Times 28011 – assemble from the blue and yellow store.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving this, I found it somehow frustrating and at times annoying, but when I came to blog it I wondered why, there’s nothing really unfair or obscure, even if some of the definitions are a stretch. It all has a sort of old-fashioned feel about it, with 8d, 11a, 22a, 6d, and 5a perhaps helping that idea. I didn’t much like 5d, 15a or 28a, with clunky surfaces and obtuse answers, but I did enjoy 19a, 22a eventually, and 20d.

Across
1 Fitting in again with leader of military ceremony (7)
BAPTISM – APT (fitting) inside BIS (again) add M the leader of military.
5 Cooler dance venue where lovers get together (3,4)
FAN CLUB – simple, and a slightly misleading definition, but it took me ages to stop wanting ICE as the first word and not keeping dance and venue as one idea. FAN is a cooler, and CLUB is a dance venue.
9 One may invest in more rococo houses (9)
FINANCIER – FANCIER (more rococo) ‘houses’ IN.
10 New money must include a plutocrat (5)
NABOB – N (new) BOB (shilling, money) insert A.
11 Boastful fixing end component where screwdriver may be had? (8,5)
COCKTAIL PARTY – COCKY (boastful) has TAIL (end) then PART (component) inserted (fixing).
13 Track to follow round peaks where fruit grows (8)
ORANGERY – O (round) RANGE (peaks) RY (track, railway).
15 Give a ring to prince returning figure welcomes (6)
ENHALO – ONE returning = ENO, insert prince HAL. Not a word I knew but it does exist.
17 Wave very gently, upset about that (6)
RIPPLE – PP = very softly, as in music, insert into RILE – upset. I guessed the answer before seeing why.
19 A little work in green grass pile (8)
LIMERICK – LIME (green) RICK (pile of grass). Cue comments with limerick examples. I can only think of rude ones, like “there was a young lady from Bude…” Oh, and I like this one, not rude.
There was a young woman called bright,
Whose speed was faster than light.
She set out one day,
in a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.
22 Travelling off, I repeatedly wintered in port? (9,4)
FORTIFIED WINE – how long did you spend thinking about a seaside city with two words? Not as long as me, possibly. But no. (OFF I I WINTERED)* is the anagram.
25 Period of waiting in car without book (5)
LIMBO – insert B into LIMO.
26 I’m going to answer guy that’s awkward (3,2,4)
ILL AT EASE – I’LL (I’m going to), A (answer) TEASE (guy).
27 German’s relative has handy habit around food (7)
YIDDISH – DIY a handy habit, reversed = YID, DISH = food. Oy vey.
28 Old hand in part shepherds one learner: it may bear fruit (3,4)
OIL PALM – well we’ve all heard of palm oil, and not surprisingly it comes from the fruit of the OIL PALM, but it’s not a tree bearing fruit you think of instantly. O for old, I L one learner, PALM part of hand.

