Times 29164 – Turkey Thursday

81 comments on “Times 29164 – Turkey Thursday”

1. DNF
   Never got DIES; never thought of Latin rather than Italian days. DNK the Magpies, but didn’t really need to. Also DNK NET or DOCTOR. Biffed CIABATTA from CIA, parsed post-submission. I liked 23ac’s surface.

2. Not too bad, with a fair amount of biffing. It turns out I have no idea how to spell ciabatta, even though I purchase it regularly. I had a MER at dies, not remembering that in the fifth declension the singular and plural nominatives are the same. I was afraid the region around Perugia would be some obscure province, and was greatly relieved when Italy fit and parsed. Tyneside was my LOI, and it was just a wild guess. I parsed it after submitting.

   Time: 22:14

   1. I don’t know Latin, but thought of Dies Irae.

3. A lot of fun, no problems.
   With Kevin, it seems, I am wishing Biden’s dog Commander were still lurking around the White House.
   The current president does not have (surprise!) any pets. (Oh, plenty of lapdogs, right…)
   Coolidge is most famous for his statement, “I do not choose to run for president in nineteen twenty eight.” Those were the days.

   1. He’s also famous for (allegedly) saying to a woman who had told him she had bet a friend she could get him to say more than two words, “You lose.”
      And also
      When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.

   2. I think that here he’s most famous for the ‘tell that to Mrs. Coolidge’ when visiting a chicken farm.

      1. 😊

         1. Wasn’t he the president of whom Dorothy Parker said ‘How can they tell?’ when told he’d died?

4. 24.28. Didn’t understand TABLE WINE, nor did I know tom = bell. I’ve heard of the Fremantle Doctor, as the cooling wind from the sea is described by out-of-town cricket commentators whenever there is a test match in Perth. I grew up there and never heard that expression used, it was just the sea breeze.

   From Black Diamond Bay:
   Upon the white veranda, she wears a necktie and a
   Panama hat
   Her PASSPORT shows a face from another time and place she looks
   Nothing like that
   And all the remnants of her recent past are
   Scattered in the wild wind
   She walks across the marble floor where a voice from the gambling room is
   Calling her to come on in
   She smiles, walks the other way…

   1. Jacques Levy clearly had a lot to do with these lyrics, like much of Desire (but not “Sara”… whose title should really be rendered as “Sara!”).

      1. It seems a shame there wasn’t more collaboration with Levy in subsequent years, so many of the songs they wrote are exceptional. (I reckon the final verse about sitting home alone one night in LA watching old Cronkite is all Bob…)

5. 27m 24s
   Re 20d: Cricket lovers will be familiar with the Fremantle DOCTOR, the cooling wind that comes up from the coast and eases the heat in Perth.

   1. May I refer you to my comment almost directly above? It seems the only people who refer to the Freo doctor are visitors!

      1. Our comments crossed but I saw no reason to change mine. I’ve followed cricket all my life and I’m 77 now and that wind has always been referred to as the Fremantle Doctor.

         1. You’re both correct of course. It’s an expression much beloved by visiting cricket commentators. Hence my surprise when I moved here four decades ago to find it’s never used by the locals.

            1. I know of the Fremantle DOCTOR from its past appearances in these puzzles, and the resulting discussion whenever it does appear about how cricket fans will know it but actually the locals don’t use the term. I love these old traditions.

               1. 😁

      2. Not true 🙂

6. 32 minutes.

   I gather that ‘commuted’ in 5dn is supposed to be an anagram indicator. I’ve never seen that before and it’s not in Chambers’ extensive list but I supposed it works in the sense of ‘exchanged’ or ‘substituted’.

   My first thought on Bell = TOM at 13ac was of the late actor and felt the clue should have ended with a question mark. I can’t find any support for TOM as a general term meaning ‘bell’ although there are three significant bells called Great Tom at Christ Church in Oxford, St Paul’s in London and at Lincoln cathedral.

   I thought there was no containment indicator at 14dn but I suppose it’s meant to be ‘having’. I’m still not sure it quite does the job though.

   DOCTOR as ‘wind’ took me a while to remember.

   My first thought at 25ac was IDES, so when I saw it wouldn’t work it wasn’t much of a leap to DIES.

   Sadly I note that Collins online has reverted to its previous format with removal of the British English and American English tabs and return of the dreaded COBUILD. All three are once again presented on the same page.

   1. I like “commuted”!
      The language is far from exhausted.

   2. I found TOM as a bell only in Chambers. I had thought the clue might refer to the actor, though the connection with a bell rang a faint one. When I worked this, my phone was recharging and Chambers is on my phone.

