Times Cryptic 26396

55 comments on “Times Cryptic 26396”

1. Reasonably gentle, with not too many hold-ups. Dredged up AUBADE from somewhere but I didn’t know about the hoodie crow or that mush(ing) is a term for a dog and sled sporting event (it’s in Wikipedia) – I always thought it was just a command shouted at the dogs by the sled driver to make them go faster. OPTOMETRISTS was my favourite.

   Thanks to setter and blogger.

2. No cricket might be why I came in at 6 minutes again. Either that or the fact of doing the puzzles at midnight again, when my brain is comparatively awake! Not the most memorable crossword I thought – lots of things that could be very rapidly BIFD, but it’s nice to have some straightforward ones to lull us into a false sense of security in time for the monsters that are doubtless in store later in the week…

   Edited at 2016-04-26 12:46 am (UTC)

3. Reasonably gentle with LOI AUBADE giving trouble.

   I never know the difference between opticians,optologists, opthalmologists and 14ac OPTOMETRISTS – even though I gained new glasses just last week!Chambers DEFINES Optomerist as an ‘opthalmic optician’! but in my edition (1998) strangely does not define opthalmic! The compiler probably mislaid his glasses!?

   FOI 1ac METER then 2ac 9ac 10ac and 11ac – nice start.

   All in 30 mins COD 15 dn NEBULOUS for being the only anagram – well partially so. Thanks Jack for pointing that out.

   horryd Shanghai

   1. “Ophthalmic” is actually spelled with an extra H – you might have been looking in the wrong place in your dictionary?
4. 17-minute biff-fest, but a careless ‘stromghold’ punished my hubris in thinking I could fly close to the Sun.
5. My first under-10′ in ages, welcome after I bungled yesterday’s. Biffed several, although most of them I solved as I typed, but gave up on OUTPATIENT and OVERCROWD, so thanks Jack for explaining (didn’t know hoodie=CROW, and still don’t understand it). Like Bletchleyreject, I thought ‘Mush!’ was the command and nothing more. OPTOMETRISTS was nicely constructed, but ‘examiners of vision’ a little too helpful.
   1. SOED has:

      hoodie noun. L18.
      [ORIGIN from hood noun¹ + -ie.]

      1 A hooded crow. Also hoodie-crow. L18.

      Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooded_crow

      Edited at 2016-04-26 04:42 am (UTC)

      1. Meant to look it up; thanks.
6. Another easy one today.. not only no cricket but the setter resisted one or two opportunities to include it, eg “over” in overcrowd, “out” in outrange etc.
   So far as I know neither William the Silent nor William of Orange actually came from Orange.. but they owned it, so I guess it is their place, in that sense.
   Liked 24ac
   1. 11a “runs scored”?
      1. Clearly a baseball reference 🙂
7. 23mins, all very straightforward with OVERCROWD and OUT-PATIENT biffed.

   One of those little coincidences that happen far more often than they should: yesterday I hadn’t heard of Jerome KERN, until I learnt it here, then last night, listening to R4’s Soul Music (great series) on The Way You Look Tonight, there he was! The question is, if I’d heard the podcast first, would I have remembered his name…? And another question… will I remember it next time it appears…?

   1. It has always seemed a little unfair that whilst most people know of Rodgers & Hammerstein or Hart, George & Ira Gershwin, Lerner & Lowe (in the Saturday puzzle 16 April) and many other pairs of songwriters from the Golden Era, Kern often manages to be thought of as the sole composer of his songs, perhaps because he collaborated with so many different lyricists throughout his long career instead of just sticking with one or two. I imagine many who’ve heard of him would not know the name Dorothy Fields with whom he co-wrote”The Way You Look Tonight” along with “A Fine Romance”, “Pick Yourself Up” and more than 25 other songs. She also wrote another 400 songs, many of them standards and equally famous with other collaborators. As the leading woman songwriter of that time it’s remarkable that she’s not a household name like so many of the men. I wonder if she’ll ever turn up in a Times crossword.

      Edited at 2016-04-26 08:03 am (UTC)

      1. Thank you for mentioning Fields. Her output was astonishing. The Lyrics and Lyricists program at the 92nd St Y was run by a friend of mine for many years and the evening with DF was one of the most popular ever in a wildly successful series.
   2. If you’ve never seen Swing Time with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, then do look out for it. It has an extremely silly story line, but the best song (The Way You Look Tonight) and the best dance sequence (to Pick Yourself Up) of all the Astaire/Rogers movies.

      (I quite agree with jackkt and Olivia about Dorothy Fields: a wonderful librettist/lyricist.)

