Times 27,899: Robots Need Love Too

97 comments on “Times 27,899: Robots Need Love Too”

1. Off to a good start, especially for a Friday, with the first seven acrosses except FIASCO in, but then hit a wall, very few remaining clues giving up without a fight. DNK TOSTI, SIDE SPLIT, AFTERSALES. Biffed IN RE because it had to be, ditto IN SECRET. Almost ditto BANFF, but I figured it out just before coming here. A tough but satisfying workout. COD to FIASCO.
2. I knew this was hard, but did all the easy bits in a good amount of time. Then the “fun” started. Took me untold ages to get NOW YOU’RE TALKING and SOPHOCLEAN. My anagram brain wasn’t working and I hadn’t remembered SOP — it’s in my dictionary for next time! NEWHAMPSHIRITES also took forever — I would have gotten it much sooner, I think, if the enumeration had been (3,12) rather than 15. I haven’t found a source yet that supports the spelling without a space.

   Still, I could have finished in about 35 minutes, but then I had to contend with BANFF / FIASCO and AFTERSALES. These I really could do nothing with, although I tried! I kept trying to make TART work for ‘bitter’, and I tried BANDA, although I know that’s only an American abbreviation, and I knew I needed the ingredients F, I, AS, but I was trying them in the wrong order and at the wrong times.

   All in all, a real toughie, enjoyable to work on, and sorry not to have finished it. Last Saturday’s puzzle was also very hard, but I did finish it! That’s the kind of puzzle I prefer!

   Thanks, v, as usual, but this time especially for parsing IN RE. I, too, guessed it immediately from the enumeration, but didn’t allow myself to put it in until the very end, as I hadn’t a clue how to make the wordplay work.

3. It took me 90 minutes to complete the grid as so many answers eluded me for so long. About 70 minutes into it I decided to give up on 2dn and use aids as I needed its remaining checkers to unlock a couple of other answers in the NW corner. I didn’t regret my decision when neither of the word-search apps I use very occasionally came up with anything to fit N?????P?H?R?T?S. After that I simply went onto the Times site and revealed the answer to that one clue and actually felt I had been cheated. I don’t whether the enumeration (15) rather than (3,12) was yet another in the increasing number of errors in Times clues (as discussed here yesterday) or whether in some obscure work of reference it appears as all one word, but most hits when searching on-line have it as two words, and the ones that don’t (that I have seen) are items where the words are run together as in an email address or url. Pah!

   Adding insult to injury, I had got as far as considering NEW (unfamilar), HI (welcome) and RITES (customs), and NEW HAMPSHIRE itself has come up in at least 3 puzzles I have solved within the past month.

   On 24ac, I studied music from an early age and hold a degree in it but I have never heard of TOSTI. The only ‘British-Italian music man’ of any distinction that I could think of was BARBIROLLI although he was actually a British national from birth, so he didn’t fit on two counts.

   Never heard of SIDESPLIT either.

   Edited at 2021-02-12 06:13 am (UTC)

   1. I just looked him up; Wikipedia has an article under Paolo Tosti, nothing (in English) under Tosti; I found the article because Japanese Wikipedia does have one.
      1. I just Googled ‘Tosti’, and the Wiki entry was the first result.

         Never heard of the bloke. Apparently he was all the rage around 1900. Is this one of those cases, like ‘rhino’ for money, where the Times Crossword keeps recycling words which are now archaic but would have been more familiar when the Crossword itself was younger?

         1. I’m not surprised that if you Google ‘Tosti’ you will be taken directly to a site about him. More to the point would be to go through his long list of compositions and find even one that anyone living had ever heard of.
            1. Perhaps Tosti is the new Beerbohm Tree.
               1. I thought TOSTI might have been a way out of a jam for the setter but there’s always TISRI…
                  1. Good spot. Working backwards, just the thought of unravelling NEW HAMPSHIRITES is a horror so it had to be SIDE SPLITS (preposterous, frankly) and TOSTI to retain DJINNI, which is a wonderful clue so I can’t blame the setter.
            2. I dimly remember that Tosti’s “Goodbye” was sometimes requested on programmes like Family Favourites back in the 50s. So you need to be in your 70s and to have had parents who tuned in to the Light Programme on BBC. There.
               1. Many thanks for that. I’m definitely in that category – Family / Children’s Favourites, Housewive’s Choice etc were always on in our house. I found loads of versions of ‘Goodbye’ on YouTube and played some of them but I can’t say it rings a bell – and I usually have a good memory for melody. My favourite found is this one by Deanna Durbin from a film, the video is a bit odd but her voice is to die for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kWgZr8bSXg

                  Hopefully I shall remember Tosti if he ever turns up again.

