Times 27027 – pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga…

67 comments on “Times 27027 – pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga…”

1. 21:02 .. similar experience, Pip. A lot of write-ins, then some struggles.

   PATCH TEST has come up before somewhere, but I had to convince myself it was a thing. Last one in.

   I can’t eggsplain EGG CUP either.

   Good luck with the old peepers. Hope that all resolves as it should for you

2. Well done for parsing that — the sort of clue I wouldn’t want to try explaining to a non-solver
3. Jack to the rescue; I must say I’d never have come up with GC, having barely heard of it when spelled out in full. I was also worried about a seemingly missing H at 23ac, where I guessed that the loud speaker was a WAILER. Biffed PRESENTATION (patio=courtyard?) and PATCH TEST, solved post hoc. I felt sure 2d was EXETER once I had the initial E (mainly because I couldn’t think of anywhere else), but took ages to parse it. MY LOI was CEREMONY, because I was reluctant to think that EMONY was simply (MONEY)*. PAINE’s “These are the times that try men’s souls” comes to mind these days.
4. 22ac EGG CUP was a belter which I could not parse – my hat off to our jack.
   2dn took an age to work out. Thank the Lord for THOMAS PAINE at 3dn.

   I was a lousy 65 minutes on this third in a row of excellent puzzles.

   FOI 7dn SET
   LOI 4dn PATCH TEST? Just knew it as a skin test!
   COD the aforementioned 22ac EGG CUP
   WOD 16dn CHOO-CHOO – the cat that chewed your new shoes?

   Edited at 2018-05-02 12:16 pm (UTC)

5. 8dn: NOONE rises, not just the ending.

   22ac: EG (for instance), GC (award – George Cross), UP (winning).

   I struggled with this working mostly from the bottom upwards and I was enjoying it until I hit a wall with three outstanding answers in the NW corner.

   I didn’t know 3dn and I’d maintain that the convoluted wordplay is of no help as it’s only understandable by reverse engineering. Once I had cheated and looked the wretched man up I was then able to complete the grid by working out REPORTER and DETACH. The former was really quite easy so I should have got there sooner (I had tried RE,TENT,E,R only to find it didn’t exist so I had been working along on the right lines). On the latter, the blog omits that CAT is clued as ‘wild animal’ which I think is bordering on the unfair as ‘cat’ on its own most usually refers to the domestic variety, and the wild ones have specific names, ‘lion’ ‘tiger’ etc.

   Edited at 2018-05-02 06:02 am (UTC)

   1. I biffed from def and some checkers, and only figured out the wordplay after. This is one of those clues that a US solver will have the advantage with; I don’t expect any of my fellow Murcans on this blog will be unfamiliar with Paine.
6. 26 min 53 secs. Off to a fast start again only to get stuck in and around Exeter. I knew Paine but took a while to exTract him. Regular practice is starting to help as Lum came fairly readily – but only after I’d put out my Cig.

   The wordplay for Thomas Paine reminded me of a few years ago when a commemorative mug for the bowler Ashley Giles was “corrected” by the manufacturers to read “The King of Spain” instead of what was intended, “The King of Spin”.

7. Actually I (eventually) got 3dn from the wordplay and then like sotira had to think about what it was.

   Thanks for explaining 22a: beyond me. Not sure I knew GC.

   1. Sorry that last comment was mine. Not logged in.
8. I was thinking G-Cup – Wet T-Shirt contest? I shouldn’t have been, clearly.
9. 40 mins with yoghurt, granola, banana.
   Couldn’t explain the G in the eggie: thanks Jack.
   Can’t explain the ‘wild’ in cat. Cat on its own inside the He’d (all reversed) works ok for me.
   Do we think ‘collected’ is ok as an anagram indicator? Couldn’t the verger have ‘sorted’ it?
   Thanks setter and Pip and Jack

   Edited at 2018-05-02 07:17 am (UTC)

   1. I wondered about that, but Collins has ‘to gather together; assemble’ for the Murcan entry.
      1. I suppose collecting one’s thoughts requires a degree of reordering prior to re-gathering.
      2. I used it as an anagrind a while ago in the clue-writing competition, and Mr Moorey didn’t accept it as valid. (Which was a shame, as it was a rather neat &lit, if I say so myself.)
   2. It also works if ‘wild’ is an anagrind for cat, and you only reverse HE’D outside. Perhaps that’s why wild?
      1. I thought it was considered unfair to do ‘second generation’ anagrams – i.e. first find the synonym then use as anagram fodder.
         Maybe the setter’s cat is especially wild.
         1. I agree, in principle.
            PB if reading, care to comment please?
         2. You beat me to it, as surely indirect anagrams are a no-no? But if the clue had said ‘wild cat’ that would have been fine.
      2. But that would entail an indirect anagram, which is a no-no.
         1. I meant if ‘wild cat’ were in the clue instead of ‘wild animal’ it’d be okay.

