Times 28034

61 comments on “Times 28034”

1. Well I’m sure the clues were jolly good and all that, but I’ve just counted up and found I biffed 17 out of the 28 clues, so I didn’t get to study much of the wordplay. Must have just been on my wavelength, so fastest time for a year or two. A good one for the classicists, since “ex nihilo” went straight in and “repetend” (though I’d never heard of it) is a straightforward gerund (or gerundive) meaning something to be repeated. In defence of the setter, “Teutonic” is an old descriptor of what would probably now be called “proto-Germanic”, so yes, it was a language a couple of thousand years ago! Anyone of my advanced years (60ish) will remember antimacassars from back in the day. Does anyone actually wear overshoes (are they the same as galoshes?) with trainers?
   1. That last “anonymous” post was by me as I forgot to log in. Does anyone know how to get one’s TftT name added to the SNITCH website? That gap is starting to get annoying…
      1. I have no idea about Snitch, but I’m sure someone will be along later to help you out.
      2. The SNITCH is run by starstruck_au, so I would send him an LJ message.
2. Not on the ball this morning. My father used some sort of Old Spice product on his hair but we didn’t have ANTIMACASSARS. Probably should have because when I experimented with it on my hair Nanny not happy. I was thinking GAWAIN was the pill who was married to Enid but I see that was Geraint. 20.08
3. ….when you realise that you’re not going to enjoy it. And so it was here. In addition to overshoes with trainers, the unknown REPETEND, the random bloke at 19D, and 18D where “O” Level Latin rescued me, I’m grateful to Jack for parsing LAMBASTE. Two more MERs though.

   1. Is a tic really a habitual response ? It’s more of a nervous affliction.

   2. Career infers headlong uncontrolled progress. SCOOT is just quick (OK, I know about e-scooters, but even so….).

   FOI DIDACTIC
   LOI SCOT *
   COD TIME
   TIME 12:58

   * I had SCOT quite early, but only entered it with a shrug once I got my SLOI INCREASE. I was expecting Kevin to be incommoded by that one, but maybe he’s bought a secondhand “Wisden”.

4. As usual with a nap to help it along. REPETEND didn’t sound like a word, so I did look it up to confirm. LOI SAGA brain seizure there methinks.
5. This one took some chewing, but it was tasty enough and I got it all down. LOI POLE PUNT, right after LAMBASTE—which would have gone in much earlier if I could have parsed the outer bit (joining the chorus of thanks to Jackkt). The dash separating “mind” and “partly” had me thinking I didn’t know how to spell ANTIMACASSAR. REPETEND wandered in from Mephisto, causing me to check that it really is a word.

   Edited at 2021-07-20 04:24 pm (UTC)

6. 13:22 this afternoon, outside in a near-tropical Edinburgh garden.
   I had a vague childhood memory of being in a neighbour’s terribly formal (it seemed at the time) drawing room, noticing the antimacassars and plucking up courage to ask what they were used for. After all these years the knowledge has finally come in useful!
   A mixture of clues, some which I preferred more than others. COD 2d “increase” mainly because of the misleading linking of “stands” to “to gain”.
   Biffed 26 ac “lambaste” albeit with a fair degree of confidence but thanks to Jack for the explanation. I’ve seen this type of clue construction in the past but as usual failed to recognise it in the heat of battle.
   Thanks to Jack for the blog and to setter.
7. 41 minutes, nothing particularly hard although it took me ages to get started. REPETEND went in quickly once I realized that “death” would not be a D after RE, but quite literally the “end” of the word. Of course I couldn’t parse LAMBASTE either, so thank you to Jack and that would then be my COD. I liked the delighted vegetable in CHARMED as well (although that’s probably not what the setter actually meant). I found there were a bit too many straightforward and unimaginative clues (like INSTRUMENTAL).
8. Enjoyed this one. Started slowly but beetled on after a break — maybe 1 hour in total.
   Nothing to comment that hasn’t already been commented!
9. 21.01 off to a decent start with didactic and increase straightaway. A bit of a lull in the middle until the long-ish antimacassar and putrefaction went in. Nice puzzle though I wasn’t keen on “not over” to indicate the removal of a single letter O from a word containing two such letters. Felt a bit imprecise but was no hindrance to solving the clue.

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