                  Edited at 2021-02-13 07:22 am (UTC)

                  1. And if we learned anything from our tutored discussion of how setters work from a couple weeks ago (and from our long ago affair with Finzi), we will see him again, and soon, jack.
4. Third stonking good puzzle in a row, inventive and interesting. A few slight MERs – the Americans as a single word, and bomber for fiasco. I’d say a fiasco bombs, but it feels uncomfortable to then describe it as a bomber – I’d say it was a bomb. NHO side split, but easy enough. Never heard of premium bonds or ERNIE, so had to biff that. No hold-up at all with Banff or its parsing. Last two in were take in vain and nightgown – Town and Gown is a very English thing.
   1. That’s one advantage of living in Patagonia, 3 hours behind London — by the time I print out the puzzle, some of the errors have been corrected. I had 3, 12 for the Americans clue. Someone in power is reading the blog!
5. A week of clean solves! I haven’t been able to say that for a while. I thought I might not make it to the end of this one when I had several gaps dotted around the grid but perseverance paid off eventually. I finished with IN RE, like plusjeremy not wanting to commit until I’d hopefully parsed it and I did manage to do so just before I was about to submit anyway. I had not parsed BANFF, which fortunately I’d heard of, but seeing how it works now I’m with Verlaine in my COD.
6. …..one error because I just bunged any old thing to
   F-A-C- as I could make nothing of it. I’ve never ever heard of the term bomber to equate with fiasco.
   I entered BANFF because it had to be that but I had no idea why so, thanks, Verlaine. I also put in NEWHAMPSHIRITES because I could think of nothing else and I couldn’t work out HAM PS. I agree with Jack that it should be two words.
   Never heard of SIDE SPLIT either.
   Thanks, also, Verlaine, for NIGHTGOWN.
   All-in-all, not a pleasant experience.
   1. You’ve probably never heard anyone refer to a river as a banker either!

      Edited at 2021-02-12 08:42 am (UTC)

      1. Um Keriothe – I’d never heard of this either but I think Martin and I are quite familiar with the “banker” thing by now.
         1. I’ve never heard of it either, because it doesn’t exist outside crosswords. But neither does ‘banker’ to indicate a river. ‘Banker’ is a cryptic way of indicating a thing with banks, ‘bomber’ is a cryptic way of indicating a thing that bombs.
            1. I follow your logic, but I guess all rivers have banks. I don’t think a fiasco is always or even usually something that necessarily ‘bombs’. OED first definition of fiasco is a ‘bottle’ and then a ‘failure or a breakdown in a dramatic or musical performance’. Maybe for me if something bombs it means it is just so bad no-one goes to see it and it loses a lot of money.
               1. This is essentially the same thing, no?
                  Collins defines ‘bomb’ as to ‘be a flop’ and a ‘flop’ as a ‘complete failure’, which happens to be exactly the same as its definition of ‘fiasco’.
                  1. Yes I guess so — I am no doubt trying to excuse my own ‘complete failure’ to finish. Seeing Olivia’s comment about FRANCO I am sure, had it occurred to me, I would have put it in!
      2. On the contrary, as Olivia intimates, I am familiar with river/banker. Occasionally, especially in difficult (for me) puzzles, some clues escape me altogether. FIASCO was one such occasion.
         What were you trying to say in your comment?
         1. My point was just that the reason you haven’t come across ‘bomber’ as a synonym for FIASCO is that it isn’t one, in the real world, just as ‘banker’ isn’t really a word for a river. It’s a cryptic definition the setter invented it for this clue, just as some setter invented river=banker in the dim and distant past.

