Times 27,869: Now I Really Want A Waterproof Unitard

77 comments on “Times 27,869: Now I Really Want A Waterproof Unitard”

1. …because LJ was giving me grief about logging in. Don’t worry, I’m still Verlaine!
   1. For a second….
   2. I’m slightly puzzled by the juxtaposition of Klopp avatar and claims of non-sportsball-fandom
2. Alas and alack. Did very well on a meaty puzzle but simply could get nowhere with the BEETLES/SLEDGED crossing. I actually still don’t get any of the pieces involved except for the Beatles, of course, so if you’ll excuse me I’m off to the dictionary.
3. Just 5 seconds past my current average time, so I was surprised to see the SNITCH rating. FOI AESCHYLUS, POI IRON OUT (which I biffed), LOI EVOKING (which I’d thought of early on but couldn’t see how it worked). Biffed ALICE BAND, REPUGNANT, parsing post-submission. I had a memory problem at 13d, where I had the JACKING but could think of nothing but CAR; it took SHOCK WAVE to bring SKY to consciousness. DNK SLEDGE (may have seen it here once, but), MOCK as a noun. Lots of fine clues, as V says, but COD to HALF-SISTER.
4. 15:38 – I was going through this pretty readily then came to a grinding halt at the ALBUM/BEETLES/MAGISTRATE crossing, which took me a good five minutes to unravel. I really liked IRON OUT
   1. I was still thinking about your KOALA BEAR chocolates from yesterday George – thank you!
5. I liked this too, once I settled in for the long haul. Sorting out the NW corner took the longest part.

   It’s interesting to see KOALA BEAR in the dictionary, as we’re all raised to regard it as wrong (as noted by the Wikipedia entry).

   Thanks, V, for the enthusiastic blog and all the explanations.

   1. Koalas are not bears – they are marsupials and their correct name is ‘Koalas’.
      1. Not bears? Well, live and learn.
      2. Prairie dogs aren’t dogs, but we don’t call them “prairies’…..
         1. I was reading only yesterday about Herodotus’s fox-sized ants that dig up gold for humans. (Apparently actually marmots, an easy error to make.)
6. Took ages and ages with most of that spent in the NW corner where I had a mental block for my last few in. BEETLES in particular held me up, partly because I thought a group with living members couldn’t be referred to, even as a homophone in a clue; my excuse anyway. Several others unparsed including the very neat IRON OUT.

   Satisfying to have finally solved, even if it was with a bit of frustration towards the end.

7. …for unraveling this one, and he will know that the digamma is needed to make the first syllable long.

   There were three I couldn’t parse – lion, iron out, and amok, but they were fairly obvious. I parsed tripper incorrectly, thinking it ended in rep backwards, but correct answers still count.

   Sledging took me to the limit of my cricket knowledge, but it seemed right. I had biffed Omaha as the city, but then I decided to look more carefully at the clue.

   Time: 31 minutes.

8. I got through most of this with few problems, finding the RH side positively easy with the exception of 6ac where I wasted time trying to parse ‘Omaha’ before spotting the better alternative. But LH SLEDGED and BEETLES didn’t come to me until I had rested for the night and returned refreshed this morning. I knew the cricketing term but not the literal meaning of ‘beetle’.

9. For me this was one of those occasional occurrences where I admire the cleverness of the clues but the answers still go in relatively quickly. I thought it might be a good omen when AESCHYLUS went straight in though I couldn’t tell you who he was (beyond being an Ancient Greek). My LOI, BEETLES delayed me for a couple of minutes until I moved from an alphabet trawl of the second letter to the fourth – bit of a last ditch tactic.

   @verlaine – given you have professed to being no sports fan why is your avatar Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp? Or is it just someone who resembles him?

   1. At this point in my life/beardiness/penchant for wearing baseball caps – for better or worse, Jurgen Klopp is probably the celebrity to whom I bear the most resemblance.
      1. My Pootle avatar is due to me being told I look like him if I wear a hat 🙂
10. 54 minutes with LOI IRON OUT unparsed. This clue played to one of my weaknesses, that I’m not that bright. COD to ALICE BAND. I liked SHOCK WAVE too, more at my level. The KARAT was unknown but in the end there was no choice. The ALBUM/ BEETLES crosser was fluked, having no idea of the meaning of BEETLES, nor seeing that an ALBUM could be cut, despite knowing that expression well. No doubt this was a great puzzle, but disorientating in places, an experience then relived when I tried to understand who the blogger was. I didn’t know that movie either and assumed he played for Bayern Munich.Thank you V and setter.
11. …In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
    On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.

