Times 29205 – the universe in a nutshell

103 comments on “Times 29205 – the universe in a nutshell”

1. I never knew there were so many stars, who counted them? We’re in an election campaign here in Oz so numbers like 200 billion trillion (the number, say, of people who can’t eat because of increased mortgage payments) get thrown around every day. An enjoyable puzzle, I did it in a little under 30, thank you Nelson – especially for explaining OSTENSIBLY.

   From I Don’t Believe You:
   Though her skirt it swayed as a guitar played
   Her mouth was watery and wet
   But now something has changed for she ain’t the same
   She just ACTS like we never have met

2. 33 minutes. I wasn’t sure about the CL in NIGHTCLUB, so thanks for clarifying it.

   I looked twice at EDITOR as ‘computer program’ but I suppose it is.

   There seemed to be a military theme building with SPIT AND POLISH and SCRAMBLED EGGS but it didn’t go anywhere.

   I bet there’s a whole generation out there who have no idea what an EIDERDOWN is (was?).

3. undone by ABERGAME that I thought was at least equally plausible as ABERDARE. Thanks blogger and setter.

4. There’s a whole generation here who don’t know what scrambled eggs are, in the way of military folk. Well, one at least. Eggs remembered as either mines or hand grenades last time, but missed the required meaning of scrambled so that word was a puzzled guess.
   Entertaining puzzle, with some interesting clues. NHO Aberdare, but guessed after a brief trawl, and realised I often drive down Aberdare Road, presumably named after the place in Wales (or vice-versa).
   Merman from Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland.

   1. Ah, that’s where I remember it from! Shenton Park, a while ago…

      1. Behind Charlies!

         1. I drive on Aberdare Road twice a day, to and from Charlies, (where I started the crossword on my lunch break), but still had to google places in Wales beginning “Aber” to get it! Annoying – solved all the other clues, but that was a hold-out.
            There seem to be several Perth folk in the blog, though like Jacaroo, i do the cryptic in the Oz paper copy, a month late.

5. 22:39

   I had plenty of pencilled-in answers where I wasn’t sure of the workings:

   FLAMINGOES – from definition plus all checkers
   SCRAMBLED EGGS – didn’t get the senior officers element, so thanks for that
   NIGHTCLUB – got as far as NIGH and couldn’t make sense of the rest
   SWORDPLAY – from checkers
   MANGO – didn’t think of GO = sell

   LOI OSTENSIBLY held me up for several minutes at the end.

   Thanks P and setter

6. A PB for me of 20 mins today. Enjoyed some of those old phrases, “Spit and Polish” and “Scrambled Eggs” which I remembered from my time working in UK policing as referring to senior officers.

   1. Congrats 👍

7. A dnf as I rushed in a mombled ‘mercan’. Otherwise fun. ABERDARE took longer that it should have, as many Welsh towns and cities begin with ABER- (at the mouth of ..)

   Thanks pip and setter.

8. Like Nina Simone, I woke up *feeling good* today and had tremendous fun with this one – playing it fast ‘n’ loose with plenty of biffing …I guess that’s just the kinda girl I am.

   Approaching completion I checked the timer – 18 mins – and figured that a sub-20 was on the cards, then refocused on the clues and finished smartly with EDITOR – REPLY – OSTENSIBLY, omitting the typo check…
   …and was red-squared by a Y instead of T at the end of 18a.

   18:44 fail – could have easily got my sub-20 with typo-check included.

   1. I would call that a result!
      Nina Simone had an amazing voice, but it never seemed to me that “feeling good” was her bag.

9. 12:05. A couple went in with a shrug – like others I couldn’t explain the GO of MANGO, and I had no idea about SCRAMBLED EGGS. I also biffed SWORDPLAY where I assumed the wrong meaning of “trimmed” in the clue.

   Agreed that MERMAN was good.

