Times Cryptic 26810

61 comments on “Times Cryptic 26810”

1. Didn’t even notice the error at PARALYSE; just as well for me. I didn’t know PAP either, but it seemed safe to biff here. Ditto for KNOT; I knew of the bird, didn’t know they were waders, and don’t know what a reef not is, but wotthehell. LAAGER my LOI, and COD. Jack, you’ve got a typo at 17d: the IN of ‘Edinburgh’ should be in all caps and outside the braces.
   1. Thank you.
2. Couldn’t work out what was going on with PARALYSE, but I’m sure Jack’s right that it was meant to be “as”.

   DNK the meaning of LAAGER, but the wordplay was helpful. And I didn’t know the rock or the lake in Hyde Park. To me the Serpentine was the channel that separated the island I grew up on from the neighbouring island. Whatevs, it fitted the checkers.

   I’l give COD to BOT, and predict that Horryd’s WOD will be ISTHMUS. And why not.

   Thanks setter and Jack.

3. …so much so, that I didn’t even notice the typo in the clue for PARALYSE. LAAGER was also my LOI, and I didn’t know that def. before. Penultimate one in was SERPENTINE, as neither part of the DD immediately surfaced. I didn’t know that “peelers” are cops over there, so only now do I really appreciate that one! (P.S. Only when looking up “peelers” does it come back to me that I’ve seen this before, and no doubt it was here.)

   Edited at 2017-08-22 05:01 am (UTC)

4. About 30 mins for me, with a blank at LAAGER. Had considered it, but discounted it as it looked like a non-word. Tried to convince myself that parilyse (sic) was a thing until MAIN went in. SBIRRI looked like a word made up to fit the anagram. Glad to find it’s not. Thanks, Jack.

5. … DNF. Might have got 15ac if (as it should be) Dutch South African were not one of the many languages we borrow from.

   Going to stick with The Other puzzle until we get a decent print version from Rupert & Co.

6. 12:16 … very easy apart from the bits that weren’t. Luckily, I didn’t notice the PARALYSE problem – occasionally biffing pays off.

   Last in DISORDERLY (where I was looking for an anagram) and LAAGER

7. A more prosaic puzzle than yesterday’s witty offering, and a typo to boot as noted above which was not noted here. DISORDERLY was my last in too, as with Sotira, arguably the nearest thing to an instance of wit which confused by not being a prosaic anagram.
   PAPA was nearly my last, as I wasn’t certain the prurient photography wasn’t spelt with two Ps.
   Today I added to my long list of Mexican painters, now extended to one. Or is rivera Mexican Spanish for rope?

   Edited at 2017-08-22 06:58 am (UTC)

8. A DNF here. At 45 minutes I had all bar 15a done. As janie_l_b, I considered and discounted LAAGER (about fifteen times!) and finally came here to find out what the real answer was. I suppose what I should have done was written it in and hoped for the best, but perhaps my confidence has been shaken by my recent run of DNFs…

   Thanks to setter and jackkt.

9. 25 mins with overnight oats (and pecans). Maybe something more buttery tomorrow. BUT still pondering 15ac and paralysed by parsing 16ac. Another 8 mins to pick ‘Regal’ and eventually ignore the typo. Lots of easy clues – and some others. Thanks setter and Jack.
10. About 5 minutes for all but the NE, and then a long time wrestling with that, especially as I just wasn’t going to put in PARALYSE which was clearly wrong unless there was no other choice. A long way off the wavelength for this one in general, loads of things going in with “well, I gueeeeess that probably works?”
11. A bit of a curate’s egg of a puzzle. Overall easy, sometimes very easy, but with nuggets of difficulty. 16A held me up for a while as I couldn’t make the anagram work. Eventually, like others above, I assumed a typo must be responsible. Perhaps the setter’s intention was that suggested by Jack. Alternatively “Freeze as player is injured” (with “is injured” being the anagrind) would also have worked quite well.

    At 15A I do not quite see how a LAAGER — a Boer term for a defensive encampment formed by a circle of wagons – can be accurately defined as an “entrenched viewpoint” . An “entrenched position”, yes. Perhaps the setter was thinking of figurative uses of the term in such phrases as a “mental laager”?

    1. Figurative is exactly right according to SOED:

       fig. an entrenched policy, viewpoint, etc., under attack from opponents.

