Times 27664 – we’ve got a live one!

65 comments on “Times 27664 – we’ve got a live one!”

1. My LOI was SALEM since I couldn’t think of anything else, but I had no idea what the engine driver stuff was. I saw ALE and I know SALEM is in Mass so I was confident, but still happy not to see a pink square. I had no idea about RACEME either, although the wordplay left little choice (PACEME? DAREME?). I’m as surprised as obviously, the setter was that Giscard D’Estaing is still alive.
2. My NE was tough because Cuff is such a good answer at 6a that I was reluctant to change it. I had to work a lot of these out, as the definitions weren’t giving me much direction. Thanks gh, and setter
3. ….although, like the setter and probably the editor, I had no idea he was still around. I had to guess for ‘meze’, but ‘z’ seemed like the most likely unknown, and it ran a vague bell. I finished off by biffing ‘eleven’, and only parsed it much later. Time, 31 minutes.
4. That’s the epithet often attached to the ineffable VGE (Mr. Self-Satisfaction). His unexpected presence here was worth the price of admission. Far from my last one in. Anagrams are often the easiest clues, and I have no objection to their use in this way. The old bird is in the news for exactly the same kind of (alleged) offense as the late President Bush shortly before he passed away.

   Thanks for the parsing of SALEM. That was my LOI. Parsing ELEVEN was tough but I got there.

   I laughed out loud at the clue to INITIATE and wrote “ha!” by the one for APSE.

5. Came here after an hour, which was about half an hour after I’d stopped enjoying this one. NHO GISCARD D’ESTAING, or indeed even the names Giscard or d’Estaing, didn’t know Munster the province or MUENSTER the cheese, and had forgotten SALEM was in Massachusetts…

   There were a few I should’ve got but didn’t, like MINCEMEAT and STARVELING, but on the whole I’m glad I threw in the towel as I doubt I’d have put the letters in the right place at 4d…

   Edited at 2020-05-14 05:32 am (UTC)

   1. Munster the cheese is spelt like Munster the province, unless you look in an English dictionary
      1. It’s almost as though this crossword is set for a UK newspaper
6. sure wormed his way into this one! Born in Germany when the French occupied the Rhineland. His mother was a very brave woman! It took a time – but suddenly old GISCARD appeared, once my favourite chocolates 1ac BLACK MAGIC was opened up – the dark selection! I’d do almost anything for the Orange Cream! Time 52 minutes.

   FOI 24ac ERMINE

   LOI 12ac TURN HEADS

   COD 4dn M. G d’E

   WOD 1ac Black Magic

   I never did parse SALEM! I did not like this one a lot. Perversus est! The bottom half was far easier than the top IMHO.

7. I was pleasantly surprised to finish with all correct given that I was unsure about so many of my answers. I thought MUENSTER looked unlikely though I knew Munster to be an Irish province so didn’t think it could be anything else. RACEME was quite close to being GAMEME, though the clunky sound of “game me” at least left me with enough doubt not to bung it in. I vaguely knew the French president’s name though without the letters I’d have said it was Gastard something so it had to be painstakingly put together. Finally I went with an unparsed SALEM hoping it was in Massachusetts. Phew!
   1. It’s also a place in most of the other American States
8. Feeling fey this morning after a rash of pink squares, so put in SALEM and ELEVEN unparsed, MUENSTER (nho) constructed, also RACEME and MEZE (nho) guessed. So pleasantly surprised to be successful in 19′.

   Can I be the first to mention that GRAYLING is also a politician (nho lately)? That CLEAVE is the fantastic word that has two entirely opposite meanings? That there’s a SALEM in Oregon, in fact it’s the state capital?

   Joint COD to HEBRIDEAN and STEEL BAND.

   Thanks george and setter.

9. Pleased to get all but 21d (Gameme).

   COD ermine.

10. Another funny old mix of the obscure and the very easy. Luckily knew all the odd words today. Biffed ELEVEN without understanding all that MAN U stuff

    VGD is famous for forming the Group of Six that became the G7 when Canada joined. A reforming, modernising president

11. …not even if it’s meant as a surprise. 45 minutes, with LOI SALEM when I finally remembered the state it was in. I’ve been there too. I probably should have thought of the witch hunts first, but the potency of cheap music usually prevails. COD to STEEL BAND. I liked ELEVEN and STARVELING as well. Never heard of MUENSTER but fortunately I knew Ireland’s four provinces. I found this quite hard and was mightily pleased when GISCARD appeared from the bowels of the anagram. Thank you George and setter.

    Edited at 2020-05-14 07:08 am (UTC)

12. All sorts of trouble with this one, eventually guessed faceme for an error. It was the right hand side that I found difficult though, ELEVEN, STEEL BAND, SALEM and MINCEMEAT in particular.

