Times Cryptic 26816

49 comments on “Times Cryptic 26816”

1. From a lost G&S operetta, I suppose.

   Anyway, my time was 33 minutes, as I hesitated to put in these obvious hiddens because I didn’t know the word.

   Overall, I thought the clues and the vocabulary were quite clever, while being eminently fair and gettable at the same time. You would be hard-pressed to find a ‘crescent’ in the US, but that’s about the only answer that might get non-UK solvers.

2. Jack, well done on your triple hundred – a very fine innings!

   I am truly sorry that Messrs. McText and Galspray are no
   longer with us – is there anything that can be done by PB&Co!?

   I came home in 37 minutes today and it should have been somewhat quicker!

   Re-12ac DNK DUN as debt collector nor 1dn DISODIUM (my LOI) but they were no handicap.FOI 14ac UHLAN

   COD & WOD 29ac GLOOPY!! (you were right on the money!)

   PS I had forgotten about 18ac CRESCENT – a candidate for COD.
   This odonym does not exist in the USA but we don’t have boulevard!

   Edited at 2017-08-29 02:03 am (UTC)

   1. Thanks for your good wishes, h. The main street at the centre of Milton Keynes is called Midsummer Boulevard.

      1. .. and Sears Crescent is in Boston Mass. Exceptions, to every rule..
   2. Thanks for your good wishes, h. The main street at the centre of Milton Keynes is called Midsummer Boulevard.

      1. I’m leaving the above as an example of TftT playing up. I posted the original at 05:17 am and have been nowhere near a computer this afternoon at the time I allegedly posted the duplicate.

         Whilst writing I’d mention that I have since reminded myself that the streets running parallel to Midsummer Bouelvard in CMK are called Avebury Boulevard and Silbury Boulevard.

3. Back to work today; sadly due to that time pressure I had to give up on this one at 55 minutes. Amazed I managed to get SAMARKAND, especially as I didn’t know the French writer.

   Even with all the crossers I’m not sure I’d have got to the unknown DISODIUM (should I read the tabloids more? Please, no…)

   With more time I might have finished off the few I had left in the bottom half, especially if I hadn’t been so strongly considering the various combinations of bridge opponents when I should have just been looking for L and R for ARCHANGEL. Now I’ve seen it I’m even vaguely remembering that it’s a port…

   Ah well. I shall have to wrench my brain back onto the quick-solving track, as my contract’s just been extended to the end of the year, so there will be a lot of early mornings where the caffeine’s still kicking in to come.

4. 24.07, with a lot of the closing minutes spent rather comically on BANNER HEADLINES where I was convinced I knew a prohibitionist who fitted the crossers who just wouldn’t return to front line memory.
   I have no idea what DISODIUM is other than two bits of sodium; clearly my occasional glances at tabloid headlines in Tesco’s is insufficient.
   UHLAN I knew, AGAMI I only knew as an an arrangement of letters. Just as well the setter was generous enough to include two hiddens.
   And I was astonished to find I knew a city in Uzbekistan: it was part of the reason I gave up early on the left side and waltzed breezily through the right.
   ETHIC I returned to right at the end to check the wordplay. I am delighted to see we can still use the un-PC BE THICK for the more mealy-mouthed “have limited intelligence”. Smiley clue.
5. Now that I finally have access to, and solve, the Quick Cryptic every day, I can say that this felt a lot like a Quick Cryptic with the “vocab complexity” knob turned up from low to quite a high setting. 21dn was the only real speedbump in a steady solve, because I’d got the cart before the horse and was desperately searching for a plant ending with IO.
   1. There were a few clues where it was possible to create cart/horse problems for oneself. Happened to me with my LOI HOLLOW, where I was expecting the definition to be WAY. The clue for HURST looked like INJURY had to be the definition.
6. Congrats Jack!

   Couldn’t get uhlan, rateable, cairn, liana, banner headline or archangel, so disappointed as I thought I might finish today.

   In 19d, why does refrain = burden. Is it from the definition: “the main theme or gist of a speech, book, or argument” i.e. chorus as per the blog?

