Times 27973 – Between a rock and a pretty easy place

53 comments on “Times 27973 – Between a rock and a pretty easy place”

1. This was a bit like chewing mothballs – so 42 minutes up in Shangers.

   FOI 25ac RUT

   LOI 3dn SABLE (heraldic black)

   COD 10ac MOTHBALLS

   WOD 9d CLOAK AND DAGGER! Very nice.

   I did not parse 7dn SINAI – but there was nowt else!

   Edited at 2021-05-10 12:05 am (UTC)

2. I read it as A that (a function, viz.) SIN and I enclose (host).

   Edited at 2021-05-10 05:12 am (UTC)

   1. Agreed
      1. Ditto. Still not a moment of crowning glory.
3. Once again I fail to proofread properly, and didn’t notice that I’d typed SCILLA; which I wouldn’t have done had I not finally remembered Ms Black. Biffed CLOAK etc. from a couple of A’s, parsed post-submission. LOI, and very L it was, UPSTAIRS. No idea what the O2 was, until I solved.
4. This seemed tricky in places but knowing that it was a Monday so actually had to be easy (ish) helped me power through to a sub-6-minute time at least. UPSTAIRS was indeed my last one in.
5. …and took 34 minutes, getting stuck in the end on uplift/informant. I didn’t bother to parse Sinai, since it was obviously correct, but I agree with Kevin.
6. SABLE was an unusual ‘Gloomy’ and I spent a while trying to think of the name of an obscure part of the cerebral anatomy before UPSTAIRS came to ‘mind’. ‘Tanami’ was the first ‘desert’ containing a ‘function’ that I thought of for 7d, but it obviously didn’t fit, so in went an unparsed SINAI. A few write-ins but not many and I was happy to finish in 39 minutes.

7. 40 minutes with SINAI unparsed – I had all the components but struggled to make sense of the clue’s grammar – and with SABLE as ‘gloomy’ unknown.

   Although I remembered the monstrous female by name, the spelling could just as easily have been SCILLA, so I cheated and checked before writing her in. R Cilla had two singing voices, ‘shy little girl’ and full bellow. Sheridan Smith sang her songs better in the tribute film.

   Edited at 2021-05-10 04:02 am (UTC)

   1. Last time you went with SCILLA when you were blogging it, as did I. At least you managed to consider the alternative this time!
      https://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/2143495.html
8. Like Kevin I went with SCILLA, which would work as a homophone of CILLA, but unfortunately is also wrong.
9. I enjoyed it. No problems. COD to the exceellent CLOAK AND DAGGER.
10. 28 minutes, parsing SINAI as per Kevin. LOI STEADY. COD to IT’S YOUR FUNERAL. A couple of years ago, Mrs BW insisted that we as a family should walk over the roof of the O2 as her birthday treat. Some people have a strange idea of pleasure. Good puzzle. Thank you U and setter.
11. …Winnow with giant arms the SLumbering green.

    20 mins left the something-on, mothballs, sable combo. Took another 10 to come up with Mothballs and guess Sable.
    Mostly I liked Informant and Upstairs.
    Thanks setter and U.

12. “COME ON UPSTAIRS” did i quoth
    It STAGGERS me, really it doth
    A PRETTY STEADY solve
    Simply would not evolve
    T’was more “MOTHBALLS” without the moth

    Took me about 40 minutes, but shouldn’t have. I liked INFORMANT best

    1. Another spatrius from me and couldn’t complete the NW.
       Good puzzle though apart from the desert.
       David
13. 27:17
    Nice puzzle.
14. So anyway, after the pink square emerged, I checked desperately to see if SCYLLA could be spelt with an I. It can be spelt with a K, and of course can be spelt with an I but not correctly, as it turns out. But the K spelling made me wonder whether we’ve actually been pronouncing it wrong all these years by making it a homophone of Ms Black.
    Otherwise 16.31, for a mildly tricky Monday, finishing with the deceptive UPSTAIRS which tested both my anagram skills and my lateral thinking.
    I smiled at the IN FORM ANT.