    NHO MUENSTER; had heard of, but still couldn’t get for ages, the former French president
    COD ELEVEN even though it threw me for ages

    Yesterday’s answer: the tosa is the banned dog in the Act, others have been banned subsequently.

    Today’s question: lout may long for meat offal, water for cava. Eh?

13. . like edging across thinning ice on a frozen tarn.
    Now in need of a serious motorcycle ride. Must find the antithesis of a Yorkshire beauty spot where potential Covids won’t congregate. Goole docks look promising.
14. 45 minutes for this mixture of slightly obscure words and meanings and dead easy ones that wouldn’t be out of place in a QC.

    I failed to parse my LOI, SALEM, although it was only the SM bit that baffled me. I knew it as a place in the US but not its actual location.

    MEZE was unknown but I think I have heard it mentioned on cookery programmes without knowing what was being referred to and probably assumed it would be spelt ‘mezze’.

    RACEME was another unknown along with MUENSTER as a cheese.

    I agree about foreign words, and particularly foreign names, clued as anagrams, but it didn’t bother me unduly on this occasion. I knew the name in question and it’s spelt as it sounds apart from the second I, but I had that in as a checker anyway. I had no idea he is still alive so a breach of the Times convention never occurred to me.

    Edited at 2020-05-14 06:51 am (UTC)

15. Interested to see that Giscard d’Estaing is not only still alive but actually under investigation for alleged sexual harassment, no mean feat at 94. That clue a write-in for me, once I worked out the spelling that is …
    1. I spelt his name correctly, and then somehow managed to type sterveling instead of starveling, and didn’t check before I submitted. doh!
16. Never heard of Muenster as it doesn’t appear in the Cheese Shop sketch.
    1. No call for it…
       1. Very good.
17. I loved this except for the “double obscurity” at 3d. Having successfully decoded everything else in 55 mins, including the clever ELEVEN, SALEM, INITIATE, etc, and dredging up the French President, I was stuck not knowing the Irish province or the cheese. Annoying!
18. Pleasant number this, done in 18.49, with time spent unravelling the rather good clues for ELEVEN and SALEM that stood out from the rest, as if they’d crept in from another, tougher crossword.

    Of course, I didn’t know MUENSTER either, but it was the only possibility from the wordplay, having ruled out a variation on Co Mayo because it a short distance away, and Co Meath because I wasn’t sure of the spelling.

    RACEME, along with rhyzome and sepal and such, I know as part of the geography of plants without necessarily being able to place them on the map.

    Richard Stilgoe often presented himself in anagram form as the quintessential European Giscard O’Hitler, which fixed Valery’s existence in my memory bank. On his current travails: while I know we now firmly and rightly disapprove of such things, I thought French presidents were supposed to show their appreciation of lovely ladies in a more tangible fashion than leaders of other, less sophisticated nations. Ah well. Perhaps a dignified “jamais couché avec” from him is as far as it will go.

    Oh, and George: thanks and cheers! I hope you’re well down the list of experimental cocktails by now!

19. No problems but never parsed ELEVEN or SALEM. Thanks blogger and setter.
20. 19:59. I never felt I was quite on top of this as the answers gradually filled in the grid with varying amounts of puzzlement. I didn’t understand ELEVEN or knew of the MUENSTER cheese, needing RESTLESS to work out where the E went. I failed to parse SALEM and wasn’t sure what a RACEME is. I wasn’t even sure of RANCH and CLEAVE as the definitions seemed a bit of a stretch. All a bit of a struggle and I was pleased to finish on a par NITCH of 100. I liked STRAVELING and INITIATE.
21. A very enjoyable puzzle even though ti took me over 4 minutes to get started. If the NW corner won’t work, the SW normally does, and so it was today.
    INITIATE will now go into my little black book as a favourite clue. I also liked SOCK and ASSAYER plus, now that George has explained them, SALEM and MAYO. This (NZ) morning was the first day of Level 2 lockdown so most businesses were able to open. To celebrate the re-opening of the tourist facilities in Queenstown, the MAYO(r) made the first bungee jump complete with mayoral chain!
    Thank you, George. Do we have an explanation from the crossword editor for the presence of Giscard?
    PS…I could really go a nectarine.
    1. Have you had your hair cut yet , Martin?
       1. have a nectarine!
22. 66:40
    Off the scale, but got it all sorted. Wanted to give up with Muenster left, but kept at it. Also had a lot of aggro with Salem and mincemeat.
    Thanks george.
23. 24:34. I did half of this quite quickly, but then got completely bogged down. It really felt like I was making heavy weather of it: it took me ages to spot the president and the Massachusetts town, for instance, even though both are familiar to me. I also struggled with perfectly straightforward clues like RESTLESS or STARVELING.
    I’m feeling a bit under the weather at the moment (no cough, temperature, loss of sense of smell etc fortunately) so I’ll blame that.
    I knew both the Irish province and the cheese but I would spell them the same so I had trouble there too.

