Times 27988 – I panicked.

57 comments on “Times 27988 – I panicked.”

1. 30 mins for me, of which the last 10 doing an alphabet trawl on 6A since I couldn’t see any meaning of KEEP that was “board”. In the end I put it in expecting a pink square and was pleased to be all correct. NHO Vaduz. I didn’t know Lichenstein was big enough to have a capital. I always it assumed it was like San Marino or Monaco. I was also bemused by “Praver” and wondered if he had written a famous mass or something. And I was held up at 19D for a time by putting CARRIER (“something required by mobile phone” and “mount”).
2. fAnother ABLE for IBLE error, this one inexcusable: perfunctory checking of the anagrist. My last 5 minutes or so were spent, once I remembered what the HEATH was called, first thinking of a C__R horse–having finally given up on COURSER–and then GLAZIER, which I didn’t understand, since I didn’t know ‘light’ in the required sense. I wondered briefly about Praver, but Brünnhilde cleared that up quickly.

   Edited at 2021-05-27 05:10 am (UTC)

3. ….and I was pretty much on the wavelength. Since I have gotten into the habit of solving from the cryptic, I didn’t see anything wrong with 24, but George is probably right. It was glazier and keep that were most elusive, and I had never heard of Vaduz but that didn’t really stop me.

   Kyrie is simply the vocative of kyrios, lord, in Greek. In early Germanic, a Valkyrie is a carrion collector, the ON equivalent of English wael plus a Verner’s Law form from the same root as English choose, which actually did have a past participle of coren in OE. Now we say chosen, and the only Verner’s Law form that has survived is lorn, from lose, which was also a Class II strong verb.

   Edited at 2021-05-27 01:31 am (UTC)

4. I failed to finish without aids. I gave up on the ‘Praver’ thing having assumed he must be an obscure poet. Once I had cheated and realised we have yet another error in a clue, I lost all enthusiasm for continuing my alphabet trawl at 6ac and looked that up too. I’m not sure I would have recognised KEEP as fitting the definition without knowing first that KEEP was the answer.

   Apart from those and the unknown KARST which was impossible to get wrong, the rest of the puzzle was dead easy.

   I have been to Vaduz.

   I wonder if it’s a coincidence that Grocer Heath should turn up here today. After being ousted as Conservative Party leader by Mrs T he went into the longest sulk in parliamentary history.

   On edit: I just remembered another contributary factor to my failure at 24dn was that I was working towards an answer K?G?E, having written GLAZING at 26 across with some confidence. I think it fits the cryptic definition just as well as GLAZIER, and since I thought of it first I didn’t feel the need to look any further.

   Edited at 2021-05-27 05:11 am (UTC)

5. M. Myrtilus. Croissants avec mûre et café – an unexpectedly and welcome early petite déjeuner – so my time was not recorded properly – between 45-50 minutes.

   FOI 21ac KARST – The Guelin ‘Rockies’

   LOI 24dn KYRIE – dragged from The Association’s 1967 Kyrie Eleison – Requiem for the Masses. ‘Momma, momma forget your pies.’

   COD 26ac GLAZIER

   WOD MÛRE – from the earlier jam session.

   1. Dear Lord Horryd, That sounds delicious. I will be having yoghurt, granola and blueberry compote, all over a chopped up blueberry muffin flavoured nakd bar. (Other raw fruit bars are available). Yes, we have no bananas.
6. I went to a talk on Proust today, so I was looking for something much more esoteric than Flashback at 23a. I also lost time to trying to twist Vilnius into something meaningful. Otherwise, It seemed like a lot of construction and a bit less wit today.
   1. MADELEINE didn’t fit the crossers?
7. With an experience very similar to Paul’s – over 5 minutes spent finding KEEP from the two definitions. I also assumed Praver had written some Kyrie unknown to me, though I suspect the typo is more likely.
8. My brain continues to work at 4/7ths capacity. Felt great when I’d worked out the upper left corner in a minute or two with no real problems but then not quite sure of VIADUCT, ALLEGORIC, AVERTIBLE. Still, many continued to go in easily but then got bogged down again trying to figure out what a ‘praver’ was. HAMPSTEAD HEATH, CHARGER, and SHIRE HORSE were all vexing. Last one in KEEP, which finally clicked as ‘keep the sabbath’, and then after submitting I thought of ‘keeping’ or ‘boarding lodgers’.