            Edited at 2021-02-12 10:04 pm (UTC)

            1. Thank you. In this case, for me the “dim and distant past” was yesterday!
               1. That was a reference to river/banker — we all discovered bomber/fiasco yesterday!
7. in 69 minutes. There were too many “I guess it must be” moments for me to make this truly enjoyable. FIASCO, for example, where I presumed CO meant peace protester in some way; OTTO must be an essential oil, etc. NHO ERNIE, so I crossed my fingers for IN RE.

   I did like many of the clues for their ingenuity, including DJINNI, BANFF, NIGHTGOWN, SOPHOCLEAN, AT LAST and IN SECRET.

   Thanks, V, for all the explanations.

8. It’s like winking with both eyes.
   Banff and Fiasco were winks too far for me. Otherwise 30 mins pre-brekker.
   NHO Side Split.
   And why is ‘TV kicking off’ = T?
   Thanks setter and V.
   1. TV “kicks off” with a T
      1. Quite. It doesn’t work.
         1. Erm…is it me?

            ‘Kicking off’ =’starting’ (football etc)

            ‘TV’ starting i.e. ‘kicking off’ = T

            Surely it’s just a way of indicating the first letter as part of the answer?

            1. Seems clear to me
            2. As dcrooks says below, we at least need TV’s.
               Sometimes, but rarely, we see words like starter or leader not using the possessive – i.e. Labour leader=L, rather than Labour’s leader=L.
               But here, I think we need TV’s kicking off (or even TV’s kick-off) but of course the surface reading would go to pot.
               1. I think we have to allow setters some slack on this sort of thing and accept that sometimes clues or parts of clues have to be read with some of the niceties of grammar omitted. In the same way as headlines in newspapers leave out words and cut corners for reasons of space, but their meaning is still clear.

                  I really can’t see a problem with ‘TV starting’ = T and ‘TV kicking off’ is just a more interesting variation of the same thing.

                  Edited at 2021-02-12 11:52 am (UTC)

                  1. I’m with myrtilus here: this is a bit too much of a liberty in my book. To me the phrase ‘TV starting’ just doesn’t mean the same thing as ‘the start of TV’. I also wouldn’t like ‘story finishing’ to indicate Y, for instance. To me it’s in the same sort of category as ‘last girl’ to indicate L.
                     All a matter of taste of course.
                     1. I once did a Clue Writing entry:
                        In a bizarre novel boys start to turn into savages (9)
                        It was a surface about Lord if the Flies. Answer: Barbarize.
                        But it failed due to ‘boys start’ not being ‘B’.
                        1. That was me, on iPhone, in Morrisons car park.
                           1. Interesting. You could argue that punctuation is to be ignored and boys start = boy’s start, but again that would be taking a bit of a liberty.
                     2. Agree.
         2. I think you have to include the ‘of’, and twist the grammar to suit.

            Edit: the ‘of’ is in the wrong place. ‘TV’s’ on the other hand would work, I think. Maybe an oversight or typesetting error.

            Edited at 2021-02-12 10:09 am (UTC)

9. Similar to most above. Never did get BANFF/FIASCO. Same NHOs and gave up after 1hr 10 mins. Also had TEDDER at 20 ac as form of old machine (farm) that “gives out” no? Oh well. Thanks V and setter for a formidable challenge which, in the end, was too clever for me.
10. 14:44. I took a bit of time at the end of this to parse what felt like just a few too many answers where I had either biffed without understanding the wordplay (BANFF, IN RE) or constructed something unlikely-looking from wordplay (TOSTI, SIDE SPLIT). I figured out the former and concluded that I couldn’t come up with anything better for the latter before submitting.
    NEWHAMPSHIRITES is interesting. It does seem to be wrong, but a NEW HAMPSHIRITE looks to me like a term for a neonate in Southampton hospital.
11. My solve a FIASCO or farce
    IN RE I was unable to parse
    To give this a rating
    If this was ice skating
    I’ve just slipped up on my posterior
12. 27:58 with 5 minutes at the end over SIDE SPLIT till I saw PL = place. Never heard of the type of building. I failed to parse IN RE and BANFF, until I saw the reference to a reverse cryptic in the intro. DOHA was also taken on trust, although I’ve a feeling I’ve seen it somewhere else recently. A good Friday test which I was relieved to get all correct. Thanks V and setter.
13. Grovelling apologies about the enumeration error to NEW HAMPSHIRITES. I had spotted this was wrong but must have had a subsequent blind spot

