s mark cut by incomplete grasp (7)
SCHOLAR – HOL(d) in SCAR. That’s more like it.
18 Tired air recycled so as to block tobacco (7)
WEARIED – AIR* in WEED
21 What pupils may have to suffer after run (4,10)
WORK EXPERIENCE – EXPERIENCE (suffer) after WORK (run – think wrist watches, if you still wear one)
22 Cinema turned my life around — coming to no conclusions (4)
FILM – M(y) LIF(e) reversed
23 Oily, fishy bisque that’s got in even pieces of coconuts (10)
OBSEQUIOUS – BISQUE* in [c]O[c]O[n]U[t]S
24 The contents of Sweeney Todd’s last thought in the past (6)
WEENED – [s]WEENE[y] (the contents of the word SWEENEY) + last letter of [tod]D. Thus Milton in Paradise Lost: ‘they weend / That self same day by fight, or by surprize / To win the Mount of God, and on his Throne / To set the envier of his State, the proud / Aspirer’. A warning to us all, I ween.
25 Like organ’s part of chorale arranged by timeless Cage? (8)
COCHLEAR – CHORALE and C* (CAGE minus the ‘age’). I once went to a ‘performance’ of John Cage’s 4’33”, memorable for the fact that the orchestra felt the need to tune their instruments before it started.

DOWN

1 Where one needs repairman to be responsible? (2,5)
AT FAULT – you might need a repairman if you have an electrical fault, say.
2 One blocking post kind about women’s hearts (9)
JOBSWORTH – JOB + W in SORT + H (hearts in bridge, say); if you don’t know what one of these is, check this out.
3 Ordinary addition to a uniform (7)
CHEVRON – double definition: in heraldry, a conventional figure on a shield; in the army, say, chevrons are used as insignia for NCOs
4 More than one fool behaves amorously, about to be dumped (7)
NOODLES – [ca]NOODLES, ca being the abbreviation for circa. More Latin, but nothing a mea culpa won’t cure.
5 See old characters are finally used for screen entertainment (5,4)
VIDEO GAME – VIDE (vide supra) + OGAM + [ar]E. Oh, dear, dear, dear! Ogam is a variant spelling of ogham, which is an ancient alphabetical writing system used by the Celts. Imagine this in a Mephisto with no enumeration!
6 Sausage is cold — and as far as one can see not new (7)
CHORIZO – C HORIZO[n]
7 Clue sun awkwardly as centre of orbital system (7)
NUCLEUS – CLUE SUN*. Hmm. Apparently orbital doesn’t just mean the M25 but in scientistic mantras is used to denote ‘the region surrounding an atomic nucleus in which the probability distribution of the electrons is given by a wave function’. Wevs.
12 One cutting sleep a bit, rising in shape (9)
TRAPEZOID – I (one) in DOZE (sleep) PART (a bit) reversed
14 Russia’s characteristic tearjerker, with accompanying notes (5,4)
ONION DOME – ONION (tearjerker) + DO (a deer, a female deer) and ME (a name I call myself)
16 Rules about a lot of whip leather (7)
COWHIDE – WHI[p] in CODE
17 Working as Roman galley slave? (7)
OARSMAN – AS ROMAN*; I would characterise this as a semi-&lit, but I am open to offers
18 Now entering World Trade Organisation. To what end? (7)
WHERETO – HERE in WTO. To what end, indeed?
19 Bearing component unknown in train, initially used too hard (7)
AZIMUTH – Z in AIM + U[sed] T[oo] H[ard]. The setter should be made to sew this word on his sanbenito.
20 One covering actor’s role in operating theatre (7)
DRESSER – double definition: one thespian, the other Aesculapian

55 comments on “Times 27025 – Lessons to Learn”

  1. It is my distinct impression, having lived in Crosswordland for many years now, that “unknown” in the mathematical sense always means “n,” as in algebra, or “x,” “y,” or “z.”

    I forgot to go back and (try to) figure out how the GAMES part of VIDEOGAMES worked.

    Which may be why this seemed only hard, not unduly so.