   BLACKJACK was the biggest facepalm, as it’s obvious in retrospect, but I was fooled by ‘about’, ‘to need’, and ‘in’.

   1. You mentioned yesterday you’re back to studying maths (has an s on it here). Maybe your brain is being rewired? I’m an engineer, four years of maths at university, and find the formulaic, construct-by-the-instructions clues much easier than left-filed or whimsical clues or cryptic definitions, in general.
      1. If I can get HAMPSTEAD HEATH I know it’s ‘maths’! Haha. Rewiring is possible, although I imagine it’s just fatigue combined with a GK-ey streak in the puzzles that’s kept me or held me up from finishing.

         Is ‘left-filed’ what we call ‘left-brain’?

         1. Or a typo? Meant to be left-field, as in that was unexpected, right out of left-field 😉
9. … That’s my excuse anyway. A real struggle and needed 74 minutes to finish with all present and correct. I had to do the alphabet trawl for KEEP too until the ‘board’ sense became clear. GLAZIER took a long time which I’m not too embarrassed about as I would have expected “glass” or “windows” rather than ‘light’. KYRIE eventually went in from the wordplay; I agree that ‘Praver’ is a typo unless KYRIE also refers to a creation from supermodel turned swimsuit designer Tori Praver. You never know…

   Thanks to setter and blogger

10. And open face of heaven,—to breathe a Praver

    After 30 mins pre-brekker I couldn’t get the anagram of Stark (NHO Karst), nor Blackjack.
    MERs at place=role and Praver.
    Thanks setter and G

11. …for the misprint, which added a several minutes before I thought of the Ride of the Valkyries and hit on a prayer, not a praver. 27 minutes in total. I didn’t know KARST but it was more likely than KSRAT. I also spent a couple of minutes getting the right definition for KEEP. COD to GLAZIER, whose construction took a while to see through. Thank you George and setter.

    Edited at 2021-05-27 06:41 am (UTC)

12. My google on being stuck turned up a poet in California named Praver: Susana Praver-Perez.

    Edited at 2021-05-27 06:51 am (UTC)

13. 30:39
    Good stuff – enjoyed this. Plenty of IKEA self-assembly clues. Good hidden. Didn’t know the capital city, so another school day for me.
    Thanks, george.
14. DNF. Badly. Keep pencilled in from board, but pay due regard to didn’t seem to fit. MER at role but it had to be. Total failure on kyrie, kinda thought Brunhilde was in the Niebelungenlied but not much other knowledge. And another carrier instead of charger made the glazier impossible. At least I checked the anagrist and had -ible!
15. I know I’m a grumpy old sod
    But twenty-four down was so odd
    It gave my brain hell
    But the Times cannot spell
    So clearly it has to be CLOD
16. Exactly the same time as yesterday! Like others I found the GLAZIER/KYRIE crossers tough. “The answer to this clue…” felt odd to me — I don’t recall a clue before having this self referential style. For KYRIE I didn’t know the prayer (and certainly not the Praver) or Brunnhilde so would have struggled if I hadn’t asked Mrs Pootle who Brunnhilde was. Whilst she didn’t know for sure, she said that it sounded operatic, like someone from Ride of the Valkyries. So thanks to my wife for her intuition on this one — I’d have taken a lot longer otherwise.
17. Sixty years a Catholic meant 24d, ignoring the obvious typo, was almost a write-in:
    “Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison”.