    RR

    1. Thanks. It was fixed by the time I got to it early a.m. NY time.
    2. Actually, you will sometimes see Newhampshirites as one word in the US press.
14. 57 minutes with LOI VENDOR which I was very unsure about as I was even less certain about RANGE which gave me the R. I’m not sure if I knew of TOSTI but, if not, I do now. I’ve never heard of SIDE SPLIT other than in the context of a good joke. I didn’t bother parsing NEWHAMPSHIRITES as I’d lost the will to live just writing it down. COD to AFTERSALES. The Town and Gown was a café I used to frequent in Oxford which served jelly and evaporated milk as a pud. We knew how to live then. I was pleased and surprised to finish this toughie correctly.Thank you V and setter.
    1. I look forward to the day when jelly and evaporated milk is served up on Masterchef. A classic, and I can taste it still.
    2. I thought TOSTI was an Italian sandwich! Sorry, didn’t see z’s comment below.

       Edited at 2021-02-12 08:06 pm (UTC)

15. 25 minutes, feeling I’d done rather well. Given that I couldn’t get any foothold in the NW corner, and that TOSTI (possibly a continental sandwich?) and SIDE SPLIT (a very funny Canadian building?) had to be entered on wordplay alone, I think I agree with that observation.
    ERNI(E) I spotted very late, and BANFF, DJ IN NI and RA N GE all made me giggle out loud, so this was clearly a quality piece of setting.
    I didn’t know enough to demur at NEW( )HAMPSHIRITE. Working through the wordplay (and the lower crossers) convinced me it might just as well be a thing.
    Well worth the struggle, though we may have to collectively have a word with the editor about producing Friday crosswords with the sole aim of keeping V happy.
16. Casually looking up NEWHAMPSHIRIES online, I see Jack is right in seeing only email addresses and twitter handles as examples. But one hit has me completely mystified. One of the Crossword solving sites has three examples of clues to the word: todays, one about first voters in US elections and “Tito, for instance”. I’d love to know how that works.
17. Plenty I missed here.

    Really have no idea why FIASCO = Bomber. Had all checkers early on.

    NHO OTTO as oil; TOSTI (but saw the reverse with all the checkers); GOWN = campus community

    NEWHAMPSHIRITES — needed plenty of checkers to sort out the cryptic.

    SIDE SPLIT built from cryptic.

    COD to DJINNI

    1. If a project bombs, it’s a fiasco, thus a bomber. A bit of slang methinks!
18. after struggling for 54mins it was annoying to have a typo spoil the grid, fat fingers putting TAKE IN VAIL, which also crueled NIGHTGOWL.
    Banff and IN RE went in without parsing, so thankyou Verlaine for the enlightenment.
19. Tough, especially BANFF/FIASCO pairing which I half-biffed after ruling out other potential options. Frowned at “TV kicking off” to indicate “first letter of TV”. Enumeration of the American statesmen had already been changed to (3,12) by the time I got round to puzzle. But plenty to admire as well, with some excellent cryptics, my favourite being DJ IN NI. Thanks and good weekend to all.
20. Found that hard. Thanks Verlaine for explaining BANFF (after I finally got FIASCO what else could it be). Ashamed to say I did not get meaning of GOWN either (despite knowing it). LOI TAKE IN VAIN.
    1. Same for me although I did think of the old generalissimo Franco who probably set off a few bombs in his time.
21. The plethora of ‘well i suppose so’ moments made the self-congratulatory done moment a bit of trout
22. By the time I tackled this puzzle, 2d had been revisited with the correct enumeration. Nevertheless, it took me ages to get it and I needed almost all of the checkers. DJINNI made me laugh. No trouble with FIASCO, which arrived early in the proceedings, as I postulated the never to be parsed BANFF, and assembled it from the wordplay. BONE CHINA went in first. IN RE went in from definition and enumeration, and SIDE SPLIT was unknown and constructed from word play. TOSTI was another unknown. Last 2 in were RANGE(chuckle) and then VENDOR. Tough but enjoyable. 44:55. Thanks setter and V.
23. I thought this was excellent and I was pleased to get it all done correctly in a bit over my usual limit of 30 mins.

