Times 27,701: 18dn Amazeballs

89 comments on “Times 27,701: 18dn Amazeballs”

1. 2 seconds over my average time, so an easy Friday; hard lines, V. I followed, slowly, in Verlaine’s footsteps, trying to make something of (boytinylimited)*, and trying to decode 3d, making AARONS ROD my LOI. DNK MUCK, MIND OUT, or TACK (thought of hard tack afterwards); in fact I unconsciously typed in HAYSTUCK but caught it in time. Biffed CHEMIN DE FER; the F_R suggested a non-English phrase, and that did it.
2. …as I biffed chemin de fer, and saw that lad and mini must be in the middle of 17 before attempting any anagram games.

   You do have to know a fair bit to do this puzzle quickly: Leigh Hunt, lamia, rille, My biggest problem was actually mind out, which is strictly UK, unknown over here.

   1. Leigh Hunt was the model for Harold Skimpole in “Bleak House”. He was imprisoned for 2 years for having written of the Prince Regent, who had been gushingly praised as “The Adonis of Loveliness” and more in another paper, “This Adonis of Loveliness is a corpulent man of fifty… a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demireps …”
      1. Skimpole was incredibly annoying, needing punching rather than indulging, so presumably Leigh was too.

         I didn’t instantly equate ‘mucking about’, which we did a lot of at school, with ‘pottering’, which we did less of. Mucking about meant more energetic activity.

         1. I’ve always considered Skimpole a pain. Dickens thought he had captured Hunt perfectly in the character, so Hunt may have been a pain, too. One of his poems, ‘The Story of Rimini’, was summed up by one critic in these words: “Crimini! / What a nimini-pimini / Story of Rimini!”
            1. Which in turn reminds me of “niminy piminy Francesca Di Rimini je ne sais quoi young man” from Patience. I don’t know if Sullivan meant aesthetes (sewers a la Mitford) in general or Hunt in particular. Yes Skimpole is excruciating and should be skipped.
               1. I remember quoting that line here a while back, I forget why. It was Gilbert–who also drew my avatar for me–not Sullivan, and I think he was aiming at Wilde specifically (“If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily”, “an attachment à la Plato for a bashful young potato/ Or a not too French French bean”).
                  1. Gilbert – dah!
            2. Skimpole is consistently pretty much the most appalling human being ever to walk the earth, yes. A Dickensian masterpiece of characterisation!
3. A nice puzzle for me, with the cluing fair to generous. That is what I think when I’m able to construct a half dozen almost-knowns. Like vinyl I had the most trouble with Mind Out. There was no help from the crossers because I know putter about, but not potter about, and Scottish Islands are in the same circle of hell as antelopes and arcane plants as far as I’m concerned. I liked Aaron’s Rod and Raleigh.

   Edited at 2020-06-26 02:16 am (UTC)

