Times 29027 – more Crab than Speed

87 comments on “Times 29027 – more Crab than Speed”

1. Very clever crossword.
   Didn’t like OUT-HALF with OUT in the clue. Could just about tolerate having to cycle (the new fad) BOLD for OLDB but I don’t like these clues. Peter Biddlecombe gives an example in Crossword Club today where one has to cycle LOVE for ‘delight’ to provide the start of VELOCIPEDE. This is a step too far – to me this is an indirect anagram by any other name.

   1. The far more limited scope for movement (the letters at least appear in the right order, or occasionally reversed if ‘cycling backwards’ etc) means indirectness is fair here, IMO.

   2. I only read this after my “indirect anagram” comment to you elsewhere. And the rugby player is surely an OUTSIDE HALF, and not hyphenated?

      1. I looked the out-half up in Wiki and got this:
         Early names, such as “three-quarters” (for the wings and centres) and “outside-half” or simply “out-half” (for fly-half) are sometimes used in the Northern Hemisphere, while in New Zealand the fly-half and inside centre are called “first five-eighth” and “second five-eighth” respectively, while the scrum-half is known as the “half-back”.

2. I found this hard to finish having started so well in the top half of the grid. Even SOUTH at 7dn went in without a problem but I had no idea how to fit the remaining anagrist together until checkers narrowed down the possibilities. If I’d ever heard of the place I’d forgotten it. I wasn’t helped by biffing VIRAGOS at 19dn and having to revisit it later. I HATE Spooner clues and today’s example was particularly difficult to get my head around.

   1. Have you forgotten one of Putin’s earlier wargames already?

3. 68:24
   Despite playing and following rugby for over 40 years I have never heard of an out-half. Outside-half or fly-half, but never out-half.

4. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
   I love thee to the depth and Breadth and height
   My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
   For the ends of being and ideal grace.
   (Sonnet 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

   30 mins pre-brekker left me with the non-Virago and what I thought might be Absent Reason (meaning lacking purpose).
   Heigh-ho.
   Ta setter and W.

   1. I was another having ABSENT REASON, and VARMITS!

      1. Also had ABSENT REASON which fitted all the checkers and sort of works for both definitions

         1. Me too!

5. 9:12

   On the wavelength here. I remembered the place from Russia-related disputes a few years ago. EN FAMILLE and FIRST NAME probably my picks.

   Thanks both.

6. NHO SOUTH OSSETIA, and had to play around with three vowels left over in the anagrist. I biffed my LOI.

   FOI STANDING ROOM
   LOI OBJECT LESSON
   COD TURNING
   TIME 12:55

7. Around 60 minutes without 7d. Spent another 15 minutes checking crossing words until It dawned on me that it was an anagram and it was the Georgia next to Russia. Fitted in South and biffed Ossetia. Only one I couldn’t parse fully was OBJECT LESSON. Didn’t see OBJECTLESS. NHO OUT-HALF and kept thinking of fly-half. I agree with Amoeba’s picks. Also liked STANDING ROOM
   Thanks William

8. 24 minutes with LOI SATIATE. As a football man who played scrum half at grammar school, admittedly more than sixty years ago, I wasn’t sure if I’d heard of an OUT-HALF rather than OUTSIDE, or FLY. Does anybody use STAND-OFF any more? Otherwise, I got on well with this puzzle. COD to OBJECT LESSON.Thank you William and setter.

   1. Re-checked Wiki and found this:
      The various positions have changed names over time, and many are known by different names in different countries. Players in the flanker positions were originally known as “wing forwards”, while in the backs, “centre three-quarter” and “wing three-quarter” were used to describe the outside centre and wing respectively (although the terms are still sometimes used in the Northern Hemisphere). The names used by World Rugby tend to reflect Northern Hemisphere usage although fly-half is still often known as “outside-half” or “stand-off” in Britain, and “outhalf” in Ireland. In New Zealand, the scrum-half is still referred to as the “half-back”, the fly-half is referred to as the “first five-eighth”, the inside centre is called the “second five-eighth” and the outside centre is simply known as “centre”. In America and Canada the number 8 is known as “8-man”

      1. 70 years ago when I played Rugby Union and Rugby League, the half-back pair were the scrum-half and the stand-off. Before an extended numbering system came into operation, the scrum-half in Union was 9 and 7 in League and the stand-off was 10 in Union and 6 in League.

