Times Cryptic 25751 Mystifying for Apes or a distinct feeling of déjà vu.

Last time I was here in the hot seat, Rev John Galbraith Graham, of blessed memory, appeared under his pen-name in a crossword that mirrored, to a degree, his looser and affable style, And lo! Two weeks to the day, here he is again, this time promoted to the very top of the grid from one line down. So no complaining about an obscure tree name this time, it’s definitely been here within living memory and only this of us with short term memory issues can have any kind of excuse. There is an obscure Burmese tribe to have a go at, but fortunately only as a bit of wordplay in a much more familiar river. There’s also a Victorian artist to drag from memory and/or make up from the wordplay. I can tell you he’s no J M W Turner or John Everett Millais, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen his stuff, possibly on Christmas cards, or on countless “I don’t know much about art but I know what I like” drawing room walls.
I completed this thing in 18′ 19″, only 1.36 Gilhams, and I might have been even closer had I spelled the Mexican food with the right letter at the end making 27ac easy. Here’s how it all works

Across

1   ARAUCARIA  The monkey puzzle tree when it isn’t being Rev John. The weird mix of plants – carap is a sort of mahogany –
     unlikely to be seen together on any sane planet, signals that they are just there for the letters, in this case the middle
     triplets, which helpfully need no rearranging.
6   SCUFF  S(on) + CUFF gives you “scrape”. Expect to see this one soon in the Quickie
9   RADAR  Equipment is the rather generic definition. RADA is the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (that genus of players).to
     which you add R(ight)
10 TOSCANINI  The Times has a relatively small pantheon of conductors, and this one appears when the setter needs 9
     letters ending I TOSCA the Puccini opera, IN for “popular” wrapped in, N(orthern) I(reland)
11 A MONTH OF SUNDAYS The proverbial unconscionably long period of time. I could’t read this as anything other than a
     cryptic definition
13 GRIMSHAW  John Atkinson of that ilk. If you run the name through a thesaurus, you might be lucky enough to get “black
     wood” from the two syllables. His pictures, all 200 of them, look like this:
November-Afternoon,-Stapleton-Park
14 ANGOLA The country. Place A LOG reversed after A N(ew)
16 NAUTCH Possibly an unfamiliar word to some, it just means “dance” in several North Indian languages, Wiki says, rather
     coyly “the Nautch girls performed Nautches for the pleasure of men.” Derive it from NUT – “fanatic” holding A and
    followed by the full range of taps, i.e. Hot and Cold. What, no mixer?
18 DICTATOR  I did not know the extraordinary Roman magistrate (verbatim from Chambers) definition, but the wordplay
    reverses ROT AT CID
21 POLITICAL ASYLUM  is precisely protection from harmful state, and CAPITALISM YOU’LL provides the necessary anagram
    fodder signalled by he need to reform.
23 APPALLING  “Very bad” given by P(age) ALL (entirely) wrapped in APING (copying)
25 AVAIL  On line, this clue has a tag after it, viz – bit fairer I think (5), which I would suggest is an undeleted comment from
    our esteemed editor: you see he does care about our well-being! The actual clue has “benefit” as the one-word
    definition,derived from TRAVAIL (labour) without T(ons) and R(ight)
26 KNOWN  A soundalike clue, slightly flawed, I think, as the 3 o’clock (ninth hour) church service is NONES and the S is not
     silent. Am I missing something?
27 MANDATORY  “Essential” is the adequate definition. Enclose DAT (shortened date) and O(ther) R(anks) “men” in MANY “lots”