Down
1 Hit cover of Bellini at thunderous volume? (4)
BIFF – BI (outside of Bellini) FF (very loud). My FOI.
2 Aide receiving a service and fabulous treatment (7)
PANACEA – P.A. (aide) has AN ACE (a service in tennis) inserted.
3 Kind of bond that’s archetypal, caught only once (5)
IONIC – ICONIC = archetypal, lose one of the C’s. Ionic as opposed to covalent.
4 Wet suit off, with further clothing (8)
MOISTURE – MORE (further) has (SUIT)* inserted.
5 Official recalled film full of hot passion (6)
FERVID – REF = official, recalled > FER; VID = film. I don’t much like vid for film, Collins says it’s short for video, which 30 years ago may have meant a movie you rent, but I’ll have to put up with it.
6 Born writer tucked into tasty bit of bread once (9)
NINEPENCE – NE (born, French masculine) PEN (writer) inside NICE = tasty.
7 Left part of Europe for part of Africa (7)
LIBERIA – L, IBERIA. Chestnut time.
8 Attire for teen, one on beat boxes (10)
BOBBYSOCKS – annoyingly simple, but another that took me an age. BOBBY one on beat, SOCKS = boxes. Collins has “ankle-length socks worn by teenage girls, especially in the U.S. in the 1940s”.
12 Second lot of ashes likely emptied with sadness (10)
MOURNFULLY – MO (second) URNFUL (a lot of ashes) LY (likely emptied).
14 I see rifle almost raised in WWI campaign (9)
GALLIPOLI – all reversed; I, LO (see) PILLAG(E) = rifle almost.
16 Abroad, plonk last of bread on potato curry (8)
VINDALOO – VIN (plonk abroad) D (last of bread) ALOO (English-Indian word for potato, originally Hindi); curry, vinegary, very hot, delicious but always gives me hiccups.
18 It’s a wonder Biblical figure blocks sink up (7)
PYRAMID – All reversed; DIP (sink) with MARY inside.
20 Art of homeware dealer hemming raised collar (7)
IKEBANA – IKEA that blue and yellow store (which I hate visiting)  has NAB reversed inside. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging.
21 Perhaps put polish on or polish off (6)
FINISH – double definition.
23 Dope‘s home telephone (5)
INTEL – IN (home) TEL(ephone).
24 Wave combination in pools (4)
PERM – double definition, a wavy hairstyle and a permutation of options in (e.g. football) pools.

69 comments on “Times 28011 – assemble from the blue and yellow store.”

  1. 9:32, with PERM the last one in and no clue about the non-hair definition. Good puzzle for picking over the wordplay, and a fantastic clue for VINDALOO (but I like the hot stuff, so bring it on).
  2. Same LOI as George, same no clue about the non-hair definition. Unfortunately the hair definition didn’t come to me quickly, and I did an alphabet trawl starting with BEAM, then BERM. POI ORANGERY; I’d bunged in PANACHE at 2d and forgotten about it. I felt sure once I had the I that 22ac was __ WINE, but FORTIFIED wouldn’t come, and I struggled with my memory rather than working on the wordplay.
  3. I enjoyed this but spent a long time on LIMERICK at the end for some reason. ENHALO too long too, since I worked out the wordplay and didn’t think it was a word until I saw it. I had no idea there was ever a NINEPENCE coin but I took it on trust. PERM in the pool sense refers to football pools (a sort of lottery) and is short for permutation because people typically don’t write out every detail separately, but group them (you have to pick score draws, I think, so if you have to pick 6 you might select 9 and then pay for all permutations of 6 of them. At least I think that’s how it works. It was also in the quickie today, as it happens, with a much easier clue.
  4. Last 5 minutes spent on ENHALO, a word I’d never encountered. Hal was, of course, the go-to cruciverbal prince, but even deciding he was likely *N*A*O proved recalcitrant.
    20’37”
  5. Like others never heard of football pools perm, but it was a write-in as short for permutation, as Paul confirms above.
    Otherwise a strange solve, mostly from cryptics as the definitions were broad or hard to spot. Many were solved without realising – green? lime! pile of grass? rick! But a lime-rick pronounced like its component words isn’t a word, so it didn’t go in. Similar with enhalo, and ninepence couldn’t possibly be a coin or a word, except it is. Not annoying, challenging. COD mournfully, mostly for the urnful.
  6. Ya gotta trust the wordplay, apparently. When I read the clue for ENHALO I immediately thought, HAL inside ONE, reversed? But I rejected it without writing it down because of the O at the end, and so it was probably 25 minutes later when I finally wrote it down and saw it was a word!

    Scattered comments: URNFUL made me laugh out loud. I had the idea for GALLIPOLI but only the POLI part would come. I basically just had to sit around and wait until I remembered the GALLI part. HAM was my first Biblical character, which seemed to suggest ASHAMED, which made no sense. PERM a very frightening final answer to put in, as I didn’t know the second meaning at all.

