Times 29283 – being led a merry dance

59 comments on “Times 29283 – being led a merry dance”

1. 39 minutes. I found this mostly interesting and inventive. PUNT went in with fingers crossed as I had no checkers at the time but otherwise I didn’t have any misgivings about the clues. KARMA was my LOI as I had been holding out for ‘sailors’ as RN but fortunately I knew the word so RM / Royal Marines settled the matter.

   AH for ‘my word’ seems as valid as any other exclamation of surprise and certainly made a welcome changed from the ubiquitous ‘cor’.

   I never heard of consumption of PLANKTON being restricted to whales as it seems to be fed on by most aquatic creatures.

   I knew RIGADOON as a 17th century dance, but its name lives on as a popular movement in keyboard and orchestral suites of many famous composers of the baroque era, Handel, Couperin, Scarlatti etc.

2. 31.33. I enjoyed this a lot more than our blogger, apparently, but share his misgivings about LIMB and KARMA. I assumed the bell/call device was in the context of ‘giving someone a bell’. My last few to go in were SINGAPORE, the DASH bit after PEBBLE and LOI GIRDLE. Thanks piquet, I hope you have a better time of it tomorrow!

   From Visions of Johanna:
   Now little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
   He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
   And when bringing her name up
   He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
   He’s sure got a lotta GALL

   1. Yes, ODE has:
      bell (vb)
      2.1[with object] informal British English
      phone (someone):
      no problem, I’ll bell her tomorrow

3. 60+ mins, got it done but a bit of a slog. Needed the Crossword dictionary for LOI GIMLET, to find a five letter jacket. Couldn’t think of a boring item beyond awl, drill or that bradawl yesterday. I only knew GIMLET from the cocktail and from Billy Bunter who was always under the GIMLET eye of Mr Quelch.

   I had pencilled in WING for fin, thinking of swing=scale. Had to back out when finally got SUBEDITOR. My FOI was ALL AT SEA which had to be an anagram of “alas elite” until it wasn’t. Thank goodness erasing dumb mistakes is easy in the online version.

   NHO RIGADOON(Brigadoon, yes), and yes, I did try Romedoon and Limadoon.

   I had to look up CAP AND BELLS after constructing it, it sounds like one hat, so how is that an “ensemble of fools”?

   COD PEBBLEDASH

   1. Ensemble for what they wear?
      But, OK, hardly an ensemble.
      But the sources suggest it was a key indicator for ‘fools’ and their protected status.

4. I thought this was a really good middle of the road crossword. Nothing too taxing with some very witty wordplay. PEBBLEDASH had me stuck for some time before I saw it. Wondered about ‘Ah’ for ‘My word’ but decided it must be in TAHITIAN. BAKING TRAY was very good, had me wondering what kind of food begins with a ‘T’. Saw HANS HOLBEIN almost straight away which gave me STAGECOACH. Managed everything but couldn’t come up with TONGA as didn’t know that ‘Tong’ was a secret society. Mer at LIMB but it must be. Thought IMAGO very good. Liked CONTESSA. COD to CAP AND BELLS which took a long time to see what I was looking for, more fool me!
   Thanks P and setter.

5. I enjoyed this and my eyebrows didn’t raise at all. Well, maybe for whether a fin qualified as a LIMB. I was pleased that the unknown HANS HOLBEIN was indeed an artist, I think that was the only unknown. I knew Brighton had shingle not sand (as does Nice, which I found usually surprised people when I lived there).

6. As it happens, I have just finished the third volume in Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s late trilogy, a book he completed right before he died, Rigadon, which is the French form, of course, of RIGADOON.

   I don’t think I’ve ever heard of PEBBLEDASH before, but the word materialized in front of my eyes looking at the checkers. Also, I can imagine, a British beach…

   I empathize with a few of Pip’s quibbles, actually, but I enjoyed this nevertheless.

