Times 27915 – nightmare on Wall Street

75 comments on “Times 27915 – nightmare on Wall Street”

1. Around 37′ for me. I can’t help on the two weird clues. I came here hoping to find out out what “Wall Street” was doing, and how to get PIANIST from the wordplay. You did solve the TERNE one, since I’d never heard of the alloy. I got held up towards the end since I misremembered the drug as ROPHYNOL which I thought fitted the wordplay with P in ROH…then I thought about it some more and also I couldn’t fit any word until I cleared the final checker and saw TOURNEY. All correct in the end, but with those mysterious two clues even when I thought about them a lot more after I’d submitted.
2. 12ac {U to}PIANIST (perfectionist)

   4ac Wall Street indicates an Americanism.

   Edited at 2021-03-03 05:31 am (UTC)

   1. I’d worked out this parsing of 12ac myself, but thanks fo the enlightenment on PARTERRE!
   2. Wiktionary has
      parterre
      5). (US, New York) An apartment balcony.
      Andyf
      1. Thanks. In that case perhaps the clue might have had ‘Wall Street balcony’ rather than ‘stalls’.

         But if the theatre meaning was intended it might have been kinder to put ‘Broadway stalls’ to indicate the Americanism and better for the surface reading without making the clue necessarily easier since no-one (including the dictionaries) seems to be sure exactly what a PARTERRE is.

         Edited at 2021-03-03 11:51 am (UTC)

         1. Never in all my NYC years have I heard a balcony called a parterre. A deck possibly.
   3. My OZ Oxford has:
      US the ground floor of a theatre auditorium, esp. the pit overhung by balconies
      Chambers (12) has:
      The pit of a theatre, esp the part under the galleries

      So both of them seem to indicate the stalls, but only Oxford indicates US usage. In my ignorance I wrote it in easily from wordplay not knowing what parterre means, but it seems the setter is spot-on.

      1. On the TV news the floor of the NY stock exchange has, above it, the balcony where they ring the ceremonial bell – does that count for anything extra?

         Edited at 2021-03-03 01:16 pm (UTC)

   4. Ref the edited comment in the blog, Collins defines Utopianism with reference to perfection: the ideas, doctrines, aims, etc. of a utopian; visionary schemes for producing perfection in social or political conditions,
      and also goes on to list Utopianist. SOED offers Utopianist too, along with the alternative Utopist which sounds a bit vulgar!

      Edited at 2021-03-03 11:04 pm (UTC)

3. I was pleased with my time (28 minutes) especially as I lost several minutes at the start trying to make SHEATH fit the word play – the definition was fine and HEATH was a prime minister but there was no accounting for S / Queen. Obviously I got to grips with that when Mrs T hove into view, but the gloss of my success with the puzzle was taken off somewhat when I found I had an error at 23ac with VERMENA.

   I didn’t know a plant that would fit but I constructed VERMANA from wordplay VERA (female) outside MAN (male) which seemed a possibility until I solved 24dn which placed an E third from the end in the Across clue. I then carelessly thought, okay, so it’s MEN instead of MAN, not noticing that it no longer fitted the wordplay I had devised. I should have revisited he whole thing at that stage.

   I wasn’t sure of the parrot at 14ac nor of SEROUS at 13ac although both seemed reasonable assumptions. NHO TERNE as the lead alloy.

   Reverting to 4ac for a moment I’ve been in UK venues that offered PARTERRE seats so I didn’t think of it as an American thing but SOED for one says it’s US for ‘stalls’ whereas in the UK it means the seats behind the orchestra. Elsewhere it’s said to be the part of the stalls beneath the balcony, an alternative to ‘parquet circle’, but it’s not clear whether that’s on one or both sides of the Atlantic.

   Edited at 2021-03-03 06:07 am (UTC)

4. having never heard of the drug, I finally looked it up. [ON EDIT: I just now looked up flunitrazepam, and according to Wikipedia it is no longer approved for medical use in the UK, and has never been approved by the FDA in the US.] So I finished the puzzle, but didn’t notice (2d time in 2 days) a typo elsewhere. Thanks to Jack for PIANIST, which was beyond me. And ‘Wall Street’ was of no use to me, as I’ve never come across PARTERRE in reference to theater seats (or ‘stalls’, for that matter). DNK TERNE.

