Times 28,049: A cannon-ball took off his legs, so he laid down his arms

36 comments on “Times 28,049: A cannon-ball took off his legs, so he laid down his arms”

1. Thanks to setter for the Friday challenge and to V for the parsing of 7d and 22a. I could see the uni professor in IBUPROFEN, so put it in without a clue as to the rest of the parsing. Would 7d be LITERAL or LATERAL? I guessed correctly. Last one in was BEDIM because I was being dim. 39:11
2. Well, that was a workout. I clocked out at about 45′ with several on the left yet to do, and came back later on a printed copy, and submitted off leaderboard, as I’d lost track of the time. Over an hour, anyway. FOI 1d, yes d. 1ac should have been FOI, but ‘hack’ put SAW in my mind, and even MATTSAW for a second, but of course that led nowhere. Dithered over LITERAL/LIBERAL, and as V says, a good thing the choice in the end wasn’t mine to make. Wasted heaps of time trying to make BARI the Italian port, even came up with BLEARIEST but of course could do nothing with the LE. I assumed, once I thought of IBUPROFEN (slight MER on the def), that Ben Battle was a Scottish mountain; could find nothing when I googled after. DNK ‘muck in’, so I finally looked it up when I thought of PLAYA (my heart had sunk when I thought ‘Spanish beach’ was the definition). Lots of good hard clues, maybe DIGRAPH my COD. Really happy to finish this one.
   1. Ditto Kevin.
3. ….all correct, no real problems! I like Matthew’s explanation of literal, although I was thinking of Lib-Lab differing by only one letter. I tried the Mephisto trick of looking up battle, but it has no obscure meanings that fit any of the three ben words. I think the setter has us there, unless it’s just an error.

   The SNITCH is very high, and there don’t seem to be many completions.

4. A snooze and a couple of interruptions meant no proper time, but no excuse, would have been well over the hour and closer to two. The parsing of LITERAL was beyond me, as was the BEN for ‘Battle possibly’ bit of IBUPROFEN, which I agree doesn’t really numb anything, in the sense of being an anaesthetic anyway. Ignorance of what MATTHEW(‘s) day job was and of the various names for mind-altering substances meant that the first and last clues were also unparsed. At least no pink squares at the end.

   Big ticks for the &lit SLANGING MATCH and ‘somewhere high up’ for ANNAPURNA.

   Thanks to Verlaine and setter

5. Indeed tough, though 1ac and 1 dn went straight in. Eventually yet another DNF on digwash (sic: thinking schwa the other week). Guessed I was looking for a grammatical or pronunciation term, but couldn’t come up with rap: was husband what did the dig! First guess for rocking was asteam, but it quickly proved wrong.
   No problem with ibuprofen except having no idea who Ben was, but not knowing references is common in my solving. Knew bhang and Annapurna, guessed Lloyd George was liberal which led to literal. Like Postman Pat references, but slagging match was magnificent, COD.
6. 45 minutes got me to all but BHANG, BEDIM, and DRUNKARD, but I just couldn’t see how to finish. Must remember ‘one is’ = IM. I had intuited DIM would be part of the answer for BEDIM but couldn’t make more of it. BHANG was elusive because while “Indian leaves” was obvious, “Indian leaves preparation” was not, so I was still considering ‘preparation’ part of the homophone fodder. DRUNKARD totally fooled me, as I thought the definition was ‘soak in’ for sure, just as I was sure there was some dark rum I didn’t know.

   Well and properly fooled.

7. No time to report but it was more than an hour over two sessions. The RH side gave more trouble than the LH.

   At 22ac I was pleased to remember Ben Battle to justify the wordplay and since IBUPROFEN can be used to relieve pain I didn’t concern myself with the exact science of how it does so. I had no idea what was going on in wordplay at 7dn where LIBERAL would have been too obvious an answer but with no justification other than LG’s political affiliation, so I plumped for LITERAL as an alternative and the crosser gave me TITUS which appeared to confirm my decision had been the correct one, but still without understanding why.

   Edited at 2021-08-06 05:29 am (UTC)

8. You will not be my Nell!

   40 mins pre-brekker and happy to finish with LOI Flout, where I scratched my head about Disdain and Flout being synonymous.
   Mostly I liked the Slanging Match &Lit.
   I have recommended Thomas Hood’s punning ballads before, so you will all have been familiar with Ben Battle.
   Thanks setter and V.

