Times 28017 – transport for the chop

83 comments on “Times 28017 – transport for the chop”

1. I dithered over the spelling of TUMBREL until I finally saw ‘on’. FOI 9ac seemed like a pretty wimpy clue. CATCH ON biffed, parsed post-submission. I gave up on TRESS; I don’t see brnchn’s suggestion working, and I don’t see how TRESS could be ‘lock down’.
   1. ‘lock up’ would be, like, BUN.
      1. Although that would probably have to be ‘locks up’.
   2. I wondered about this and, like Jeremy, took “lock down” as the definition. Chambers has TRESS as “a plait or braid of the hair of the head” and “a long lock, braided or not”. I’m guessing that either would hang down, so maybe the definition works.

      Edited at 2021-06-30 02:21 am (UTC)

   3. Thanks Jeremy, that makes sense!
      1. That was the one lingering mystery for me, so am glad it seems cleared up.
         But “stress” is much stronger than “state” and didn’t, doesn’t seem quite right.
2. This is a bit weird, but South is conventionally down at the bottom of a map, so perhaps down=South=S for short, giving the letter to be removed from sTRESS in 22dn?
3. 18 minutes, enjoyed HEATH ROBINSON, of course. No idea what’s going on at 22d.
4. Dithered over ASTRAKHAN for several minutes before finally making a guess, looking it up, and discovering with somewhat less than joy that I was right.

   11 should be R inside FAME, of course.

   Isn’t ‘tress’ = ‘lock down’?

   1. For example, Collins has: “A woman’s tresses are her long flowing hair.”
5. 22D was my LOI when I realized that “lock” was TRESS even though the rest of the clue was unclear, to say the least. Wasn’t sure about ASTRAKHAN since I didn’t know the word and I didn’t know (or more likely had forgotten) KHAN as an inn on the silk road. I wonder if Americans will struggle with HEATH ROBINSON. There is an equivalent American called RUBE GOLDBERG. He was also a political cartoonist, which I had no idea about until I went to an exhibition of his works at the Jewish Museum in San Francisco (who’d have known he was Jewish when his last name was Goldberg?).
   1. Rube’s a bit of a giveaway too
      1. In the US, though, ‘Rube’ means ‘yokel, hick’.
         1. I’ve only ever come across it as short form of Reuben.
            1. I assume that’s the derivation, Reuben (like Lemuel) being a stereotypical hick name. (Though come to think of it, the cantor of my synagogue was a Reuben, although I can’t imagine anyone calling him Rube.)
   2. I knew there was a UK equivalent of Rube Goldberg, but I couldn’t remember it. Eventually, I thought of waste = heath, even though that’s not how the cryptic works, and biffed the answer.
      1. This came up one Sunday, anagrammed if memory serves, and in any case I used an anagram of the name in the headline of my blog
6. Astrakahn is one of those words I can never get all the syllables in the right place for, much less spell, so I’m hoping I learnt something today that will stick with me. I came up short the unknown Taiga, and am glad I didn’t spend too much time before I quit — I couldn’t have constructed it from the cluing. Interesting that, in addition to catamaran there is also a once popular cat boat, sometimes spelt as one word, catboat, but often called a cat. Thx pip
   1. I only know TAIGA because I’ve been caught out by this clue in the past. It treats the word as entirely commonplace (it’s more or less impossible to derive it from wordplay), which I don’t think is reasonable.
      1. I know it from…. Magic: The Gathering, the quaint collectible card game I used to play 30 years ago.
         1. Somehow I know that name. No idea how. This doesn’t change my mind!
7. ….because I just couldn’t see frame as a ball game. Tress was obviously correct, even though I couldn’t parse it. Fortunately, I knew baksheesh and astrakhan, besides knowing the Latin words for stars. I got tumbrel wrong the last time around, so I was very careful in this one.

   Time: 32 minutes.

8. I felt well on the wavelength today, finishing as quickly as I have for some time. It helped that I knew all the less common words today — ASTRAKHAN, ESPALIER, OMBRE, TAIGA, BAKSHEESH (the latter which I’m even starting to remember is a tip and not something one might smoke!).

   Like pretty much everyone it seems I had misgivings about TRESS but thought it largely fitted the clue and ultimately I bunged it in with fingers crossed, thinking to myself what else could it be?

9. 32 minutes. Like others I puzzled over the parsing at 22dn and wondered later if perhaps the setter had intended:
   ‘Lock down leader is abandoning state’ with ‘lock’ as the definition and {dis}TRESS (state). But anyway I was sure of the answer so I didn’t worry about that whilst solving, and moved hastily on.

   Edited at 2021-06-30 05:25 am (UTC)

   1. That seems a plausible explanation. It would be nice to hear from the setter and/or editor.
      1. And I’m sure we will, very soon. I’m also sure that chickens have lips.
10. I wonder if Blake deliberately referenced the forest?

