Times 27655 – However, in Kilmacrennan……

71 comments on “Times 27655 – However, in Kilmacrennan……”

1. I felt downright sluggish, not that I get much faster than this on average. I had trouble recalling the relevant meaning of ‘tick off’ (not in my dialect). And I had a couple of queries about definitions: ‘communion’ struck me as a DBE, although I now see that it’s synonymous in the Orthodox Church. And I thought that KUDOS was praise not credit. I believe that the dreaded lurgy appeared frequently on the Goon Show, not just in one episode.
   1. I would say kudos is both credit and praise, like brownie points ..
2. Sorry about that, now corrected.
3. Well I found this very heavy going and finished with one error at 18 with BORN instead of BORE, never having heard of (or having forgotten) the wind in question. ROMEWARDS? REDLY? Really?? Also had forgotten what a VOTARY is, but I think the definition should be ‘keen follower’.
4. Like Kevin, I felt a bit sluggish on this, thinking it should be easier than I found it. I had similar concerns to those above (definition of communion, ROMEWARDS, REDLY, etc) and wondering about the vague definition for BARCELONA. These were the kind of things that perhaps slowed me down a tad.

   BTW, Vinyl, I think you’ve underlined the wrong part of the clue for 23d. Thanks for the blog. I didn’t realise that “lurgy” was a Goon reference.

   1. Also corrected.
   2. It was a better clue for BARCELONA than the one we had last week.
5. Sluggish is exactly how I feel this morning. Is there something in the air or did I just get up too early? So, I started this badly – is ROMEWARDS really a word? What is ‘always’ doing in 6a – doesn’t that make it VOCLA? Is mooching a legitimate anagram indicator? etc. But I struggled on to a finish it and now I’m going back to bed.
   1. I think VOCAL comes from the first letters of the five words ‘Very obviously calling, and loud’, and ‘always initially’ means ‘initially in every case’, i.e. just use the initial letter in every one of the foregoing words. 🙂
      1. Yes, thanks, that makes sense. Not much made sense to me this morning. Feel better now.
6. I came here expecting to find some super-fast times but not yet! I hit the tape in 18 minutes which is a minor triumph!

   FOI 1dn REPLIED

   SOI & COD & WOD ROMEWARDS which was known being brought up Primitive Methodist (‘Drifting Romewards boy!’). But nothing to do with Crosby/Nash ‘Romewards through the Haze’.

   LOI 6dn VOTARY

   The Goons made the lurgy popular and now everyone has it.

   Edited at 2020-05-04 06:22 am (UTC)

7. About 21′, felt like hard going. Did not parse INFER, FLUORIDATED took a while as was fixed on chlorine. Also fixated on footwear at 3d.

   Liked NUMERATOR.

   Thanks vinyl and setter.

8. 21 minutes also. LOI was BORE. REDLY, really? I liked several clues too, including ROMEWARDS, LITURGY, NUMERATOR, BARCELONA and COD ON THE GO, so this is officially classified as a good puzzle. Is My Way the worst song Sinatra ever sang though? Frank didn’t like it much. Thank you V and setter.
   1. The French original is much better, “Comme D’habitude,” made famous by Claude François, not about the end of a career, or a life, but “merely” the end of a relationship.

      When François decided that a version in English could be a hit, various people tried out for the honor, including David Bowie, before Paul Anka bought the rights (and the rest is history). Bowie’s version, “Even a Fool Learns to Love,” was shelved, but “Is There Life on Mars?” was later written as a parody of the Sinatra recording of “My Way.”

      “My Way,” by the way, was “banned from many bars across the Philippines after at least six people were killed in the last decade while performing karaoke renditions of the song. … It is one of the most popular karaoke tunes in the Philippines which also has a more than one million illegally carried guns” (The Telegraph).

9. That felt a bit harder than the usual Monday crossword, but only a bit. ROMEWARDS and REDLY are self-explanatory and yet not words you’d normally use. I didn’t know LURGY was invented, or at least popularised by the Goon Show, does it come from allergy?

   COD: FLUORIDATED, thought it was fountainhead at first. Nicely confusing but fair constructions. Closely followed by MILKY WAY.

   Friday’s answer: Hamlet has the most lines in a single Shakespeare play, but Henry V manages more across three plays. Inspired by ELSINORE.

   Today’s question: where was the last Olympic Games to be postponed going to be (i.e. before this year’s)? A clue to the answer rather than the answer, please.

   1. The Goons are credited by Chambers with alt. spel. lurgi.
      It is almost certain that it is from allergy and is most likely Milligan-speak.

      As for the Olympics it was not La Paz, who can never have the Games.

