Times 27916 – roll roll roll your boat

105 comments on “Times 27916 – roll roll roll your boat”

1. Three fine times this week so far — but this is the only one that counts for a score!

   A lot of hit and hopes here: AGOG = curious, ROGUE = greek, HOUSE = pupils, GREENHOUSE = cockpit, ROLLER, etc. But everything seemed plausible.

   On the other hand, plenty went in almost from enumeration alone: EASY ON THE EYE, NOT ON YOUR LIFE, READY STEADY GO, etc.

   Thank you for parsing everything for me… some of this was tricky!

   PS. You’re missing the S in EASY.

   Edited at 2021-03-04 01:34 am (UTC)

2. PS 21 down is more likely BIRC(H) reversed
   1. oops – I can’t reverse words, can I?
      1. Initially, for 21d I had SLAB for bed as a shortened reversed form of balsa. Eventually I found relief (22a)
3. Never finished, because Balsa backwards is Slab, also a kind of a bed, and with the confirmation of ending in a crossing B. Uff.
   I squinted at Breaststroke not matching the gerund or participle form, but send thanks to the setter and ed for “university” instead of “college”
   1. Another balsa here but I did eventually think of relief, so corrected it
4. ….but I finished in 36 minutes. None of the long multi-word ones went in from the enumeration – they all had to be puzzled out from the cryptic. There were a lot of unexpected answers – greenhouse, tea for two, brogue – that went in without full understanding. But I did end up all correct.

   I expect we’ll have mixed results on this one, with the solvers who can biff from the enumerations doing very well.

5. 25 minutes but I just this minute noticed an error at 19dn where I had HEAVE-TO instead of HEAVE-HO. I wasn’t happy with my answer and intended to return to it later, but forgot.

   The rest of it was easy apart from not knowing the Greek / ROGUE thing and wondering what Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar would have made of their 1924 song ‘Tea for Two’ being described as an AIR!

6. Like Paul, I put in SLAB, although with some hesitation about SLAB=layer. The L_L_E_ of 22ac forced me to reconsider, but not before some time was wasted. DNK Greek in the required sense–and why, might I ask, are we using words for nationality or ethnicity in a derogatory sense?–, DNK cockpit ditto. Biffed REPORTER; is a PERM frizzy? he asked rhetorically.

   Edited at 2021-03-04 06:56 am (UTC)

   1. Yes Kevin a perm is very frizzy if you normally have straight hair.
      1. I guess it depends on what one thinks is frizzy. To me, it’s close to ODE’s definition, ‘formed of a mass of small, tight curls’. An Afro is frizzy. A perm–not that I’ve ever had one, or could–curls straight hair; it’s short, after all, for ‘permanent wave’, which hardly suggests small tight curls.
         1. All I know is that my mother made me have one once upon a time and I came out looking like this. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51VIik2TxKL._SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_FMwebp_.jpg
            1. Did she give you a permanent manicure too?
               1. Very funny…
7. Didn’t enjoy that at all. Too many obscure definitions for me. e.g. Greek = rogue.
   I can’t see how you can get BREASTSTROKE from just ‘swimming’. I don’t like ‘hit’ as an anagram indicator and ‘cockpit’ = GREENHOUSE? Where does that come from? If it’s meant to relate to aviation, I worked in aviation for 47 years, mostly in direct contact with planes and I NEVER heard a cockpit referred to as a greenhouse.
   I also didn’t help myself by putting in TWO FOR TEA. No wonder I couldn’t make sense of 11d and 14d for ages. And, thus, no wonder I took well over an hour.
   That forced me to pause the puzzle so I could watch the pre-lunch session in the Test.
   Thanks for explaining the many clues I couldn’t parse, George, but this puzzle hasn’t put me in a good mood for the afternoon session in the Test.
   1. I just looked up GREENHOUSE. Apparently RAF slang.
      1. Thanks. it just adds to my feeling that there are too many obscure definitions today.
         In this case, obscure RAF slang reminds me of the Monty Python sketch – “cabbage crates over the briny” etc. “Sorry, Squiffy”. Don’t get your banter!”
         1. I thought that sketch was Armstrong and Miller.
            1. No, their RAF pilots speak modern street slang with posh accents. The Python sketch is a classic.https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3v9z74
               1. Unspammed
            2. The Armstrong and Miller sketches are similar characters but speaking (in posh accents) like obnoxious South London teenagers. Very funny.
            3. I’ve since found out that Armstrong & Miller did do a sketch like that but the one I referred to was definitely by the Pythons.
8. A DNF in 40 minutes, with another ‘heave-to’ for 19d. Still, first pink square for a while so no complaints.

