Times 27,545: Rogue’s Gallery

33 comments on “Times 27,545: Rogue’s Gallery”

1. 10:50 for me today, I was enjoying the setter’s wordplay (definitely needed for TESTACY). Good week of puzzles, I though.
2. …with a lot of obscure clues leading to unexpected words, which I still managed to solve in 49 minutes. ‘Larrikin’ is the word some are most likely not to know; ‘weaselly’ and ‘secluded’ have the most difficult cryptics.
3. Very quickly realised that my brain wasn’t going to function as I attempted this at bedtime so I gave up with only 6 answers in place and resumed this morning. I hadn’t timed the first session but I doubt it was any more than 10 minutes. The second session lasted 40.

   I didn’t understand I for Empress in LARRIKIN but now it has come up perhaps we shall see more of it and less of I = current.

   Inkwells on desks, to go with the Dickensian theme perhaps? I might have expected a question mark at the end of that clue.

   Edited at 2019-12-27 05:44 am (UTC)

4. Slow going, with maybe 2/3 solved when I went offline after a half-hour, finishing over lunch. I see I actually got on the grid before Verlaine, my FOI being URAL. LARRIKIN (couldn’t think of a poet besides Lorca) and LOI CONTRITE held out the longest; I persisted in taking ‘common’ to be the definition until the checkers opened my eyes to other possibilities. I also wasted time in making TESTATE work. Lots of good stuff; as V says, Friday-appropriate. But are/were inkwells ON desks?
   1. I think it’s okay. Collins has: An inkwell is a container for ink on a desk. And if you Google images of inkwells there are many examples of free standing pots which would go ‘on’ a desk. It’s true that traditionally inkwells were often set in holes in desks, and certainly that’s the sort I encountered at my prep school (which bore a remarkable similarity to Dickens’ Dotheboys Hall and the headmaster seemed to model himself on Wackford Squeers) however I don’t believe there was ever an exclusive design for the article.

      Edited at 2019-12-27 06:53 am (UTC)

5. Best of the week! LOI URAL, right after (if memory serves… I’m a bit pissed) WEASELLY.
6. 43 minutes with one boob, ‘Anglesea ’. I did stop to think whether this was perhaps wrong, and ‘Anglesee’ perhaps right, but didn’t actually stop to parse the clue.

   Anyway, I’m crying foul, since this is a clue that was patently designed with our Cambrian blogger in mind. To say nothing of his Concise time today. Disgraceful!

7. LOIs were MOBILISE, URAL and WEASELLY.
   I lived in Sydney for 20 years and ran with the Sydney Larrikin Hash House Harriers but always thought LARRIKIN just meant a loveable rogue not someone who was necessarily rowdy or boisterous. You live and learn. COD to URAL.
8. 33:22…. but with a mombled LERVICIO for 25A in deapair at the end. I also stared at ROULETTE for ages wondering how it worked before realising I was looking at the clue for 22A. Otherwise a nice Friday teaser with plenty of fun clues. COD to INUNDATE, but I liked METALLURGY too. Thanks V and setter.

   Edited at 2019-12-27 09:18 am (UTC)

9. Neither WEASELLY nor URAL would yield to me in my allotted time.

   COD: SECLUDED.

10. I gave up when my hour bell rang with one left: the unknown TURKEY TROT. I had the trot and I might’ve thought of TURKEY in the end, but I’d already spent fifteen minutes coming up with INKWELLS and I was a bit frustrated by then. (I know far too many SF writers, but I’ve never seen anyone use an inkwell, of course*…) Ah well.

    *I say “of course”, but it occurs to me that I may be more inkwell-adjacent than I think, having visited the occasional pen expo. I shall keep an eye out at the South West Pen Show if I pop along in February; if I pay attention I might actually see an inkwell being used…

    Edited at 2019-12-27 09:56 am (UTC)

11. 34′, which I thought was slow.

    Enjoyed LARRIKIN, was held up by SECLUDED as fixated on cuddles = hugs. Also banged in ‘testate’ which led to some problems.

    I have never known why Majorca became MALLORCA in English. I have walked about half of the ANGLESEY coastal path, must go back and finish it sometime.

    Thanks verlaine and setter.

12. As with yesterday quick by my standards so it seems solving first thing before getting out of bed is optimal for me. I don’t think that’s going to work on work days though!

    I found this an entertaining puzzle with lots of tight clueing to admire. Hard to pick a COD but I’ll go with my LOI MOBILISE given how such a concise clue had me barking up the wrong tree for a good while.