            Anagrind: wild. Anagrist: CAT. Result: TAC

            Or am I missing something?

            1. Sorry, Jack, I just clicked ‘Reply’ to Pip’s comment, entitled ‘wild cat’, and my comment referred not to that phrase specifically but to ‘wild animal’!
               1. No probs. LJ is misleading sometimes as to who is commenting on what.
      3. I agree with you (pipkirby[edited]) on this point (that ‘wild’ can be an anagrind[edited]). But I am also content for the setter to clue CAT as ‘wild animal’. There’s no problem I can see with this clue.

         [On edit: why can’t LJ line up the Replies with the comment to which they are replies?!?!]

         Edited at 2018-05-02 09:31 am (UTC)

   3. That reminded me of one of your specially paired clues Myrtilus – MULLIGAN TYRE. I reported on that here back in the days when we blogged the TLS. Ou sont les neiges d’antan.
10. Well I didn’t enjoy this. I got most of it done fairly quickly then hit the buffers in the NE. I thought of THOMAS, but I’ve not seen month = MO to my recollection, so discounted it. I’ve not heard of the PATCH TEST (though I got the TEST bit). The parsing of DETACH is horrid – I don’t think I’d have got it in a Mo of Sundays. After much deliberation over the last 5 I thought “I’ve got other things to do instead…”
11. Count me as another who wondered where the extra G had come from in EGG CUP so thanks to jackkt for the parsing. Other than that all fairly straightforward, with a noticeable lack of obscurities. A while back I might have thought LUM an obscurity but it now seems to make an appearance most weeks.
12. We’re being spoiled this week, and you can choose either:
    1) We are enjoying a series of excellent chewy puzzles
    2) This tricky stuff is ruining our solving confidence.
    I don’t have much of a complaint about the “wild” to qualify the animal for CAT. No self-respecting cat is ever properly domesticated, merely presuming your space is hers by right, along with an unpaid service contract. And ask any member of the local fauna about cats and they’ll confirm that any cat is a psychopathic, sadistic monster that kills (eventually) for fun. That’s wild in any definition.
    Didn’t parse MOTHER GOOSE (though I think I could have done) nor EG(G) CUP, which I don’t think I would.
    The classmate tickled my fancy most, though it’s easy.
    Thanks to Pip (and Jack) for being extra clever today. Fine exposition.
13. 27 minutes, with the unknown PATCH TEST going in last. Enjoyed this a lot. Biffed Thos. Paine, of course.

    Edited at 2018-05-02 07:13 am (UTC)

14. 24 minutes with LOI MUSSEL following TOULOUSE, what Bolton Wanderers are bound to do against La Forêt de Nottingham on Sunday. DETACH held me up, as did EGG CUP, with a second G eventually conjured up from thin air. This former scientist knew THOMAS PAINE, who was a write-in, Pip. I’m reading philosopher John Gray’s Seven Types of Atheism at the moment. He describes secular humanism as a sacred relic. That’s what I aspire to be too. COD of course to CHOO- CHOO. I remember in my early CEGB days when two senior Board members at a budget meeting tried to tell us that the benefit of the merry-go-round system of coal delivery by train was that it required no lineside equipment. I whispered to the Production Director next to me that I hoped that wasn’t right as he’d just spent eight million quid on the stuff. He told me not to worry, they’d be talking about Hornby Dublo. Enjoyed this. Thank you Pip and setter.

    Edited at 2018-05-02 08:40 am (UTC)

15. Another very nice puzzle.

    Great to see Tom Paine – “A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose” is a hugely inspiring quotation.

    And of course Dylan:

    As I went out one morning
    To breathe the air around Tom Paine’s
    I spied the fairest damsel
    That ever did walk in chains…

    Although there are lots of church references our setter may never have shadowed a vicar – what with Advent processions,carol concerts, carol services, Christingle, nine lessons and carols, the Christmas Fayre….. etc., as well as all the usual services and pastoral work, Christmas Eve is nearing the time of rest for a vicar 48 hours later.

    19′, thanks pip and setter.