   3. Love that series 👍
8. 25 minutes after a fortnight’s break. Very gentle – a bit like
   AUBADE (one of my favourite Soft Machine tracks)
9. dnk AUBADE, and guessed wrongly, so a 27′ dnf. Is a hooded crow a hoodie? COD 9ac.
   1. Please see above, Rob, my posting timed at 05:39.
      1. Many thanks, have seen it now. Note to self: read all commenst before posting. Thanks again.
10. Quarter of an hour today which is super-charged for me. LOI AUBARD which I would have pronounced ORBARD. Am I wrong or has our esteemed blogger got an even broader accent than mine? I know that East London is always used to denote a dropped aitch but is there anywhere in the country where we don’t drop them?
    1. As the word’s of French origin I’d assume it’s pronounced O as “au” (to the) and “auberge” (inn). That’s the way I’ve always said it.
       1. I googled when in French AU is pronounced O and when AW. I’m not much the wiser but it is AW in au revoir or au gratin, I think. My French pronunciattion comes from 1961 JMB O level French!
          1. I’m of a similar vintage with my French O level but was taught in a southern school where everyone spoke received English. No one ever said “aw revoir” or “aw gratin”.
          2. It’s not exactly the same as an English O but the first sound in ‘aubade’ is the same as the first sound in ‘au revoir’ or ‘au gratin’. I’m not sure what the French equivalent of English AW would be: I don’t think it really exists.
11. A gentle puzzle which kept me occupied for 25 minutes. FOI METER, LOI AUBADE which made me think for a while, considering an AM?ODE and an AMBARD before the light bulb lit over my head. I suppose you could also consider it as A(RE)-U-BARD? Helped me anyway 🙂 Knew the hooded crow so 24ac didn’t trouble me. Biffed 5d without taking time to parse, so thanks to Jack for the explanation.
12. Way down on page 4, 13’6″, as at midday today. I have a habit of spelling RARITY with an E, no idea why, so the wordplay was important, if rather confusing. Isn’t RIT score(d)? Almost as if the setter was in mid-set when time was called, as either “Beam about runs: it’s an uncommon thing” or ” Beam about score: [it’s] an uncommon thing” would work just as well.
    And incidentally, for all of you searching for the missing cricket reference today, ah, there it is!
13. Slightly alarmed at how easy everyone found it. I struggled (and failed) to complete it inside thirty minutes. With seconds remaining I gave up on the unknown dawn poem and chucked in ASBADH.

    I’ll be ready for it next time. Thanks setter and Jack.

14. Re – Bolton Wanderer’s question there are areas in England where the H is not dropped – I think it’s rural v urban rather than north v south.

    Cheshire,Harrogate,Hampstead,Wimbledon,Suwwey,South Kensington and Solihull to name but a few.

    “In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen.”

    Some aspiring folks add an H where it is not required in order to sound a bit posher..

    ‘Hexcellent your Hexcellency!’ par example.

    ‘orryd Shanhgai

    1. Sounds more middle-class to working- class distinction rather than rural to urban from your examples, but my mother from a Lancashire village did aspirate better than my father from Bolton, so maybe you’re right.
15. Top half went in quickly but then slowed down – finally coming in at 18 mins. LOI was “figure”. No problem with “aubade” – am I imagining that it has appeared recently in the Cryptic , QC or Concise?
16. Rather oddly I didn’t solve one clue until I got to 12a, after which I quickly filled the NE, and it all flowed smoothly from there, taking me 24 minutes in all, though I confess to not understanding the wordplay to 2d. Thanks for the explanation in the blog.
    I’ve never thought of Caen as a port but I see it’s reachable by ferry from Portsmouth.
17. Nice puzzle around 35 minutes, so on the easy end of the spectrum for me. DNK OUBADE like many others, so had to use an aid to get that one even with the checkers. I also considered variants of BARD and even BILL before HARRIDAN fell into place and scotched those little thought experiments.
18. 29:27. Generally speaking I found this as easy as others but then the NEBULOUS/FIGURE/OVERCROWD crossers and LOI AUBADE held me up considerably. Facing my first defeat in three weekdays I was rather pleased at dragging out AUBADE given that I’d not heard it before and I was somewhat tempted by AMBODE with AM for dawn, ODE for poem and a rogue B. I must remember that persistence paid off today next time I’m faced with similar!
19. One second quicker – literally one second – and I could have posted a faster time than Magoo. But it’s never going to happen, never ever ever!
    1. Commiserations V! 🙁
    2. If it’s any consolation the leaderboard shows you above Magoo. I guess it’s chronological order for joint times?
20. Not quick, but at least. correct completion today after some recent careless errors.
21. 12:29 with a few problems in the NE, not least with my LOI aubade for which I toyed for a while with asbade.