    Edited at 2021-05-27 07:39 am (UTC)

18. Definitely on wavelength in 8:37 (compared to a slow 8:56 for the Quick Cryptic). No hold-ups although I didn’t parse VIADUCT and assumed that Praver had something to do with a KYRIE. LOI GLAZIER
19. I must be getting better at spotting errors like this. Time was when I would have trusted the setter and editor implicitly and doubted my own sanity rather than ascribe an error to them, but no longer. After deciding that praver was not one of those obscure shreds of vocabulary that pass for education in Crossworld, and could not be a person (the possibility of a nightmare love child of Emily PRAGER and my erstwhile fellow law student Michelle PAVER crossed my mind, watched over by its fairy godmother Ruth PRAWER Jhabvala, but last time I checked the first two were alive and kicking and churning out the words and anyway the whole enterprise was obviously doomed) I turned my attention to the Valkyrie and all became clear. I am becoming more jealous of my time and my antennae are learning to twitch (or should that be eyebrows?) a bit more when something dubious crawls past.

20. I think this is my fastest ever time, though I don’t really keep track, so perhaps unsurprisingly I really enjoyed it.

    Just about managed to connect Brunnhilde with Valkyrie to figure out KYRIE, with no idea whatsoever what the “Praver” meant, which left GLAZIER as my last one in. I thought the European capital in 11a would be Vienna until the U and T put me straight and I saw VIADUCT, and I’d never heard of KARST, which fortunately was very generously clued.

    FOI Edged
    LOI Glazier
    COD Allegoric

21. 17′ 04″, on the wavelength.

    I didn’t notice the typo, and KYRIE is well-known to me, the ‘Kyrie eleison’ being part of the Mass, referred to as ‘the Kyrie’ when talking about it. The Schubert in G is my favourite.

    KARST yet another fact known from A level Geography.

    LOI GLAZIER, only afterwards realised it is very cleverly cryptic as the clue refers to the lights of a crossword grid, sorry if that’s too obvious.

    Thanks george and setter.

    1. thank you for pointing out the crossword lights! I spent ages on LOI 26a trying to justify GLAZIER. It didn’t seem to be cryptic at all, but your explanation satisfies my soul.
    2. Oh, my. That was my LOI, and (because?) I didn’t think of that. Improves the clue immensely. Thanks.

       Edited at 2021-05-27 08:23 pm (UTC)

22. FOI: 2d. Illiberal
    LOI: 3d The Great Gatsby

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Seeing as I have been doing so poorly with the QC this week, I thought I might as well have a go at the 15×15. After all, I thought, surely, I cannot do any worse.

    I gave myself an hour to see how far I would get, with no limit on aids used at this juncture.

    Compared to you more experienced solvers I did very poorly indeed. However, I was happy with the 8 clues I managed to answer. Though I confess to having 2 wrong answers. So, six answered correctly.

    4d. LINEAR A – I was aware of this script but due to a misspelling of EPISTOLARY I failed to answer this one.

    24a. KYRIE – I note the blogger’s query of “praver” and can confirm it has been corrected to “prayer” in the online puzzle.

    2d. ILLIBERAL – My COD as I managed to answer this one without any help.

    A poor result, but I have done worse in the QC.

    1. But you will improve, ask for no more.
23. 13:09. Mostly quite straightforward, but I was held up for over three minutes by the SE corner before I saw 23A ended in BACK not ACE. I wondered who PAVER was until I found the answer and realised there was a typo in the clue. At least I averted the “ABLE” by checking the anagrist. Not sure whether I liked this or not as a whole, but I enjoyed ERUPT.

    Edited at 2021-05-27 09:36 am (UTC)