7. AI Overview (via Google): « Many fish species consume plankton, a group of small organisms drifting in water. These plankton-eating fish, often called planktivores, play a crucial role in marine and freshwater ecosystems. Some examples include anchovies, herring, and sardines, which filter plankton from the water. Larger animals like whale sharks, basking sharks, and manta rays also consume plankton. »

8. Coincidence: There’s a cartoon syndicated from the New York Daily News showing Donald Schlump emerging from a cage labeled “EPSTEIN CONSPIRACY THEORIES” but with an alligator behind him about to take a big fat bite. It’s headlined KARMA.

   1. Yeah, we hope

9. Another struggle today, 30:56. General knowledge (TAHITIAN) helped me get started, which is lucky. TONG was on edge of my ken (after initially biffing TRIAD), but didn’t understand the ‘friendly place’ part. HANS HOLBEIN took an age to see, as did CAP AND BELLS, but both fair.

   Was also lucky with LOI KARMA when finally twigging ‘lot’. RIGADOON uncomfortably close to other words like ‘Brigadoon’ and ‘rigatoni’; certainly wasn’t sure of definition. Also didn’t know def of IMAGO.

   On BELL, the dictionary has already been quoted above but I’d like to add that I’ve always been aware of it from MLE (Multicultural London English), which is the mother ‘lect’ of many Londoners under 35 or so.

   PUNT and GRIDIRON so far this week; hoping for more American football!

   Lastly, I’m sure I’ve seen GIMLET and PEBBLEDASH on the same page of Viz at some point (Mr. Gimlet being Finbarr Saunders’ mother’s male acquaintance, fnarr fnarr).

   Thanks all, and after recent AWL, BRADAWL and GIMLET I shall be on the lookout for an AUGER shortly.

   1. Brigadoon is an invented word used as the title of a ghastly musical film, and is based on rigadoon …

      1. Oh, OK, thanks! Is there any other kind of musical film?

         1. Yes, Cabaret.
            No others spring to mind…

10. Yes, was not going to do every day. So now I’m a liar and a (technical) cheat.
    Got all but four clues (21ac, 29ac, 22d and 19d) and mostly parsed today.
    Although there were some clever clues, did not really enjoy this one.
    It was made hard work by aspects of some clues that piquet has covered or others will cover – eg. ‘rent’ = GAP and ‘fin’ = LIMB.
    By the end, we were too tired to get the very doable CONTESSA 21a.
    BTW, in 18ac, isn’t ‘caught’ = NAB and ‘net’ the insertion instruction.
    Thank you to the setter and to piquet.

11. About 15m for all but the – for me – completely impossible 5dn.

    1. The same, only slower (although much of that was spent glaring at 5dn, I suppose).

    2. TONGA appeared in the puzzle on 22 April defined as ‘country’ and in my blog I wrote at some length about it being known as ‘The Friendly Isles’ and its then monarch, Queen Salote’s visit to Britain to attend the coronation in 1953. So famous that it was celebrated at the time in a popular song.

       1. Well obviously I forgot that, and 1953 is a little before my time 😉
          If the clue had said ‘country’ I might have hazarded a guess but ‘friendly place’ could mean many things. I thought for instance that it might be something to do with Quakers.

12. DNF. No mercy being shown by the setters this week. Gave up after 40+ mins and submitted PERSONABLE and CUP AND BALLS. I now see that REASONABLE is a much more, well, reasonable guess. For the other I had in mind the game of catching a ball on a string in a cup.
    As a former owner of a Ford Ka, I remember one theory for the naming involved a god of some ilk.
    Tough but not unfair, thanks for explaining and to setter.

13. Just too hard for me.
    Thanks Piquet

14. 45 minutes or thereabouts. Devilishly tough for a Wednesday in my book, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

    Unlike the blogger I have no qualms really – Chambers gives ‘fate’ for ‘karma’ and a fin is something what sticks out the side of a fish like an arm innit, so LIMB isn’t exactly a stretch.

    The only one I disliked was NIPPER – took me ages to see it.

    COD to GIRDLE I think, which started things with a bang. Did I say bang? I meant ‘creeping sense of dread’. Thanks blogger and setter.

15. 41m 57s
    I agree with your reservations, Pip, but I was able to solve this in, for me, a reasonable time, so, all good!
    I liked PEBBLEDASH. Made oi larf!
    Thanks, Pip.