   1. All the meanings given apply. I’m open to correction, but I think they all come from the same root.

      Thanks for the congrats, flashman.

   2. A poem’s refrain, or repeated line at the end of the stanza, is also its burden. 20 min. here; steady but no high gear. Rather liked 6’s un-PC line and more, its apt surface, being what a PC-type might unintentionally do. Hey ho for the cricky.
7. 12:57. No real problems again this morning, helped by sufficient crossword-solving experience for words like HURST, DUN and ‘burden’ to seem like normal words (which of course they aren’t). I didn’t know either of the hiddens though.
   Technically of course ‘soldier’ as a definition for SERGEANT isn’t a DBE, while it would be the other way round. As you say though neither is entirely a subcategory of the other so I see this as a good illustration of why a hard-and-fast prohibition on DBEs is a bit silly.
   Congratulations on an impressive blogging run, jackkt. Here’s to 300 more!
8. 45 mins so back to par today – with pain au raisin (scrummy). A lot of time spent on ODIUM, doh!, not helped by DNK UHLAN. Also DNK HURST and took time to convince myself.
   Nice to see the crossword favourites, Snaffle and Liana making an appearance – that helped with the dreaded ‘plant’.
   WOD Winnipeg.
   Thanks setter and Jack.
9. Well done Jack. Your 300 up made me check back as we started blogging at the same time in 2008. How time flies when you’re having fun. Sadly, I had to give up the daily puzzle in 2014 but managed to keep the Mephisto going. Here’s to the next 300!

   Interesting puzzle today – would the arts leaning Times in 2008 have included DISODIUM I wonder?

   1. Thanks for your good wishes, Jim. Actually your first blog was on Tuesday 20 November 2007 (#23763) and I started on Friday 23 November, so I shall have notched up a decade of blogging the main puzzle before this year is out.
10. I found this tough, with UNDERLAY and my LOI SAMARKAND causing particular hold ups. Having finally seen it, I do like ‘inferior to Axminster’.

    Well played on the 300 Jack – a fine innings.

11. On fire today, with a possibly record-breaking time for me of 18:44! Even all the unknowns didn’t hold me up (and there were plenty), as I chucked in DUN, AGAMI, UHLAN and HURST from checkers. Can see now that I didn’t pause to parse ELDER STATESMAN, but with a couple of checkers and a stand-out definition, who needs parsing???

    Thanks for all your hard work, Jack (and all bloggers). Always very much appreciated.

12. 18′ but with the made up DISODOUR. Congrats jack on your 300+. Youtube used to stick at 301+ to filter out robots. Thanks jack and setter.

    Edited at 2017-08-29 08:13 am (UTC)

13. Congratulations Jack. You were already over 200 by the time I got into the ground, but you’ve piled the runs on very elegantly since. Finished this in 32 minutes today with no unknowns but several at the edge of knowledge, I suspect the chemist in me, A level 1963, would argue that DISODIUM are 2 cations and the phosphate anion is needed to make the compound, but then I’m not in the business of writing BANNER HEADLINEs. FOI DANISH, LOI DISODIUM, COD UNDERLAY. Thank you Jack and setter.

    Edited at 2017-08-29 09:24 am (UTC)

14. Enjoyable crossword, which SNITCH says is on the easier side of middling difficulty. I was surprised to find that I did actually know an Uzbek city..

    Well done Jack on such an impressive total of blogs, much appreciated. Now I am reduced to one a month I am never going to get close!

15. 17:17 – hurrah! One of those days when the potentially tricky stuff fell kindly, with not an obscure Renaissance painter, 18th century German mathematician or Greek philosopher in sight. There will be days when they all appear together though, so take the easy runs on offer and move on…
16. 23 minutes, all done except 1d where I wrote in DISODOUR as a best guess. There is no such ‘compound’ as DISODIUM I’m afraid. Disodium phosphate, yes, or other chemicals with two sodium atoms and an acid radical, but no disodium alone. Spoilt it for me.