    Edited at 2021-05-10 08:28 am (UTC)

    1. Interesting thought… my understanding is it’s a rock near the Strait of Messina. There’s a spectacular beachside town at the bottom of a cliff called Scilla in Calabria, at the northern end of the Strait. I’d always assumed they were named for each other. The town is pronounced, in Italian, like shiller. In Latin – no idea? In Greek – does Scylla come from Greek legend? – no idea?
    2. The English pronunciation is different from what the Greeks would have said. Besides the kappa, the upsilon would have been pronounced somewhat like ü in German.
       1. There’s no proper solution, I suspect, and we anglophones will go on pronouncing things how we dam’ well choose. My Greek is Koine, and for the most part might just as well be pronounced as written with a bit of an English slant, of course. Now Hebrew, on the other hand…
15. 14:45 I hesitated over STAGGERS until I thought of horses and my LOI, SABLE not seeing what it had to do with gloomy, but I see it is a heraldic term for black. I liked UPSTAIRS, which had me struggling to juggle the letters.
16. 12:13. Clueing SCYLLA like that with an unchecked Y is a bit mean. I’ve been caught out by this before so I was reasonably sure of it but not certain. There are three Y/I options in ‘Scilla and Charibdys’ and it’s always tricky (for me, anyway) to remember which goes where.
    My hold-ups were this meaning of SABLE and especially 18dn, where I took the wordplay to be indicating S + an anagram of USA TRIP, and the definition to refer to some sort of unknown technical psychological or philosophical term. When the best I could (eventually) come up with was the unlikely-looking SPATRIUS I reconsidered and the light dawned almost immediately.

    Edited at 2021-05-10 08:09 am (UTC)

    1. Talking of I/Y dilemmas I was solving an old crossword yesterday and was faced with choosing between SYSIPHUS and SISYPHUS. I’d have instinctively gone with the former but the latter is correct. I’ve noted that he was a sissy for next time out.
       1. Just as you did in 2016!
          https://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/1643720.html
17. Felt slow, but reading the comments am now PRETTY pleased. UPSTAIRS LOI. Avoided any possible SCYLLA problem as never seen it spelt any other way. Only knew SABLE as an expensive fur.

    20′ 06″ thanks ulaca and setter.

18. Good effort I thought, no complaints at all.
    Pretty certain Sinai is A in SIN + I, as Kevin says
19. I’m another who feels slightly less disappointed with his time, having read the comments here. Couldn’t parse SINAI but it had to be. Thought INFORMANT, UPSTAIRS and MOTHBALLS were all nicely deceptive. Discovered that I am urgently in need of the latter when I took a jumper out of a cupboard yesterday.

