Times 27688 – more than you ever wanted to know about Ohio

71 comments on “Times 27688 – more than you ever wanted to know about Ohio”

1. Surprisingly straightforward for a Thursday, although I didn’t know SKERRY–I thought it might be the name of a specific island. Biffed MIDDLEMARCH from the initial and final letters; never did bother to parse it until after submission. ‘Claptrap’ struck me as odd for a definition of BLAH.
   1. Collins dictionary has 1. worthless or silly talk; claptrap
      1. I’m not at all surprised.
2. …and finished in just under 15 minutes is a very good time for me. Perhaps it was just that I knew the knowledge, and had heard of agar agar from previous puzzles. All the literary stuff was, of course, quite familiar.
3. Quick and easy, other than due to not knowing Skerry and being weak on my Irish counties, I went for Sierra. It means jagged or saw-toothed, and there’s no county there, but I liked it. Does it count as a LOI if it’s wrong? Thx, gh.
4. For those on tenterhooks awaiting the answer to Monday’s blog heading (‘Oly Anna) riddle, the answer may be found in 15 down, 10 across of that puzzle.
5. 13 minutes and change, so quick for me. Orlando Furioso and Middlemarch are two of my favourite books, Currently reading Kinglake’s Eothen, a gem of an early Victorian travel book.

   Who would be a police officer these days? The Athenians had the right idea, outsourcing their dirty work to Scythian slaves.

   1. I think such an arrangement would only exacerbate the current problems.

      I strongly suspect such types would welcome any opportunity to vent their pent-up resentment on those less powerful.

      But our undercover operatives have already outsourced the dirty work of torture in post-9/11 “extraordinary rendition.”

   2. I really must give Middlemarch a try; read Silas Marner earlier this year and really enjoyed it.
      1. My favourite is possibly Daniel Deronda. Not that I’ve read them all 🙂
      2. There was a pretty good tv adaptation with Ben Kingsley back in the 80s, Matt, which ninja-turtled me into reading the original. Middlemarch and Deronda are good adaptations too.
         1. I may be watching too much telly at the mo, but I shall bear it in mind, ta.
   3. In many cases the type that has always been attracted to the job, unfortunately. #notallrozzers
      1. I take your point. It takes a certain type to be attracted to and wish to advance in an entity like Goldman Sachs.
         1. I’m generally quite critical of the police but even I feel that comparison is a little unfair.
            #notallinvestmentbankers

            Edited at 2020-06-11 12:22 pm (UTC)

            1. Ha!
6. I liked this better than yesterday’s. A few clues went in with no thought (M…h, “novel”? Bingo. Not that I’ve read it) and seemed a bit obvious, and UR made FURTHERANCE inevitable, but I had to pause long enough to remember THORPE and SKERRY, as well as the map of my home country, and LOI was ARIOSTO… which I really should’ve seen sooner. I was watching TV.

   Edited at 2020-06-11 06:03 pm (UTC)

7. All went in without any difficulty. I didn’t know THORPE but I have heard of places like SCUNTHORPE (famous for people’s addresses getting caught in spam blockers) so I figured it was reasonable that it meant a town of some sort. I don’t think I knew YORICK was a jester either.
8. Hardest of the week for me, not knowing ARIOSTO, SKERRY, THORPE, TSARITSA, or how to pronounce canonical hours, apparently. My last three of 7d FURTHERANCE, 7a FLAT and 21a SKERRY took me at least a quarter of my 38 minutes. I hope we’re not just getting more obscure as the week goes on…
   1. My prayers against yours!
9. 27 minutes today, so yet another target achieved though several of these went in on a wing and a prayer.

   I knew ‘nones’ as one of those canonical hour-of-the day things that I’ve learnt only from crosswords, but I’ve never heard it said and had always assumed it was pronounced ‘nonnays’. I didn’t know the variation without the ‘s’ either.

   NHO ARIOSTO. DK THORPE as a general term for village although I know there are loads of places in England of that name or as part of their name. TSARITSA also took me by surprise, expecting the answer to be Tsarina and then finding it didn’t fit into the grid, nor with the wordplay. DK the required meaning of EXPEDIENT only as ‘useful or politic as opposed to right or just; advisable on practical rather than moral grounds’, as SOED has it. There must be dozens of other words for ‘suitable’ so why use this one which has another nuanced but specific meaning which is surely unique? I can’t think of another word that means all that.