    Not a lot to add really.

22. Much slower that yesterday but a completion Yipee, had to resort to aids for a number. DNK AUBADE. Needed the blog to explain a few, I put in ADIEU thinking well I wouldn’t call a UAE western but you never know in crossword land so thanks jackkt for putting me straight there and more I could mention. Like a few more found the SE corner was the stickiest
23. Quarter of an hour today which is super-charged for me. LOI AUBARD which I would have pronounced ORBARD. Am I wrong or has our esteemed blogger got an even broader accent than mine? I know that East London is always used to denote a dropped aitch but is there anywhere in the country where we don’t drop them?
24. T’ left alf went in reet easy. But ad problems in t’ South East until ah’d got t’ long un at 17a. But aubade ain’t a proper word if thy ask us. So one clue out as I put in ambode. I’d better glottal stop now.
25. Hi all. About 15 minutes, ending with OVERCROWD despite thinking a hoodie is only a sweatshirt. The crow wasn’t within my GK but the answer was clear from the checking letters. For those mildly interested, the dogsled race (mushing) is a well known and popular thing in Alaska, and probably in parts of Canada too. If you’re interested google the long distance Iditarod race held every year, although hampered lately by lack of snow. Regards.
26. The memory pills are working then.
    1. I have done that before. I’m not sure exactly how but it involved an error message that included words along the lines of ‘are you sure you want to repost this form?’ Fortunately I was able to delete the duplicate comment before some smart Alec came along and replied to it. 😉
27. 8m. No problems today. I would have known AUBADE from Philip Larkin if I hadn’t known it from speaking French.
28. A pleasant stroll. My old job gave me OPHTHALMIC and the mathematician in me liked SQUARE THE CIRCLE. Thanks setter and blogger.
29. Thank you Anonymous for correcting my woeful spelling of

    OPHTHALMIC and apologies to Chambers for doubting you.

    horryd Shanghai

30. Two and three-quarter hours for me. However, to be fair, about thirty minutes of that were spent fiddling with the central heating boiler; another thirty minutes were spent dismantling the filter on the oil line; then a further 45 minutes spent mopping up heating oil and changing into something less flammable; and finally an unknown period of time spent kicking the aforementioned boiler and futilely pressing and re-pressing the “start” button. Thank goodness it’s not unusually cold weather for the end of April or anything like that.

    The puzzle itself was quite straightforward and tractable by comparison. I almost stumbled at 7d but the checkers and a very vague and faded memory of AUBADE’s having appeared here before got me through.

31. 15 mins with the POTASH/HOT-HEADED crossers my last ones in. Count me as another who couldn’t parse OVERCROWD because I’d either forgotten or didn’t know the “hoodie” variant of “hooded” for the crow. I also idiotically entered “aubard” which stopped me seeing HARRIDAN for a while.
32. Invented Asbade (in the vague hope it rhymed with bard) to deal with the unknown 7d. Seems I’m the only person around here who did not understand Square = Bribe (one of those where the answer is clear enough but you are left scratching your head…) Clearly one to tuck away for future reference

    Thanks to setter and to Jack.

33. First puzzle for a while and came home in 22m. No problems though I did start slowly with AUBADE my FOI. I hadn’t noticed the absence of anagrams which makes my time even more surprising as I rely on them to get going.
34. Just over 41 minutes, and I’m pleased by anything under an hour. LOI was HARRIDAN, which I made up, of course — very surprised to see it actually exists. And that didn’t fall into place until I corrected AUBARD to AUBADE (fits the “verbally” better anyway). Yet I knew aubade from a Brassens love song containing the lovely lyrics “J’ai graissé la patte au berger, pour lui faire jouer une aubade” (I bribed the shepherd to have him play an aubade), a song quite in the tradition of all those eighteenth century French pastoral paintings. In the song, the e in aubade is pronounced to maintain the metre of the verse, so I must have known it’s there.

    Edited at 2016-04-26 10:24 pm (UTC)

35. Oh dear! (O dieu!?) 13:57 for me, a good half of it spent on 4dn where I had a complete mental block – not helped by being unsure whether CAEN was actually a port.
    1. Tony, you’re not alone with your Caen consternation. The Portsmouth ferry does indeed specify Carn as its destination but actually docks in Ouesterham. There is a canal connecting the two (crossed by Pegasus Bridge of D Day fame, but that’s another story) but nothing larger than a sturdy barge passes along it these days.
       Notwithstanding my reservations, I still put it in as LOI for a pleasing 14min finish.
       GeoffH

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