Times 27,791: Still Not Quite A “Vintage” Blogger, Then

71 comments on “Times 27,791: Still Not Quite A “Vintage” Blogger, Then”

1. I put in RED ROSE DAY (NHO, but NHO RED NOSE DAY either; not to mention Des O’Connor). I spent some time looking for an X (fourth in proximity) in 6d. Never did notice the 2d meaning of Chirac’s statement. Given how much biffing I did, I’m surprised I only got one wrong. Happy birthday, V. Now I’m going to look up Rocky Marciano.
2. That was hard, especially in the top right. I had no idea what was going on with SUEDE, I was still trying to make some sort of anagram. I didn’t really get what C’EST LA GUERRE had to do with Chirac’s resignation. Took far too long to get PARNASSUS, especially as there is one in San Francisco. I never thought of Des O’Connor until after I’d already got RED NOSE DAY (which started long after I left UK but I know of it) and reverse-engineered the wordplay. Happy to be all correct in the end. And I’d never heard of SALUKI and I was busy trying to get OVID or SHAW in without any luck.

   Edited at 2020-10-09 02:30 am (UTC)

   1. The hill is Mt. Sutro, although there’s a Parnassus Heights district on the north side. There are some SALUKI fanciers in my neck of the woods; I sometimes come across a couple being walked. Beautiful dogs, and beautifully behaved, unlike so many of the ugly little yippy things one finds here. I always think of hounds as short-haired, so SALUKI took a while.
      1. Irish wolfhounds, staghounds, deerhounds, Borzois, Afghan hounds all hairy. Saluki known, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. I would have guessed short-haired, I have a (fawn) greyhound and have had random strangers asking if she was a saluki.
         1. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one, and having just gone to Wikipedia I see that my memory has lengthened their hair; which is wonderfully silky.
      2. I guess I’m thinking of Parnassus Heights then. That’s where UCSF Parnassus is, and the UCSF Medical Center on Parnassus Avenue. Anyway, that’s quite enough that I should have got 4A without any problem even if it’s not technically the name of the hill.
3. Indeed. Very hard, over 40 minutes or more than 200 on the nitch. No idea with suede, though I remember supersede from getting it wrong a few weeks ago. Also had no idea what the Chirac clue was about, but correctly guessed the French words. Looking it up the second half might be a cryptic definition – not resignation from his post, but being resigned to things going badly. Urban Dictionary of all places tells us: “This French phrase of resignation gained widespread use during World War II. It provided the universal excuse for everything that was broken, no longer functioned, was unavailable or could not be accomplished.” Chirac included to indicate that it was French.
   Top left was last in, blank except for WWW across and -down at 1 dn until the last few minutes when it came in a rush.
   Some very good clueing: 8-letter hidden, two 9-letter words entirely backwards. Very wordy clues, though, which I always find harder, often so many possibilities and no obvious place to get a foothold.

   Edited at 2020-10-09 03:10 am (UTC)

4. …but all correct, at least. Never heard of red nose day or terylene, couldn’t parse suede, didn’t see the cryptic for milk round, didn’t bother with the cryptic of for goodness sake, but there you go.

   I did enjoy chaff, a very clever clue – suede, IMO, was too clever and bordered on unfair.

5. As usual, very slow (a little bit longer than plusjeremy above) but finally made it. I couldn’t see where CHAFF came from and mis-parsed my LOI SUEDE, thinking it may be something to do with removing ‘per’ from ‘persuade’ and having ‘fuzzy’ as a homophone indicator – obviously (now) incorrect. Otherwise I enjoyed working out the parsing of some of the more difficult ones like RED NOSE DAY, PARNASSUS and TOP SECRET. I did know the ‘Hound’ at 8d, but had never heard of the canine vulpine creature at 11a, which was my new word/term for the day.

   Many happy returns to Verlaine

6. Just a whisker over my target time of 92 minutes.

   What I like about the chewy puzzles is I’m rarely confused when all is said and done. Obviously there was a fair bit of General Knowledge I looked up after the fact but it’s not a big ask to assume that there’s someone named DES O’Connor, for example.

