Times 27807 – It’s all Greek to me, but tant pis.

61 comments on “Times 27807 – It’s all Greek to me, but tant pis.”

1. I just went to the SNITCH, which stands at 73 at the moment, and was surprised to see so few solvers listed, when I noticed that 12, count ’em 12 solvers were eliminated for an error. I hope there isn’t another TONK somewhere. I indulged in an orgy of biffing, as there were lots of eminently biffable solutions: the P’s of HIPPOPOTAMUSES, for instance. My one DNK was IRONSIDES for the cavalry; I only knew of Cromwell. I also flung in CAUGHT IN THE NET (trapeze artist), but BOONDOCKS corrected that.
   1. I normally fall for whatever possible errors are on offer, so in the interests of research I just typed up my paper copy and submitted it, but apparently I was all-correct today. As U says, maybe there are some DE VINCIs, or possibly some EUMENEDIS?
2. Lots of Classical stuff, some plants I’d heard of, a bit of religion and an accessible American Indian. Well done, setter!

   All those getting one wrong, did they bung in De Vinci?

3. 46 minutes. I couldn’t disagree more that this is a puzzle suitable for QC-ers looking to make the transfer to the biggie. For a start there were two Greek words probably not known to most (I only got to them from wordplay), then there were IRONSIDES for ‘cavalry’, BOONDOCKS for ‘sticks’, AGAVE, NINEVEH, ASPHODEL, ARAPAHO, SACKBUT and possibly PRIVATEER. Any one of those turning up in a QC would be likely to give rise to adverse comments from some of the regulars.

   I wasn’t helped by putting SPACESHOT at 3dn, which seems quite a reasonable solution although on realising my error I would agree that HIP is a better fit for ‘with it’ than HOT.

   Edited at 2020-10-28 07:47 am (UTC)

   1. The vocab was somewhat obscure
      I’d not met ACHAEAN before
      I knew NINEVEH
      And would like to say
      SPACESHIP was my favourite for sure

      I am seldom inclined to pray
      But found goddesses I like today
      If I spot a weird fowl
      At the setter I’ll howl
      And will send EUMENIDES their way

   2. Spot on Jack. As an established QC-er I did have a go at this one but only got through it with some guesses IRONSIDES, BOONDOCKS and PRIVATEER plus aids to check the existence of the unknown words I had constructed from wordplay ACHAEAN and ASPHODEL. AGAVE was fine as I have quite a few AGAVES in my Mediterranean garden and I have seen SACKBUT in a QC before now. The only clue I could not eventually solve was NINEVEH and the wordplay was lost on me.

      Edited at 2020-10-28 01:31 pm (UTC)

      1. Excellent work, Des, proving that Pip was not wrong about it being worth trying by some QC-ers, but only the more ‘established’ ones. You’re obviously well on your way to making the transition if you wish to do so.
         1. I had a second go at this today, but eventually pulled stumps four short: Vicarious, Boondocks (caught in the net made that impossible), Eumenides and Ninevah. On the plus side, I did work out the unknown Achaean and Asphodel. On to Thursdays…
   3. Nicely put. Good clues cannot rely on such specialist knowledge.
4. I’m one of the many with one error. I put VOILE for 24d instead of VOICE. for me, “evil” meant vile and that VOILE was an obscure meaning for “air”.
   No idea what the others, including Jason and verlaine got wrong.
   Otherwise I didn’t think it was as easy as Pip says it was. I thought the level of knowledge required was above that of a QC.
   i laughed at CAUGHT IN THE ACT so that’s my COD but like Kevin, I initially put CAUGHT IN THE NET.
5. I count myself lucky to have got away with a mere 35 minutes on this one. I’m a bit late here because I had to add so many words to my Big List of Crosswordy Words… On the other hand, it all seemed fair to me, though I imagine as whatever error caught some of the big hitters out becomes apparent I might change my mind!

   FOI 4d DA VINCI LOI the unknown ASPHODEL, where I’m getting better at thinking of “DEL”, “ESC”, and so on when I see “key”.