   Edited at 2021-03-03 07:38 am (UTC)

5. Thanks to Jack for PARTERRE. I think we may have had that word recently as well.
   Am I being thick but CARTILAGE = Hard to swallow?
   Nice to see a Kiwi parrot; not that I’ve ever seen one but I hope to when I embark on a two week rail trip mostly round the South Island next month.
   Some difficult vocab for me today: SER(I)OUS, VERBENA, ROHYPNOL and in(TERNE)e.
   COD to both SENTIMENTALIST and PIANIST
   FOI:TIGER LOI:THATCH
   1. I assumed the setter had gristle in mind.
      1. Ah! I see. Thanks, Kevin.
6. 18:12. After two days of being on the wavelength, back down to earth today with a decidedly sub-SNITCH performance. I found this hard, and some of it weird. No idea about PARTERRE or PIANIST and INTERNEE was pretty much a guess. Random names for an obscure plant (aka plant) is also a bit off, although I’ve seen VERBENA, probably on shampoo bottles. Edit: no it’s a sort of infusion, isn’t it? More familiar to be by its French, verveine.

   Edited at 2021-03-03 07:55 am (UTC)

   1. Right first time: https://uk.loccitane.com/verbena-collection,83,1,86305,1069464.htm

      I had some vervaine liquid soap, it was disgusting

      1. Looks like I was right both times. If you ask me, any substance considered suitable for both tea and soap is likely to be fit for neither.
7. 49 minutes.

   Another with PIANIST and PARTERRE unparsed and TERNE unknown but entered from wordplay. I wasn’t too keen about the trade name ROHYPNOL (rather than the correct drug name flunitrazepam as pointed out), but I suppose it is now a well-known word and can therefore be justified. SEROUS can specifically mean ‘related to serum’ but it’s more often used generally to describe a watery discharge.

   Thanks for explaining the difference between BENZINE and “benzene” which I wasn’t aware of. Favourite was TURNPIKE, a word which always reminds me of the Simon and Garfunkel song.

   Thanks to setter and blogger

   1. Thanks for the pleasing Simon and Garfunkel ear worm 🙂
      1. Also James Taylor. Sweet Baby James. The first of December was covered with snow. So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston. With the Berkshires all dreamlike on account of that frosting with 10 miles behind me and 10 thousand more to go.
         1. James Taylor needs to have his Satnav looked at ..
8. …With fruit the vines that round the Thatch-eves run.

   30 mins, phew, pre-brekker, but the last several were spent in the SW. Once I saw Ova, all fell in a hurry.
   As Pip says, a curate’s egg: Erne and Terne, really! But some gems like the hidden Ravioli and Nursing.
   But 1dn jars with me. Go=Turn is well known as a noun, but then what is the ‘to’ doing?
   Thanks setter and Pip.

   Edited at 2021-03-03 08:02 am (UTC)

   1. Perhaps the GO is doing double duty .. and why not? 🙂
9. Just yesterday I stated that it amazes me how much taking a break can help when you’re stuck and I had to resort to one today with five clues left. I didn’t even need to come back to the puzzle as the answers came to me during the break. Unsurprisingly they included INTERNEE, PARTERRE and PIANIST. I was well off the wavelength for the other two. Inexplicably Thatcher didn’t come to mind as a Prime Minister, though I don’t typically think of THATCH as a protective covering. For TURNPIKE I spent time trying to think of a toilet for travellers that ended in “-hake”.
   I thought there were some nice clues again today — RAVIOLI was good but I particularly liked the surface for ENROL.
10. … is the strange process by which clues such as 4A and 12A that appear to be made from base metal (e.g. TERNE?) are transformed into gold by the action of lux intellectus.

    These days I have fallen into a pattern of doing the 15×15 last thing at night before falling asleep. I duly finished this one and remember having had a feeling of satisfaction about having correctly parsed the two ‘strange’ clues, with a contented feeling this morning telling me that I had indeed negotiated all the difficulties. (If there is anything unresolved then I wake up with an uncomfortable nagging doubt and there was no such unpleasant feeling this morning).

    When I opened the puzzle again to review my efforts however I could not at first remember the tricks used to make sense of them (although I did remember for 12A having spotted that the key was to use both U and TO in the clue but in the fog of the morning I could not immediately remember how to use them until I saw jackkt’s comment).