Down

1   ATRIA   An atrium, of which this is the plural, is the central courtyard in a Roman house. A TRIAL is “terminated” with early
     implicit
2   AUDIOVISUAL  A rather gimme anagram, both in the odd looking fodder, I AVOID USUAL and the indicator “arrangement”
3   CARITAS  is one of the three Christian virtues, in Latin fides, spes, caritas, faith, hope and charity, more commonly
     translated these days as “love”. A shortened legal action, CAS(e) encloses the lovely RITA, meter maid
4   RATIONAL  Defined as “clearly thinking.”Of a whole age group” gives GENERATIONAL, remove the GEN (info – a neat
     abbreviation to match GENeral Information) and the E(cstasy)
5   ASSIST  Spot the Roman numerals in CLASSICIST and remove all but one of the I’s. Try not to remember that, in medieval
     Roman, S was 7 or 70, A was 50 or 500, and T was 160, or you won’t have anything to go into the grid.
6   SHANNON. The Shan are indigenous to adjacent parts of Burma, China, Laos and Thailand. If I knew this, I had forgotten,
     but I know the River Shannon well enough so the guess is a fairly confident one, given the NO N(ame) ending and the
     crossing letters. “River” must be separated from “people” before solving. Burma is currently Myanmar. It’ll never catch on.
7   UNI  The familiar abbreviation for a place of academic study, and the Student UNION without ON for “working”
8   FAIR’S FAIR   “Just” twice as given, with S(erve) in between. “Play the game as a parallel admonition. I say old chap.
12 AMONTILLADO  for those who like their sherry dry-ish. Slot the pieces together as given: AM ON (working, again) TILL
     (up to) A DO (party)
13 GANGPLANK  The Royal Yacht Britannia is currently parked in Edinburgh, so the clue has a certain appositeness. GANG is
     Scottish for go or proceed, scheme gives PLAN and add the K(ing) for the means of access
15 MILLIGAN  “I told you I was ill” Spike, original Goon. L(ogistics) in an anagram of MAILING
17 CATALAN Genitive of Catalonia formed from CAT(amaran) and our fellow, ALAN
19 TOSTADA  Why I originally put TOSTADO I can’t imagine. TOSA is the dog, TAD “a little”, the whole a Mexican word for
     toast, available in kit form from your local supermarket .
20 SCHISM  Hows your geology? SCHIST is the rock, knock off the T and replace it with M(ountain) for “rift” Most often in use
     to describe Church splits.when fides, spes, et caritas go out of the window
22 MOLLY  both the Malone who wheeled her wheelbarrow through Dublin selling seafood alive-o and a tropical fish
24 PRO  Take the M(inutes) away from a PROM(enade concert)

71 comments on “Times Cryptic 25751 Mystifying for Apes or a distinct feeling of déjà vu.”

  1. Held up mostly in the SE and by a fair chunk of unkowns: like the dog. Thought it might be MASTIFF … and it turned out that the right one was related. Also didn’t know the painter, the dance or the magistrate.

    COD to SCHISM, a word first used by Wyclif in the absence of a suitable English equivalent.

    On edit: just found the ODO has “none (also nones)”.

    Edited at 2014-04-03 02:49 am (UTC)

  2. Lots of stuff I didn’t know today but that didn’t slow me down as much as misreading 21 as (9,5), crossing out three l’s for POLITICAL and then trying to make a word out of UASYM. I estimate that this added at least one minute to my time, taking me up to 38 minutes. Last in GRIMSHAW (I’m not going to Google him and find that he wasn’t born in Yorkshire) and TOSTADA – not being familiar with genetically-modified Japanese Golden Retrievers.
    1. Born in Leeds, 1836. Life were ‘ard. ‘E ‘ad to live in shoebox in middle of road…but ‘e were ‘appy.

      Edited at 2014-04-03 06:50 am (UTC)

  3. Thought 21a was brilliant.

    In 19d, anyone else bothered by “tad” being clued by “a little” rather than just “little”? No? Didn’t think so.

    1. Re 19D – me too. In fact I was so confident that “a little” must mean A L that I spent several minutes puzzling over how I was going to get some Mexican food out of T_S_ALA.
    2. Put me down as annoyed too. The dog’s obviously fairly obscure, and we weren’t dealing with tacos. The very least the setter (pun intended) could do was keep the clue tidy, I would have thought.

      The great irony in this puzzle, surely, was 26ac!

  4. Crept in just under the hour but used aids a couple of times towards the end to get past a pair of unknowns.

    There was far too much obscure GK in this one for my taste and one or two rather loose clues, so in all this was not as enjoyable experience.

    The definition of RADAR simply as “equipment” I feel is not fit for purpose, particularly as the last checker is supplied by an obscure word at 3dn.

    I never heard of the minor artist at 13ac. I got GRIM from wordplay and guessed SHAW as the most likely fit, though having checked later I remember meeting it as a wood or thicket in a puzzle not that long ago.

    NAUTCH was completely unknown as was DICTATOR as ‘magistrate’. 25ac was hampered by what I take to be an error in the production process by which the clue appeared as “Labour giving out tons and right benefit (5) – bit fairer I think (5)”. This meant I needed all the checkers before I could be sure what was going on with it. There are far too many errors appearing in Times puzzles these days – and once again the link to the Quickie was broken with an incorrect url early this morning, though it has since been corrected. And whilst on the subject of Times inefficiency, I am still unable to check what’s in the facsimile version because at nearly 7:30 AM it still hadn’t rolled over from Wednesday’s edition. People have paid good money to read the paper in that format on their way to work and they are not receiving the service they signed up to.