   I also appreciated having the valuable lesson beaten into me that, if you have a good sense of what the wordplay is suggesting, keep pushing on it until you get the answer. I saw YONDER within maybe 30 seconds of opening the puzzle, but it was at least an hour before I seriously considered trying to make it work, and then out popped the answer almost immediately. Incidentally, kevingregg, I believe we have Red Nose Day at Duane Reade / Walgreens here in New York. I first learned of it from The Office (UK).

   Finally, thanks to verlaine for explaining CHAFF. The only one I didn’t understand.

   Edited at 2020-10-09 04:32 am (UTC)

   1. 92 minutes is a very precise target!
      As well as remembering to push on when you think you know how the clue works, you have to remember NOT to do this sometimes, because you can waste endless time pursuing the wrong idea.
      1. True, although my problem is more that I often don’t give the right approach a fair shot.
         1. Fair enough. I fall into the other trap more often but part of learning how to solve is learning your own weaknesses! One of mine is spelling and I fear that on that front it’s too late for me…
7. I realised this was going to be tricky as I couldn’t get started for a while and my first one in was C’EST LA GUERRE, so when I finished in 47 minutes I didn’t think I had done too badly.

   Two or three remained unparsed, not that I tried particularly hard after I had found the answers. PARNASSUS, because I NHO Susan Sontag (have I missed anything?); TOP SECRET, because I can never remember the hours of prayer thingies, though I spotted the anagram; SUEDE because I wouldn’t have thought of ‘supersede’ as ‘set aside’ although I see it’s the third definition in Collins.

   I seem to remember when PUG for ‘boxer’ came up before there was some dissent in the ranks about them not being the same breed of dog, without realising that PUG is short for ‘pugilist’.

   Edited at 2020-10-09 05:04 am (UTC)

8. I did wonder if this was one of those days when I come here to find I’ve been completely off the wavelength and everyone else has breezed through the puzzle, so it was reassuring to find this was actually difficult.

   I was pleasantly surprised to get C’EST LA GUERRE because I rarely spot apostrophised answers and I only vaguely know the phrase. I’m not that keen on the clue as if you don’t know the phrase there’s no way of getting at it. The clue for SUEDE was tortuous so thanks to V for sorting that one out and a happy birthday to you.

   1. To be fair I got it without knowing the phrase or who Chirac is! I’m rather ignorant in that way.

      I did suspect GUERRE, and then when I had more crossers, C’EST LA seemed fitting. That’s about the extent of my French.

9. Happy birthday, V!

   I think 59 minutes was quite respectable for this one, especially given my handicap of a hangover.

   I have read a bit of On Photography by Susan Sontag, but it seemed a bit too heavy for this happy snapper, so I didn’t get too far in. But at least I’d heard of her. Mind you, I’ve also heard of Des O’Connor, but apparently he’s fully eclipsed in my brain by Sinéad…

   Anyway. A slow start from 4d PLUG, followed by a slow middle including the enjoyable definition of 14 WORLD WIDE WEB and a slow end where I finally figured out the excellent 1a CHAFF and then managed to come up with 26a SUEDE without being able to work out the wordplay. Quite the workout!

10. Shatter’d and sunder’d.
    Then they rode back, but
    Not the six hundred.

    Well I guess Alfred was struggling for yet another rhyme for ‘Hunderd’.
    DNF after 30 mins with 2 and a bit incomplete: C’est, Sunder, Suede.
    They are poor clues.
    Thanks setter and V.

11. A chance for me to bring in Tennyson’s subject again. Despite having studied French for several years as an adult, I did not know the meaning of the clued phrase. Spent ten minutes trying to justify it, and SUEDE also. Am still not persuaded (and I spent some time deconstructing that word also).

    <26′, thanks verlaine and setter.

12. After an hour I had three left and came back with the ridiculously cluede 26ac SUEDE.AN IKEAN tragedy!

    Then of course 15dn GRAPHITE appeared leaving me with 11ac DOG _O_ so sly male = (you old) DOG + (bowel) function = COS or POO(H)! DOG COS!? But I have chivalrously steered many a young lady round the DOG POO. Although I’ve heard it can lucky. Thus a well earned DNF

    FOI 13dn VINTAGE CAR (Bugatti)

    COD 17ac as I really thought JACK could be the first word – I know!!

    WOD DES O’CONNER the ex- Skeggy (Ingoldmels) Butlins’ Red Coat and household pet. Dear me! He had clean gone from my memory. But he is still with us (so he should indeed not be here?) and a multi millionaire to boot!(b.1932) Wow! Happy 89th Birthday for 12 January 2021.

