Times 28627 – Brave new world!

89 comments on “Times 28627 – Brave new world!”

1. I made steady, though not very speedy, progress, but couldn’t get my LOI CAUCUSES until I corrected SHIVVYING—and have only now seen why UC is “capitals” (and why CAUS[-e] isn’t circling CU). That wasn’t clear for some reason until I saw the letters with a slash between them.
   TRONC was one of my first ones in, and I knew then that this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill Monday.

   1. Conversely, TRONC was my last in, as I’d never encountered the word, and needed help to find it.

2. A bob is a short haircut.

   1. Indeed. I admit to not having closely read Vinyl’s glosses.

      1. ?

         1. What are you asking?
            I was merely excusing myself for not correcting the blogger before you did (though his “U/C” did leap out at me. I must have seen “uppercase” abbreviated that way at times).

            1. Thank you for explaining UC. It wasn’t evident from the blog

   2. It’s not though is it? Most bobs have fringes.

3. Forgot I’d hadn’t checked how ONE-EYED and FULL-TIMER worked, so thanks for filling me in, v! Very difficult puzzle.

   EDIT: Actually the center of the puzzle was pretty straightforward. The corners were very difficult.

4. Also, Chambers informs me that the appropriate abbreviation for uppercase is ‘uc’, not ‘U/C’, as I’d thought.

5. Actually despite all the “is that right”? moments, I got through this more quickly than usual. I must have been on the wavelength, if there was one.

   I would have spelt CHIV with an S, but the answer saved me.

   Didn’t know STEPHANO, but I eventually saw it was an anagram. LOI.

   Didn’t remember TRONC, but no doubt we’ve seen it before.

6. 69 minutes. I had no idea about STEPHANO which I eventually saw was an anagram, had forgotten TRONC (so the &lit was lost on me), barely recognised UC for ‘capitals’ and CHIVVYING was little better than a guess. Not a great day then, but like Friday just happy to have survived despite the slow time.

   Interesting to have SOLIDI and ‘Bob’ in consecutive clues.

7. DNF as despite battling for an hour and eventually working out all but one answer, I threw in the towel with C?L?A outstanding as I’d had enough. I knew I wouldn’t know the lily, just as I’d not known several other things including TRONC, STEPHANO as a drunken waiter, or why the answer at 7dn was CHIVVYING. Little else had come easily, and I’d already expended too much time and energy for a Monday.

8. Fail. Guessed shivvying must be an alternate for chivvying, as I was *sure* chiv wasn’t an alternative for shiv. So caucus empty. Didn’t see the anagram for Stephano, don’t know The Tempest, but do know that Shakespeare is illiterate – Stefano is spelled with an F. I would never have got it unless I knew the answer, was guessing maybe Jeeves’s butler, also never read.
   Otherwise, no real problems, just the one NHO, but having the unknown (i.e. forgotten since last time ) tronc spelled out in the clue helped.

   1. Surely not illiterate. Italian has no ph and uses f. Greek has ph and stephanos is Gk for a crown. WHS retains Gk spelling

      1. My guess is, WHS dIdn’t give a damn about the spelling.

      2. It was a bit tongue-in-cheek, not serious. Looking up the play everyone seems to have Italian and Spanish names, so Greek gets the nix. Except of course the Greeks did settle/colonise southern Italy, so… maybe. I’m with Kevin – he didn’t care, or else anglicised it for his audience.

      3. W *H* S?

9. DNF. With just the lily left, and thinking I didn’t know the opera star I went for CILLA. I now see that scilla is a lily, which I think influenced my thinking. With hindsight I have heard of Maria Callas but I don’t think she’d have come to mind if I’d thought longer so no regrets.

   1. Same here- all correct apart from a cilla for the lily. Since I didn’t know the opera singer I was in trouble! Shame after spending a while sorting out the NE corner.

10. Well looky here / here it comes / here comes that grid again! But no sign of the gentle Monday confidence-booster I was hoping for – one of those where I was dropping in “least-worst” solutions with very limited confidence. However, it seemed to be coming together with strenuous effort, and I ended up top-right with completion sequence CAUCUS – CHIVVYING (completely unable to parse) then another least-worst, MOIRE.

