Times 28984 – the earl of lavatory

77 comments on “Times 28984 – the earl of lavatory”

1. Around 70 minutes. Bottom was fairly quick but slowed by top. CHATELAINE, CRAIC STET, GRAYLING all recycled. No words I didn’t know. Biffed PUMPKIN.
   Thanks Glh for parsing
   In 9A I believe “early” is part of the wordplay. “caught early” is C. It justifies caught is C where generally this is taken as given. CHARABANC is simply bus.

   1. C = caught is standard cryptic fare (from cricket notation, I believe), so indicating the C’s position in the word is unnecessary. CHARABANC is tagged in Collins as “obsolete.”

      1. CHARABANC cannot be “early bus”
         I completely forgot the cricket caught. Suppose the caught had been another C-word like carrot then the early would indicate first letter.

         1. Oh, but it can!
            “Early _” is a common cryptic way to indicate an archaic term.
            “Early bus” is a nice play on words, because, of course, at first you think of public transit that has to be… caught if you’re to make it to the office on time.

            1. CHARABANC is ‘early bus’, a clue with a good surface.

               1. A ‘bus is an omnibus. It carries “omnes” to different places on a fixed route. People alight and descend at stops as they choose. A charabanc was an unenclosed goods-carrying motor vehicle (char) with bench seats (bancs) temporarily bolted to the load platform: hauliers used to modify their work-a-day lorry at summer weekends for Sunday outings from A to B and return (read “coach parties”).

                  Also I think charabancs came into use at least 70 years later than buses which were first seen in London in 1829 (Shillibeer), five years after being pioneered in Manchester.

                  So a bit of a stretch for me. But that said otherwise a most enjoyable and satisfactory puzzle.

                  1. ‘Bus’ is also commonly used to refer to a coach. On school trips and similar occasions the words are often used interchangeably in my experience. I’m slightly surprised to find that only ODE reflects this usage, and then obliquely: ‘a large motor vehicle carrying passengers by road, typically one serving the public on a fixed route and for a fare’. It’s there in Collins in the verbal form of the word, where it’s clear from the examples that the meaning is broader than just a public stopping service.
                     Edit: it occurs to me that a common example of this usage is ‘battle bus’.

                  2. OED’s first usage
                     1793
                     I..proceeded to Ville-neuve in a char a banc, a singular species of vehicle, in which one rides sideways very little raised above the dirt or dust of the road, and quite open to it.
                     J. E. Smith, Sketch Tour Continent vol. III. xl. 166

            2. You’re right of course. After 70 years I still misread the obvious.

   2. I don’t have time to check now, but I’m pretty sure that CHATELAINE, CRAIC and STET appeared in puzzles I have blogged within the past 2-3 weeks, possibly all the same one!

      1. And Grayling!

2. 17:25
   Started off slow (FOI INDIA). Biffed DOCTOR FAUSTUS, never bothered to parse; biffed NANOSECOND, CHATELAINE, parsed post-submission. Never did get ECLAT; and only noticed that STET was a hidden when I had submitted. ‘Hero’s beloved’ was rather a giveaway. I was glad that CRAIC had come up recently. Dorothy Parker named her parrot Onan, because he spilled his seed.

   1. LOL!
      Spilled his seed.

3. I liked the three shilling words in the grid and some of the almost cryptic definitions, and that showed in a pretty fast time for me, around 20 minutes. Thanks, GH.

4. Just chewy enough to be flavorful. No complaints!

5. 27 minutes for all but 27ac but sadly I failed on that one so this has to count as a DNF.

   I had considered ‘for one / EG’ and ‘summer in France / ETE’ but even then the surfeit of E-checkers proved too much and I was unable to think of a word to fit them. Having seen the answer I have to admit that ‘lover who was / EX’ is pretty clever. EXEGETE has appeared only three times before in the TfTT era, the first having been in 2019 in a 15×15 blogged by me. The clue was very similar to today’s except EX was clued as ‘late’ which went rather neatly with ‘summer’. The most recent appearance was in September last year.

   The parsing of CLASS had me baffled for a while whilst trying to make sense of ‘lacking distinction’ as the definition. Lift and separate!

   It’s unfortunate that the GRAYLING wordplay had appeared so recently elsewhere.

   1. Agree re GRAYLING, it went in straight away.

   2. Same here! I was surprised to see chatelaine and grayling having seen them so recently and failed on 27ac – blinded by the ‘E’s. The rest was very enjoyable.

6. In the (I think) 1980s I spent almost an entire weekend trying to do a Times X-word and got about three answers. But one, clued ‘A fish! A fish! A fish!,’ was GRAYLING. So 40-odd years later it went straight in. 26.56, quicker than I expected when I set out, some very good clues here I thought, thanks glh. LOsI CRAIC and KERATIN.

