Times 28051 – Well, just a little faster than that….

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 28 minutes
Music: Bach, Goldberg Variations, Glenn Gould (1982 re-recording)

I had a bad headache while solving this one, and the letters of the clues swam before my eyes.   Not ideal conditions for solving, by any means, especially if you can’t usually read your own handwriting anyway.   Nevertheless, I persisted and came home in the end.   Unfortunately, the SNITCH is not yet up, so I have no idea how hard this puzzle really was – probably pretty easy if you can see straight.

I did do a lot of biffing as I solved, putting in obvious ones like also, Bilingsgate, artistic, mangrove, make do, off-message, and figuring them out later.  It you can dol this, the literals are probably pretty much out in the open.   Having just struggled with a couple of puzzles where that was far from true, I was relieved to have this one on my plate today.

Across
1 Too apparent in allusion on occasion (4)
ALSO – A[l]L[u]S[i]O[n].   Biffed, took me a while to see it.
3 Rotten time handling disarray, not following party line (3-7)
OFF-MESSAGE – OFF(MESS)AGE, another biff.
9 Fuss about fleet, initially adrift in storm (7)
TORNADO – TO(RN,A[drift])DO, where  ADO may cause you to think of the right answer if you are biffing.
11 Tories oddly without passion in operations room (7)
THEATRE – T[o](HEAT)R[i]E[s].   This setter seems to like alternate letters.
12 Late aunts done for in Oman? (9)
SULTANATE – Anagram of LATE AUNTS. Osman’s meal, or what the…..
13 Failure of French newspaper, reactionary editor dismissed (5)
LEMON – LE MON[de], a chestnut.
14 Determined to restrain Conservative playing fast and loose (12)
INCONSISTENT – IN(CON)SISTENT.
18 Market charges ending in scandal often (12)
BILLINGSGATE –  BILLINGS + GATE, as in Watergate.
21 Assemble revolutionary missile when outside (5)
AMASS – A(SAM backwards)S – Surface to Air Missile.
22 Superior’s hasty departure on vessel from the east (3-6)
TOP-FLIGHT – POT backwards + FLIGHT.
24 Geisha’s artful display of her bloomers? (7)
IKEBANA – A cryptic definition, I believe – can’t find anything else.
25 Poet joining regiment shortly (7)
SASSOON – SAS + SOON, Siegfried Sassoon, the WWI poet.
26 Fruit no lovers want? (10)
GOOSEBERRY –  Double definition, referring to the slang meaning.
27 Announcement of top dog (4)
PEKE – Sounds like PEAK.
Down
1 Creative doctor a strict one (8)
ARTISTIC – Anagram of A STRICT I.
2 Priest’s vestment not required, I hear (8)
SURPLICE – Sounds like SURPLUS.
4 A German man’s climbing plants (5)
FLORA – ROLF upside-down + A.
5 Home at ten, horribly worn out (9)
MOTHEATEN – Anagram of HOME AT TEN, where TEN doesn’t have much to do.
6 Sailors who hum? They stimulate you (8,5)
SMELLING SALTS – SMELLING + SALTS in entirely different senses.
7 The fall of General Custer (6)
AUTUMN – A cryptic definition, since as an American that bold commander would say fall rather than autumn.
8 They leave old English books outside university (6)
EXEUNT –  EX + E (U) NT.  The trick is thinking of the stage direction required by the literal.
10 ASEAN capitals developed very slowly (2,1,6,4)
AT A SNAILS PACE – Anagram of ASEAN CAPITALS.
15 Jack’s partner going topless, a provocation making you embarrassed (3,2,4)
ILL AT EASE – [j]ILL A TEASE.
16 Short scruffy wanderer, taken short, finds a tree (8)
MANGROVE – MANG[y} ROVE[r].
17 Feeling one must leave for a time? (8)
SENTENCE – SENT[i]ENCE, not a letter-substitution clue as you might suppose.
19 On the mend in Bow, or somewhere else in London? (6)
EALING – [h]EALING, an easy one.
20 Manage somehow with just two cooks? (4,2)
MAKE DO – MAKE + DO, both of which can mean cook.
23 Impostor’s bribe rejected by head of state (5)
POSER – SOP backwards + E.R.