    Edited at 2018-04-30 03:37 am (UTC)

  2. I think nobody has mentioned yet that this is a pangram.

    Very slow here at 71 minutes with two cheats, the unknown AZIMUTH (which I had to look up to get two of the unches, Z and M) and COCHLEAR where ‘cochreal’ seemed just as likely an answer when I was still missing the final checker.

    WEENED was also unknown but I worked it out and I failed to parse VIDEO GAME completely having got as far as VIDE (see), O (old) and {ar}E [finally] leaving GAM somehow to account for ‘characters’.

    I’m not overly keen on ACE for ‘maestro’ at 1ac as in my book the former is associated with the world of sport and the latter with the arts, and in particular, music, but I have no objection at all to 5ac as the absence of diacritics or reference to same is a long-established practice. As far as I’m aware the German umlaut is the only common diacritical mark that can be accommodated in a standard crossword (by placing an E after the vowel in question), yet when a setter did this last week it caused confusion for many.

    Edited at 2018-04-30 05:00 am (UTC)

  3. 37:09 … I thought “I’ll just whip through the easy Monday puzzle before …”

    This is brilliant stuff, and no complaints here, other than wondering if this should have been saved for a Bank Holiday. More lateral thinking required than I can easily manage at 6am on a Monday morning and with minimal caffeination.

    Hardest sector for me was the northwest, which only started to unwind after I wrote down the presumed anagram fodder for what turned out to be UPWARDLY MOBILE.

    JOBSWORTH, FIBREBOARD both fiercely hard clues, but rewarding once seen. AZIMUTH is fine, as I knew it (sorry, ulaca!).

    Phew. More coffee, please

    1. It did occur to me too… that this was destined for a May Day Bank Holiday but May Day arrived a day late! I share your admiration for this entertaining puzzle.
  4. Just too hard for me, or perhaps I was just too slow to finish in my hour. I had a couple of more obvious ones left: no excuse for missing 11a TYRANTS despite not coming up with “nary”; I was obsessed with something to do with tsars for too long, plus I missed TRAPEZOID by thinking the clue worked the other way round…

    I don’t feel quite so bad about missing CHEVRON, not knowing the heraldry connection, and the last half of 14’s ONION DOME was also not in my ken. A shame the pangram was quite so complete, otherwise I might’ve had some left-over letters to go on!

    No problems with the others, save the parsing of VIDEO GAME. 19d known from setting the correct angle of the head on tape decks (known as the AZIMUTH) many times in the past.

    Good fun, I thought. If this one had turned up instead of Saturday’s or Sunday’s, where I can push myself to extra time if I’m enjoying it, I might’ve stood a chance. Unlike with this weekend’s particular puzzles, which both defeated me.

  5. 55 mins with yoghurt, granola, compote, etc
    It took a long while to get going, then Ouch, Chorizo, Vamoose and into the SE and clockwise from there.
    No complaints about Azimuth. But DNK the Ogam or Chevron in heraldry.
    Mostly I liked: Canoodles, Trapezoid and COD to the old, cold sausage.
    Thanks setter and Ulaca
  6. I had to look up Aesculapian to make sure I knew what 20a was about, but other than that my vocab seemed to be eclectic enough, and I completed in 21.45. I will congratulate Ulaca on working out where the GAM came from in 5d: that was the only one where I eventually chipped in on faith alone.
    Spotting the probable pangram did make things easier, since I was looking for an X when trying to crack 21a, but then the setter (peace be upon him) bowled a bit of a googly by delivering three Zs.
    I think sometimes a little science (as opposed to a comprehensive, encyclopaedic knowledge of it) is a useful thing. NUCLEUS as the “centre of an orbital system” was easy enough for me, as I have this vision of any given atom as a tiny, tiny solar system with tiny, tiny planet electrons whizzing round a tiny, tiny nucleus sun. I’m sure I’m missing out on a whole slue of other components, many of them exotic that means my image is primitive and inexact, but it works for me.
    I did spend a while at 17d wondering how I could fit Ben Hur in, since I couldn’t think of any other famous galley slaves.
    I liked this one, crunchy for a Monday.
    1. Absolutely! I am a science dunce, with barely a scientific O-level to my name, but I also have this image in my head of a little blue or green sphere (the nucleus) surrounded by oval orbits in which smaller yellow peas (electrons) are positioned: must be from the 1962 Ladybird book “Learn About Science”!
  7. I did some experimenting with the conventional letters for “unknowns” in the AZIMUTH clue. So:
    ANIMUTH: ill will towards a person with a lisp
    AXIMUTH: gladiator with a speech impediment
    AYIMUTH: good heavens, a biplane!
    AZIMUTH: as ye mutht know, the arc of the horizon between the meridian of a plathe and a vertical thircle pathing through any thelethtial body.
    I think the choice is clear.

