Times 29291 – beaten black and blue

125 comments on “Times 29291 – beaten black and blue”

1. Torture! So much so that I shall not be reliving the experience in any detail here. It became apparent quite early on that there were too many examples where I was guessing answers from flimsy definitions and was then unable to unravel the wordplay in order to confirm them. After a while I took to using other means to check my answers. I got there eventually with generous use of aids but there’s no satisfaction in solving like this, which is why I don’t tackle Mephistos or monthly club specials. The clue to AT REST (an obvious answer even without checkers in place) was perhaps the worst example of an unnecessarily complicated clue. I didn’t find even one example where having eventually understood both definition and wordplay I thought to myself, oh yes, that was a great clue.

   You deserve a medal for perseverance, Will.

   1. Agree. Just all rather silly.

   2. Agree

      1. Somebody needs to control this
         Too obscure to be worth attempting

      2. Wow. Now I don’t feel so bad!

2. 98 minutes for this toughie. It’s not saying much but at least my very slow effort was unaided and I just came in under the 100 minute mark. Thanks to William for the parsing of some such as PANORAMIC which was way beyond me and which I just biffed. Now (post-solve) that I’ve reacquainted myself with the basic plot of Romeo and Juliet, I see what you mean about MERCUTIO. I wasn’t sure about RAIDER either.

   I think there’s a clue to the setter’s identity (or at least a nod to him) in a couple of the rows containing exclusively unchecked letters or possibly including one checked letter; it was certainly hard enough to be one of his.

   Thanks to William and to our (maybe not so mysterious) setter

   1. Yes, I’m sure you’re right about the setter. I’m wary of his puzzles in The Guardian but usually manage to get through them with perhaps only a couple of resorts to aids. Today’s puzzle was a whole new experience, and not a pleasant one. These former Times champs!

   2. Not sure I understand the comment about checked and unchecked letters. Could you elaborate (I’m of course aware of what the definition is just not in this context) – thanks

      1. Checked letters are the ones that appear where two answers cross, forming part of two words, providing some confirmation that the letter is correct. Unchecked letters (unches, in the lingo) appear in between the main rows/columns of answers, can be more easily entered incorrectly, and sometimes contain a ‘hidden’ message (ENIGMA and TIST, in this case).

         1. And ‘EAD LOAF?

         2. Ah I think I see – thank you William

   3. If I’d spotted that I might’ve remembered that after his last one in the Guardian I’d put him on my “too hard to bother with” list and saved myself giving up after two hours with just three left today.

3. Life’s too short

   1. This will be my only comment today and it’s: totally agree.

4. Black and blue indeed, until after 46 minutes I was unable to lift myself from the canvas. Had to resort to aids to fill in the missing bit of _R_PERIE, which in hindsight was far from the toughest clue but I had taken enough punishment by then.

   As much as I enjoyed yesterday’s workout, I found this one to be more of a slog. But looking back now I can appreciate the fiendish brilliance of many of the clues and I dips me lid to the setter. And also to William for an astonishing display of parsing!

   I’m sure there’ll be letters but for what it’s worth I love the fact that we’re offered such a range of difficulty in the daily puzzles. As someone wisely posted in a Saturday Quickie blog a few months ago, you don’t always have to complete a puzzle to enjoy it.

   Thanks setter, thanks William, have a good weekend everyone.

5. Let me first thank William for his sterling work.
   The clues are all clever, very clever and for John Henderson to weave ENIGMATIST into the grid is even more clever. Jason, the editor, must have been so pleased to receive it.
   However, they forgot about me, an ordinary solver of 45 years who pays £312 a year for the Times.

   1. Out of (waning) interest, where ENIGMATIST?

      1. I (now) see it is the rows above and below 24/25ac.

         1. Ooh, I always miss pangrams and this kind of stuff …

      2. Moreover ‘who’ is the enigmatist?

         1. John Henderson sets as Enigmatist in the Guardian

            1. Well I hope he sticks with the Grauniad!

            2. Oh Ok. That explains it. Thanks.

   2. My thoughts too….. When the puzzles get this difficult I think it becomes more of ‘The setter showing how clever he is at setting clues’ rather than a puzzle set for mere mortals ‘To show how well they can decipher the clues’
      There are far more harder puzzles around for the ‘elite’ to have a go at (Listener, Mephisto, Club Monthlies) so as you say sawbill why am I paying a subscription for puzzles that are way north of 200 on the snitch?

      1. Completely agree with you. And Sawbill. It’s edging towards not being value for money. As you note, there are places for this type of crossword, but the daily cryptic isn’t one of them.
         Hats off to our heroic blogger.