   From Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues:
   Well, I ran right down and bought a ticket
   To this Bear Mountain PICNIC
   But little did I realise, I was in for a picnic surprise
   Had nothin’ to do with mountains
   I didn’t even come close to a bear

   1. Wouldn’t it be good fish fish fish?

      1. At the time I painstakingly looked it up and found there was a UK fish called gray…but look, it was a while ago .

7. 11:14 and very enjoyable it was too. EXEGETE LOI, cost me a minute or two to twig the “lover that was” – nice.
   Many thanks to setter & blogger.

8. Ditto Jack. 32 mins but gave up on EXEGETE. Not many anags today to get one’s teeth into. GRAYLING looked familiar!.

   Thanks G and setter.

9. 9:44. Thankfully saw EXEGETE quite quickly once crossers were in, although I couldn’t have defined it. Fun puzzle, with ABRIDGE my favourite.

   Only eyebrow was for STET, where the initial letter indicator was a bit loose (as opposed to ‘heads of’ or similar). I suppose you could say “the department heads” to mean the heads of departments, but I’m not sure that carries over to four unrelated words.

   Thanks both.

10. 25′, and a few deja vu moments as mentioned above.
    Refused to believe PALACED initially, given that “placed” was already in the clue. LOI EXEGETE which took a few moments until I saw EG=”for one”. I quite enjoyed PUMPKIN, and NANO reversed also reminded of the Dorothy Parker story. All very enjoyable, thanks George and setter.

11. I still call a coach a charabanc, pronounced to end with g. Doesn’t everyone? 28 minutes with LOI PICNIC. I biffed TRILLION and NANOSECOND on this otherwise steady solve. Thank you George and setter.

    1. There was a Graham Parker song in the new wave 70s, maybe on Howling Wind…that was the last time I heard anyone use it.

       1. Here’s a comment from someone with similar age and geography to me.
          “John and I remembered mystery tours, and we always thought this was a fascinating idea: getting on a bus and not knowing where you were going. Rather romantic and slightly surreal! All these old dears with the blue rinses going off to mysterious places. Generally there’s a crate of ale in the boot of the coach and you sing lots of songs. It’s a charabanc trip. So we took that idea and used it as a basis for a song and the film.” Paul McCartney

12. As a lay minister I do a lot of exegesis, i.e. I am sometimes an EXEGETE.

    NANOSECOND reminded me that there is an ONAN in the Hebrew Bible (hence ‘onanism’, one of the words looked up in dictionaries as a schoolboy).

    11’43”, thanks george and setter.

13. 21:34

    FOI: PALACED
    LOI: EXEGETE

    I took a while to construct LOI from wordplay, at which point I recalled ‘exegesis’. On reviewing, I realised that I had not fully parsed PACIFY or TRILLION.

    Thank you, glh and the setter.

14. 20:03

    EXEGETE was my last in as my GCSE in French was clearly given in error. I also needed the blog to explain NANOSECOND in full so obviously I wasn’t top of the class in Religious Studies either.

    Otherwise, no real problems after a very slow start. I liked the mix of general knowledge with everything fairly clued.

    A relatively easy week thus far so a stinker awaits tomorrow…

    Thanks to both.

15. About 15 minutes.

    Biffed TRILLION once I had enough checkers, not knowing rill=trench; dredged up EXEGETE from somewhere; didn’t know Judah’s son so NANOSECOND was a semi-biff; haven’t come across plate=false teeth before but NAMEPLATE was clear enough; and LEANDER and GRAYLING were easier to get as they’ve both come up recently.

    Thanks glh and setter.

    FOI Charabanc
    LOI Dialogue
    COD Abridge

16. 14.25
    One is reminded, is one not, of Dorothy Parker’s canary, which she named ONAN because he spilled his seed on the ground.
    I enjoyed EXEGETE and KERATIN; knew CHARABANC from various George Formby songs.
    LOI PACIFY.

    1. Ah so I suppose that’s where the word onanism comes from…

17. I took 27:10 on this having thoughtlessly written in PERI for the fairy at 1dn and then taking ages at the end over the early bus, before I realised. So PUCK ended up my LOI.
    I also had no idea who Judah’s son was, but NANO is the only 4 letter prefix.
    I knew exegete / exegesis ok though
    Thanks setter and blogger

    1. … other than kilo? But one never talks of a kilosecond of course …

       1. You are right but that’s a 10 power n prefix, I was restricting myself to 10 power minus n prefixes!

          1. Or there are pico and atto

    2. I’m glad someone else did that too. PERI(L)??

18. 23 minutes. I biffed NANOSECOND, but parsed the rest OK, including EXEGETE which I managed to remember. I was surprised to see PALACED was a word (yes, it’s in the dictionaries). Favourite was CHARABANC.