    However for some reason (probably relief) I neglected the normal typo-check, and found that an early SEA MIST had been overwritten with LITERAL. Also turned out that I didn’t parse the plural in 25a and guessed SOLIDA. My 41m fail actually feels like a pretty decent performance – thanks V and setter

11. 16:39, but I eventually bunged in SEETHING as the only word I could think of that fitted the checkers. It never occurred to me to look for an anagram, what with the complete absence of anything that might be an anagram indicator.
    Lots of obscurity elsewhere, so a bit of a frustrating experience all round.
    Harrumph.

    1. You’re talking about 8d, right? I took ‘scrubbed’ to be the anagram indicator–faute de mieux, but not faute d’any–and Bob was my uncle.

       1. Clearly that’s what’s intended. But I can see no sense in which ‘scrubbed’ works as an anagram indicator.
          I even noticed that SOAP and THEN had the right number of letters, but dismissed the possibility of an anagram for this reason.

          1. ‘Scrub(bed)’ is not even in the extensive list of 100s of suggested anagrinds compiled by Chambers, but I can’t say I thought anything of it whilst solving and took it that the answer would be an anagram of ‘then soap’. It’s actually listed as a deletion indicator.

          2. Yes, initially I was looking for anagrams of “butler” plus “he” (“then”, scrubbed).
             I know almost anything goes for anagram indicators, but that is really pushing it.

12. Surprisingly I rattled through this in 36 minutes. I think TRONC was my only unknown apart from the alternate spelling of “shiv”; I’m sure I learned CALLA and SOLIDI from a previous puzzles here, and knew MOIRE from the “Moiré patterns” that used to show up when people wore particular weaves of suits on TV.

    By complete coincidence I listened to the Nobody Panic podcast episode “How to Pass the GCSE Shakespeare Exam: The Tempest” back in May, though once I’d got the crossers and worked out that it was an anagram it wasn’t too hard to come up with STEPHANO regardless. I should probably look out for a performance and actually watch the play itself at some point; it does sound like a good one…

13. 51 minutes with LOI the unknown TRONC. To channel Eddie Cochran, wow, that was something else. A BOB was just a short hair cut to me, and it was nice to see STEPHANO as a refugee from the TLS. I needed all crossers for PAS SEUL and CALLA, although Maria Callas is in the very small universe of opera singers I know. All good fun, sure fine-looking. Thank you V and setter.

14. 21:09
    I was in a hurry to catch a train, so didn’t look at what I’d biffed, but luckily no errors. FOI SEA FRET, LOI STEPHANO, which I was pretty sure was the butler, and indeed is listed as ‘a drunken butler’ in the dramatis personae in the Folio. DNK PAS SEUL, thought I DNK TRONC. Worried over shiv/chiv, never having come across the latter: CAUCUS finally decided me. Thought of LOONY before LOOPY, fortunately thought of LOOPY.
    Good news about Zabadak.

15. She walks in beauty, like the night
    Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
    And all that’s best of dark and bright
    Meet in her Aspect and her eyes;
    (She walks in beauty, Byron …. worth a read)

    After 30 mins pre-brekker I was left trying to justify Caucus and not understanding the Drunken Butler clue. “Scrubbed” had to mean first&last letter deletion. I never saw it as an anagram indicator.
    Ta setter and V.

    1. Part of drunken butler seen in soap, then replaced (8)

       1. Excellent!

16. DNF big time. Eight clues left and I just didn’t get/understand them. Came hear for solace. Unknowns inclue CALLA, FULLER (in that sense) SOLIDI and the Butler.

    In mitigation I would say that my brain is scrambled due to an important parcel I’m waiting for which is god knows where, and which UPS seem incapable of delivering.

    Thanks v and setter.

17. 25:26, which is fast for me, though I had to consult the Vinyl oracle for parsing on quite a few that went in from crossers or hunches. I really liked this, especially CAUCUS and THOROUGHGOING. Chapeaux to setter and blogger alike, and to Nick Taylor for his 72 foot putt that made staying up so late worthwhile.