69 comments on “Times 28051 – Well, just a little faster than that….”

  1. The SNITCH is currently at 70, which seems about right. I thought for a while that I might get in under 10′, but MANGROVE put paid to that. It took me a while to see that two words were abbreviated not just ‘wanderer’, and to get past NOMA for the latter.
    1. Sorry to bother you, but can I find the SNITCH? I don’t understand what 70 means….
  2. Same as Kevin, thought I was going to crack 10 minutes, but MANGROVE and PEKE put paid to that. 10:30 fully parsed as I went, so exceptionally easy. Liked SMELLING SALTS and AUTUMN most of all, trying to remember what I knew about Custer… what was his first name?
  3. Sorry esteemed blogger, but you have the puzzle number wrong and the snitch is unable to find your valuable blog. Dave W
  4. George. PEKE was my POI, actually; I thought of it earlier, but couldn’t think of ‘peak’ and moved on.
  5. My second fastest time, so I was fairly happy – clearly a puzzle on the easier side. I was lucky to hit on PEKE early, which made MANGROVE much easier.

    Thanks, Vinyl, for completing the blog under trying circumstances. I hope you have recovered from your headache.

    Edited at 2021-08-09 02:23 am (UTC)

  6. I tried, and got, the longest answers pretty early. PEKE came late but not last.

    Seeing MOTHEATEN is traumatic, as about half my suits were destroyed by a specimen of the loathsome larva during the long pandemic winter of their disuse (the three-piece Brooks Brothers I will have rewoven… just three tiny holes). Two of the oldest ones were among those spared. I’m not letting any moths in this summer.

    Edited at 2021-08-09 03:45 am (UTC)

    1. You have my sympathy: few years ago all of my suits (I had three) came back from the dry cleaners completely destroyed. Somehow the moths had eaten them in such a way that I hadn’t noticed until the dry-cleaning process made them disintegrate. I am much more vigilant these days.
      1. Been there, done that and left with just a tee shirt. My suits and jackets are now hanging in zipped bags. Having just retired, I am not wearing any of them so they could look like old dishcloths when I eventually check.
        1. I haven’t worn a suit (I’ve got one, couldn’t fit into it now) since 1997. But then I haven’t worn a pair of leather shoes since then either.
  7. No problem except I put FERNS in at 4D instead of FLORA at first (Fern being a name, although not especially German now I think about it, and ferns not being especially climbing). That got sorted out when I realized it had to be SULTANATE and then I could finish the NW corner and the whole crossword.
  8. 21 minutes. For some reason I started wondering whether 14ac ended -ENT or -ANT and the more I looked at it the less clear it became, I guess because it brought to mind two -ANT words, instant and constant. Anyway I eventually reverted to my first instinct which had been the correct one.
    1. I’m glad I’m not the only one: it’s surprising how right both versions look when you hit that dilemma.
  9. I finished with a tentative MAKE DO, not being sure who the cooks were but it seems fairly clear with hindsight. With MANGROVE, like Kevin I thought I was looking for a tree ending in NOMA, fearing that it was going to be something more obscure. I was pleased to remember IKEBANA from a previous puzzle as I’d be cheesed off if I failed on that one — seems a bit obscure to me to clue as a CD.
  10. …And may return no more but in their light.

    20 mins pre-brekker. Like Pootle, I do think making Ikebana a CD is harsh.
    But it did remind me that I used to go to an Origami class… but it folded.
    Altogether now.
    Did you try Macrame?
    No, there were too many strings attached.

    Thanks setter and Vinyl

  11. 26 minutes – the longest time for the puzzles I’ve done today. Doesn’t always work out this way, but a gentle start to the week. Last in was14a as I thought ‘playing fast and loose’ meant “careless” or perhaps “inaccurate” rather than INCONSISTENT.

    My favourite was the cryptic def for IKEBANA, the second amusing reference to a ‘Geisha’ in crosswords in the last few days.