16. 49 minutes. Most of piquet’s MER’s passed me by but that was just my lack of attention to detail. I bunged in LIMB and moved on but looking it up now, Chambers has “A hand or arm (slang)” as sense 6 for ‘fin’. Finally all in but with the wrong def for KARMA which I couldn’t parse.

    Favourite was HANS HOLBEIN – his first appearance in crossword land that I can remember.

17. DNF a general knowledge fail in the TONGA/TAHITIAN pairing. This was certainly on the hard side as I slowly made my way through the rest. I did guess CONGA which I guess is atleast a friendly place to be.

    Liked HANS HOLBEIN who I should probably be ashamed to say I hadn’t heard of.

    Thanks setter and blogger

18. DNF

    A decent(ish) 14 minutes dead marred by a silly PERSONABLE at 18. I agree with most that this was largely enjoyable. TONGA a bit of a guess based on not very much tbh.

    Because of work and holidays it’s been a while since I solved a daily cryptic online (25 June being the last time) so I’m not too displeased.

19. Half an hour, but with fingers crossed for a number of clues.

    – Wasn’t sure about TAHITIAN even though I worked out the parsing
    – Was stuck on _A_L for 14a for a long time and thought I might never get it, but eventually I thought of cheek=GALL
    – Couldn’t have told you what a GIMLET is for
    – NHO colleen as a term for girl, so DONEGAL went in with a shrug
    – Didn’t know the Tong secret society or that TONGA is known as The Friendly Islands, so that was another guess
    – Relied on the wordplay for the unknown CAP AND BELLS
    – Didn’t parse SINGAPORE, which I thought for a while was going to be an anagram of ‘crime and’ + W (‘source of wealth’)… any explanation for how gap=rent?
    – Trusted that IMAGO means an adult
    – Didn’t parse KARMA as I didn’t know the Egyptian spirit and always forget RM as an option for sailors

    Thanks piquet and setter.

    FOI Eat
    LOI Tonga
    COD Sandal

    1. Rent to GAP might be a bit of a stretch, but Chambers defines rent as “an opening made by rending”, which seems apposite. While I can’t point to a specific example, gaps/rips/tears in space-time occur often enough in Science fiction: Matt Smith’s Dr Who encounters a particularly troubling one as a recurring feature.

       1. OK thanks!

20. Plodded through this in a little over an hour – glad to get it done. The clues for 1ac and 6dn featured apostrophes replacing letters. This device has always irritated me. It looks clunky and contrived, and it spoils the surface reading of the clue. To see it used twice in a crossword already rendered suboptimal by some questionable items of vocabulary was disappointing.
    Thanks, p.

21. Completed half in 10 mins then ground to a halt. After staring for another 10, gave up. Life’s too short.

22. 12:15
    I was lucky to fill in the gaps and spot RIGA to get RIGADOON but otherwise few problems. I too dislike the use of apostrophes to indicate dropped letters so having two in one puzzle set my teeth on edge somewhat. Rightly or wrongly it is a device I associate with the older generation of setters as it thankfully seems less common these days.

23. 20.41. Oddly enough, the bits questioned here didn’t worry me much: even discounting the slang fin/arm, mudskippers and such haul themselves across land on something remarkably like a fin doubling as a limb. Technically KARMA may be a next-incarnation thing, but in common parlance it’s just deserts catching up with you, sometimes with remarkable alacrity. Any number of FB videos. GAP and rent seem close enough to me, and GAP was more or less forced on you by the crossers.
    I was slowed a bit by whether RIGADOON was going to be a capital or a dance, and GIMLET, my last in, needed all the crossers. But I quite liked this one.

24. Agree with Piquet’s reservations about this puzzle, felt like a slog for a Wednesday at 49 mins.

25. Tricky synonyms and GK but nothing unfair or unknown. An enjoyable challenge that I nearly completed (all but 3 in 36 mins). ‘Ka’ forms part of the etymology of the word ‘Egypt’ as ‘hut-ka-ptah’ meant ‘home/enclosure of the soul of Ptah’, the name of a temple in Memphis, which was later used to describe Memphis and eventually Egypt itself.

