Times 27,743: Love Is All Around

67 comments on “Times 27,743: Love Is All Around”

1. Couldn’t see stuck=bore and didn’t know the centesimal krone, so BORE was a lucky guess, really – ahead of bole and bone. Agree that LIBERTINE was exceptional.

   Definitely up for the quiz. Do I need to send a PM?

   1. It turns out that the fixtures for the OQL are at 8pm London time (on Wednesdays)… am I right in thinking that you might be in a time zone that would make this prohibitively unpleasant? If not, I’ll send you some more details!
      1. the wee small hours, indeed. best of luck anyway…
         1. How’s your Shakespeare? I’ve signed up for a Shakespeare themed quiz on 4th September 7pm Mountain Time, that aphis99 is also game for, so we could put together a Times For The Times team, if that was better for you…
2. LOI was BORE, where I was stuck for quite some time before deciding it was the one word that fit the wordplay, although I still can’t see the definition. “Stuck” is past tense; “bore,” in the relevant sense (not related to “bear”), is present tense.
   1. BORE = tolerated = stuck.
      1. I’ve certainly never heard the informal British expression, of which an example is cited in Collins: “I can’t stick that man”—which I still find rather odd.
         1. It’s not very common these days, at least not in my experience.
3. I wondered about that, too, and decided “stuck it out” is “bore the pain”, where bore is past tense of bear.
   A bit tired and off the wavelength, or else it was hard (it wasn’t hard). Knew nothing about Edward VII, but now do. Wikipedia conjectures he might be the great-grandfather of Camilla, as well as great-great-grandfather of Charles. Probably COD, in retrospect, or AMANUENSIS.
   Only one and a half anagrams, and the one full one EUROSTAR was my last in.

   Edited at 2020-08-14 05:26 am (UTC)

4. 16:40. Held up at the end by having an unparsed (obviously) ELEMENT for 11A, fixed only when I saw FISTICUFFS. LOI UTERI. “Love is all around” indeed. COD to LIBERTINE.
5. I came close to a biffed error where I had a tentative ECOLOGIST for some time thinking that green was being used as a noun. Thankfully I decided to come back and parse it before submitting which is when I saw my potential error. Other than that fairly gentle for a Friday.
6. limits, sandwiches, casing, breaking, clothes; I’m not sure what to call this cluing device, but the setter seems fond of it. DNK TUG-OF-LOVE, but easy enough to guess. Biffed AD-LIB, CHEETAH, FISTICUFFS, parsed post-sub. GARGLE surely deserves some sort of anti-COD.
7. Had to think hard before finally spotting UTERI….otherwise OK
8. Bit of a mismatch between an easy Friday offering and one dull (dare I say boring) clue…
9. 31 minutes, making this a most untypical Friday puzzle judging by my experience which includes blogging Fridays for many a year.

   My LOI was BORE. Something of a guess, but I assumed ‘first of borrowed’ gave us B, that R was the most likely fit for the other unchecked letter, and the ORE might be a smaller unit of Norwegian currency – I knew that krona was the main one. As for the definition, I’m still having problems seeing it. I came up with examples like Isla’s (‘stuck it out’ ‘bore the pain’) but couldn’t think of a sentence in which a direct substitution works.

   1. I wondered if the clue should have said “stick” rather than “stuck”. Both verbs stick and bore have “to pierce” as their first definition in Chambers.
      1. That’s the only sense of “bore” I could make… stick. But apparently some Brits say, or have said, things like “I can’t stick that man,” by which they didn’t mean they couldn’t stab him.
   2. I struggled with this puzzle but I stuck / bore it anyway. Not perfect but both mean to tolerate.
   3. Collins cites “I can’t stick that man.” If you’ve never heard it over there, it’s no wonder I was baffled over here.
10. Just 27 mins with Burlinton Bertie no problem at 15dn

    FOI FACE SAVERS although I initially wrote SAVES FACE! (all at sixes and sevens)

    LOI 17dn ECONOMIST and not ECOLOGIST as I thought I spotted a semi-colon.