    Jimbo or Jack, how do I check how many blogs I’ve done in my time? Congratulations on the milestones.
    pip

    1. I keep a copy of my blogs Pip in sequence grouped by year so not difficult for me

       Forgot to say – agree with you on DISODIUM. we must be grateful such words now appear – getting the meaning right may take a little longer!

       Edited at 2017-08-29 09:20 am (UTC)

       1. I’ve counted by looking back through the blogging calendar assignments – am at 100 quickies (retired not out) and 183 Times, to date. A long way to go to the Hall of Fame!
    2. I’m in no posiiton to argue chemistry with anyone but reverting to my usual practice of consulting dictionaries, Collins has DISODIUM as ‘a compound containing two sodium atoms’. So the setter is off the hook and any represenations should be made to the lexicographers if that definition of the word doesn’t hold up to the scrutiny of experts.

       I’m afraid that knowing how many blogs one has written comes down in my case to having an element of OCD in my character. All the blogs I have ever written are neatly organised into folders, 15 x 15, QC and Sunday Times (only one of those).

       1. I see it is in Collins as such, but with the word ‘modifier’ attached, which to me means it has to be used with another noun, not as a lone word. Collins is correct, and it is a word, but it’s definitely not a ‘compound’.
          Pity, because the ODIUM idea was clever.
          1. My Collins (12th edition, 2014) doesn’t say anything about it being a ‘modifier’. The full definition is exactly as I quoted above.

             If they’ve managed to make a definition more precise in their on-line edition it must be a first, as it’s usually full of the most tenuous rubbish and I would hate to think Times setters are relying on it as a source.

             Edited at 2017-08-29 01:18 pm (UTC)

             1. I thought the online Collins was an exact replica of the treeware version. I’ve been merrily using it on that basis for a few year, anyway!
                I have the 11th edition at home and ‘disodium’ isn’t in it at all, so it’s obviously a very recent addition.
                1. I’m not completely sure of my ground here because I don’t have the latest printed edition, but the on-line version here https://www.collinsdictionary.com/ is written in a very chatty style that’s nothing like my printed versions.

                   Also every year the newspapers report the most sensational new additions to the Collins on-line dictionary which I don’t think necessarily make it into print as many of them are ephemeral and have been forgotten about by the time the next revision comes round.

                   1. The chatty version is the ‘learner’ dictionary. If you scroll down or click the ‘English’ tab above you get the standard dictionary entry which matches the wording in the printed edition exactly.
                      I guess there may be words that are in the online version that aren’t in the printed edition. I see the ‘word of the day’ today is ‘rickrolling’: I wonder if that’s in the latest paper edition? Somehow I doubt it…

                      Edited at 2017-08-29 08:28 pm (UTC)

17. 20:36 … I seem to be off my game and not enjoying the puzzles much right now, so probably in need of a vacation (fortunately, I have one coming) where I don’t solve crosswords.

    I spent ages on 1d. I couldn’t remember ‘odium’ and kept thinking of odour (as in ‘bad odour’). When I eventually got it, I couldn’t believe DISODIUM (which I was rhyming with Miss Odium by analogy with various elements) was a thing. Had I payed even a jot of attention in Chemistry, I might have realised that the DI- was a prefix.

    Well done, jackkt. Your work much appreciated.

18. -joekobi again. Will have to find out how to restore the link.
19. Odd puzzle this, which verged in parts, as Verlaine says, on being a Quickie with a bit of tricky vocab. Some defs — e.g 5D — were so obvious that parsing was superfluous. I thought I was heading for a — for me — respectable time of around 30 mins but then got bogged down in the SW corner, where I did not know the birds. (Are they herons or cranes? Perhaps they belong to the same family.) I was able to make correct guesses via the cryptic parsing, similarly with DISODIUM, which was quite pleasing, and ended up taking about 40 mins.

    Multi-congratulations on your blogging marathon, Jack, and for today’s (as usual) elegantly formatted effort.

