Times 27939 – forty shades of green.

51 comments on “Times 27939 – forty shades of green.”

1. Off to a slow start–nothing on a first pass through the acrosses except LEE and IDO. DNK NATIONAL (newspaper), but assumed (finally) that that’s what was intended. My biggest problem was RACK. Or rather, my biggest problem was my obtuseness in not seeing ‘initially’ at 17d, and wasting all kinds of time trying to justify APPROVAL (even switching to UPHEAVAL for a while). Are there no longer QUARTER DAYs?
2. Fairly straightforward today with everything pretty much parsed though I did have slight doubts over a couple of the short ones — did RACK mean “harrow” and was a “bet” a “hazard”? Not that I’m questioning them now, I just doubted myself at the time. My main hold up was OUTSTRIPPED where I fixated on the answer beginning with “overt” for “on public view”. If I could move beyond such fixations quicker I’d be a better solver but I can’t see that happening any time soon!
   1. I think that it is to “bet” that is to “hazard” – verb not noun. This was my LOI.

      I was glad to finish after yesterday’s effort.

3. Lilies that Fester smell far worse than weeds.

   25 mins pre-brekker. I liked it, mostly OutStripped, the Trench Warfare anagram and COD to the Redcar DS.
   Thanks setter and Pip.

4. I think I was over-tired when I tackled this before bed, and after half-an-hour I had completed only about half of it with gaps in every quarter of the grid. I ground completely to a halt and gave up on it for the night. Returning to it this morning I was rewarded with an immediate breakthrough to boost my confidence and I finished the grid after about 15 minutes.

   I am still a little puzzled by Harrow = RACK because I haven’t managed to find it in any of the usual sources – not that I have looked exhaustively – and from the description of what the farming implement does I’d have thought ‘rake’ might be nearer the mark.

   Edited at 2021-03-31 06:01 am (UTC)

   1. I think it is in the sense of torture, e.g. Racked by guilt/anxiety.
      1. Oh dear, and now I’m revealing ignorance by saying I always thought that was spelt ‘wrack’.
         1. It is! Or at least can be: see Collins and Lexico, which both list it as an alternative.
            1. Thanks for that. I feel reassured!
         2. I also know ‘wrack” as a noun in the sense of the wrack line on the seashore: the line of seaweed left by the tide.
5. Thank you, Pip. I did have a query about ‘harrow’ and RACK but I think myrtilus has answered that one.
   I also thought the definition in 16ac must be ‘held’ so wondered how ‘good girl” = HER. So thanks for that.
   FOI TRENCH WARFARE. Like Kevin, I got off to a slow start and eventually lit on the first anagram I came to.
   LOI: BETA. Took ages to guess that ‘hazard’ = BET.
   JUTE cropped up the other day.
   Here’s an earworm for you:
   “I was driving across the burning desert
   When I spotted six jet planes
   Leaving six white VAPOUR TRAILs across the bleak terrain”
   There are conspiracy theorists in the US who believe that they are not vapour- but chemtrails.
   “They”, always the mysterious ‘they’, are spreading mind controlling chemicals on the population.
6. Another towards the higher end of my scale at 23.46, not as much fun as yesterday’s but a worthy challenge.
   I should know by now that if I have lots of checkers on a down clue it helps to write them out horizontally: BIODEGRADE emerged quickly when I finally leveled with it and speedily unlocked the rest of the recalcitrant SW corner. I was fully taken in by the funereal undertones of VAPOUR TRAIL: I’ll concede that it was a pretty good CD.

   Some engaging flights of fancy doubles on the down clues
   I’m pretty sure CHEETAH RECIPES are illegal, and RED CARDS MY FOOT! echoes every football fan’s reaction to the Man in Black issuing them to their side.
   EXIT CHANCELLOR without BALLOT APPROVAL? Probably.
   I prefer my TOP GEAR OLD SCHOOL, but the current crop are pretty good.
   Which leaves BIODEGRADE JUTE, which I believe it does.

7. Same as myrtilus (without the Shakespeare).
8. 11:43. Good one, putting up just enough resistance and some nice touches.
   MER at ‘wake’ for VAPOUR TRAIL but I liked the clue and a question mark covers a bit of looseness.
9. 27 minutes. LOI BETA. I liked TRENCH WARFARE, making hard work of the anagram but COD to RED CARDS. The puzzle was a few days too late for Lady Day but was enjoyable nevertheless. Thank you Pip and setter.