4. much happier today after a thorough examination for typos before submitting. NHO Lamia as a monster, so thanks for the enlightenment. I have a colleague with this as her first name. (Should I ever want to kill her, I will need a silver knife blessed by a priest). Lamia was the commonest name for girls born in Bosnia in 2012!
   21m57s
   1. Check out the poem by Keats – it plays around with the girl vs. snake theme.
5. Zipped through at the start, with a few minor missteps: e.g. guessing misses first for teachers. No trouble with the NHO Leigh Hunt, or NHO Lamia, or I-thought-it-was-a-plant Aaron’s rod. Then the last few held me up almost 10 minutes, 2LOI DEFEATIST was hard to see. LOI was chemin de fer, where I had to correct MULL ABOUT to MUCK ABOUT. Is Mull an island? Or a waterway? Paul MacCartney writes rubbish songs (except Band on the Run album). Didn’t parse epsilon at first, thinking psi was the other letter, and forgot to go back to it.
   1. Well I’m more of a Lennon fan myself but I do think that’s a little harsh. Yesterday? Eleanor Rigby? Penny Lane? Let It Be? Hey Jude?
      1. You’re right. I was thinking post-Beatles.
         1. In my view it was Lennon who was rubbish post-Beatles. I thought “Imagine” was a dirge. He became a sarcastic polemicist who supported silly right-on causes. For example he and Yoko supported Michael X who was found guilty and executed for murder in Trinidad.
            But apart from that I quite liked him….!!
            1. I quite agree about Imagine, Martin. It was however Lennon who wrote A Day In The Life – he blew his MIND OUT in a car, he didn’t notice that the light had changed. Marvellous song.
               1. MIND OUT! Very good, Olivia! Lennon also wrote that lovely song “In My Life” but both that and “A Day In The Life” were from the Beatles era.
            2. I’ve always thought that the break-up led to each of the three becoming free to concentrate on their worst tendencies, Paul becoming all twee, John all Yoko-esque, George all mystic.
               1. …..and Ringo became?😀
                  1. The voice of Thomas the Tank Engine!
         2. Still very harsh. Maybe I’m Amazed, Another Day, Every Night, Little Lamb / Dragonfly, Letting Go…
            1. You’re backing me into a corner. Maybe I was only thinking of Mull of Kintyre.
               1. I’ll give you that one (and The Frog Chorus), but that’s like saying Stevie Wonder is rubbish based on I just called…
                  1. Is McCartney that old geezer on FourFiveSeconds by Rihanna and Kanye? I thought he might have been a friend of one of their dads.
   2. On the other hand, you’re quite right about the plant thing, several times over.
6. Didn’t know LAMIA or RILLE (but in both cases the wordplay was clear). Also, didn’t know Leigh Hunt, although obviously it had to be RALEIGH. I also thought PSI was the other letter and couldn’t quite see how the clue worked, for obvious reasons. I don’t know anything about CHEMIN DE FER (other than it meaning railway in French)…it’s the sort of game James Bond would play I think. Even with all those uknowns, a lot easier than yesterday.
7. I knew LAMIA from Keats, of course.
   Never heard of MIND OUT, but it wasn’t my LOI; AARON’S ROD was, after MUCK ABOUT.
   1. I get it – LITOTES. At first I thought you were just being pompous
8. 50 minutes, slowed a little by some unknowns, DUN, RILLE and LAMIA, but for all the tricky stuff, much of this was quite straightforward. Knew the name LEIGH Hunt from somewhere but had no idea where.

   Edited at 2020-06-26 04:27 am (UTC)

   1. I recalled that we’d had DUN in that sense before as at the time it was a complete unknown and I somehow managed to remember it this time around.

      Anyway, it has cropped up a few times, including as a wordplay element in 26816 in Aug 17. Sorry to mention it John but you blogged that one saying “I didn’t know DUN as a debt collector”.

      1. I always remember it from my mum, who was an attorney, and set noted dunners Dunn & Bradstreet on her recalcitrant clients.
      2. No problem. Sometimes I can hardly remember what I did yesterday. I’ve blogged so many of these things now (watch this space!) so it doesn’t surprise me at all.

         Edited at 2020-06-26 12:41 pm (UTC)

         1. What you did yesterday ? It’s not quite teatime and I don’t remember breakfast !
9. I struggled a lot with my LOI, AARONS ROD, which proved to be a lucky guess. Despite getting it right I still don’t like the clue – to me it seems it is essentially a general knowledge clue that you either know or you don’t. I came very close to inventing an AIRING ROD.
10. As an astrophysicist, i fully endorse RILLE as WOD. Lots other definitions I’d not previouly encountered though, (HATCH, DUN, LAMIA)
11. 33 minutes. LOI INTERVALS. DNK LAMIA but even my French was good enough for that once I’d got the last ‘A’ from MUCK ABOUT. I hadn’t thought that MIND OUT was unknown across the Atlantic. I can now picture a bemused New Yorker hit on the head by the contents of a falling bucket while trying to understand what his British friend is saying. COD to ROSE HIP. Thursday and Friday do seem to have become confused. It’s the effects of lockdown. A decent puzzle though. Thank you V and setter.
12. …Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
    Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine,
    Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
    The tender-personed Lamia melt into a shade.

    If you ain’t read Lamia (Keats), it is worth a go.
    25 mins pre-brekker.
    No dramas. Mostly I liked the simple Rosehip.
    Thanks setter and V.