    “Nones”, and now its alternative NONE, are words I have only ever met in crossword puzzles and I had always assumed they would be pronounced “non-ay(s)” as I would say the Latin from which they are derived, so it came as something of a revelation to discover they are apparently pronounced to rhyme with “known” as confirmed by my SOED application.

    As referred to above, I didn’t know CARITAS at 3dn. SHAN at 6dn and “schist” in the wordplay at 20dn were also unknowns. And at 19dn I knew neither dog nor Mexican dish.

    By coincidence MILLIGAN appeared in near-as-dammit the same place in the grid of the ST puzzle on 9th March – a comedian I could never stand at any price.

    Feeling grumpy and wondering what’s in store for my blog tomorrow.

    Edited at 2014-04-03 06:28 am (UTC)

    1. Jack,
      I learned many things from the puzzle and the blog today. And also, now, that there’s a person who didn’t like Spike!
        1. “Why do people take an instant dislike to me?” Spike Milligan: “It saves time.”
        1. Priests are beasts
          They do it then, at 3PM
          But nuns do nones at nine

          Hope (Anon 86.132.108.216) that you’re not suffering from the smog.

          Edited at 2014-04-03 07:45 am (UTC)

          1. ‘Tis the pigeons
            That alight
            On Nelson’s hat
            That make it white.

            Milligan was a lot funnier than Ricky Gervais will ever be IMO.

    2. Appears in my printed edition with the “- bit fairer I think” tag but without the extra (5). I wonder if the rise in such oversights is because our tyro editor makes his comments electronically? I can only see his predecessors making their comments in elegant fountain pen script, after they were allowed to give up quills, that is.
      I wonder what the bit unfairer clue looked like?

      Edited at 2014-04-03 07:42 am (UTC)

  5. 30m, but having misread 21A as (6,9) decided it must be the latin phrase previously unknown to me, POLITY CALASILUM. D’oh!
  6. For the first time in over a week, dnf (not helped by putting “slump” in for 6a), so didn’t get 4 clues in all. Not happy.
    Lots of obscure gk, some of which I got, others not. Didn’t know Grimshaw by name, but certainly a very atmospheric painter that I’ll look out for in future.
    I can see why people don’t like Spike Milligan, but to me he was one of the 3 great geniuses of the 2nd half of the 20th Century who radically changed the direction of comedy in this country (Cook & Cleese since you ask).
    But there again, I can’t appreciate Wodehouse (and God knows I’ve tried often enough)- he’s tiresome in the extreme.
    1. I’m with you re Spike and years ago laughed aloud at ‘Puckoon’ as I only ever did with Tom Sharpe’s early novels about South Africa.
  7. Thought this was very bitty, with half a dozen words I didn’t know – not itself a barrier to completion, though somewhat over the average daily ration. The definition for DICTATOR seemed to be trying a bit too hard.
  8. Four of John Grimshaw’s children, Arthur, Louis H, Wilfred and Elaine all made it as painters, though it has to be said that their output looks remarkably as if Grimshaw pére was prepared to help them out with their art college homework. These also qualify as Victorian painters. What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom? Another yet?

  9. All finished, but in lamentable time, mostly due to the unknowns (GRIMSHAW, CARITAS, SHAN, SCHIST, NAUTCH) or the only-vaguely-familiars (TOSA, none=service MOLLY=fish). Not a terribly satisfying solve.
  10. I don’y have anything new to add to the general air of dislike for this puzzle. Jack and Keriothe have summed it up very well.

    A little obscurity is fine. A little looseness is forgivable. If I were Crossword Editor I would have simply rejected this offering outright.

    1. I agree, Jim. With a late start and done in doc’s waiting room without access to Wi
      ki, didn’t know NUATCH or CARITAS so a DNF in 20 minutes.
  11. 27:09 .. the Germans probably have a word for the special sort of pleasure derived from finishing something which you wouldn’t necessarily have started had you known what it was going to be like but which, once done, leaves you pleased that you did. That was this. Maybe you had to be in the right mood.

    COD .. POLITICAL ASYLUM

    Edited at 2014-04-03 09:15 am (UTC)

      1. Splendid! I ran it through Google’s translation engine and got:

        Unexpected difficulty Finally finished joy

        I’ve never really got to grips with German but still derive great pleasure from it.