    Edited at 2020-05-14 08:24 am (UTC)

24. I enjoyed this myself, but as always, this demonstrates that the difference between wilful obscurity and a refreshing willingness to use less obvious devices can be very small. In short, I knew about nearly* all the slightly obscure references, so judged them entirely fair. I shall be satisfied with this system right up to the next time the setter uses something I don’t know.

    *I worked him out without needing any checkers, but didn’t realise VGD was still with us (though in fairness, neither did anyone else, apparently).

25. Thought this was an accompaniment to 3d – a cracker. Lots of clever stuff, with very smooth readings throughout. So much to be commended that gems like ‘and separated from daughter’ almost get overlooked. Helps of course to have all the GK and parsing.

    My wife discovered, many years ago, that the way to get an increasingly empty carriage to yourself on four trains from Strasbourg to Glasgow was to carry a lump of Munster. (Irish-wise, I’d think more readily of Munster as a kingdom, but it’s now apparently a province.)

26. 19:46 giving me a nitch of 121 and a witch of 107 so it’s evident I struggled a bit with this. It was only when I decided to look for Johnny foreigner at 4d that old Val revealed himself.

    Didn’t parse SALEM, did parse ELEVEN.

    BTW George, by now you’re probably too many sheets to the wind to care but your preamble mentions the non-existent 24 down.

    1. whoops, meant across
27. ….or, more specifically, in the NE quadrant. I reached it after only 8 minutes, but dreams of a sub-10 minute finish quickly evaporated. I was another who fell into the “cuff” trap at 6A and that didn’t help.

    Three minutes later, having put a SOCK in it, I was down to 6D/14A. I reluctantly threw in SALEM (thanks George), and needed a two and a half minute alpha-trawl before biffing STEEL BAND and coming here (thanks again George – and now you’ve explained those two, I’ll take the COD laurels off BAROMETER, and spin a coin between the pair).

    VALERY – come and see me. I’m the same boy I used to be…..

    FOI BLACK MAGIC (coffee creams -yum !)
    LOI STEEL BAND
    COD SALEM (I’m on antibiotics, so tea it must be)
    TIME 13:32

    1. The instruction not to mix antibiotics with alcohol is one I have always ignored, and I’ve never had cause to regret it.
       1. It did for my Uncle Stanley up at Sprouston, Norfolk in 1975.

          How’s the Chlorox cocktail hour going? No side effects?

          1. The official NHS advice is ‘it’s sensible to avoid drinking alcohol when taking medication or feeling unwell. But it’s unlikely that drinking alcohol in moderation will cause problems if you’re taking most common antibiotics.’
             Which I read as ‘go for it’.
             Having said that I remember now I did abstain after dental surgery a few years ago because of the particular type of antibiotic I was given.
             1. If I’m sufficiently ill to need serious medication, I probably won’t properly appreciate wine either. Or feel like it.
                I can’t think of any other reason for abstaining, although I do make a point of not operating heavy machinery..
                1. Fair point: ‘don’t drink if you don’t feel like it’ is definitely sound advice! Antibiotics are often prescribed for things (local injuries, ops etc) that don’t necessarily make you broadly ill though and they aren’t in themselves a reason not to drink. Or at least most of them aren’t.

                   Edited at 2020-05-14 03:13 pm (UTC)

                   1. To be fair, I could’t count the times I have washed down an aspirin with white wine ..
                      1. It’s a good way to cure a hangover 😉
                         1. As for Chlorox cocktail… see

                            [Error: Irreparable invalid markup (‘<a href”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v>’) in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

                            As for Chlorox cocktail… see <a href”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDPzbLFeP4″> this</a>
             2. That would be Metronizadole. Mr Grumpy
28. Struggled with this in the same places as others, but failed in the end with DAREME. Was stuck with MINCEMEAT anyway and had to use a word finder, and then got SALEM without understanding it. Also confirmed MEZE and MUENSTER after guessing them. An unsatisfactory day for me. 37:51 with all sorts of shennanigans. Thanks setter and George.
29. Good but tough in places, 41 minutes ending with MAYO. Didn’t parse SALEM. Knew the cheese as once bought some in Basel Mulhouse airport before a flight, it’s one of those which stink terribly but taste quite mild. And lived in Clonmel, Munster, for 4 years. As Jimbo says, VGD was one of the best Presidents the French had – been pretty poor since.
30. This one brought back memories of family mispronunciations of an earlier era. My late mother-in-law (who had some splendid malapropisms) always called that president “Discard” and one of my daughters referred to the cheese as “monster”. Some interesting food combos here – MEZE with MAYO and RANCH dressings, plus the MINCEMEAT. I was slow to grasp quite a few of these and left several unparsed (thanks George). 20.12
31. I didn’t crack the 100 minute barrier with this one but at least I got there in the end, with MUENSTER my LOI, never having heard of the cheese and barely of the Irish province. Seeing INITIATE a few days ago helped and RACEME is another crosswordy word which went in relatively easily. Missed the parsing of the very clever SALEM.