    Really liked HEATH ROBINSON, thought of several alternative clues.

    11′ 04″, thanks Pip and setter.

11. Same time as yesterday 22 mins. Many dithered over the TUMBREL and its spelling, as they must have done back in the day. A device designed to bring on the ‘dithers’!

    FOI 1ac CHANCEL – QC country

    LOI 28ac NON-STOP I had forgotten all about the Heathrow-Pudong non-stop in just 13 hours!

    Talking of which 13ac my COD – William HEATH ROBINSON a contraptioinalist. His illustrations (Danish Fairy Tales) were first published in 1897 His name entered ‘the dictionary’ in 1912 regarding his crazy machines. In 1914 H.G. Wells, in a letter to Heath Robinson, noted:- “Your absurd, beautiful drawings… give me a peculiar pleasure of the mind like nothing else in the world.”
    Reuben Lucius Goldberg, a sewage engineer, was some ten years younger than WHR. His cartoons were first published in 1908. His his first machines were published in Collier’s Magazine from 1929 to 1931 – Goldberg had an alter ego: Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. Tee-hee! He made it into Merriam-Webster in 1931. Anyone for ‘Mousetrap’!

    WOD ONION-SKIN paper wow! Writing on that and you feel like you really are somebody. I saw RKO281 last night- I bet the man at Hearst Castle wrote on onion-skin paper.
    There is a vintage lot up on Ebay presently……

    Edited at 2021-06-30 06:35 am (UTC)

12. Dare Frame thy fearful symmetry?

    25 mins left the NHO crossers Ombre/Baksheesh.
    And NHO Khan.
    Pity.

    I remember pleading that ‘you are’=UR would never become a thing.
    Pity.

    Thanks setter and Pip.

    1. Mr. Myrtleberry, for once UR incorrect!! I really don’t mind it – all is fair in love and war! And it will happen again!
       1. I C that now.
          It reminds me of an old two Ronnies (I think) where the dialogue is all in letters. Something like… F U N E X? S, V F X. F U N E T?
          Have you any eggs? Etc.
13. 13:04. This rather irritated me. 2dn is a triple obscurity, 24ac is unfair (see my comment above) and 22dn TRESS seems to be a mess. I somehow scraped through, largely on the basis that KHAN seemed a vaguely reasonable set of letters for something oriental.
    I took care over the wordplay for TUMBREL, having been caught out by this in the past.

    Edited at 2021-06-30 06:42 am (UTC)

14. Done in by Astrakhan as did not know the fleece or the inn… and Astrachan sounded much warmer…
15. Enjoyed this more than some did, apparently. Some good surface readings here. Didn’t know khan = inn, but what else could it be?
    TAIGA can hardly be called obscure, any more than steppe or llano, if only because it has appeared here in TfTT more than a dozen times before.

    22dn may not be the finest clue but it does work… if you are in a state you are in (s)tress .. with lock down as the def. Women (and footballers) have their hair either down or up

    1. GHAN, THAN, CHAN, CHON, THON, I could go on…
       And ‘lock down’ doesn’t work as a definition of TRESS, since as you say they can be up. It would be like defining cat as ‘ginger animal’.

       Edited at 2021-06-30 08:55 am (UTC)

       1. Collins: “A woman’s tresses are her long flowing hair. ” That means down, not up, unless you know something about gravity that I don’t.
          Astrakhan is a word, the others are not.
          1. The actual definition in Collins says nothing about flowing: it just says ‘a lock of hair’. Same with the other dictionaries, which also define it as braided hair (although that seems to be older).
             Of course ASTRAKHAN is the only word that fits, but it’s an obscurity, as is KHAN. If you don’t know either you have a sporting chance of getting the ASTRA bit (even if you didn’t go to the right sort of school in this case) but after that you have to guess. I managed to guess correctly but I still think it’s a poor clue.
             1. My quote was a copy and paste of the actual definition from Collins Online. Chambers says “A long lock, braided or not.” Surely within tolerance for something going down, not up!?
                1. That was the COBUILD entry, not the Collins definition.
                   And no, long hair doesn’t necessarily go down! I can find you references to ‘tresses tied up’ but they seem mostly to appear in the Daily Mail so I don’t want to give them the traffic 😉

                   Edited at 2021-06-30 11:50 am (UTC)

16. 24 minutes with LOI CATCH ON, which I obviously didn’t do for a while. COD to WASH UP for its simplicity while liking AFTERNOON and the HEATH ROBINSON contraptions. I vaguely remembered OMBRE and twigged the taiga, taiga burning bright. I assumed TRESS to be hair hanging down. An enjoyable puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
17. 16:52 but I changed TAIGA to TEIGA just before submitting.

