Times 27,797: The Lord Giveth Letter Ms, And The Lord Taketh Away

81 comments on “Times 27,797: The Lord Giveth Letter Ms, And The Lord Taketh Away”

1. DECRYPT took a long time to see. I was half-convinced that one of the checkers had to be incorrect since I couldn’t fit a word at all. When there are several 3-letter answers I often start with them since they are usually easy. Not today. Only HEN was obvious. I suspect that the kind of people who know all the antelopes and obscure poets might not have heard of HEX. It should actually be sexadecimal (not mixing Latin and Greek) but IBM apparently decided that was too risqué.
2. I used to know some of this stuff – now I can’t even tell Peter Wimsey’s valet from an obese schoolboy. Oh, well. I did solve it, but I didn’t understand half of it. Most of them, I biffed from the literal, but some had to be laboriously constructed from the cryptic. I took me about 15 minutes before I was able to enter more than a few tentative letters, so my time of 57 minutes was not really that bad.

   I really liked the cryptic for Battersea, which I really needed since I didn’t see how the literal could work. However, locus was my last one in, a really deceptive clue, and a good way to finish.

   1. well, apparently C896 relates to the hangul syllable jwalm, which Google translates as a less polite version of “faeces” – I don’t think I’m on the right tack here?
      Was there any significance to your Subject?
3. No proper time, with a couple of brief naps, but well over the hour. 9a was my LOI, which I parsed as ‘people who do this’ as being cryptic crossword solvers who ‘probably won’t’ stop doing cryptic crosswords, ie they won’t DE CRYPT. No, doesn’t really work does it and I’m sure is not the intended parsing.

   A bit too much of a struggle to be really enjoyable, but amongst lots of clever clues I did like the ‘you could be in the doghouse there?’ and misleading ‘Perhaps some tests’ defs.

   Thanks to setter and blogger

4. I wondered if The Times might go for an online competition this year and indeed they have. News appeared yesterday in the crossword articles section of the club site that it will be taking place on Saturday November 21. Being a virtual competition I look forward to everyone here taking part!
   1. An excellent, encouraging, piece. I’ll be there.
   2. Nice idea, I will certainly be competing!
   3. I’m pleased to see it going on but it’s not for me for all my usual reasons plus the additional one of my being unable to solve puzzles on-line. I can only work on paper.
   4. Thanks for the spot. I’ll be there. No drinks at The George, though, alas.
      1. Hopefully extra drinks next year 🙂
   5. I hope they put asterisks next to the winner(s) name(s) in the record book. If The George isn’t part of the show, it doesn’t seem as if it could possibly be a fully authenticated win.
5. I felt very much on the wavelength with this puzzle, it being one of those occasional ones where I admire the cleverness of the clues but at the same time they don’t hold me up for too long.

   I thought that DECRYPT was simply an insult aimed at computing nerds but I see now it was cleverer than that. HUMPING was a strong contender for my COD until I finished with CADET. I thought I was going to have to throw it in unparsed and hope for the best then just saw it before submitting. An excellent reverse hidden.

6. I threw in my last few at 53 minutes, having got a bit tired of trying to work out why they were the answer, so thanks to V for explaining it all. I enjoyed most of this, especially as it was hard due to the cluing rather than from obscure GK, but it was a bit above my pay-grade, I think!

   Edited at 2020-10-16 06:28 am (UTC)

7. Excellent puzzle today, with well-hidden hidden and complex anagrams to be spotted.

   How does one pronounce ALFONSO? The Cockney semi would be ‘arf’.

   Thanks for parsing DECRYPT, my LOI. POI was TUCKBOX, which was in my mind as two words, plus I was fixated on ‘postal order’, which doesn’t quite fit the clue.

   21′ 55″, thanks verlaine and setter.

   1. I think by convention the cockney thing refers only to the dropping of the ‘h’ from the word ‘half’ and supplying letters for wordplay, so it’s not a homophone indicator as such.
8. Much of what vinyl1 said applied to me too and I also agree with bletchleyreject that it was a bit too much of a struggle to be enjoyable.

   I missed some of the parsing, but only HEX, DECRYPT and the ‘uncle’ bit of 22ac remained unexplained when I eventually finished for the night. ‘LOCUS{t} place/stripper’ has come up many a time before but I was still very slow to spot it. I also knew ‘Uncle Remus’ because I read the stories as a child and he has come up here previously, but I didn’t get beyond the founders of Rome on that clue.