10. Submitted at just under an hour (although called away on several occasions with the clock ticking).

    Thank you, pipkirby and the setter

11. Quite tricky in parts today , I thought. FOI LEE, LOI BETA. Last two before beta were PERIDOT (NHO) and APPROVAL. Both holding me up for a good while.

    (F)ester came quickly and as Pip says Ethyl acetate is probably the most important one, especially in winemaking. Great in small quantities (fruity) disastrous in large (nail polish remover). Mostly blown away by CO2 during fermentation but some uncontrolled and “wild” yeast ferments can have a detrimental effect.

    Thanks Pip and setter.

12. 17:00 Nice one. Like Myrtillus enjoyed the REDCAR DS, TRENCH WARFARE and OUTSTRIPPED most.
13. Slow to start, then a sudden surge before getting bogged down in the SW.Trench Warfare and Vapour Trail the pick of a decent bunch. Are wontons wanton?

    Thanks to pipkirby and setter

14. Sorry to be obtuse but can someone explain vapour trail please? – I’m none the wiser from the blog – thanks
    1. Wake = visible trail of water or vapour behind a passing ship or plane. On high = in the air, so we’re talking about a plane’s wake in this instance. ‘Having passed over’ refers to the passage of the plane = what remains is the vapour trail. The surface reading implies waking up in heaven after having passed away, and the question mark denotes the whimsical characteristic of the clue.
       1. Sorry, forgot to sign in 🙂
          1. Thank you so much ! – I looked up wake but my OED didn’t oblige
          2. Thanks HR for elucidating in detail; as soon as I saw “wake on high” I wrote in the answer, I didn’t realise a wake (of plane or boat) was obscure to some. My fault for assuming.
             1. Cheers pip.
             2. It was only obscure to me in that a vapour trail isn’t really a wake, but it didn’t bother me when solving.
15. Setter 1 Grestyman 0! After my 60m were spent I still had lots undone, with spaces in all quarters of the grid. I doubt I would have got PERIDOT (nho) in another hour, and slightly bemused by period/age, which seem only vaguely connected to me. I was very glad of the elucidation today, Pip, so thank you. And of course hats off to the setter from a gloriously sunny Teesdale.
16. I started off with BALLOT, LEE and ON THE ____ and worked my way from there. I struggled most in the SW, where VAPOUR TRAIL eventually opened up the corner and I was let off the RACK. APPROVAL, PERIDOT and, appropriately, LASTED tumbled in last of all. Liked TRENCH WARFARE and REDCAR DS. 27:56. Thanks setter and Pip.
17. All done in 26m, but puzzled as to what “roofing” is doing in 21d (OLD TIME). Wasn’t convinced FOOT could properly stand for infantry either, but there it is in Chambers.
    1. Duh. Just realised I was looking at the wrong end for the definition, which I wrongly took to be the “familiar” bit, with “vintage” crypticating OLD.

       Edited at 2021-03-31 10:49 am (UTC)

18. Woohoo! I like a bit of chewy gristle and today’s was difficult enough to make completion in an hour , satisfying. A few biffs ( aren’t there always) and some PDMs whilst leaving it all to simmer . Liked 8 dn and 26ac. LOI BETA , the short clues are often the hardest but it was there in plain sight as was the Asian mountaineer.
    A clever anagram and anagrind for 11dn.
    COD for me was PERIDOT.
    Thanks as always to blogger and setter.
19. Slow in 37’54, and a bit of a torture, to be honest. But once the line was crossed had the sense of a rather fine wine with agreeable subtleties. So thanks setter for the hard time and its reward, so to speak, and to Pip, who can add green with envy at others’ times to his verdurous palette.
20. Trotting along quite happily until I went back to complete 8d which didn’t suggest anything to me on the first pass. After staring at it for an inordinate time the only thing that kept protruding itself was the red panda we had recently. A fresh cup of tea did the trick and I clocked in at 21.27. Nice puzzle.
21. ….and took 58 minutes, ending with the very difficult red cards – even though I did know Redcar! I never did get approval, and vapour trails was rather vague. Fortunately, I knew peridot, or I would never have finished.
22. My first sub-20 in quite some time, and thought to myself, “Finally an easier one!”. And yet, when I see the times of Kevin and Olivia and others who usually finish 10+ minutes faster than me, I realize, aha, wavelength truly is a thing. (Then there are those like Verlaine et al who solved the entire puzzle yesterday faster than I got the single clue NORN!)

