Times 27493 – Epic Fail

54 comments on “Times 27493 – Epic Fail”

1. 31 minutes. Mostly straightforward but I lost a couple of minutes having put SACK at 1dn. Should have remembered sooner that it’s wine rather than a spirit. Also toyed with AIREDALE TERRIER at 2dn.

   21dn should read E[vident] in GNOME.

   Edited at 2019-10-28 12:46 am (UTC)

2. Unusually for me, I got the first two acrosses in, which led me to try the downs; and that led me to biff, not just toy with, AIREDALE TERRIER, on the basis of the A (I don’t think I knew of the ABERDEEN kind). U, you’ve got a typo there; should be DEE. I wondered about ‘unsuitable’ and ‘coy’; a film is in fact kept in a can (I also thought of Ulaca’s explanation), and for me thumb-sucking is a sign of infantility not shyness. Both words had the effect on me of red herrings; certainly both clues would have been even easier without them. Biffed 7d and 13ac, solved post-submission. I liked 13ac, once I saw how it worked.
3. …with only ‘scarcity and ‘cetacean’ giving a little difficulty. I will note that the clues are all quite original, without a chestnut to be found.
   1. Swiss banker?
      1. I’ve often seen it as the answer, but never as the wordplay.
4. except for 8dn BELLADONNA 26ac RHINO and the Gnomic one as per Kev.

   I flashed through this (for me) in 21 minutes.

   FOI 11ac TWILL

   LOI 1dn SHOT – a really odd clue!

   COD None

   WOD 10ac OVERTRUMP!

   Perhaps more suitable for QCers than today’s QC!

   Edited at 2019-10-28 04:48 am (UTC)

5. Good one! SHOT came late, but TYROLEAN was LOI.
6. Pretty straightforward especially with the way, for me, the easy clues were the first six across clues. AGIO was new to me, I think.
7. As evidenced by my two late entries. Pace Kevin’s chestnut comment on Swiss banker, I spent way to long trying to call up my sparse list of Helvetic rivers, which is what bankers always are, and even longer trying to come up with spirits from which I could remove US at 1d. And yes, I started with the AIREDALE and later dismissed ABERDEEN in the absence of a girl and European capital (E?) until sense prevailed.
   Also spent time wondering what POTUS 45 was doing in 10 and how he was (at last?) over.
   To my shame, I didn’t know Porgy was disabled (until now). I wonder if correct form these days, as well as insisting on a black cast (which the original had) would insist on a genuinely disabled singer?
   All pushed my time towards 20 minutes, but no complaints.
   1. Actually, I started with Swiss rivers, too; but since I only know about two, that came to a quick end. The movie version of Porgy & Bess had a disabled singer in the sense that Sidney Poitier couldn’t sing.
      1. :)) !
   2. There are two exceptions I know of to the general rule of ‘banker’ meaning ‘river’. The first one is if there is a reference to Switzerland, when it is usually ‘gnome’, and the second is in the Private Eye crossword, when it will be ‘onanist’.
8. On Glasgow train on paper, guessed the NHO AGIO. Pieced together CETACEAN.

   LOI GENOME.

   COD BONE CHINA

9. 25 mins with banana, yoghurt, granola.
   I took a while to get going, thinking it was all too hard, then got into the groove, returning to the NW at the end.
   Having had a couple of what felt like literary clues, I convinced myself the Dieter in 13ac would be a famous fictional character by Goethe or something. How foolish.
   And I toyed with the idea that a river near Geneva might have a Gene-like element. Doh!
   Well played setter and thanks U.

   Edited at 2019-10-28 08:30 am (UTC)

10. Isn’t the passion fruit the GRANADILLA?

    Grenadilla seems to be a tree used to make musical instruments

    1. Collins and the Oxfords have them as alternative spellings for the fruit. Chambers has nothing for either online but in the printed edition says the fruit can be spelt either way however also has Granadilla Tree as the source of cocus wood. I don’t suppose there’s anything definitive on any of this but I think the setter is covered.