18. 16:06 despite at least 4 unknowns or barely known… STEPHANO (don’t know my Shakespeare), CALLA the lily, PAS SEUL the dance sequence or TRONC, so I was pleased to come through this relatively unscathed. I liked FOOTSTOOL best. Thanks Vinyl and setter.

19. 35 minutes, and relieved to come here and find out I’d got it all right.

    CAUCUS gave me no end of problems, exacerbated by not knowing that a chiv can be a knife as required for CHIVVYING. I relied on the wordplay for MOIRE, hoped that I’d got the I right at the end of SOLIDI, and took ages to see the double definition for SHORT CUT.

    I had C_L_A for 2d from very early on, but Maria Callas didn’t occur to me for a long time, and even when she did I had to trust that a CALLA is a lily. I didn’t know STEPHANO the butler but managed to figure out that it was an anagram and assumed it was Shakespearean, and the unknown TRONC went in with a shrug.

    Really tough stuff for a Monday, but enjoyable all the same – thanks setter and blogger.

    FOI Reckless
    LOI Chivvying
    COD Thoroughgoing

20. 20.40. Some solutions dredged up fr9m the depths.

21. Another DNF (all right, CNF) for me, threw in the towel on the hour with SOLIDI and much of the NE quadrant blank. Not that an hour is a deadline, it’s just that I knew I could get no further and I was right. I am amazed by some of the times recorded here and suspect some fellow DNFs have chosen to pull their heads in today and see what tomorrow brings…

22. 43 minutes so it was tough but I thought it was a very enjoyable puzzle. NHO my LOI TRONC so I was very relieved that it worked. Also NHO FRET for fog and CHIV for SHIV. But all the NHOs were clear from the clues.
    Thanks setter for a great puzzle and blogger.
    Steve

23. Really enjoyed that – a bit different with a lot of wordplay to work out. Vaguely remembered TRONC was something. Didn’t know CALLA or STEPHANO but thought what else could they be. Couldn’t parse CHIVVYING so thanks for that.

    9.27 with the obvious Monday typo but pleased with that

    BTW, i’ve been working my way through the back catalogue as practice and have just found what I think might be the hardest puzzle I’ve tried to date if anyone wants a real challenge! It’s from 2006 – number 23228

    Thanks v and setter

    1. Thanks Deane. I look forward to trying it. Will let you know how I get on.

       1. Excellent – good luck!

          1. I finished it in 21:46, which makes it harder than average for me, but I’ve found many harder – as a comparison last Friday’s took me over 30 minutes.
             It’s curious how you can be “on the wavelength” with a particular puzzle as we often mention. That’s how this one felt for me – I admired the cleverness of several clues, but at the same time none held me up for too long.

             1. That’s impressive, I just couldn’t get the long answers, particularly the acrosses and was scrabbling around for ages

       2. Me too!!
          Steve
          Ok I did it now
          Finished in 52 minutes but with one stupid typo, how annoying!!
          But 1 across – seriously???? That must have accounted for at least 15 minutes of my time. I cant believe I put that in and it was a real word…

    2. The hardest one I remember doing was 25011, November 19th 2011. Took me 4 days, but I was enjoying it so much I persevered.
       Now to have a look at 23228… that was published before I started solving The Times. Thanks, Deane.

       1. Thanks isla – I thought I had done all of the 2011 puzzles and I had a look back at puzzle 25011 and it says I’m only 8% complete so I must have just given up having struggled dreadfully with it!

          Will have another crack at it later.

       2. You might be right re 25011 – I’ve done the top half but am already 25 minutes in!

          1. I’ve just finished that in um 1 hour 48 minutes….
             But if you finished the top half already in 35 minutes you are far ahead of me as that was what held me up.
             I still dont completely understand 1ac or 6dn.

             1. 1ac “Picture of amateur” is the definition – then jockey is VIE on H, O and MEMO

                6dn – the gassy element is O

                1. Thanks!!!
                   Jockey = vie is what I didnt get
                   And I thought the gassy element was N
                   Cheers!!!

