Times 29149 – Tang in the tail

71 comments on “Times 29149 – Tang in the tail”

1. 28 minutes with the last 5 of them spent on HEGEMONY constructed eventually from wordplay. It’s a word I knew but not specifically what it meant.

   ALEGAR came more easily from wordplay but I wasn’t 100% sure of its existence. In the TfTT era it has appeared twice in Mephistos, once in a Monthly Club Special and once in a Jumbo in 2009, none of which I would have attempted.

   Re 18dn. The usual dictionaries have ’fit’ as a verb meaning ‘has a fit’ or ‘adjusts’, either of which meaning would seem to do the job. Also it’s on the Chambers list of recognised anagram indicators.

2. Fastest ever 25 minutes. Biggest problem I had was spelling GENESIS. I seemed to remember many from previous cryptics and I was writing them in. eg GODOWN, ECOSPHERE, SATRAP, MAGMA, LAHORE, TRIBAL,ALEGAR Others like PENITENTIARY, SEAHORSE, OBSTRUCTION, FOLIO, TALLBOY and GYMKHANA were write-ins. With my slow shaky printing it took about 15 minutes to put them in.
   Thanks U

3. 7.56, with a slight worry that there’d be another _A_ fish I was missing. SATRAP and GODOWN recalled from previous appearances. No problem with ‘fits’, although BALL>ALLB isn’t the most anagrammy of anagrams!

   I’ve not seen X on Y to mean YX in a down in the Times before (as appears to be the case in GENESIS). I’ve seen it justified elsewhere using phrases like ‘The fly is on the ceiling’, although I’d rather it was kept to acrosses myself.

   Thanks both.

   1. I just came here to say the same thing. X on Y => YX in a down clue confuses me when I see it, because I’m never sure which publications I’ve seen it in before. But usually not the Times, I thought.

      1. The one I remember is a Guardian Tramp puzzle, but there might be others.

      2. I’m not sure it says that. It says “Information is” = GEN IS, and puts it on ES: GEN ES IS. “On” here meaning donning.

4. Oh wasn’t it naughty of Smudges
   Oh Mummy I’m sick with disgust
   She threw me in front of the judges
   And my silly old collarbone’s bust.
   (Hunter Trials, Betjeman)

   15 mins pre-brekker. Not really my cup of tea.
   Ta setter and U

5. 27 minutes with LOI HEGEMONY after forming ALEGAR from first principles. COD to SWANHERD. That can’t be an easy job. T’hod carrier’s assistant sounds a better one. An enjoyable start to the week. Thank you U and setter.

   1. Unfortunately, first principles led me to ALERAY for the NHO vinegar.

6. Yeah a quick one, 16.45 for me. I was watching Oz Question Time on TV at the time so probably could have been quicker if I’d tried. LOsI were in the SW: SEAHORSE (it was way more simple than I initially thought), TALLBOY (ditto) and HEGEMONY. Thanks Jeremy.

   From Absolutely Sweet Marie:
   Well six white horses that you did promise
   Were finally delivered down to the PENITENTIARY
   But to live outside the law, you must be honest
   I know you always say that you agree
   But where are you tonight, sweet Marie?

   1. I’ve never been desperate or masochistic enough to watch question time on tv. Not even when in lockdown or confined to quarters by inclement weather. Thanks said, qt is broadcast by the ABC, the first channel to go off air in heavy rain, so maybe I would…yeah, nah.

7. Badly breezeblocked today, dnk ALEGAR, and gave up on HEGEMONY, which has a much more subtle meaning than ‘leadership’ – try reading Gramsci.

   Did the rest in under 9′.

   Thanks ulaca and setter.

8. 34 mins. Stuck on LOI HEGEMONY for an age which didn’t help. The rest was pretty straightforward. A couple of unknowns ALEGAR & GODOWN but they weren’t too hard to work out.

   I liked CHEESEMONGER.