    25 mins then gave up on Beetles. Good grief. Very clever. Mostly I liked the hair perm and the (Fe)w.
    Thanks setter and V.

12. A very enjoyable use of 38 minutes of the abundant time I have got on my hands at the moment. Many thanks for the blog which explained to me the misparsed ALBUM (I took an album to be something to put a press cutting in) and the misparsed BEETLES (I was thinking of beetling in the scurrying sense with therefore ‘pounds in’ to be a bit of a stretch), and of course LION which I didn’t understand at all and probably deserved a pink square for but didn’t get one.
13. It was odd that in the NE SE and SW it was a K that was required to help me out, whereas the trickiest quarter, the NW, there were none. And boy was it tricky.

    FOI 21ac WATER CLOCK

    LOI 9ac BEETLES

    ++COD 1dn scrap ALBUM which is where a press cutting goes!++

    WOD 1ac AESCHYLUS DNK but it was a decently obvious anagram.

    Does 2dn take place in baseball between the striker (batter) and the backstop (‘keeper) – whatever one calls ’em?

    Time: much as per Jacket

    On edit Mr K. Granola You did not misparse – ‘I took an album to be something to put a press cutting in.’ Me too! Sorry we overlapped!

    Sent from my iPad

    Edited at 2021-01-08 08:50 am (UTC)

    1. Batter/catcher jabber – not to the same extent as sledging, horryd, though there is some. The difference perhaps due to there being less time between pitches than between deliveries. The jaw-jaw at the plate is more usually between catcher and umpire or batter and umpire, and is more usually about specific calls. There is more one-on-one chatter between the first baseman and a runner on first base (runners on other bases are further from fielders). Cf the movies Mr Baseball and (better) Bull Durham.
14. 13:01. I didn’t think this was particularly outstanding, either in terms of quality or difficulty. Which isn’t to say it wasn’t excellent.
    I interpreted 1dn ALBUM as mrkgrnao and horryd: the musical meaning strikes me as a bit obscure so less likely to be the intended one.
    I also hesitated for ages at the end between RAT ON and RAT IN. I never did figure it out (tar never occurred to me as a waterproof coating), and in the end went with RAT ON just because I wasn’t 100% sure that RAT IN was a thing. It doesn’t appear to be, although you can RAT OUT, but I was relieved not to see a pink square.
15. I finished this successfully without aids, but needed the blog to understand the parsing if some solutions, which is a pity because the clues were all fair and had clearly been written with much care. So, thanks to the blogger and setter, and I will try to do justice to the clues next time.
16. 19:09 but with several unparsed – HALF SISTER, TRIPPER and RAT ON. I had a bit of a slow start LOI BEETLES not knowing that definition. Good stuff. COD to IRON OUT. Thanks V and setter.
17. …one pink square cos you don’t spell BEETLES with two Bs i.e. BBETLES – Grrr.

    Some chewy stuff here – saw AESCHYLUS straight away (not sure I would have done so three months ago) which helped things off to a decent start.

    A few that I didn’t completely get included HALF-SISTER, SAINTHOOD, KUDOS and IRON OUT so thanks for the parsing.

18. How can a clue be that great when it’s ungrammatical and doesn’t make sense? City lacks would be grammatical but a city can’t have passion. It’s actually a clue that breaks all the basic rules.
    1. It’s referring to City as it is commonly used to refer to a football team – as in “United are playing City”.
       1. i’m sure i’m thick but still don’t get it
    2. I’m no expert but the surface is referring to a football team eg. (Man) City … so it makes sense.
    3. It’s also not at all ungrammatical: notional concord, in which singular nouns take the plural verb form (‘the police are present’, ‘the government were caught on the hop’, ‘City lack passion’) is a common feature of English grammar.
    4. It’s polite on here to sign your name, especially when being critical.
19. Must have been on the wavelength ‘cos my time is better than on the much ‘easier’ (snitch) crosswords earlier in the week. I have no problem with six across. City lack passion is exactly the kind of thing you hear on Radio 5 sports commentary. I toyed with Omaha then saw the light. Some lovely clever clues, for which thanks.
20. I too took ALBUM to refer to a scrapbook or similar. Didn’t parse IRON OUT. I am glad that the practice of sledging in cricket seems to have softened. I have just read Gerald Seymour’s book ‘Kingfisher’ which is about skyjacking. Really liked HALF SISTER.