  12. This was nice’n’easy for a change. Time 22 minutes. Snitch at 71. I was jabbed on Friday and failed to even start the 15×15! Foreigners only! 12 Koreans, 5 Japanese, 2 Australians, 1 American and 1 Brit (Meldrew). We were meant to get Pfizer on 17 July but the Chinese Health Dept still haven’t cleared it. No matter, second dose of Sinovax in three weeks.

    FOI 1dn ARTISTIC

    LOI 27ac PEKE (Beijing Top Dog!)

    COD 24ac IKEBANA – To nip arrangement in the bud with veto in the Swedish House of Assembly? (7) – 6dn?

    WOD 18ac BILLINGSGATE

    Fruits of the day – 26ac GOOSEBERRY 13ac LEMON (VW ad 1960!? Rita Seldon)

    Fresh Marmite arrived this morning. Hoorah!

    1. Having slept a little longer than usual, I didn’t have time to attempt a solve before the Somali breakfast. Here’s a couple of handy words, just in case you ever need ‘em:
      BEER (pronounced “bear”) – fried liver, onions and sliced peppers, spiced up with whatever spices Somalis use
      ANJERO – pancake-like bread, a distant cousin of the more well-known Ethiopian INJEERA, but thinner, sweeter, and less spongy

      The brekkie was just sensational, and I wandered back home convinced that good solving performance was assured. And (for me anyway) it all went very well until at 33m I was left with just I_E_A_A for 24a – would certainly have preferred your alternative clue, horryd – because there’s no way to get to that answer if you didn’t know the word.

      So DNF but feeling a bit short-changed (by the setter, not the Somali café-owner)

      1. Agreed re IKEBANA. Fortunately I remembered it from June when it was clued as “Art of homeware dealer hemming raised collar”
  13. 19’+ for me, stuck in SE for 7’+.

    Liked IKEBANA. Couldn’t parse MAKE DO, thanks vinyl. SURPLICE shouldn’t really sound like surplus.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

    1. Where we are, the collective noun on those occasions when vicars and such attend in large numbers is a surplice of clergy.
  15. Solved AT A SNAIL’S PACE, so slow,
    ILL AT EASE and OFF MESSAGE ALSO
    TOP FLIGHT POSER again
    But INCONSISTENT brain
    SMELLING SALTS might have helped, I don’t know
  16. 23 minutes with LOI PEKE. I always miss Fall for AUTUMN and wasted a minute or two trying to think of what I knew about Custer. COD to IKEBANA, a word I dredged up from an unknown source but I could see in front of me. Setter, I took short, scruffy wanderer as a personal insult. Still, better that than a mangy rover from Blackburn. Excellent Monday fare. Thanks to setter and V.
  17. Time constraints mean that we only attempt the 15×15 on odd occasions. So glad that we had a go today as we finished it in 49 minutes with only one error — we didn’t know EXEUNT so biffed an incorrect answer.

    FOI: SULTANATE
    LOI: EXEUNT (but a DNF)
    COD: BILLINGSGATE

    Thanks Vinyl1.

  18. I set off at a fast pace with the NW flying in, then kept going. I was slowed down in the SE by MANGROVE SENTENCE and SASSOON, but not for long. Couldn’t parse MAKE DO, but it had to be. Fortunately I knew IKEBANA. I’d have come in under 12 minutes if I hadn’t paused for a quick typo check. 12:05, possibly a PB. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
    1. Great time – well done. Your fourth fastest according to the SNITCH data (follow the link on your name in the daily results to see your top 10 and other personal data)
      1. Ah great stuff! I can’t remember breaking the 10 minute barrier. It was 4 years ago though. You were on fire yourself today too!
  19. The SNITCH is available at the top right of the page. It is all explained there.
  20. It’s under “links” but here’s the link anyway.

    https://xwdsnitch.herokuapp.com/

    You’ll see that it’s a way to measure the hardness of the cryptic crossword, based on the solving times of reference solvers, and that 70 is easy, but not super easy.