         1. I still think in terms of Scrum Half and Stand Off (in Rugby League). I simply cannot get used to the new terminologies. Never heard of an Out Half, though.

9. I got lucky today, not only to finish this challenging puzzle but to do so in 30.13 which is about par for me. I say lucky because I had a list of maybe ten answers that turned out to be right but I had no idea why. Thank you William, unravelling such mysteries as OBJECT LESSON, OLD BILL, VIRGINS et al was exceptionally helpful and must have taken a great deal of effort. Oh yeah, Deal in SUPPORTER, there’s another one. Don’t see why ‘observed’ is in the clue for VROOM, don’t get nine = watershed but noticed we had AGAINST again!

   From Ol’ Bill:
   Tell OL’ BILL when he comes home
   Anything is worth a try
   Tell him that I’m not alone
   That the hour has come to do or die

   1. In the UK, nine o’clock is the time when children are supposed to be in bed, so it becomes ok to swear, advertise junk food and show nudity on TV, and it quickly became known as the watershed. Meaningless, of course, in the days of digital, view when you want TV.

      1. Thank you Z

   2. Agree with you about “observed” in the clue to VROOM’; completely redundant.

      1. Looks like it’s just you and me bro!

         1. It’s redundant in that the clue would work without it, but it still has a function rather than being pure padding (‘oddly observed’ is also a perfectly good indication of those letters).

            It’s a second kidney, rather than an appendix.

10. 26a is very good. Like Myrtilus, I was thinking ‘absent reason’ and wondering what it might mean. Out-half is horrible! Learnt the literal (?) meaning of POTHER.

    Around half an hour for this, as I recall.

11. Liked this one, not easy i thought so a worthy Friday crossword.
    Nho out-half (so, out-half, ouside half, stand-off half and fly half all mean the same thing?!) or Ossetia, South or North. I was rather pleased to assemble it from the anagrist. Also pleased to get 26ac, once “absent” was given up on. Good stuff.

12. Never heard of the nine o’clock watershed. I was hoping someone would explain it here, but as they haven’t I’ve looked it up on the interweb to find it’s a peculiarly English broadcasting rule regarding allowable content before and after 9pm. Well I never!
    Mrs C is a Kiwi, so I asked her whether there was an ‘ out-half ‘ in rugby, as it’s the national religion in NZ. She’d never heard of it, though admittedly she’s lapsed now.
    23:58

    1. I live in NZ and the ‘outside half/fly half is referred to as the ‘First Five-Eighth’ while the scrum half is the Half Back.

13. 16.45
    Tricky! After the long anagrams earlier this week I was expecting 10d to be a criminal version of “One embracing”, but the real answer was better.
    NHO SOUTH OSSETIA, but eventually gettable as LOI.
    The Spoonerism was rescued by clever use of his FIRST NAME – who knew he was albino?
    COD STANDING ROOM

14. DNF, defeated by OBJECT LESSON – unlike JerryW above, I never considered anything other than ‘absent’ for the first word and bunged in ‘absent reason’, thinking the definition was ‘lacking purpose’.

    – Never heard of OUT-HALF
    – Didn’t parse OVERT or VIRGINS
    – Took a while to accept that 7d wasn’t going to be either North or South Dakota
    – Unfamiliar with pother as a choking smoke, so POTHERB went in with a shrug

    Thanks William and setter.

    COD To taste

15. 35 mins.
    Pother – crumbs!
    Thanks, w.

16. DNF

    Another ABSENT REASON.