   Edited at 2020-10-16 06:14 am (UTC)

9. It’s tricky to know where to start
   With quite so much joy in my heart
   Let me join the ovation
   It’s time for CELEBRATION
   Our setter has matered the art
10. Hard but very fair I thought. A great tussle with satori moments aplenty and no grumpiness when difficult answers finally revealed themselves. Thank you clever setter.

    V, I think 19a is THEN (at the time) losing T for tonne. Thanks for explaining the brilliant DECRYPT, which like others I entered with hope not confidence, and for the excellent blog as always.

    Edited at 2020-10-16 07:20 am (UTC)

    1. Your parsing kind of works but you wouldn’t normally see indirect abbreviations like this. Since wHEN doesn’t require one it’s the more conventional interpretation.
       1. I see that, but I’m another who thought it was THEN minus the T(on) while thinking hm, we don’t usually get indirect abbreviations. THEN worked better for me for “at the time” than WHEN, and this puzzle was quirky enough to tell convention where it could go.
          1. Fair enough. To me ‘at the time Bunter was written, most people would have heard of Brer Rabbit’ makes sense and ‘when’ works as a substitute, but I’m not going to begrudge anyone their preferred parsing!
11. 34 minutes with LOI HUMPING, once I finally abandoned PEN for HEN. There’s a word whose meaning has changed over the years. Either way, a good work-out. We did Physical Training and not Therapy in those unenlightened days when I was at school, V. And you weren’t allowed to decry it. COD to BAPTIST. Nice puzzle. Thank you V and setter.
    1. Training! That’s the word I was looking for, but I was in the throes of a cold. By my day it was always PE – the train had left the station.
12. A most enjoyable struggle.
    I parsed ‘hen’ in the same way as pleasuredome8, and had the same inability to parse ‘decrypt’ as others.
    Like robrolfe, I also could not get ‘postal order’ out of my mind, and like vinyl1, I wondered whether the setter was delivering a curve ball with Lord Peter’s valet @2d.
    Good start to the day.
13. 15:37. I really enjoyed this, perhaps because I seem to have been (relatively) on the wavelength at 1.3v. I started very slowly indeed but the downs proved easier than the acrosses.
    Too many great clues to mention. The one I didn’t like much was 9ac DECRYPT but that was because I didn’t understand it in the same way as pootle.
    I came close to bunging in HUMMING from what I thought was the definition but fortunately persevered. I could see that ping-pong would have to be involved somehow but it took me a while to see how.
    Thanks very much setter & v, have a good Friday everyone. I’m meeting a friend for lunch and we’ve decided to make an afternoon of it, since it is the last time we will be able to meet in a restaurant for a few weeks.
    1. Sadly, I bunged in HUMMING, intending to go back and think about it, but forgot and left it there:-)
       1. There but for the grace of god 😉
       2. I did the same – thought about Honking, Ponging and Humming, entering the latter when I saw Remus – never considered Humping.
          Blast it – means DNF.
14. 40 mins with yoghurt, granola, banana etc.
    After 30 I had worked my way clockwise back to the NW so gave it the extra 10 including puzzling over the excellent DecryPT.
    Great crossword. Mostly I liked G Utter Press and the Baptist dunking.
    Thanks setter and V.
15. Not on the wavelength today, particularly with the left-hand edge. Good clues though.

    COD: DECRYPT, took ages to see.

    Yesterday’s answer: The Plough is either the Big Dipper or in lower case, plow, in the US.

    Today’s question: iridium is the second-densest metal, what is the densest?

    1. Umm-I-so dont know! The dentist’s metal is amalgam.
    2. Nerdishly, I also know the answer, but it’s not easy to clue:

       Heavyweight possum disappearing, oddly I hesitate to follow (6)

       1. Second in command is impeded without furnace smelting metal (6)
    3. Housemaid and mummy often go for Heavy Metal (6)
16. 21:16. I was slow to get going on this with HEN FOI not even parsed correctly (I had (T)HEN, with T = tonne for weight, which at least works), but I enjoyed it a lot. LOI LOCUS. Failed to parse DECRYPT. COD to SYNAGOGUE.
17. What a magnificent crossword. Fantastically consistent clue level. Tricky, challenging and so cleverly structured that it didn’t have to resort to the obscure. Thank you so much oh great setter… we are not worthy…

    Edited at 2020-10-16 08:59 am (UTC)

18. Friday workout, all is fair.
19. Thanks for explaining decrypt. Great clue. Very happy with my time, but I have to admit I rather chanced it on the biffing front.
20. DNF as I had problems in the SE marshlands. I had 19dn as PONGING with 19ac as PEN!? And at 22ac I had REMUS – which is why I like to work on paper – as per Jack.
    On-line Championships! Pink Square Hell! – whatever next?