10. 23:28
    I never did parse STEVEDORE or REPLY; also biffed NIGHTCLUB, but parsed post-submission. I knew ABERDARE from the Aberdare National Park in Kenya; couldn’t have told you it’s Welsh. I liked NIGHTCLUB.

    1. For some reason the comment about Aberdare National Park was v funny. Isn’t there a phrase for knowing something erudite from trash culture (Ninja Turtling maybe). This strikes me as knowing something rather random from something even more random. Nice!

11. Liked this very much, especially CHEESED OFF, NIGHTCLUB and MERMAN.
    As my latest novel is called The Mongoose and the Cobra, I had better give COD to COBRA.

    1. So you must be David Jarvis? I checked the book on Amazon and it seems with my Prime membership I can get the Kindle version for nothing so I might as well give it a go!

       1. I am indeed David Jarvis. Do let me know what you think.
          You will see that the first three in the series are also available.
          I am currently in Madrid researching book six (or doing the Times crossword over a bottle of wine to be more accurate).

          1. Sounds very relaxing. Is it better to read them in order?

             1. Your choice. They are stand alone but share the same main character.

       2. Never tell an auther you can get his books for nothing 😉

          1. Thanks for the advice! But I don’t think I do really, because I certainly pay for Amazon Prime membership and it’s one of the books that is included in that.

12. DNF, defeated by RED GIANT (I put RED LIGHT, not spotting it was an anagram) which in turn stymied FLAMINGOES.

    – Had heard SPIT AND POLISH without knowing exactly what the expression means
    – Didn’t know that meaning of SCRAMBLED EGGS so biffed it from the checkers
    – No problem with sell=go for MANGO – “They go/sell for £10 down the market”

    Thanks piquet and setter

    COD Nightclub

13. Somewhat old fashioned feel to this but as I managed it in 24 mins with no blockers for the first time this week, that obviously suited me.
    SCRAMBLED EGGS was a total guess, thanks for explaining.
    At least Program in a computer sense was correctly spelt for once.

    1. You appear to have some scrambled egg on the peak of your cap!

       1. Well spotted that man! Jinnan Tonnyx all round.

14. They didn’t think much to the Ocean:
    The waves, they was fiddlin’ and small,
    There was no wrecks and nobody drownded,
    Fact, nothing to laugh at at all.
    (Albert and the Lion, Monologue by Marriott Edgar)

    20 mins pre-brekker. Very gentle. I liked it, especially Nigh Tub opened by CL.
    I did think the DARE bit of Aberdare was tricky for those who don’t know of it.
    Ta setter and Pip.

    1. Oh! Thank you Myrtilus. Never realised Stanley Holloway wasn’t the prime mover in the monologues. I loved them.

       1. It’s actually “The Lion and Albert,” and indeed, Marriott Edgar was the highly talented and underapplauded author.

    2. Is that the one where he takes his stick with the “‘orse’s ‘ead ‘andle” and sticks it in the lion’s ear?

       1. Aye! Wallace’s ear.

15. A PB of 22 minutes but much biffing involved.
    Is it inaccurate to regard the EIDERDOWN as a form of duvet? The name certainly implies a feather filling.
    Large though it may be, the RED GIANT is hardly universally significant surely.
    Nonetheless, many thanks to the very generous setter and to piquet.

    1. Duvets can be filled with feathers too but are expensive. Nevertheless I wouldn’t regard them as a form of eiderdown because they are used differently in some respects. Both could be defined as covers though.

       1. When they discovered duvets, after a holiday in Denmark, my mother had the feathers removed from an old eiderdown and used to stuff and make a duvet.
          After she died, we found the duvet on her bed, and it was virtually useless as insulation. I have felt guilty about that ever since .. they had plenty of money, but it was the war generation. Waste not, want not.

16. 32 mins and pretty enjoyable. A few unparsed including my LOI OSTENSIBLY and I’m not sure I still understand the cc bit of NIGHTCLUB! Ta to our blogger for the explanations.

    I didn’t know the term SCRAMBLED EGGS but what else could it be?