    So. Interesting phenomena: 1. How mental processes performed late at night appear to be less substantial than those performed at other times and have a tendency to evaporate with the morning mist and 2. How clues in which you cannot see the trick at first make your eyebrows shoot up and cause you to curse the setter’s ‘carelessness’ are transformed into excellent examples of the art when the light of understanding is shone upon them. The great boot of stupidity with which you kick yourself moves smartly from one foot to the other.

    Edited at 2021-03-03 09:13 am (UTC)

11. Hard today. Lots of obscure words and, like others, several were unparsed.

    Had a typo yesterday, so pleased to finish in under 24′.

    Thanks pip and setter.

12. We had a weird bird in a clue
    Which makes this Astro-nowt blue
    My vocabulary
    Grew by TERNE, (new to me)
    And CLOD for today to TABOO
13. Oh yes and where are my manners. Thank you setter, blogger and contributors. Very enjoyable.
14. 20:34 LOI THATCH. I found this rather heavy going getting all the way to WHIRR before my first one in. DNK that meaning of PARTERRE or that TERNE was a lead alloy. BENZINE was known only from another crossword. I did eventually parse PIANIST, to my relief. Time to go and get some fresh air to unfuzz my brain.
15. Thought this was tough and ended up biffing in the SE. Did not know Terne and did not see either OVA or AlIT though they all “had to be”.

    Useful to learn the Wall Street/Americanism indicator and I finally know how to spell Cartilage properly.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    (exit, repeating “every day, in every way, I am getting
    better and better”)

16. I found this very tricky. I didn’t get what was going on with Wall Street and hadn’t heard of the alloy so had fingers crossed on PARTERRE and INTERNEE.

    No problem with VERBENA. We’ve had a couple of lockdown meals from top Yorkshire chef Tommy Banks and he uses lemon verbena in some of his dishes.

17. Happy with that.

    I normally struggle on crosswords with a Snitch rating above 100 and probably usually end up closer to 40 minutes or stall somewhere terminally but managed to work my way through it today with a few educated guesses as hadn’t heard of PARTERRE or the alloy!

18. 48 minutes pre and post dog walk. LOI ROHYPNOL, the only order to the letters that made any sort of sense. I assumed that Terne must be a lead alloy, and that BENZINE was differently spelt as it doesn’t come in rings. I wasn’t really sure what PARTERRE was so I was just happy to build it. I did parse PIANIST at least. COD to AUTOSUGGESTION. ‘There’s no-one to defeat you ‘cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.’ Toughish puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
19. 14.50. FOI Resurgent, LOI Enrol. NHO Terne but answer had to be internee at18 ac. Pretty much regular progress with the downs marginally more accessible than the acrosses. No particular stand out clues for me but an enjoyable puzzle.
20. 45m steady solve, with many clues needing close inspection and deconstruction, but no mistakes, despite not finally understanding PARTERRE, PIANIST and INTERNEE. Thank you for the enlightenment, Pip. At least the flower was a write-in, as a regular component of the hanging baskets chez nous. Thank you, setter, most enjoyable.
21. A bit gristly today compared with yesterday. One could possibly say CARTILAGY. Used to sell LEMON VERBENA tea in my shop, and have drunk it on numerous occasions.
    No idea with PARTERRE but it had to be.
    Spent most time on ENTOURAGE, where I had the company as CO and was trying to find as old as you and I as the literal. Finally resolved by MAGNETIC.
    I liked the PIANIST clue
22. Same experience as others, with LOI, PARTERRE from an alphabet trawl and wordplay, then checked to confirm. Still didn’t fully understand the wordplay as a quick google just revealed a garden with paths and English ivy walls, so I submitted with fingers crossed! I did manage to parse PIANIST, although TERNE as an alloy was assumed rather than known. I would’ve spelled the drug as ROPHYNOL, but TOURNEY put paid to that thought. As I already had AVOWAL, VERBENA went straight, in remembered from other puzzles. I constructed BENZINE from wordplay and didn’t give the hydrocarbon ring a passing thought. I thought RAVIOLI was particularly well hidden, as I didn’t spot it until I had the V from GIVEN. A chewy puzzle. 30:23. Thanks setter and Pip.
    1. Your spelling makes sense John because they’re sometimes referred to as “roofies”.
    2. why did TOURNEY put paid to ROHYPNOL? Possibly, it actually put paid to Rohipnol?
       1. I had (rohponly)* to work with from the clue and have only heard the drug pronounced rofinol, which gave me ROPHYNOL, but that put the Y in the wrong place when I got TOURNEY.
23. Strong feeling of deja vu all over again with PARTERRE. What I recall from the earlier occasion is saying that in many years of theater-going in New York City I have never heard that word used as equivalent to “stalls” in a UK theatre. The word used here is “orchestra” seats. I did the same as Pip with PIANIST so thanks to Jack for the parse. 21.07
24. Okay, 22 minutes and a bit, with an age and a half on PARTERRE, and PIANIST throwing the U TO out from a word I couldn’t work out. We’ve had something similar messing about with PURITAN, which would be a better perfectionist.