    Thanks to ulaca and setter

20. 45m today with the same hold ups as others. I was ok with STAGGERS as it was a fairly regular occurrence on our dairy farm at this time of the year, when the cattle went out on to the fresh pasture. I had the same experience with UPSTAIRS as Keriothe except I had entered a hopeful SPIRATUS early on before the holiday rep made that untenable.
    Thank you to setter and blogger for the entertainment today.
21. Left with 4 intractable holes at the end, all of which had many options. CREASE and SABLE were the last in, the SABLE clue being rather obscure. Liked UPSTAIRS and MOTHBALLS.
22. “Scilla” (aka squill) is a PRETTY blue flower that my GRANDPAPA used to grow in his woods in Rutland. Now I believe it’s considered invasive. DNK what O2 was so I hesitated over “agena” as some sort of Elon Musk rocket that I hadn’t heard of. 17.08 P.S. If you ever get a snake in your basement you throw a bunch of MOTHBALLS around, open a window and beat a hasty retreat – it will find its way out.
    1. I think open the window first, then toss the mothballs.
       1. I think, open the window first, go outside, and then toss the mothballs in! Grass snakes are a real problem here in Provence. Last year had one in the pool. Eek.
23. A problem? I thought they were harmless, or at least non-venomous.
    1. The snakes we have (les vipères) are more like adders, and, although they won’t kill you they give a nasty bite. Put you off your aperitif, that’s for sure. The larger and more colorful couleuvres are grass snakes and they are harmless, it’s true.
       1. We have adders and grass snakes here in the New Forest (smooth snakes as well, though they’re very rare). The experts will tell you they’re all harmless to humans, though the adders are venomous. To me, that’s irrelevant: any snake could kill me with a severe look. Irrational phobia? Oh, yes! I can’t bare to look at them, even on TV.
          1. Adders can also be really dangerous for dogs, particularly the relatively small and very inquisitive type I have!
             1. Yes, indeed. My local paper mentioned this week that there have been several curious dogs bitten on the nose in the New Forest in the last couple of weeks. The snakes are only just coming out of their six months’ hibernation apparently and their venom is at its most potent afte4 half a year of maturation. Add to that that they’re a bit sluggish when they first wake up, so they don’t retreat as quickly as they otherwise might, and it’s a dangerous time to let your dogs off the well trodden paths. Of course, once the adder is ready to strike, neither man nor beast is going to avoid it: they’re in and out in a couple of thousandths of a second, job done. Nasty, and I’m glad to say I’ve only ever seen dead snakes in a lifetime living down here.
                1. A few years ago we were on holiday at this time of year in Cornwall, and there were signs at the beach saying not to let your dogs off the lead for the same reason. As far as I was concerned this defeated the entire object of going to the beach in the first place! But spaniels live for sticking their noses into the sort of places snakes like to hide so I wasn’t going to take the risk.
24. 35 mins for this so a steady solve. Held up a bit by INFORMANT and PRETTY. Very much liked the super anag for CLOAK AND DAGGER, my COD. I remember getting SCYLLA wrong last time so didn’t this time. Thank you U and setter.
25. After 14 minutes I had 5 left to do. 1a, 3D, 17D, 21D AND 29A. CREASE went in first, then SABLE, which I recognised as heraldic black. I then spent a while fiddling with an infernal (which might singe!) interpretation of 17d, but eventually saw the third meaning of singing. PRETTY then yielded followed by LOI, STEADY. Sadly those 5 clues took me up to 31:50. At least I remembered SCYLLA from last time, when I got it wrong. UPSTAIRS took a bit of thought! Thanks setter and U.
26. Not too difficult.

    LOI: STEADY

27. So I dived in to the 15×15. I finished with UPSTAIRS, similar to keriothe – had the anagram fodder – couldn’t make anything of it for ages. I liked the two long down clues.

    21 minutes on the nose. Quite pleased with that.

28. I am surprised that nobody else seems to have noticed that the word “lumber” appears in the quick cryptic and the word “lumbering” in the cryptic, both clued in almost exactly the same way
    1. Indeed, bit of a slip in the editing methinks.
29. FOI: 4A DIARISTS
    LOI: 1A CREASE

    Nothing too remarkable – 15D was easy, having done the QC earlier today.

    Thank you, ulaca and the setter

30. Yes, I spelled it incorrectly — Scylla, that is.

    “Cloak and Dagger” a very nice clue.

31. An excellent time for me on a tricky puzzle, where I threw caution to the wind on several clues, hoped for no pink squares, and was rewarded. Fortunately I know SCYLLA and Charybdis, but didn’t know MOTHBALLS or STAGGERS, was not 100% sure about STEADY and INFORMANT. UPSTAIRS took forever, but a great definition!
32. Not at all Mondayish for me. Somewhat gratified to see I wasn’t the only one struggling with UPSTAIRS, though I may be the only one who couldn’t get it even with all the checkers in place. Add in a mis-spelling of SCYLLA and it’s a fair and square DNF to start my week.
33. 27.10 with the NW corner accounting for around 10 minutes of that. Completely stumped till mothballs finally came to mind with the other three mysteries 1ac, 1dn and 3 dn slotting in quickly after.

    Not a great performance but at least I can console myself with a win in my golf club foursomes this morning. So not a wasted day.😠😊

34. ….and “spatrius” isn’t part of the brain, so DNF.

35. 18.20. A brisk solve with a couple of small hitches. Struggled to square sable with the definition gloomy and couldn’t see pretty or steady for a little while at the end in the SE corner. Cloak-and-dagger the best of the bunch for me today.
36. Really struggled to even find the wavelength on this one, let alone get on it. Gratified to read it wasn’t just me. Had to give up as a DNF, though, with barely one quarter done as Monday dribbled away….

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