Times 27637 – Nice and easy does it…

51 comments on “Times 27637 – Nice and easy does it…”

1. …so hardly at my mental peak, time 30 minutes.

   Some good cluing – grandeur, recumbent, unbolt, but I thought the ear trumpet clue was trying to go in too many directions at once.

2. I biffed AIRCRAFT CARRIER & SHRINK-WRAP, and a good thing, as I NHO the chef or the cyclist. I think I would spell PLAINCLOTHESMAN as one word (but ‘plain clothes’ as two, as does ODE); neither ODE nor the New Oxford Amer. Dict. has an entry for PLAINCLOTHES MAN. Neither marks ‘plain clothes’ as an Americanism. Liked GRANDEUR.
   1. According to Collins PLAINCLOTHESMAN is both British and American English, but PLAINCLOTHES MAN is only American!
3. 7:45, pretty straightforward. Liked the clue for PLAINCLOTHES MAN
4. I felt a bit slow on this not-too-hard offering.

   I agree with vinyl on the EAR TRUMPET clue; I took the cryptic as trying to ‘ear the elephant with the straight definition being the device.

   LOI was SHRINK-WRAP, not knowing any trick cyclist, other than Martyn Ashton (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZmJtYaUTa0).

5. In recent weeks I’ve made a few changes. I’ve reintroduced Blog Solvers on a strictly opt-in basis. And I’ve weeded out more neutrinos (or “semi-neutrinos”), so I think the list is fairly clean now.

   I’ve also made the columns on the “Detailed solving results” page sortable, so you can now rank the solvers by time on this particular puzzle or according to their Personal NITCH/WITCH. Thanks, anguswalker, for requesting this.

   Thanks for your continued interest in on the SNITCH. I appreciate your feedback.

   1. As someone for whom coding is like Mirkwood, a dark, impenetrable and scary area full of strange magic, I remain in awe of this brilliant site and the excellent maths underlying it. Thanks for all your time and skill; they are much appreciated.
   2. Thank you for making the columns sortable, much appreciated by me, and I hope others!
6. but nice’n’easy for Old Meldrew at 23.5 mins. I expect a crazy time from Lord K. who appears to in the groove unlike poor Lord Vinyl.

   Agreed, this did contain several very smart clues. This was my kinda music throughout.

   FOI 4dn VEER

   LOI 7dn IBIDEM – of course!

   COD 21ac TEACUP with 19dn UNBOLT an Hon.Men.

   WOD Has to be 6dn PLAINCLOTHES MAN – which fell early.

   I wonder how 3dn the Franklin D. Roosevelt is getting on

   Is this QC fare? – I’m not so sure it is. But do have a bash! You’re not going anywhere I hope!

   1. It was the Theodore Roosevelt Horryd. This article appeared in today’s NY Times if you’re interested.
      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/us/politics/coronavirus-roosevelt-carrier-crozier.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
7. 9′ 35″, with PLAINCLOTHES MAN LOI.

   A joyous Easter, as always, despite everything.

   Thanks ulaca and setter.

8. 34 minutes with a delay having recklessly biffed SYMMETRY at 16dn despite the definition not matching even remotely – a case not so much of BIFD as BIAWTFTAC (bunged in a word that fitted the available checkers), which I don’t expect to see making it to the Glossary any time soon. The arrival of the final checker supplied by TEACUP eventually put paid to that idea.

   My other delay was caused by returning to 6dn every time a new checker was available, as although I had written in MAN I was unable to come up with the first word until every checker was in place. I’ve been aware of PLAINCLOTHES with reference to CID since the days of ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ when Dixon’s son-in-law, Andy Crawford, ditched his uniform and became a detective, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard of PLAINCLOTHES MAN. It’s in Collins as British English – old fashioned, as all one word. The separate American entry has it as two words so it seems the setter has done his homework.

   Edited at 2020-04-13 06:18 am (UTC)

   1. Bunged In Verisimilitudes Only Using Available Checkers?

      I’ve just noticed Verisimilitudes has 15 letters. Don’t tell the setters.

9. 1 wong, ILIVEM for 7d.
   COD viewpoint.
10. In a photo finish with Horryd at 23.5 minutes. This was a welcome return to crosswords that are more my level after a much harder few days. Found the NW hard so started at FOI 4d VEER and made my way around clockwise to LOI OUTCRY. Nothing particularly caught my eye on the way.
11. …with hopes and fears it heeded not.
    25 mins pre-brekker.
    Nice one. Mostly I liked Accidentally and the trick cyclist.
    Thanks setter and U.
12. Well that’s a relief after Friday’s monster and the very chewy Saturday Jumbo which both took many hours and required aids for me to complete. A rapid 22:05 with two BIFD so thank you Ulaca for explaining SHRINK=trick cyclist and CUPBOARD=press, neither of which I have ever encountered.

    COD for me was GRANDEUR for its witty cryptic and elegant, relevant surface. Thanks setter for an enjoyable puzzle and for restoring my self-confidence!