    Now, about PARTERRE. I seem to have reached an age when I can make silly errors but be entirely convinced they’re right. It would be entirely possible for me to think Wall Street and write Broadway and vice-versa. You don’t suppose our setter (and editor) was similarly afflicted? It would make much more sense of a clue which otherwise needs solvers’ charity to work.

    ROHYPNOL may be a tradename, but it’s also, notoriously, the date-rape drug of choice and synonymous with that device, and for that reason alone I’m quite surprised at its inclusion. People of my acquaintance would be traumatised.

    All in all, a rather messy puzzle, and compared to yesterday a satyr to Hyperion. Thanks Pip for sticking at it, and the entire crew for seeking resolution.

    1. I think the setter intentionally used “Wall Street” rather than “Broadway” to make the surface read better (i.e. share = traded equity on stock market) — but, yes, Broadway would have made more sense contextually.
       I think I’m correct in saying that Parterre means theatre stalls in Russia also (but spelled in Cyrillic!).
25. A grind for me today but pleased to have just about finished – the exception being BENZINE, I had a MER when I thought it must be E instead of I.
    Not very happy with 17dn, I would have preferred a generic drug name. Maybe it’s my current preoccupation with big pharma….
    Also think that serous is an adjective (serous discharge/fluid) and serum is the ‘component’ ie. a noun. Maybe I’m being a pedant ( which I kept trying to biff into 12ac). Glad that 28ac didn’t turn out to be a personal nemesis – a Latin legalese.
    I too found it a day to go off and do a menial task before a PDM.
    Again, I could solve 5dn when I wrote the letters horizontally but not by looking at the vertical.
    Clever and enjoyable. Let’s hope that the cricket tomorrow is the same. Not holding my breath.

    Thank you blogger and setter.

    1. I didn’t say SEROUS was a noun, I said it was an adjective, “relating to serum”. What is your pedantic point?
       1. You are correct. I doff my cap.
26. 20m 14s. Very uneven (at least my solving was) with some obvious answers and some little better than reasonably confident guesses. PARTERRE and PIANIST unparsed post-solve so thank you for the explanations.
27. of mordant politicians at a mock tourney –
    for the wind’s howling, the rain’s beating around me,
    a storm-slap, an unprepared journey.

    Paused at the end over Rohypnol and felt I had to trust it. Uncomfortable with: emergency for urgent, but I guess OK; Wall St, terne as obscure, cartilage (I’d have thought everyone would find it hard to swallow); and the sleep inducer. But I guess only my ignorance at fault. Got there finally in 28’52.

28. An hour and 3 minutes after nearly giving up several times. No idea about Wall Street, NHO terne, erne for eagle, benzine rather than benzene, kea. Not convinced that a suggestion is convincing.
    But most of all, I was delayed by writing in strings at 7 down. S T from the ‘cases’ of soft plus ring for opera, meaning violinists. OK, it doesn’t give the s and ring is several operas, but hey. Finally admitted, after resisting for a while, that magnetic had to be correct and the rest flowed from there. Having read the comments, the proudest moment of my day is to have parsed pianist.
    Thanks to setter, blogger and commenters. Especially for the earworm of Sweet Baby James.
29. Off the ball today. No probs with RHS but took ages to break the LHS. PIANIST and SERIOUS kicked things off there.

    NHO KEA nor TERNE — still rubbish with flora and chemistry (and latin and etc etc)

30. We’re quietly plugging away at the 15x15s – managing to solve most of the clues. Really appreciate the blog and comments – all helps with the learning process. Thanks to all.
31. I forgot to solve 1 across.
    1. You submitted with it unfilled? Bummer.
       1. Yes, I clicked so fast that I registered seeing “98% Complete” just as I idiotically hit Submit.
          1. I’ve been there 😭
32. Like the Mayfield2 above, I have started to have a go more often, and the blogs are a huge help. A big step up today from the last two days, but managed about two thirds in stages through the day. Breaking the clues down so much further than the QC usually requires is a skill I am only gradually acquiring, and coping with more unknown words (terne? Tourney?) in the process.
33. Mostly fair enough although I’m another that did not parse “Pianist”.