    FOI 8ac LOCUS

    COD 9ac DECRYPT

    WOD 20ac BATTERSEA

    Where does Kevin get to on Fridays? Cricket at Battersea?

    I have just started re-watching ‘The Prisoner’. I believe the ‘Penny-Farthing’ comes from Mytchett.

21. Did it say if it is open to only crossword club member, or Times digital subscribers as well, or everybody?
    1. “The contest is open to all subscribers with access to the Crossword Club, and there is no entry fee. If you know of any non-subscribers who might like to compete, there is currently a “first month free” deal running on our digital subscription page: thetimes.co.uk/subscribe/digital”
       1. Thank-you
22. … a fairly accurate description of a proportion of a good number of my puzzle-sessions. Not this one however, where after a slowish start I trundled along contentedly enough, with one or two wrong turnings but several bursts of applause for the setter. Reached the line in 35’26. I’m bound to say I rather hope the East End/Cockney convention regarding aspirates itself drops away at some point. Good old Bunter. I too couldn’t get something about a postal order out of my mind.
23. Another fine Friday offering which encouraged you to linger over the wordplay rather than hoping for the best. So BAPTIST I wrote in but couldn’t see the play so scratched it until it couldn’t be anything else and forced recognition of the clever wordplay.
    I had BOARD at 11a, though towards the end of my solve when the NW corner finally began to fall. Especially with little brother and a probable reverse offered the B in 1d. All sorted in the end with that fantastic reverse hidden my last in.
    Nearly 28 minutes’ sublime crosswording.
24. That was tough, mostly because I was way off the wavelength. Trying to hurry, so failed to see the superb cryptics in lots of the clues: decrypt, hex (I was going to complain it was numerical, not alphabetical), the Roman Remus, de-crease. Liked LOCUS especially, where locus is probably half of a Latin legal phrase I don’t know – it’s a long time since I’ve read Perry Mason books full of res gestae, habeas corpus, etc. Nowadays about all you see is in camera.
25. V says in his preamble that he had an incorrect BOARD at 11ac. Nobody else seems to have mentioned it. I’d say that it wasn’t incorrect, just didn’t fit. A perfectly good answer. Not fair.

    Otherwise very good. No complaints. Took ages.

26. One error. Humming. 25:04.

    COD. I agree with our blogger. Decrypt followed by Humming.

    1. Me too. As I never worked out decryPT (9a) I just shrugged over the HUMMING (19d). Doh!
       Andyf
27. For those, like me, who may be wondering about 6a, I found this online under ‘locus standi’: ‘the right or capacity to bring an action or to appear in a court.’

    May be what the setter is referring to.

    Like the Villan, I biffed humming, which was a pity given the excellence of the puzzle and my creditable time of 35 minutes.

    1. Locus delicti is the more likely
       1. In loco parentis, unless that just means you have mad parents (everybody does, of course)…
28. 45:31
    Took ages but got through it. Thanks v.
29. 27.40 but stupid mistake of humming rather than humping. Never mind, really good puzzle and very enjoyable. Pleased to get a decent time to what I thought was a challenging offering even if I did fall at the last.
30. a slow and steady slog, but got there in the end in 47:30.
    Couldn’t decrypt CADET , which was last in. Never saw the reverse hidden – thanks for revealing it Verlaine. Doh!
31. Also had HUMMING at 19d, bah. Took me an age to see CADET even though it’s a French word doh! Not helped by having entered ENCRYPT at 9ac. I figured that people who « encrypt » won’t be working out the answer as they have set it, if you see what I mean. A toughie I thought. Thank you V as ever and setter, I think.
32. And me:-(
33. Another HUMMING here, despite my reservations, I forgot to revisit it. Otherwise all done in 40:45 with 5 minutes spent trying to see the second definition in HEX, and failing, despite a career in IT, and my first thought being to try and fit A-TO-F into the answer. Doh! Thanks setter and V.
34. Even with half of the answers in after an hour, it was still too much of a struggle.

    Definitely off the wavelength today.

    Rather dispiriting and completely unenjoyable.

    There can’t be much satisfaction for the setter if 99% of the readership aren’t going to have a sporting chance of finishing in a reasonable time.