   Thanks U and setter.

9. 9:57. No real hold-ups despite several unknowns… ALEGAR, GODOWN, OLIO for stew and “Big house” for prison. LOI TRIBAL. Thanks Jeremy and setter.

10. 36 minutes. Should have been quicker, but I never really got going and I was held up by TALLBOY and HEGEMONY at the end. I didn’t know ALEGAR but it seemed more likely than “aleray” It was good to see a couple of old friends in GODOWN and SATRAP along the way.

11. 7.10
    Probably in my top 10 fastest finishes.
    Blessed are the CHEESEMONGERs (obviously not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any sellers of dairy products).
    COD GENESIS
    LOI HEGEMONY

12. An odd mix of obscure except in crosswords but generous clueing. A very fast for me 21 mins but felt slower.
    NHO ALEGAR and GAR guessed only from its ubiquity here.
    NHO OLIO nor Big House for prison.
    GODOWN only from previous occurrence.
    COD to CHEESEMONGER which might also be clued as a certain type of comedian.
    Thanks to both

13. DNF, defeated by the unknown ALEGAR. I should have thought of gar, but all I could think of with _A_ was ray so I put ALERAY.

    – Remembered GODOWN from previous crosswords (I’ve never seen it anywhere else)
    – Didn’t know ‘big house’ is a slang term for PENITENTIARY
    – Had the same query as Amoeba above about GENESIS
    – FOLIO went in with a shrug as I didn’t know olio stew
    – Didn’t see why the clues for NEWSREEL and SEAHORSE needed question marks

    Thanks ulaca and setter.

    COD Thankful

    1. I did think of gar, but given its presence in the clue also opted for ray.

14. Is there anywhere the inhabitants still live under the rule of a satrap and store their possessions in a godown? The cryptic certainly expands my vocabulary but where can I make full use of it?
    Enjoyable start to the week.
    30 leisurely minutes.

    1. Godowns still common in Asia. Satraps, less so ..

15. Quick today, despite a brief flirtation with aledab and aleray before the obvious occurred.
    I rather liked the miscellaneous collection of words seldom found outside crosswordland.
    Monger is a strange word, isn’t it? Fellmonger, cheesemonger, fishmonger?
    “And what do you do, my good man?” I mong fish, your majesty.”

    1. I was also close to going for aleray

16. Monger always conjures up Victorian high streets for me, I’m glad it’s still alive. A doddle except I could only guess ALEGAR from the wordplay. The cluing of TEA in 9ac felt a bit cheap somehow but otherwise no complaints! Thanks for the blog.

17. 14:27, I was only just over 11 minutes, but then came ALEGAR, which when I got it, I realised by analogy with VINEGAR that it must be right.
    Thanks setter and blogger

18. 17a Penitentiary. DNK Big House=prison.
    NHO Alegar, added to Cheating Machine.
    Don’t like the verb 19d Ideate 🙁

19. Quick until it wasn’t, all down to the fish. IDEATE took a while to come; NHO ALEGAR never did, despite “gar” looking me in the face. The “Big Hoose” was the locals’ name for Barlinnie in Glasgow (and we now use it as a nickname for the kennels we put our dog in…though its actually very good): didn’t realise it was a broadly used term. Thanks Ulaca and setter.

20. 12.01, quick for me these days. As I was solving it occurred to me that our setter was deliberately including entries that have inspired wrath in us solvers over the years. Foreign words and Mephisto refugees from the off, and a determined Americanism that didn’t need to be. PENITENTIARY has a respectable British English meaning, and Big House is definitely from the Land of the Free (irony here!) backed up by Iowa.
    I would have loved to see an Uxbridge clue for HEGEMONY – rather like an investment fund would have done.