      1. Thanks. I had checked my printed Chambers before posting my comment, but somehow missed it. Got it now! I think this discussion has come up before.

   3. There’s no need for it to be a general term, of course.

7. Enjoyed this today, slow start until CONTEMPT OF COURT sprang to mind, parsed afterwards. No idea about the parsing of RADISH, LOI.

   What mistake did our blogger make?

   14’37”, thanks glh and setter

   1. He’s said above – putting VIAS rather than DIES (although the Snitch has picked him up from the blog intro!)

8. 7.08, a couple of shrugs (DOCTOR, DIES, TOM, ‘having’ as a container), but no problems. THESAURUS was a very nice definition.

   Thanks both.

9. 11:26 with fingers crossed for DIES. COD to AB INITIO as I find it very satisfying when a NHO can be entered with full confidence by carefully following the setter’s instructions.

   Solving at home in Fremantle, where the sea breeze is being a little stubborn on an uncharacteristically muggy day.

   Thanks setter and George.

10. 11:00. Thankfully my biffs were correct today – TABLE WINE, COOLIDGE and DOCTOR. I wasn’t confident after two failures out of three so far this week so the lack of pink squares was a pleasant surprise.

11. Biffing rather than parsing on the whole got me home in 16:29, strictly speaking a DNF as I tried SENTENCE OF DEATH before seeing CONTEMPT OF COURT. Thanks blogger and setter.

12. A little learning is a dang’rous thing;
    Drink deep, or Taste not the Pierian spring
    (Essay on Criticism, Pope)

    25 mins pre-brekker. I liked it. My eyebrow did twitch at the use of “having” for containment. It is unusual, but I suppose we use ‘had’=‘ate’ often enough.
    Ta setter and G.

13. I enjoyed this a lot, finishing in about 30 minutes with, unlike yesterday, everything parsed.. LOI ASTERISK and no NHOs contributed to my enjoyment. Here in South Africa , the Cape Doctor is well-known for blowing in this season: often annoyingly forcefully.

14. 11:25 biffing my LOI THESAURUS and CONTEMPT OF COURT. Another who didn’t know TOM for bell. Thanks George and setter.

15. 31 minutes with LOI GOTHS. COD to TABLE WINE. Like others, I got DOCTOR from the Fremantle version and today’s revelation that it is just a breeze has wrecked the myth of Brian Statham bowling all day into it while Fred Trueman or was it Frank Tyson had it cushy at the other end. Another enjoyable puzzle. Thank you George and setter.

    1. OK it’s called a breeze but it often blows very hard, 30 knots or more. I have fond memories of being at the WACA with Dennis Lillee charging in from the southern end, the wind at his back, the batsman trembling. Often poor old Terry Alderman had to do the business from the other end, he could bowl a bit as well.

    2. Perth wasn’t a Test venue until 1970 BW so you’re probably recalling John Snow terrorising us from the southern end. Possibly Peter Lever or Geoff Arnold doing the donkey work?

       1. I suspected this and checked afterwards. MCC did play at Perth on the 1954/55 tour but not the WACA and not as a Test. Quite likely the boat docked there. Statham and Tyson were both on the tour, but not Trueman. Peter Lever did indeed put in such a stint a few tours later. Brian was my hero growing up and had the better county record than Fred. When the opposition went six down, Brian would take his sweater off and the tea ladies turn the tea urn on. They’d all be back in the pavilion in quarter of an hour tops.

16. Another reasonably quick DNF this week! This time not knowing SETTLE as a high bench, eventually biffing “settee” – I should have concentrated more on my alphabet trawl and found settle=light. Mostly parsed otherwise apart from doctor = Aussie wind (I tried to somehow link doctor to tamper and somehow to wind -as in wind up – which obviously doesn’t work). ATOM also eventually biffed, not helped by actually knowing who Vanessa Bell was… and finally didn’t see how AWARD worked. Thanks George and setter.

17. ‘Rad’ meaning ‘excellent’ seems to be generally familiar slang but was new to me or maybe just hadn’t consciously registered before.

    1. It’s a contraction of ‘radical’, and one that I always associate with stoners. Not that I associate with stoners, of course.

       1. Words like “radical” and “sick” always make we think of those excellent Armstrong & Miller WW2 pilot sketches

18. 19.08. Spent too long looking for something to do with bacon, until I thought of Bones’ “by golly, Jim, I’m beginning to think I can cure a rainy day.” The rest felt pretty straightforward, though the tangles in 9a took some -um- untangling.

19. DNF, defeated by 21a. I didn’t know the SETTLE chair, and I was umming and aahing between that and SETTEE. Then I thought of GENTLE and put that, thinking that if there’s something called an easy chair, then there might be something called a gentle chair. Gah.