        I keep a list of favourite German words, of which Schlimmbesserung is, and will likely always be, top. But I shall add your coinage with an asterisk.

  12. It seems funny in itself that those who didn’t find Spike Milligan funny manage somehow to imply that that means there was something wrong with him. I suppose nobody will find every comedian funny, but it could hardly be denied that he was one of the great ones.

  13. Incidentally even I, as forgiving of setters’ quirks as anyone, felt that this crossword overstepped the boundaries in a couple of places. No problem with caritas, and none(s) is fairly regularly seen. I’m OK also with molly & tosa, but putting so many rarities in one grid seems excessive. And defining radar as “Equipment” is just doing without a definition altogether. And I will accept the likes of Grimshaw only when second-rate scientists and engineers start appearing with equal regularity.
  14. 24m. I thought this was an absolutely dreadful puzzle. None of it is very difficult if you happen to know the ridiculous obscurities, but there are far too many of them. Too many to list, in fact, but GRIMSHAW gets a special mention for awfulness: an obscure painter clued with an obscure word. I’ve been doing these things just long enough to be able to struggle my way through but it wasn’t much fun.
    I didn’t help myself by bunging in PAGANINNI in 10ac. My wordplay was PAG (opera – appropriately obscure for this setter), IN (popular), IN (in), NI (Northern Ireland). So my answer managed to ignore the fact that:
    > Paganini only has one N
    > He wasn’t a conductor
    > The answer I put in the grid doesn’t even fit my invented wordplay
    All in all quite impressively wrong, I thought.
    1. I know I have a malicious streak, but what fun it would have been to see what Jimbo would have made of this as his April Fools’ puzzle. I’m not shaw (sorry, sure) if steam can emanate from a computer screen (anyone written an algorithm for that yet?), but…

      Me, I rather liked the puzzle.

      1. I was lucky in that Tuesday’s puzzle was right down the middle of the road. Indeed on an ordinary day it would have been difficult to say very much of interest.

        Today’s is a rare poor Times offering that borders on the unfair and I would have felt obliged, as z8 has done very well, to include a lot of explanation and that would have detracted from the fun.

        My thanks by the way for all the kind comments (both on and off blog)

        1. I forgot to express my appreciation of your magnum opus on Tuesday, jimbo. I had intended to say that you were alarmingly good at it. If we were at war, you’d be signed up to some secret department of disinformation like a shot (that’s a compliment!).
          1. Don’t forget z8b8d8k (who has the advantage of already sounding like a department), who, after his effortless bit of inferencing today, would be a shoo-in for counter inlelligence.
              1. Oh, I don’t think they worry about little things like that. You don’t have to be one of us to be ‘one of us’, y’know.

                Edited at 2014-04-03 10:12 am (UTC)

                1. Sotira, you’ll love this which was sent to me off-blog and which I have permission to put into the public domain without revealing the identity of the sender:

                  Jimbo you b******d! You’ve nearly caused my wife to divorce me.

                  Its many years since I was caught by an April Fool and I completed the puzzle and read the blog in the smug security of being too wise to be tricked. I saw through Avril, The Red Arrows and laughed at the Pope.

                  However science is a major weakness for me and your blogs often contain little snippets of scientific facts. So, as both my wife and I love a barbeque and she eats only Flora, I asked her about Flora P-Oil. She had never heard of it but suggested we look in our supermarket during the shop we were about to undertake. Needless to say, no Oil so we went to Customer Services where they looked it up on their database.

                  No, they didn’t stock it but as luck would have it the Regional Buyer was in the shop – would we like to meet him. Well, why not. So they made us comfortable, gave us a complimentary coffee, and after about 10 minutes the buyer came to see us.
                  We told him about Flora P-Oil and he smiled.

                  Do you do the Times Crossword he asked! Yes, I said. Interesting blog today, he said, I expect you read it. Yes, I said beginning to feel the world closing in on me. Ah! He said – perhaps you didn’t notice that Flora P-Oil is an anagram or that dihydrogen monoxide – HOH – is water? My wife is still not speaking to me and I’m even now sticking pins into your effigy

                  Poor guy: really, who would have thought it possible!