    I agree TRESS doesn’t seem to work. Needs unknotting.

18. 35 mins but with ASTRAGHAN, thinking ghan could be an eastern inn? I liked SAN FRANCISCAN and HEATH ROBINSON best. Thank you Pip.
19. 11:18. LOI WASH UP. I’m another who was puzzled by TRESS. I liked Jackkt’s suggestion it was an editing error. COD to HEATH ROBINSON.
20. Well, I enjoyed this. Favourites today were TAIGA, HEATH ROBINSON and ONIONSKIN. I used to write letters on onionskin paper back in the day.
    1. Makes two of us, Martin (also testing new userpic. Isn’t onionskin what they used to use for airmail?
       1. They are pix of my new Maine Coon kitten, Trillian.
          Hmm, LJ seems to have altered all the other pix to the latest one..

          Edited at 2021-06-30 09:33 am (UTC)

          1. Just seen your comment, Jerry. Maine Coons are magnificent cats! Trillian…..one in a trillion?
             1. Trillian from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. She is very, very cute indeed but hard to photograph! Won’t stay still
                1. It’s been a very long time since I read that!
       2. Yes, you’re right: it was airmail onionskin was used for. Those were the days when we wrote letters!
          Love the new user pics, especially the ears!
21. Another ‘Astraghan’ here. TAIGA took a long time to come even with the checkers. BAKSHEESH was unknown and constructed from wordplay.

    Enjoyable enough even with my mistake. HEATH ROBINSON was a nice clue.

22. Forgot to say that I knew ASTRAKHAN from Tony Hancock whose character was often seen wearing a homburg hat and a coat with an Astrakhan collar. It was a theatrical look indicating his pretentions as a great actor.
23. Left FRAME till last, when I twigged that it was referring to a game of snooker. Have been doing these for quite a while, but I didn’t remember CH for chain before.
    Liked HEATH ROBINSON.
24. Entered TUMBRIL with the uneasy feeling that it didn’t quite work, then forgot to go back and check it. Didn’t understand TRESS till I got here.

    Good puzzle. I liked ONION SKIN and HEATH ROBINSON but thought AFTERNOON the COD.

    Thanks to Pip and the setter.

25. My FOI was CARAFE, although I usually cut out the middle man and pour straight from the bottle. FRAME came next(easy for a regular snooker player), the ASTRA went in but I waited for HEATH ROBINSON before deciding that the eastern inn had to be KHAN. Careful attention to the wordplay meant I was comfortable with the TUMBREL, although perhaps not if I was in it! SAN FRANCISCAN was biffed, although I did go back and confirm the parsing later. TAIGA and WASH UP held me up for a while, but I did eventually recall past experience with the forest. Like others, I raised an eyebrow over TRESS. OMBRE was LOI. 30:43. Thanks setter and Pip.

    Edited at 2021-06-30 10:15 am (UTC)

26. … but with unparsed TUMBRIL instead of TUMBREL, a variation I’ve never seen before. And, like many above, no idea what is happening with TRESS.
    1. Curiously, we have had both tumbrel and tumbril already this year, both times in Jumbos though
27. All done in 31:40 with a sense of achievement at negotiating so many tricky words, including two I had to invent. For NHO OMBRE it wasn’t hard to insert MB into ORE, but I nearly gave up on NHO TAIGA until I suddenly “caught” the tiger. Easy then to fill in the blanks, although I realise now that it could have been THIGA. Glad I didn’t spot that before. I like it. I might have gone for it.
    I am another who wanted to remove the D from DISTRESS but then wondered how to get rid of the IS too. Thank you to plusjeremy for his lock-down lock-up hairdo’s
28. No problems with ASTRAKHAN. It seems a very 60s sort of thing — but perhaps that is just the Hancock connection. Only identifiable vexation was TRESS, like everyone else, but I found this a bit of a slog on the whole. 32mins.
29. 13.13. This was an enjoyable solve even though I ran through it pretty quickly. I was just about satisfied with lock down as the definition of tress and stress for state losing its initial S to enter tress and move on. Once astra had gone in, although unknown, the inn had to be a khan. My only real problem with this one was that my eyes conjured a non-existent I in the clue for abominate so that I was trying to justify om in as going in rather than gong in.
30. I had 22d as (A)SSERT backwards.

    ASTRAKHAN ninja-turtledly dug up from an old Tyrannosaurus Rex lyric (Weilder Of Words — yes, that is how ‘Wielder’ is spelt on the My People Were Fair album cover) — not sure I’ve ever heard the word anywhere else.

    Bunged in LEVIATHAN and HEATH ROBINSON without parsing.