      1. Lergy goes back to well before the Goon Show, and no evidence to show a link with allergy, either.
         1. See Chambers, whoever you are!
   2. Bird that’s accommodating and topless – capital! (6)

      Edited at 2020-05-04 11:50 am (UTC)

10. I found this one enjoyable, but that didn’t help my time much; I took a fairly average 38 minutes. I liked 15d BARCELONA and 25a ON THE GO the most along the way from FOI 9a PEGASUS to LOI 11a INFER, which I’ll admit I couldn’t parse. In the WOD stakes, BOUDOIR narrowly pipped KUDOS to the post.
11. 30 mins with yoghurt, granola, etc.
    No dramas, liked Kudos, held up by Boudoir.
    Thanks setter and Vinyl.
12. Like others today I felt rather treacly on this one, coming home in a smidge beyond 19 minutes, outside the average. Nothing in particular, though I hit a wall with most of the left half in.
    Despite the vague “here?” as a definition, I rather liked the BARCELONA clue when I twigged it, like finding out that embargo is o grab me backwards.
13. 21.30 so I suspect towards the bottom of the class today. A bit more troubling than I expected on a Monday but maybe I shouldn’t have opened the extra bottle last night. FOI romewards followed by replied but a couple of false steps slowed me down. Thought redly was a bit underwhelming as an answer though the cluing was pretty clear. LOI freely.

    Given the religious tone to1 ac am I the only one to be a bit puzzled by the liturgy answer? I though it related to the whole of the mass not just a part .

    Grumbles aside I enjoyed the puzzle, especially fluoridated, numerator, kudos and underseal.

14. Nice stroll in the park to start the week with only REDLY causing an eyebrow twitch

    Nice trip down memory lane with LURGI, an Eric Sykes Double Dutch word that is un-declinable unless you play a trombone. It has no wau factor.

15. I tripped merrily through this one in 14:16, but should’ve taken a bit longer over proof reading, instead of trying to get under the 15 minute mark, as I tripped over 9a and typed PEGUSUS. Drat! Started with ROMEWARDS and finished with BARCELONA, which made me smile. Unlike the pink square which then reared its ugly head. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
16. easy today ..
    Lurgy predates the Goon Show I’m pretty sure, it is military slang originally. Both Milligan and Secombe were in the army and probably picked it up there. As it were ..

    Edited at 2020-05-04 08:56 am (UTC)

    1. By chance, last week I read Spike’s account of his time as a WWII gunner in North Africa. He includes the word lurgi at least once, from the mouth of another soldier, not himself. The book was written mid-70s, so might have “updated” language in it rather than what was said at the time.
       Lurgi
       1. I unspammed you Isla
       2. Indeed: there is as far as I know no evidence of ‘lurgi’ being used anywhere before it appeared in the Goon Show. If it was military slang you’d expect it would have turned up somewhere else.

          Edited at 2020-05-04 11:41 am (UTC)

          1. Chamber’s Slang Dictionary has LURGI, LERGI, LURGY popularly attributed to the writers of The Goon Show (1953-1960), but the EDD cites lurgy, idleness, loafing + lurgy-fever, the ‘disease’ of idleness. The OED adds the synon. fever-lurden, fever lurgan, ult. SE fever = lurdan, ‘a general term of opprobrium, reproach or abuse, implying dullness and incapacity, or idleness and rascality; a sluggard, vagabond “loafer” [1940s + ] any unspecified but deleterious disease or ailment; esp. as the minatory phr, dreaded lurgi.

             Make of all that what you will!

             1. Yes I’ve seen ‘fever-lurgy’ and similar cited as possible precursors. We’ll almost certainly never know where the Goons got it from (and it’s perfectly possible they just made it up), but I struggle to believe it can have been military slang that has otherwise vanished without trace.
    2. That was my understanding, also.
    3. was known to my father as a schoolboy in Cornwall in the 1920s, and generally used facetiously. If someone was off school, for example, they would say “he’s got the lurgy”. His brother, who later became a languages professor, had some correspondence with the then editor of the OED along those lines.

       Jim R

17. 14 mins.
    Britain = UK; oh, okay then. Redly – crumbs.
    Thanks v.
18. 9:55. No problems this morning but I thought some of it was a bit loose and/or odd for reasons picked up by others.
    The LURGY in the Goon Show was actually the LURGI but the Y spelling is more common now.
19. MERs at the words which are words but aren’t really i.e. ROMEWARDS and REDLY, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. Not overly taxing but much enjoyed, especially the touchy follower and the Spanish seafood.
20. 18:28. I was held up by the NE corner with VOTARY and LITURGY slow to emerge and failing to parse NUMERATOR. Well I’m not ROMEWARDS inclined nor inspired, I suppose. I liked the triple definition at 2D, cliche or not.
21. ….I ate it up, and spat it out”. A contradiction in terms surely ?

    I took part in the Synchronised Eyebrow Raising described above, and my only problem was my LOI, where I convinced myself for too long that “artless” was the definition.

    FOI ROMEWARDS
    LOI WASTRELS
    COD MILKY WAY
    TIME 9:53

    Edited at 2020-05-04 09:53 am (UTC)

22. Bit slow on the uptake today mainly because I have just done my back in, and I’m sitting with a hot water bottle. It was the SW that held me up, in particular the FLUORIDATED UNDERSEAL crossing, neither of which was particularly hard. Think I was obsessed with U-boats.
23. My Way may be strongly associated with Sinatra, but it isn’t a Sinatra song.