       Edited at 2019-10-28 08:54 am (UTC)

    2. I see that you are right.

       I have also just seen this 2014 headline:
       “Couple flown to Grenada in the Caribbean and not Granada in Spain lose $34,000 lawsuit against British Airways for ticket mix up”.

       1. LOL. On which note, I was living in Nova Scotia when a British couple (I assume not the same one) flew to Sydney NS rather than Sydney NSW … this article is worth a read, not least because it suggests they took some time to notice! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2172858.stm
11. 13:38 … that was different. I was a bit ‘bah’ just after solving so I left it a while before commenting. I’m now less ‘bah’, more ‘hm’. Or even ‘hmmmmmmm’. (That probably works better in my head than on the page)

    I did have a bit of a delay consulting my inner Social Justice Warrior (What Would Keriothe Do?) on whether it was necessary to define Porgy as ‘disabled’. And would that mean we need to define, say, Figaro as ‘able-bodied hero’? (And now I find on a most helpful UK government website page that ‘able-bodied’ is best avoided … ‘use non-disabled instead’). In the end I decided I didn’t know. This sort of thing slows down my solving no end.

    I had the same problem as myrtilus with ‘dieter’, immediately wondering what the German was for ‘goal’. COD to that one now that the penny has dropped.

    1. It didn’t bother me so i must be OK. ‘Non-disabled’ is a new one on me.
       1. In doing a bit of light research for the Jumbo blog that will appear on Saturday I came across something called the “euphemism treadmill”, whereby euphemisms for taboo words eventually become taboo themselves.
          1. Fascinating. I do fear that ‘treadmill’ has oppressive overtones and may soon have to be replaced.
          2. Interesting. The term was coined by Stephen Pinker in a book I’m fairly sure I’ve read, but I am severely mnemonically challenged so I can’t be sure.
12. …as per Porgy and Bess, but then nothing is, apart from we will always be waiting for Godot. Can I have that job as theatre critic now? 28 minutes. Mainly straightforward, with a short pause for AGIO and a slightly longer one for the unknown GRENADILLA, where I spent time trying to fit in a backwards LAID. How come I didn’t know that’s what a passion fruit was? LOI was the ABERDEEN TERRIER, not returned to until the end after the Airedale wouldn’t fit in the dog basket. OPTICS brings back memories of third form Physics more than University days, desperately trying to find the no parallax position. Easier said than done. COD to SCARCITY. Enjoyable.Thank you U and setter.
    1. What does it say about me that on seeing OPTICS my first thought is of bottles full of spirits behind a well-stocked bar?
13. 9:38. This wasn’t hard, but there were a few where I wasn’t 100% confident of the answer. I couldn’t figure out what a German chap called Dieter was doing in 13ac, AGIO rang a faint bell but doesn’t look very likely as a word, and there seemed to be unaccounted for words in a couple of the clues (ARCH, SHOT). So my fingers were crossed when I submitted but I came through unscathed in the end.
    1. AGIO is yet one more NYT chestnut. I’ve never seen it anywhere outside of their puzzles.
       1. Ditto Kevin – where it’s always clued as “exchange rate premium” or some such (they’re not cryptics). Haven’t seen it lately but I only do the weekend ones.
       2. I suspect I’ve come across it in Mephistos.
          1. I’ve just found it in my Big List next to Habanera;quite recent I think.
             But I’d forgotten both.
          2. The farmer’s in his den,
             The farmer’s in his den,
             E I AGIO
             The farmer’s in his den
14. 17’01”, with much on SHOT – what on earth is the word ‘us’ doing? Liked SCARCITY. WAITING FOR GODOT a write-in with a couple of crossers, unparsed. Same distractions as everyone else, further hindered by not knowing any Swiss rivers.

    Thanks ulaca and setter.