  21. Finally ensconced in the Cotswolds, so back in the world of the living, so to speak. A good time for me today so definitely on the easy side. I liked BILLINGSGATE, and AT A SNAILS PACE. LOsI MANGROVE & PEKE. Thanks vinyl and setter.
  23. I’m glad V managed to biff BILLINGSGATE even with a headache, because that and the dependent SE corner were where I got bogged down.
    I was busy trying to make TOP-FLIGHT an all-reversed thing, like others thought the tree ended in NOMAd, and seeing that panicked over the dog filling ?A?E.
    Even then, I managed a typo in the fish market, so my 18.31 won’t be giving an infinitesimal upturn to the SNITCH.
    I liked the stinky sailors.
  24. My quickest ever solve today, with the only doubts being IKEBANA – I’ve seen it in previous crosswords but couldn’t remember what it meant, so it went in from the checkers with fingers crossed – and BILLINGSGATE, where I didn’t parse ‘gate’ at all.

    FOI Also
    LOI Ikebana
    COD Mangrove

    1. IKEBANA and ORIGAMI are crossword chestnuts. You just have to remember which is which!
  25. 10:45. I made heavy weather of this, with a couple of typos in the NW that made SULTANATE impossible, failing to see obvious things like the parsing of TORNADO (even after seeing TO-DO), and general dimness elsewhere.
    I’m a bit surprised by the expressions of admiration for IKEBANA, which I think is a very poor clue. Indicating an uncommon foreign word with a CD is decidedly unsporting on the part of the setter. If you don’t know the term it’s impossible, if you do know the term it’s rather clunkingly obvious and in questionable taste.
  26. A rare excursion to the biggy for me today, prompted by seeing themayfield2 comment in the QC. I finished this in 31 minutes which is very fast for me, even recalling IKEBANA which doesn’t slip easily off my tongue. The whiffy sailors have to be my COD, but there were plenty of other candidates. Like others, I didn’t understand GATE initially. Thanks all.
  27. Anyone else find bugs in the Times crossword site today? When I clicked on the puzzle, the clock was already at about 1m 30s and the first 7 down clues were already filled in (correctly).

    Either it’s a bug, or someone’s hacked my account for very specific purposes. Or perhaps I’ve started solving crosswords in my sleep.

    1. …and now it thinks my username is DavidJD and my name is Simon Walker! Neither of which is true or rings any bells. All very odd.
      1. The oddest thing was that “my” settings had changed. I don’t use the skip-filled-in-squares facility which meant I had to re-enter every single light and achieved a totally unfair time. Sad face…

        Midas

    2. Same problem for me, very odd, but hopefully a site problem rather than a hack. It also showed all the word-breaks which I never bother with.

      Edited at 2021-08-09 11:33 am (UTC)

    3. Something odd is going on.

      I found that the whole of today’s crossword was filled in, and when I checked the profile I found that I was logged in as dsbuk. Apologies to dsbuk, but I didn’t touch anything while there under your name.

      This is apparently trivial, in this instance, but there is something seriously wrong with website security if it logs me in under somebody else’s identity.

      2. If you understand how cookies work, you won’t be surprised. When you go to the site and are already logged in, your browser will send the cookie you have stored, which is just a small text file. It usually contains a number that uniquely identifies you in the database which contains personal info and partially solved puzzles. If the database were to become corrupt somehow, then you might see some strange results.
    4. Me too — did all but PEKE, got a drink, came back and the answer was filled in. Got a feeling I’ve seen the same clue before and struggled to fill the P and K in
  28. I didn’t find this as easy as many seem to have done. Should have got one or two a lot quicker than I did, so maybe I just haven’t woken up yet. Slightly surprised to see MOTHEATEN without a hyphen

    I liked SMELLING SALTS and AUTUMN but COD was BILLINGSGATE.

    Thanks to vinyl and the setter.