    I liked SOPORIFIC. Causing one to crash, indeed.

    Thanks Pip and setter.

    1. 10cc is one CL. (Centilitre)

       1. Ah OK, I think it’s finally sunk in!

17. 31 minutes, taking an age over LOI OSTENSIBLY. I’m from the generation that didn’t know EDITOR as a computer program, if that’s what it is. COD to SCRAMBLED EGGS among many good clues, which was more my period. Thank you Pip and setter.

    1. Beware the unix editor known as vi – visual interactive, and the many other two, three and four letter acronyms for unix command line functions.

       old school internet nerds only use lower case unless SHOUTING…(!) and ! is known as bang

       1. Vi is disgustingly, stupidly, hard to use! (bang).

          1. Not for my fingers, they still know what to do!

             1. Me too. I often find random letters in my Word docs and :wq where I’ve tried to exit.

                1. That sounds like a WordPerfect command?

                2. Lol

       2. vi vs EMACS will start a flame war.

          1. ! has been bang to printers for nearly ever

18. I was nicknamed Nutshell by my family because being of a scientific background I would always offer explanations when none were necessary. The name was cribbed from a comic birthday card depicting a nerd and several distraught co-workers.

    I’m still in cryptic 101 attempting the Quicks.

    1. “O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space – were it not that I have bad dreams.”

       Hamlet

19. Another puzzle pitched perfectly for my limited solving skills, all done in 20:53. COD NIGHTCLUB, but good fun all round.
    Thanks setter, and piquet

20. 10:03

    Fun puzzle. Somehow I was aware of scrambled eggs in the military sense but I had in mind that the term related to medals and ribbons rather than gold braid, which doesn’t really make sense.

    1. I think it refers to the gold braid on the peaks of the caps. In the RN, commanders and captains have one line, admirals two.

21. 62 mins, submitted on the Club. So a bona fide solve with no cheeky checks.

    1. Great stuff!

    2. Nice!

22. 19:09
    No unknowns aside from the definition for SCRAMBLED EGGS and looking back I think I should have been a shade quicker. That said, there was quite a bit of reverse engineering rather than building words from the cryptic (OSTENSIBLY, FLAMINGOES, MONOLOGUE, SWORDPLAY).

    No problems with ABERDARE as it’s about 10 miles west of me as I type. I wouldn’t necessarily change your Easter holiday plans for a visit.

    Thanks to both.

23. 33m 55s
    Thanks, Pip, especially for SPIT AND POLISH, STEVEDORE and OSTENSIBLY, the last named not to be confused with OSTERLEY on the Piccadilly Line.
    10cc: one of my favourite bands.

24. 22′ and could have been lower but thankfully revisited a few and changed dope to DUPE. Had a faint military recollection of SCRAMBLED EGGS, which it had to be, but didn’t parse it, nor SPIT AND POLISH. Took too long to come up with the reasonably well known ABERDARE. Enjoyable puzzle, thanks Piquet and setter.

25. 15a Flamingoes, biffed not fully parsed. Thanks piquet.
    25a Nightclub, biffed not fully parsed. Thanks piquet.
    2d (s)Aid, I thought affirmed=said was a bit loose.
    13d Ostensibly, biffed, too lazy to parse. Thanks piquet.
    POI 20d Editor not commonly clued as a computer program in these parts but a perfectly fair thing to do. It is the first program one needs if wanting some software.
    Thanks piquet & setter.

26. EDITOR took me back to days of command line programming. vi has already been mentioned by Nutshell. ed was the original Unix one! “ed command in Linux is used for launching the ed text editor which is a line-based text editor with a minimal interface which makes it less complex for working on text files i.e creating, editing, displaying and manipulating files. It is the oldest editor built in the Unix. It is succeeded by vi and emacs text editor.” So says Mr Google. From CHARM to OSTENSIBLY in 24:32 with lots of diversions en route. ABERDARE and SCRAMBLED EGGS preceded OSTENSIBLY after some cogitation. Thanks setter and Pip.