    Edited at 2018-04-30 08:52 am (UTC)

  8. Too hard for me. Enjoyed FIBREBOARD, CHORIZO & OARSMAN but not much else. Thanks ulaca I needed you today.
  9. I have a Physics background but am sympathetic to Ulaca’s wailing. Few outside the science community know of electron orbitals etc. But if you stop and think about it, is it not a sad indictment of education that so many have knowledge of obscure Latin phrases but do not know the basic structure of an atom?

    Enough said. Time for me to put on my anorak and get back to nerd-dom!

  10. Thank you, ulaca, particularly for CHEVRON and the GAME in VIDEO GAME. I was working on ‘O’ for old so ‘characters’ was a toss up between GAM(E) and TAP(E). I figured video tape was too old fashioned and biffed GAM(E).
    No problem with either AZIMUTH or TRAPEZOID but Aesculapian is beyond me!
    COCHLEAR was my favourite for the misdirection of ‘timeless’. Had me looking for a word for cage with a T after first trying to find an anagram of ‘part’ of chorale!
    54m 39s
  11. Didn’t really enjoy this one. Not helped at all by biffing in ‘oleaginous’ for 23ac and not being able to parse it at all but then the checkers put me straight. It seemed very hard overall and took me over an hour. Couldn’t understand why it was ‘video game’ until coming here. I was thinking the clue was maybe wrong, and was trying to imply the use of ‘ideogram’. I was fixating on ‘adjutant’ at 1ac, overlooking the obvious. This also did not help. I agree with your comments Ulaca, especially in the ‘ogam’ department, but I was OK with nucleus (pretty easy I thought) and knew azimuth from astronomy stuff, but not as a ‘bearing component’.
  12. …with our blogger ranting, nothing personal, but I thought this was a joy and a pleasant change from easy Mondays. I knew AZIMUTH, as does anyone with a vague interest in astronomy, and loved some of the clever clues. I went wrong initially by biffing Trapezium so was held up with 24a, but otherwise a good workout in 40 minutes. Is V = see an obscurity.? Not in my book.
  13. A late start today. 38 minutes with WORK EXPERIENCE at best semi-parsed. I knew AZIMUTH as a word from astronomy but not necessarily what it was. CHEVRON only known from its uniform connections and the stroboscopic effect created by the damn things on a motorway. DNK the meaning of WEENED at all, but crossers and cryptic made it look a good bet. COD to DRESSER and OBSEQUIOUS jointly, both excellent clues. I see where our esteemed blogger is coming from, but I did manage to solve this despite both a bad night’s sleep and the encircling gloom created by the football. Did you mean scientistic or scientific, U? Thank you to both protagonists in either case.

    Edited at 2018-04-30 09:49 am (UTC)

  14. 14m. I seem to have been on the wavelength for this one. I was helped by knowing all the vocab, including AZIMUTH and OGAM. The latter appeared as OGHAM in the championship a few years ago and was my undoing, so I won’t forget it in a hurry. I just had to assume there was an alternative spelling.
    I don’t know if AZIMUTH is a horrible obscurity but it does strike me as the sort of word that merits unambiguous wordplay. VIDE OGAM is frankly a bit ridiculous but the answer is at least biffable.

    Edited at 2018-04-30 08:48 am (UTC)

  15. A great start to the week, what a great puzzle! Did not fully parse CHEVRON, VIDEO GAME, DRESSER, but all pretty obvious. COCHLEAR well known from the implant which is life-enhancing. AZIMUTH something to do with navigation, my COD. Agree ‘unknown’ in crossword land is always x, y or z. A TRAPEZOID is a completely different thing in the US, which leads to endless confusion in the internet generation of mathematics students. Did not spot the pangram.

    29′.