   BLAH reminded me of this song by the Gershwins performed here by Sarah Vaughan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4loQY9P_jOs

   Edited at 2020-06-11 06:05 am (UTC)

10. I ground through over 25 minutes, and did not deserve the clean sheet I got. FLAT was a desperate guess after much brain-trawling. Many many words that I don’t know. A fabulous reminder of my ignorance…
    1. A clean sheet is never undeserved. There will always be those times when an educated guess is needed. Sometimes a complete shot in the dark. But to spot a feasible answer is an art in itself, and shouldn’t be dismissed lightly.
11. 12:49 …finishing by changing FLAG to FLAT after a bit of thought. Again I was a bit slow starting but the checkers got me going. I was a bit apprehensive about BLAH, NHO ARIOSTO and struggled to spell SAUERKRAUT, but otherwise all good. I liked APPETITE best. Time for breakfast now, I think.
12. 20 mins pre-brekker.
    Was this the first/last letter indicator specialist again? Initially, primarily, entrance, east of, originally, finally, top of.
    Thanks setter and G.
13. Lived near Dayton for a couple of years, which helped a lot with 18D.
14. A rather pedestrian offering I thought with any difficulty coming from obscurity rather than clever setting. NHO ARIOSTO but knew THORPE and SKERRY. Not one to remember.
15. Fourth one in a row under 12 minutes, so tomorrow’s will be nigh on impossible, presumably. Solid progress even though some obscure words in there.

    COD: THORPE, nothing to do with Shakespeare despite YORICK appearing earlier.

    Yesterday’s answer: the largest company in the world by revenue is Walmart, owner of Asda in the UK.

    Today’s question: what is the only US state not to contain any of the letters of the word ‘mackerel’? (Sorry)

    1. Ohio
       1. Hawaii?
          1. It’s got a couple of As in it
    2. Can someone tell me, and therotter, what the word “mackerel” means in this context?
       1. It’s a red herring.
16. 12:47. What Jim said. THORPE in particular doesn’t belong in a daily puzzle. Having said that I did enjoy it, because I like deriving obscurities from wordplay. I confess I checked THORPE before submitting but I had spent a couple of minutes trying and failing to come up with something else so in competition conditions it’s definitely what I would have put in, just with crossed fingers.
17. Blistering start but held up for ten minutes at the end by KNOWN, ARIOSTO for which I had all the checkers.

    FLAT = unqualified? I never knew.

    …and ARCANE.

    Oh well, got there in the end.

    1. I’m telling you flat….
       1. This was the usage that occurred to me when solving but ‘flat’ there is an adverb: you wouldn’t say ‘I’m telling you unqualified’.
    2. I suspect you may have done. Lexico has the definition ‘(of a denial, contradiction, or refusal) completely definite and firm; absolute’ and gives examples like ‘the request was met with a flat refusal’ and ‘there does seem to be a pretty flat contradiction between those two points.’

       Edited at 2020-06-11 08:50 am (UTC)

       1. keriothe. Thanks for explaining. I had almost convinced myself that a “qualified” voice must be one with modulation or varying tone. So an unqualified voice must be monotonous – or flat.
18. I am with myrtilus and jim above (and probably horryd if he uses the word ikean later).
19. Late starting today, held up elsewhere. 19 minutes with no problems, apart from needing APPETITE before deciding it was TSARITSA and not tsarista. COD to TOY POODLE, not that it’s next on my list of dog breeds I must have, although it may be one of the few breeds to match the intelligence of our much missed border collie. I thought this was a decent enough puzzle. Thank you George and setter
20. I’m still a bit perturbed by KNOWN, since I thought the canonical hour was/is nones and doesn’t have a “singular” version.
    The rest of this thing occupied 17 minutes, all but, and probably should have taken less. I had quite a few goes at spelling SAUERKRAUT before I filled the entire light: perhaps I should have taken more notice of the anagram fodder. In our house, cabbage dishes are Polish, but there weren’t enough Zs available.
    Thanks for your heads-up on Ashville news, George: looks like you live in interesting times! Stay safe!
    1. Similar to ‘matins‘. The puzzle editor isn’t having that as a singular either. Even though it clearly is. Causes problems in the polygon. Mr Grumpy
21. 57 minutes for me on an increasingly rare excursion into 15 x 15 territory. Too much classical stuff for me to do much better! There were also a lot of food references, almost a mini-theme. Thanks
22. 15’15”, with FLAT LOI, at least four minutes on finishing NE.

    Thorpe Park, Thorpeness…

    Thanks george and setter

    1. I always remember that the old BR steam depot was Norwich THORPE.
       1. Thorpe Hamlet is apparently a suburb of Norwich – which caused much confusion when I resorted to Google trying to parse the clue.
23. Flag 🙁
    Thanks george.
24. Held up at the end by FURTHERANCE, FLAT, SKERRY and the NHO TSARITSA. KNOWN, ARIOSTO and THORPE from wordpaly. Changed PLAH to BLAH on proofreading! 38:31. Thanks setter and George.
25. I agree with Z about “nones”. Maybe the setter was thinking of Donald Rumsfeld. I don’t have much of an APPETITE for SAUERKRAUT. The Asheville PD could find itself defunded if that’s how it carries on. 14.03
26. LOI FLAT very unsure about the unqualified definition. I was strongly tempted by FLAG well it goes on a staff, doesn’t it?
    After I gave my daughter a kidney a few years back, I had an intense desire for SAUERKRAUT. NHO ARIOSTO and was toying with ARISOTO till SOOTHING appeared. BLAH pencilled in as being dodgy.
    1. There is a flag that appears on the musical staff – the ‘tail’ on a single quaver. But it’s not unfortunately unqualified.
27. … 22a done in a speedy (for me) 14 minutes; had to come here to see what the Prince of Denmark was about. Doh. Knew SKERRY from the Skerries area near Dublin Airport. The rest was write-in. Are we in for a Verlaine-pleasing toughie tomorrow? Certainly overdue.
28. We’ve got loads of THORPES in S. Yorkshire so that was no problem – comes from DORF ( village ) in German after a couple of sound shifts.