    23′ 13″ thanks verlaine and setter.

21. Some very good stuff here, particularly Fe(w) and EV(e)/OKING imho. Tricksy defs on occasion (has anyone ever used BEETLE in the sense of “pounds”?) but always had the feeling that one’s biff was correct when one got stuck. Took longer than I should as I wasted 5 full mins at the end on AMOK … hohum. At least I didn’t make a typo …
22. Very clever and most enjoyable. I did wonder for a while if AZURRIA might be pools of some kind. Anyone else?

    My time was stretched out by problems in the NW corner where I had to put the letters of the blasted Greek geezer in the most likely looking order, couldn’t come up with the right meaning of loaf (or album, for that matter) and was foxed by the fab four.

    1. I tried to crowbar AZZURIA into 7d as well.
       I too was totally unable to link LOAF and BUM.
       Andyf
       1. Yes – I was mulling Azurria and Azulria for a while. I forgot the golden rule – if you see a “U”, consider a “Q”.
23. 50m today and a struggle at times to lift and separate the clues enough to work out was going on. Lots to enjoy mind so worth the effort. Thanks, V, for making clear much that was still muddy.
24. 30 minutes in and I thought I was doomed with only a handful solved. But then 16A: ALICE BAND and the answers seemed to begin to flow. Not a good completion time, but very rewarding to have persevered.

    FOI 4D: LOSER
    LOI 9A: BEETLES (Saw the Fab Four homophone but guessed).

    Thank you, verlaine and the setter.

    Edited at 2021-01-08 11:06 am (UTC)

25. I think ‘pounds in’ for ‘beetles’ is more likely referring to running fast — one pounds in at the end of a race — than to hammering, where the ‘in’ looks rather odd to me.

    Does the Times convention about living people only apply to people one at a time? Two Beatles are still alive.

    Edited at 2021-01-08 11:15 am (UTC)

    1. I asked that convention question some time ago and was informed that it does only apply to individuals. So we can have The Beatles but not Paul or Ringo. I think I asked the question in relation to ABBA having made an appearance.
    2. Re times convention about living people:

       Peter Biddlecombe’s very helpful article on Times Crossword House Style published here on Jan. 4th, 2008* says:

       Living people
       Names of individual living people are not used as answers (or clue content), unless they mean something else, like ‘John Dory’. But names of (well-known) pop groups (e.g. ABBA in the 4/1/2008 puzzle) are apparently allowed. Sole exception: the reigning monarch can be referred to, usually as a way of indicating ER in the answer.

       * This and other helpful articles can be located by in the Tags section – see the tight hand sidebar / margin of this page with the heading, ‘Tags’, and then select the tag, ‘tips&tricks’

       Edited at 2021-01-08 12:20 pm (UTC)

    3. But BEETLE doesn’t really mean that: it means to move like a beetle, to scurry, move quickly, but without the sense of heaviness (rather the opposite, in fact). The ‘in’ is a bit odd, and not directly supported by any of the dictionary definitions I’ve found. But OED’s definition of the noun says that a beetle is ‘used for driving wedges or pegs’, and if you google ‘beetle hammer’ you will see pictures of people hammering in wooden pegs and the like.

       Edited at 2021-01-08 01:19 pm (UTC)

    4. We had REM earlier this week – can’t remember if it was here or in the quickie though!
    5. Neither the Beatles or ABBA or REM are “still going” in any meaningful sense – maybe bands with surviving members should be allowed in the Times but only after they’ve broken up.
26. I admitted defeat a little after 13 minutes with nothing sensible for A_O_. Now that I see it, it is (as I feared) really quite easy, but I didn’t think of AMOK in my run-through of AGOG, AHOY, ALOE, ANON & AVOW. Ah well.