6. …Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
   20 ish mins pre-brekker.
   I might have biffed NinevAh if I hadn’t checked the wordplay. Maybe that is the error?
   Thanks setter and Pip.
   1. That’s the error I suspected.
7. I found this mostly straightforward except for the SE corner with the unknown EUMENIDES and the little known NINEVEH and ASPHODEL. The latter came to me first and a quick search told me we have seen it several times before. ARAPAHO was known from The Chicken Song from Spitting Image, illustrating the typical lowbrow nature of my cultural references.
   1. My ARAPAHO comes instantly from Ian Dury’s Hit Me: “Eskimo, Arapaho move their body to and fro”. I don’t think I ever managed to remember the words of the Chicken Song beyond “pretend your name ids Keith”.
8. 23 minutes. No real problems but like jackkt I don’t think this is for QCers.
9. Maybe VOILE? I considered it but thought it was a cloth. Or NINEVAH? My one error which I couldn’t parse, because it was wrong.
   Must have been way off the wavelength, it didn’t come easily or quickly for me, even knowing vicarious and asphodel, but not the Greeks or the many French or the cavalry. Liked proverb and boondocks, and agave which is almost an &lit.

   Edited at 2020-10-28 08:00 am (UTC)

10. Got to about 35mins and then sat there for another 15 looking at THOSE three in the SE. You know which ones. Had to use references, then bunged in VOILE. Oh well. Total failure. Thanks for the blog Pip but I certainly did not find this as easy as some say.
11. I liked this because of the abundance of crosswordy words, as others have pointed out. I have only ever heard of the EUMENIDES in crosswords; a bit like the goddesses of Fate, I’ll have a go at trying to learn their names which may come up some time. I liked BOONDOCKS and was interested to read it originally came from the Tagalog word for ‘mountain’; I’d always thought it was a quintessentially American term.

    Forty-four minutes with fingers crossed for the only half-parsed UNITARIAN.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

    1. To browse through, my Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology is one of the most interesting books I have. You would not believe the things they got up to, in those days. And it is full of useful cruciverbal references too!
       Just as one example, the Eumenides (or Erinyes, or Furies) were born from the drops of blood spilt when Cronus castrated his father Uranus, and threw his genitalia into the sea. Aphrodite arrived that way, too .. kids, eh, who’d have ’em? 🙂
12. I seem to have found this easier than some regulars have. Just a wavelength day perhaps. I agree it has some crosswordy words, but as I said above, the wordplay was clear and none were e.g. anagrams of foreign words. My only unknown was the Arian bit of Unitarian. Pip
    1. I think an Arian is actually the only heretic the crossword knows, if only because it’s such a useful collection of letters.
    2. I see from the snitch there are 31 solvers with errors – so certainly not an easy crossword- certainly I wasn’t able to do it – would never ever have got Nineveh and unlikely to have got Arapaho or asphodel
       Can I ask how many years experience of the times crossword you have Pip? Possibly that puts you at an advantage of less experienced solvers???
13. 12 minutes, held up by the native American and the time taken to put Nirvana out of mind enough to see NINEVEH. Then I got LOI EUMENIDES, who I’d probably have said was a tragedian without the clue. I looked up BOONDOCKS in the dictionary only a few weeks ago when Dylan released Murder Most Foul. Terry Malloy was down there, I assume the guy from On the Waterfront, in one of Bob’s puns. COD to IRONSIDES for its surface. This was somehow both quite easy and yet a challenge. Thank you Pip and setter.
    1. I remembered Down in the Boondocks by Gene Pitney.
       1. I thought I knew most of Gene Pitney’s work, ever since I first heard ‘If I didn’t have a dime’ on Radio Luxembourg. I see this was actually by Billie Joe Royal with Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa by Gene Pitney sampled. I don’t remember it at all but it was 1965 and a bit later than Gene’s big stuff.
14. 11.32, stopping just long enough to correct my VOILE to VOICE. NINEVEH is the other easy misspell, though the wordplay does its best to help you get it right.

    This one was easy if you had the relevant eclectic mix of GK drawn from whatever sources.

    If I may combine a mondegreen with a bit of ninja turtling, I thought the peaceful planet in “Battle Beyond the Stars” was Achaea. Apparently it was Akira.