9. Wow that was tough! My experience was epitomised by getting MANIFESTATION after having struggled for a bit, thinking that would open things up, then finding I couldn’t get one of the answers coming off it. I finished with the TITUS/LITERAL crossers, like Jack at least having thought LIBERAL seemed too obvious. As such an unusual name TITUS for “chap” seems particularly fiendish which made me wonder if there was an &lit which went over my head. Given that no one else has said so I presume not.
10. 46:08 with LOI LITERAL with a shrug and crossed fingers. Thanks for explaining that, V. Otherwise I was just very slow at getting my head around the clever clues, taking ages to parse TURMOIL, and solve the anagram for SLANGING MATCH, for example. I thought FLOUT and SILKWORM were devillish. COD to HOIST, which epitomised the cleverness of the puzzle. BTW I also took BEN to refer to the poem, which continues, …oh I see it’s in the title. Thanks V and setter.

    Edited at 2021-08-06 07:53 am (UTC)

11. …one wrong. I guessed LITERAL but could make no sense of 9ac. I eventually wrote TOTES on the basis that ‘in spades’ can mean you are in total agreement shortened to the modern word ‘totes’.
    Up to then I was pleased with myself for working out BHANG/DIGRAPH.
    No idea about BEN in IBUPROFEN.
    My favourite painter is Caravaggio and my second favourite painting of his is “The Calling of St MATTHEW” which hangs in the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. I’ve been fortunate to see it twice.
12. There is a young(?) blogger called V
    A crosswording marvel he B
    If the setter’s a bastard
    Or a LITERAL dastard
    No matter — he’ll solve it — you’ll C
13. DNF
    NHO bhang, so took a stab at baang. Another of those clues where it’s a coin flip. In the same sort of dodgy area as clueing an obscurity with an anagram. Then again, if I’d heard of bhang, I’d no doubt be whistling a merry tune.
    THanks, v.
14. Way beyond my pay grade. I never cease to be amazed that you guys can do even these very tricky ones! Congrats to all that finished.
15. 70 minutes for this biff-fest. I wrote MATTHEW straight in at 1a, which gave me no warning as to what was to come. LOI was the unknown DIGRAPH. BHANG I knew, but I’d had to hazard the unheard of BEDIM first to recall it. I was actually trying for Assam tea before that. I stumbled on ANNAPURNA trying to remember both the name of the temple place in Sri Lanka I once visited, and if it was high up. This puzzle was too hard for me, but I did enjoy SLANGING MATCH and OFF PAT. It’s a rainy day in Greendale. Thank you V and setter.
16. If I tell you I failed to make a connection between BIN and battle, you might surmise (correctly) that I can’t spell IBUPROFEN even when there’s a box of the stuff within reach. As soon as I saw the pink, I recalled Ben Battle, though mistakenly as a war hero in some comic or other. The Hood poem is excruciating.

    Otherwise, a 35 minute solve with a mix of admiration for the &lit at 10) and irritation at (for example) the rather too clever LITERAL.

    I spent rather too long trying to work out why URM was speaking out at 2d, and eventually decided V would explain and put it in anyway. Which he did (thanks as ever) with customary additional erudition.

17. Phew. That was most enjoyable but as you say V, taxing. 1ac must be a little tip of the hat to you from the setter. One of the Jumbi I blogged had CRUMBS at 1ac.

    LITERAL came down to a coin toss with LATERAL and FLOUT went in last with not much confidence.

18. Fascinating to watch the rerun of our esteemed blogger’s Twitch video to compare experiences. I had no clue of the tax connection with Matthew so failed to get that for ages, but had less trouble with conceits such as FLOUT and LITERAL. I had my own “Indian leaves” clue in a recent puzzle (referring to SAAG in that case) so BHANG was no trouble either. But overall, a tough puzzle with some brilliant clueing – DIGRAPH, LITERAL, SEXTET in particular.
    1. Your time was more than three minutes faster than Verlaine – very good. But Jason’s time is absolutely incredible, he must have really been on the wavelength. I’d like to see him get another crack in the finals.
19. Thanks for the Twitch, V – always fascinating, and you really got off to a flying start. Slightly galling to see you throw in ANNAPURNA after I spent some considerable time painstakingly putting it together… although I felt a bit better with TITUS, which I managed to figure out fairly quickly.

    I got over the line in 15m 16s with DRUNKARD the LOI. Certainly didn’t spend as much time justifying some of the answers as V did, which helped my time today but is often a dangerous policy.