    Two WOEs this week. It’s a good job the championships aren’t coming up soon.

17. NHO OUT-HALF – stand-off, or fly half, sure…. or is an ‘out-half’ what I suspect most UK players would call ‘outside half’? – but it couldn’t be anything else. Scratched my head a bit over SATIATE and POTHERB, but otherwise found this rather easy – in contrast with yesterday’s. 22 mins.

18. Quite a brisk solve for me, but came unstuck with ABsent Reason, Varmits (!) and First Rate as bunged in mistakes.
    OUT HALF was unknown to me, and I have followed rugby for many years- maybe we will get Five Eighth soon?
    POT HERB is two words in Chambers
    Thanks for the blog and thank you setter.

    1. True! But only one, in Collins (and in my experience)

19. Another DNF. Had the SOUTH but NHO OSSETIA (brain freeze by this point) and not helped by banging in TO TEASE. Don’t ask. I had POTHERB but that didn’t help, so OBSCURE & ASEXUAL also remained blank. I did manage to get OBJECT LESSON right though.

    I agree with the arguments against OUT-HALF.

    I liked STANDING ROOM.

    Thanks William and setter.

20. Solved on paper in about 20 mins.

    No problems today, with the unknowns (RHENIUM, HUGGER MUGGER) fairly clued, the couple I couldn’t initially parse (VIRGINS, OVERT) being obvious answers, and the dreaded Spoonerism for once going straight in on reading.

    SOUTH OSSETIA rang the faintest of bells too.

    Not the hardest this week but I thought there was lots to enjoy.

    Thanks to both.

21. 10:11. Nice puzzle.
    NHO OUT-HALF but for me NHO is a pretty normal status for sporting terms so it didn’t really bother me.
    POTHERB is a good example of the right way to deploy obscure words and meanings. I didn’t know that POTHER could mean this, but I had no trouble constructing the answer from P_T_E_B, and now I do.
    I remembered SOUTH OSSETIA from 15-odd years ago, when it was much in the news on account of Russia invading it.

22. 28:46

    Really struggled with this and can’t say I really enjoyed it; a hangover may have something to do with this. Another ABSENT REASON for a long time. Never heard of OUT HALF but i did get SOUTH OSSETIA straight away. I like Spoonerisms but alaways struggle to get my head around “recycling” clues. Still I got there in the end and now know the meaning of pother.

    Thanks to William and the setter.

23. Knowing very little about Rugby was actually an advantage here, because ‘out-half’ seems to have been a rather obscure name for the position.
    Thanks William for the explanation of Object Lesson, I had no idea at all and just hit and hoped.

24. 38m 40s but I was another one with ABSENT REASON for 26ac.
    And another one who has never heard the term OUT HALF. Here in NZ, the Fly Half/Outside Half is referred to as the First Five Eighth while the Scrum Half is the Halfback.
    I’m not sure about this new fad of cycling letters, as in 6d OLD BILL.
    Thank you, William for VROOM, ASEXUAL, NABOB and a SURFEIT of VIRGINS!

25. Well, you have to say the clue for AGAINST was easier than yesterday’s (yesterday’s was better!). POTHER sounds as if it ought to come from Winnie the Pooh, but actually comes from Coriolanus, where it definitely doesn’t mean choking smoke and never has in my ken. SOUTH OSSETIA is OK if you’ve heard of it. The nine o’clock watershed seems to have pothered non-UK solvers. ABSENT REASON was terribly tempting. I tend to think of SATIATE as satisfy rather than over-stuffing, and tried lots of possible females before recognising the (rather good) sound charade. I should have heard of RHENIUM, but confess to trying HERNIUM before adding to my list of Pointless elements.
    26.39, and for all those reasons comfortably outweighing the good stuff, not my favourite of the week.