    Vinyl you have got a bit mixed up in your explanation of VOCAL. Pretty obvious though.

    1. Frank Sinatra is noted as a singer, not a songwriter so I suppose it might be argued that anything he sang in his long career was not his song, however I think know what you are getting at. The original French song, ‘Comme d’habitude’ written by Jacques Revaux was adapted as ‘My Way’ specially for Frank with a new lyric by Paul Anka that bore no relation to the original.
    2. I think it was made a Sid Vicious song by Sid Vicious, but this may be a minority opinion.
24. As some others slower than I felt I should be. 29’15. Don’t understand ‘live’ in the ‘double bed’clue. The neat Barcelona reversal might have referred to the current M. United shuffling semi-disappointment of a manager. A little out of sorts I guess – though I do rather like Romewards as a word for some reason.
    1. ‘BE’ as in live/exist ( in DOUBLED’ as vinyl says).
       1. Ah, thanks. Seriously slow today.
25. Here’s another one who caught the blahs this morning. Picked up some speed en route. REDLY belongs in the same vocab as bigly but FREELY was amusing. 15.04
    1. Much to my wife’s annoyance I have adopted BIGLY for everyday use. Just one of the occasions when the Large Orange One ventured into the surreal.

       Dave.

26. What’s going on with COUNTERMAND? (Or, as I had it, COUNTERMADD. I really don’t enjoy doing these online.)

    It doesn’t seem like it’s fully &lit, in which case ‘change order’ seems to be doing double duty as definition and anagrind. Big no-no, surely? Unless
    ‘getting’ is an angrind, which I don’t understand either.

    1. I suppose if you read ‘getting to’ as ‘becoming’ then it works as an anagrind.
    2. I read ‘order’ as the definition. I suppose you could read ‘getting to’ as indicating ‘turning into’, in which case the definition would be ‘change order’, but that seems awkward to me. It’s a bit of an odd one.
       1. Thought about this, but reckoned that ‘order’ as a definition for ‘countermand’ would be a bit imprecise. As it is, ‘getting to’, if that’s what’s intended as the anagrind, is not great, IMHO.
          1. Yes I agree. Seems slightly unsatisfactory either way!
27. …slightly different time
28. I got off to a fast start and was hoping to break the TMB (Ten Minute Barrier) but it wasn’t to be.

    COD: REPRIMAND. Nice surface reading.

29. Janos, no?
    1. ?
       1. The cellist Vinyl featured.
30. 9:33, so found this one a little easier than most. COUNTERMAND from wordplay but biffed MILKY WAY
31. Done in about an hour, so signs of improvement. Started with ION and BOUDOIR, then BORE unparsed. Tried PERSEUS at 9a without thinking too hard. A big mistake, as I nearly failed to unravel the NW. Like Phil I was thinking of all the words I knew for ARTLESS (not a fertile area). When PEGASUS flew in all the question marks around 2d disappeared. Votary an unknown. David
32. Didn’t parse INFER, got FLUORIDATED without realising that the definition was the first four words of the clue rather than just the first two, and hadn’t heard of VOTARY (or REDLY for that matter). Otherwise this was OK.

    FOI Resin
    LOI Bore
    COD Boudoir

33. through this in 18:48, so a 5 min QC and a sub 20 min 15×15 for a good Monday.

    LOI was FLUORIDATED, which was a biff, as was NUMERATOR, so thanks Vinyl for the elucidation. Everything else went in parsed.

34. 21:14. Quick and Monday-ish and yet like a few others have mentioned some bits fiddlier than the rest which made it feel a little sluggish. Glad to be on the same wavelength as other esteemed contributors at least, if not that of the setter.
35. Yes do blog it Vinyl – it was very entertaining. Reminiscent in style of two other puzzles I do regularly and the Scottish GK wasn’t too abstruse and didn’t get in the way of the solving
    1. Thanks, Olivia. A slight correction in the clues: the last part of 12a should read ‘a wee drop of Drambuie’.
       1. Very excited to do this with my Scottish other half!
    2. Some superb surface readings. But needed aids… you’ve got to get on the wavelength of the setter, which took a while. That’s the huge advantage of The Times, just how consistent it is across the stable of setters.
36. With you all the way on these. Came very close to throwing the towel in rather than persisting against this sort of play. Dischuffed about sums it up.
37. This seems to be a puzzle that most people either found tricky or easy, rather than somewhere in between, which is a rather odd outcome.

    Looking at the top 45 solvers on the SNITCH (as of now) 19 scored 10 or more points under the SNITCH, 17 scored 10 or more points over the SNITCH, with only 9 in the 19-point band between the two.

    I was in the tricky camp today, slogging away for 18:59 for a nitch of 116.

38. Yes please do blog Mr Crooks’ puzzle. I’ve solved an anagram which I don’t understand!
39. Day late and a dollar short but I did like LIKEN.
    Thanks, vinyl1, particularly for NUMERATOR and FLUORIDATED.
    I wavered between BORE and born but, fortunately the right one I have chose!
40. Not that easy.

    Didn’t parse NUMERATOR or BORE.

Comments are closed.