    1. XEDIT on the IBM System 360 was my first EDITOR.

       1. When I was a student at Durham, our Computer department had a link to the IBM 360/67 at Newcastle which did our processing. IBM Assembler was part of the course. We were assigned 7k of storage for our programs!

          1. Did you use cards or TSO? When I started with computers in 1979, TSO was already in use. A year later, we had full screen.

             1. We mainly used telytype machines to enter code. For larger programs it was 80 column cards. This was back in 69 to 73. I never got involved with TSO. When I joined Burroughs , it was a world of paper tape, Cobol and various Interpreters which are all a dim memory now. That was on the smaller business machines, some of which used a magnetic stripe on ledger cards. The Mainframes used Burroughs MCP. 96 column cards came along in the meanwhile.

27. 15.47. Good fun, even if some of them were easier from definition than from wordplay: indeed for several clues I did the wordplay just to prove I could.
    I believe birthday congratulations are in order for our noble blogger. Fine dedication to the craft!

28. I biffed SCRAMBLED EGGS and NIGHTCLUB, otherwise there wasn’t much to hold me back until I finished up in ABERDARE. As a bus enthusiast, I always wanted to visit South Wales in my youth – that town was one of many that operated its own bus fleet under Council control, and they had Bristol and Guy single deckers with less than standard bodywork. Alas, I never got there until 2017, and by then it was nearly all Stagecoach Optare Solos.

    FOI CHARM
    LOI ABERDARE
    COD STEVEDORE
    TIME 7:40

    1. I’m pretty certain that Warrington Corporation had one Bristol & Guy single decker in their fleet – I remember it – but that was back in the 1960’s.

29. 11:46 for a puzzle that seemed harder than the time suggests. One or two less obvious definitions the main causes of delay. I enjoyed it.

30. 10:09. No major problems today. Lord ABERDARE sometimes competes in the Crossword Championship, and is no slouch!

    1. That’s how I twigged ABERDARE Keriothe – the title rather stands out in the championship results list among the rest of us plebs!

31. 18:46, needed an alphabet trawl (twice!) for LOI CLEF where I was stupidly thinking about football pitches, but otherwise no problems. Yesterday’s QC is actually my longest time so far this week!
    Thanks setter and blogger

    1. Ps scrambled eggs I remembered from childhood Biggles stories!

32. Total time for the three this week of 80 mins. Getting slower each day. Not in good form me.

33. 27 minutes, no particular problems. The answer ABERDARE reminded me that a prolific solver is Lord Aberdare — I’ve seen his name in the lists of the finalists in the Times Solving Championships. Maybe Lord Aberdare now uses a different name, because I haven’t seen it for a while, and maybe he has become a Times setter. But all a long shot. I think in that clue the setter meant ‘a drinking challenge’ = ‘a beer dare’, rather than ‘beer’ = drinking’.

34. 21:06

    Biffed STEVEDORE and S EGGS, thanks for the explanation piquet.

    COD OSTENSIBLY.

    Fun puzzle, thanks setter.

35. 17 mins, slower than yesterday. In fact, reading some of yesterday’s blog, I wondered whether I’d had a time slip.
    Many of todays answers, like STEVEDORE, I entered and then looked to see what the clue was, having S-E-E already.

    1. Did a lot of biffing, but the answers just kept popping into my head! Didn’t check that I hadn’t filled in C?E? in the top right, but otherwise finished the grid in a quick time, for me. And enjoyed along the way. Only “old-fashioned”expression I’d forgotten was CHEESED OFF, unfortunately. No idea of the association between military decoration and SCRAMBLED EGGS, but it had to be. More of the same, please.

36. 21:20 – SCRAMBLED EGGS was my LOI and assumed it must be some insider army slang along the lines of top brass. I’d never have guessed the answer without the crossers spelling it out as both definition and cryptic were obscure (to me). A fun puzzle with a lighthearted feel to it.

