Times Cryptic 26960

75 comments on “Times Cryptic 26960”

1. 24 minutes, close to a personal best.
   Jack – I think it should be N{eighbours}, not N{ightmare} at 12d. I do hope that’s not a Freudian slip.
   1. Thanks for that, Keith – now corrected. It’s perhaps the most disturbing typo I have ever been resposible for! I wondered if it could be blamed on predictive text, but I’m not aware of that being any part of my blogging processes.

      Edited at 2018-02-13 06:03 pm (UTC)

2. 30 mins. Fairly gentle. Took a punt on the anagram at 11ac and the tailor’s iron to get the two birds. Knew of the tipstaff from the Royal Courts of Justice. As others have said still around so not former in that sense but something of an anachronism, possibly. Basset horn cropped up in the ST clue writing contest a few weeks ago. The winning entry, not mine I hasten to add, was “Playing brass? No, the clarinet.” Hard not to clue it with the definition “wind instrument” or even “clarinet”. For my own failed entry I eschewed such as:

   Clarinet’s brash tones grating.

   And

   Wind instrument broke snob’s heart.

   Instead trying:

   Muck not brass eh, found in pit?

3. NONET – ONE (I) contained [inspired] by NT (holy writ – New Testament)

   Why does inspired equate to contained by?

   1. If you inspire you breathe in air. My interpretation of the clue is that ONE is “taken in by” NT
      1. Thank you.
         Perhaps there is a ‘by’ missing from the clue.
         Musical work: I must be inspired BY holy writ?
         1. The way I read it (after grappling with the issue you raise) was that you have to imagine the final six words hyphenated. Of course, the setter is not allowed to do this, but he has the dustbin-like question mark to cover a multitude of sins! Anyway, I rather liked the clue. Vive la difference, and all that.
4. Could someone explain why san = sick bay…i discounted scotsman before i resigned? Thanks Ade
   1. San is short for sanitorium
5. After yesterday’s triumph and an easy QC today, I thought I’d give this a try.
   And it was like yesterday; snow on the ground and a number of accessible clues.
   I guessed the duck/bird and assumed a basset horn had big ears.
   I did trip up on 9a where I invented Esyr for an old ruler (rye reversed).
   I thought more of us would be aware of the sage of Omaha; a write-in for me. David
6. With most votes now counted, I see that this is now by some distance the easiest Tuesday since SNITCH records began nearly three years ago.
   1. I seem to be in a time-warp at the moment (e.g. the ‘on’ convention turning up after I’ve been unaware of it for 10+ years of writing blogs here). But I’d never heard of SNITCH until a few months ago and assumed it was something new.
7. It is new jack but the brilliant site has obviously trawled back for years into historical data to give a past SNITCH history.
8. 26:50 on paper. Bit trickier than yesterday, I thought. Great blog, cheers.
9. The SCOTSMAN debate passed me by. I see Northerner, bed, hospital and that makes SCOTSMAN. No need for me to try and unwind further, my FOI. A pleasant sub-15 mins.
   As the SNITCH was mentioned above, may I through here ask a question of the eminent creator. How over the course of the day can the number of recognised solvers decrease? Do some retract their answers?
   1. I was wondering about that too. Some days I’m on the SNITCH list and some I’m not, but then I sometimes disappear from days I was listed on
   2. Thanks for the question and for the interest in the SNITCH. The (perhaps contentious) reason for the decrease is that the SNITCH only counts reference solvers who appear in the top 100 of the list.

      The original rationale for this was that only the top 100 were listed on the Club site and I wanted the final NITCH calculation to be consistent and repeatable (i.e. you could recreate the same result many days afterwards from the raw data, even if you hadn’t tracked all the results on the day). For consistency I’ve kept this approach even with the new site.

      A secondary consideration is that it provides a consistent filter on what results should and shouldn’t be included. Some individual results can be abnormally long (e.g. several hours) and we expect that this is not going to represent a real solving result. These results won’t generally make the top 100, so will automatically get excluded.

      As noted, this is a bit contentious. Aphis99 had made the comment that it looks strange and may cause people not to trust the calculation. He has a point but I’d want to find a new way to avoid this problem and maintain consistency.

      Thanks again for the question.

      1. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
      2. Ditto 🙂
         So would I be right in thinking that if I was, say, 95th on a particular day, and then a few neutrinos come along, I’d be pushed out of the list?

         Edited at 2018-02-14 12:07 am (UTC)

10. I don’t often finish, but I completed this in what felt like quite a fast time (I never time myself either). Not moved at all by discussion on ARTISAN! I’m surprised that Basset Horn was unknown to some, it featured in the Hoffnung books though I’m not sure I’ve ever seen or heard one. Appreciated reading the blog, so thanks for that. Best wishes to all, Richard
11. About 15 minutes, ending with DUAL. The archbishop has appeared before but would otherwise be unknown, so the only real unknown was the BASSET HORN, which appeared from wordplay after the checking letters fell in place. Regards.
12. Totally settled, then. Regards to Emma BigTone
    1. I was there in November at the end of a couple of weeks holiday in Central America. Can also confirm the mountainous aspect, large swathes being chilly compared to the rest of the region. It has 5% of the world’s biodiversity (Wikipedia told me, thankfully), which is a quite remarkable statistic. It’s going to be the first carbon neutral country, and they’re making a packet selling electricity to Nicaragua, much to the latter’s disgruntlement.

       The best cultural insight I have to offer is that our tour guide was from Guatemala, and had been observing our eating habits. ‘Why do you use your fork like that?’ (i.e. not like a spoon) he finally asked. My answer after a bit of thought was that it is simply more efficient. He agreed, and bemoaned the fact he couldn’t eat so hoity-toity back home: ‘this is the type of shit that happens when you spend time in Costa Rica,’ they’d say (or something like that).

       1. Thanks 🙂

          All of that, misuse of forks included, suggests I’d be right at home in CR. It’s now on the list. Sounds great

13. Just under 20 mins so it must have been an easy one. Managed to navigate ok the unknown words: SANDERLING, BASSET HORN, ARAN, GOOSE, largely because ‘shore’, ‘wind’, ‘Atlantic’ & ‘tailor’s’ all helped to avoid grief: thank you for these precisions, setter.
    I particularly liked today’s blog too:
    ‘on’: the more restriction the setter accepts, the greater the glory for what he manages to create.
    ‘former’: according to Wikipedia, SERBO-CROAT is not a former language. If it was true, then I wouldn’t mind ‘former’ in the clue, as it would be an interesting surprise.
    ‘terrier’ seems like a clear oversight that slipped past the editor too. Even if it was deliberate, it should still be fixed because it gives the *impression* of sloppiness.
    I am slightly puzzled by NONET. I thought from both surface and cryptic readings there must be a word missing from the clue, as:
    “Musical work: I must be inspired *by* holy writ?”
    Sometimes South China Morning Post does have typos, but it seems that the same word is missing in the original London Times, and the blogger passes it without comment. I don’t understand this point.
    Thanks setter, blogger & posters for all your work.

    Edited at 2018-05-06 03:56 am (UTC)

Comments are closed.