    Edited at 2018-05-02 08:45 am (UTC)

16. This puzzle was always interesting with my one problem the “wild cat”. Have to agree with Jack “cat” alone indicates a domestic variety

    No problem with EGG CUP – Mephisto training to the rescue. And 3D a write-in – he’s the only pamphleteer I can readily call to mind

    Pleased to see Siméon Poisson’s sister AVRIL making a long overdue reappearance

    Well blogged Pip

    1. I remembered her very well Jim – a tour de force if I may say so!
17. … devout, religious, verger, church service, vicar, cleric, cathedral but it turned out to be a fair and fun crossword. I looked up THOMAS PAINE as europe’s a big place and I don’t have time. Really liked EXETER, THEME TUNE, MOTHER GOOSE and EGG CUP.
18. … with CHOO-CHOO a choo-in for train, but some very thorny clues. LOI EXETER — even with the 3 ‘E’ checkers available I was convinced the solution was an former city (from ancient times, no doubt with some weird foreign spelling, cf ‘Scythia’) derivable from a synonym for ‘safe’ with its first letter lopped. Duh! And Exeter has my nearest Waitrose!

    Nope, couldn’t account for the spare G in 22a, but now you’ve explained I see it clearly. LUM a write-in now that I’ve done a couple of years of these Times cryptics: ‘smoker’?? — “Oh, yeah! That obscure Scots dialect thingie that these setters keep using.”

    COD? How about 8d — excellent control of difficulty, deviousness, surface.

    Really enjoyed this, as I have the other chewy ones this week.
    Thanks for a thorough and entertaining blog.

19. Slowest for some time on 51’15; glad to get there. Shouldn’t do these after playing poker all night. Choo choo about the right level. Spent time trying to fit the 27 clue in the 26 place. Good to see Thos. Paine wheeled out. I really like the deft red herring (I suppose there can be such) in the parsing of 22 – one knows the answer but takes for ever to know one knows it. Or something.
20. 14:36. Quite tricky in parts this, with some convoluted wordplay in places.
    Surprised to see people struggling with THOMAS PAINE.
    Similar reaction to others over the use of ‘wild’.
21. 34 mins for a puzzle which was relatively easy except the NW which I had huge difficulty with. I agree with Jackt above that not knowing THOMAS PAINE meant that the cryptic part was intractable (to repeat 3D above). PATCH TEST went in with a hope only – sounded like something medical…
22. THOMAS PAINE took me far longer than it should have – I couldn’t get Thomas de Quincey out of my head, once I’d decided that ‘quad’ was involved somewhere in 14a, even though he obviously didn’t fit. 11m 44s in all.

    I’m pretty sure 25a is a ‘to lose’ homophone rather than anything more complex, and for 22a I was confident enough that GC was probably an award that I didn’t bother trying to think which one it might be. I also didn’t know why gauge was OO, but there couldn’t be another answer.

    My favourite clue was 17a, for its definition – my father is a vicar, and I can confirm that the busy time begins long before Christmas Eve!

    1. fyi Malta was awarded the George Cross for all it bravely had to put up with during WWII.
       1. Thanks! Now that you mention it, I’ve realised it came up in a quiz I was at recently… but clearly my ability to retain quiz knowledge isn’t what it should be.
23. I struggled with this one, ending up towards the top end of my usual solving time bracket. It’s – and this is no reflection of the setter, only on my own predilections – basically my least favourite type of puzzle, lots of fairly vanilla words to be ground out from the wordplay, not a lot of colour or quirk.Like others I paused for a long time over DETACH because “wild animal” just wasn’t good enough to define CAT, and I still can’t see how else it could work. LOI THOMAS PAINE, who did not spring to my mind particularly as a pamphleteer, though I kicked myself when I finally realised I wasn’t looking for a part of Europe or indeed a TROJAN HORSE.
24. I am currently working on one for June with an even more excruciating pun. Such larks!
    1. Good. You may have deduced that some of us (Pip is one) continue to do the puzzles.
25. I thought Thomas Paine was intractable
26. Kevin is right that that was next to a write-in for the US contingent – although I’m only American by adoption. The GC sailed right over my head and same as others scratching said head over DETACH. TOULOUSE reminded me of the dreadful old pun about the Frenchman’s trousers being either Toulon or Toulouse. Congratulations on the successful op Pip. 21.22
    1. Thomas Paine was my FOI.. I even know the year he migrated to US: 1774 and I am scientist, and not from Norfolk, (Va) ;/
27. To be fair to the setter, the second and third senses of CAT in Collins read as follows:

    2. Also called: big cat
    any of the larger felines, such as a lion or tiger
    3. any wild feline mammal of the genus Felis, such as the lynx or serval, resembling the domestic cat

    Edited at 2018-05-02 11:29 am (UTC)