    COD 7dn OCEAN

    WOD 27ac LEONINE and good clue’

    I have never been happy about the death of 21ac; why did the ‘Holy Fox’ not react quicker? Because he was a house guest of Herr Goering at the time!? Hitler definitely wanted ‘The most dangerous man in Europe’ out of the way.’Onward Christian Soldiers!’

    1. Wiki tells me that Rutherford died from the effects of a strangulated hernia, so I’d appreciate enlightenment on the role of Lord Halifax in that.
11. Another lucky guess with BORE here as my last one in. Didn’t fully parse RUTHERFORD, so thanks to the blogger. Like pootle I thought the definition for 17d was “green” until the publication meaning of organ occurred to me and I put it together properly. 8d also took me a long time, as I was barking up the wrong tree looking for anagrams until I had all the checkers (dick = detective hasn’t yet lodged itself in my brain).

    FOI Affair
    LOI Bore
    COD Cheetah

12. …according to Ernest. Well, I’ve always preferred equations to lists. Is this one of the fundamental distinctions in human character? 28 minutes. There were some nice light bulb moments in this. I liked FISTICUFFS and LEO IX but COD to LIBERTINE. It had to be BORE as otherwise I was stuck, but I couldn’t see why. Decent puzzle. Thank you V and setter.
13. in just under 50 mins when I realised I had STUCK in ECOLOGIST without knowing why, of course. Oh well. LOI BORE which I still don’t really see. Liked LEONINE and LIBERTINE as others have said. Thanks V and setter.
14. Unusual to be under the 10 minute mark on a Friday (I’d forgotten it was) but this was mostly straightforward. Luckily I knew the Norwegian coin, though it took me a while to work out that we were looking at the past tenses of bear & stick, which often clue each other. COD to LIBERTINE as others have said. Obviously I knew that there were multiple popes called Leo but surely LEONINE is an adjective, so how can it be clued by “pope”? And why Leo IX in particular rather than the other eight? I shall have to google him.
    1. I took it that the definition was catty, and the pope bit (with the question mark) invited us to think of the particular one Leo IX, who could be referred to as Leo nine. The question is not “who was the catty pope?”
       1. That makes a lot of sense. I was thinking something like “Pope’s catty” would have worked better, but the specific pope makes for a much more appealing clue.
       2. It’s actually a chestnut.
       3. Yes, of course. I never noticed the NINE = IX thing!
15. As for others, relatively easy with only BORE causing a pause. I decided to just trust the cryptic. The clue to LIBERTINE is in a class apart.
16. All but 27 minutes, as I ground to a halt staring at the SW corner even after I worked out RUTHERFORD. Didn’t really think of RUTH as “old” for pity.
    I hadn’t known that Edward VII was known as Bertie, since George VI was rather more memorably so called, and only made the leap when I hit on the answer. It didn’t help that George VI, as far as I know, had no reputation as a libertine and my royals were by then getting confused.
    I see I’m wrong as well in thinking that a cylinder is not necessarily hollow, which made TAPER a bit of a mental stretch.
    EUROSTAR was my last in, a clever anagram, though are tours actually organised for it? Using it, for sure.
    Beside that lot, the leap from stuck to BORE was a doddle.

    My Missus, who has been on most quiz shows and was once Brain of Enfield (like Egg Chris Hughes) would be interested in online quizzing, but her link to TftT is mostly through me. Could she count?

17. ….if you could remember what Edward VII was called by his buddies, and were willing to take ‘bore’ as given’, I just followed the cryptic for Economist – look what I found! That kind of organ, eh?

    I admit I was a little worried when the blog hadn’t appeared by the time I went to bed, but I have great faith in the bloggers – looks like I only missed it by about five minutes.

    Ooops – my time was 25 minutes.

    Edited at 2020-08-14 09:03 am (UTC)

18. No problems. Liked LIBERTINE and ‘shed clothes’ and ‘he can’t stand up’.
19. ….took three-quarters as long as the rest of the puzzle. I eventually biffed FISTICUFFS and DETECTIVE, and shouldn’t have needed V’s help to parse them.