    I note that Verlaine was born in 1844 so that makes you
    a bit older than Des at 176! A belated happy birthday dear old thing!

    1. Unspammed. Watch those spaces after full stops!
13. I was trying to add an image of a rather nice roadster. I saw that somebody (Pip?) had added an image of the Clangers on the moon.How is that done?
    1. ‘Twas me, and it was Pluto. I took a chance, copied my picture and clicked paste. To my surprise, it faithfully created the necessary htmlspeak gobbledegook which then converted into the picture on submission.
       I’m not sure we should make it a habit – takes up a lot of space.
       1. I think it requires higher level posting rights so may be restricted to bloggers. I certainly hope so as I would hate this place to become like a certain other crossword blog where the number of posted images make my eyes bleed.
          1. That must be true, as it surprised me that it worked at all. I half expected to be reprimanded for cluttering up the page with a picture, and I think I would agree with you that it would be a shame if anyone else but me did it.
             1. You’ve got that right. We’re not going to encourage it, and were certainly not going to allow the commenters to do it. We deal with words here, not pictures!

                1. No degenerate art hereabout then.
    2. What the **** are you all talking about?
       1. “I’ll have whatever they’re having…”
14. Have a super day. Crossword clues were a bit clunky and contrived to hit my sweet spot. But I got there in the end.
15. 25:23. I really enjoyed this, a thorough workout without anything that was too obscure or difficult for me at least, although a couple of them were perhaps borderline.
    I spent several minutes at the end first coming up with SUEDE as a potential answer and then working out why on earth it was right. I persevered because I really didn’t want a pink square after so much effort.
    I’ve never come across C’EST LA GUERRE. I wonder if it’s a uniquely English expression, like c’est la vie.
    Happy birthday, V!

    Edited at 2020-10-09 07:34 am (UTC)

16. Some delightful clues but also some creaking, heavy, tortuous ones that spoilt this for me. More than an hour to finish: I did have to check who Sontag was and biffed several with blank incomprehension.

    Thanks and happy birthday V; the blog has clarified RED NOSE DAY, SUNDER (grudgingly) and FOR GOODNESS SAKE – but SUEDE remains ridiculous.

    COD to the brilliant CHAFF. Thanks for that one, setter.

17. 30:22. LOI SUNDER. I had PARNASSUS from the definition but was wary of it as I couldn’t see the wordplay as I DNK Susan Sontag. I had no idea what Chirac said when he resigned so that was a guess too. I’d no idea how SUEDE worked, so thanks for explaining that. Otherwise all good and chewy. Happy Birthday V!

    Edited at 2020-10-09 07:48 am (UTC)

18. That was hard, particularly given my head already hurts after Frank Paul’s quiz last night. But glad to have finished it after agonising over SUNDER for the LOI.

    COD: SUEDE, cored not meaning just take the outside.

    Yesterday’s answer: the Swedish wind farm company is Vattenfall (Swedish for waterfall). Orsted was indeed formerly called DONG (Danish Oil and Natural Gas), which would probably have been a better question.

    Today’s question: if you take the letters of the Greek alphabet in English and sort each one so its letters are in alphabetical order (e.g. alpha becomes aahlp), which one is first?

    1. Character with bad back and bad circulation (6)
    2. You can’t fool me, alpha in alpha order is alpha alpha lambda phi!
       1. Thank you Angus, this was about the only bit of today’s puzzle and accessories that I actually got first time! Some commentators found this “difficult” – after 20 minutes I gave up with just 4 clues entered and “totally beyond me” was closer the mark.

          Retreats, sadder but wiser, to QC land…

          A good weekend to all
          Cedric

19. 78 minutes with LOI WAFT. C’EST LA GUERRE and SUEDE were partial or total biffs. I bought a Susan Sontag book once, The Volcano Lover, but didn’t get past the first chapter. Heavy stuff, literally and metaphorically. This puzzle was nearly in the same category, but I persevered. Nothing came easily at any stage. A very good puzzle though. Maybe the book would have been good too. Thank you V and setter.
20. I was pleased to squeeze in under 30 minutes for this fine cadeau d’anniversaire for our esteemed blogger, to whom be many more granted.
    It was the sort of puzzle where I hit on the solutions as if by magic, and stayed around long enough to work out the wonders of the highly creative and devious wordplay. Of course, I never did get the play for SUEDE (that’s why this community has Verlaine) and was mystified as to how to fit Stephen Sonntag into 4ac. I know, I know.
    Des O’Connor was mercilessly lampooned by the Morcambe and Wise show, and even turned up on Python as Des O’Boils. There’s fame for you.