  29. Monday fare, and with 4:01 for QC, almost a sub-10 double … one day, one day (my IT gets upgraded later this week and then I am sure I’ll whizz through quicker).
    HorryD: cave Sinovax as it may not be accepted elsewhere in World (had Brazilian friend who got into Switzerland with her S American jab but was then refused entry into Spain … one rule does not fit all)
    Enjoyed IKEBANA and SMELLING SALTS, so many thx to setter and blogger, of course.

  30. Happy memories vinyl1. I used to listen to that Goldberg over and over when younger. Now I haven’t listened to it for ages. Must do so again.

    I think my favourite ever Bach recording was Neville Marriner’s Die Kunst der Fuge. The variation of the instrumentation for the different parts was inspired, giving a variety of texture to the whole work and rendering it far more accessible. It also served to remind the listener that Bach was far more about musical relationships and structure than instrumentation (as far as I remember the piece was just scored as music without any prescribed instrumentation). And I loved the way the final and most complex fugue just tails off where he failed to finish it. Probably the most poignant musical moment I know of. Other versions have tried to ‘finish’ it in his style, and that is a worthy goal for any musician who understands Bach’s inner logic, but for me it’s best just to let it finish with the final note from his hand.

    1. But you most likely listened to the classic recording, the 1956 mono. That was one of the all-time piano greats, along with Richter’s 1958 Sofia Pictures at an Exhibition.
  31. 15m for a breezy start to the crosswording week. Much biffing but all fair and no quibbles though I wonder if people who live in Bow ever get tired of the automatic assumption they all drop their aitches.
  32. Mostly straightforward, completing all but 24ac in about 30 mins. Gave up after another 5 mins, convinced I didn’t know the word but after reading the answer I realised I had seen it before. Liked 6dn SMELLING SALTS.
  33. PEKE was given to me at the end (see response to Mauefw above) when I think I would have struggled with it

    BILLINGSGATE was one of those coincidences that happen. Just been instructed to advise on an issue relating to it. Though glad to now be on 3 weeks’ leave up to the Cairngorms via Newcastle)

    Liked SMELLING SALTS

    Couldn’t parse MAKE DO

    Thanks Vinyl and setter

  35. For me a fast 12:55. Like others I couldn’t parse MAKE-DO, and assumed there might be two Japanese chefs I’d never heard of named Mak and Edo. Culinary arts are not my forte.
  36. Easy enough once I worked out the spelling of surplice.

    Angela Hewitt’s version of the Goldberg is the one for me.

  37. ….and had lost the will to live partway through. Wavelength ? Perhaps. I couldn’t parse any of TORNADO, AT A SNAIL’S PACE, or MANGROVE (thanks x 3 Vinyl1).

    FOI ALSO
    LOI AUTUMN
    COD LEMON
    TIME 10:56

  38. Very enjoyable but I fell at the final hurdle of IKEBANA and came here to clear it up. Thanks.
  39. On holiday and in no rush. FOI TORNADO;LOI AUTUMN after a successful alphabet trawl starting with A; so I’d nearly run out of options.
    IKEBANA has become well-known in my shortish crossword career. Got it immediately , but agree not a great clue.
    Having wasted much time on Custer, I’m now going to look him up. Was he at The Alamo or Wounded Knee-or somewhere else?
    David
  40. 10:40 this afternoon. An enjoyable solve and fairly typical Monday fare if the SNITCH is anything to go by.
    Left with 3 clues at the end; 18 ac “Billinghurst” (where in my haste I had originally read “charges” as “changes”), 5 d “motheaten” a rather stubborn anagram and LOI 16 d “mangrove” where I got the latter half first.
    COD 6 d “smelling salts”
    Thanks to Vinyl for his blog — and I do hope you’re feeling better now — and to setter.
  41. 13.02. Pretty gentle fare solved from top to bottom with little resistance. Smelling salts was nice. Spent some time trying to dredge up facts about Custer before twigging that he was only there to indicate the American usage of fall.
  42. 27 very easy minutes, the last few spent trying in vain to parse MAKE DO. Didn’t know the slang meaning of GOOSEBERRY, no other real problems. LOI was SURPLICE once I had the crossing letters. I liked SMELLING SALTS the best, even though it was not particularly difficult.

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