13. 21 minutes. LOI PLAINCLOTHES MAN. Like Jack, I’ve known the first part of the expression since Andy Crawford but I don’t recall seeing the MAN associated with his un-uniformed attire before. Have I just not noticed? Was Lieutenant Tragg so described by Erle Stanley Gardner? COD to TEACUP, but I did also like GRANDEUR for the relevance of the two monarchs. Robert Carrier rang only the faintest of bells even with the word association.I didn’t know that expression for CUPBOARD, nor that filming was WRAPped up at the end of the day, but they looked likely. Nice puzzle. Thank you U and setter.

    Edited at 2020-04-13 08:17 am (UTC)

    1. I guessed it from ‘it’s a wrap’.
       1. Of course.The Good Lord should have used the expression last Friday rather than “It is finished.”
14. 10:27. A bit of a slow start, but then the pennies started showering. SHRINK WRAP my LOI with a shrug as I’d never heard ‘trick cyclist’ for psychiatrist. CUPBOARD reminded me that my grandmother called her walk-in kitchen cupboard ‘the press’. COD to GRANDEUR.
    1. I believe this was a WWII army (forces?) saying. My father never used the word psychiatrist – just ‘trick-cyclist’ – in the pejorative.
15. 23:38. Pleasant start to the week.
16. Would have twigged GRANDEUR much earlier had I not typed in TUNDAR at first.
    Never heard the term ‘trick cyclist’ to describe a psychiatrist.
17. In under 16 minutes, with UNBOLT taking a long time at the end with an alphabet trawl. I hat convinced myself that the sandwich had to be spelt with a vowel, but that HOT didn’t work. BLT should have dawned much earlier.
    I confess a certain disappointment with the PLAINCLOTHES MAN, partly because it’s just so prosaic with the MAN stuck on the end, but mostly because I was hoping for a cute Americanism, like “Captain Dunsel” (admittedly from the 23rd century), an officer that serves no useful purpose.
    I was a bit thrown by the “US” chef, thinking that a chef called Carrier had to be French.
18. ‘Press’ was common in Scotland, though now a bit old-fashioned. Derry’s walls I can take – particularly since it is a phrase in actual usage – but ‘Sydney suburbs’ is maybe stretching the metaphor a bit too far for me.

    Trivia time: the city wall referred to in ‘There Is A Green Hill Far Away’ is thought to be inspired by the City Wall in Derry, where the author, Cecil Frances Alexander, lived. In those days there was indeed a green hill opposite the cathedral; nowadays it overlooks Free Derry and the Bogside.

    And as a further piece of trivia, she was born just along from Leopold Bloom’s house.

19. 35 minutes of decent fun liked ear trumpet and teacup
20. As jack BIAW symmetry which held me up a bit. 20’32. I must say if I lived in Bow or anywhere in the East End I’d be a little exasperated by now at being always viewed as in a basket of the unaspirated, so to speak. Puzzle otherwise pleasantly run-of-the-mill.
21. A very enjoyable workout for the little grey cells this morning. COD Grandeur, as others have said. Spent a bit of time in a SE col-de-sac having initially put in TEABAG.
    1. I thought too of ‘teabag’ and ‘teapot’, which at first glance makes the clue seem a bit weak. But when you think about it, only ‘teacup’ is used in that particular process of divination.
22. ….would be more politically correct, and pleasingly long at 18 letters.

    I carelessly entered “shrink film”, and my subsequent attempt to justify “incumbent” slowed me down. Only the realisation that my LOI was an anagram alerted me to my numbskullery.

    I only vaguely remember Robert Carrier, but it couldn’t be much else.

    FOI CIRCA
    LOI ARTHROPOD
    COD BLACK EYE (though I loved GRANDEUR too)
    TIME 9:09

23. A good start to the week to take less than 10 minutes.

    1ac, then 1, 2, 3dn went straight in and I was in the groove. I presume the canal in 23ac is the alimentary one rather than the Grand Union. US chef (3dn) is technically true but he made his name in the UK as one of the first TV chefs. But I suppose the clue couldn’t say TV chef as it already said televise.

    COD: 11ac OUTCRY with 12ac GRANDEUR a close second.

    No question today, but if you’re free this evening I am hosting a quiz via Zoom and email at 7pm, it’s got some cryptic elements. Feel free to join by sending me a team name to awlockdownquiz at gmail dot com; charitable donation optional.

24. LOI GRANDEUR which I didn’t get till coming here. Quality clue wasted on me! Beautiful day, now how many walks can I do today?
25. Never heard of Robert Carrier, cupboard meaning press or trick cyclist, but in each case the answer couldn’t really be anything else. Didn’t fully parse AVIAN either.