31. Like others, I found ASTRAKHAN rather obscure, couldn’t understand TRESS and pondered over TAIGA. Also had no idea what BAKSHEESH meant, but my downfall today was a careless misspelling: LEVIATHON, despite having all the anagram fodder.
32. I have the vintage cape that belonged to a great aunt, and very handy it was too in the days when we were stepping out in the evening rather than in lock down (no I didn’t get that either). https://i.etsystatic.com/21225172/r/il/261d9f/2974589318/il_794xN.2974589318_exfm.jpg
    11.32
33. I was so tressed out by 22d I completely forgot I needed to check my spelling of LEVIATHON, which (I think) trips me every time. And no, I don’t know where the O comes from in the anagram stew. Thanks to mauefw, I am relieved not to be the only one. But my pink square count is going tressfully up.
    Nice to see, while nobody knows KHAN for Eastern Inn, everyone is on intimate terms with ESPALIERs. I guess the wordplay was easier.
    1. Our esteemed blogger pipkirby has already explained!

       Khan, a type of inn once found in the Middle East and parts of North Africa and Central Asia that effectively functioned as a trading centre and hostel. Britannica

       1. Well, yes, I know that, but there’s an awful lot of people commenting today who professed ignorance before Pip explained it!
34. Re 22dn, the parsing is surely this: ‘state’ = ‘assert’; when the leader abandons we get ‘sort’; when written ‘down’, this yields ‘tress’.
    1. Autocorrect has wrongly changed ‘ssert’ to ‘sort’
    2. That would work if it were written up, not down.
35. Mostly enjoyed this with the same problems as others: tress, khan. Didn’t know taiga but finally saw ‘catch’ or ombre or baksheesh as tip (only as bribe).
    Proud to say that my one mistake has not yet been mentioned. 20dn mash up. M for meal and work as definition. Here is my justification. I haven’t tried to post a link before so don’t know if this will work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(music)
    Not as elegant as the correct answer and, I admit, I’ve never seen m for meal before but it’s my own so I’m proud of it!
    Thanks to the setter and Pip.
36. Late on today, but another not convinced how TRESS works. Saw Jackkt’s comment it’s D (down leader) IS (literal) abandoning d-is-tress, and thought, Yes! That’s it!
    Except there’s no IS in the clue. Looks like a missing word, an editing slip-up?
    Otherwise NW was tricky, so a slow solve.

    Edited at 2021-06-30 02:32 pm (UTC)

    1. By George, I think you’ve got it!

       Edited at 2021-06-30 03:19 pm (UTC)

37. ….I would have entered “tumbril” (I think Dickens spelled it thus in “A Tale of Two Cities”, and I deal with it likewise).

    Didn’t know the meaning of KHAN, and wasted little time in trying to parse 22D.

    FOI CHANCEL
    LOI AFTERNOON
    COD BAKSHEESH
    TIME 6:29

38. As usual, did this in bits and pieces over the day. Like yesterday, I found the NW corner difficult.
    Didn’t rockstars of the 60s and 70s travel around in Astrakhan coats?
    Thanks for the blog. I loved 17 and 21!
    Thanks again
    Andrew
39. Re 22d, tress = lock state = assert, remove the leader (a) and invert it hence “down”. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
    1. But if you’re inverting [-a]ssert in a down clue, the result would be going up, as Keriothe pointed out. And indeed, we see SSERT going up. But then “down” is not explained by this theory.
40. I forgot to add that I biffed OMBRÉ and FRAME I thought of as ‘in the frame’ ‘at the ball game’ ie in contention
41. Rather a lot of fuss and bother over nothing – today. This was rather easy. COD 8dn LOOSE END in memory of Ned Sherrin, who my mother adored and my father loathed. Time 13 mins and change.

    Edited at 2021-06-30 05:05 pm (UTC)

42. 28017. What about missing DIS- TRESS
43. Re 22 down, I reckon to dis is to down, and distress is a state, then the clue parses nicely.
44. I incline to the view that there’s a mistake in 22 down. The clue refers to assert without the a – but the ‘down’ thing is all wrong. If it was lock ‘up’ it might just work, though the word order would be weird. Otherwise enjoyed this and had no problem with words like astrakhan and taiga. Perfectly good words, seems to me. May not use them every day, but so what. COD Heath Robinson of course. The use of a noun as an adjective as here (there’s a grammatical word for it but I can’t recall what it is) seems to me perfectly legitimate.
45. Found this impenetrable needing a/more general – and cricket – knowledge than I have, and b/greater expertise. A classic of being easy peasy for those who know all the tricks of the trade, but for those who don’t it’s pretty hopeless. FOI TUMBREL, LOI (of my measly seven!) CARAFE. But would you believe I got TRESS. Reckoning, apparently wrongly, that it was ASSERT without the leading A and reversed.
46. Self indulgent time wasting crap from the setter. It looks like I’m the only one who solved this fair and square even though it took me over 3 hrs. A reminder why I stopped buying any paper that publishes the times cryptic

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