   Couldn’t parse EASY ON THE EYE and I was unaware of the GREENHOUSE and ‘Greek’ for ROGUE slang. I liked VERTIGO – learnt a new ‘Spanish port’ along the way – and REPORTER.

   Thank to setter and blogger

9. …And I am sick at heart.

   30 mins pre-brekker, but the last 5 were spent trying to justify Greenhouse.
   I had initially put Greenhorns, thinking they must be cockerels or something. But Sweetmeat killed that idea.
   MERs at the two ‘opinions’ today. I guess they are ok but a bit of a stretch: ‘bet’ and ‘eye’.
   Thanks setter and G.

   1. I agree about the two opinions!
10. Despite the SNITCH currently rating yesterday’s and today’s crosswords as being of equal difficulty , today’s took me about half the time of yesterday’s. I was going to say it’s nice to be on the wavelength but then I thought often it’s more satisfying to be off it and have to work harder.
    I finished with an unparsed REPORTER and had a minor panic as I submitted and thought maybe I was meant to get “Afro” into the answer somehow.
    Like George I’m not overkeen on rap but I do like some, particularly the early stuff. Grandmaster Flash anyone?
    1. I am very fond of old-school hip-hop, and 1ac immediately reminded me of something I was listening to over the weekend:

       When I dream of fairytales I think of me and Shelly
       See she’s my type of hype and I can’t stand when brothers tell me
       That I should quit chasin’ and look for something better
       But the smile that she shows makes me a go-getter

       So that’s my current earworm, which I don’t mind at all.

       Edited at 2021-03-04 08:53 am (UTC)

       1. I dislike all the self-aggrandisement in rap/hip hop so humility always stands out. I love I Wish by Skee-Lo.
          1. Self-aggrandisement is quite hard to avoid: I think of it as a stylistic convention. I struggle more with the glorification of violence, sexism and homophobia tbh.
       2. I am curiously impressed by anyone who can quote the actual words of a rap. My granddaughter can do it even with the very fast ones, but I generally fail to recognise the beauty of the poetry, or indeed any of the words except the occasional urgh urgh.
          1. OK boomer 😉
          2. Well I confess I googled those ones to get them right, but there is real poetry in some of it.
       3. I loved Run DMC’s “Walk This Way”, but everything else in that genre seems like shallow plagiarism. The “c” in “crap” is silent — if only the “vocalists” were too !
          1. Walk This Way was originally an Aerosmith song, as I’m sure you knew. The band feature on the Run-DMC version of course but they are far from my favourite hip-hop outfit and I confess I prefer the original. The whole album it comes from (Toys in the Attic, 1975) is great.
             Hip-hop is an incredibly rich, diverse and influential genre. People often use samples as a basis of course but calling that plagiarism is like saying BB King was a plagiarist because he didn’t invent the 8-bar blues.

             Edited at 2021-03-04 03:40 pm (UTC)

11. Yup, another HEAVE-TO and SLAB, which made me put in LOLLED, god knows why. Shame, as the week was going so well…..
    Thank you G and setter.
12. 12:55 DNK Greek=ROGUE or cockpit=GREENHOUSE or get EYE for opinion. LOI CRIB when the R for RELIEF helped me find the tree. Like Pootle I managed this a lot faster than yesterday’s. Maybe I’m more alert after my 11 mile walk yesterday.
    1. I’d still be in bed after 11 miles, John. But good to know you’re keeping in shape.
13. Not exactly eezy peezy but not too hard I thought and the various echoes in the answers seemed to provide helpful suggestions here and there. The couple of slang terms I’d not met before but didn’t need to have done.
14. Carelessly entered EASY ON THE EYES which became EASY ON THE EYS so a dreaded pink square. Otherwise steady going if a bit slow so I ‘finished’ in about 21 minutes.
15. 17:10
    Zipped through this pretty quickly, biffing like mad. Thanks george.
16. Several incompletely parsed or understood — ROGUE, GREENHOUSE, HEAVE-HO, FAT — but all correct in 14′ 31″.

    I agree with Kevin re ‘Greek’ now I know the meaning.

    Thanks george and setter.

    Edited at 2021-03-04 08:50 am (UTC)

17. Thanks setter for the surfaces. I enjoyed this crossword.
18. 14:55, taken over my average time by have SLAB, which made 22ac difficult. Eventually I decided to question every checking letter, which fortunately led me to RELIEF reasonably quickly.
    Some obscure stuff in here, but more importantly Greek=rogue is outrageously offensive. I don’t know what the setter or editor were thinking.
    1. Yes, absolutely agree, k. That was shocking.
       1. But imagine one was Trojan
19. Mostly easyish, but held up towards the end with GREENHOUSE, SWEETMEAT (which I couldn’t parse properly), REPORTER and LOI BREASTSTROKE.