26. POI 8a Out-half; was obvious after I guessed HALF but I thought NHO… until I found it in my Cheating Machine, so I have added it almost certainly from a Times crossword.
    13a pOVERTy biffed.
    DNF 26a I put Absent Reason, not sure what it means. Doh! Should have cheated, Object L is in the CM.
    17d Potherb. Wiktionary and I are both unaware of Pother meaning smoke.
    19d Virgins: Wiki does not support harridan=virago either, not that that delayed me.

27. I looked up several words because I wasn’t sure that they existed or what their true meaning was. It seems we haven’t a leg to stand on: there’s no point in saying that we disapprove of ‘OUT-HALF’ — it’s there in Chambers so we just have to put up with it whether or not we’ve ever heard of it. Whenever Spoonerism clues appear there are several people who say that they hate them, but so far as I can see they never actually say what’s wrong with them; it seems to me that they are just another string to the setter’s bow, and perfectly pleasant. 46 minutes. Nice crossword.

    1. I suspect that what is wrong is just that they struggle to solve them …

       1. It’s a rather dull way of indicating what’s going to be going on, and as others have said so blatantly obvious. As soon as I see his name I know I’m more than likely to need checkers before I can expect to come up with the answer, so like cross-reference clues (mercifully few and far between in The Times) I leave them aside until later. The best Spoonerism clues I have seen are the ones that indicate the wordplay without mentioning him.

    2. I enjoy Spoonerisms themselves, but in crosswords only as an occasional diversion. For one thing, they tend to be not very cryptic since the indicator is screamingly obvious (although I think there have been examples that didn’t use the word ‘Spooner’.) For another, they share the flaw of double-definition clues in that there’s no real wordplay to help if you can’t resolve a definition. It can become a slightly tedious mental trawl.
       I did like this one though, with the switch between the very different ‘nursed’ and ‘first’, i.e. more than just swapping the initial letters.

    3. I don’t mind spoonerisms but as David says they are usually a bit clunky because the indicator is so obvious.

28. 45′ with a few too many unparsed. That included the homophones for SATIATE , which until now I’ve pronounced with a hard T (maybe as i connect it with “sated”), and nIRST (eh !??). Not hugely into rugby so not having heard of OUT-HALF didn’t worry me. I saw the Georgia misdirection pretty early and I now know what HUGGER MUGGER means. Always happy to finish a Friday by whatever means. Thanks William and setter.

29. 22:02

    Liked this a lot. Was fooled by stay as a noun and ferment for a good while . Learned pother when LOI became obvious. Failed to parse VIRGINS and didn’t know of the metal.

    Particularly like STANDING ROOM.

    Thanks all

    1. Me too!

30. DNF – some of my answers went in on a wing and a prayer, and unfortunately one of my prayers wasn’t answered.

    OUT HALF? Outside half, yes, “out half” I have never heard, and I’m a very keen rugby follower. Put it in because it was the only possible answer from the wordplay.
    OSSETIA – (LOI) I’ve never heard of it, but I did get this one because it was obviously an anagram and, with the checkers I had, it seemed the most likely answer.
    OVERT – put it in as it had to be the answer, but I couldn’t parse it: so “essentially” means knock off the first and last letters???
    POTHERB – NHO “pother” meaning smoke, but couldn’t see any other possible answer so put it in.

    Fell down on 26ac, where I put ABSENT REASON (I see from the above that I wasn’t the only one). I had grave suspicions that I was wrong, because although ABSENT made some kind of sense, given “lacking” in the clue, and REASON might be “purpose”, who ever says/writes “absent reason”. I simply didn’t see how the wordplay worked and have only myself to blame for that.

    1. ‘Essentially’ is more often ‘take the middle one or two letters/essence of a word’, but by extension it can be ‘take all the inside letters’ as here.

       Like anagrams vs cycling as discussed elsewhere in the the comments, it’s an interesting boundary of direct v indirect cluing (and another where I think the general approach is fine, although other viewpoints are available). “Penury, essentially” for ‘povErty’ would be outrageously vague, but for pOVERTy it’s much more graspable.

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