    Edited at 2020-10-09 09:04 am (UTC)

21. Never got SUNDER even after an alphabet trawl. Put in SUEDE unparsed as I couldn’t really be bothered by the time I reached 26a. Stodgy.

    Edited at 2020-10-09 08:07 am (UTC)

22. Proper Friday job. Thanks and Happy Birthday to V, there were several here where I was right but couldn’t see how.
23. Well that was hard work.

    64 minutes but with a break of 15 or so. Very slow start and then held up in NE corner – LOI POLO-NECK because I’d assumed it started SOLO. Liked WWW although the clue is rather clunky.

24. Many thanks for explaining why several biffs turned out to be correct, V, and happy birthday! Kind regards, Bob K
25. Sad reminder of tragically early death of Perec.

    And thank you for explaining several of today’s answers, which I got right more by luck than by judgement. When I got to 40 minutes I just threw in some guesses and hoped for the best.

26. However I had to come here to confirm WAFT SUNDER and SUEDE as I wasn’t sure about any of them.
    My immediate thought seeing Sontag was that it must be a misprint, but it turns out that there is someone of that name that I NHO.
27. Glad to see I had plenty of company on SUEDE. Also I see I had company on c’est la via and c’est magnifique mais ce n’est pas la guerre. I knew of but always tried to ignore RED NOSE DAY in NYC because a local early morning tv person (now thoroughly disgraced) I particularly disliked went in for it in a big way. Sontag and her partner the photographer Annie Liebovitz used to live in Rhinebeck but we never saw them. Tough one this. 30.18
    1. Sontag and Liebovitz? Had no idea! One does learn something here (just about) every day. Sontag was certainly a Name to Conjure With among the US intelligentsia, at least back in the day. She certainly seemed to show up in the NYRev often enough, usually to my irritation (like Elizabeth Hardwick, among others).
       1. I’ve never read her stuff either Kevin but Liebovitz photos were always interesting. I was thinking of you this week because I just heard a very nice story about another Kevin. I think I’ll put it up on Discord.
          1. NHO Discord, just looked it up. Sounds like where the feculent orange mass should be directing his tweets.
             1. Oh, sorry – for some reason I thought you were on it. Will find another way. I do try not to think of you-know-who.
28. …just imagining Verlaine’s birthday-cake…to whom many many thanks for his tireless commitment and brilliant sharing. Not sure that I ever knew supersede meant that, however. Short on revelation here and more than once at a dead end but managed to circle round and stumble on to complete in somewhat over the hour. An exceptionally fine puzzle.
29. I never had a chance of parsing my biffed PARNASSUS, as, like Z8, I mistook STEPHEN SONDHEIM for the unknown Susan. I also totally failed to parse SUEDE, but I’m not going to beat myself up about that. I was sure that 17a was going to start with JE, and finish with something French for I’m off, but I eventually guessed the GUERRE bit and RED NOSE DAY gave me LA, and finally the penny dropped and I dropped the J. The NE held me up for ages, but it was GRAPHITE and SUEDE that were my last 2 in. That has certainly delayed my breakfast! Off for porridge grapes and bananas now. More like afternoon tea! 65:43, and relieved to get no pinkies! Thanks setter(except for the abominable SUEDE) and V. And a Happy Birthday to you:-)
30. More than 8 mins to get an answer on the board and then a slow build though I did enjoy it.

    No idea about Chirac’s statement – got the LA GUERRE bit from crossers but C’EST required a visit here being the last one in.

    My English teacher at school (Mr L Bonello) put together an anthology of poems for school under the title Mount Parnassus, which is the only way that mountain ever seems to come to mind for me.