    Didn’t bother parsing EASY ON THE EYE, and DNK ROGUE as a greek.

20. ‘Jacobs missus’ refers to Jacob’s favourite wife, Rachel, literally ‘ewe’. Hence EWER.
    1. If that were the setter’s intention then the “maybe” wouldn’t be required.
       1. “Maybe” might still be required, since you have a choice of at least four wives/concubines for Jacob
          1. That’s the wrong way round isn’t it? Rachel, maybe would be an indicated DBE for Jacob’s missus.
    2. Nice spot: I had forgotten that bit of my Hebrew. George is also correct in identifying a Jacob as a kind of sheep, so that works too. I wonder if the setter knew?
21. 30m and a bit of change today. Started very slowly, with only a few clues done after 20m. But then seemed to hit the wavelength and the rest fell into place. Quite a few I didn’t or couldn’t fully parse, so thank you for the blog. Of course once explained, they seem quite obvious! Thank you, setter, for the entertainment.
22. I made hard work of this because of some tricky definitions – Greenhouse, Brogue, and Heave-Ho. I liked Vertigo, Jacobs’ missus the willing girlfriend.

    Ready Steady Go on TV used to mean “the weekend starts here”. Now the weekend is undistinguishable from the rest of the week; what they refer to here as “Lundimanche”.

    Thank you setter and blogger.

    1. Lundimanche — I rather like that one.
23. BIFFS for ROGUE, E on the E, REGRETTABLY and TRAPEZE so thanks for those. Fortunately SLAB never occurred to me. FAT took a while to justify at the end.

    The leaderboard is showing 9 sub-15 times with one or two errors. I wonder what has caught people.

24. 17.48 so definitely not on the same wavelength as glheard. Couple of biffs saw me home, fat and trapeze. Seemed reasonable enough guesses but nice to see the explanation to remind me of my ineptitude!

    Foi Go Getter. LOI Trapeze. NHO Rogue as being Greek so another good guess there. Lots to like relief, crib and vertigo – after eventually realising that via wasn’t the en route connection.

    My COD nomination is Ewer. Best bah none.

25. I too thought a greenhorn was a breed of chicken, perhaps a variety of leghorn, but finally twigged. Wiki says greenhouse refers to the type of multi-windowed cockpit you see on Flying Fortresses and Lancasters.
26. I’m not sure I liked this one either (see yesterday) with its rather extreme old fashioned-ness. Most of it was easy enough, and when I finally twigged GREENHOUSE I remembered my (Biggles?) RAF slang.
    Greek for ROGUE is absurd: can anyone come up with an example of this archaism? As for offence, I see Chambers lists it also as old slang for an Irishman, which may be achieving some sort of double hit.
    The old HEAVE HO is decidedly Woosterish, adding to the dated feel.
    So anyway, just under 20 minutes, with BROGUE entered on fit and definition alone.
    1. See my comment below .. the OED has eight example sentences, dated between 1528 and 1884. So it might be fair to say it is no longer in frequent use.. it sounds a little Heyerish to me, she frequented gaming clubs etc quite a lot, but I don’t remember it from there. I notice that Chambers manages to work Jews in, as well as the Greek and the Irish, so a pretty thorough job..
    2. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts? The implication that the gift bearer is a rogue?
27. I was held up by two. Fat and Reporter.

    COD: Controller.

    Fat Controller in there. Thomas The Tank Engine reference?

    1. In the corner opposite fat controller, we have greenhouse gas
    2. I thought a “fat controller” was a rigorously fastened corset !
28. Curious crossword today, definitely a little out of the common run. All solvable but several raised eyebrows, mostly mentioned already..
    I think it most likely that the setter was referring to sheep in 8dn but maybe s/he is patting self on head for having it covered two ways..
    Greek = rogue was new to me and even though I am as thick-skinned as they come it does feel rather out of place in this sensitive age. The meaning is not mentioned at all in Lexico or Collins online; in Chambers it is marked as archaic – but not derogatory or offensive – and in the OED it is none of those, though it does helpfully enlarge on the definition: “A cunning or wily person; a cheat, sharper, esp. one who cheats at cards.” Most curious. I won’t be adding it to my vocab. any time soon
29. 56:51 so quite a slow slog with many words (as above) feeling precariously unparsed. So, many thanks to the blogger today for much-needed explanation.

