Times 27693 – what did the Romans do for us?

63 comments on “Times 27693 – what did the Romans do for us?”

1. Thanks Pip, but I still don’t get ORPHANED. “Left alone”, I get but not the rest.
   Thanks also for COLLABORATOR.
   Like yesterday, 1ac was my LOI.
   I’ve not been well of late. I recently spent 9 days in hospital with a nasty urinary tract infection. One effect was to scramble my thoughts to the stage I was becoming a bit manic. I’ve been doing the puzzle for a week or so but this is the first time I’ve ventured onto TfTT.
   I see you are back to Olly the Owl!
   1. Reversing ‘for’ ORP; key of E being held by HAND (worker); I did it post-submission. Glad to hear (or infer) you’re well again.
      1. Thanks, Kevin. No, unfortunately I’m still feeling weak and watery, especially at the end of the day.
   2. I was wondering where you were , Martin.Glad you are better. Couldn’t have been the dreaded plague where you are! Hope the prostrate settles.
      1. Thanks,John. That’s much appreciated. I’ve been glad that since I resumed crossword solving the cryptics have been pretty low down on the SNITCH scale!
2. Kevin got there first so I’ll delete mine. Sorry to hear of your illness, Martin, but glad you’re on the mend.

   Edited at 2020-06-17 05:20 am (UTC)

3. So that’s how 3d works! Thanks Pip. This was work. DNK THRESH in this sense, or BRIEF=clue. Biffed MEDICO, ORPHANED, 5TH COLUMNIST, parsed post-submission. My last 2 were the 1s; I had an initial M (‘jam finally’), which did not help. COD to ORPHANED.
   1. As Pip says it’s ‘clue in’, not ‘clue’. ‘To clue someone in’ is a reasonably common expression in the UK at least.

      Edited at 2020-06-17 09:57 am (UTC)

4. Chewy, and ended up with a stupid mistake: THRASHOLD, even having correctly parsed it and knowing thresh, as in hit wheat. First guess was thrash… at the start, and somehow it stuck in my mind as I was writing threshold. Agricola LOI, vaguely known but Agrippa also vaguely known – he has a wife you know, Agripina – which I’d entered in confusion, guessing pina colada for the drink.
   Also didn’t know brief as clue, and it’s not really apparent in the dictionaries I have.
   Nice crossword, silly solver.
   1. I think it’s the phrase “clue in” for brief.
      1. Excellent!
      2. Yes, that’s the only way I could make sense of it also.
5. No big problems. And I think I even parsed everything (at least a few minutes after submission). I didn’t even have a problem with orphaned. But I think BRIEFCASE is “BRIEF” for barrister, CASE for lawsuit, and then a semi-&lit.

   Edited at 2020-06-17 05:38 am (UTC)

6. I must have been on the wavelength for this one as I found it a little tricky in parts but not too taxing. I was held up near the end by WRAP, THRESHOLD and AGRICOLA. For the latter I spent time thinking about aga for the general which threw me slightly. LOI a completely unparsed OVERPLAY which made me a little nervous though the definition seemed clear enough for it not to be anything else.
7. 40 minutes, with holdups here and there around the grid, but never getting too stuck for too long, thankfully. Wondered if BARMY ARMY might fit 25a for a while; still have an eyebrow raised over the definition there…

   FOI 4a BRIEFCASE, LOI 12a ORPHANED, proving yet again that I’m pretty useless when I’m missing a first letter. I’ve had a hard time picking CODs recently; perhaps 3d DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

8. 58 minutes with LOI the unknown and biffed MEDICO. I was definitely not on wavelength for this one, or if I was I was 180 degrees out of phase. Some mornings it happens like this. I’d no idea what was going on with BOOBY-TRAP and like Matt spent time trying to make the BARMY ARMY fit. I should have seen OVERPLAY quicker but I just didn’t see ‘pay’ as a benefit. I still can’t really, as it’s earned. I liked UNWISE and JITTERBUGGED, but COD to AGRICOLA. Thank you Pip and setter.
   1. I share your doubts about ‘benefit = PAY’ for exactly the same reasons.
      1. As in “crime doesn’t pay”?
      2. “It would pay you to take what he says into consideration“. Mr Grumpy
   2. The real mr grumpy would never accept pay = benefit
9. I didn’t understand the definition of BOOBY-TRAP although I recognise that it needs to be primed before it can serve its purpose.

   I was heartened by Paul’s parsing of 4ac which was the same as mine, as at least I wasn’t alone. I have struggled to justify ‘brief’ = ‘clue’ as it’s more of a detailed instruction than a hint, but on the other hand if it’s not a direct part of the wordplay why is it there?

   Also glad to see that I wasn’t alone in thinking of ‘Agrippa’ as the Roman at 15dn although he didn’t fill the spaces available unless perhaps he was spelt with two Gs which from my scanty knowledge of such people may well have been possible. That led me to erroneous thoughts of ‘grappa’ as the drink becoming ‘grippa’ which would have involved swapping A and I the other way round. It’s easy to see how my target time slipped away from me!