24. The praver misprint had been corrected by the time I started (10.15 B), but it was still my second last in – glazier being the last. Viaduct went in from the crossers and I didn’t stop to think about Vaduz. I’d assumed earlier it must be Vienna, but nothing corresponded. Liked the hidden imports definition for allegoric.
25. I solve on paper by printing out the puzzle, and also got stuck by praver. I’ve just checked online and the playable version is correct, but the printable version is still praver.
26. Found the same ways as others to slow myself down…worked through all the possibilities offered by Vienna and Vilnius before alighting on Vaduz (I have technically visited Liechtenstein, having passed through on a train from Zurich to Vienna, but did not alight anywhere else that day); and having confidently entered CARRIER, albeit thinking it a bit weak, I was left struggling with the crossers until I realised something must be wrong.
27. 28 mins, so about par for my usual ranking in this august company. GLAZIER took a while to come to mind, having ventured GLARING until KYRIE forced a rethink.
28. The online version had been corrected by the time I emerged to do the puzzle, and having beheaded the Valkyrie, was left with the very familiar prayer, sung in plainsong at the Latin Masses I attended in my youth. The NW corner filled up nicely after FOI, EDGED, led straight to GALLEON and THE GREAT GATSBY followed. KARST was unknown, but inevitable. PETROLEUM and KEEP held out longest, but I was all done at 26:23. Thanks setter and George.
29. My printed version, of the PDF from the Times site, has PRAYER not praver.

    I’ve driven through Vaduz and all of Liechtenstein, three or four roundabouts, took five minutes.

    No problems with this except I carelessly had AVERTABLE didn’t check the anagram fodder properly. Twenty minutes one error, GLAZIER my CoD.

30. A rare sub-George 14.45 for me, with KEEP the last in once I was persuaded that to pay due regard to the rules of cryptic crosswords meant that I kept them.

    A narrow escape from AVERTABLE, which Chambers says is ok but rare. On pre0-submission check I decided (after yesterday) it might be as well to pay due regard to the wordplay.

    Praver has been corrected, as noted, but I’m almost certain my eyes would have read the Y anyway. Years of being badgered by musical directors to produce a proper K at the beginning of masses meant KYRIE was a write in.

    As for GLAZIER: it was, after all, Thursday morning’s crossword, and Flanders and Swann make it a giveaway.

31. Thought I was heading for a very rare breakfast finish, but ended up with a marginally less rare lunchtime finish.

    Guessed KEEP as it seemed the most likely of the possibles. Saw GLACIER first but then reasoned GLAZIER would fit with light, even if I couldn’t work out the clue.

    I have a mental image of Brunhilde played by Bella Emberg. I’m sure she must have taken on the role for comedy purposes alongside Russ Abbot at some point. Anyway, valkyrie came quite readily, although was as perplexed by praver as everyone else.

32. Delighted to have finished today after some dismal efforts from me this week . As one member of this parish commented recently , one might never leave the house on days when one is way off the wavelength.
    FOI was 1 dn. It just caught my eye. Was also looking at other European capitals for 11 ac until I parsed the clue.
    Had heard of karst. Have done a lot of walking in Andalucía ( those were the days) where they are a feature.
    I liked 23ac and from that got 24 dn assuming I was ignorant of Praver . I too remember singing kyrie responses in church.

    Thanks as always to gracious blogger and setter.

33. …I cheated with KYRIE after a good 5 mins thought — no clue about what was going on there. Of course it’s obvs now.

    The only other one unparsed was HAMPSTEAD HEATH which fitted the four checkers I had at the time.

34. 10:08, with a minute or two at the ending doubting KEEP — both definitions seemed unsatisfactorily oblique — before bunging it in with fingers crossed.
    KARST and KYRIE from wordplay but otherwise quite straightforward for me with lots of biffing. The prayer had been corrected by the time I got to it so I avoided that problem. I also took care over ABLE/IBLE after being burnt yesterday.
35. I ripped through this in a record time (for me) of just over 18 minutes, and now find myself wondering what to do with the rest of the hour. Agree that there must be a typo at 24D. Interesting that I’ve struggled with this week’s puzzles so far, though the SNITCH suggests none was particularly hard and Monday’s was apparently a give-away. Maybe there’s just no pattern here – some days things click, while other days they just don’t.
36. I got most of this quite quickly. FOI The Great Gatsby-that helped. Did not spot the misprint PRAVER but did work out that VALKYRIE less some letters could be the answer.
    I failed to get KEEP. Another four letter word with the first letter missing which stumped me; just like the QC this morning.
    Enjoyable overall apart from Praver.
    David
37. 21.29 off to a quick start with epistolary, got a little bogged down towards the end trying to work out Hampstead Heath, glazier, kyrie and viaduct. Had to squint a bit to see the pay due regard to definition of keep but board seemed banged to rights. Karst was known. I went rock climbing (very amateurishly) on the limestone cliffs of Krabi in Thailand a couple of decades ago and also visited James Bond island (featured in The Man with the Golden Gun) with its famous rock formation protruding out from the sea.
38. Oh dear, I seem to have contracted plusjeremy’s malaise (cf. Previous blog). Cracked through most of this without too much trouble, KARST unknown of course, then got to GLAZIER and KYRIE, neither of which I could see in 15 mins. So I gave up. My printed version did have Praver, which did not help, and I never thought about it being a possible typo. Just someone else I have never heard of.

