Times 27769 – Mad as a Hatter in Wensleydale

52 comments on “Times 27769 – Mad as a Hatter in Wensleydale”

1. I had just looked up CRUMBS again a week or so ago, so it was irritating to have it as my LOI. I tried for the longest time to work COR into the solution somehow. DNK the ‘hit’ meaning of CLOCK, although my Oxford American Eng. dictionary lists it.
2. 8:17 – I could not spell DE RIGUEUR correctly the first time around, but UNEXPECTED helped put the letters in the right spots. Biffed EFFICIENT
   1. How modern!
3. I could scarcely be more infuriated than to have spent a full 10 minutes on WRASSE and TROPIC, only to find that the ‘stack’ was not referring to money, and hence was not NUT, and hence FORTUNA is also not a thing. Annoys the hell out of me (by which I mean to say, *I* annoy the hell out of me), because I know LUM and obviously I know FORMULA, so this was totally gettable. I just assumed there were two words I didn’t know and so all my hard work is for naught.

   Sometimes I wonder if I should just biff more and look at the wordplay less. (Although then I’d never have gotten WRASSE…)

   1. Fortuna is very much a thing if you’re a football fan in Dusseldorf. I looked at the possibility and then “lum” hit me between the eyes.
      1. In this case, ‘stack’ was the word I didn’t know. When I saw I’d gotten it wrong, I looked at the crossers and tried to think of biffable definitions of ‘plan’. FORMULA of course came instantly to mind, whereupon I saw that ‘stack’ must mean ‘chimney’. (And of course of have heard of “chimney stack” but I didn’t know the two were synonyms.)

         There is a subtle art to knowing whether you should rely more on the definition or on the wordplay. Clearly I haven’t found the right balance yet.

         1. Let me know if you do – I’m still trying after over 50 years !
4. If this good looking male wrasse is removed from his harem, one of the females will change into a male to take his place within 20 days.
   The use of “coached” as an anagrind in 2d is stretching the friendship. It’s deplorable when words such as “deplorable” are used in this way.
   20’08”

5. ….as I just could not see oratorical, clockwise, efficient, and formula. They were eventually laboriously built, but by then the clock had ticked on to 48 minutes.

   I considered fortuna, but it didn’t seem right for the literal. Then I biffed the obvious.

   Ulysses was my senior Honors thesis in college, I read it three times all the way through my senior year. There are some difficult parts, particularly as early 20th-century popular culture fades away.

   Edited at 2020-09-14 02:23 am (UTC)

6. My only hold-up was unwinding the obvious Prescient at 5d – it’s closer to smart than Efficient is, to me – my thinking being that unknown little Euphemia could somehow be turned into the needed letters of Prese to go around CI NT.
   Mostly I thought there were several cute definitions made easy by very generous cryptics, and even more over-literal definitions that even nice cryptics couldn’t hide.

   Edited at 2020-09-14 03:28 am (UTC)

7. Unusually up at 4ish in the morning, nothing too bad here, though I didn’t quite parse FORMULA (forgot about those Scottish chimneys)
8. Happy to be ahead of the SNITCH after a slow week last week. And I had it virtually fully parsed before submitting. I’m grateful to dorsetjimbo’s explanation of LUM many months ago that remains firmly fixed in my mind, allowing me to land on FORMULA pretty quickly.

   My only gap was on ROUND TRIP where I thought TRIP and “train” must somehow be synonymous. However, looking at my usual sources, I can’t see any evidence of this. So I suspect your explanation, U, is the correct one.

   Edited at 2020-09-14 03:04 am (UTC)

9. 28 minutes for all but one answer meant I was within a gnat’s crotchet of achieving my target but I needed another 6 minutes to dredge my LOI, WRASSE, from the distant recesses of my brain. I don’t have a problem with ‘coached’ as anagrist in the sense of ‘trained ‘.
10. Effin’ Euphemia was very elusive, but I finally caught her. Must’ve seen WRASSE before, as I didn’t have to WRASSlE over it long.
11. gave me pause for thought at 23ac but I was home in 29 minutes.

    FOI 27ac LITOTES a ‘Python Word’ CLOCKWISE

    LOI 25ac CAVIL

    COD 14dn UNEXPECTED

    WOD 22dn WRASSE a fish that only lives in these waters

    Some wise biffing, for a change.

