Times 27,539: Quoth The Ravens (and Parrot)

44 comments on “Times 27,539: Quoth The Ravens (and Parrot)”

1. Way too long for me since it too me forever to get TRANQUILLY. I really do need to remember “always try Q in front of a U”. Once I finally did, it was obvious. But all correct at least, after a couple of days of typos.
2. 35 minutes with delays in the SE corner where the raven reference was unknown so I needed both checkers at 24dn before embarking on an alphabet trawl. With only the P in place I thought of CARP and was unable to get past that for ages as the cryptic part of the clue didn’t help me at all. As for the other checker, I had thought of UPRAISED at 25ac but was reluctant to write it in because if it was correct then the clue would be utterly feeble by already containing UP, so I was looking for something better. As it turned out I needn’t have bothered as it was just a single poor clue in an otherwise excellent puzzle.

   But for a J we’d have a pangram.

   Edited at 2019-12-20 05:35 am (UTC)

3. Tranquilly also my last in by far, but only due to a misspelled EXCHNAGE (sic) which I failed to spot for a long time. Quick apart from that, but ultimately futile as the GK got me with HIPWORTH.
   Some nice clues – liked howitzer, eulogist and especially unimpaired.
4. Lie with gusto indeed – definitely my COD. I have to say, having seen his miserable time on the Club site, I came here in anticipation of a creative and persuasive explanation from V and I haven’t been disappointed. Barnaby Rudge is so universally panned that I didn’t bother to read it in my Dickens phase. I had no idea that he owned a raven called GRIP, who he was very fond of, even to the point of getting it stuffed when it fell off its perch. ‘‘Tis now in the States being poured over by Poe scholars, I believe,
5. All but two in within ten minutes, then spent another fifteen failing to get TRANQUILLY and UNIMPAIRED. Good puzzle.
6. 24 minutes. LOI UPRAISED. Apart from the constructed ROSELLA, I had all the necessary general knowledge today, GRIP flying out of the recesses of memory, and the numerous anagrams were of tolerable length. We live only two miles from POTTERS BAR. COD to SOLECISM. Thank you V and setter.
7. A good time for me of 36m spoiled by inventing HIPWORTH like isla3 (annoying as I do know of Hepworth – must be more of a hep cat in future when I see fashionable in clues) and a typo in DOMM which was just sloppy. Thanks V and setter for a kindly end to the working year – at least for us Brits; I think Murcans get a couple of hours off on Christmas Day if they are lucky nowadays!
8. 30 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc.
   And a few of those mins (like Jack, above) not knowing the raven and not believing 25ac could be what it is.
   Thanks setter and V.
9. 24 minutes, slowing in the nethermost regions, having forgotten that raven and coming up with too many words for complain. UNIMPAIRED took a while as I tried out “sounds like broadcast” ideas and couldn’t therefore see the definition. INDEMNITY was not the first synonym for freedom that surfaced, either.
   I had forgotten where Harry got his butterbeer, but the town is familiar enough, with a decent theatre where I was entertained this year by Milton Jones. I did think its full name was Queues Stretching Back As Far As Junction 24 For Potters Bar, mind. Apparently it actually is even as I write.
10. 23:19 … nice puzzle, but a sorry tale of self-inflicted impossibilities, misread clues and general dimness for me. Nevermore!

    Among other things I spent a long time thinking there must be a place called Witches Bar.

    Loved the EULOGIST clue. Cheers, v and all

11. 7:42, so no problems this morning, and even the book of the bible was familiar. Generally I was pretty fully equipped with the required GK here, most of it (EZRA included) from previous puzzles. The one thing I didn’t know was the raven, and although the wordplay was clear the answer looked unlikely so I was half expecting a couple of pink squares.
    Edit: meant to say that EULOGIST is brilliant!

    Edited at 2019-12-20 10:43 am (UTC)

12. 17:06. Another who didn’t know the raven at 24D. LOI and COD to SOLECISM, although it was all pretty good, apart from UPRAISED (as others have noted). Like Sotira I wondered about WITCHES at 22A, but, thankfully, not for long. I also tried, in vain, to fit NEVERMORE into 16A but the required raven was elsewhere. Thanks V and setter.

    Edited at 2019-12-20 09:58 am (UTC)

    1. Poe and Dickens had met, and it is not unlikely that Dickens’s loquacious (real-life) pet Grip was the inspiration for the raven that quoth “Nevermore.”