    We had Aston Villa as an answer in a recent puzzle so I was seduced into thinking the team might be Villa and the Canadian building a Villa when I was at –L– for the second word of 13 down.

    I agree with our esteemed blogger re the best two clues. DJINNI is very good but BANFF, which I couldn’t parse, is even better and deserves the coveted title of AV1’s COD.

24. Surprisingly got the NEW HAMPSHIRITES quite early, and the other 3 long ones also fell quickly, so most of the time was spent on FIASCO, RANGE, TAKE IN VAIN and LOI AFTERSALES. Got SIDE SPLIT quickly but utterly baffled by the definition.
    Can I repeat Alan Cannon’s comment?
25. First DNF of the year for me – in spades. All the same hang-ups as others but it was the axis of 20a and 21d (*E*D** and **N*E) that put the lid on it after a solid 25 minutes. Decamped in favour of the Picaroon in the other paper – which has a strangely matching clue as it turns out.
    1. So you’ll be submitting as such presumably? Then again, wouldn’t want to ruin your “average” score. People like you make a mockery of the online top 100 leaderboard.
       1. On the contrary, I think it is generous of faster, and more experienced, solvers such as Olivia to admit a DNF. Gives us lesser mortals heart. I am sure it has very little impact on the leader board.
          1. My point is, she did not finish, yet didn’t submit anything. Therefore her true score (at best 575 points), does not get recorded by the website, leaving her misleading 800+ average intact. Unless you submit something every time you attempt the crossword, there’s really no point in ever submitting to the leader board. Anything else is just self-delusional vainglory.
             1. Indeed, had she submitted a 575 score, this alone, averaged with her embarrassingly few other 20 scores from the past month, would take 10 points off her average, thereby removing her from the leader board. Suddenly not quite so impressive, and “generous” is not the adjective I would choose. Arrogant would me more appropriate.
       2. Your comments to oliviarhinebeck are both rude and unnecessary. Not only that you make them anonymously; a cowardly act.
          If you can’t finish the puzzle, you can’t submit it. Simples.
          I had a similar issue with 10ac. I should have simply left it unfinished but I just threw in something which was not only obviously wrong but would have increased my average completion time.
          There really is no excuse for rudeness of your kind in this forum.
    2. I’m shocked at the rudeness of Anonymous’ responses, Olivia. They really have no place here.
       1. There is nothing rude or cowardly about these comments. This board was (apparently) set up so that solvers could compare times and observations in the spirit of friendly competition. This is a little vain but harmless, but be in no doubt there is an inherent intention to show off, even just a little bit. We are all human. Likewise, why else would anyone submit to the online leaderboard unless they wanted others to see (and perhaps admire) their times? If not, simply submit without leader board and be done with it, safe in the knowledge you had a good solving time.

          All I am saying is be honest and consistent. If you want to be on a leader board, post a score every day, even if you can’t finish inside 60 minutes: every correct answer will score points. Martinp1 (hardly the most identifiable of names in itself), you are simply wrong in this respect: you can submit an unfinished puzzle. Cherry-picking your best times only fools yourself. Anyone can choose their 10 best times in a month and appear “faster and more experienced”, but any rational observer would have to question their motives: who exactly are they trying to impress?

          It’s really the fault of the website. The Times should insist on far more than 10 puzzles per month to be submitted, and shouldn’t really mix up the quick and full cryptics. Olivia I see only submits the full cryptics: good on her I say. But unless she always has, say, 28 submissions per month, you’d do well to take her “average” score with a pinch of salt. The same goes for anyone else on the so-called leader board.