15. THUMB was my FOI and I biffed OVERTRUMP quite a while before seeing how it worked. Had to construct the unknown AGIO and GRENADILLA. ABERDEEN TERRIER was my LOI. If I hadn’t already had OVERTRUMP, AIREDALE would have been a shoo in! 26:08. Thanks setter and U.
16. I didn’t fall into the Dieter trap but I did the same as Z trying to deduct US from the spirits in 1D. Also took a while to sort out the you say Grenada and I say Granada thing. Thanks for the parse on ARCH Ulaca, I didn’t quite get there. 16.52. P.S. I think DISCO in 23D is just hidden in commanD IS COnservative.
17. 20 mins. No dramas. NHO agio, but the wp was generous. 25dn is a bit of a weak clue, imho. Thanks, u.
18. ….over the course of my solve, and made heavy weather of what is, in retrospect, a fairly straightforward puzzle.

    I initially thought the first girl in 8D might be “Barb(ara)”, wrote in TERRIER and scratched my head over the obvious dog before moving on and leaving it blank, resisted “grenadine” (but that settled the non-Airedale conundrum), and tried desperately to make an anagram of airline, needing Ulaca to parse BONE CHINA for me.

    I see “go” as a game has resurfaced quite quickly.

    FOI COBWEB
    LOI ABERDEEN TERRIER
    COD CETACEAN
    TIME 10:04

    Edited at 2019-10-28 11:29 am (UTC)

19. Very interesting and enjoyable, though not a puzzle where I submitted with 100% confidence. AGIO felt like a word I had added to my Big List, but apparently not, at least until now. I agree that SHOT is not faulty, but somehow even when I’d come up with it, I didn’t feel totally certain it was right, which suggests it isn’t an entirely successful clue. A minor quibble in the great scheme of things.
20. 33 minutes with 29 and a half out of 30 in my new scoring system. The missing half was Over in overtrump – I didn’t know the word and couldn’t get the wordplay, so resorted to aids. That opened up my LOI shot. I’d been stuck on sack for a bit but knew it was wrong.

    One of my least favourite old words appeared again today – rhino (see last week’s discussion on Pi!) But my biggest bugbear is disco for party – it comes up time and again and it doesn’t quite ring true for me. In my view, a disco was a club where you went dancing, or maybe a school event, but not a party. An orgy, on the other hand – well I wouldn’t know but I guess that would be pretty wild!

    NHO agio so put it in tentatively – relieved to see it’s correct. Didn’t understand Arch, so thanks for the parsing Ulaca.

    Liked County Down and Scarcity; I wondered if the coy thumb sucker was Little Jack Horner sitting in his corner?

    FOI Cobweb
    LOI Shot
    COD Bone china – I saw it straightaway and retro-parsed – what a brilliant, humorous clue
    WOD Curlew – lovely birds 😊

    1. I agree with you about DISCO – I too think of it as a club (Regine’s discotheques) or an event where there was a hired DJ for later in the evening after the formal stuff was over. I mostly slept through the disco era in NYC because I was either working all hours or too tired to think of going to one. There were also some well-known ORGY goings-on in that era but like you I took a pass on them too.
21. 41 minutes, and it felt like longer. I also took a long time waiting for the penny drop on 1d SHOT, but it was mostly my poor GK that held me up along the way, having got my pens and my cobs confused, forgotten AGIO, never known that Porgy and Bess was an opera, let alone that Porgy was disabled, and NHO GERNADILLA. I’m also not sure how I managed to get 18d as early as I did, as I didn’t know where Innsbruck was or why that would make it TYROLEAN…

    On the whole, glad I came through unscathed, let alone in less than the hour this one felt like it took!

22. Reporting pre lunch today; there was a tough test from Tracy on the QC this morning. I’d always assumed Tracy must be female but as I am now reading The Pickwick Papers, I have come across Tracy Tupman who isn’t.
    The QC blog said this puzzle was not too hard and I did more than half of it before the dog walk.
    It was fitting perhaps that the dog held me up at the end of this puzzle. I knew ABERDEEN would fit the puzzle but I don’t think I’ve ever met such a terrier (I’d parsed the last bit). Still I bashed it in and finished with a hopeful GRENADILLA. DNK AGIO.
    Time for lunch now. David
    1. If you haven’t found this already, there’s a site called Best for Puzzles, where there is a section called Crossword Who’s Who. Most illuminating😊 I understand that Tracy uses this alias as his name is Allan Scott and it refers to the Thunderbirds family. The Guardian have also run a series of interviews with crossword setters which are easily found online. Again, very interesting to see how their enormous brains tick!