    Edited at 2021-03-04 11:26 am (UTC)

30. Some odd stuff here, to be sure. Various things which had to be what they were, most notably BROGUE, which was “it has to be this and I am clearly short of some important knowledge here”. Seeing the parsing, I think it belongs in a Mephisto (if, indeed, it belongs anywhere)…
31. Jerry is right about the Heyer flavour of Greek in that connection. Some of the rich young men about town in her books frequent gaming hells where they are separated from their money by “greeking”, “cogged” dice and other slippery practices. They also go to “the Jews” when in need of ready money, as they also do in Trollope. It must be a minefield trying to put together an English syllabus these days. In Greene’s Our Man In Havana, there’s the N word right on the first page. And I see that Dr. Seuss is looking iffy now. I mostly caught the wave for this one. 12.49
    1. They bowdlerise them Olivia, as often as not. The Fat Controller has disappeared from the latest TtheTE editions, even. Lots of Enid Blyton has had to be “updated,” too.. as for Biggles, or Bunter, just don’t go there
       1. was removed from Leicester Public Library and others wholesale!

          Edited at 2021-03-04 12:16 pm (UTC)

       2. Even Mr Potato Head has fallen foul of the woke generation now, or the manufacturers cynically spotted a marketing opportunity.
          1. That’s Gender-Neutral Potato Head to you!
             1. It isn’t, actually. They just renamed the umbrella brand ‘Potato Head’, because it seemed a little bit sexist to have Mrs Potato Head as a sub-category of Mr Potato head. They have both retained their individual names.
                Something similar has happened with Dr Seuss, where the publishers have just decided to withdraw a small number of little-known titles containing unequivocally racist imagery and language.
                As usual when you see the word ‘woke’ an awful lot of nonsense is involved in the reaction.

                Edited at 2021-03-04 04:55 pm (UTC)

    2. I recently read a Jeeves and Wooster and Rider Haggard’s She for the first time and there were bits of both that made me wince. However I think people are often too quick to judge old works outside of their historical context.
       1. I’ve loved the Richard Hannay stories since I was young, but when you re-read them now, there are occasional bits which make you think “OK, that really hasn’t aged well, let’s try to forget you mentioned it”.
32. Never heard of ‘greenhouse’ for cockpit or ‘Greek’ for rogue, so I had to cross my fingers for those. Should there be a statute of limitations on the use of ancient slang? Especially if, as in the case of ‘greek’, ‘welsh’ or ‘j*w’ the slang meanings are derogatory towards certain ethnic groups.
    1. are the rogues in Hollywood recently
33. Late arrival at the ball today having decided to watch the cricket without distraction. Not a good decision in retrospect. 38:minutes with LOI FAT. I’d no idea about GREENHOUSE or BROGUE, both of which were total biffs. It took a while to accept that Jacob preferred his sheep to either of his wives too. I wasn’t quite on wavelength, perhaps from not doing it at my normal time. Thank you George and setter.
34. Never heard of rogue in that way but it feels racist to me
35. for this post-prandial puzzle.

    1dn GREENHOUSE was a write-in – as my RAF slang is rather pukka.

    FOI 1ac GO-GETTER – a high flier

    (LOI) 26ac REPORTER – snitch

    COD 13dn TOILET ROLLS – Bronco (RAF) – ‘Völkischer Beobachter’ (Luftwaffe)

    WOD SCURRAVOGUE from Co. Down meaning a scoundrel. Wonderful Irish disparagemnt!

    But DNF as 21up SLAB was ‘OK’ for me, and 18dn looked like TRANNIE from where I was stood standing! (Radio Retro!)

    As for 22ac the answer came as something of a RELIEF

    It all went for ‘a Burton’ after 21 mins. I was in the jolly old juice. Roger and out!

36. GO-GETTER went straight in followed by GREEN? where I was torn between HORNS and HOUSE, eventually allowing SWEETMEAT to arbitrate for me. BASKET and RELIEF allowed me to see the CRIB without a diversion to balsa. NHO Greek for rogue and won’t be adding it to my vocab. Never did parse FAT, but went with the definition and checkers once POI REPORTER was in. LOI was BREASTSTROKE. 30:30. Thanks setter and George.
37. Made a great start today but let down by SLAB instead of CRIB like many others, and HEADS-UP for HEAVE-HO. Took a long while to unpick.

    Distracted this morning by a birthday crossword compiled just for me, and with the theme of me, by my other half. Wow.