20. This was hard — vocabulary and cluing both. Couldn’t see how LIBERAL worked until TITUS showed me it didn’t, so much the same experience as everyone else. All done in 49 and even more in awe of Mr Verlaine than usual.
21. Finished but did not submit because I had to cheat to get DIGRAPH and the TITUS/LITERAL corner. At about the 35 minute mark with several left to sort out I went to have a bath, which seemed to help. I spent time trying for Bohea at 23d although I was pretty sure it was China not Indian tea, so I was really scraping the barrel. One of my pet peeves is people using FLOUT and flaunt interchangeably – I fear it’s a losing “ben”.
22. The BHANG DIGRAPH generator was too good for me.

    Threw in the towel when I was starting to biff recklessly all over the place. Excellent puzzle all the same. One lives and learns. Well, one lives.

    Thanks to Verlaine and the setter.

23. Time off the charts. Some wonderful clues here. I got there in the end, struggling with IBUPROFEN, DIGRAPH, and the NHO BHANG as my last 3. I didn’t have any problem with IBUPROFEN as “number” since it numbs the pain. But I had no idea who or what Ben Battle was.

    Edited at 2021-08-06 12:07 pm (UTC)

24. ….as this was definitely Championship standard, so anything inside 20 minutes is good.

    I biffed 4 answers, parsing SILKWORM and IBUPROFEN (a great PDM !) after completion, but needing V’s assistance to see TURMOIL and DRUNKARD.

    FOI MATTHEW
    LOI DRUNKARD
    COD SLANGING MATCH
    TIME 17:38

25. I’m curious as to why Magoo has disappeared from the cryptic leaderboard. He is still on the concise one.
    1. He’s probably just been busy for a while — you have to have done x puzzles in the last y days to make the leaderboard. I expect he’ll come back, solve his backlog in an hour, and retake his rightful spot.

       @vinyl1, I think we can safely say that Jason will get another crack in the finals, whenever they may next occur. It’s very galling to me that one has to defeat at least one of Magoo, Mohn and he to secure a spot up there — how is that realistically achievable? ;D

26. 24:00, but with an error. I somehow contrived to enter IBUBROPEN in the grid, but when checking my answers I only spotted one of the wrong letters and corrected it to IBUBROFEN. Really annoying because I thought this was a superb puzzle, tough of course but very satisfying to solve.

    Edited at 2021-08-06 01:28 pm (UTC)

27. Well, there weren’t any NHOs for a change, I was befuddled by LITERAL, particularly as I didn’t remember that meaning.
28. Really enjoyed this.
    Huge fan of Thomas Hood, look up some of his poems, do.
    Ibruprofen is supposed to numb pain, isn’t it? More of an aspirin man myself, call me old-fashioned
29. DNF but did enjoy all but the three which flummoxed me. Thanks v
30. Fridays tend to be busy for me for various reasons and I allowed myself 30 mins to tackle this puzzle which was patently insufficient!
    I thought this was difficult and although I got off to a reasonable start, the SE corner proved stubborn. I’m afraid the tough puzzles have always tended to show me up!
    Nevertheless thanks to V for the explanatory blog and to the setter for a really clever puzzle.
31. DNF in a little over 43 mins. I was in the home straight when I dropped the baton and fell over my own shoelaces. I couldn’t work out how the clue worked and I couldn’t choose between literal and lateral. I panicked and went for the wrong one. Some clever stuff which just defeated me in the end.
32. Tackled this late after a day getting aching bones and quite damp at Durham City Golf Course. MATTHEW went straight in, as I quickly recalled our evangelist’s previous occupation. A few more went in without too much difficulty, but then the teeth extractions began. TITUS resisted almost to the end, especially as I’d popped LIBERAL into 7d, until I spotted what was going on. I think I was subliminally assisted by the Chap returning, reminding me of Titus Oates who didn’t! Anyway having finally more or less worked out LOI, DRUNKARD, I revisited LITERAL, contemplated changing it to LATERAL (after all A T alters LIBERAL to LATERAL, but I wasn’t happy with that and went back to LITERAL. Phew! I didn’t worry about the BEN at 22a while solving, but Ben Battle did ring a bell later. Proof reading also saved me from a mistyped DIGRAAH. 54:46. Thanks setter and V. I was amazed to find I’m at 89 on the Leaderboard at 9:45pm, so I should appear in the SNITCH.

    Edited at 2021-08-06 08:57 pm (UTC)

33. Quite pleased to finish this on paper in less than an hour considering the Snitch when I checked was 160.

    Both 1a and 1d quickly in but false sense of security, as became bogged down, pencilling this in, and scratching around for the odd write-in. ANTIPATHY, ANNAPURNA and NARCISSUS opened things up somewhat, but was still a slow trudge. Understanding TITUS and LITERAL finished things off.

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