    With AESCHYLUS slightly hopeful and STAVANGER slightly less so, I was expecting pink squares elsewhere anyway.

27. Same difficulties as others in the NW. Saw there must be a sled in there somewhere but had forgotten the cricket term (we must have had it at least once) and was trying far too long to make Sophocles work. Some amusing juxtapositions. Back in the Beatles era my mother insisted on my getting a perm and it really did come out a SHOCK WAVE in every sense – a bit like Struwelpeter and no ALICE BAND could have tamed it. Then there was the LOSER who will not be taking the OATH before the chief MAGISTRATE in a couple of weeks. Definitely a 24 KARAT puzzle. 24.36

    Edited at 2021-01-08 12:08 pm (UTC)

28. You know the setter’s targeting Verlaine when 1ac is a Greek bloke of unlikely spelling clued by an anagram and a taunting “such easy puzzles”. What it is to have such a reputation.

    The only one I couldn’t parse was AMOK, which perhaps illustrates my comparative dimness. On the other hand, I’ll go with a scrapbook ALBUM and an athletic track-pounding BEETLE.

    Is having no less than 7 Ks in the grid significant?

    It took me 20.11, with much appreciation especially of the quirkily innovative IRON OUT and HALF-SISTER.

    1. I also wondered about the preponderance of Ks.
29. Entertainingly knotty 27m with more than the usual helping of unparsed clues on completion. Was dubious about KOALA BEAR but it is grudgingly allowed in the shorter OED as being “widely used, but zoologically incorrect”, so I suppose nothing to object to, unless you are a zoologist (or Australian). The word BEETLES sent me into a dictionary rabbit hole. Memories of Hamlet and forgotten A-level English.
30. … to the setter for this one, great fun. Didn’t find it particularly hard, and lots of PDMs. Took a while after my 20 minute solve, to parse IRON OUT and HALF SISTER, both superb. Thanks Klopp a.k.a. Verlaine.

    Edited at 2021-01-08 12:30 pm (UTC)

31. BEETLE, meaning to pound or hammer, was familiar from a pub called The Beetle and Wedge, with a helpful pub sign showing them being used to split a log.
32. I agree with the blogger – a very, very good puzzle, with OSAKA being the COD I’d say.
33. Having left most of the NW corner until I’d made some progress elsewhere, I gave up trying to parse SOPHOCLES and spotted the anagrist. I eventually juggled it into a not unfamiliar name, and then managed to sort out ALBUM and HALF SISTER(unparsed). That left me with B_E_L_S, and I finally saw the Fab Four, although I didn’t know the required meaning of BEETLES. I then went back to 12a and 24d and managed to see the parsing for those. The rest of the puzzle was a hard slog with lots of PDMs. Quite a challenge, but ultimately enjoyable. 47:08. Thanks setter and V.
34. I approached this with some trepidation having consulted the SNITCH prior to starting but am extremely pleased with my time. Many answers did go in unparsed but I was reasonably confident in their accuracy. AESCHYLUS went straight in (classical education). He is memorable not just for his works but he is also one of the few people in history to be killed by an eagle dropping a tortoise on his head.
35. Damn, blast and brexit! Well-chuffed to have cracked this terrific puzzle only to find that I had typed SLEDGDD. The North-west was the trickiest peak in a very demanding range. Kudos to setter and blogger.
36. I’m livid with myself for not seeing AQUARIA when all I needed to fill in were the second and fourth letters. Someone on here (I forget who, sorry) has mentioned they have a personal rule along the lines of “If there’s a U, always consider a Q before it” – I should definitely follow suit. Instead, I couldn’t get away from thinking of a four-letter word A_U_ meaning “out of the blue”. Grr.

    Didn’t parse HALF-SISTER or IRON OUT, so thanks for the explanations.

    COD Alice band

    1. I picked up the “try a Q” rule on here some time ago and I think I referenced it earlier this week when I’d been slow to think of it. Today I thought of it straight off which was consistent with my sense of being very much on the wavelength.
37. Lots of thinking required, which is as it should be on a Friday. I joined the crowd who concluded by having to alphabet trawl before I remembered the other sorts of beetling in the dictionary.