    1. Very good, but could lead to endless debate on hard or soft ‘g’.

       1. Indeed. for debate purposes, I proffer Chambers “hegemony /hi-gem’ə-ni or -jem’, also ‘hej-i-mə-ni/”

21. Quickish until I got stuck on HEGEMONY and ALEGAR. Got there eventually, discounting ALERAY and ALEDAB, but all in vain as I had a typo/careless mis-spelling at 5d, GENISIS. Shudda gone to Specsavers! 16,54 but…. Thanks setter and U.

22. I’m amazed that people didn’t know ‘big house’, it’s in countless films and TV series. No doubt it’s originally and chiefly American though. I would’ve done this in 11:59 but actually finished in 15:25 as I nearly gave up after staring at 26A for the longest time. All the crossing vowels left too many possibilities for me to easily get HEGEMONY. NHO ‘ALEGAR’ but it went straight in from the word play.

    1. What is unindicated American slang doing in a British crossword though?

       1. Get used to it .. happens all the time now.
          News International is owned by a naturalised American, btw

23. A speedy 10:35, ALEGAR the only NHO. In Scotland we are rebuilding HMP Barlinnie (aka “the big hoose”) at a cost of over a billion, so PENITENTIARY was a write-in. Thanks U and setter.

    1. Wow! Somebody’s quids in over the deal…

24. 18:15 (less time than I needed for the QC), with last two IDEADE and HEGEMONY
    NHO ALEGAR.

    Thanks Ulaca and setter

25. PB for me though I didn’t know OLIO

26. 15 mins, but don’t think I’ve come across GODOWN before. LOI

    1. It came up as recently as last August and it didn’t seem to phase you then 😊

27. 10:30 – Gallingly close to the elusive sub-10. Thanks for nothing, BYE and HEGEMONY.

28. 9.20

    Quicker than the Quickie. Go figure 🤷‍♂️

    Fingers were slightly crossed for the GAR bit of the vinegar; otherwise same comments as JohnI on the DNKs

29. 21:32

    Not easy for me, but very enjoyable and most satisfying to have picked the right fish and deciphered the NHO governor and warehouse.

    Thanks all.

30. 24:10. Held up by GODOWN and NEWSREEL. the rest seemed straightforward apart from may ALEGAR which had a high risk of being another fish… we also had IDE which crops up quite often. probably should learn these!

31. 8:17

    I was held up just a little by the odd parsing of GENESIS and by my LOI Gymkhana where I was originally convinced the def was “exercises”.

    There were plenty of bones thrown to seasoned solvers which might be less helpful for those less experienced, e.g. PO, GODOWN, SATRAP, VEN, GAR, TOY, the required meaning of LET and our old friend the humble IDE.

32. 7:24 but with a stupid error. I got severely breezeblocked on this, HEGEMONY taking a third of my time on its own. ‘Leadership’ seems a bit off for a word describing a pure power relationship. Close enough I suppose.
    Bit of an exotic feel to this with the SATRAP attending the GYMKHANA at the LAHORE GODOWN.

33. Second quickest ever, and 3rd time under 8 mins.

    HEGEMONY LOI, ALEGAR constructed. Luckily had seen GODOWN before and remembered it.

    7:55

34. 12.10 . I’ll have to quicken up my writing if I’m going to beat sub10 again. A bit easier than the usual but had the unknown alegar, Ideate( which sounds very management speak) and godown but they were clued helpfully.

    COD Penitentiary.
    Thx setter and blogger.

35. Re 6D there really is a rock group called Magma. It is French. Its former is one Christian Vander. Apparently the one and only Steve Davis (the interesting snooker player) has bankrolled their tours in UK a couple of times. If that’s not fact of the year, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

    At 15 mins I went somewhat speedily through this one, though there were some, perhaps not recondite, but unusual solutions to be got. So it seemed Mondayish for style with added spice in the vocab.

    Thanks ulaca and setter.