    FOI Run-of-the-mill
    LOI Ear trumpet
    COD Viewpoint/Unbolt

26. 11:37. I didn’t find this one super-easy, although it wasn’t particularly hard either. By some miracle I remembered ‘trick cyclist’ from a previous puzzle… in 2011! Sunday Times 4448 if you’re interested.
27. Straightforward and pleasant Monday solve, with the only brief delay involving the BLT (at this point I thought of Trading Places and did an Eddie Murphy-style turn to camera). I had vague recollections of Robert Carrier as the height of seventies culinary chic – in my memory he followed the precepts of the Belgians i.e. there is no food which can’t be improved by adding generous quantities of alcohol and/or cream.
28. Pleasant, easy enough Monday job, 18 minutes. My Mum used to call psychiatrists trick cyclists, I was never quite sure why. Never heard of plainclothes man but unravelled the anagram. Plenty of time now for today’s Jumbo, having done the “extra super fiendish no 1 Sudoku” which seemed just like a normal sudoku.
29. Quickest time in recent months; pretty straightforward but still with some nice touches. I thought it would have to be PLAINCLOTHES COP initially but this didn’t last long as checkers made me change it swiftly. Many thanks to setter and blogger.
30. First time for me doing a puzzle online and actually coming here from there. I clocked in at 15.13 feeling a bit inhibited by the new arrangement (which is a sort of cubbyhole) with a lot less space than in the city which will take some getting used to.

    I remembered Robert Carrier because he had a big cookbook with glossy pix that my father gave my mother for her birthday. She didn’t like cooking and was not pleased and said “you don’t actually expect me to make any of this stuff do you?”

31. I made rapid inroads into this puzzle until I arrived in the SW, where I was tempted to biff ARACHNOID, which made a mess of CARRIER, and didn’t help at all with the sandwich or film. I then noticed that the actual anagrist bore no resemblance to the letters I was trying to use and wrote it out. Having ARTHROPOD allowed me to pop in UNBOLT. I then managed to work out MANDRAKE and was left with _H_I_K _R_P, which had to be SHRINK WRAP, but I couldn’t see why. I wasted another 90 seconds or so trying to justify it, but failed having never heard of the psychiatrist=trick cyclist phrase. Thus my 16:30 became 18:07 by the time I gave up and submitted regardless. A pleasant start to the week. Thanks setter and U.

    Edited at 2020-04-13 12:51 pm (UTC)

32. 19:05. I thought this was an engaging if run-of-the-mill offering. The top half went in pretty quickly but the bottom half needed a bit more elbow grease. I’d not heard of the US chef but he couldn’t have been anything else.
33. I needed this 19 minute one after yesterday’s toughie which remains a work in progress after several hours. Most went in pretty easily, but thanks for explaining the subtleties of GRANDEUR and EAR TRUMPET which I missed.

    If I were an AMOEBA I might have a few things to say about 18d.

34. Feeling very sluggish today so not a great time, but at least I finished. Although I was slow, I found plenty to enjoy. Lots of ticks dotted around – Viewpoint, Run of the mill, Tundra (unrestricted was a creative hidden indicator, I thought) and Shrink wrap (very witty).

    No problems with some of the words others have mentioned. I remember Robert Carrier on TV – he was a definite improvement on Fanny Craddock!
    My mother had his cookbook which she referred to on occasion – usually special occasions. If I remember correctly, he had a restaurant in Camden Passage in Islington in the 70s – I always aspired to go there but it was too expensive for the likes of me so I had to benefit from the home version instead!

    FOI E-coli
    LOI Plainclothes man
    COD Grandeur
    Time c 55 minutes

    Thanks setter and ulaca

35. Amoeba, trick cyclist are OK. But Mandrake? Wasn’t he a newspaper columnist once upon a time?
36. And I always wondered why ibid. is written with a full stop on the end – now I know.
37. 16.25 . Got stuck on shrink wrap for what seemed like ages after racing through most of the puzzle. LOI shrinkwrap- surprise, surprise. FOI circa. A very enjoyable start to the week but I suspect harder puzzles lie in wait.

    Liked grandeur, unbolt , mandrake- another that took a while to solve- and teacup. Made me nostalgic for seeing my gran reading the tea leaves. Every day seemed to bring either a long journey or a tall dark man.

38. Isn’t “trick cyclist” CRS for psychiatrist?
39. The director stereotypically yells “Cut!” to stop filming and “That’s a wrap.” to tell cast & crew to relax. (W R A P = wind reel and print) Stephen
40. at 20 odd mins, with just 2 to go. I couldn’t find a pencil and paper, so the PLAINCLOTHES MAN took ages to unravel, then I just could not see the BLT for UNBOLT. 28:59. Tchah. The 15×15 has a habit of making me feel dim.
41. Another solver from Oz so a few weeks after the UK but love coming to this blog after I finally finish the puzzle usually a couple of days after starting it.

    Had to express my surpise that I appear to be alone in entering LIVER at 10 across – a food chopped for birds. Took me an awfullylong time to reliase it had to be wrong when the plainclothes man anagram simply wouldn’t parse.

    Keep up the great work

    1. Nice to hear from you!

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