       Edited at 2019-10-28 01:59 pm (UTC)

       1. Thanks.
23. 12:31. I was disappointed that County Down wasn’t clued with reference to the Uxbridge definition of “a Chinese rocket launch”.

    It was only when I couldn’t parse CETACIAN that I decided to put in the correct word instead.

24. Mostly straightforward, but thanks for explaining Arch. On the disco subject, the above-mentioned Regine is still living here in Paris. She claims to have been the first to think of playing records inside a bar, but I doubt it rather.
25. Way too long for a relatively simple puzzle which I at first thought might be another Monday toughie. I was therefore looking for difficulty in clues which wasn’t there. LOI ARCH which I didn’t understand till I got here, thank you for that.
26. 23 minutes late in the day after a pleasant round of golf. At that point had all done with SHOT an unconvinced entry and *G*O at 17, I could see wordplay for A, GI, O, but couldn’t believe AGIO was a proper word. Surprised it was a DK word, as have changed money and therefore probably paid agio hundreds of times. Quite a meaty puzzle for a Monday, which now seems not to be the easy week-starter it use d to be.
    There must be a witty remark using OVER TRUMP and OVERT RUMP but I can’t be arsed to make it make sense.
27. Must have fallen right into my knowledge lap, my 8:27 time is holding up quite nicely (though Aphis99 has broken the speed of light). AGIO definitely one you see in US style puzzles a lot where the degree of checking means four letter words with three vowels are de rigueur (OLIO, anyone?).
28. I loved the dieter’s goal once I had worked out, like others, that I was not looking for a German goal.
    Completely on the wrong track at first on 1a, as I assumed that Detroit was the definition and striking was “hitting”. Having once crossed the border very painfully from Canada into America here, it seemed appropriate.
29. Around 20 minutes, ending with ORGY. I was surprised to see that Porgy and Bess cropped up here. When I see ‘opera’ I’m usually trying to think of something Italian, never American. And I certainly don’t know much about opera anyway. Regards.
30. 18:02. I was delayed slightly more by the LHS than by the right, probably the dog and the passion fruit that gave pause for thought, but no real problems. I think I glossed over cob for male swan, and whatever agio might mean but they were never really in doubt.
31. I was astoundished to have no pink squares when I submitted this after an eternity. I had no idea how ARCH was supposed to work, and had never heard of AGIO, despite my being AGIOed through the nose every time I travel abroad.

    As for ABERDEEN TERRIER, I have never heard of such an animal and can’t help but wonder if the world actually needs yet another breed of terrier. The fact that I’d’ve spelled the Swiss capital with an extra E meant that I couldn’t see how ABERDEEN was assembled from its component parts. I was also unsure whether the island in 15ac was Grenada or Granada, which made the whole thing very wobbly indeed. (It turns out that both Grenada and Granada exist, but the latter is a land-locked island in Spain.)

    I did enjoy both SCARCITY and BONE CHINA, but a gold star goes to the setter for GENOME, which is surely as geeky as ODIC is arts’n’humanities-y. Is it my imagination, or has the level of science in the cryptic been creeping up a little over the last few months? If so, well done, high time, and carry on.

32. Impossible to solve fair and square. Good one mister setter.
33. When SCARCITY and COBWEB went straight in , we thought we might be on course for a PB. So 2d AIREDALE TERRIER, 14d NARCISSIST ( self-obsessed fellow ) and 24a RAGE ( wild party) were biffed. Took rather a long time to sort out the resulting mess. Eventually finished in 31 mins with COUNTY DOWN last in, thinking the wordplay might be referencing a UK game show we’d never heard of. A surprise to find countdown , which we’d thought to be a TV show uniquely and dreadfully from our country. Did we copy you, or vice-versa?

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