   3. What a stinker. I didn’t spot ENIGMATIST, but I note you can also spell out NIGHTMARE.

      1. Great spot!

6. Gave up at 41%, wasn’t up for the slog today and probably couldn’t have done it anyway. Speedy AUTOBAHN, HAIR OF THE DOG and APIECE and then quickly ground to a halt. When I saw that ALLAY (ALL + AY? possible? remedy concerns/allay concerns?) was wrong for ATONE, I knew my decision was a good one.

   Therefore William’s blog is pleasant light reading for me rather than anything linked to my actual efforts. Thanks!

7. Well, I got the first two across, and the last two, but precious little in between. Didn’t Peter Jay once write an economics article in The Times that he knew only two people in the world would understand? I assume this was the cruciverbalist’s equivalent. Well done, William.

   1. I had ‘paid for’ = MET and ‘curiosity’ = CURIO, with ‘ahead of’ meaning you have to reposition the word, so you get CURIOMET but I think I see what you mean, you start with METCURIO and the ‘ahead of’ relates to the rest of the clue about Romeo and Tybalt, so we have METCURIO ‘ahead of/before’ changing the T to an R.

8. 24 ac: a is the first letter of attack. Entire clue can be read as definition

   1. Agree, it’s an &lit.

   2. Oh, thank you!

9. A big learning experience, even after 50 years of tackling the Times crossword. Did about two-thirds.

   Well done william, and thanks to you and setter.

10. Gave up after 45 minutes with five clues in the NE corner unsolved. Six unparsed answers written under the grid, seven question marks written against clues.
    Were these taken from last month’s World Cryptic Crossword Championship, perhaps?
    Sorry, I don’t use the word unXimenean lightly, but this was unfair.
    LOI PARSEC

11. DNF or should I say didn’t get close to finishing!

    I threw in the towel after about 45 minutes with about 6 or 7 outstanding. Having read the blog that was a great decision as I’d have been there all day otherwise.

    No complaints though as I look forward to a good challenge so a hat tip to the setter and to William for piecing it all together.

12. Well, this was quite hard, and I had to look up to find out who MERCUTIO was, but it didn’t seem to me to be worth a SNITCH of over 200? Nor did yesterday’s. which I see was also rated as very hard. I finished with PARSEC and the looked-up MERCUTIO in about 55 minutes watching the cricket. I had no idea how CREPERIE worked so biffed it, thanks for the blog William.

    1. Tut Tut, Piquet — read/see R & J! But agree with most comments — too many clues which resulted in a “ah. I see” even when explained. As others have said, it’s supposed to be fun…..

13. I suspect the vast majority of comments today will contain “gave up after ‘X’ amount of minutes”.

    I’m one of them ……. as I was yesterday!!!!

14. DNF. Yesterday was right on the limits of my ability, this was way beyond. Gave up with 58% complete.
    I enjoyed some of what I did manage, MICROCLIMATE for one.
    Thanks both.

15. “Bordereau” means a note or confirmation. I’d say calling it a memorandum is pushing it!

    1. It pains me to come to the defence of anything about today’s puzzle but in the course of my cheating I happened to look up BORDEREAU earlier and the first definition in Collins is: a memorandum or invoice prepared for a company by an underwriter, containing a list of reinsured risks.

16. 28:45. Another beast, but I actually found this a little easier than yesterday’s. Lots that I didn’t bother parsing as I solved: the wordplay was a bit over-convoluted at times. I didn’t spot him in the grid but I had little doubt as to the identity of the setter. I personally think a real stinker like this is welcome at times but then I finished it so I would say that.

    1. Personally I found it a bit harder than yesterday’s. I had to pause after 40 mins to do some work, with half a dozen left in the NE corner, then another 5 mins or so to finish it off once I’d spotted PARSEC and got some useful crossers. I couldn’t agree more about the occasional stinker, and there was some genius clueing in there. I never moan about the easy ones, which I find a bit boring, so I don’t understand why some folk complain if they get a bit tough once in a while. Keep them coming!

       1. I like the easy ones because a quick time gives me a bit of a self-satisfied buzz. Pathetic really!

17. Yesterday’s was a little too tough for me. Much of today’s might as well have been written in Sanskrit. Still, watch and learn, watch and learn.

    Thanks to the setter and to William for the excellent blog.