35. In the answer EBB being WAV{E} + B(ye) + B(ye)
    is B an abbreviation for bye? as it doesn’t seem to be in my Chambers as such.
    1. Good point. I noticed that whilst solving then forgot about it. It’s likewise not there in my Chambers so I’m not sure how it works.
    2. Cricket scorecard abbreviation, similarly LB is leg bye.
       1. Of course! Thanks Phil. Feels like it should be a “leg by” but indeed it is with an e.
36. This wasn’t a crossword for rushing as there were too many biffable answers where the wonderful clueing was lost on me. LOI CADET NHO the little brother reference.
37. I gave this a few minutes and was uninspired. Reading the blog I’m grateful not to have wasted any more time.
38. Let me count the ways…

    I’m pretty chuffed to have finished this in 43:49. Even saw that PING should go on the END of HUM, rather than the originally entered MING.

    However, much of the wordplay passed me by including the hidden CADET and the every-other-letter ENNIS (dim or what), but there were some lovely aha moments too LOCUS, BAPTIST, SYNAGOGUE, BATTERSEA.

    I normally don’t bother with the 15×15 (being mainly a QC solver) if I look at the SNITCH and see it’s >110 or so. Had a bit of time today, so put my head down. I must be getting better, practice and perserverance.

39. ….and was glad to see it off quickly once I’d opted to biff my way through it (thanks to Verlaine for all EIGHT of them !).

    I read all the across clues, but having rejected “board” the only ink in the grid was PAPAL. I picked up gradually once my FOI led me to a few others. If they were all like this I wouldn’t bother.

    FOI GUTTER PRESS
    LOI CADET
    COD BAPTIST
    TIME 13:57

40. At 2.30am my time? *sigh* I’ll be there!
41. Did anybody else sabotage their chances by confidently entering “RESOLVE” on the first pass? I was even quite chuffed with the reasoning – if you resolve an issue, say, you are unlikely to try to re-solve it. On the plus side I certainly didn’t have to feel sorry for Verlaine: thanks for the enlightenment. Jeffrey
    1. Yes, me. And felt similarly pleased until the crossers showed it to be wrong. Got it right eventually (with same incorrect reasoning as others), and having read the correct parsing in the blog, I think it’s a brilliant clue. Rupert
    2. Same here…seemed OK, but the correct answer is much better
42. Not on the wavelength, but that’s by the by, this was a fine and fair challenge. Sopeaking of byes, for a supposed cricketer, it took me an inexcusable time to work out that 5dn was EBB (and definitely not EEE).
    1. EEE? Bye gum!
       1. Back in the day, there was no internet, and no blogs, we had to solve t’ puzzle wi’ a blunt pencil, kids today don’t know they’re born. P.S. I feel it’s a bit unfair to handicap you by making you solve in the middle of the night, though it might bring our times (slightly) closer.
          1. Blunt pencil ? Bloody luxury !
43. Took ages but worth the effort. This puzzle was a delight. I’m in a mad rush and haven’t got time to read all the previous comments so I don’t know whether 5d was explained. Is BB the equivalent of Bye-Bye? 51 minutes. Ann
    1. See philjordan’s reply to keepitsharp and pootle above – think abbreviation for cricketing byes on a scorecard.
       1. Thanks. I should have known it would be cricket! A black hole in my general knowledge – although I have learned a bit from these puzzles.
44. DNF. 40 mins of toil but my brain was pulverised into submission by this brute and I entered humming without really thinking about it, the grey matter having pretty much thrown in the towel by that point. Tough as old boots.
45. This made for an enjoyable rainy Friday afternoon. I was another Board, and only knowing Mervyn Bunter it took a while to get the NW dusted down. I liked the Baptist, and there are about eight lined up for second favourite. Thanks verlaine; thanks setter. And thanks ed – more like this, please
46. DNF in 1 hour 4 minutes, but one of my two mistakes was a typo (HEADBOAED) and the other (HUMMING) all too real. But I wouldn’t have stood a chance with that — I just supposed HUMMING would be too distracting at a game of table tennis and left it at that. Lots of really obscure stuff, so I’m glad I got as far as I did. Never heard of LOCUS standi, but in German Lokus is a somewhat dated euphemism for toilet, so I assumed that’s where you could strip legally and for some strange reason this obscure term might have migrated to English without my being aware of it.
47. A very fine crossword, as the 80ish comments attest.
    I am another one in the (T)HEN camp for 19ac. I don’t believe it flouts any “conventions,” either, not that I care about them

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