12. With VEGA I thought i could tell
    This crossword was going quite well,
    Then what did they do,
    With the very last clue?
    A PARTRIDGE! O clucking hell!
13. I was just glad to finish with all correct today after far too many failures last week. I thought this felt fairly tricky for a Monday with WRASSE, LITOTES and in particular my LOI ORATORIAL taking some teasing out. EFFICIENT for smart reminded me that my wife’s head teacher (my wife being a teacher, not a pupil) recently said that staff should be working smarter rather than harder. That really got her goat!
14. A solid 50 minutes, mostly held up on the left-hand-side where I should have spotted CLOCKWISE sooner, which would have helped with both CRUMBS and ORATORICAL, and where both CHARCOAL and CACHE took me longer than they should’ve done, too. LOI the unknown fish. FORTUNA? I almost put in PROMULA before I thought better of it. Clearly not too awake today…
15. Where many a king has gone
    And many a king’s Daughter…

    25 mins. Nice one. No dramas. Eyebrow twitching imperceptibly at ‘governed’.
    Thanks setter and U.

16. < 14′, pleasing. WRASSE LOI, but that was the first time I looked at it. On ROUND TRIP, I can see the round/bullet, but not how the clue works. Rather liked CAVIL.

    Thanks ulaca and setter.

17. 14:02. Held up by failing to spell DE RIGUEUR correctly at first and bunging in DEVIL for 25A, which at least fit the wordplay. I thought that definition was a bit of a stretch. Doh! NHO anyone called Euphemia so efficient was a bit of a biff. COD to CRUMBS.
18. Not your average Monday for me, as I trickled in a bit over 20 minutes. ORATORICAL was my last in, looking from the def and checkers not a little like another LITOTES type word I might not know. Sorted when I wrote it out horizontally.

    WRASSE was my easy biff to 22 (what else?) but I agonised over the parsing for an unfeasibly long time.

    I thought we might have another fish at 25, the hitherto unknown KAVER (sixth of shrunken, aver/state), obviously related to the sturgeon and its roe.

    Lots to like, even if it made me feel a bit dense.

    Edited at 2020-09-14 08:05 am (UTC)

19. Needed three attempts to spell DE RIGUEUR, and even then I wasn’t sure – the U after the G has never lodged itself in my brain. Hadn’t heard of WRASSE either, so I’m slightly surprised to come here and find I got them both right. LITOTES vaguely remembered from previous crosswords but nowhere else.

    FOI Clockwise
    LOI Wrasse
    COD Efficient

20. I seem to have done quite well on this at 25mins. I found I did know WRASSE but not CAVIL. Couldn’t really be anything else though. So a DWCW (difficult word clued well). Loved your rhyme a-n! LOI PLEAT, which took a while to see. Thank you ulaca and setter.
21. 29 minutes. I have a new morning routine which now involves escorting DAUGHTER and puppy on their walk first, CLOCKWISE round the local football pitch. I too wasted time being prescient before EFFICIENT. I’ve always wondered what EFFIE was short for. That’s actually the name of one of the local dogs. From now on, she’s getting her full name when we meet. Nothing else unknown today. LOI was RUNE. COD to UNEXPECTED, which of course I didn’t expect. Nice Monday puzzle. Thank you U and setter.
22. 18.03. Thought I’d be bottom of the class for this puzzle but seems others also found it less than straightforward.

    FOI Ugandan, LOI cache. Would have been quicker if I’d known immediately how to spell de rigueur but got there in the end which made wrasse much more obvious.

    Liked crumbs for my COD. Very Enid Blyton or maybe Richmal Crompton?

23. On the easy side for me. Knew all of the vocabulary. Liked LITOTES but COD to PARTRIDGE. Glad astronawt missed the duck and the nesting eagles.
24. 10:21. Nice start to the week, although I can’t quite get the clue for ROUND TRIP to work.
    I read Ulysses at university, and enjoyed it. I made extensive use of Harry Blamires’ New Bloomsday Book, which tells you what on earth is going on as you read. I think I’d have struggled without it.

    Edited at 2020-09-14 08:54 am (UTC)

25. My FOI was INNER, followed by UGANDAN. These soon led to KEDGEREE and CLOCKWISE, but the the NW failed to yield anything else until much later. When EFFICIENT finally emerged from the mists, I was reminded of the barmaid at one of my haunts many years ago, The Maiden Over at Pelaw near Gateshead. Always wondered what Effie was short for! Saw DE RIGUEUR quickly, but spent a while getting the spelling right. The anagrist helped. DAUGHTER and PARTRIDGE took a while. I once caught a WRASSE off the rocks at Newquay, but hesitated before putting it in, as the parsing was elusive. Got it eventually. I eventually returned to the NW and CRUMBS was my LOI. 26:36. Thanks setter and U.
26. Though more a pussycat here in the making than the tyger. Quite glad, oddly enough, to have the rather useless bit of information as to Effie’s provenance. I think she appears in Krapp’s Last Tape and somehow adds a nice touch now to the old loner’s past. I suppose if efficient appears neither an efficient nor a smart synonym for smart then it appears it is. 23’25.
27. An afghani is not an Asian, but a coin. Just saying.
    1. You have a point but dictionary.com recognises the usage: Afghani. a native or inhabitant of Afghanistan. Wiki has it too but adds that it is considered improper.
       1. It isn’t in the ‘usual’ sources: Collins, Lexico, Chambers. I think we’ve had this discussion before.
          1. Valid point re my posting above, however on further investigation it’s in Collins printed editions. I’m not sure I can recall Collins online not having something that’s in the printed version.