  7. I very much enjoyed this puzzle for the way that some slightly unusual words forced me to rely on the cryptic. I finished with LIMERICK, where as others have said, you get the lime and the rick, you put them together and what have you got? A PDM. I worried about IKEBANA for a bit before I got it, wondering what word meant a “homeware dealer”, not giving any thought to the possibility of it being a DBE.

    VINDALOO is of course a weakling’s curry. A real man would have a phall.

      1. I assure you that several pints both before and during are obligatory to the consumption of phall.
  8. How delightful seeing our everyday BIFF as an answer!

    I thought I was never going to start on this one as I didn’t get a single answer until I was reading through the clues a second time. Eventually I constructed NABOB and the answers began to flow steadily. I finished in 41 minutes with ENHALO as my LOI. I remember being stuck on it on a previous occasion which seems to have been as long ago as December 2017, although I had thought it was more recent.

    I perfectly willing to be corrected but I can’t find that there was ever a NINEPENCE coin, and pennies still exist so I was a little puzzled by ‘once’ in 6dn. There’s a common expression ‘right as ninepence’ so a reference to that might have been in order.

    Edited at 2021-06-23 05:34 am (UTC)

    1. Google led me to Wiki, Brittanica and also news from Nottingham where a Charles 1 ninepence minted in Newark in 1646 sold at auction for thousands of pounds.
      1. Thanks, isla. I also googled it but without success. I’ve no idea why I didn’t try the dictionaries first as I now find it’s in Chambers and Collins (as obsolete). It’s still a bit obscure though and I maintain that a reference to the saying would have made for a more interesting clue. Chambers defines that meaning as ‘a high standard of niceness, nimbleness’.
        2. It was my first guess… ne(e) pen in the middle of a word – but immediately rejected because it couldn’t possibly exist. So after all the crossers made it certain I had to research it.
          1. Ah! Isla! 24 Schilling-Bancos to the jolly old pound!
            Look out for the GROAT 4d; the Florin 24d; the TANNER 6d, the BOB 12d (or a shilling); MAUNDY MONEY (3d) and don’t forget to spend a penny (1d no longer accepted)!
            In Jamaica a pennyha’penny is referred to as a QUATTIE! (a quarter of six-pence!) but only as a ctamp and not a coin.

            Taxidermist for one!

            Edited at 2021-06-23 02:05 pm (UTC)

            1. “Carry me ackee to Linstead Market not a quattie would sell”. I think it did mean coins as well as stamps Horryd.
            2. Back in the day I did a holiday job at Philips in Netherlands where Florins/Guilders were interchangeable.
              I now know there’s 12 pence to the shilling and 20 shilling to the pound and 21 shillings to the guinea – without even needing to call on the blog’s tardis!
              Bob for shilling is vaguely remembered, even being post-dismal-guernsy (homonym indicator required) as LSD died in 1966. I remebmber inches/feet/yards/fahrenheit died 1972. 1966 too young to understand anything, 1972 compos mentis.
                1. Not in Australia… decimalisation was earlier and took a different route (200c to the pound instead of 100p to the pound)

                  The Aussies had the sense to go to plastic notes long ago but I detest their coins – 10c, 20c and 5c are still the same sizes as the old UK 1s, 2s and 6d. Their 50c is an abomination! (Though they have got rid of the 1c and 2c coins)

                  I forgot to add re the ninepence: there was an article in the Times earlier in the week about the Noble – this was 6s 8d (i.e. 1/3 of a pound). I can quite believe any division of the old LSD system.

                  Edited at 2021-06-23 10:14 pm (UTC)

  9. …Shallow, smooth and strong doth come

    25 mins to polish it off with LOI Enhalo. I liked it.
    I thought Perm would be tricky for those, unlike me, who have never done a ‘perm any 8 from 10’ thus getting 45 combinations. It was the Pools what taught me the binomial theorem.