31. C’est la guerre contre le setter! Eventually won in 66mins.

    Couldn’t parse LOI SUEDE, so thank you birthday boy.
    Got RED NOSE DAY after considering whether there might be a RED ROSE DAY in England, perhaps commemorating the Lancastrian dead in the wars of the roses? What’s the opposite of Ninja-turtling? – got the DAY part of 5d thinking the O’Connor link was via Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female on the US supreme court.

32. C’est la défaite
33. ….but today I’ve been afflicted by a bad attack of “sevendownitis”, having given up both this puzzle and the QC with that clue unsolved. Frankly, I just lost patience with both puzzles.

    Thanks to Verlaine for parsing PARNASSUS (NHO Susan Sontag), SUEDE (appalling clue), FOR GOODNESS SAKE (very apt), and for explaining the Chirac clue.

    No nomination for COD.

34. I thought this quite a classy effort. I got most of it done in reasonable time but got totally hung up on 26ac which eventually struck me (therefore?) as far too difficult..
35. Well, this had me beat hands down. After an hour I had ten answers in. Far too many NHOs, DNKs and DNUs (did not understand) . Tried again later but to no avail. Definitely way off the wavelength today. Bah. Happy b’day V.
36. Satisfyingly chewy and Friday-ish, as an appropriate birthday present for our blogger. I must join those confessing they had little idea why SUEDE was correct until coming here. And one of my quizzes this week had a round on people with the initials S.S., which is how I learned that Annie Leibowitz’s partner was not, after all, Simone Signoret.
37. 38.03 with an air of resignation to failure around 20 minutes- and then it all began to make sense. Well apart from suede which I biffed but would not have got otherwise in a month of sundays. Thanks blogger for the elucidation.

    FOI was call sign which pretty much illustrates the early travails. LOI suede. COD c’est la guerre- very witty.

    Back from a lovely break in Perthshire and just in time seeing the new regulations to come into force there. Pack liquid refreshment if you’re visiting Scottish hotels for the next two weeks!

38. Loved this one. At first read it offered no easy way in, but eventually we had the SE quadrant done and then the SW, NE and finally put in PARNASSUS knowing it was a sacred mountain, but no idea who Sontag is or why we’re talking “sounds like” German for Sunday. Knew Saki and the dog. Don’t quite see the ‘in books’ thing at 7d either, but put in SUNDER for split, so did manage to get it all done in 45 minutes or so while watching Nadal winning.
    Nice work Verlaine if you did this in ten or eleven minutes,such is the advantage of youthful brains and fast thinking.
39. All complete after 60m but cheated with suede. Not so keen on that clue but a enjoyable Friday workout. Thanks setter and V.
40. A brutal hour and 10 minutes of blood sweat and tears for this solver. Some overly wordy clues and in all a bit too far the wrong side of chewy for me to really enjoy the whole thing. Many happy returns, blogger.
41. Happy Birthday, verlaine! Glad you managed it in 12 1/2 minutes; it took me about an hour and a half (but under 92 minutes!) yet I did finish. LOI was SUEDE, which I understood nothing of apart from the fuzzy skin and stared at forever trying to make sure it couldn’t be anything else.
    The rest went in like cold treacle, too, my FOI being TERYLENE and everything else following in tiny bits and pieces. Nice puzzle.
42. I thought the ‘rule’ was no living person other than the queen. What’s the crack with Des? Sorry if I’ve got this wrong.
    1. Maybe both the setter and the editor assumed, well, he was active in the 50s and 60s, so…..
    2. and barely a month later…
43. I could only think of Donald among the O’Connors. What sort of name is Des?

    from Jeepyjay

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    two weeks ago, wisdomspiritualtemple@gmail.com I cannot say everything he has done for me my wife
    left me 3 years ago left with my kids I was going through online
    when I meant this wonderful man’s testimony online I decided to
    give it a try and my wife is back to me now and we ar1e happily
    married again cause is too much to put in writing all I can say is
    thank you very much am very happy .and does alot of spell
    including Love Spell
    Death Spell
    Money Spell
    Power Spell
    Success Spell
    Sickness Spell
    Pregnancy Spell
    Marriage Spell
    Job Spell
    Protection Spell
    Lottery Spell
    Court Case Spell
    Luck Spell etc. In case you need his help contact him on this email
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46. Any significance that TOP SECRET is RETROSPECT minus R ? Or is that designed to mislead.
    Clever stuff, all finished – but over a few days (sigh).

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