             Edited at 2020-09-14 10:33 am (UTC)

             1. Actually it is in the online Collins, in the entry for Afghan.
                1. Thanks. That’s a relief, I thought I was going to have to go back to buying new editions as they come out!
28. We make a mean little kedgeree here once every couple of weeks. Lovely stuff.
    1. I remember a column in The Times many years ago by Godders in which he lamented the difficulty of finding a good kedgeree in London. The chef at the Savoy then offered to step into the breach.
29. ….and then had a titanic struggle with ORATORICAL. A definite candidate for “Most Convoluted Clue of the Year”.

    If your parents were sufficiently sadistic to name you Euphemia, a pet name would be DE RIGUEUR. This one took a while to emerge, especially as “smart = efficient” seemed a stretch (my friend has a “Smart Meter” and reckons it’s not as efficient as is claimed).

    My penultimate answer was UGANDAN, which I didn’t spot for far too long.

    WRASSE was a very near miss for COD.

    FOI BIOMETRIC
    LOI CRUMBS
    COD PARTRIDGE
    TIME 11:25

30. CLOCKWISE my FOI. this setter was nicely consistent with the diverting nature of the literals, for example ORATORICAL where I failed to separate the test and the ‘of speech’.
    Today is my birthday, and I completed this in Ann’s Pantry in Moelfre, Anglesey. Perfection!
31. CRUMBS I see Penfold hasn’t clocked in yet. CLOCKWISE reminded me of a favourite movie of my children when they were small – the one where John Cleese says it’s not the despair, it’s the hope that’s so unbearable. Same as others a bit puzzled by ROUND TRIP. And PARTRIDGE reminded me that when I was a little kid I thought the Twelve Days of Christmas had a particular kind of tree called a “partry-chinnapair”. The seamstress in me quibbles that a PLEAT and a gather are not one and the same. 16.29
32. Didn’t get too hung up on anything today, so a good time to start the week.

    COD: PARTRIDGE, nicely hidden definition.

    Friday’s answer: Zorro inhabited Los Angeles, OK it was a pueblo rather than a city back then.

    Today’s question: can you think of a word other than kedgeree where the syllables have the same rhythm as the Morse Code for K? And yes, I once created a whole alphabet of such things, which has helped me learn them all.

    1. One of six letters comes to mind
       1. That was KAOLIN by the way
    2. Aussie icon, a rank outsider to get beaten with two ducks (8)
33. 25:11
34. I can’t see any problem with the clue for Round Trip. If we take ‘complete journey’ as the definition, then ‘bullet train’ with the question mark is just a clever bit of punning. No need to over-complicate things.

    Edited at 2020-09-14 12:29 pm (UTC)

    1. Could “complete journey” be the definition AND the wordplay, with the bullet train as a kicker? Complete=round (off) journey=trip
       1. I remain convinced that the setter intended (a) complete journey to be the definition. Like I said, let’s not over-complicate things.
35. It’s Monday but this puzzle had bits of Tuesday and Wednesday in it. I started with VEGA and then could not progress much beyond the SW. But a coffee after lunch helped and using a lot of crossword knowledge (e.g. LUM came to mind immediately and the various Eyrie words) I got down to my last two PARTRIDGE and the fish. I had noted WRASSE as a possible but hadn’t seen the parsing till a final look.
    Good fun. I tried GIN in the American TV broadcasters before rum. I liked CLOCKWISE amongst others. Just over an hour. David
36. 33 minutes, but DNF, as I also had FORTUNA, my LOI after an obviously too peremptory alphabet trawl. Annoying, since as soon as I saw the pink squares I knew what the right answer would have been. But I was thinking FORTUNA = FORTUNE, which is something like one’s life’s plan, and I was thinking of the wrong Perth and convinced myself NUT must be Aussie slang and so could be right. But I do know LUM, mostly from devouring Jean Redpath songs, so quite annoying.
37. 20:34. An engaging puzzle. Nothing in the top half on a first pass, fortunately the bottom half was more forgiving. Ex pec Ted made me laugh. I’ve come across a Napoleon wrasse while diving before.

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