    Another excuse to trot out my favourite.
    I’m a man of superior station,
    I despise the young generation,
    The things they say,
    Cause me to display,
    Floccinaucinihilipilification.

    Thanks setter and Pip.

  10. Like Pootle, I enjoyed this a lot, with its old fashioned feel: BOBBYSOCKS redolent of the Cary Grant film — they wouldn’t make that in this silly woke age — and PERM of superb mullets of the 70s.
      1. Well, basically a middle-aged man encouraged to date a teenager so that she’d get over her crush on him.
        2. I may be excessively woke but I’m glad that a movie like that wouldn’t be made today. I think it reflects positive changes in society. I’m also entirely relaxed about the fact that it was made then, and have no desire to cancel Cary Grant.
  12. 15:40. I really liked this. As others have said, it was one where you had to start with the wordplay a lot of the time because the definitions didn’t leap out. I didn’t even biff BIFF! This is my favourite kind of puzzle.
    LOI ENHALO, where even after I had constructed the answer from wordplay it took me a while to realise that I had created a word.

    Edited at 2021-06-23 06:55 am (UTC)

  13. I enjoyed this because I managed to complete it without too much trouble, something I’ve not been able to do lately. Thanks, Pip for ILL AT EASE, IONIC and PYRAMID.
    COD to COCKTAIL PARTY.
    PS…Re PERM, anyone remember Viv Nicholson, the lady in the early 60s who won £100,000 on the pools and when asked what she was going to do, she said “Spend, spend, spend”!

    Edited at 2021-06-23 08:58 am (UTC)

    1. Well remembered as a BBC Play for Today, a series often gritty, sometimes naughty, often influential. Vivian Nicholson: “I was born in 1936 in Castleford, Yorkshire. You’ll find it on the map – I’m the bugger that put it there. Where we lived, all the fellers were coal-miners. Except me dad – he was a full-time, fully-paid-up, fully-fledged bastard.” You get the idea.
      1. Got to disagree with Viv. Eddie Waring put Castleford on the map.

        As well as Widnes, Dewsbury…

  14. 16:02 Good stuff. Held up by ENHALO and FORTIFIED WINE most (yes I was looking for a port), ending, appropriately with FINISH. COD to the nicely constructed ILL AT EASE.
  15. 42 minutes with LOI IKEBANA. Going round IKEA is an experience I try to forget. I wasn’t on wavelength but still enjoyed this puzzle. I had no trouble with PERM, an expression every customer of Littlewoods or Vernons, constituting quite possibly the majority of the population, would have known in the fifties. COD to FORTIFIED WINE. Thank you Pip and setter.
  16. On some days the answers just click
    On others I feel rather thick
    And today, a surprise
    I can capitalise
    That wonderful word LIMERICK!
    1. I was unhappily aware of what I think has been your absence for a while, astro nowt, despite never telling you how much I enjoy your limericks. Good to see you back.
      1. Calliope my verses defile,
        For they lack proper metre or style
        But their one saving grace
        Is they don’t take much space
        And I’m glad if they make someone smile
  17. I really liked this too, enjoying the combo of dated words and “modern” wordplay devices. Fortified Wine was my LOI once I’d realised what sort of port we were after. Vindaloo presumably a nod to England’s progress in the Euros 🙂
  18. BIFF and FINANCIER got me started and the top half became populated with a few recalcitrant gaps. INTEL gave me a kickstart for the lower regions and PERM(my Dad always had his Littlewoods coupon around) and OIL PALM helped. LIMERICK baffled me like others due to the different pronunciation needed, but the PDM duly arrived. I wasn’t concerned as to whether there actually was a ninepenny coin, as I just figured 9d was some money, ie a bit of bread. FORTIFIED WINE arrived after IKEBANA gave me _I_E and another penny dropped. Loved MOURNFULLY. YIDDISH and PYRAMID took a while, and I didn’t put RIPPLE in for ages as I didn’t spot the parsing. I then returned to the NW and finished off with PANACEA, MOISTURE and finally BAPTISM. 32:23. Thanks setter and Pip.
  19. Thoroughly enjoyed this despite not finishing. Particularly liked 26ac, 1dn, 5dn, 6dn, 18dn and 20dn (when I stopped trying to fit Heals in!)
    I agree that some of the clues are outdated. I’m in my 60s and remember helping my Dad with the pools without ever understanding what a perm was. As a result, the football pools meaning in 24dn escaped me. I failed again with a lift and separate. In this case, 1ac fitting and in. In 19ac trying to fit ‘a little work’ into ‘green’ to come up with a grass pile was not a success. Didn’t think of lime for green. (Slaps forehead in exasperation.)
    COD 12dn for the delightful ‘lot of ashes’.
    Limerick offering of the day:
    The limerick packs laughs anatomical
    Into space that is quite economical
    But the good ones I’ve seen
    So seldom are clean
    And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
    (Apart from Astronowt’s, of course.)