13. 36m but in the pink again with LUTOTES. I am not a little annoyed at my sloppy proofreading. Otherwise lots to enjoy and (re)learn – NHO LAMIA or DUN and dredged up RILLE and AARONS ROD from some mental Marianas Trench. Speaking of which, how is it that little crustaceans and worms can survive with 11km of water on top of them?
    1. Tiny, tiny pressure suits?
    2. Perhaps it’s bees, who don’t know enough science to fall out of the sky?
14. Leigh Hunt wrote one of my very favourite poems, above. Nho LAMIA or RILLE. MUCK ABOUT doesn’t mean ‘potter’.

    This took me < 14′, only three minutes longer than the QC.

    Thanks Verlaine and setter.

    1. Thanks for the poem tip. I didn’t know it. I like it.
    2. I’m pretty sure that’s the only Hunt I’ve ever read; it was in a high school text, and the opening lines, if nothing else, have stuck.
15. Pleasant workout. Had all the GK which helped.

    At 15D if you take the third and fifth letters of “composer” you get “mo” which could be an interval?

    1. A nice idea but wouldn’t account for the plural I think?
    2. I spent time trying to think of a composer’s modus operandi – form of some kind, for that same reason
    3. I really wanted (something like) that to be the case, but I wasn’t sure.
16. 14:52 LAMIA and RILLE only vaguely remembered and I did’t know who Leigh Hunt was, but the answer had to be Sir Walter. LOI AARON’S ROD. Not hard for a Friday. The editor maybe teased us by putting the hardest of the week yesterday. I liked INTERVALS best.
17. An hour on the dot for me, so about twice my average this week, I think. Much slowed down at the end by not knowing either 23a RILLE or Leigh Hunt in 19d, and also assuming that the “maybe” meant that the answer ended -ISH…

    I also didn’t know 6d LAMIA and I’m not sure how I came up with 3d AARON’S ROD; maybe it’s come up in botanical form before, or something. On the plus side, 13d CHEMIN DE FER was a write-in as I’ve just read Rebecca, which starts off in Monte Carlo.

    On the whole very enjoyable, and I particularly liked 27a ROSEHIP and 7d MIND OUT. WOD GALUMPH.

18. Below average time for an enjoyable crossword, albeit a couple of MERs. A good Times needs some clever clues and a couple of new words (LAMIA, RILLE) one has to deduce and hopefully learn for next time.

    I put MULL ABOUT originally, which sounds more pottery than MUCK ABOUT to me, and I knew AARON’S ROD but only as a flower. I don’t really understand INTERVALS – is the choice of third and fifth deliberate? M and O? GALUMPH one of the many words coined by Lewis Carroll. And does sooth mean truth without any indication it’s old?

    COD: AARON’S ROD for pretending to contain wordplay but not

    Yesterday’s answer: St Giles’ Circus is indeed the intersection of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road.

    Today’s question: which character in Alice in Wonderland was supposedly based on Lewis Carroll himself?

    By the way, I am sticking with David Copperfield as the longest Dickens novel by number of words (which is what I asked), although Bleak House does indeed have most pages.

    1. Not that I care.. but David Copperfield 357,489. Bleak House 360,947. It does seem to depend on who you ask, rather, other opinions do exist ..
       https://blog.fostergrant.co.uk/2017/08/03/word-counts-popular-books-world/
       1. OK, fair enough, I accept that sources vary on this one and the first three I looked at were not the undisputably correct answer, apologies.

          There’s only one way to find out. Whether 1 I 2 shall 3 turn 4 out 5 …

          If you would like a real (better researched than blog comment standard!) quiz I’m doing another one at 7pm on Sunday 5th July. Email awlockdownquiz@gmail.com to register!

          1. I can recommend Angus’s quizzes very strongly (and brilliant waifs and strays are always welcome to join my team).
             1. Lol at the ‘brilliant’ caveat…
    2. I had to look the Lewis Carroll answer up. “Did I stutter?”
19. I am with Pootle73 – never heard of Aaron’s Rod and absolutely no way of guessing it from the clue structure. My ignorance, my problem…
20. Did anyone else with faulty mathematical knowledge try INTEGRALS at 15, knowing that Verlaine would tell us why? Fortunately from my point of view, nothing on the Moon begins with G, so I corrected.

    Similar inaccuracy pulled the Leigh of RALEIGH from the painter of “The Light of the World”, who on better remembrance is Holman.

    *LITOTES is a figure of speech. That much I knew.