   In the end I forgot to note my finishing time, but I think in all I was on this for about 40 minutes.

   Edited at 2020-06-17 06:10 am (UTC)

   1. Pretty sure the verb in 25 Across is “prime” as in “prime to explode”
      1. Thanks. Yes, I got that but I was wondering if priming to explode is the same thing as booby-trapping.

         Adding here as I can’t now edit my original post: On ‘clue = brief’ I now see that I hadn’t read Pip’s explanation carefully enough as it’s ‘clue in’ not ‘clue’ on its own, and I am happy to accept this is valid.

         [On later edit: And now several people have made the same point up-thread by replying to others but posting after me, so it appears as if I was very late to the party on this one!]

         Edited at 2020-06-17 01:26 pm (UTC)

10. 30 mins pre-brekker.
    I liked it, mostly: Unwise and Gored.
    If you put a bomb in a piano, you would Prime the Bomb. You would thereby Booby-trap the Piano. Different objects, different thing.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
11. 22.46, mostly because I played around in the bottom section with BARMY ARMY, that well known revolutionary faction that changed the face of England cricket. I see I’m not alone. It almost works: prime blunder B then two identical military terms, and is encouraged by the crossing B from CONFAB.

    I also noticed, to my detriment, that in 24a “hit hard by” is an anagram of BIRTHDAY with an extra H, with portal being an amusing definition.

    I smudged my interpretation of BRIEFCASE: thanks everyone for bringing it into focus.

    Today’s smile came from the simple GO RED because it took ages to see it.

12. 20:55. Definitely a bit chewier of late, ending my sequence of 10 consecutive sub-20 minute solves. I failed to parse MEDICO or see that BRIEF at 4A was “clue in”, so hesitated for ages over that until the checkers confirmed it. Held up by the SW corner with LOI BOOBY-TRAP. Lots of nice clues, but DEMOCRATIC PARTY my favourite. Thanks Pip and setter.
13. Found that pretty hard, a slog all the way through, but glad I completed it despite going very red on the SNITCH. Some interesting anagrams for long clues there. Didn’t get ‘clue in’ for brief, clever. 26ac (SPASM) oo-er.

    COD: DEMOCRATIC PARTY for its anagram.

    Yesterday’s answer: the only premiership rugby team I could find without an S was Bath.

    Today’s question: during which war did the phrase ‘fifth column’ originate?
    Today’s question:

    1. Spanish Civil War – coined by Franco himself I believe
    2. Harlequin Football Club doesn’t have an S either.
14. Quite hard in parts. I had most trouble in the SW particularly with BOOBY-TRAP. Nice blog Pip – you should be a happier blogger today

    The JITTERBUG is a great dance. Precursor to the jive and the twist it was spread around the world by US troops in WW2. Far superior to this modern nonsense where the dancing couple don’t even hold one another!

    1. All the better to show off the moving parts, sir!
15. 32’32”, with BLEW LOI. Struggled parsing BRIEFCASE, and never managed it. Did not bother to parse AGRICOLA, who, as noted, kept coming up in school Latin.

    Thanks pip and setter.

16. I seem to have been on the right wavelength this morning, and all of us smug classicists will have been grateful for AGRICOLA (agricola, agricolam, agricolae, agricolae, agricola, etc.). That was great fun, though I biffed a few, like JITTERBUGGED, BRIEFCASE and DEMOCRATIC PARTY. COD for me was SPASM for the entertaining image, though the question mark was surplus to requirement.
    1. Well in this woke age of diversity, setters have to be careful not to offend by suggesting that some people’s sexual proclivities are in any way out of the ordinary.
17. another conscript for the BARMY ARMY here. Not until the stolen wife resisted all efforts at 22d was it reconsidered. It’s difficult to change a speeding train of thought when it is heading in the wrong direction. Eventually shunted back to safety in a slow 37’41”

    Edited at 2020-06-17 08:59 am (UTC)

18. Seems to have a high snitch score but I didn’t find it too hard. I didn’t get the brief in briefcase either – so thanks to those who’ve explained it.
19. Sixteen and a half minutes or so, a lot of which was trying to fully parse some very clever wordplay.
20. Good stuff this, nothing wilfully obscure but lots of pennies which needed to drop, not least the deceptively simple GORED.
21. That was a bit tricky! I stumbled around for a while after my FOI, BLEW, without making much progress, but eventually the LHS started to look inhabited. GORED took an age to see and only came after GRIDLOCK finally disabused me of an initial M(Jam finally) because of which I’d biffed MIRED. I briefly considered BARMY ARMY, but MEDICO made short work of that, and I saw the revolutionary faction for what it was, and wrapped up 22d at the same time. The SE was my sticking point for some time, but AGRICOLA eventually finished off that section and I was left with the previously intractable 7d, which I then saw straight away. 38:24. Thanks setter and Pip.
22. Unusually I did this over two sessions because I hit a wall half way through. Good tough crossword. Much to enjoy including DEMOCRATIC PARTY, GORED and ORPHANED. I even enjoyed the antelope – there I said it.
23. Another barmy army for a while although I couldn’t have said who or what it was. In fact I thought it was something to do with Arnold Palmer but a trip to Google post solve explained that. Also another Agrippa here until it obviously wasn’t going to fit. And I thought it was Juliet doing the dancing as an anagram. Got it all sorted out and came home in 20.29. Good puzzle.
24. 24:56. After two days on wavelength my WITCH is the wrong side of 100 today. I grabbed the wrong end of more sticks than there were sticks to grab. The setter did a grand job of obscuring which part of the clues was which.
25. I had powwow for 18d, a good wrong answer I thought!
    1. Snap – see below!
    2. …. never too late to admire a smart wrong answer, very nice!
       I was hobnobbing and hubbubing until I confabbed. That corner held me up for a long time.
26. ….INCUMBENT upon me to protest at the Grauniadesque 6D/14A. I hate this sort of clueing. Once I unravelled FIFTH COLUMNIST, I biffed COLLABORATOR and parsed it later. An otherwise excellent puzzle spoiled.