    1. Come on, old chap, I think you’re now bending over backwards to defend a rotten clue!
       1. Well, it must have been said somewhere above, but I simply cannot see what’s wrong with ‘cat’ as ‘animal’ and ‘wild’ as anagrind. The fact that one’s half persuaded to look at it in a different way doesn’t in the slightest detract from the straight (strait?) and narrow path that works, once one’s seen it. The only dodgy element is the surface value of ‘about’.
          1. There’s nothing at all wrong with ‘cat’ as ‘animal’ or ‘wild’ as anagrind when taken individually, but the convention with anagrams is that the grist and the grind both appear in the clue. The suggestion being made here by way of justification is that the anagrist (CAT) which does not appear in the clue, is to be determined indirectly from the word ‘animal’.
             1. Thanks for the succinct explanation. However, it’s a convention that’s failed to register with me, taken to that literal extent, in a half-century of the puzzle.
28. 20 mins: an easier one today after a couple of tricky customers. Though the wordplay in 3dn was generous; had never heard of TP, but no problem with solving the clue. Thanks to setter and blogger; hope all’s well on the eye front, Pip.
29. ….for 1 across: “P + UK + Col” in retro, ‘lock up’ which is equivalent to ‘bar’ as a verb. So I was once again driven to the Guardian puzzle, which is a very nice themed number by Qaos. When I came back, I reluctantly erased ‘lock up’ and tried solving the other clues. The rain in Spain falls mainly on Tom Paine, as they say….

    Time, off the charts.

30. As that time suggests, this was a steady solve with no unpleasant surprises, though the blanks in the NW corner put up the most resistance for me, too, concluding in DETACH.
31. ….I came upon MOTHER GOOSE, so I turned her loose – she was screaming. (Jethro Tull ride again !)

    12:14 with thanks to Pip for parsing both the above, and THOMAS PAINE, and to Jack for identifying the Maltese element of EGG CUP.

    FOI CALLS OFF
    LOI CORACLE
    COD COVERAGE
    WOD CHOO-CHOO (memories of “Top Cat” !)

    On the subject of That Darn Cat, I totally concur with z8b8d8k.

32. Once again, a perusal of the clues in the NW yielded absolutely zilch. I started with SET at 7d and filled in most of the NE apart from the unknown VOTARY which surfaced a while later from wordplay. MOTHER GOOSE was biffed from the unaccounted for G in 22a. Thanks to Jack for the explanation of that. On finally returning to the NW, having postulated CHEST as the body part, I gradually constructed DETACH, after dragging both eyebrows back from the ceiling at the wild animal definition, saw the EX part of 1d, for which I’d spotted the (p)ETER part earlier, realised the bar at 1a was PUB, penned in our writer at 9a and concentrated on building our pamphleteer, who was my LOI. A guess at THOMAS from the checkers allowed me to see the light. 30:24. An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Pip. Glad to hear about the improved optic too.
33. Good man. Keep the Tull coming.
34. To breathe the air around Tom Paine’s….
35. A very small bit longer than usual. I of course know Tom Paine well, but was surprised to find him here in a UK crossword, and entered him after patching together the wordplay. Which is something I didn’t do for EGG CUP, missing the G explanation altogether, and my LOI, DETACH. That was a simple biff. Too many steps from ‘wild animal’ to an anagram of ‘cat’ for me, so I skipped the parsing and just put it in. Regards.
    1. I’m astonished at the number of folk around here who haven’t heard of Paine. Before today I would have put him firmly in the ‘absolutely everyone’s heard of him’ category. Obviously not!

       Edited at 2018-05-02 08:20 pm (UTC)

36. 39:46 and somewhat back on terra firma after a couple that I really struggled with earlier this week. Didn’t think too hard about 11ac and glossed over the wild bit of it. Of course I failed to spot the GC and just bunged in egg cup, again glossing over the awkward extra G in my erroneous parsing. Knew of the pamphleteer but still needed the assistance of the wordplay to get there. I think I have seen patch test before but it wasn’t particularly meaningful to me.
37. All but finished in 15 minutes with just a couple left in the NW corner…. DETACH and THOMAS PAINE my last 2 in… and I had to look him up as I’d never heard of him, so a DNF. I parsed CAT simply as ‘wild animal’. Thanks Jack for solving the EGG CUP mystery I shared with several others here!
38. … which I don’t always achieve by any means. 26a “Normally” – well, why not?
    Thanks for the blog, best wishes,
    Richard J
39. I never really got into my stride with this one, and finally limped in just under the hour. It was the northleft corner that held me up for the longest time, though in retrospect I can’t quite see why.

    What I find interesting, though, is that I knew THOMAS PAINE (the answer, not the gentleman), but had no idea I knew it until I had written it in. This leads me to wonder how many other things I know, but don’t know I know. For all I know, I could know all sorts of things without knowing, although I don’t know if that’s of any practical use. Ever since Mr. Rumsfeld’s wise words, I have been particularly on my guard against unknown unknowns, but I now know I need to look out for unknown knowns. There’s no knowing where all this will end.

    1. Great ramble!!
       1. Thanks. As a youth, I was very nearly on the British olympic five-a-side digression team.
40. Three dnfs in a row. Come on RR, we don’t all live in Dorset.

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