    Edited at 2021-06-23 10:21 am (UTC)

  20. Our setter would no doubt retort
    That FORTIFIED WINE is a port
    But I searched the whole world
    With my atlas unfurled
    And it isn’t a port as I thought
  21. My 30 minutes includes interruptions and cricket distraction. But I didn’t help myself with a brilliant OIL TREE, the old “hand In part” being the actor for all reasons Tree. Why not? Only when I finally repronounced the LIME RICK/COCK did IKEBANA force a rethink.
    I’m sure I’ve used the phrase “perm any one from…” in these cloisters, and had no difficulty once I knew what the last letter was.
    I’ve been to IKEA once. It took me the best part of a week to find my way out. The same branch that provoked a riot on its opening night with a stabbing and multiple crush injuries.
    1. I did wonder if, in addition to limericks, today’s puzzle might produce an outpouring of Ikea stories. Mine was a bit lengthy so I put it on Discord.
  22. Thanks guys for some really excellent LIMERICKs! I had trouble seeing it until COCKTAIL put me in mind of a lime rickey. I’ve always thought of BOBBYSOCKS with an X rather than a CK, as in the girls swooning over the young Sinatra. I went looking for Dover as the port, which took some time to correct. 24.57 and I enjoyed it except for ENHALO (which sounds like something you should get if you smoke pot and don’t inhale).

    Edited at 2021-06-23 11:18 am (UTC)

  23. Well, I’m going to say it: I began way off the wavelength. After an hour I had only about two thirds entered. I kept relooking at the clues with total miscomprehension. I decided to give up, go off and do some work, and come back later. And lo, FOBI (first one back in) FORTIFIED WINE, followed quickly by LIMERICK, IKEBANA, and the whole of the SW corner.

    When I finally saw it, I loved the port clue. Had many dealings with the Port trade in the past. Also liked VINDALOO (like George, I also like spicy food) GALLIPOLI, YIDDISH and LIMERICK.

    Here’s my feeble offering

    I started the day off bemused
    I thought my brain must have been fused
    But after a while
    I came back in fine style
    With many clues that have left me amused.

    Thanks pip and setter, clever stuff.

  24. 35.14. I knew this was going to be a real test when nothing went in until I got to limbo. The definitions didn’t seem to be giving much away so it was a case of turning the wordplay upside down and inside out to gain any traction. It made for an extremely enjoyable solve. Fortified wine was really good, of course I was looking for the wrong sort of port.
  25. Not as easy as I’d hoped. COD to BOBBYSOCKS. My mother had a perm every three weeks. Not too sure about ENHALO but NINEPENCE was good.
  26. I have the same disregard for LIMERICK’S as did Anthony Hancock – regarding certain young ladies from all over the country! (The Poetry Society?)

    FOI 1dn BIFF unBIFFed!

    LOI 15ac ENHALO shocker!

    COD 8dn BOBBYSOCKS – as worn by Bobby Dazzler!