    3. Deane, I’ve noticed that you you seem well-versed in the ways of the SNITCH-MEISTER.
       I’ve asked a couple of questions below and wondered if you might help.

24. 91m 41s but got 8d wrong with SEETHING. The drunken butler bit fooled me. Sometimes setters introduce the ‘sh’ sound into clues as in ‘shlurring’ one’s words. The anagram idea did occur to me but I knew of no butler called Stephano.
    NHO PAS SEUL or TRONC. Had vaguely heard of SOLIDI. Had NEEDLESS for 1ac for a while. THE NEEDLES are a head(land).
    Thank you, Vinyl, for REFUSE, CAUCUS, CHIVVYING and FULL TIMER. Never new a Fuller was a trade.
    That was unexpectedly ‘ard for a Monday.

25. 37:36 but with CILLA, and I had to look up STEPHANO. Hard going! Thanks Vinyl.

26. Total disaster: a much interrupted solve against an appointment deadline took me over the 30 minutes with an error which I would have spotted given time. Aren’t some CAUCUSes in the US election system anything but small groups? I know I’ve never come across TRONC before. And so on, and so forth.

    1. Quite right about CAUCUSes Z. The Iowa Caucuses used to kick off the Presidential primary season ( I won’t get into the weeds here) and were long criticized for being older and whiter than the rest of the electorate and having completely disproportionate influence. They are indeed quite small groups and they stand around in town meetings discussing the candidates and showing their preferences publicly. Oh lord, it’s all about to start again. I’d rather think about Lewis Carroll’s “caucus race”. No major trouble with this puzzle for me for some reason. 22.09

       1. I think I once observed on Twitter that American Presidential elections take place every four years, and last approximately four years… Certainly seemed like that with some recent ones!

27. 12:41 with a pink square from the fat-fingered FOOTSTOLL which I didn’t notice until after clicking submit. Otherwise, a game of two halves, some straightforward stuff, and then sorting out the rest, especially the NE corner. That fell piece by piece, starting with the calculation that SHIV might conceivably be CHIV, but CHIVVYING couldn’t really be SHIVVYING, and ending with the realisation that 8dn was an anagram after all, just an unexpectedly hard one. Bit much for a Monday, but it got the brain ticking over.

28. DNF as I had heard of a CALIA type of Lily and biffed assuming I wouldn’t know the opera star anyway. Had vaguely heard of Callas after all …

    STEPHANO was a DNK even though I did the Tempest at school. I knew the drunken butler was something of this ilk, but went and put in SEETHING as at least it had a ring of ‘being drunk’ somehow.

    Oh well, glad to have the rest done – on a very not-typical Monday offering, I agree!

29. DNF. A careless 15d STIPPLEd prevented 25a SOLIDI and couldn’t get 5a CAUCUS, and 8d tried and failed to come up with a credible anagram of “then soap” although I should have got that. Def not Monday fare!
    Thought I had NHO 20a PAS SEUL, but of course had forgotten.

30. DNF
    Stephano, calla 🙁
    Thanks, v.

31. 33.22
    Could have sworn today was a Monday. .. I had a real struggle with this. CAUCUS and STEPHANO took a large chunk of my time and I still need vinyl to explain the former. The word “gathering” in 10 down convinced me that it “had to be” ROLLING STONES and I spent some time trying to justify this.

    NINEVEH, THOROUGHGOING and SOLIDI all excellent

    Thanks to vinyl and the setter

32. Having been away for a week on a golf trip and not doing the crossword on Thursday or Friday because I was catching up with other things, it seemed that my 66 minutes showed that I had fallen off. But no evidently. Only entered STEPHANO because it fitted. A sea fret is surely not the same thing as a fog meteorologically, despite what the dictionaries say. One is man-made, one a natural phenomenon. I slowed myself considerably by entering ‘part timer’, in the hope that there was such a thing as a parter at 9ac.