    Hard work, but repaid the perseverance.

32. Happy with my time but I certainly hadn’t parsed everything. On another day that could have meant silly mistakes. SALEM is very nice, now that I see the full wordplay. ELEVEN, too, although using six letters to get to two is quite strong. Good fun, though.
33. A few unknown cultural references, as usual – vaguely heard of Muenster, vaguely heard of Munster – they play rugby? – so I would have guessed it was a Welsh county. Raceme *known* but before it came to mind I was toying with the Japanese flower-arranging art, takeme.
    Unable to parse Salem – was S&M the train-drivers union? – and eleven, so thank-you George.
    Since I knew the French president I would say: standard Times, not too obscure.
34. Thoroughly enjoyed this though certainly found it challenging- perhaps that’s why I enjoyed it ! 19.15 which I thought was respectable but a few long pauses during. Bifd Salem but knew it was in Mass and ale seemed to be relevant. Relieved to find I was right even if for the wrong reasons.

    COD definitely eleven, took me a while but had to smile when I finally worked it out.

35. Spent ages trying to think of that Japanese flower-arranging word, which I still can’t remember, before doing an alphabet check and settling correctly on raceme. Thankfully not faceme. Thanks for parsing Salem. Had to be Salem, but I couldn’t see why. Munster cheese is sometimes spelled like the province, no? Is here in France anyhow.
36. The cocktail kit introduced me to shrub, a sweetened vinegar laced with fruit. Interesting in a drink, but it seemed as I got to the bottom of the glass the vinegar flavor of the shrub was all I could taste (the suggested cocktail was four parts rose gin, one part blueberry syrup, one part blueberry shrub, one part lemon juice and two parts lemonade).

    MUENSTER is pretty popular in delis in the USA and Canada, it was the province I was less familiar with, so it tickled me that this was the entry attacting the most attention.

    1. I typed my reply above before I saw this. I will look out for MUENSTER next time I’m in Canada, although God knows when that will be.
37. I couldn’t finish this but did get quite a lot of it including M D’Estaing from the anagram; knew he was still alive and also knew he’s in trouble for something presidential.
    I biffed SALEM then erased it as I couldn’t parse it. Memo to self …
    The unknown RACEME is in my big list of words so it has obviously come up before, clued as a cluster.
    David
38. Ikebana. I thought of that too .. successfully in my case, not that it helped 🙂
39. Having googled this it turns out it’s always spelled Munster. Muenster exists but it’s a different cheese: an American imitation. I wonder if the setter though it was Münster.

    Edited at 2020-05-14 02:13 pm (UTC)

40. I struggled with this one to a DNF after ages. FOI was 5d, but with reservations as I have never come across “fissure” as a verb until now. My OED allows it though. Setter beat me soundly today. Thanks to blogger for the explanations.
41. The former French president was my first inked in with only a tentative G to start (wasn’t immediately sure that the biffed BLACK MAGIC was 100% correct).

    Failed to fully parse SALEM and ELEVEN.

    Didn’t know what an ASSAYER was, and was not sure about MUENSTER and RACEME.

    Otherwise another under-30 mins, this time with the SNITCH over 100 – things are looking up.

42. First pink squares of the week. I had TAKEME for RACEME.

    COD: STEEL BAND. I liked the “beating team”.

43. 10 minutes over the hour, but at least no pink squares today. LOI was SALEM, which I couldn’t parse (SM an engine driver? around ALE?), but was the only 5-letter town in Massachusetts I could think of, even if my daughter lives in that state now. Once MINCEMEAT gave me the M, that clinched it and I screwed up the courage to submit. ELEVEN might be my COD today, or SALEM now that it’s been explained to me.
44. 31:26 another late solve tired and with wits dulled after long, frantic day at work so can’t complain about my slightly under par time. Didn’t parse eleven or Salem properly but everything else understood ok. Knew the old French President. I liked initiate. Something of a titanic struggle between good and evil for today’s setter with black magic, Satanists and Salem on one side against churches, cleansing from sin and expiation on the other. I’ll let others decide on which side of the fence Valery Giscard D’ Estaing falls.
45. Anybody in France would find the spelling of Muenster a mystery as it the first e isn’t in use here. It’s mild and innocuous but has a smell recognisable at 10 metres in a dark room
46. A curate’s egg

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