    – Didn’t fully parse TANGLED NET as I missed what ‘parts’ was doing in the clue
    – Not familiar with tom as a bell for ATOM
    – Thought the second meaning of DOCTOR was referring to its use as a verb to manipulate – to me it didn’t feel too much of a leap for that to be the intended meaning of ‘wind’ (I didn’t know the breeze meaning)

    Thanks glh and setter.

    COD Coolidge

20. 31 mins. Probably could have been quicker with biffing but I like to prove the parsing and some of that was rather convoluted.
    Satisfyingly chewy in places after a flying start with GIMLET and CIABATTA providing lots of first letters.
    Goths aren’t gloomy, just misunderstood.
    Thanks both.

21. 20m 11s ERSE is only ever spoken in Crosswordland – a useful quartet of letters.

    1. The only other thing I associate the word ERSE with is the brilliant comedy folk song ‘Plastic Paddy’ by the legend Eric Bogle (https://youtu.be/mzoh0e_YOiI?si=TjjZghPTG7npGrOF). I took a stab at ‘Gates’ instead of GOTHS, hoping against hope that it is/was the name of a politician, but I wasn’t surprised that was wrong, so DNF (though I thought of ERSE straight away).

22. Quick today, but … given that 5ac is an easy and straightforward clue I have absolutely no idea why on checking, I seem to have written CHAPATTI. That would be one more pink square than our blogger managed, if I solved online.
    Oh well.

23. 12:14, but with one stupid typo. I know perfectly well how to spell CIABATTA but my fingers seem to have been determined to type BAA somewhere. Not for the first time I reflect that there’s really no point in taking the extra time to check your answers unless you do it properly.

24. DNK DOCTOR, I’m not a cricket fan although I do remember watching the last few balls of an exciting test match live on Teletext once. Also defeated by COOLIDGE and GOTHS but no complaints, it was an enjoyable puzzle. Thanks for the blog!

25. 22 minutes. Pretty gentle for a Thursday, though I didn’t know TOM for ‘Bell’, other than thinking it was someone’s first name. I read the ‘days in Rome’ bit of 25a first and immediately thought of IDES before realising the answer was the anagrammatic DIES for ‘Passes’ instead.

    LOI GOTHS, being unable to shake IN for ‘Home’ without all the crossers. COD to TABLE WINE.

    1. I got caught by home=in and did initially consider “incel” for the gloomy youth, though I think an incel is more than just gloomy and not necessarily a youth!

26. A quick start but a very slow finish. Really struggled with the bottom half. Didn’t understand DOCTOR but luckily it was the best I could think of. I thought initially it was a very poor cryptic definition so thanks to the blog for clarifying.

    Two mistakes with ASTEROID and IDES but thankfully I spotted them and changed to the corrects answers. Something I am usually bad at, so that’s a positive.

    Liked: GOTHS and COOLIDGE

27. 22 mins.
    No dramas.
    Tom – 101 dings every evening 🙂
    Thanks, g.

    1. ….
       Tom and his one hundred and one at nine,
       Bells of Butterfield, caught in Keble,
       ‘Sally’ and backstroke answer ‘Mine!’

       ‘Myfanwy at Oxford’ – John Betjeman.
       For campanologists, among others.

       1. 🙂

28. GIMLET was a quick starter, but led me nowhere until later. The SW was more productive, but IDES held up TABLE WINE for a while. ADULTERATE , RADISH and COOLIDGE confirmed the suspected DOCTOR. Liked THESAURUS. An intial CHAPATTI was quickly reformed into CIABATTA when the former resisted parsing. TYNESIDE intiated the conquest of the remaining NW corner, with LADIES MAN finishing the job. 20:19. Thanks setter and George.

29. 5a Ciabatta, cannot spell this but the instructions made it a no-brainer, and maybe I’ll be able to spell it in future.
    11a Tyneside, I hate footie but this was gettable from wordplay etc.
    23a Coolidge biffed, never saw the anagram. Doh! 5d Contempt of court ditto. 14d Table wine ditto. That one is really clever, so COD (delayed.)
    20d Doctor. HHO the Freemantle Doctor, DNK it was a general word for sea breeze. Not mentioned in Wiktionary. I have been to Fremo and no-one mentioned it isn’t called the Doctor. Could have been because it wasn’t blowing?
    Thanks to glh & setter.

    1. Perhaps they were too astonished at your contraction Fremo instead of Freo?
       Many a day here in NQ I’ve wished there was a tropical equivalent of the Doctor, or the Sydney ‘southerly buster’.

30. 25 minutes, I took several minutes at the end to get ASTERISK which was a bit silly. No problem with DIES though!!
    Thanks setter and blogger

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