    1. Are you perhaps thinking of smog?

       1. Yes I think I am. But I still think of fog much more as smog than as a sea fret. Disregard my comment about man-made/natural.

33. 36 mins with a little help from my friends. I thought the CHIVVYING/CAUCUS bit was diabolical. NHO CHIV and never thought of uppercase. I think it was the IN in the CHIVVYING clue which threw me.
    The other NHOs were at least well clued.

34. Pleased to finish this one as it was a toughie. No time to report due to multiple interruptions but estimated at about the hour mark. I didn’t help myself by putting in STIPPLED and not STIPPLES until I finally worked out SOLIDI. The only thing I couldn’t parse was the uc part of caucus, so I’m grateful for the explanation. I think I’ve seen upper case explained before in previous grids but it obviously didn’t stick.

35. Mostly straightforward but somehow ended up with two wrong. Carelessly entered Stephane despite knowing Stephano from The Tempest perfectly well. All the more careless when simply checking the anagram would have revealed the mistake.
    My other error was solido. I guessed that a solido was three-dimensional, that a soldo was a figure, and slashed by an inserted 1=i. Pure nonsense. I did vaguely recognise solidi as something I’d come across before after I saw the solution but it was buried too deep.

36. Failed as couldn’t parse CAUCUS, also put in CALIA as the Lily, assuming SCALIA was an opera star I didn’t know.

37. 26’20”
    Early pace, lost ground back straight, stayed on gamely.
    Reverting to a pencil helped a lot, plus a huge slice of good luck in knowing moire and chiv seeming a reasonable alternative for shiv. I’ve never read The Tempest, but saw it once in the garden of the lovely brick-built womens’ college that isn’t New Hall or Girton. The PH for the Italian F squinted a bit, but it had to be and caucus went in with a wing and prayer as I saw CU not UC. Delighted I didn’t stint on the whip, but cannot believe my luck today.
    PS I’m sure the SNITCH-MEISTER would not be interested in my wildly fluctuating efforts, but I’m very impressed with his/her work, and am having great fun with a homemade SNITCH/NITCH/WITCH-ometer. Saturday is never considered it seems ?? How wild does a correctly completed grid’s time have to be, to be excluded from a personal average ?

    1. The public leaderboards show only the top 100 solvers per crossword. The prize crosswords (such as Saturdays) aren’t snitched because the leaderboard is largely populated by those who solve the crossword on paper, then enter the solution online

       1. Thank you Lou.
          I’m pleased that on Saturday I can relax without the looming pressure of the clock.

38. I expected an easy stroll through this at lunchtime, and soon realised I was in for a nasty shock. Struggled in places, especially in the NE corner. I thought I had done it in 26 minutes, but it turned out to be a dnf as I failed to see 8dn was an anagram and just biffed in the butler from The Remains of the Day as my LOI, even though he was not especially drunk and is actually spelt STEVENS rather than STEPHENS.
    FOI – SEA FRET
    COD – NINEVEH
    LOI – did not qualify.
    Thanks to vinyl and other contributors.

39. 45 minutes and I survived all of the many many unknowns but one: I had SOLIDE instead of SOLIDI, thinking SOLDE might be a figure slashed by I, making some Frenchified term for 3-dimensional. With all of the completely unnecessary obscurities in this puzzle that makes as much sense as anything else. Incidentally, other setters seem to have no great problem setting hard puzzles that people without dictionaries can actually solve.

    1. I couldn’t agree more. There’s simply no need for it.

40. I somehow battled through this on a wing and a prayer, while still posting a very decent time. I was helped by knowing TRONC, having heard of Maria Callas if not the lily, and acquiring an Eddie Cochrane earworm early in the proceedings. I was held up briefly in the NE corner, where my knowledge of “The Tempest” didn’t run to the butler (I blindly accepted the rather odd anagram indicator), by trying to work something from “mohair”, and finally by my LOI which I biffed. Vinyl’s usual excellent blog explained my other biff (EXTEMPORE), but it took Guy du Sable to cast light on “upper case”.

    FOI SEA FRET
    LOI CAUCUS
    COD FALSIFICATION *
    TIME 7:48

    * Quite topical. Bring on the SNP clues !