36. Good start with Lahore and Gymkhana . Coincidentally I play golf at the Lahore Gymkhana golf club .

37. Half my time was on HEGEMONY. I think it would have been a PB otherwise. Not helped by a less than certain FOLIO. Never come across olio stew before which I find surprising given it’s a useful sequence of letters.

    A few too many NHOs for me on a Monday but the clueing and crossers were forgiving.

38. Would have been under 10 but for ALEGAR, won’t forget that in a hurry.

39. 33:10. Completely off the wavelength. On the leaderboard I am way down at 207 of 250. It felt hard, with tricky vocab. The solutions were there in the wordplay but I just needed too long to think it all through. Well done everyone else

40. Given that today’s list of nho words included (but was not limited to) Alegar, Satrap, Godown and Ideate, a 45min all correct solve must count as another minor miracle (v. QC) and possibly even a PB (I haven’t yet reached the stage where I keep an eye on my 15×15 times). Loi Hegemony also went in with fingers crossed, as I was unsure of its meaning. Invariant

41. Thought I had an all correct until I saw 21d where I put FALOO, thinking aloo was something Indian.

42. My fastest time ever! Woo hoo, 20mins!! Hegemony was the last but arrived fairly quickly! Brickbat was harder as I had never heard it used, felt like i was making it up! Great way to start the week, thanks! Cx

43. 32.16 Disappointing. I was mostly quick but the last few took half the time. I’d forgotten GODOWN and ALEGAR. I thought of HEGEMONY but “leadership” seemed like a vague definition. After a few minutes trying to find something else I realised it also fitted the wordplay. Thanks ulaca.

44. All very quick, apart from ALEDAB for the malt vinegar. I’ve seen GODOWN in AZED puzzles, I think, but the colloquial meaning of ‘Big House’ was new to me.
    Thanks for the blog, and thanks setter

45. BYE was obvious but escaped me. I was fixated on buy and spent too long trying unsuccessfully to equate it to run. As a result HEGEMONY was a problem. This took me up to 23 minutes, after for a while hoping and expecting to be sub-20. Not convinced that (Gen is) can really be put ‘on’ es to surround it. If that’s not what the setter meant then I don’t like X on Y = YX in a Down clue.

46. After my dismal showing on the QC recording my slowest ever time, I couldn’t believe how easily I coped with this finishing over 8 minutes quicker in 17.48. Most answers were solved a few seconds after first reading the clue, and those that I didn’t know such as ALEGAR and GODOWN were carefully constructed from the clueing, although I did briefly consider ALEDAB for the former. I finally finished up with HEGEMONY, a word I know if not what its meaning was.

    1. ALEDAB, ALERAY, ALEGAR, ALECAT? The clueing was little help for me.

       1. Fortunately ALEGAR did ring a bell, I think we may have seen its appearance before.

47. DNF

    An infrequent excursion from the QC prompted by a very low Snitch. I wasn’t disappointed. This was mostly manageable but I failed in the NHO ALEGAR and, only vaguely heard of TALLBOY. Annoyingly, I came up with 3 three letter fishes with a middle A. None of which was GAR.

48. 26 minutes for me. Nice Monday fare. Whizzed through most of it but got snagged on HEGEMONY and NEWSREEL

    Next time I’m at the chippie and they ask if I want vinegar I’ll say, “I think you mean Alegar”. That’ll impress them. Cheers.

49. Why not use the apostrophe in the clue? ‘Company’s breaking record in this place where all life exists’.

    1. Good point. All I can say is that the convention seems to encourage the use of noun + is. Maybe others know more.

50. Could have been under 10, but the vinegar did for me. ALEGAR came quickly to mind, but then I thought we can’t have -GAR in the clue and -GAR in the answer as well. So I spent three minutes hesitating and dreaming up ALEDABS, -CATS, -RAYS etc before taking the plunge. Heck, I admit it – I checked online! Up to then it was a doddle. GODOWNs remembered most recently from J.G. Farrell’s magnificent Singapore Grip. 11’57”.

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