    I didn’t fully understand NATIONAL TRUST, VAPOUR TRAIL, or QUARTER DAY but sorted most of it out thanks to some help from Vinyl. The rest from the blog — thanks, Pip!

    1. Thursday last week, the 25th, was/is a quarterday — Lady Day. I wondered if the puzzle was meant for then and got displaced.
23. 20.05 which was rather quicker than I fearedat the start. FOI sherpa. Gradually got some traction on the RH side apart from beta , which was my LOI.

    Liked outstripped, backbone and ballot but my COD was lasted, easy enough I suppose but it just made me smile.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

24. Enjoyed this, with steady progress and some nice smiley moments along the way (CHEETAH def; VAPOUR TRAIL and, of course, the REDCAR DS). Fortunately familiar with PERIDOTs so all went in relatively smoothly. Thanks to setter and blogger; and happy birthday to whoever was born today.
25. All fairly straightforward today — no major hold-ups — just I’ll have to check the historic meaning of “Quarter Day”.
    Thanks for the blog.
26. Enjoyed this as most of the clues responded to being wrestled with. Finished with three mistakes, two of which were dumb. Didn’t time it but probably over an hour.
    Backbone should have been straightforward but I went round in circles between resolution and reverse as the definition (with Back as resolution which, of course, it can’t be.)
    Then I fell into my usual trap of not splitting the wordplay properly. I was convinced that in 4dn I was looking for ‘one needing to rely on charity’, then via a ‘ward of court’, I arrived at national court which is meaningless.
    As for the unheard of stone, I ‘knew’ it couldn’t be OT for books because the love was dismissed. Misled by the ‘by’ in the clue.
    COD cohered. Even when cohered emerged through the mist, I had to return to the clue to work out where ‘good’ went as I was determined that there must be a g in the answer. Realising that the definition was, in fact, held good was a real penny drop moment. Excellent clue.
    Thanks for the explanations, Pip, and thanks to the setter for a good work out.
27. Ran out of time to finish this this morning, and on resumption rattled through it, except for the last 2, RACK and BETA. no one has explained yet why second is beta, so I presume it is just being the second letter in the Greek alphabet? I was happy with hazard being bet, albeit not quite the same meaning. When you ‘hazard a guess’ no money actually changes hands!?
    1. I took it to be this meaning of BETA:
       “In classification, the second or one of the second grade, the grade below alpha”
28. So nearly a pangram. Would have been if “beta” had been “zeta”. I wonder why not, perhaps the setter couldn’t think of a clue for zeta?
29. A smooth solve for me today after yesterday’s toughie: 31 minutes.

    Liked red-cards. Once played in a chess tournament in Redcar. Bemused that my children now think being able to play chess is cool after the success of Queens Gambit.

    1. What Chess Tournament was that one? And more importantly did I beat you? 🙂
30. ….which had to be RED something once the checkers were in. Spent too long playing with both DI and PI. Only parsed WANTON and APPROVAL afterwards.

    FOI LEE
    LOI RED CARDS
    COD VAPOUR TRAIL
    TIME 11:07

31. Is everybody happy with “My foot!” being clued as “Never”? The two expressions aren’t synonymous where I come from. Stephen
    1. Don’t know where you come from, but it works for me; e.g. “you’ll give up drinking wine, my foot!” means I think you’ll never give up drinking wine. True, in my case.
    2. Or “Red card, my foot” = “Never a red card in a million Sundays”!
32. Having managed to finish, I would say that this was quite a bit easier than yesterday’s, or perhaps I was just lucky with some of the answers. Ido was completely unknown but seemed to fit, and rake/rack almost came down to a coin toss before the, er, penny dropped. Peridot is my daughter’s birth stone, and she has worked for the NT in the past, so you could say I had some inside help. Enjoyed Vapour Trail, Outstripped and Wanton, but Quarter Day gets the prize. Invariant
33. 19.10 a pleasant, steady solve.

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