    1. Mondegreen is a fine word, with a fine etymology, I discover.
    2. It’s how they describe Swedish furniture in South Africa
15. Shades of the great Ian Dury, for sure, but I’ll raise you an Anthony Powell with EUMENIDES, The Kindly Ones, reaching number 6 in the Music of Time top 12.
    1. That’s where I got them from Jonny.
16. Hmm, found this dead easy but looking again, I agree that it has some relatively unusual vocab, which fortunately I knew. Achaeans from the Iliad; Nineveh from the famous poem “Cargoes,” Arapaho from chicken song, Asphodel from Lord of the Rings, etc etc.
    I would expect most of the errors might come from Ninevah.
    1. That reminded me Jerry of the time a while ago when a number of us were caught out because Masefield misspells “quinquereme” as “quinquireme” in that poem.
       1. Useful information indeed olivia, for the next time that comes up ..
          It occurs to me that with five banks of oars, a quinquereme must go like the clappers ..
17. Could have been an under-tenner but I spent two minutes parsing Arapaho and wondering if it shouldn’t be aravaho, so came in at 11’49”. Still quite an easy one, I thought. Elizabeth Gaskell was a Unitarian. In fact a surprising number of quite well-known people were in the 19th century. Found the Trinity unfathomable, which is not unreasonable.
18. 12:37…. but with 1 wrong – NINEVAH. I should have checked the wordplay but I spelt it as I thought it was pronounced. Held up spotting HIPPOPOTAMUSES as I unaccountably had written in PROVERB with an initial R.LOI the vaguely heard of EUMENIDES. What with writing DA VINCI in at 5D instead of 4D, I made a bit of a mess of this. Well tomorrow is another day.
19. Some whizzing times from the regulars here. I started fast but then got stuck. Finished in 25:31 with one error. Ecmenides.
20. Plenty of unusual words here – spent most of my time picking through the SE corner – the biffed NIRVANA (bliss) held me up until ASPHODEL hoved into view.

    LOI EUMENIDES which required the most thought and brain-scratching of all – in the end I followed the cryptic and hit-and-hoped.

21. This one could have done duty as one of the TLS puzzles, which I very much enjoy, but for some reason I couldn’t find the groove this time. BOONDOCKS is a very nice word. 12.18
    1. Boondocks does have a very pleasing sound to it. I’m curious as to why that is as I couldn’t explain it.
22. Also my mother’s name. Straightforward but with the odd rarity lurking in the boondocks. 14’37.
23. I’d say the top half would be a gentle introduction to the 15×15, and the bottom half was really tricky – I was off the wavelength until NINEVEH set the ball rolling. Unfortunately I went for VOILE rather than VOICE – supported by the wordplay but not, of course, the definition. 10m 41s with that error. At least I had a decent day on the QC…
24. Oh dear. Having sailed through the classical references in smug fashion, I, too, came unstuck with a careless biff of VOILE, thinking in rather vague fashion that it sounds a bit airy, and there must be a definition which fits. Think again, numpty (at least I am not alone). I also had a fat-fingered typo, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have written HIPPPPOTAMUSES in a pen-and-paper solve. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have spotted it, mind.

    Ah well, as the Greek tailor said, Euripides trousers, Eumenides trousers.

    1. Thanks for a laugh on a dreary wet morning Tim!
25. For the second day running I slowed my own progress with a careless, half-arsedly-parsed looks-like-it-sort-of-works-but-doesn’t answer. This time it was MAMBA (you have a drunken dance with a woman in a salsa bar, she does the samba while you mambo). I only spotted the gaffe after too much head-scratching over 1d.
26. Hmmm! I found this even easier than Jerry!

    FOI 1ac IRONSIDES

    LOI 21ac ARAPAHO

    COD 11ac ACHAEAN (IKEAN in SA 😉 )!

    WOD QUINQUEREMES

    NB The BOONDOCKS at 7dn are generally referred to as the ‘BOONIES’.

    Edited at 2020-10-28 12:41 pm (UTC)

27. Would have been one of my top times, 18 minutes, but I put VOILE as well, thinking vaguely that it was a sort of mist. I was half-remembering from Debussy’s Preludes, which I played often in high school. But ‘mists’ is ‘brouillards’, while ‘voiles’ is ‘veils’ or ‘sails’. Of course a veil can enshroud as can mist, hence the melding of the two in my mind, as I’m not a French speaker.
28. I’m another Voile, I’m afraid.

    I thought this was a very interesting puzzle – lots of half-known words and one unknown (Eumenides).