       1. I’m glad LAAGER came up in a puzzle within the last couple of years, and the wordplay was straightforward, as I’d never have thought of it from definition.
       2. Thanks, Jack. Interesting. For once the SOED has a definition not included — in my edition at least — in that setter’s Bible, Collins. Nor, for what it’s worth, does the figurative sense appear to be in The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (a micro-printed two-volume version of the full 12-volume dictionary which is only legible with a magnifying glass!). Admittedly, my edition of those tomes is now more than 40 years old. But my 1990 edition of Chambers English Dictionary offers “a defensive group of people drawn together by a similarity of opinion, etc.”, which is on the same lines as the SOED’s def.
12. 12:08, with several minutes at the end stuck on 15ac. I considered the possibility of a reversal of REGAL around A, but quickly concluded that this would require two As together, which couldn’t possibly be right. It was only after considering almost every other possibility that I came back to the wordplay and a big doh! moment ensued. I knew the word LAAGER existed and was unburdened by any precise sense of what it might mean (I think I’d have said ‘some sort of military place thingy’) so didn’t hesitate once I had seen it.
    The anagram in 3dn is rather obvious but it’s still neat.
13. For the most part this felt like a stretched Quickie, with lots of straightforward definitions in plain sight . I have heard the phrase ‘ laager mentality’ so that came easily enough and just assumed Rivera had to be a Mexican painter. KNOT not a problem either.
    The timer said 26 minutes but that included two interruptions lasting several minutes and time at the end wondering what was going on with PARALYSE. Overall a bit underwhelming.
14. No official time as I had a typo. This was my first solve back on the commute following a sailing holiday, and duly KNOT from reef knot was my FOI. I struggled with the NE corner given that PARALYSE didn’t work properly but also because I wanted 8D to be an anagram of ‘soldier in a’. If that was intended misdirection on the part of the setter then it certainly had me.
15. I rather thought of LAAGER as a a noun meaning something like ‘reactionary, hidebound but a bit more extreme’. PARALYSE LOI. Won’t see many 14d s in this country now, long ago replaced by ‘chalkboard’, then whiteboard, then interactive whiteboard….a pity. COD to DISORDERLY for the confusion it caused looking for an anagram. 20′, thanks jack and setter.
16. 28 minutes with the letters of ‘player is’ uncrossed in the blank space under the clues. In the end I decided it had to be PARALYSE. All other problems in NE too, with COMPANY and DISORDERLY slow to fall into place until ACID seen. Don’t know why I knew that meaning of LAAGER. Maybe the setter’s mistake was because he was so drunk and DISORDERLY after too many pints of LAaGER and ANISEED liqueurs at an ACID party that he first became INCOHERENT and then PARALYSEd. I know, that’s terrible but it took me 5 minutes to work through so I’m not editing it out now. Thank you Jack and setter.
17. Much as everyone else. Didn’t know the painter. Thought BLACKBOARD very out of date. Wondered how many people who don’t do crosswords would know what a peeler was. PARALYSE last one in for obvious reasons. Overall reasonably easy offering.
    1. Well there’s all the people that can recite The Man From Ironbark. Admittedly that might not greatly expand the original set.
       1. The set of those who’ve read it has just expanded by one. Peelers was still in common use in my boyhood, if less commonly than coppers and rozzers. Never sbirri though.
          1. I certainly knew what a peeler was long before I started doing crosswords. However I expect that it’s little known among da yoof.
             1. I hope it’s a while before we see “the filth” in a Times crossword but I fear we have already had a reference to “pigs” in this context which was the subject of almost universal condemnation around here.
                1. The police station in St Ives,(Hunts), near where I once lived, was in Pig Lane. When Huntingdonshire was destroyed by the Idiot Ted Heath and became part of Cambridgeshire, Cambs Police applied to have the name changed to something else.. I forget what, because it was indignantly refused and is still Pig Lane to this day.
          2. It’s not exactly Chimborazo Cotopaxi, but there was a time when I was given to reciting it after six pints of Guinness. If I tried drinking six pints of Guinness now I’d have trouble reciting my own name.
18. No serious problems bar 15ac, so done in just under 15min. 2dn is the only Mexican painter I remember, so I’d got enough from the checkers to make a clean sweep of the downs before returning to the acrosses to finish off.
19. I was one of those who didn’t biff 16ac, and was thus left staring at it, wondering if I was missing something. In the end, as CATALYSE was the only alternative word I could see, and that had even less to recommend it, I assumed the typo. Prior to that, I had a little trouble getting the incorrect DISGRUNTLE out of my mind.