41. Not so gentle IMO. As others, I had SHIVVYING and didn’t believe it could be chivvying so DNF as then didn’t get CAUCUS. Also DNK PAS SEUL and had STIPPLED for too long until I got solidi.
    Welcome back, Zabadak, to bloggers corner, in due course.

42. 33:44

    I found this hard to get into but once going (just three in after parsing all of the clues), answers started to fill themselves in, starting with both of the long anagrams – SOMETHING ELSE and FALSIFICATION – after which the SW fell, followed fairly promptly by the SE though failed to parse EXTEMPORE (had EX T for Time and nowt else). TACITUS in turn gave the unknown TRONC, plus STITCH.

    Only tricky one in the NW was the unknown lily, but with all checkers CALLA{s) was a reasonable guess. However NE was a different kettle of fish – saw the anag at 8d and pencilled in STEPHANO with no idea who it was. Saw VYING as the second part of 7d and pencilled in CHIV which gave CAUCUS, the terrible AMMONIA and the final unknown MOIRE (though feel it’s been here before).

    COD NINEVEH and thought FULLER was someone that made London Pride ale…

    Thanks setter and for Vinyl for working it all out

43. Forgot to check my watch but I think about 25 mins. A toughie but enjoyable though I did scratch my head a bit about stipples. Shouldn’t it have been stippled? Glad it was the former though as it made it impossible not to put in solidi, despite not knowing the definition of slashes.

    1. I agree. It should be stippled. It’s a poor clue.

    2. The definition at 15dn (as indicated by vinyl1 in his blog) is ‘With dots, marks’ so the answer has to be STIPPLES.

44. FOI RECKLESS gave me most of the top left corner straightaway, (I’m afraid Callas is the only likely dead opera star who would appear in The Times, so was a giveaway). Bizarrely, about 3/4 of the puzzle went straight in, even the unknown TRONC was an immediate guess, and most were parsed. I had a massive MER at 15D, not being the only one to fail to see the definition was actually ‘with dots, marks’, and I only changed it to STIPPLES on realising what the slashes meant. Glad to come here and see it was my mistake, not the setter’s. Like most, I was held up by the CAUCUS/STEPHANO/CHIVVYING crossers, and even when I bifd CHIVVYING I failed to understand it, not knowing either ‘shiv’ or ‘chiv’. But seeing that everyone else found it difficult, I’m glad I persevered. I think I ought to go off and read The Tempest now – it was embarrassing to have to work that one out… Actually, I did see a film production in black and white when I was at school, but unfortunately (especially for Shakespeare) the sound was so bad that we couldn’t make out most of the dialogue!

    1. Pretty sure Nellie Melba has appeared. Search search… yes, 2015.

    2. Well, actually Schwartzkopf was in a Mephisto I just blogged – you might want to check out the cryptic.

       1. Of course, Melba is a likely candidate. Though I do hope Schwartzkopf, Vinyl, was an answer, not part of the wordplay!

45. Defeated by 4 clues – Caucus, Chivvying and Stipples (all of which I saw but didn’t understand why) and Stephano (which I didn’t see and didn’t know). Not your average Monday.

46. 39.58

    Genuinely surprised the whole world doesn’t know who Maria Callas was but that’s “general” knowledge for you. On the other hand I knew CHIVVYING but never heard of shiv (tough clue).

    Had to really dig deep in the NE

    Thanks all

47. Surely BOB is a short (hair)cut.

48. Had all the same problems as others: CHIVVYING, CAUCUS and STEPHANO in particular. So a DNF here, even though I was happy that my vague memories of words such as MOIRE, TRONC and PAS SEUL all helped me correctly solve most of the grid. No problem with CALLA as I knew as both a lily and most of the opera singer, and a terrific PDM as I saw SOMETHING ELSE and THOROUGHGOING. Unfortunately STIPPLED disallowed SOLIDI to appear, and my WS knowledge didn’t extend to STEPHANO. All up a difficult but (mostly) fair puzzle.

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