After nearly four months away, it’s great to be back doing what I do, well, if not best, then, at least, probably better than I solve crosswords, that is, blogging them.
It would be remiss of me to continue without thanking those who stood in for me during my travels. Then again, I can’t go on without mentioning what I believe to be a world record. On 15 August 2012, I joined Vinyl in the Monday slot and so it was just last month that we celebrated our decennial. I cannot believe that there has ever been a blogging pair that have lasted that long!
As for the crossword, it was as prototypical for the second day of the week as you could possibly wish for. A bit of geography, a bit of classics, a bit of science and a smattering of literature (in the broadest sense – sorry GB!) It took me 24 minutes. How did you get on?
| ACROSS | |
| 1 | Where art lover may be, catching the setter’s hint (8) |
| INTIMATE – IM (the setter’s = I’M) in IN TATE (museum) | |
| 5 | Strengthen lead in tennis, having an advantage (4,2) |
| TONE UP – T (initial letter in Tennis) ONE UP (having an advantage) | |
| 10 | Play rock ‘n’ roll hit, deprived of telephone use (10,5) |
| HEARTBREAK HOUSE – Mm, we have Elvis’s HEARTBREAK HOTEL with the TEL (telephone) replaced by USE (from the clue). One of the many plays GBS wrote which are seldom performed. Compare old Noel Coward. | |
| 11 | Going straight home to wear wig, a bald drunk (3-7) |
| LAW-ABIDING – IN (home) in anagram* of WIG A BALD | |
| 13 | Saving Italy’s capital, or one of its capitals (4) |
| BARI – BAR (saving – as in ‘bar none’) I (initial letter of Italy); the capital of Puglia known to me as the first club David Platt joined in Italy | |
| 15 | Did some boring training with my boss (7) |
| DRILLED – DRILL (training) ED (the setter’s boss) | |
| 17 | Articles by the writer writing to overturn conviction (7) |
| ATHEISM – A THE (articles) I (the writer) MS (writing) reversed | |
| 18 | Fool is maintaining record’s purity (7) |
| ASEPSIS – EP (extended play – record) in ASS IS | |
| 19 | Had to follow medic getting overwhelmed (7) |
| DROWNED – DR followed by OWNED (had) | |
| 21 | The city of Paris? (4) |
| TROY – Hector’s brother Paris lived here | |
| 22 | Crook and prison pal showing how partners may be joined (10) |
| CONJUGALLY – CON (crook) JUG (prison) ALLY (pal) | |
| 25 | Perhaps who e.g. mum favouring old sister hugs (8,7) |
| RELATIVE PRONOUN – RELATIVE (e.g. mum) PRO (favouring) O (old) in NUN | |
| 27 | Spurning love, copies ancient king (6) |
| XERXES -XER[o]XES; Persian king along with Darius, Cyrus, Artaxerxes etc | |
| 28 | Rocky‘s incompetent boxing extremely suspect (8) |
| UNSTABLE – ST (initial and final letters of SuspecT) in UNABLE (incompetent) | |
| DOWN | |
| 1 | Inspired current prince inspired by Kelly? (7) |
| INHALED – I (electrical current) HAL (prince) in NED (Kelly) | |
| 2 | Having raised temperature, swallow hot drink (3) |
| TEA – EAT with the T (temperature) moved up | |
| 3 | Cook boils meat mass — this gives you energy (10) |
| METABOLISM – BOILS MEAT* M | |
| 4 | Drained river? Bound to go across it (5) |
| TIRED – R in TIED (bound) | |
| 6 | Players’ line from the start of Ode to a Revolutionary? (4) |
| OCHE – O (initial letter of Ode) CHE (crosswordland’s favourite revolutionary, whatever I may think of him) | |
| 7 | Offering instruction that is about banking old money and high loan (11) |
| EDUCATIONAL – DUCAT (old money) in reversal of IE (that is, i.e.) LOAN* | |
| 8 | Cover payment of leader with a different kind of hesitation (7) |
| PREMIUM – PREMIER, with the er changing to UM | |
| 9 | Denied profit, succeeded getting subsidies (8) |
| GAINSAID – GAIN (profit) S (succeeded) AID (subsidies) | |
| 12 | Partners smuggling crack before arrest for kind of crime (5-6) |
| WHITE-COLLAR – HIT (crack) in WE (partners in bridge) COLLAR (arrest, as in nabbed by the police) | |
| 14 | You no longer must accept hard time: it’s all over (10) |
| THROUGHOUT – ROUGH (hard) in THOU (‘you’ no longer [used]) T (time) | |
| 16 | Break down copper with small crack (8) |
| DISSOLVE – DI (detective inspector, AKA copper) S (small) SOLVE (crack) | |
| 18 | Comic figure, a big hit entertaining the disheartened Republican (7) |
| ASTERIX – TE (‘the’ with the middle letter removed) R (Republican) in A SIX (cricket shot that hits or clears the boundary) | |