37. Around 30 minutes. I enjoyed this puzzle albeit with a fair amount of biffing – Stevedore, Swordplay.
    Some clues could be a bit tricky for overseas solvers, I suspect – Cobra, Scrambled Eggs, Aberdare.
    My three CODs: Ostensibly, Nightclub, Soporific.

38. 29:41. LOI MERMAN which shouldn’t have been a problem. I would have called the gold braid “scrambled egg” but the extra s didn’t hold me up. An enjoyable puzzle

39. Yes, there was some UK-specific GK here. While the UK has Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms for Cobra, the US has the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. I was afraid I wouldn’t know Aberdare, but I suddenly saw a beer dare, which fits the cryptic perfectly – and Welsh towns often end in -dare. Like everyone else, I thought merman was brilliant.

    Time: 24:04

40. 27:05 – I liked this one – was on the wavelength for most of it until MERMAN which threw me for a while. very neat cluing there. Thanks!

41. OWL club, with a silly A in IMPLAUSIBLE instead of the second I. Found the bottom half easier than the top. NIGHTCLUB v good. Just the sort of thing 10cc or a similar group might have done in the 70s, opening a nightclub.
    Thanks Pip and Setter.

    1. I’ve often wondered if I find the bottom halves easier sometimes because it takes a quick think about the top half clues to get into the setter’s mindset.

42. 20.30

    Felt a little sluggish but no typos and no pinks so not complaining.

    COD to NIGHTCLUB. I seem to recall (and just checked) that 10cc (the original?) played at The Forum at the end of last year. Impressive local knowledge Setter.

    Otherwise a nice consistent medium difficulty puzzle.

    Thanks Piquet as well

43. I had to come back to this one after coming to a halt with all the top filled in but very little of the bottom. FLAMINGOES (once I got rid of my defeatist attitude it was another NHO bird) gave me the required foothold to get to the finish line.

    I found myself solving a lot of this like a regular crossword with the wordplay either completely baffling or only apparent once I had the word in front of me.

    LOI: SCRAMBLED EGGS I didn’t get any of the references so I was fortunate that not much else fitted the crossers. I did enjoy quite a few of the clues in this including all the ones involving beasts either real or mythical.

    COBRA NIGHTCLUB was my haunt many, many years ago. Probably just there by coincidence but it put a smile to my face.

    Thanks blogger (it got a good read today) and setter.

44. I think the definition in 11 is simply ‘formality’: you need “ coming about ‘with’ ” to account for the ‘and’ in the solution.

    1. Yes, that makes sense! ‘The coming about with’ bit is meaningless as part of the answer.

45. 14:18.

    COD SOPORIFIC

46. DNK the military/naval meaning of SCRAMBLED EGGS or the eggs=bombs bit, but I had the scrambled part and came at it via showbiz-speak in which a performance or show that’s a dud or turkey is said to have bombed or laid an egg.

47. I struggled with some of this. SCRAMBLED EGGS meant nothing to me, and although I got CLEF pretty quickly, I didn’t understand it. Several clues took ages to parse – STEVEDORE was my first idea, but I couldn’t parse it initially, nor did I enter MANGO until the crossers were in, as I didn’t like sell= go. I guess I’m not really on the wavelength with this one and my LOI, FLAMINGOES, took forever as I was convinced that those opposing were Noes or Antis around lame – laming NHO, and as Pip says, unconvincing as a verb. Liked CHEESED OFF and SOPORIFIC.

48. 21:38
    As someone who once used editors such as KED and EDLIN, I would definitely classify an EDITOR as a computer program.
    ABERDARE took a little while to remember, despite my being originally from South Wales.
    COD to MERMAN.

    Thanks piquet and setter

49. High volatility cycling between smiling at clever clues (Nightclub, Merman) and scowling at annoyances (go = sell, insignificant parts of our universe, Welsh towns, among others ). I must have been in a bad mood post tax-filing. Thx Pip

50. 16.10 with ostensibly LOI.

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