    Many thanks to setter, and to ulaca for the opinion and parsing.

    Edited at 2018-04-30 09:59 am (UTC)

  16. ….or not, as it turned out.

    AZYMUTH are known to me as a jazz trio. AZIMUTH was not known to me as a 100% non-scientist. However, whilst I appreciate where Ulaca is coming from, 20:14 saw me through this crunchy piece of work, with the only biff being VIDEO GAME – I knew “ogham” but didn’t realise the “h” could be dropped in mid-word.

    FOI OUCH
    LOI COWHIDE

    I didn’t spot the pangram, but it would have been of little help to me.

    COD FIBREBOARD
    WOD VAMOOSE

  17. I think the occasional scientific bias (not that I felt any such bias here) is fair as I often struggle with composers, gods etc. I thought this was an excellent challenge, completed in about 50 mins. My COD must be 19d of course! Thanks all and, by the way, thought the blog was also excellent
  18. A real battle. Eventually finished in well over an hour with 5 unparsed and 3 new words learnt/forgotten. I have exactly the same approach to “unknown” as guy_du_sable, so I thought 19d was fair enough and personally I’d spare the setter from an appearance before the Inquisition for that one. As for ‘ogam’ and WEENED though…

    NOODLES and CHORIZO for dinner tomorrow, or maybe not

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  19. 24 mins here, and definitely not a bog standard Monday puzzle. Like several others I didn’t bother to parse VIDEO GAME. WEENED was technically my LOI although I was reasonably sure it was the answer much earlier. However, I didn’t enter it until I had COWHIDE, which didn’t fall into place until 21ac had gone in.
  20. Gave up too soon on second half of 8; otherwise challenging but no complaints (except perhaps concerning og(h)am). Didn’t find it overly ‘scientistic’ – had a rough idea of ‘azimuth’, and surely ‘cochlear’ and the nucleus def. are no more searching than say ‘weened’. The ulacan homily unexpected (and untypical) but thanks for the six years though.
  21. Well, I found this one tough going but enjoyable. To be honest, I didn’t really notice a bias toward the sciences and, as norfolkngood pointed out, a little science now and again is only fair. AZIMUTH is surely not such an obscure term (and not especially scientific for that matter), compared to many of the historical, classical, philosophical and cultural references that crop up all the time? And knowing that electrons move in orbitals must be the scientific equivalent of knowing the date of the Battle of Hastings – wevs indeed.

    I think, on the whole, that Times puzzles are very heavily biased toward the arts and humanities rather than the sciences (ie, the real world). CHEVRON, ONION DOME, OARSMAN, DRESSER… Why should I know the style of roof ornamentation in Russia, or the name of the person who arranges costumes in theatres, but not the term for the direction of a distant object, or anything about the basic structure of the atoms from which we’re all made?

    In any event, this one took me a solid three-quarters of an hour. Toughest for me were VIDEO GAME (which, for all I knew, could have been VIDEO TAPE) and WEENED (which I took on faith from the parsing).

  22. 36 mins: surprisingly fast for me compared with the times noted here, and I have no complaints — I do feel ulaca’s being a little harsh in damning the setter: AZIMUTH was known to me, too, as a word I associate vaguely with astronomy, and I agree with guy_du_sable about the “unknown”.
    Actually, it was a technical DNF for me, since I couldn’t parse the clue for VIDEO _A_E (my LOI) so bunged in TAPE, and got back a “Sorry! Not right” message and then changed it to GAME to get the “Congratulations” screen. The ‘ogam’ was fiendish, unknown to me, and I also tried to get something out of ‘ideogram’.
    I enjoyed OBSEQUIOUS and WEENED clues: tricky but entirely fair. And my COD to ONION DOME: made me smile; neat clue.
  23. Coo yes, this was hard work for a Monday morning. OBSEQUIOUS appeared in a clue for Friday’s Guardian (the answer was “spaniel” which seemed a bit of a slur on the poor dog) and I thought the clue here was very nicely done, as was COCHLEAR. I knew that mainly because we’ve been getting unwanted phone calls lately offering cut price implants. VICUNA reminded me of another Republican president – Ike – whose chief of staff got in trouble and had to resign after accepting an expensive coat made of the stuff. Autres temps autres moeurs. A hard fought 23.50.