20. Many congrats on your marathon blogging run Jack. I managed to finish this in 27:03 despite several unknowns, AGAMI, UHLAN, HURST, ARCHANGEL as a port and REFRAIN as a burden, and was amazed to find I knew an Uzbek city. Was pleased to remember SNAFFLE as a bit of horse tackle. FOI DANISH and LOI DISODIUM with the same reservations as our chemists. An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Jack.
21. Well done, Jack! Will the Windies reach 300+ today?!
    I have never been to Samarkand or Archangel, seen an agami nor yet met an Uhlan but I do know about hurst’s as I hail from Wadhurst in East Sussex!
22. 11:07 here so slightly easier than “average”. Like others I didn’t know the helpfully hidden military chaps and like Janie I biffed ELDER S.

    Keep ’em coming Jack.

23. …it is now – in about 50mins. Didn’t know the famous Geoff was also injured. I used to go to school with Mr Wolstenholme’s nephew and I also sat in the desk previously used by Alan Ball. Hey ho, I got very few answers on the across scan but the down clues were much easier. Knew the Uzbek city as surely every major town has an Asian restaurant named such? Thanks all
24. The Times websites are still failing to download interactive puzzles, so am having to solve on printout, and just look at the clock for timing.
    That said, this only took about a quarter of an hour, as no unknowns bar 1dn, entered reluctantly from wordplay. I’m with Pip, as whatever Collins may say, there is no such compound as ‘disodium’!
25. Congratulations on the 300 Jack, great stuff!

    Found this puzzle quite a strange mix – predominantly pretty straightforward stuff, but punctuated by some seriously tricky clues / obscure vocabulary. Defeated by the DISODIUM/DUNGEON pairing.

26. Thanks to Jack and all the bloggers for their continuous work, and I note that in the (many, some number of ?)years I’ve been here, I don’t recall anyone missing a posting. Quite a group you have been, and the rest of us are, I expect, unanimously grateful.

    The puzzle was fun, and the only thing I didn’t understand, apart from the AGAMI, of course, was how AXEMINSTER fitted in. Thanks for explaining. Regards.

27. Congratulations and thanks, Jack!

    This one started slow, then continued slow with a slow finish. Thirty-two minutes.

    Many unknowns for me, including of course UHLAN, HURST and AGAMI. SAMARKAND was half-remembered, though I’d be hard pressed to say whether it was a place, a variety of pickled herring or a middle-eastern sabre.

    I agree with the other quibblers over DISODIUM – I think it’s a stretch to call it a compound. It’s a bit like calling sodium a compound simply because it’s a part of sodium chloride.

28. And congratulations from me Jack. You helped me a great deal when I’d just embarked on blogging here – I don’t forget.

    No I had no idea SAMARKAND was in Uzbekistan but did remember the James Elroy Flecker poem about the “golden road”. We had to learn that sort of stuff at school then and the caravan passing through the city gate made me envision some sort of dormobile – not quite what Flecker had in mind.

    I’m on a complicated schedule for the next 6 weeks or so which will make me a dilatory contributor here but I hope to resume normal service soon after that.

29. I had about half of this done in 18mins on the train this morning. Finished it off in 20mins at lunchtime whilst wrestling with a jacket potato. Fortunately, I’m too chemically illiterate to question the validity of compound as a definition for disodium. DNK the debt collector, cavalryman or trumpeter but all were easy to get. Underlay known from the fastest carpet fitter in the west, Speedy Gonzales, who would often cry, on his way to a particularly big job: “Arriba, Arriba, underlay, underlay”. Congrats on the 300 not out. Sterling work and much appreciated.
30. Nothing to add except congrats on the 300, Jack
31. …but I must’ve seen that one somewhere before, if not AGAMI. My last one in was SNAFFLE—because of the Anglicism “naff,” natch. I didn’t get to this one until this afternoon, and then I did the latest Quickie. I don’t like to do them first, but they’re incredibly easy after the regular 15×15.
32. I like to remind people that the real and only cryptic clue is a four letter word which may be found at the end of the road good luck and ttfn
33. can anyone solve the clue in comment 49

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