    WOD 11ac The COCKTAIL PARTY from Euripides – via T.S. Elliott

    Time Ain’t on My Side

    On edit – I forgot to mention IKEA – I could almost write a book about about IKEA Shanghai – the over 60s Tuesday dating scene, with free coffee! Beds supplied! Cilla would’ve love it!

    Edited at 2021-06-23 02:10 pm (UTC)

  27. Right as ninepence, but only once I’d realised that ENHALO, which the wordplay strongly suggested, actually might be a word; and corrected my fat-fingered entry of PANACES, which made it more difficult to get the ORANGERY than it needed to be.
  28. ….Whose corsets (that’s quite enough of that — Ed.)

    A really enjoyable puzzle — such a contrast to yesterday’s offering ! I didn’t know IONIC as a type of bond, but no other problems.

    When I filled in my application for “The Chase” (a fruitless exercise) there was a question “What do you consider your greatest achievement ?”

    I replied “As a dyspraxic, correctly assembling an IKEA gateleg dining table first time in less than half an hour.”

    The first word in my grid was COCKTAIL, but I didn’t see PARTY right away, hence my strange starting point as I tried to fill the gaps.

    FOI LIBERIA
    LOI MOURNFULLY
    COD FORTIFIED WINE
    TIME 11:26

    1. Pains me to say this, because I love T he Times crossword as one of thee greatest things in the world, but I did not enjoy yesterday’s. Today’s was excellent!
  29. FOI ripple. LOI ripple. Er – that’s it. COD ripple, then. No, that’s not quite fair, I did get ionic but didn’t put it in as I couldn’t find a use for the archetypal caught only once. It wouldn’t have helped, I don’t think. Too hard for me. Didn’t spend too much time realising this. Congrats to all finishers. I like having a go at the 15 x 15 and I finish it more often than I think I will. Not today. Not a DNF – a DN start. Thanks, Pip, and setter. GW.
    1. I sympathise with you. I finished it eventually, but it wasn’t remotely enjoyable. Similar to yesterday’s in that respect. There’s a place for this type of crossword, but not as the daily offering unless it’s an extra, and definitely not two days in a row. This was almost monthly special/mephisto territory. Maybe it escaped?

      On an unrelated point, and just while I’m on my monthly moan, according to the polygon compilers ‘intel’ isn’t a word. A little consistency across all puzzles wouldn’t go amiss. At the moment one has to have access to at least five dictionaries to complete all the puzzles, one of which is Merriam-Webster, an American publication. (Mr Grumpy)

      1. Might not be in the dictionaries, fair enough. But I and probably most others, try to complete the puzzle without recourse to dictionaries. Don’t mind the odd word that sounds unlikely – ninepence – or the odd non-dictionary word that is a US abomination widely known from news reports: intel. I’d much rather intel than yesterday’s avouch, Tavener, Cherubini, alcatras etc.
        1. I agree it’s a word. I was merely pointing out the farce of it being dependent on which dictionary one uses.

          But I don’t know if you read the discussion in The Times a couple of weeks ago where subscribers were getting aerated about disallowed words in the polygon that should be allowed? The puzzles editor joined in, pointing out that the word had to appear in a certain dictionary to qualify.

          While I can see that, it’s somewhat at odds with the appearance of the same word in the cryptic a few weeks later. My beef is with the number of dictionaries we’re supposed to possess, and the lack of consistency across all puzzles. I don’t know why they don’t nominate Chambers for the lot? (although that’s not as infallible as they’d have you believe)

          Fair play to you for trying to solve the puzzle without aids. But I can assure you the setter consults the dictionary when compiling, and It would appear so do our bloggers post-solve. In that sense I might agree with you in that there is little enjoyment in doing a crossword if it merely involves a troll through various dictionaries. For that reason I found yesterday’s offering an abomination, and It’s also why I don’t bother with the mephisto anymore, even though I won it once, remarkably. (Mr Grumpy)

          1. Intel is in Collins, Lexico, Chambers, the OED, the Cambridge Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, The American Heritage Dictionary, and dictionary.com. I don’t have access to my Roger’s Profanisaurus at the moment but will let you know when I’ve checked.