    NHO “Bild” but then I speak practically no German.

    Good luck to the quizzers. Unfortunately ZOOM and my Smartphone are a rather dud combination.

    FOI LOCALLY
    LOI DETECTIVE
    COD LIBERTINE
    TIME 14:18

20. 37:34
    Thought this was quite awkward. Some nicely crafted clues. Thanks v.
21. Happy memories of Eurostar.
22. Some parts of this where the penny took a while to drop, especiallly TYPIST, which concluded matters today. I was, however, mostly pleased not to have seen “green” and biffed ECOLOGIST, as my brain was urging me to, but thought a bit harder about it and reached the right answer. Not the toughest Friday, but it had its moments.
23. All pretty straightforward other than a “lucky” guess at BORE. Some neat touches as mentioned by others.

    We must have had LEONINE clued similarly before as I typed it in on the strength of vaguely “remembering” that Pope Leonine existed.

    1. A quick search reveals that we’ve had Leonine a few times clued as an adjective describing all the papal Leos so maybe that’s where my mind was.
       1. You’ve already covered this, but just to confirm that SOED has Leonine (capital L) as: ► A adjective.
          1 Of or pertaining to any of the popes named Leo. LME.
          Leonine City the part of Rome in which the Vatican stands, walled and fortified by Pope Leo IV.
24. And a dreaded pink square at GARGLE. Like others, I expected this to be more challenging, it being Friday, but I enjoyed LIBERTINE and LEONINE.

    Where do I sign up for the quiz?

    1. Drop me an email at matthew marcus at hey dot com! Our numbers are swelling dramatically but there are definite toe-dipping opportunities…
25. 14.25 so a pleasing time for a Friday. No particular problems though bore was my LOI after realising the appropriate definition. FOI affair which made me think this was not going to be the typical Friday challenge. COD leonine, always been a sucker for a pun.

    Thanks setter and Verlaine.

26. Would be interested in quizzing. Assuming plenty of interest, might be worth you doing a mini audition over the ether. Would hate to be accepted and then find I added no benefit!
    1. Our ranks have swollen dramatically but there will be toe-dipping opportunities! Drop me a line at matthew marcus at the hey dot com if you want to Zoom in to one of the 8pm Wednesday fixtures.
       1. Thought I got the address right but it appears I didn’t. At the risk of being trolled – minimal from this group I think- I confirmed an interest. My email is b.p.keelan@talk21.com . Hope to hear from you if there’s a chance of a quiz appearance.
       2. Hi Matthew, I dropped a line but I must have got part of your address wrong as I received a non deliverable yesterday evening. I am interested in dipping my toe in the quiz world. My email is b.p.keelan@talk21.com if you want to respond.

          I don’t think I need to beware trolls!

          1. Whoops! Sorry for the duplication.
27. We had almost the identical clue for “Taffeta” a few days ago, I think.
    Less tough than a typical Friday, maybe, although I slowed down completing Bore/Emend/Leonine in the SE corner.
    Biffed “Rutherford”.
28. 10:24. Apart from the tricky ones this was a bit of a biff-fest for me, including ECOLOGIST. Don’t be like me kids, pay attention to the wordplay.
29. Same comments as many others about BORE. Spent a while trying to work my way through famous ‘Dick(s)’ in history before I cottoned on to DETECTIVE. I liked two words which have an old-fashioned feel about them: FISTICUFFS and AMANUENSIS.

    Home in 44 minutes.

30. Thought I did rather well with this seeing as I’m doing it on a beach and can hardly see the screen. However I fell into the ECOLOGIST trap. Must parse in future.
31. Definitely not a usual Friday for me, when I often struggle to finish. But today went very well, until that dreaded NE corner, plus – of course – BORE. I was about to throw in the towel with five to go, but decided to stick with it. Glad I did because I finished without aids. Lots of ticks and smiles alongside the clues – BASH, LEONINE and EUROSTAR in particular. I must admit to checking ORE as a Norwegian coin after filling it in, so I guess that makes it a technical DNF. There seemed to be a bit of a sad story across the middle – a LOVE MATCH, followed by UTERI, followed by a TUG-OF-LOVE.