19. 16.21, despite being distracted by some newcomers to my garden feedery, a charming if boisterous flock of around a dozen starlings. I liked this, and I’m afraid ABRIDGE is my CoD because it’s just so silly.
    EXEGETES had to work pretty hard to find a disapproving story to persuade boys to keep their hands above the blankets. Just as well the boys didn’t find out that the godly alternative to ONAN’s ground-moistening sin was to get their sister in law pregnant. Every sperm is sacred!

    1. Starlings-charming?

       1. You clearly haven’t met the pigeons.

20. 37 minutes, no major problems. I liked the early bus, the cut both ends off device, and the lover who was. Took a couple of things on trust — that Onan was the son of Judah, the meaning of EXEGETE, and wasn’t sure that a pad was just a room or that a plate was false teeth. Nice crossword.

21. Pretty much same as Jack but double the time.
    COD abridge.

22. A steady 32:51. Vaguely remembered EXEGETE; well done setter for giving us the four Es as the crossers. I liked PUMPKIN, PICNIC and PACIFY

23. DNF. Failed on EXEGETE. Like others, thought of ETE but couldn’t work out where it went nor the rest of the clue. Shame!

    1. Ditto!

24. 28:14

    Enjoyable but thought I was a bit slow around the board. According to the Snitch (79 = 29.5 mins for me) though, I’m just inside my target.

    No idea about Judah’s son, but biffing the answer was the key to finishing the last half dozen, though didn’t know FAT = productive. EXEGETE successfully pieced together though not sure I would have known what it was upfront.

    Thanks G and setter

25. 24 mins with quite a lot of interruptions from the wife who still doesn’t understand the need to get a good time… just as well she doesn’t read this.
    Like yesterday a steady solve. ECLAT LOI had no idea what was going on, so just bunged it in.

26. 25:31

    Lots to like. Wish I’d written in an unparsed Dr F early on, but Spike didn’t click. Once I gave in to it the tricky top half fell into place with LOI DIALOGUE.

    COD PACIFY

    Thanks all.

27. 29:14
    COD to NANOSECOND.
    LOI TRILLION, with a shrug at rill=trench
    Started with PERI on 1d, though not convinced that peril=bottle, but CHARABANC put that right.

    Thanks glh and setter

28. 16:40 – wasn’t too sure about the rill/trench equivalence, although a manageable leap from the usual definition of rill, which I think of as the contents rather than the container.

29. For me this was a rare kind of puzzle, one I got through as quickly as a very easy one even though I could tell while doing it that it was rather tricky in places. Somehow it just suited me. I don’t time myself but I’m confident I’d have been under 15 minutes, much better than my average. I may as well relish this unusual experience before returning to the more normal one of finding a puzzle tough then coming here to find a consensus that it was straightforward.

    1. You put the words in my mouth, exactly!

30. 28’40”
    Good steady pace, never troubled the leaders.

    It’s always a relief to justify all in a respectable time. The contract baffled me for a while; perhaps because the ‘Trigger’s Broom’ of a ferry hereabouts is still going strong despite the bridge across the estuary. It was already an ancient vessel when it carried me as a child.

    Very enjoyable; thank you setter and George.

31. 23.12 but looked up exegete after tearing my hair out- fortunately I have plenty- for 5 minutes. Had a distinct All Our Yesterdays feel this one as there were a fair few half remembered clues. Grayling, chatelaine and trillion and also exegete. Shame I didn’t fully remember that one.

    Enjoyed it though. Thanks setter and blogger.

    One quibble, I’ve always taken charabanc for a coach. Much more exciting than a run of the mill bus.

32. 6:19. Another breezy one for me, we must be due a stinker.

33. Limped across the line at 48 mins. DNK EXEGETE, but followed clue and hoped for the best. Wasn’t convinced by fat=productive, but hey.

34. PALACED was FOI and I pondered PERI and PHIA for 1d until the CHARABANC ride saved me, and I plucked the L out of a different bottle. Spent a few moments with furrowed brow trying to parse DIALOGUE, but got there in the end. RERUN and KERATIN led to a swift completion of the NE corner. The vaguely familiar EXEGETE took a little while to construct. TRILLION was LOI with more pondering before I was able to equate the stream with the trench. 17:34. Thanks setter and George.

35. Worked my way through this quite steadily, answers parsed as I solved (apart from NANOSECOND the parsing of which eluded me), so all well until 27ac. I managed the EX to begin with and dredged up from very distant O Level French ETE, but the middle defeated me, so in went EXENETE with a shrug. A decent time of 26.45 ruined at the death!