26. Doggy daycare today so late to the party.. I rushed enjoyably through the top half until PEBBLEDASH. I know other coasts better than I do the south one but I recall Hastings as far more pebbly. I only got it when CAP AND BELLS fell into place. Tough gig, court jester. The bottom half took more time with the clues for LIMB, KARMA and SINGAPORE all unconvincing. 38 minutes. COD to HANS HOLBEIN. Thank you Pip and setter

27. A fairly tortuous solve. I’m with Pip regarding his objections but accept that all the answers are valid.

    I llied TAPERED, BAKING TRAY and POTSDAM.

    Thanks to Pip and the setter.

28. Most of the top half went in without any trouble, but down below took much more contemplation. No real quibbles with LIMB and KARMA, or BELL for telephone. Liked PEBBLEDASH. Took a while to see POTSDAM and BAKING TRAY. Didn’t know RIGADOON as a dance, but the wordplay was clear enough. Remembered the village that appeared from the Scottish Mists once every hundred years though! Was familiar with Gaugin’s predelictions and knew the Friendly Islands. The vaguely remembered (once I’d constructed him) HANS HOLBEIN was LOI. 27:14. Thanks setter and Pip.

29. Bit surprised by some of the reactions to this … maybe I was just lucky with the GK.
    Quickish, and no complaints – though a quick pause for thought at fin=limb. And is “scratching surface” the same as removing the first letter? I wanted to remove the last letter as well.
    I do have a tape deck and a videotape recorder too. Can’t say they get a lot of use nowadays, mind.

30. 29:00 – Found this tough, with some unknown definitions (the drop kick) and some unknown words (the dance) – none of which, fortunately, seemed to offer any alternative possibilities.

31. The questionable allusions have been mentioned and they were indeed questionable I thought. All the time I was very unconfident and used the Check button a lot to confirm that it was really what I had tentatively put in. And I quite agree about those clues with apostrophes replacing letters; don’t like it at all, almost on a par with those old clues which were just quotations from poetry. Holbein’s The Ambassadors is justly very famous, and his portraits of Henry VIII iconic. 59 minutes.

32. Another one which took a while, maybe just under an hour only to be scuppered by the NHO dance. Like others I was put off by its closeness to the awful “scottish” musical, so decided against RIGADOON and pressed reveal to a groan.
    I agree with gist of many of the comments, but not so much that I didn’t enjoy most of this. Thanks Piquet and setter.

33. 37:02

    I enjoyed it and went well over 30’ boredom threshold to complete. All problems were in the SE corner, where the 20’s finally gave way and positioned the D and the M, leading to a NHO dance, the joke, the tool and LOI, completely unparsed KARMA.

    Thanks setter and PIP

34. I’m in the camp that believes that some people just got out of the wrong side of bed this morning.

    Anatomically fins are cognate with the limbs of land animals and in fact the first definition of LIMB I found online says:

    “a part or member of an animal body distinct from the head and trunk, as a leg, arm, or wing”, and certainly fish do use their fins similarly to how birds use their wings. So that seems to cover it.

    Nothing wrong with AH in my book, and one of the definitions online for KARMA is “lot, kismet or destiny”. So again I think that’s covered.

    I think the only thing I didn’t know was that TONGA are the ‘friendly islands’, but then maybe I did know it somewhere on the outskirts of my consciousness because when I was writing in the answer it ‘felt right’.

    PLANKTON are far too good a source of nutrition for the rest of marine life to leave it all for the greedy whales! I think the strong association with whales comes from the strange fact that the largest mammals on the planet base their diet mainly on these tiny organisms, but certainly the rest of the ocean population consume their fair share!

    People certainly do ‘bell’ people, much to my late father’s disgust. He had a horror of the speech of the ‘working man’. I remember once being with him when he dropped his car off for a repair and the mechanic said “OK I’ll give you a bell when it’s done”. On the way home he was fuming about the supposed indignity inflicted on the Queen’s English, repeating the remark under his breath with sarcastic disgust (“I’ll give you a bell… I’ll give you a BELL!”). And as a verb, I heard someone on their phone on the tube just the other day saying “OK I’ll bell him”.