    Thanks g for the blog.

39. 22.33 though I had the praver version at 24 dn as well. Eventually twigged it should be prayer but took a while. To be fair put in kyrie without really parsing it. At least today, educated by yesterday, I got avertible without blindly ending it able.

    Nice puzzleand thanks blogger for explaining kyrie.

40. ….this was distinctly average.

    FOI PATIO
    LOI KEEP
    COD ALLEGORIC
    TIME 10:14

41. You have a typo in your intro George, The Times typo is in 24dn not 24 across.. 15 all.
    Karst a write-in since it produces magnificent scenery, see photo below which is in the high Pyrenees:
    
    1. I believe the Burren is also an example of a karst landscape. Of course I didn’t know that until your fine photo prompted me to look it up!
42. DNF. Had 30 mins available today and was making good progress until I hit the buffers in the SE corner.
    The root of my problem was 9d (which would have provided several crossers) where for far too long I was convinced that Pitt was the PM and tried to fit it into the first word which didn’t help matters remotely until Grocer jumped up at me much later.
    NHO Kyrie I’m sorry to say.
    Thanks to glh for a remarkably clear and concise blog and to the setter
43. Late solve after our trip to Iona, very sunburnt. Enjoyable romp, same holdups as everybody else.
    Didn’t see the typo, just as well. From what I’ve seen of Mull, it’s full of karst.
44. KYRIE was one of my last in, finally sussed that there must be a typo (and that my new printer is not going bad already, whew). KEEP also came late, go figure. But my absolutely last one in was… the CD, just like George.
    The novel was my FOI. So it made sense that 1 across (“Novel style…”) would not be another.
    I’ve been working all the puzzles this week, just getting to the blog rather late…

    Edited at 2021-05-27 08:18 pm (UTC)

45. Completed this finally in more than an hour. A joint effort today, husband contributing three, viaduct, Hampstead Heath and keep but only parsed keep, and I thought he was right about the others but couldn’t parse them either. Or several others – e.g. gall is front? Held up by the typo. I solve on paper, and was left with three – Kyrie, glazier and flashback. I tried the online version and saw it wasn’t Praver after all and it all fell into place. I struggled with the phone support, thinking cradle, but cradler was obviously wrong. With glazier in place, the charger leapt forth. Thanks, George, for the very informative and useful blog, and setter for a mind-blowing puzzle. GW.
46. I saw through the typo.
    Keep was incredibly weak as a clue : generous to call it a double definition.
    Board — fine
    Pay due regard to — a stretch
    1. Hmm. Collins online has as the first definition under American English, “1. to observe or pay regard to.”
       As a religious person KEEPs the Sabbath, say…

       Edited at 2021-05-27 11:02 pm (UTC)

47. Nearly done in half-hour but stumped by 6ac, 23ac, 26ac, 19d, 24d. 23ac not helped by trying to shoehorn CELL somewhere into 19d. Don’t think I would ever have got that piddly little KEEP from the definitions. Ditto GLAZIER. No idea about Praver/Prayer/Brunnhilde. You know what you know… Enjoyable all the same, and an interesting mix of responses in the comments between easy peasy and aaaargh.

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