       James Russell Lowell:
       ” There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
       Three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge”…

       Edited at 2019-12-22 02:01 am (UTC)

       1. Very interesting. Thanks.
13. Easy again today.. impressed myself by remembering Lamarck from having seen a statue of him once in Paris. The French claim he was the discoverer of evolution etc.
    On an unrelated note, I have been having irritations with my Firefox browser, so uninstalled it and then downloaded it again .. it automatically reloads bookmarks, passwords etc. At present I only have one extension added, adblocker ultimate, and this has completely stripped all those annoying livejournal ads away, leaving a calming green space where they used to be. Recommended!

    Edited at 2019-12-20 10:09 am (UTC)

14. HIPWORTH for HEPWORTH. I don’t think I’ve come across HEP before. I had all but three Clues in the SE done in about 12 mins. Then another 5 mins to finish in 17:10 with the one error.

    COD: SOLECISM.

15. even with the rest complete and all the letters staring me in the face.

    D’oh.

16. I’m not sure I’ve ever had so many different references from different fields sail over my head in one crossword! Only vaguely heard of HEPWORTH (apparently enough to reconsider my initial HIPWORTH, though) and LAMARCK only rang the faintest of bells. Didn’t know what was going on at the Three Broomsticks, and never knew that Barnaby Rudge (and Dickens himself) had a raven… At least my regular DUMBBELL workout came in handy today.

    I got lucky in thinking of GRIPE almost immediately upon looking at 24d, and it didn’t seem an unlikely name for a raven, and that helped me get UPRAISED. Those two were my last couple in by a long stretch. 37 minutes all told. Enjoyed the image of the outrageous EULOGIST.

17. I can’t make up my mind whether the setter was trying for a pangram and failed, or whether this is a deliberate attempt to mislead the solver. It isn’t the first such puzzle in recent months.
    1. I think I’ve seen without-a-J pangrams quite a few times over the years. It catches in my brain a bit because one of the alternate universes encountered in Robert Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast is a closely-adjacent universe which appears the same as ours, except that the English language is missing the letter J…

       I wonder if it’s a particular setter’s signature, or if I’m just experiencing apophenia.

18. I went down the HIPWORTH and CARP routes, but rethought both, as HEPWORTH seemed vaguely familiar and CARP didn’t fit the wordplay. Having got UPRAISED, GRIPE seemed to fit the complaint, although I’d never heard of the raven, not having read BR, and half expected pink squares, but was pleasantly surprised. TRANQUILLY and UNIMPAIRED held me up, otherwise I constructed the answers from the wordplay without much ado. A pleasant finish to the week. 25:17. Thanks setter and V.
19. ….and I’ll be ecstatic if we nevermore have clues referencing Harry bloody Potter. Luckily I knew the town. Apart from the dimly recalled LAMARCK, I generally enjoyed the puzzle though.

    See my earlier response re the “missing J”. Anyone else have a view on this ?

    FOI OVERCOOL
    LOI UNIMPAIRED
    COD SELL-BY-DATE
    TIME 11:57

20. ….. as with others above I had all but TRANQUILLITY and UNIMPAIRED in 14 minutes.
21. Eventually finished in just on 30 minutes, spent at least 5 of those trying to crack 12 across. Stuck in the groove of trying to fit an anagram of pen in a trolley. Even when I got 16 down the thought wouldn’t leave me.

    2 and 16 down my favourites; the former produced further torture initially trying to make sense of hip rather than hep. So hep, hep hooray at finally finishing.