13. I can’t offer a time with comings and goings of Christmas guests all morning plus simultaneous test match watching duties, and suffering from a surfeit of surfeits, but I couldn’t have been much under the hour. The INKWELLS were more in than on my school desks, but I’ll concede either. I’ll give COD to MOUNTEBANK, a word I’ve always wanted to use but never have. A bit of a challenge. Thank you setter and V.
14. Just over 30 minutes, enjoying the highly resistant wordplay employed throughout. Quite a few were inspirational takes on definitions, followed by unravelling of the wordplay to confirm: ROULETTE, WEASELLY and MOUNTEBANK prime cases in point. A tough puzzle, but not a hard grind, though I see from some of the regulars coming in half my time, a level of post-festivity slowness might have played a role..
15. A tougher offering than the preceding puzzles this week, but very enjoyable. TOIL was my FOI,with ACCUSTOM following as the Persian feline came to quickly mind. The LHS filled fairly rapidly, but the RHS resisted in the North and South quarters. A fixation on Lorca held up LARRIKIN, which finally led me to the correct end of the clue for CONTRITE, whilst trying to put the killer at the top of MALLORCA held up the latter, which was my LOI. WEASELLY also caused some delay. URAL made me laugh. 38:25. Thanks setter and V.
16. A 28 minute romp, finishing with a groan as the spent penny dropped at UR(IN)AL. After WEASELRY which sounds like something Harry Potterish. Nice blog V, thanks for explaining TOIL which I didn’t pause to parse.
17. ….a Y’s guy ? No less than 7 Y’s in this puzzle, which I thought was quite unusual !

    I started really well, but ground to a halt in the NE corner after 8 minutes. It took me 75% longer to finish the three offending clues. I had to alpha-trawl WEASELLY, and then the penny (or 20p most times now) dropped for my COD. My LOI quickly followed.

    FOI TOADYISM
    LOI MALLORCA
    COD URAL
    TIME 13:54

    1. Yes, I noticed the Ys (and wherefores) too Phil.
18. Not the most difficult, but very good at pointing the unwary solver in the wrong direction, so there were several clues where I started out looking for entirely the wrong definition and had to retrace my steps. I am another who remembers school desks with hollowed out sections for inkwells, even though we had moved on to more modern methods of getting ink all over ourselves; I’d have thought it has to be an inkstand if it’s on, rather than in, a desk, but this is really just quibbling over the Quink.
19. 16:34 and I reckon a good five minutes of that were spent on my last four in the SE corner, particularly LARRIKIN and CONTRITE. In the case of the latter by the Yoda grammar put off I think I was.
20. Bang on the wavelength for me which was nice after an infuriating typo yesterday. I shared digs in my 3rd univ. year with a daughter of the Marquess of 27A. He visited once and I was rendered speechless because he looked just like Laurence Olivier. Some very entertaining stuff in this one. 15.07
21. Yes, the inkwells, still there at my secondary school. Along with set squares as I remember. This was tough, especially as for some reason I rejected Mallorca and it took a little time to reinstate. 38’05. joekobi
22. what is a nina?
    1. Click “glossary” in the links on the right for a full explanation of the term.
23. I suspect I’m at the sluggish end today. Bit of a plod to finish in 24 minutes. Despite that, enjoyed the trip. Liked 22 across, how many times do you encounter mountebank? I thought it was a store for Canadian policemen…ho,ho,ho. Well I liked it.

    Got stuck with seeing testate rather than testacy and metallurgy needed all the links before I finally cracked it to complete the puzzle.

24. 32:10 but a DNF because a wretched typo, mPbilise for mObilise, brought up one pink square. Annoying. I thought this was a fun puzzle, nothing given away and plenty of puzzling out required. Just the ticket. Someone got called a mountebank in the Peter Ustinov Poirot film on telly earlier today.
25. This was so different from yesterdays breeze. Even with word finders I struggled and although I guessed URAL I couldn’t see the logic behind it.
26. Quite tough but got there finally. Always thought of “Larrikin” as an Australian word – but presumably not exclusively.
27. Phew. Twenty minutes got me almost nowhere, and it was only after 40 that answers started to come to me; total time 51 minutes. As is so often the case, I can’t see in retrospect what held me up, but that’s the measure of a good puzzle. Thanks, setter.

    LARRIKIN, of course, was my LOI.

28. Persisted through this even though the answers did not come thick and fast. Plenty of enjoyable clues.

    Only real sticking point was not knowing whether LARRAKIN or LARRIKIN was the correct spelling.

29. NHO the ‘ turkey trot ‘ dance, so held up for ages by 6d, thinking that ‘by’ in the clue meant we’d have ****BY TROT as the dance. GRIMSBY didn’t fit , and seemed an unlikely place to be at the forefront of dance innovation. When the Christmas turkey was finally found the rest fell quickly. LOI ‘ accustom’ in 61mins.
30. That was us. Usually logs in as default

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