                  1. That’s just priceless! Well done all round. I wish I could feel smug but I too failed to spot the Flora P-Oil or the dihydrogen monoxide. Thank heavens I don’t currently own a barbecue. I do hope Mr and Mrs Anon have reached the point of laughing about it. Thank you for sharing!
        2. I’d like to echo Sotira’s sentiments (it was too late to send my congratulations last night).
          Absolutely excellent blog (not taken in for a minute of course) but admired greatly the impeccable ingenuity.
  15. For about a week now, I have found that when I when I open this site I am being diverted elsewhere to rather ‘dodgy’ looking sites. I am not experiencing this with any other sites.

    I suspect that this is because of a virus on my computer and I am arranging for it to be resolved. Nevertheless, it would be helpful to know if anyone has has the same problem.

    Thanks
    Cozzielex

    1. Cozzielex – yes, I am having the same problem. It is diverting to online game websites which aren’t dangerous, but the diversion is indeed annoying. I’m blaming LJ.
      1. Thanks a lot for your reply Andy. yes, they seem to be games sites, but I immediately close them in the faint hope that they won’t infect my computer.
      2. Me too. Had it a month or two ago, but about the time I was going to ask the group if I was alone, it went away.
    2. I’ve had it happen on the iPad. I believe these are legitimate sites linked to banner ads at the top of the LJ page. If you’re using a tablet, you may be inadvertently touching the link to the ad (which has an oversize active area) before the ad itself loads and becomes visible. If you’re on a PC or Mac, there are plenty of browser extensions you can install to prevent ads loading at all, which definitely resolves the problem.
      1. Having gone to walk the dog the other day and leaving the blog open on my mac, I was mystified upon my return to find the gaming site had appeared as a new window. I eventually realised it was linked to an ad on the LJ page (having panicked about viruses etc), but how did it manage to open in my absence? It has appeared a couple of times since, but probably because I inadvertently clicked on the ad. I don’t think it’s dangerous, just annoying.
    3. Thank you all for responding, I now have the peace of mind of knowing it’s not a virus problem on my computer.

      I was a bit sensitive to this as a few months ago I had a diversion problem and it WAS a virus.

      Anyway thanks a lot.
      cozzielex

  16. About 16 mins for all bar 13ac, but I was so annoyed with the puzzle by then that I resorted to aids to find the previously unknown (to me) GRIMSHAW, which then showed me how the wordplay worked, so a techincal DNF. I particularly disliked the “definition” for RADAR and the clue for CARITAS, which was an obscure enough answer (again, to me) that it could have been “caruths” from the wordplay, although I did go for the correct one.

    As far as the extraneous “bit fairer I think” appearing at the end of the clue for 25ac in the paper, this is the second time that something like this has happened recently. When you add this to some incorrect grids/clues over the same period I think it is fair to say that our new editor hasn’t got off to the best of starts.

  17. I rarely find fault with a puzzle, but today’s wasn’t to my liking. Most of it went in easily enough between Preston and Warrington but the undeleted editor’s comment, those obscure answers and the memory of yesterday’s questionable clue, made wonder if there were other mistakes. I took it up on and off for the rest of the journey and still hadn’t discovered painter on reaching Euston.
  18. I thought this hard but fair, and am surprised at some of the criticisms made by several venerable solvers. OK there were a few obscurities, but with a following wind I got there in 32 mins with no errors, even though I was keeping my fingers crossed for nautch, caritas, tostatda Grimshaw and known (still don’t really get this).
  19. 21.30 and I agree with tringmardo and ulaca about this offering. A few obscurities (fine) and a couple of loose bits (forgiven) but lots to enjoy. Never heard of him, but the wordplay for Grimshaw couldn’t be clearer – synonyms for black and wood – and shaw is a crossword staple for wood. Not sure I would have alighted on grim very quickly, but then what are checkers for?
  20. Managed this eventually having to guess too many answers and look them up post-solve. Agree with everything that’s already been said. I did wonder what ‘bit fairer I think’ was doing after the clue at 25, so thanks for the explanation!