    Now thoroughly ear-wormed by Day Tripper, which is no bad thing.

38. Well this one had me completely beaten. I seem to be getting worse rather than better which is a bit depressing. Like many, struggled with the last few in the NW. Many clues entered without being parsed which inevitably led to some errors as well. ERGO for BRIO, OMAHA for OSAKA. DNK the Greek, of course and, although I thought of BEETLES, I just couldn’t see how it worked. I entered HALF-SISTER, though I had no idea why. Oh well there’s always next week… thank v and setter.
39. Just under 40 mis with an error. I went to Omaha.

    That was tough. Thanks to Verlaine, or whatever his name is today, for unravelling it all.

40. We didn’t solve all of the clues and continue to check most of the ones we do get. However, we enjoyed the challenge and managed to solve most of it.

    FOI: water clock
    LOI: beetles (but DNF)
    COD: alice band

    Thanks to the setter and blogger.

41. Slow but steady. Held up by trying to make sense of “mag_is_trate”. Thank you setter and V. Very much enjoyed this one. 46:43.

42. I gave this a good go only to get stuck finally in the NW; giving myself a good reason to find the easy way out and come here.
    I successfully corrected CARJACKING but couldn’t decide between Omaha and Osaka; so I left that for a final review.
    Sadly SOPHOCLES went easily into 1a. Eventually I realised my error but could not crack the anagram despite writing out all the letters. Could not think of a word for Pound In. 2d very tough and was not on the right lines. Lots of good stuff and I did parse RAT ON.
    Relieved to be back on paper now The Times voucher book has at last arrived.
    David
43. ….and it’s perhaps as well that I didn’t get stuck, and resort to considering the possibility of a pangram (Z for zero also !)

    I had to resort to a fair bit of biffing (BEETLES had to right, missed “so = it follows” for KUDOS, didn’t know “SIS” in that context, and was baffled by IRON OUT and just slung it in). Thanks V – though I still didn’t see “waterproof coat = tar” straight away !

    Hardest of the week, but it’s not really offered us a beast if we’re honest.

    FOI AESCHYLUS
    LOI LION (I’d just had a pork loin sandwich, so it should have hit me quicker !)
    COD SLEDGED
    TIME 9:43

44. I was reluctant to press ‘submit’ until ironing out the parsing of 17d. When the penny dropped it became my COD.

    For 6a I thought NOOSA might be the place wanted ( reverse even letters of ‘going’ and ‘passion’ if each word is taken separately ) , and reasoning that a setter who would put BEAR after Koala would have insufficient sheep in the top paddock to realise that Noosa is beachside resort in Queensland rather than a city…… but then OSAKA occurred and seemed a mite better.

    The 2021 green streak continues! 25’01”

45. Almost two hours, of which over an hour was the gap between finishing and realising that I had not pressed submit. Doh! Much of the rest was the NW corner. Excellent puzzle, thanks setter and Jurgen.
46. Not easy (55 minutes), but truly a superb puzzle for the many subtle clues requiring very careful reading. I’m happy that I actually was able to parse all of them correctly (which is perhaps why it took so long).
47. I thought that was the best puzzle I have solved for a long while.
    Some beautiful clues and original ideas.
    Thank you setter and V.
48. Very, very happy to complete this – although several, including IRON OUT and HALF-SISTER, unparsed. Usually a QC-er and never before completed a 15×15 with a SNITCH >70. But ~3h persistence today paid off. Really enjoyed ALICE BAND and OSAKA. Thanks to setter and Verlaine for excellent explanations. I may hang around here 🙂

    Ged

49. Saw a warning about this on the QC site, but decided to give it a go anyway. Surprised myself by making reasonable progress in the bottom half of the grid, but found the top half, especially the NW, very tricky. Not helped by biffing Afros for 1d… Needed aids to sort out the mess and the blog for quite a few parsings. Invariant
50. Very late solve. Does anybody read these!? Anyway I loved this. Can we have this standard every day please?
    Most difficulty with RAT ON, had to be but couldn’t parse it, same with HALF SISTER.
    Yes I had NOOSA for a while too.
    COD SLEDGED nice obscure clue for those baseball aficionados

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