            Edited at 2021-06-23 10:15 pm (UTC)

            1. I agree with you. I was merely pointing out the inconsistency of The Times rules, and why intel should be disallowed in one puzzle and not another. It was hopefully an incidental point of interest, but you appear to have taken umbrage at it.

              However, I salute your encyclopaedic knowledge of dictionaries and their contents. All eight of them in this instance. How enjoyable that is in doing a crossword is open to debate though. You’re rather reinforcing my point that more and more, the cryptic can only be solved by constantly referring to myriad dictionaries. How would solvers have coped with that in pre-internet days when the puzzle was attempted on the daily commute?

              Ok, you score a cheap point with intel because it’s obviously a word and doesn’t require consulting a dictionary. And I wasn’t disagreeing. But that isn’t always the case. On many occasions the blogger states that a word is in x but not in y or z. It can rather depend on the dictionary one has access to. (Mr Grumpy)

              1. Sorry to appear a bit grumpy (!) but complaining about ‘info’ seemed a bit silly to me. And anyone with an internet connection has access to most of these dictionaries, Collins and Lexico in particular.
                More generally though the Times doesn’t have fixed rules, and most people solve these puzzles without referring to dictionaries at all. The whole point is that if you don’t know a word you can get to the answer via the wordplay. When we do refer to dictionaries it’s invariably in a discussion about whether a definition is valid, not whether the word itself should be allowed.
                1. I wasn’t complaining about the word. I know it is, you know it is, and the world knows it is. For once that’s something I can’t moan about. The point was more about any word being acceptable for the cryptic, not being acceptable for the polygon, and this being exacerbated by solvers not having access to the correct dictionary.

                  Along with complaints about lack of access to the correct dictionary, most of the discussion in The Times to which I referred above was actually about the word Audio, which was disallowed as it didn’t appear in the dictionary required for the polygon. Even though said dictionary advertised ‘audio version available’ on its front cover. That’s how farcical it’s become. And the higher authority of Chambers does include it. And of course no one could possibly object to it in the cryptic.

                  I realise my comments aren’t actually specific to the cryptic, but I just think it’s time The Times refined its rules a little to be more consistent and to give more accessibility to newer solvers who might not invest in something like Chambers or Collins. (Mr Grumpy)

                  1. I don’t even know what the Polygon is, but there is no set dictionary for the cryptic so there isn’t even a policy capable of being consistent. Collins is free online to anyone. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.
  30. I very much enjoyed this, although I took an hour and a quarter to finish it. None of the across answers went in on first reading (BIFF was my FOI), and like so many others I had PERM as my LOI. And actually, I can understand our blogger’s comments on the puzzle: ENHALO is very strange, for example, and when I saw BOBBY SOCKS I wondered if all of the setters are as old as I am. But there were many things to chuckle at: the URNFUL in 12 dn, LIMERICK as a “little work” appearing all of a sudden from the wordplay, IKEBANA and VINDALOO with its foreign plonk. So thank you, setter.
  31. Slower than it deserved I feel in retrospect. LOI Perm. Of course evening solves are always going to be slower, cos of tiredness,
  32. I normally don’t do the crossword until late afternoon at the earliest so I don’t usually comment. But I seem to have been somewhere on the right wavelength with only the SE delaying me – like others the lime rick was my LOI when I got the clue in the right order.
  33. Another half-done effort after an hour of…effort. But the comments above tell the same old story – I’m just not good enough yet at the wordplay of too many clues. FOI BIFF, which made me smile since it’s my general MO. LOI an uncertain YIDDISH since I only have the Y, the D and the second I. Reading the comments I was on the right lines for MOURNFULLY, just hadn’t got there yet. Maybe with a break and another hour but really, who has that kind of time?

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