18. How on earth did you spot that? And what is it for? , Sorry, was referring to someone’s comment about ENIGMATIST, and how they knew to look for it Cx

19. Yesterday’s was OMG and today’s OMFG! Only got 8 answers before resorting to help. I think intermix was my favourite clue. Thx and looking forward to MONDAY!! Cx

20. Yes thanks to the blogger for his efforts. I gave up after about 45 minutes and that was the right decision – I would never ever have got answers like creperie. It’s a long time since I’ve been so far off finishing. Yesterday was a fair challenge, today I’m less sure.

21. Threw in the towel after 25 minutes with nine solved (sort of). Too much to do in the garden to waste any more time on it. Whilst puzzles like this have their place, I don’t think a weekday newspaper is it.

22. Yesterday I did. Today I didn’t. Looking forward (as apparently one of the “elite”) to the Listener later today. Mephisto’s usually easier than this.

23. Way too difficult for me too. One thing I don’t get is what ‘ahead of’ is doing in the clue for Mercutio.

    1. I think it’s mainly there to aid the literal interpretation of the whole clue as a definition of Mercutio (&lit, in the jargon). But it is also appropriate cryptically; as our blogger has stated you start with ‘met curio’ before transposing the T and the R. Quite convoluted, like most of today’s clues.

24. DNF, hardly started. I had been hoping yesterday that Friday would be uncharacteristically easy, but it isn’t. Oh well, I’ll do the Cyclops in Private Eye which came yesterday instead.

25. A singularly unpleasant experience. Sack this setter please, it should be fun and this definitely was not.

    1. A bit harsh. The setter sets. It’s up to the editor to nip it in the bud if necessary, or move it to a more suitable place eg monthly special.

       1. More than harsh I’m afraid, that’s a regrettable comment. I’m sure after some reflection the commenter will delete it.

26. 90 minutes – slow and steady paid off here but I was flummoxed by more than half of these and had to dredge up the answers from the darkest pits of my ken.

    LOI was OLIVE DRAB – actually the NE corner were all LOIs but looking at them now it doesn’t seem half so scary.

    Never did parse LETTER OPENER or PANETTONI, but was pleased to work out the wordplay for MERCUTIO and HARMLESS after initially biffing.

    COD to AUTOBAHN for the misleading German bloke. Actually, I really liked INTERMIX too. A very enjoyable challenge all told.

    Thanks blogger and setter. A swift gin now I think!

27. 40+ minutes but got there in the end.

    Hard work and mostly enjoyable: no problem with German AUTOBAHN but French BORDEREAU – really?

    A lot I didn’t parse – PANORAMIC (NHO Anora), MICROCLIMATE, MERCUTIO, HARMLESS, LETTER OPENER.

    Liked INTERMIX, SEAFRONT, CREPERIE (once I got it – took a long time)

    Thanks William and setter

28. Just over the hour, which gives me a Club score only a little over a WOE entry – a little stingy after such a titanic battle!

    At points I really didn’t think I was going to come close to finishing this, with baffling gaps scattered around the grid, although my last few in the NE weren’t actually that hard. My brain was just scrambled after creating the likes of BORDEREAU and RECRUDESCENT, and divining that Algonquin was Cree. Plus I was rather concerned I might need some knowledge of Antonio, which I certainly do not have.

    I really liked the appearance of the modern ANORA, which I saw before it was being touted for the Oscar.

    I can understand puzzles like this not being for everyone (although it is a Friday, and it is solvable), but some of the comments above go well beyond fair comment and into the quite pathetic. Give your heads a wobble.

    Thanks both.

    1. What is the point of a crossword that the vast majority of regular solvers cannot solve, and will not enjoy?

       The setter has shown himself to be very clever indeed, but he has failed in the basic task of providing a crossword that will entertain the readers of The Times.

       When the setter wants to show off his brilliance with a crossword like this, there should be a normal one provided for the benefit of the paying customers.

       1. I mean, I get the sentiment but also … I pay for a challenge that increases as the week goes on, and I like to learn something new from the Friday beasts. I also appreciate when this setter pushes the envelope of what cluing can achieve, even if some see this as ‘unfair’.

          It’s a spectrum of difficulty, both extremes of which are well-catered for throughout the week. Fridays are meant to keep us on our toes, and this year they have done that in spades so well done editor and setter I say.

          1. I second that emotion. If they were all doable by a mediocre solver like me, the best solvers would just get bored.

             1. I’d love to be bored every now and then

             2. Well said Mudge and rv1.

                I wouldn’t begrudge anyone frustration at not having completed this, views on the fairness of individual clues, or a general “It’s not the sort of puzzle I enjoy” – all perfectly valid opinions. But comments like “What’s the point in a puzzle like this?” or “Sack the setter” are better left unposted.