          1. Are you, by chance, a Russian troll? Plenty of them can be found in the comments sections in The Times.
          2. I have no idea what’s upset you spluttering over your toast and marmalade today, but we all know full well that the Leaderboard doesn’t really mean all that much. It doesn’t, for example, exclude the weird people who enter impossible times by solving everything before speed-typing the answers.
             Possibly a better indication of how well we are all doing is the incredible SNITCH at the top right of this page: take a look and marvel at the programming prowess of its creator.
             I do think an apology to Olivia is called for: you clearly have no idea of the person you’re castigating in your enthusiasm for dissing the leaderboard. Singling out an individual for such opprobrium is way outside the friendly norms of this happy company. We are all in this together: apart from the Championship event, no-one really cares tuppence for who’s “really” quickest or how it’s recorded. I have no idea why you, apparently, do.
             1. Can’t you see: the SNITCH incorporates the “average” times of reference solvers, in order to set a baseline! If they are not submitting when they find the puzzle a little too hard, that will bias the SNITCH downwards, rendering it a metric of debatable value. My final thought is that if The Times switched to a median average, anyone worried about an outlying high score ruining their “average” would be far more willing to honestly submit to the leader board every day.

                To Olivia: yes, I apologise for singling you out in particular. That was not fair. Only you will really know why, despite Friday’s cryptic being the only one you couldn’t finish so far this year, you have only submitted 20 solutions to the leader board in the past month.

26. 13d Side split / 24a Tosti did for me.
    Thought of 9a newhampshirite early on, but being as I was stuck I examined sources for one-word, so wasn’t sure if my sources were wrong or the crossword.
    MER at 1d suer = prosecutor, but I parsed it correctly even so.
    Andyf
    1. Meant to say
       MER at 1d suer = prosecutor, but I parsed it correctly so it must be OK then.
27. Comprehensively unfinished after an hour, which seems like a decent enough allocation of time for the daily crossie, with BANFF, NEWHAMPSHIRITES, AFTERSALES and FIASCO finally resisting the ever-slowing cull of blank squares. Good stuff.
28. Chapeau to all who completed this -it was well above my pay grade. Crashed and burned after 40 minutes with about 75% done. NHO Side-Split. Enjoyed the ride (like Slim Pickens at the end of Dr Strangelove).

    Thank you setter and blogger.

29. A reasonable time I guess but I fluked a few, like BANFF where I thought it just about possible that a BAN could make you suffer and FF was short for one of those weird Scottish officers, the FECULATOR FISCAL or summat like.

    Also biffed IN RE, VENDOR and RANGE with no idea about the parsings. Was surprised they were all correct.

    1. My parsing if BANFF also — and equally reluctantly!
30. 43.20 but missed out on fiasco. I put in Franco in honour of Guernica but a bit too clever by half! Very enjoyable and a couple of notches more difficult than preceding offerings this week. Annoying not to finish especially as the setter makes it clear fiasco was obviously the correct answer.

    FOI apron, LOI the unfortunate Franco. COD Newhampshireites, took a deal of working out having initially thought there was some sort of impenetrable anagram lurking.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

31. 50m but DNF — I doubt FIASCO would ever have connected to bomber in my head nor would conscientious objector link to peace protestor immediately. I supected BANFF but could not see a way to make it fit so not beong confident of the F I was doubly doomed. I found this a bit of a grind in truth. So thank you V for the enlightenment and entertainment.
32. 35.09. A tough puzzle which led me up many a garden path. NHO a side split construction and DNK Tosti. Never did parse LOI Banff or in re. Couldn’t see the instruction giving me the T from TV but from the definition I just put it in after Atlas and shrugged. Satisfying to wade through and come out the other side all correct.
33. ….after 15 minutes. NHO TOSTI, but got him. However, totally failed on FIASCO, TAKE IN VAIN, and VENDOR (which I thought was unreasonably misleading).