    Today’s crossword-inspired earworm takes us back to the release of the film Trainspotting, and has me chanting “laager, laager, laager” to myself.

20. I thought my 30 minutes wasn’t too shabby until I submitted and saw that the Australian Magoo had taken just 11.

    So, a plea to any setter who might be at a loose end and reading this stuff: the kings of Judah are a very important bunch, especially that lot who were inter-related and came in a rush at the end, alternative names and all.

    Thank you.

    1. Bring it on. Just stay away from those minor prophets, especially the ones that can’t spell.
21. I think Rivera is mainly known for his ‘volatile marriage’ (as Wikipedia puts it) with Frida Kahlo, but luckily for me a friend recently visited a museum dedicated to him.
22. 901 quickies down and for the first time ever I’ve dealt with Big Brother! In 45 mins too …. which is remarkable as #901 took me 35mins today. I really don’t understand why …. it’s clearly something to do with wavelength and today there was no diffraction. Had to check Rivera and Knot, and to the punt on Paralyse, but otherwise I found this straightforward.
    1. Many congrats, anon. Please keep in touch and give yourself a name or nickname so we can recognise you.
23. 13:30 with a bit of time wasted:
    a) wondering if “they” now spelled PARALYSE “PARILYSE” OR “PARYLISE” and I had a down answer wrong; and
    b) going through the same mental gymnastics as Keriothe in finally getting to LAAGER.

    I’m surprised that the mistake got through as “freeze player is injured” as a surface doesn’t seem to make any sense at all whereas “freeze player as (he/she is) injured” could just about work in the context of a footballer, say, getting a squirt of the old magic spray from the physio.

24. …1 wrong. I don’t know how I convinced myself that my LOI, 15a could be LEADER. I’d never heard that meaning of LAAGER, which I thought was a camp made by a circle of wagons. Like others, I found this mostly easy, but got stuck for ages on the defective anagram, ACID, COMPANY and the aforementioned LAAGER. Yes I know we’ve had ACID clued as “bitter”, before, but to my tastebuds, bitterness is not the same as sourness. Grr.
25. I solved this on a train with a bad mobile connection, finished in 42 minutes with one mistake. I DID notice the problem with PARALYSE, but 11 down could only be THE MAIN CHANCE, so I put in the correct spelling anyway and came here to see if I had overlooked something. But I had never heard of PAP, so in 1 dn I opted for POPA, assuming strange spellings elsewhere in the puzzle might actually make this a possibility. POPping someone just seemed more likely for sneaking a photo. Oh well, live and learn. I didn’t like this puzzle much, actually, there being nothing really witty and original in it.
26. 45 minutes during a morning drive downtown to Wai Tan (The Bund) with ‘her indoors’and our driver (in full tennis kit) banging on about the price of rice etc. I would never drive in Shanghai – horrendous driving in very smart cars!

    I ended up with a DNFF as I forget to go back and parse 15ac LAAGER which I had biffed as glorious LEADER! Doh!

    COD not 23ac BOT but 1dn PAPA!

    Because of the idiocy of 7dn for a split second I thought 7dn might be CAMPARI – I love them Negronis!

    2dn RIVIERA was my FOI. How did folks not know Rivera!! Great painter, “One apartment, two coats, one afternoon!” (The Producers)

    Sir Robert Peel and the Bow Street Runners were a band from the 1820s. Also The Rozzers, remember them!?

    My WOD was 12ac SERPENTINE – but please don’t let on to the good Lord Scallywag!

    Edited at 2017-08-22 03:40 pm (UTC)

    1. Are we still allowed to say Negroni? Shouldn’t it be Ethnicroni or something?!
       1. Jerrycat old bean – the said ‘Negroni’ has nothing to do with skin colouration:-

          In 1919, at Caffè Casoni, located on Via de’ Tornabuoni and now called Caffè Roberto Cavalli – Count Camillo Negroni concocted it by asking the bartender, Fosco Scarselli, to strengthen his favorite cocktail, the Americano, by adding gin rather than the normal soda water. The bartender also added an orange garnish rather than the typical lemon of the Americano to signify that it was indeed a different drink!

          I suggest that next time you’re Florence way take my advice and ask for a ‘Scarselli’ with the orange twist!!