                1. Are you the new TftT policeman?

                   1. Come on now, this isn’t Twitter. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion but surely we can all agree that “sack the setter” is beyond the pale?

                      Well done Amoeba for saying so.

29. Came for a look-see and was not going to post . . . however.
    Clearly, there is room for all reasoned opinions in this forum.
    Personally I was glad to see that many of the seasoned players felt there was a line that a daily cryptic should not cross.
    Will continue to do the Saturday and (as of last week) Sunday cryptics, and try the occasional daily to see what happens next.

30. Only got six or seven after over an hour. On reading the blog I see I was well advised to quit. Some seriously hard clues here.

31. In any Times crossword the best I can hope for is mid-table mediocrity. I subscribe for the crossword. If it stays at this level, I will have to relegate myself to some other publication.
    I do like learning new words and definitions, but this brought back bad memories of grammar school, when if you did not understand something the master would shout at you, then ridicule you.
    Not a pleasant way to spend an hour.

    1. And apply the birch ?

32. Well, I got more than half! Tough one, thanks to wjs for the parsing, appreciate it.

33. Way too hard for me

34. I cant wait for Monday. I think I shall just do monday to Wednesday from now on. I do them in between 8 and 30 mins. Yesterday I got 2/3 done today 1/2. Seems this most weeks.

35. Commiserations yet again to William for drawing the short straw, and kudos for persevering with this beast! I battled with it for an hour and 40 minutes, ony checking that BORDEREAU and MERCUTIO existed, before becoming stuck with only LETTER OPENER and OLIVE DRAB decorating the NE corner. Then I suddenly saw PARSEC, and ATONE followed. At that point I was completely stuck and sought assistance for 7d, where I got SENT for launched but couldn’t make the mental leap to AFRO. I then managed to solve CHAMBERS and LOI, SONATA. Submitted at 1:50:53. Does that make me a masochist? I think so! Thanks Mr H and William.

    1. And for U an old chestnut –
       The masochist says to the sadist:
       ‘Hit me, hit Me’. The sadist says: ‘No!’.

       1. 😁

36. Can’t see what the fuss is all about- I completed in just under 10 minutes..must admit though the second clue did take a bit longer.
    If the last two puzzles are the new norm, then I may have to reconsider whether I should carry on : it’s all too depressing.

37. The problem with everyone threatening to cancel their subscriptions is this: where do you draw the line? It would be easy to make the puzzles of a homogenous standard, but surely people want variety? Yes, this puzzle was one of the hardest I’ve seen, but (with the exception of BORDEREAU) it was also fair: you didn’t need to have played cricket, been a professional gardener or spent your childhood conversing in Shetland dialect to know the answers.

    So let’s hear it for puzzles aimed at a spectrum of ability. The Times puzzle should remain the elite crossword, and that means the occasional puzzle like this one.

    1. Really agree with the above comment re the absence of the typical nuisance gardening, Scottish isles and cricket clues. At least this was ‘differently difficult’.

       1. Good point. It didn’t require much of a dictionary trawl either, as difficult as it was. I’m still struggling to see how BAH = UGH though? The first is an expression of frustration or annoyance, the second relates to taste or a more negative emotion.

    2. Yes it’s a tricky line to draw. But the problem with widening the spectrum too far is that discounting the weekend prize puzzles, if we get eg one of these per week which virtually nobody can do, then immediately most solvers are only getting 80% value for money.
       It didn’t help that today’s followed yesterday’s very difficult offering which many gave up on. Two in one week is verging on creating a disconnect with your core customers.
       To me the obvious thing to do is to make it either a monthly special or a mephisto. Or even a Saturday prize offering, because in that issue the jumbo already caters for mere mortals.

38. Tough but nevertheless enjoyable. I look forward to the challenge of the Friday toughies.
    Did this one in two sittings, finally completing it in 46:36.
    After being defeated by the Angers china yesterday, I wasn’t fooled by Dieter’s Strasse today. LOI INTERMIX was my favourite . Thanks to our blogger for parsing PANORAMIC and for elucidating MERCUTIO.
    Thanks also to the setter for providing more entertainment than usual, both in the crossword and in the comments!

39. I don’t usually visit this site but have done today to get help with a collection of egregious parsings. As a sometime crossword blogger myself, I congratulate william wholeheartedly on what must have taken an enormous amount of unravelling.