| 20 | Respected female finished suppressing desire (7) |
| DOYENNE – YEN in DONE | |
| 23 | WWII belligerent to criticise Munich Agreement at first (5) |
| JAPAN – JA (the German word for assent or agreement) followed by PAN (criticise); an unusual epithet for the land of the rising sun in these PC days, but none the worse for that. I look forward to how the setter clues Russia and China… | |
| 24 | Broadcast set to receive unknown viewer’s complaint (4) |
| STYE – Y (unknown) in SET* | |
| 26 | American friend has gone round the globe (3) |
| ORB – reversal of BRO (word used by men who have forgotten or never bothered to find out your name) | |
I find it a little disturbing that so many respected solvers biffed HEARTBREAK HOTEL and moved on apparently without checking the wordplay, suggesting that speed of solving is paramount. Each to their own of course, but understanding clues as I solve is my personal priority.
I saw the GBS play (HEARTBREAK HOUSE) at the Haymarket theatre in 1983 starring Rex Harrison and Diana Rigg with Rosemary Harris, Mel Martin, Frank Middlemass,.Paxton Whitehead, Simon Ward and Doris Hare, but even with that stellar cast I’m afraid it was rather dull stuff.
Sorry to disturb you but I confess that, for me, speed of solving is very important! I wouldn’t say it’s paramount (there isn’t much correlation between speed of solving and enjoyment, for instance) but I always try to solve the puzzles as quickly as I can and I move on without checking wordplay all the time. Challenging myself to get better is an important part of my motivation for doing these things in the first place.
I typically parse everything as I go along, but sometimes I just get off to a roaring start and if the first half-dozen clues go straight in I’ll see if I can go for a speed record by breaking my normal rules!
I agree with you Jack and simply can’t see the point of ignoring what the setter has laboriously achieved, which is surely the point of solving crosswords. OK if one can combine parsing with speed then all well and good, but I can’t.
But I would say that wouldn’t I. As if I’d be a speed solver were I to biff. As if. I’d make so many mistakes that it would probably slow me down.
I had ambitions to build up speed when I first started contributing here (c2006) and that lasted for a couple of years until I realised I wasn’t making much progress towards the fast times reported by many of the regulars and I also wasn’t enjoying the pressure of always having one eye on the clock so to speak. Then in 2008 I started blogging, which was only once a fortnight at that time, but I decided to treat every puzzle as if I was going to be writing it up as a blog, so as I solved each clue I indicated its parsing and definition on my print-out. I found I got a lot more enjoyment doing it that way. I note my start and finish times and set a nominal target solving time of 30 minutes but I never race to achieve it or worry unduly if I don’t.
For the Quick Cryptics I aim for 10 minutes but I don’t bother marking the parsing on my print-out, just try to see it and move on to the next clue.
I’m aware that there’d be more enjoyment to be had if I paid more attention to surface readings but I’d probably find it too distracting from the solving process.
Yes, for me it’s the surface readings that usually get ignored, which is a pity as they are often brilliant.
30 minutes exactly. Enjoyable Monday puzzle.
Funny to see so many people going for HEARTBREAK HOTEL because I went for RIDGE, so at least I effed up in an original way.
A very enjoyable puzzle. The SW was the difficult corner for me. Last two were ASTERIX and XERXES.
I knew HEARTBREAK HOTEL was wrong but I thought it might be largely correct; which it was. As nearly my first in, it gave me lots of helpful letters.
An interesting discussion above on many topics including football ground architecture. The new bits of Craven Cottage (backing the river) face the old stand which is listed and so cannot be touched (I presume).
David
16.20 and by no means easy for me. LOI was oche where I was trying to see a reverse first letter solution for far too long. Eventually managed to dredge up a memory of televised darts and there it was! What was the name of the Geordie commentator- Sid?
Very enjoyable puzzle so thanks setter and welcome back Ulaca.
Sid Waddell but it sounded more like Wardell to me!