    Wasn’t too keen on 23a — random male inside random female to produce esoteric garden flower. Even with all the checkers I had at least 12 possibilities and luckily chose Verbena over Verlena/Vergeda/Verneda/Verdesa etc.

34. About forty minutes in two sessions. I managed the RHS solo but the LHS was a team effort with disinterested husband. We solved all the clues but had several false entries that we biffed which turned out to be incorrect but gave us some letters. Carpentry for cartilage, for example. Took ages to see NY for the city which was helpful, and gave us the k for turnpike. Avowal gave us the V for verbena, then we parsed it afterwards with an amused groan. Good puzzle all in all, technically a DNF for me, but one for the team. It’s nice to get the team involved. DNK terne, but biffed the clue easily enough. Thanks for the parsing, Pip, we referred to quite a few of those today, and to setter for the stimulating entertainment. GW.
    1. I needed the RHS to complete the LHS — Royal Horticultural Society!
35. ….and likely to remain so for a while. It has a definite negative impact on my time, due to a combination of slow response and the dreaded fat finger.

    I was considerably slowed down in the SW corner, having biffed PARTERRE on the way. I rather liked “soft cases” for RAVIOLI.

    FOI RESURGENT
    LOI VERBENA
    COD TURNPIKE
    TIME 11:17

36. Late today as I had to leave this one this morning due to meetings and come back to finish it just now. Having had two splendid days, I knew a challenge was coming. Held up by PARTERRE, TIGER and SERIOUS. Though I had the latter, could not see why,. DNK serous. Otherwise everything else has been said. Thanks Pip and setter.
37. Much like Our Jack I has SHEATH nailed in at 1ac, but nothing else subsequently worked ……… when I awoke there was MAGGIE! My LOI

    FOI 12ac PIANIST

    COD 5dn AUTOSUGGESTION a ‘Ford Escort’ perhaps?

    WOD 4ac PARTERRE – recent usage methink

    Time between 45 and 50 mins, as I had forty-winks.

    A curate’s egg indeed.

    Edited at 2021-03-03 03:24 pm (UTC)

38. Tough for me today — 43 minutes but had to revert to aids for parterre to get the NE going and my horticultural ignorance did not allow me to differentiate between verlena verlesa verkena verneda etc so had to look up verbena.

    Thx PIP and jakkt for the pianist as I biffed that early but never worked it out.

    NHO terne or serous (despite many years ago qualifying in Biochemistry) but wordplay helped.

    Thx Pip and setter

39. I’m afraid I ran out of steam with this, with just four to go: Rohypnol, Cartilage and the Avowal / Whirr (!) intersection. All of these were gettable, Whirr ridiculously so. Hence I’m left feeling a little deflated, especially having teased out Parterre and Internee. I did like 16d, Entourage and the brevity of 8d, Ernest. Invariant
40. 12a — pianist — swap out UR from purist for uranium with IAN — a type of key — much easier than the suggested parsing?
    1. “IAN” a type of key?

       And it doesn’t explain the “TO”

    2. Only two problems, UR is not Uranium, that’s U in the periodic table, and there’s nothing in the clue to suggest substitution, only removal.
    3. I had to look it up — there is such a thing as an “Ian Key” — it’s similar to an Allen Key.
       For me, the problem is that the symbol for Uranium is U, not Ur, so it still doesn’t quite work.
    4. and KEY is not available — it’s part of the definition
41. .. or UR for URANIUM …
42. 51:50. Quite a struggle, especially the North East corner. I was pleased to get PARTERRE just from the wordplay. I did not parse PIANIST. I liked TURNPIKE. I used to get the tube to work sometimes from Turnpike Lane station
43. UTOPIANIST less U to
    1. Whoever you are – anon – do you READ the blog before commenting?
44. Not much else to say — strangely WHIRR was my LOI despite being one of the easiest clues. PARTERRE went in on w/p and “what else” ditto the drug (which was a NHO).

    Overall, enjoyed it, but without any smiley moments

    Thanks Pip and setter

45. 24.28. Got a little stuck in some thickets along the way here but managed to hack my way through ok.

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