40. A real pig, truly. But mainly fair. Several that I had to read the blog to understand and still didn’t. Can someone please explain what the hell an ‘&lit’ is? I’ve never grasped it.
    My main gripe is the indicator to reverse ‘pub poor fellow’ [BAR DEVIL] is the word ‘left’. Never seen that before and I regard that as a little unfair.
    As for the hidden ENIGMATIST, how long before the unchecked squares are clued explicitly??!!!!

    1. And literally, or all-in-one clue: one in which every word in the clue is part of the wordplay, *and* the whole clue is the definition. In contrast to a conventional clue in which one (or a few) words act as the definition and we are not required to use that/those words in the wordplay.

    2. For unfamiliar words see the glossary, under “help” above …

41. Thank you William. As a former blogger on this site Id like to send particular appreciation.

42. I attempted this whilst watching the tortured riders on The Tour de France putting themselves through the wringer on climbs of The Alps. I felt equally tortured, if only mentally, trying to sort this out! After about an hour with no more than a dozen solved, I threw in the towel. Having read the blog and studied the construction of each answer, I can admit that I would never have finished this monster. Totally out of my league, but well done to anyone that made it unaided.

43. I didn’t get within 300 yards of solving 15d, but am very much here for the ANORA reference. Actual modern call-outs are exactly the kind of thing we need more of in The Times crossword.

    *runs for cover*

    1. Hear hear! (Any room for me under that cover?)

44. Thank you William for your splendid effort in unravelling this. It utterly defeated me and I found it quite unpleasant to be honest.

45. Recently we had WHAM; today we had OUCH. I felt quite pleased with myself after solving about half of this puzzle unaided, but then the difficulty level increased dramatically and I had to use cheats to finish in over 80 minutes. Heartfelt thanks to William and a full kow-tow to the fiendishly clever setter.

46. Surprised to get only one pink square after what seemed an interminable time (I have no idea what it actually was). I had absolutely no idea how many of the clues worked: well above my pay grade.The solution I had wrong was ‘Intermit’ instead of ‘Intermix’: I know that it doesn’t parse but entered it anyway as there were so many other parsings that eluded me.
    I know that it was a real stinker, but I’d forgive John Henderson almost anything as he’s such a great bloke.

47. A lot of unnecessary moaning on here. If you want a quick solve do the quick cryptic. The full one ranges in difficulty and this was obviously at the top end but it’s like that sometimes. Re the setter trying to be clever, isn’t that what all cryptics are like? They’re supposed to be tricky and complex by their nature.

48. Relieved to come here and see that many others found this as hard as I did. DNF by a long way.

    I won’t go into too many details of which clues beat me, but just out of interest: was I the only one who thought 21a was a reverse hidden giving PANETTONE? I get that it doesn’t work as there’s no containment indicator, but that’s the spelling I’m familiar with so I went with it (and it was one reason I then couldn’t get MICROCLIMATE despite seeing that it might include Lima).

    I also agree with Bazzock above about simply having ‘left’ as a reversal indicator for OLIVE DRAB – I can’t recall seeing it before and it feels very devious.

    Kudos to those who completed this one.

    COD Harmless

    1. Unlucky! The clue has “breads” – panettone is singular, panettoni is plural.

49. Got there in the end but needed too many aids to enumerate. I slogged doggedly on and lost track of time but it could have been two hours or so. Not enjoyable. Please no more of these in the daily cryptic. There are higher level puzzles for people who enjoy this level of challenge.

50. I hope I may be able to bridge the gap between the critics and the admirers of this type of crossword. An extremely contorted clue can baffle any one – kudos (of a kind) to the setter. But the clues one admires and remembers are, I suggest from my experience, the ones, once seen, where one is suddenly aware of an elegant simplicity in the thought behind the clue, and thinks ‘how could I not have seen that?’ Today’s crossword was, to say the least, not of this kind. It is, I suggest, part of a recent trend that risks depriving many of the enjoyment of the moment of insight.

    1. I’d agree. I remember the old days when The Times crossword was all ‘elegant simplicity’. That was the point of it ie it was a crossword that attracted all-comers, and given a few attempts, even novices would start to see the reasoning incorporated within it.
       I can see why some crosswords have to be more difficult than others, but today’s wasn’t elegant at all, and we seem to be heading off fully down the road of convolutedness. It would be a shame to diminish the enjoyment of the many for the sake of appeasing the boredom threshold of a tiny few.

       1. Good evening all (morning here).
          HEAR HEAR to the two comments above.
          There are ways to make puzzles both hard as U like and enjoyable. And also note the other positive comment that at least arcane GK was not also required for this particular puzzle.
          I think all parties (including this one) need to be careful not to lose sight of the light of day.

Comments are closed.