          Edited at 2017-08-22 11:22 pm (UTC)

27. I completed most of this fairly quickly but slowed up in the NE and put Leader at 15a because nothing else I knew fitted.
    I had heard of the Mexican painter and put in Paralyse without checking it. Had Mild or Cold for 6a and failed to get 7d and 8d (looking for an anagram) and 13a.
    David
28. I had most of this, apart from a couple in the NE, completed in 16 minutes, but a disorderly clue paralysed my thinking and I eventually put in my LOI DISORDERLY, after deciding 16a was an error, in 31:24. Took me ages to figure 8d out, as I was looking for an anagram of SOLDIER IN A for some time. Knew the encampment meaning of LAAGER so shrugged it in from wordplay. Knew Peelers as cops, but not Sbirri, not that it held me up. Thanks setter and Jack.
29. Hi. Has anyone else had problems accessing the comments over the last few days? The blog comes up as usual but clicking on the comments icon just freezes the blog about halfway through. I’ve tried deleting and rejoining livejournal but the problem remains. I’m not quite sure why it’s let me in now to write a comment but I’m taking my chance while I can! I really enjoy looking at the blog and comments (thank you to everyone who contributes) so would appreciate any help. Regards. Linda Lofthouse
    1. I’ve not had that problem, Linda. Are you sure it’s not a problem on your internet settings? I’m no computer expert though, so I hope someone else can help. With your surname, heaven and earth should be moved to get you on.
       1. Thanks. I’ll have a look at the settings.
    2. Hi Linda
       If you enjoy the blog my advice would be to set up a (free) account and then subscribe to this blog so that you get sent emails when there is a new post.. then if you click on the link in that you get just that blog, complete with comments
    3. I have had the same problem using Safari on an iPad for the last few days, so it may be a server issue. Firefox and Safari both seem to work OK on a laptop. It may be something to do with the interpolated adverts, which don’t appear on the iPad.

       0.9 of a Verlaine today, having cheerfully biffed paralyse; grateful thanks to the setter for this rare treat!

       1. I can’t presently SEND comments via my usual Explorer/Google route- but it works ok on the Yahoo/Chrome setting!
          Mood Meldrew!
    4. I’ve had problems for two or three days accessing on iPad and smartphone. LJ’s banned at work, so no chance to compare that channel. A typhoon today in Hong Kong, so tried accessing from home PC, and no problems. There are periodical blips with LJ for sure.

       Like Jerry says, get signed up and de-lurk. God knows, we need new blood around here!

       1. Oh dear, that last remark sounds like a cry from the heart!

          Edited at 2017-08-23 05:37 am (UTC)

          1. A friend of mine always wrote it on his blog when he got a new commenter. Couldn’t resist!
    5. Same problem here on an iPad, although if I go off and walk the dog, by the time I come back everything has downloaded. I suspect that the dog is behind this somehow.
       1. Definitely, because when I go to the loo, it’s just the same when I get back.

          Edited at 2017-08-23 11:22 am (UTC)

30. I had all but 8 & 11dn, 15 & 16ac done in 26 mins this morning. Those four took me another 21 mins at lunchtime. Main problems were not equating orderly with soldier in 8dn (and of course looking for the anagram that wasn’t there), not recognising the expression in 11dn, not knowing the word in 15ac and being wary of the double-A despite the word play and of course the error in 16ac which had me going for ages – an error by setter or editor is always the very last possibility in my mind, I always assume that there is something defective with my solving or something I’m just not seeing.
31. Hi all. Around the usual 20 minutes again, ending with LAAGER from the wordplay, and having never heard of that definition. Familiar with the old South African circling of the wagons, but not this usage. Yes, PARALYSE was a weird (in its rarity) and seemingly obvious screw up, I thought. Regards.
32. Beaten by LAAGER, and very grumpy about it. If this sceptred isle is going to take in refugee words from other languages, we should at least make a proper job of it by fixing their spelling for them – that double-A has no place in English. The French would never stand for this for of thing, you know.
    1. Be careful about being grumpy or Horryd will come after you!
       1. Grumpy is my middle name. It’s what the n stands for.
33. The clue for PARALYSE doesn’t make any sense in the surface reading either, so almost certainly should have been ‘Freeze as player is injured’, rather than what Jackkt suggested in the blog.
    Nila Palin
    1. ^ Apologies – that suggestion has already been made but I missed it.
       Nila Palin
34. Ungrump Dude! The n stands for ‘niceguy’ surely!?

    The ‘AA’ is very English! Do you have a car?

    Edited at 2017-08-22 11:21 pm (UTC)

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