    Another straightforward solve – I fear a beast for tomorrow.

    All correct in 25.07.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

29. 6.45 for this, which I think is the second fastest time for me. (I once hit 6.30 approx. some time in the last century.) So no problems, though it didn’t feel much quicker than yesterday’s.

    Contrary to some, FLAT was the FOI.

    1. Excellent time. Well done.😀
30. NHO of the canonical none, ARIOSTO or AGAR-AGAR, but in all cases the cluing made it clear. Got most of the way through “Tsarina” before I realised I’d got that wrong and that it had to be TSARITSA. Last two in were SEPAL and SKERRY, both on a bit of a wing and a prayer, but otherwise it was an enjoyable workout.

    FOI Sauerkraut
    LOI Skerry
    COD Trawlerman

31. Another in my series of rather plodding efforts this week. Was pretty sure I’d encountered ARIOSTO before, though without context I’d probably have thought it was a musical direction or a sort of cheese. Also took a while to eliminate unlikely possibilities along the lines of ULGH and DLOH.
32. I was pretty slow solving this compared to many here. I didn’t parse Candle-Holder, so that went in without confidence. Thanks to our blogger for explaining.

    Nor could I see why Flat = unqualified but keriothe has cleared that one up for me. POI: FLAT. (Penultimate One In). LOI: ARCANE.

    COD: CANDLE-HOLDER.

33. When I first looked at this, I thought maybe solve 5/6 clues and then do the QC. But once I got going with EID and TANDOORI, it wasn’t too dificult. Guessed THORPE and also considered ULGH. SCLARE was in the running before SKERRY which sounded plausible.
    A big pause before inking in FLAT at LOI 7a. It had been my first thought and I looked hard for something better including FLAX which would have been a bit twisted.
    About an hour. David
34. Thought I’d done quite well to finish in 12.57 only to see glheard had done the deed in under nine minutes-respect!

    Most of the puzzle reasonably straightforward but got a bit stuck in the NE corner. Arcane penultimate entry which meant flat was LOI. Thought arcane was a goodun but had a preference for lopsidedness as my favourite. Let’s see what Friday brings.

35. ….ARIOSTO would have been a DNK, but luckily he came up elsewhere last night, and a friend enlightened me.

    “18D wants me, Lord, I can’t go back there” as R.Dean Taylor observed some years ago. Feel free to share my earworm.

    FOI SAUERKRAUT
    LOI TRAWLERMAN
    COD THORPE
    TIME 7:47

36. Bafflement, then as I started following the w/p PDM for THORPE. Nice clue. Usual hesitation about whether it was a Southern Irish County; an S Irish County or a SI County. Would have been easier just to try and biff it probably. An enjoyable half an hour after the horror show that was 1d in the QC. Thanks Setter and George
37. DNF I ran through this in under 14 mins only to fall flat on my face with flag at 7ac – those checkers and ‘staff’ were enough to convince me. I should’ve put the brakes on and given it a little more thought before submission. Skerry and Thorpe were dredged up from somewhere or other. Everything else seemed to yield fairly easily. I am right in the middle of reading 12dn at the moment so that didn’t need too much heavy lifting.
38. 40 minutes, lots of 8dn entries which nonetheless were readily solved with the help of the wordplay, many of them (like THORPE or SKERRY) looking just vaguely familiar. Strangely enough FLAT went in on the first pass through, since I did recognize which staff might be meant. SOOTHING took a while, since “phobia” convinced me it was going to end in (S)PHERE — I just couldn’t find two starting letters to go with that and eventually tried a different and better approach.
39. Many thanks to glheard for his time and effort explaining the wordplay – his help is very much appreciated!

    However as a new crossword solver, I am surprised as to how little attention is paid to the meaning of the actual clue itself. What is Agar-agar? Who is a Tsaritsa? Why is Yorick a jester? All of these are skipped over ….

    A little plea from a newbie – please broaden the comments to include some explanation of the clue itself – which may seem obvious to you – but not to all !!!

    Thanks!

    1. Yorick was not just a jester, he was a fellow of infinite jest! You can’t get jestier than that.
40. I ‘got’ it from the wordplay, but I’ve never come across ‘tsaritsa’ as the female of ‘tsar’. ‘tsarina’ is surely more common, and I wasted some time trying to massage other clues to accommodate it
    1. I think the difference between “tsaritsa” and “tsarina” is that the former is an actual Russian word and the latter is just a foreigner’s best attempt. Could be wrong though!
41. Not too shabby a time considering I had a mental block on sauerkraut which would have been a great one to biff in from the start! Nice challenging puzzle – Thorpe was new to me.
42. What does UTC stand for?

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