    FOI Affair
    LOI Bore
    COD Libertine
    Time 45 mins

    Many thanks witty setter and helpful Verlaine

32. The juxtaposition of BARON and TUG-OF-LOVE made me wonder if the setter knew something about a potential split between POTUS and FLOTUS, but then realised BARON was spelled differently. Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Verlaine.
    19:32
33. 21:27 I found this a bit of a gentle stroll but still very enjoyable. Like kevingregg (way above) I certainly noticed what seemed a disproportionate number of containment indicators (containicators?) while solving. Very slightly delayed by biffing ad-hoc at 1dn until the party at 12ac came into view. I was reasonably confident that ore was a smaller unit of Scandinavian currency so bore seemed ok. LOI Rutherford took longer to crack than it should’ve done. I enjoyed the catty Pope and the libertine.
34. A slow start but I plodded on and finished in just under 40 minutes with just a couple of unparsed clues.
    I didn’t know ‘ruth’ as an old word for ‘pity’, nor that ‘organ’ could denote a periodical.
    EUROSTAR was a nice anagram and LIBERTINE has to be my COD for its wordplay.
    Thanks to the setter and to V.
    1. Ruth survives mostly in its opposite.
       1. Oh, yes, of course. I didn’t think of that!
          Thanks for pointing it out.
35. Namely ECOLOGIST. I knew it was probably wrong and resolved to go back to it – but forgot, of course.

    COD: BARON – shed clothes!

    Yesterday’s answer: Antarctica is the largest desert, according to Wikipedia – the Sahara is only third after that and the Arctic.

    Today’s question: who was the highest-numbered pope?

    Edited at 2020-08-14 02:30 pm (UTC)

    1. As you can tell from the above I’m not exactly an expert on Popes’ names.

       Innocentillion?

36. To celebrate the first day of my staycation, I thought I’d try the Big Boy crossword – first time since I did them with my father about 50 years ago. It took a while to get into the swing of it and I nearly gave up after I couldn’t get any of the acrosses but once Ad Lib went in, I slowly worked my way around anti-clockwise finishing with Ocean at 60.57. Not sure I’m going to have time to do this regularly but I may pop in now and again.

    Thanks to Verlaine for the explanations and to the setter.
    Penny

37. Very easy (for me that means 28:44 minutes) but very enjoyable. The difference to most puzzles is that in this one I could biff most of the answers and check the wordplay afterwards, whereas usually I need the wordplay to find the answers in the first place, at least on the hard clues. I also had some doubts about BORE, but the COED has “Brit. informal: accept; tolerate; endure” as one definition of “stick” as a verb, and that equates to BEAR, so that is perhaps what was meant. I didn’t worry about it much while I was solving, since the currency unit was clear.

    I also didn’t know Edward VII was called BERTIE but thought I was just getting my kings (or rather, your kings) mixed up. Now I know. COD to LEONINE.

    Edited at 2020-08-14 03:39 pm (UTC)

    1. Yes it was news to me too. The most widely remembered these days of British monarchs known as ‘Bertie’ to the family was HMQ’s father, George VI.
38. Another really nice puzzle, it’s been a good week. Unfortunately bunged in ECOLOGIST = green (person) without giving the organ bit enough thought and didn’t revisit, to get a thumbs down at the end today. As others have noted, some exceptional clues not least the Bertie one.

    Verlaine please count me in for the quiz thing, subject to more about the timing.

    1. Wednesday evenings at 8pm (UK time). Our ranks have swollen dramatically but there will assuredly be toe-dipping opportunities!
39. You’re welcome!
40. Left this until tis morning(Saturday) as I was too tired after yesterday’s golf. Like others, my LOI was BORE, not knowing the Norwegian bit. I was at a bit of an impasse after getting IMPASSE in the SW until I spotted EUROSTAR, which opened the floodgates. Didn’t know Ed 7 was known as Bertie. 38:09. Thanks setter and V. I would’ve been interested in the Zoom quiz, but I have a Zoom Folk session at 8pm on Wednesdays.

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