36. A couple of the clues took me over (ok, well over) the 30 mins I usually give myself-the cut off for the famous Bletchley Park beginner puzzle (actually I’ve seen two numbers – 12 minutes, and 30 minutes, which is the one I go with for fun!). And with a SNITCH of only 78, deservedly no invitation to Station X today.

37. 19a POI tRILLion. For me a rill is a stream, and a rille (alternative spelling) is only on an extraterrestrial body, but could be a sort-of trench.
    27a COD Exegete; lovely word, very unfamiliar, cheated I’m afraid so DNF. HaveHeardOf (HHO), but not recently.
    4d Dialogue biffed, not fully parsed. Thanks glh.
    5d typo, PacifC. DOH!
    16d Grayling; same clue, same answer just a few days ago.
    23d Eclat. Liked the “class fool lacking” giving cl.
    Very similar experience to that of jackkt.
    14d Nameplate. Dad had a “plate” with one tooth on it. Otherwise I NHO the term.

38. Probably a bit late now, but I intended to mention in my early comment that Ask the Family was a popular TV quiz show broadcast by the BBC 1967-1984 and hosted by Robert Robinson. It was revived briefly a couple of times later by other minor channels. The families in those days inevitably consisted of Mum, Dad and two swotty children so that in some circles the show came to be referred to disparagingly as ‘Ask the Upper-Middle-Class Family’. It’s a sad comment on the way society has developed that there’s no market now for this sort of intelligent family quiz, the only surviving one being the truly downmarket Family Fortunes in which contestants are seemingly encouraged to glory in the stupidity of some of their answers.

    1. I remember it very fondly. Robert Robinson too. Wouldn’t last a second today.

39. My first attempt at a serious solve for well over a year- I had cancelled my Times subscription as I have too many newspaper subscriptions on the go at the moment. It took me most of the day, and I didn’t know or get EXEGETE, biffed NANOSECOND and had to check CHATELAINE.
    Still, not bad I suppose.

40. 24:25 fairly straightforward but hampered by trying to do this while travelling with lots of children. had to biff ÉCLAT as had heard of the word but didn’t know meaning. COD MINGLE. thanks to Setter and George

41. I started off being tempted by PERI at 1d, and the unlikely PALACED at 1a, especially since the clue contained “placed” (and looking it up after, Chambers does not allow “palace” as a verb). I fixed PERI to PUCK and eventually could think of nothing better than PALACED. I also noticed all the words that we seem to have seen recently, which made them go in more easily than might have been the case. 39mins (with a typo, if I am honest, since my keyboard often types multiple Ls for a single one, often several seconds later so I don’t alwaysl notice (like there was one there).

42. Too hard for me today, 80% done at an hour. If I’d seen DOCTOR FAUSTUS that would have helped close it out. NHO EXEGETE, but of course heard of exegesis.

    CHATELAINE and CRAIC seemed familiar.

    COD HARANGUE for including The Hague.

43. 13’00” . I had no idea Onan was Judah’s son. I just knew he was a very naughty boy. Like Jackkt, I have fond memories of Ask the Family. Reminds me of other moderately highbrow — actually middlebrow — shows like My Music with Steve Race, or My Word with Frank Muir and Dennis Norden. They simply couldn’t exist today.

    1. Not to forget Face The Music with its wonderful panellists including Joyce Grenfell, Bernard Levin, Richard Baker, Robin Ray. I did have a problem with the host though.

       1. I vaguely remember two music quizzes I’m the 70s: one hosted by Steve Race, and one by Joe Cooper (?) I think. Which was the host that irritated?

          1. Joseph Cooper. All smiley-smiley-faced but could be very snappy on occasions. Steve Race was smooth and professional as a presenter as well as being a fine musician.

44. 18.44. I was expecting a stinker today but this was relatively gentle. Now to sort out the parsings.

45. Funny how on some days you can just be on the right wavelength… I only got around half of the answers yesterday but found this one much more to my taste and rarely struggled. Very satisfying! Enjoyed 5ac PUMPKIN and 3d CRAIC. Thanks again to setter and blogger.

46. 24:25 fairly straightforward but hampered by trying to do this while travelling with lots of children. had to biff ÉCLAT as had heard of the word but didn’t know meaning. COD MINGLE. thanks to Setter and George

47. I was generally on the wavelength for this one, but started off badly by looking up “Agon” as an unknown (to me) name of a particular fairy ( taking Fairy Liquid initially from bottle -flagon – = agon)! I woke up after that, and worked steadily through the grid, but biffing unashamedly for DOCTOR FAUSTUS, NANOSECOND and LORD PRIVY SEAL. But defeated by TRILLION (couldn’t justify the RILL), PALACED as a verb (really?), and EXEGETE ( as someone here already said: “blinded by all those Es!” ). But a good workout, even though many of the words were recently seen.

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