    COD AT LAST

34. All very ingenious but a very poor and weird set of surface readings. 1dn a prime example .. also 10ac,13ac, 17ac .. and others
35. Having consulted the SNITCH prior to attempting this, I surprised myself by a) managing to complete it correctly and b) breaking 30 mins. A lot of biffing even for me. My only real DNK’s were the building and the musician but they were fortunately among the clues I was able to parse. Ended in the SE with LOI VENDOR. I cannot really say I enjoyed the journey but thanks to setter and especially V for elucidating my biffs.
36. Another oh dear oh dear. Quite pleased to finish all but 3 ( 24ac, 20ac & 21 dn).
    Biffed in Franco at 10ac , but pleased to have at least solved the long ones.
    COD 13ac .
    Thank you blogger & setter, at least my Friday efforts are improving.
37. I haven’t had so much fun since we buried our dog,!
    Meldrew
38. I think I enjoyed this but I am still a bit in shock. Finished just under the hour (59:54 to be precise and I might have been 10 seconds faster if I hadn’t erased the second F of BANFF in a rush to submit, but I caught it after being told my puzzle was 99% finished). Of course I did not understand the wordplay for BANFF, but banged it in anyway despite thinking, like Verlaine, of the BANFF in Canada. That was my LOI after FIASCO, my POI once I realized it couldn’t be FIANCE. BONE CHINA, strangely, went in right away. NEW HAMPSHIRITES took forever, after wondering about strange countries somewhere in South or Central America and not much closer to home. Nice Friday puzzle.

    Edited at 2021-02-12 07:20 pm (UTC)

    1. 1 DOWN. BANFF.
       What is STLOI, used to explain the answer?
       1. Second to last one in. More generally used is POI — penultimate one in which is shorter an’ sweeter, but a big word for some.
          Meldrew FOI

          .

       2. I have no idea what it means. Perhaps you should ask Verlaine instead, since he is the one who used it in his review of the solution.
39. Having worked in London for years, no cockney worth his salt would ever say “one’s” . Actually nobody these days says “one’s” in the 21st century. Surely it should be Let Your Hair Down!
    1. Hincorrect! Whah abaht ‘er Madge, lik? She were born wivvin’ the sarnda Bow Bells, over at Bruton Street. ‘Er Mum an’ Dad was ‘onnery Sparras! Nonuffink! ‘Why doesn’t one photograph somewhere else?’ Sam Kelly
40. Didn’t get Banff/Fiasco — haven’t seen f=following before.
    NHO Tosti — no more obscure composers, please.
    Didn’t cotton on to “Take in vain”.
    Knew it must be “In Re” but couldn’t see why.
    Could see why “Otto” but never heard of it.
    All in all, a disaster — despite some nice penny-drop moments elsewhere in the puzzle.
41. One cheat though — looked a synonym for clumsy and that got me over the line for the Americans (despite having most of the other checkers). Thought of BANFF very early on but just couldnt parse it to the point I was getting rather annoyed with the clue. The hat was doffed though when I came here — will try to remember that type of reverse cryptic for the future

    Got the other tough ones but a number needed some serious eking out

    Nice to have a toughie

    Thanks all

42. Fiasco was a fiasco. No way can you wriggle a synonym from bomber to be that. Bomb at the outside, but even that’s a stretch.
    Lazy clue. Or arrogant. Or both

43. I think you overstate the case. I don’t see anyone here so anxious to preserve their air of invincibility that they deliberately withhold uncompleted crosswords. DNF in any case far more often means the contributor didn’t get everything right: this crew is actually pretty honest when it comes to success and failure.
    It’s been a long time since I haven’t submitted because of an incomplete grid: my motive for submitting has far more to do with checking the answers and assessing my own personal faculty with the crossword, rather than measuring myself against others.
    Part of the magic of this site is precisely that (despite its title) it has unapologetic entries from both lightning fast solvers and people who are learning the trade (or just enjoying the challenge) and record calendar times.
    The SNITCH is brilliant (from my point of view) particularly in finding out whether I blitzed a hard one or struggled with an easy one. The niceties created by people submitting or not concern me not the tiniest jot.
    I guess the only way we could manage the kind of purity you seem to be seeking is if we ran each day under competition rules, all starting at the same GMT, and as we all know, that crashes the site. In the meantime, the world (even the world of the Times crossword) is not perfect. I encourage you just to enjoy this insane and wonderful hobby and share your personal pleasure without worrying about perceived “cheating”

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