29. ….to make sure I correctly parsed the NHO ACHAEAN, but otherwise this presented few difficulties. A better day for me than for many others I suspect.

    FOI EMBER
    LOI UNITARIAN
    COD BOMBSHELL
    TIME 7:12

30. Another voile here and I looked up bombshell and vicarious as I was in a rush (not helped by thinking secondhand was vice + r …). Agree with Pip that this was on easy side in spite of my DNF and error.
31. For VOILE*. I kinda new it wasn’t right but didn’t spend enough time looking for alternatives. I was pleased to parse NINEVEH because the wordplay initially had me wanting to put an A in it. Very helpful wordplay elsewhere, not least EUMENIDES and ACHAEAN, which might otherwise have defeated me.
32. After a good start, I had the same problem as some others with ACHAEAN, ARAPAHO, EUMENIDES and ASPHODEL – all of which I eventually worked out from the definitions.
    I enjoyed CAUGHT IN THE ACT, OOMPH and DA VINCI – and my COD goes to TANTRUM which I found very amusing.
    Thanks to the setter for keeping me occupied for just over 35 minutes and to Pip for the informative blog.
33. I knew all the GK except the plant, including spelling (unusual, that). I liked Achaean, but was not so sure of “originally” as anagrind.

    I’m with Pip on the “good for QCers” – the answers were esoteric, but with the exception of Nineveh the cluing was direct. I expect that all Times solvers have a strong vocabulary and good GK, but that the less experienced struggle with the cryptic.

    Edited at 2020-10-28 03:06 pm (UTC)

34. Another VOILE here. Careless and disappointing, as I’d already corrected NINEVAH to NINEVEH on a proof reading. I had to construct ACHAEAN and EUMENIDES from wordplay. I quite enjoyed the puzzle and had it completed in 25:48 with that 1 error. Thank setter and Pip.
35. 14.31 . A late entry after playing golf . Wish that had been as successful as solving the crossword.

    A bit slow to start with samba my FOI. But the crossword was very much a game of two halves for me, Southern Hemisphere less challenging than the Northern. A couple of nice classical touches with eumenides and nineveh and who could resist hippoetcetc.Zloi oomph by which time I had precious little left.

36. Feeling very pleased with myself. Attempted the Times cryptic crossword today, and got 19 answers right. Took me one hour 23 minutes to get that far (admittedly using a Chambers Crossword dictionary) before I was so stuck that I opted to reveal the answers. Kicked myself with some of the unanswered ones when I saw the answer and went back to read the clue.

    19 answers in the best I have managed so far in the two weeks I have been trying to learn how to do these crosswords. 🙂

    1. Well done! Hope you’ll join in regularly. It would be nice if you added a name at the end or signed up for a (free) Live Journal user-id.
37. Another voile here. Arapaho got from reading Robert Hale westerns as a child. Teacher at 1st year secondary school get everyone to read aloud from Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. When my turn came I pronounced all the Native American terms correctly, denying him the sarcastic corrections he subjected my classmates to. He didn’t ask me to read again.
38. Another late entry after golf. 33:22 but with two errors: ECMENIDES like Aston Villa and VOILE a despairing LOI using Vile rather than Vice.
    Pretty tough for the QC brigade but I have learnt Asphodel and was able to construct Achaean.
    David
39. 7:02, but with an error. Not VOILE in my case, but ACHAEON. This was one of those occasions where I understood the clue perfectly – including the wordplay – but still managed to type in the wrong thing and then didn’t notice the error when checking because I didn’t know the word. It didn’t help in this case that ACHAEON looks a bit like ACTAEON so perfectly feasible to a non-classicist. Annoying.
40. 42 minutes and like jackkt I didn’t really find this easy. ARAPAHO was my LOI and I suppose it is not exactly true that I have never heard of it (since it didn’t seem unlikely and I left it in), but it’s not exactly in my everyday vocabulary. Nor are ASPHODEL, EUMENIDES (which I know mainly from a silly joke about a Greek tailor who asks a customer showing him some trousers: EURIPIDES? to which he replies “Yes, EUMENIDES?” — sorry about that), nor ACHAEAN.
    And I, too, would agree that BOONDOCKS is a lovely word (which, of course, I did know for a change).

    Edited at 2020-10-28 11:19 pm (UTC)

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