    1. Happy Birthday!
       1. Thanks!
    2. Nice present> Many happys!
38. LOI was 1d, though shouldn’t have been. This pic’s of an Avro Anson cockpit and shows why the term ‘greenhouse’ is appropriate.
    Held up for a while by TWO FOR TEA instead of TEA FOR TWO.
    Eventually finished in 33’45”
39. Another reasonable day. Our challenge always seems to be getting a toehold – but once we have a starting point we generally do pretty well. We needed help with about 6 clues today and finished in 33 minutes. Onwards and upwards….
40. Took two goes to get this out, but eventually I got there with GREENHOUSE. Like a few others I didn’t know the cockpit meaning, but the wordplay left little option. Had no idea about Greek = rogue, and by the sounds of it let’s hope it doesn’t come up again.

    Didn’t know that ‘steady’ can be a noun for boyfriend/girlfriend either, but again the cluing made it straightforward. SWEETMEAT took the most grinding out, and I considered slab for 21d without going as far as to put it in. Needed all the checkers for TRAPEZE, and even then a bit more thought was required before I saw how it worked.

    FOI Gas
    LOI Greenhouse
    COD Go-getter

41. On the wavelength today very steady solve. I enjoyed the wordplay elements which helped me out with the unknowns.

    Enjoyed crib and ready steady go.

    LOI FAT — could not see the device for a while.

    19:04

    Thanks G and setter

42. When I first looked at this, I drew a complete blank. A second look got me started and then quickly to about 70% completion with the SW largely blank. Then coffee and concentration got me to LOI FAT -unparsed.
    I’m another who had no idea about GREENHOUSE or GREEK, nor REPORTER; just hoped for the best. I corrected HEAVE TO because it didn’t parse; a sign of improvement.
    And I had to correct a biffed ALL IN GOOD TIME at 12a;again it did not parse.
    Very pleased to have finished this.
    David
43. Slow and steady today. Like others didn’t know cockpit or greek. Although 4 down is reasonably easy, the clue doesn’t work. Article does not embrace acceptable opinion but is embraced by it.
    I was another slabber until taking it out to work on 22 across properly which gave much relief.
    Thanks to blogger and setter.

    Edited at 2021-03-04 02:33 pm (UTC)

    1. As George says in the blog, you have to separate ‘acceptable’ from ‘opinion’. It’s EASY(ON),THE (moderate article embracing acceptable), then EYE (opinion).
44. Somewhat outside my comfort zone with this one. FOI assess for averse, so that held me up. Heave-ho/to – couldn’t make my mind up for ages, then realised which it had to be. Was going for not on your nelly when it didn’t fit, so resorted to the “proper” version of that. Easiness is a funny word – what’s wrong with “ease”? Too many words ending in -ness these days, especially in the quick Jumbo. Very puzzled as to what a greenhouse had to do with a cockpit. I had trannie as well for a while. Tea for two and reporter caused amused groans. Three goes at it, so heaven knows how long. Thank you for the parsing, I biffed away like mad, and thank you setter for the puzzle, this one really was a head-scratcher. Enjoyed in spite of. GW.
45. The Greeks undoubtedly have a word for it, but heaven forbid that word should be “welsher”.
    1. The origin of this meaning of ‘welsh’ is obscure and probably not related to the nationality, but I would certainly never use the term anyway.
46. ….and biffed a fair few — thanks due to George for FAT which I didn’t see later when I unravelled the others.

    I mostly disliked the RAF slang, the racist connotation of 10A, and the random Greta.

    FOI NOT ON YOUR LIFE
    LOI HEAVE-HO
    COD EWER
    TIME 12:15

47. with a HEAVE TO, not even sure why I thought that might be right.
    I agree, some clues today didn’t quite work.
48. Biffed FED — every second letter of ‘offender’ — at 24d, so then couldn’t think of anything better than SECONDER (‘back’) for 27a.
49. I was on the wavelength but I’m still making lots of typos on this laptop – EASINSSS today. My only complaint with this one (not having spotted the SLAB ambiguity) is the awful use of a homophone to contain another word in TRAPEZE: I biffed it as my LOI, it never having crossed my mind what the real breakdown was.
    1. I didn’t mention it but I dislike this sort of thing too. I take the view that a homophone indication has to represent a distinct sound in the answer, and that if there is a mixture of homophone and other types of wordplay in a clue they should be completely distinct.
50. I went down the GREENHORNS false path, assuming it was a chicken like Rhode Island Red or something, but fixed that up to GREENHOUSE, which fitted the wordplay but I didn’t know as RAF slang. But DNF since I had SLAB and so there was nothing I could fit at 22A. I didn’t really consider SLAB might be wrong, it matched the other checker, it matched the definition, and it matched the wordplay. I put it down meaning to come back in the morning but never did.

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