    Edited at 2014-04-03 11:58 am (UTC)

  21. Well that one stretched the ability to remember really odd words like NAUTCH which lurk at the back of the brain somewhere. 14:04 – with Tippex as I too had the same Paganini problem as Keriothe
  22. I thought this was going to be a relatively short solve with old chestnuts like the clue to the conductor, but I got bogged down in the SE corner (that double definition for 25 didn’t help) and limped home in 40 minutes.
    I can see why some are grumpy about this, but I’m familiar with NAUTCH and CARITAS, and I guessed GRIMSHAW early on, so wasn’t troubled by those; but I agree with the complaints about the vague definition for RADAR. I’m also not convinced that 1a works since there are three hearts; I suppose it can be read as the heart of each one in turn, but I’m not mad about it.
    On a positive note I liked the anagram at 21.
  23. I didn’t dislike it but there was no way I was getting GRIMSHAW so a big fail. The Japanese dog is a staple of US style crosswords so no problem there
  24. Gave up after an hour with a blank at 13ac. Never heard of Grimshaw and didn’t know that use of the word shaw. The rest went in fine. Difficult puzzle and not much fun really.

    Almost didn’t get 6d because I thought they were called the Tai-shan, never heard them called Shan. Also almost didn’t get 16ac because I simply couldn’t believe that this most Indian of words is in the English dictionary. The spelling is also puzzling, it is pronounced natch with no hint of the u.

    Nairobi Wallah

  25. Add my voice to critical cruciverbalist chorus – DNF after 45m with the Mexican food and the painter unknown and for me both clued in such unhelpful terms as to make them ungettable. I did like the reference to Spike and special thanks to Jimbo for his most amusing story! I also appreciated the detailed blog – most necessary today.
  26. The grumbles seem fair. GRIMSHAW had me searching for Victorian painters called Algernon, I suppose that spending much of my early life in Yorkshire I should have heard of the wretched GRIMSHAW, but I hadn’t, happen. Also had never heard of a tosa, and looking it up, don’t particularly want to. “Oi, mate-san, you lookin’ at my geisha?”

    Memories of the Raj really fading fast if NAUTCH is thought to be “obscure” GK.

    Put this down and wearily took it up too many times to count a timing. Some extraneous junk in the clueing of 25ac. To have one cock-up (down clues a few days ago) is unfortunate, to have two within two days looks like carelessness. Time to have look at the nuts and bolts? Mind you, after yesterday’s scientifically illiterate front page headline, not quite sure what to expect in The Times anymore. It’s not only the Crossword Editor who needs to get a grip.

  27. Same problems as others with the loose definitions and unknown unknowns; plus my usual gripe against slangy half made-up words like UNI, even if it is in the dictionary.
  28. An unexpected need to commute (first time in 14 months) meant that I have no time but I did it on the return home from Paddington, finishing by Taplow with Slough and Burnham stops so must be at around the 30mins. It all went in and I have no real objections to anything. Nice to see the greatest setter of all being promoted to 1ac. Also nice to do it on paper for a change.
  29. I labored (or laboured) for about 45 minutes before resorting to aids for Mr. Grimshaw. Never heard of him, and, while I did think of ‘shaw’ and ‘haw’ alone (or ‘may’ or ‘oak’) as possible endings, I wasn’t going to get it. So a technical DNF. CARITAS came from the recesses of memory, and that definition for DICTATOR, while apparently accurate, is strained, I think. On the other hand, POLITICAL ASYLUM is very good. Regards.

    Edited at 2014-04-03 06:05 pm (UTC)

  30. Those of us mad enough to watch the Top Gear Burma special should have got this right away. I only remembered after guessing it.
    I agree with most of the pejorative comments about this offering – a poor apology for a Times crossword. I also must confess to being a Spike fan. Hitler, my part in hus downfall is also a classic.

    Edited at 2014-04-03 10:18 pm (UTC)

  31. 17:41 for me. I’m with tringmardo and malcj on this one. I didn’t know the Burmese people at 6dn or the fish at 22dn, and I was worried that I was imagining the magistrate at 18ac, but I’m certainly not going to damn a perfectly decent Times crossword because of my ignorance!

    Admittedly I have an advantage with Atkinson Grimshaw as I’d been to the exhibition “Atkinson Grimshaw: Painter of Moonlight” at the Guildhall Art Gallery a couple of years ago; and I was born in Scarborough, which appears in many of his paintings, and where he rented a second home.

    My compliments to the setter for an interesting and enjoyable puzzle. I sincerely hope the editor will continue to allow similar crosswords in future.

  32. Is there a crossword compiler theme in this puzzle? Araucaria is obvious and John Grimshaw is one of the Times compilers…….
  33. Finished eventually, correctly and unaided, but some solutions went in with crossed fingers (the same solutions that many others have mentioned).
    I emailed The Times about the fiasco on 1April, and included other gripes I have about the cavalier way in which the crossword enthusiast buyers of the paper are treated. Predictably, no response.

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