22. There is another composer here, Havergal Brian, which gives a clue as to the compiler.
    1. Yes. I spotted that, but until I followed it up I didn’t realise JG aka Joker was chairman of the Havergal Brian Society. Thanks for that.
23. as there were a few challenging clues in here I thought. I’ve read B. Rudge and knew there was a raven, but I had totally forgotten the name. I didn’t think the book was that bad. Sidetracked on the Hepworth by looking for an artist beginning HIP. And on the Dumbbell by Branwell B. – which would have fitted.
    1. I too bunged in a hopeful Branwell until realising it was some distance away from the wordplay 😀
24. I was having trouble focusing this morning and found this a bit of a struggle accordingly. Didn’t help that I outsmarted myself by putting “dump” in 4D (yes I know) which led to unhelpful spacemen and specimens in 10A. Barnaby Rudge is a closed book to me but GRIP it had to be. Do parents still give their babies gripe water when they complain? 21.52
25. 20′ after a moment or two to get Grip, which with rosella dnhf (didn’t know or had forgotten). Certainly hadn’t forgotten the Rowling inn since had never been there – can’t stand them books and loathe their presence at any level in the canon. Quite liked the easy quizzical anagrammatic style and the literary touches otherwise (though two Poes gives one pause. Language a bit becalmed too). ‘Hep’ seems a long time ago. joekobi
26. My Google trawl came up with an artist “Trudi Hipworth” so I consider this crossword to have two correct solutions.
    Never heard of the raven or the pub, though.
27. 21:29 – so a good day for me. I was schooled in Wakefield – home of the Hepworth museum – so no problem there. I knew of the Barnaby Rudge raven but couldn’t recall it’s name until I got the ‘r’. However, I have to admit I biffed HOWITZER as my LOI without realising it was an anagram,
28. As noted by all, a really wide range of knowledge / ability to guess required here, and most of the pennies dropped sooner or later, except the Potter reference, which was lost on me (not a boy-wizard refusenik, but the pub sign clearly never stuck). Sidetracked by dutifully following everyone else who was searching for a HIP artist, not to mention misleading thoughts of the ROSEATE tern, which was unhelpful here.
29. 22:45. I got off to a rip-roaring start on this one but slowed down towards the end. I had all the GK apart from the raven, so that helped. My Pavlovian response to artist is always to start thinking of painters though so the sculptor at 2dn took longer than she might otherwise have done. I was slow to find the right pen and the right carrier in 12ac. Solecism, impunity and unimpaired were other late entries where I was foxed for a time before seeing what was required.
30. Enjoyable apart from having no clue about LAMARCK which was more kindly clued than the other unknown HEPWORTH – cheated by checking for HIPWORTH before submission.

    Having teenage kids means Harry Potter is somewhat unavoidable – saw the reference immediately but as the son of a father fascinated by London bus routes, it still took a few minutes to arrive at POTTERS BAR.

31. I managed this in a respectable 24 minutes, my best Friday result for a while.

    FOI 21ac LIDO

    LOI 13dn UNIMPAIRED

    COD 17ac LAMARCK

    WOD 8dn FLAT PACK a very Ikean clue!

    13dn Palisade a fond reminder of the old Kingston Airport, Palisadoes – now Norman Manley International.
    Politics over poetry.

32. This didn’t seem too bad for a Friday. A welcome diversion between sessions of pre Christmas housework.
    My last three were TRANQUILLY, IMPUNITY and GRIP (unknown).
    I then thought I’d finished but hadn’t corrected my answer for the unknown ROSELLA ,so one wrong annoyingly.
    Like others I went from Hip to Hep and was able to guess any unknown GK.
    Liked tranquilly and Eulogist.
    David
33. You were a hep cat if you were in in the late 50s
34. My speedy time was much held up at the end due to putting STIMULUS which of course comes out as STIMULS when typed in. Thereby I was unable to get IMPUNITY, and had to come here to find out my mistake. A bit of a 50’s feel to this with HEP and COOL. I believe that COOL is out of favour at schools these days.
35. This was a fun puzzle, especially since I completed it correctly and in less than an hour despite having no idea at all what I was doing. I knew there was a place called on-the-tip-of-my-tongue’s BAR, but it took a while to remember POTTERS BAR. I also didn’t believe UPRAISED at first, had no idea that the Brontes had pen names, let alone BELL, fortunately put in HEPWORTH and forgot to come back to it to ponder whether it might not be HIPWORTH (didn’t sound as likely to be a name, though). Knew nothing about the birds (never heard of ROSELLA as a parrot, nor did I know the literary raven, but I did think of GRIP(E) in the nick of time). I have also never heard of FLAT PACKs, so common sense and nothing else gave me that one. It all almost feels like cheating (but I didn’t).

    Edited at 2019-12-20 07:01 pm (UTC)

36. No time for this one, but a bit longer than average. I can’t claim to have enjoyed this one, though I can’t put my finger on why. Perhaps it was the literariness of it all that got to me.

    My only significant hold-up was at GRIP, as I’d never heard of the alleged raven. I spent quite a while trying to parse the clue back to front, and trying to justify “carp”.

37. I found this a mixed bag. Rattled through the first half in about 15 minutes and then came to a grinding halt. Total time circa 50 mins but a DNF because of 1dn. I am sure there must be a famous Hipworth somewhere out there.
38. Too much general/specialist knowledge required to solve some of these.
39. I got all of these except two where I had: 24 dn CARP and 25 ac UNARISEN.
    I supposed “carp” must be a literary term for “raven” in some context.

    from Jeepyjay

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