    (I think the mechanic actually called him ‘mate’ as well which caused further irritation!).

    And I guess we’ll have TAPE for RECORD for as long as we have DIAL for PHONE. We no longer DIAL a number, we ENTER it, but I’ve never heard anyone say that before. These things will become archaisms presumably when the last of the generation who remember the technology dies out, but they will still be words that are valid in the same way as other archaisms are. All part of the rich patchwork of general knowledge!

    So for my part at least, all very acceptable and enjoyable. Thank you setter and thank you pip for persevering with it in the face of your MERs!

    1. No mers from me either. We’ve been giving people a bell since at least the 1980s (though I’ve never heard it used as a verb). I actually thought this was a reference to the call of a rutting deer, but perhaps I spend too much time reading the OED. Great puzzle anyway, so thanks to the setter. Enjoyed the Brighton beach clue more than any time I’ve ever spent on the actual “beach”!

    2. Plankton , which I think includes krill are being exploited by humans, notably the Russians for fertiliser amongst other things. If only marine life were left to it!

35. Enjoyed it and found it all fair and above board.

    So my conclusion is that our blogger was indeed in a grump.

36. 36 minutes. LOI KARMA. I found nothing to cavil at!

37. I took 68 minutes so the less said the better! Never heard of LOI CAP AND BELLS.
    Thanks to the usual people 🙂
    Steve

38. 27.15

    Solve of two halves for me. Pre-lunch when I could make neither head nor tail of anything and post lunch (plus kip and a large cuppa) when the answers just seemed to swim into view.

    I liked it but it’s good to see our blogger expressing his view – if this puzzle had taken me twice my normal time I would have been much more unhappy about LIMB and (in particular) GAP.

    Coincidentally off to both SINGAPORE and RIGA in the forthcoming months. Not TONGA but knew the Friendly Islands thing.

    Thanks setter and PK

    1. Agree with the comment about the blogger- makes the site feel bit more balanced.

39. I was expecting to see “Rigadoon” in Tam O’Shanter, but in fact the witches dance “Jigs, hornpipes, strathspeys and reels”.

    Finished in about 30 mins, put in Karma as a guess, still don’t quite understand it.
    Pebbledash was good.

40. 22:20. I made this out to be rather harder than it was, in retrospect. I liked PEBBLEDASH best. Thanks Pip and setter.

41. On first looking, I was expecting this to be harder than it was. Took me a while to get going, but then a steady solve, ending with the 2 5-letter down clues, TONGA and KARMA. I was pretty sure TONGA was (in) the Friendly Isles, and it seemed the only possibility, but I couldn’t parse it, not having heard of the SS in China. I couldn’t parse KARMA either, and in fact, thought it referred to a ‘spirit’ rather than the slightly questionable ‘lot’. But either way, correct entries, so I’m awarding myself a win. No other NHOs apart from the kick sense of PUNT. Like Merlin, I wanted to put in ALL AT SEA, but it didn’t fit the anagrist. I don’t see a problem with NIPPER being clued as mite, referencing a small child, and horseflies certainly are! Anyone knowing Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin won’t have had a problem with RIGADOON as the English version of Rigaudon.

42. 69:13. DNF as needed to check TONGA. Very clever but perhaps a bit much for a wednesday puzzle?

43. I enjoyed this, and no real problems with any of the clues.
    Sorry Pip!
    Scientists do consider fins and limbs to be homologous, so no issues there.
    Online sources suggest that while the more common name for a collection of whales is a pod, a school certainly applies too.
    Karma for lot or fate it’s probably more informal usage.
    Many thanks to the setter.

44. No complaints. Had to work at it, but clues all seemed fair enough. LOI GIRDLE. Was 14 across prompted by obituaries of the late newsreader Sandy? 23’37”

45. About 35 mins in two goes. Very tricky I thought . I was absolutely delighted to see that my guesses for reasonable and limb were correct. The latter was incomprehensible .

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