    I think I’m inclined to agree with the comments on AARON’S ROD, putting it in the either know it or not category of CDs. These days, when in TV quizzes, no-one can answer a question beginning “in the Bible…” it would seem that not knowing is more the norm.

    LAMIA for me comes pretty securely in the Rumsfeld category of known things.

    So not too difficult a puzzle, taking 16.51, but more larded with potential for objections than normal.

    1. Litotes is one of the tortures that Doug Piranha put his victims to; how soon one forgets.
       1. That was, of course, prior to him very sensibly napalming Dunstable….
    2. As a big trivia league player, I feel like it’s important for quizzes (and crosswords) to have Bible questions in them, just to highlight what people used to know and don’t any longer. Fascinating stuff.
21. Final day of the 5 day Test at Edgbaston constituency. All out before lunch with 3 wickets remaining.

    I could not see “characteristic” and had determined that I was looking for an architectural feature even though I was using architect in the anagram fodder. I needed “characteristic” for intervals and rille.

    Ah well. That’s cricket for you.

    COD: Cliche.

    1. Hard luck; I was looking to see if you’d make it through the week. I’ve carried my bat through to next week but only thanks to having a runner (my wife) come on for me to sort out AARONS ROD.
    2. Hard luck; I was looking to see if you’d make it through the week. I’ve carried my bat through to next week but only thanks to having a runner (my wife) come on for me to sort out AARONS ROD.
22. I can’t say this was the finest puzzle I’ve ever encountered. The CDs required specialist knowledge rather than being clever, too many of the longer answers were at least semi-biffable and it felt a bit uneven – mostly pretty easy but with difficulty provided by silly words rather than clever wordplay.

    Happy Friday everyone.

23. Learned lamia and rille, as well as dun in the sense here. Nearly put in mull about.
24. After yesterday’s beast, this was much more relaxing. I didn’t know the RILLE but didn’t need to, given the wordplay. I had all the rest of the requisite GK, in fact I had too many Hunts, and had to eliminate James, Roger, Sir John, Holman, Rex and Gareth before finding the right one.
    1. Whenever I think of Gareth Hunt I’m always faintly disappointed that he isn’t Gareth Thomas.
25. 11:30. I see penfold_61 has arrived just before me to say exactly what I was thinking. The clue was of almost no use to me at 3dn: fortunately I knew that AARONS ROD was a thing (mostly a plant) so with the checkers and ‘pole’ it seemed the likely answer.
    I almost certainly read the Keats at some point but I had forgotten LAMIA. The isle of MUCK and RILLE were new to me.
    Like paulmcl I thought PSI was the other letter in 26ac so I didn’t understand the clue but once I had all the checkers I stopped worrying about it.
26. 20.34 with one error. For 15 down, had no idea of the answer but went for internals rather than intervals cest la vie. One to note for the future.

    For the rest, liked rosehip, maladministers and muck about- managed just in time to realise it wasn’t mull about.

27. Just read the explanation for intervals and I’m none the wiser! Seems more fact based than cryptic. Can someone please enlighten me?
    1. If you play an single octave scale starting with the note C, there are 8 notes to play. The first C is the tonic, the next note, D, is the second, E is the third, F is the 4th G is the 5th etc. If you then play C and G together, you are playing the tonic and the 5th. The interval between them is a 5th.
       1. I don’t think that was the issue that the poster above you had- the definition is just not really a cryptic one imo- I think you could print it verbatim in a straight crossword and people wouldn’t complain about it.
          1. Ah yes, apologies. It wasn’t my intention to instruct my aged relative on how to siphon ova.
          2. Ah a kindred spirit! But no offence taken to the reply above.
       2. Thanks. Still doesn’t seem very cryptic to me more general knowledge. Never mind, I’m better informed for the next time.

          On which subject have you heard the tale of FE Smith and one of the judges he crossed swords with? After a lengthy Smith explanation on some legal point, the judge remarked that he was none the wiser at the end of it. Smith’s reply was a classic. “ None the wiser m’lud but infinitely better informed”.