    Edited at 2018-04-30 10:24 am (UTC)

  24. “Using Ursa Minor, an azimuth was observed in Trelawny, from Maxwell Hall Hill, to Kempshot on 28-30 of March 1938.” From my new book ‘Ian Fleming’s Labyrinth’ – and I am a geographer/history boy. So the good Lord Ulaca’s monologue was not altogether appreciated.
    This made a refreshingly but beastly change from the usual Monday fare. However due to my workload I started at 5.15pm and didn’t finished until 6.45pm.

    Much to admire:
    FOI 7dn NUCLEUS
    LOI 14dn (Onion) Dome
    COD 13ac VAMOOSE
    WOD 25ac COCHLEAR

    I originally thought 9ac FIBREBOARD was STORYBOARD – I have seen them eaten!
    I didn’t think much of 21ac WORK EXPERIENCE and was unable to parse due to lack of work experience.

  25. 44 minutes: had to resort to aids eventually, as NW was completely blank although rest done in half an hour. (No problem with NUCLEUS & AZIMUTH) After noticing pangram required a J somewhere, 1ac fell, but I needed help to find something for J*H, as I could only think of JEREMIAH, which doesn’t fit at all.
    On the topic of arts-biased education, today’s anniversary reminds me of the anecdote about the class where everyone laughed when it was announced that a student named Milton had failed English, but when named Gauss had failed Maths, there was no reaction at all.
  26. One of those days where you wonder (a) is it Monday and (b)am I the only one struggling with the solve. I am extremely relieved to find that I am not alone in my struggle, and that, looking at the SNITCH, I managed to do very slightly better time-wise than Jason

    I am not normally a ‘noticer of grids’; but here’s another one in the current spate of grids with double unches (mostly in another place, it has to be said). Perhaps if we asked very nicely, the setters would go back to helpful grids.

  27. 25:46 and it felt a triumph to complete without aids. It never occurred to me that it might be too scientistic. OBSEQUIOUS my favourite.
    1. I commented in a rush earlier as I had a meeting to go to. I perhaps didn’t make it clear I thought this was an excellent puzzle. I’ve come to recognise this setter’s style and enjoy the witty obliqueness in the cluing. I am really baffled at our blogger’s unhappiness with it. I failed to mention I like TRAPEZOID too, and JOBSWORTH and ADJACENT and COCHLEAR and VAMOOSE.. and more. I maybe couldn’t define AZIMUTH, but that’s surely no more obscure than some of the other words we are expected to know, such as SADDHU, MURRAIN, AVESTAN and STRICKLES from last Thursday? And I may be scientific (but not scientistic) by training, but I did recognise OG(h)AM in 5d. But to each, their own, and it would be a sad day if we couldn’t have different perspectives here, so thanks for the provocation Ulaca!
      P.S. Even today’s QC required knowledge of PETRARCH, SOLIDUS and PRIAM.

      Edited at 2018-04-30 08:13 pm (UTC)

  28. I found this one tricky, but at the end I was wondering why and was surprised to be on top of the leaderboard (well, at about 12:30 am GMT) with a 17-minute time. Was unsure of CHEVRON (thought it might have been a CD) and WEENED where the wordplay was clear. I am surprised that AZIMUTH is not that well known.
  29. Is it Friday already? Very tough, especially in that NW corner, which had to be chipped away piece by piece, so I suppose I should be glad to finish at all, given that the SNITCH rating is a record high for a Monday. If we had a scale for intensity of blogs, this would also be right up there, so it’s an exciting day all round!

    However, at the risk of fence-sitting, I find my own thoughts tempered by the fact that from my POV, there weren’t any unknowns, as such; and I usually find myself very clearly on the humanities side of our divided society. (I’m not sure I could give a properly scientific definition of AZIMUTH, but I’ve certainly come across it in aircraft navigation or astronomy or possibly both). Thus, as always, I think your personal reaction will depend on whether the setter took account of your definition of “general knowledge”, and today I was lucky. My slowness was entirely due to some intricate wordplay, and today’s infuriating earworm “Rawhide”.