He was billed as ‘The Voice of Darts’ Dan Maskell was ‘The Voice of Tennis’ and John Arlott ‘The Voice of Cricket’, before Brian Johnson came along. Peter O’Sullevan was ‘The Voice of Racing’, Bill McLaren ‘The Voice of Rugby’ and Eddie ‘Up and Under’ Waring ‘The Voice of Rugby League’. Alan Weekes was ‘The Voice of Ice Skating’, David Coleman was ‘The Voice of Sport’, Peter Alliss ‘The Voice of Golf’, Kent Walton ‘The Voice of Wrestling’ and Kenneth Woolstenholme ‘The Voice of Football’.
‘They think it’s all over, it is now!’
On edit; I missed Harry Carpenter ‘ The Voice of Boxing’ and the great Murray Walker ‘The Voice of Motor Racing’
Thanks. Happy Days.
Happy Daze!
Don’t forget Phil Liggett ” The Voice of Cycling”. There was even a film about him of this name.
Many thanks Mr. C. I didn’t know of him so it wasn’t amnesia!
No time recorded for this as I had too many interruptions, but would imagine it was getting on for the 60 minute mark. It would have been so much quicker if I hadn’t made the foolish mistake in assuming HEARTBREAK HOTEL must be right even though I couldn’t parse it. This made the nw corner problematical, but eventually solved 7dn and 8dn before seeing the light on HEARTBREAK HOUSE. I’ve been to BARI so this didn’t hold me up for long.
Bari is in the Puglia region of Italy, and in recent times people have discovered what a great holiday destination it is. The city of Matera is worth the visit alone along with seeing the picturesque trulli houses.
❤️
I think the only thing more disappointing than falling a few short of a successful solve (basically the NE corner bar Bari and Premium) is then discovering that the Snitch is less than 100. However, my delight at solving Asterix/Xeres does soften the blow somewhat. Invariant
24.29
Strange one. Someone on the QC blog said that they almost did the 15×15 quicker than the QC so I was thinking I was being slow/stupid struggling at various points rather than the reality of what was probably a par solve
No idea what was going on with the HOTEL and HOUSE but I had the U from EDUCATIONAL so it couldn’t be the song
Also confused by TEA of all things – didn’t spot the instruction to move the t.
Commenting on Jackkt’s comment I don’t insist on parsing the whole clue but I do make sure I’ve parsed enough to make sure it’s “right”. Problem then are the adjective/adverb bear traps which can tend to catch one out (along with plenty else for also rans comme moi). Here I worried about EDUCATIONAL until I saw the DUCAT and then moved on
Thanks all
16’08” – which felt like a great time and I expected a higher Snitch than the current 90. I thought there were some lovely clues in there, and am definitely one of those who like the Munich Agreement thing. I’m normally a terrible biffer but something held me back from rushing in with Heartbreak Hotel. I guess it was quite simply that the ‘hit’ part of the clue did not appear to be the definition. Also liked the different kind of hesitation in 8d.
15.21. Neat puzzle. I initially entered heartbreak hotel with the sense that I was onto something and halfway there, intending to return to it. In fact the clue pretty much invites the solver to enter the rock n’ roll hit in the first instance and then amend it by substituting use for tel. It was just that last step in the process I hadn’t quite twigged. Educational and premium saw me right in the end. Of course it’s much easier to put in an answer that might need some later revision when solving online as opposed to solving on paper. The facility to insert / delete characters as many times as you like online makes it effortless. When I used to solve on paper, biffing was risky business. I would wait until I was almost 100 per cent certain of word play and definition before inking in any answer. Repeated corrections and revisions would make an illegible mess of the grid.
I always solve on paper but use pencil rather than ink. I buy the disposable Papermate Non-Stop Mechanical brand (what happed to the term ‘propelling pencils’ I wonder?) which come fitted with an eraser that makes a really clean job of rubbing things out. That’s working on A4 quality paper rather than the printed newspaper which I imagine would still be a messy business.
Terrible flop, as mentioned in above reply to Andy S; expected the Snitch to be a lot higher. Some days just start off badly…
I suspect that most of those exulting in their performance were using the online version, that enabled checks and tests along the way. How many bloggers completed this with pen and paper, passing time in the contemplation room?
Those solvers who are part of the NITCH (the index of difficulty of Times cryptic crosswords devised by one of our own) submit via the Times Crossword Club on the Times website. The Times Crossword Club does not allow checks and tests. These are available to people who do the crossword on the Times website’s puzzle pages.