    MER at ELANDS – surely it’s a herd of eland ?

    I was slowed down by having confidently entered “powwow” at 18D quite early in the proceedings (prisoner of war + “wow that’s great” works for me). I see how Keriothe was similarly tricked !

    FOI FLORA
    LOI MEDICO
    COD WRAP
    TIME 14:00

    Edited at 2020-06-17 12:02 pm (UTC)

    1. You wait all day for someone who was tricked into POWWOW and then three come along at once!
       I’m inclined to agree with you about the linked clues. I did it the other way round (COLLABORATOR first) but FIFTH COLUMNIST went straight in.
       1. You reminded me that my family uses the word CONFLAB. I have never questioned it until today when I hesitated over the answer; our family powwows tend to involve alcohol.
          1. ‘Conflab’ is quite common. It’s in Lexico described as a ‘late 19th century alteration’.
27. Very tired when did this but got there in about 45 min. Sparky puzzle though I’m not convinced that confab and discourse are twins. I think the very occasional cross-reference as in 6 and 14 is OK. Very smart triple way in to 4.
28. 21:09. Tricky but great fun. I didn’t fall into the BARMY ARMY trap but I did have POWWOW at 18dn which seemed fine until complete bafflement at 23ac and 25ac forced a rethink.
    I didn’t understand ‘prime’ for BOOBY-TRAP and still don’t. I also can’t find any dictionary support for it.
29. Challenging but ultimately rewarding. I share reservations about the definition of BOOBYTRAP but I wasn’t in doubt about the answer. I might have been had I seen POWWOW, which seems a completely legit answer. A lucky escape as I had serious doubts about CONFAB (mainly because an imp on my shoulder kept telling me that the word was actually CONFLAB).
30. Nearly an hour: having biffed CONTRACTOR at 13d, spent far too long trying to parse it and eventually resorted to aid to see if anything else fitted checkers, when that became clear.
    Also needed help at 17a after failing to get anywhere with an anagram of JULIET plus something,and am still not satisfied with explanation of ‘prime’ in 2a.
    Thanks Pip for clearing up other problems, particularly 4a.
31. Spent ages on 24a, thinking it was an anagram of “hit hard by”, until I realised my mistake and got THRESHOLD. Then I ruined things by putting “elandi” for 8d, not spotting that it was antelope in the plural (or indeed knowing that that is the plural).
32. Definitely one to think through today. 23.59 with confab my last one in, convinced it was powwow till friar was tucked in.
    Some great cluing I thought. Orphaned, jitterbugged, gored and Agricola all memorable.

    Glad to get it finished in what I thought was a reasonable time. I’ll now look at previous comments to see if I’m right or not.

33. LOI GORED which I eventually threw in thinking that maybe it was another term for having lots of money, although it didn’t seem likely. Slept through the first 10 mins of this, so it wasn’t as hard as I made it out to be. Liked JITTERBUGGED, DEMOCRATIC PARTY. I was another AGGRIPPA for a while until UNWISE clarified matters.
34. Isn’t ‘eland’ the plural of eland? Mr Grumpy
    1. ‘Elands’ and ‘eland’ are both possible according to Collins and Chambers. The Oxfords don’t specify, which I think implies that they expect the plural to follow standard procedure of adding an ‘s’.
35. I forgot to come here earlier and now it’s almost tomorrow. Just to say that I loved this puzzle – although it wasn’t a particularly fast solve. 35 minutes. Ann
36. 39:21. I found this tricky in places and solved in fits and starts. I liked the clues for democratic party and fifth columnists though I’m deducting half a mark from the latter for referring to another clue.
37. internet all over the place today.

    45 mins most enjpoyable.

    FOI 8dn ELANDS

    LOI 4dn BLEW

    COD 3dn DEMOCRATIC PARTY oxymoronic cluing

    WOD 17ac JITTERBUGGED – nice!

38. MER at “Juliet” for J in 17 – NATO spelling is always “Juliett”?
39. 18dn — always thought discourse was a conflab — we learn every day

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