  30. I’m with our blogger. 16m 42 with AXIMUTH… although I also had, er, ONION NOSE, an unlikely Russian characteristic. Oh dear. All in all I found this a real toughie, but aside from the azimuth issue – and the ogam reference, which also passed me by entirely – I can have no complaints. Several of them felt like I should have got them faster, particularly OARSMAN and COWHIDE.
    1. It is usually observed that a DNF requires no exact time to be noted, as it is irrelevant ‘showboating’. Gave up after quarter of an hour would be OK.

      Edited at 2018-04-30 02:06 pm (UTC)

  31. Tough Monday fare, but apart from WEENED, OG(h)AM and the heraldic definition of 3d, I had the required GK. As a one time repairer of VCRs and avid reader of Asimov SF, I was familiar with AZIMUTH. I spent ages with ON(working) as the first 2 letters of 17d before belatedly smacking myself metaphorically on the forehead as I saw the anagram. The NE gave me my start with OUCH, before I moved on to the SE. AT FAULT was my key to solving the NW where UPWARDLY MOBILE took forever to unravel. I finally checked out with WEENED taking the WP on trust. 44:39. Thanks setter and U.
      1. I must confess l don’t think anyone could realistically believe l was showboating after admitting to an absolute howler like that. And, for what it’s worth, I didn’t give up: l messed up.
        1. George at 17 mins was, when you wrote-in, atop the leader board.

          I am reminded of Donald Trump’s ‘Yuge’ inauguration crowd – far bigger than Obama’s – ermmm………..?

          Like POTUS you believed you were superior with your 16.42 ‘fake time’. Otherwise why mention it?

          My time was a big bad 90 mins – I certainly did not give up – nor mess up!

          1. I have recently watched Borg vs McEnroe, so I can quote the latter… you cannot be serious?

            I had no idea what time was top of the leaderboard, and l certainly didn’t think my errors made me superior to anyone who got everything correct. So, since you mention it again, congratulations!

            I wrote my time for the same reason that anyone else writes their time. When you start imposing your rules on what is basically commenting about a word game, you’ve lost a bit of the fun, haven’t you?

  33. Late to this today and don’t normally bother to comment when that happens. However, I can’t just ignore Ulaca’s strange rant. Rarely have I read so much tosh concentrated into one place.
  34. “However much it hurt, you would shout out a warning. Why? Because it is the right thing to do and that trumps every other consideration.”

    Would I? Probably. I guess. There wouldn’t be much time to think, but it is is true that if I didn’t, then we would get Pence.

  35. 50:42 so found this tough for a Monday, glad to come here and find that others found it a similar struggle. Azimuth one of those that went in without too much thought on the basis of wordplay and having heard of the word itself, didn’t stop to think “I have no idea what that word actually means” just bunged it in. Video game was a bit of an unsatisfying biff, I thought that possibly it featured an ideogram (with some clever ‘r’ removal indicator which I couldn’t see) or that an old gam might be old characters but never got near the og(h)am. I had the most trouble in the NW though where adjacent, jobsworth, fibreboard, chevron and tyrants all took ages to get.
  36. A bit extended at around 35 minutes, but I didn’t have any problem with AZIMUTH. I did have a problem parsing VIDEO GAME, and wasn’t aware of WEENED either, but they eventually went in. My LOI was DRESSER because I’d originally fouled up with WEARIER instead of WEARIED, which needed correction. Regards.
  37. As an engineer, I am happy to see a puzzle with technical solutions – and no references to Greek myth, opera, literature, art. Only fair that we scientists get a chance every now and then. Having said that, I know nothing about heraldry either so had to guess “chevron”. “Ween” was also new to me and not sure about “work” in work experience. Enjoyed today’s puzzle.
  38. “V” clued as “see” has appeared many times so I didn’t see (no pun intended) that as a problem although I always thought it was referring to Vatican, the Holy See.
  39. Crumbs. Got through it, but it took the best part of an hour 🙁
    Thanks to setter and blogger.
  40. I didn’t find this too bad, with a solving time of 38 minutes. Didn’t know JOBSWORTH, but the wordplay didn’t allow anything else, and I also failed to parse the GAM in VIDEO GAME because, well, there was no way to parse it. No other difficulties, really.

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