          1. Yes indeed. A classic retort:-)
          2. Maybe the idea was just to send us down a cryptic rabbit hole of “composer’s third, hmm, well, that means it’ll start with M”. But agreed it’s not the finest clue if that’s all there is to it…

             Edited at 2020-06-26 05:21 pm (UTC)

28. I had to trust the wordplay for LAMIA and RILLE, and didn’t know the required Hunt, but was able to deduce him. I needed the D from MALADMINISTERS before I spotted AARON’S ROD. I wasn’t tempted by MULL(where I spent a lovely week a couple of years ago) as I already had CHEMIN DE FER, which I biffed from the D from ON THE MEND, and the R from ROSEHIP. I remembered LITOTES from a previous puzzle. The rest of the puzzle wasn’t too hard to solve. I was all done in 35:18. Thanks setter and V.
29. I ninja-turtled this from the Charlton Heston Ten Commandments when he tells his brother Aaron to cast his rod down before Yul Brynner and it turns into a cobra. We get that movie on tv every year at Passover time. Does it also have something to do with the medical caduceus symbol? I’m not sure. I was also tempted by “Mull about”. 15.28
30. Well, well, well …. never heard of LAMIA and worked it out from wordplay. ” Sucks the blood of children ..” – good grief!

    Did this in two bits, so no time.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

    1. I ninja turtled Lamia from the Sam Raimi film “Drag me to Hell”, where it was the evil baddie. I very much suspect I am alone here in getting the answer from thinking of that film. Come to think of it, I’m probably the only person who reads this blog who’s even seen that film. From now on I’ll pretend I know it from reading Keats.
       – Rupert
       1. I’ve seen it, and only about a year ago, at that. However, I rated it 1 1/2 stars on Letterboxd and had completely forgotten the baddie, so apparently it wasn’t that educational for me 😀
31. With about half of it trying to untangle 3 clues in the NW. In the end, this a technical non finish because AARONS ROD was unknown to me and had to looked up.
    Otherwise tough but fair. But agree with above commenter, AARONS ROD was more general knowledge than cryptic.
32. So close … After a good start to the week, which slowly unravelled on Wednesday and completely fell apart yesterday, I wasn’t expecting much today. As it turned out, things went quite smoothly and mostly enjoyably, despite several interruptions, until I came completely unstuck with just a couple to go. I had MULL ABOUT although I didn’t think it sound quite right – I now realise that I was thinking about ‘mull over’ – so of course CHEMIN DE FER was unsolvable. But potter and muck about are not really comparable in my book – I do a lot of pottering but very little mucking about! 13d was particularly frustrating as I had thought of the right game, but couldn’t make it fit because of the wrong Scottish island. And 3d was completely lost on me.

    The only LAMIA I knew was in a very dark book by Paul Torday, which I read having enjoyed Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – it was a very different read though. LITOTES is a now very familiar word, due entirely to this crossword! For 23a, the wordplay was clear enough, but I just thought of the narrow channels we often see in Crosswordland and gardening programmes, with an extra E, and wondered why the moon’s were spelt differently.

    FOI Gas
    COD Haystack
    WOD Galumph
    DNF with two and a half to go

    Thanks setter and Verlaine

33. …would include Roger (England ’66 World Cup winner), Sir John (leader of the ’53 Everest Expedition), Marsha (star of the original West End production of “Hair”), James (F1 World Champion ’76), and Helen (award winning actress). Never heard of this geezer.

    Was never on the setter’s wavelength. Fell into the “boy tiny limited” trap, couldn’t see past the simple “co” for business at 1A (duh ! Thanks V), NHO LAMIA, and eventually biffed INTERVALS after dismissing the “mo” fallacy.

    FOI GALUMPH
    LOI COMPACT
    COD MALADMINISTERS
    TIME 13:09

34. NHO RILLE, LAMIA nor Leigh Hunt.

    Not so enjoyable when there are too many unknowns.

    Convoluted clueing for MALADMINISTERS.

35. Well done to you! Hope you can keep the sequence going. I will be watching.

    😀

36. 19:14 a pretty comfortable solve. I seemed to have all of the GK apart from rille and the Scottish island. The two long ones going across went in early opening up lots of the puzzle. Generally enjoyable though I’m not too keen on hidden words that are just hidden within a single word so I didn’t like hatch. They lack the sparkle or sense of discovery of something found strung across a couple of words or a short phrase. I also tried to make something out of M and O in the clue for intervals.

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