Times Cryptic 27314

52 comments on “Times Cryptic 27314”

1. If I were healthier I might have stuck with this, but I found 6d and 8d impenetrable (why I couldn’t spot 5ac I don’t know, though). If I knew EVENTING–and I think I’ve come across it here–I was not about to remember it. Jack, you’ve left out the T in (A)FREE(T).
   1. Thanks, now corrected.
2. ….as I struggled mightily with both puzzles. Most of this was not that bad, but a couple that should have been easy threw me. I sometimes just fall out of the knack of solving, and just as quickly fall into it again.

   At least both Cage and Goldsmith were quite evident, and the whole bottom half wasn’t too bad except for ‘Freetown’, which I had to biff.

3. Very slow 45 minutes, loth to put in Freetown as it didn’t parse (afreet NHO). Also stuck on the 1s so went off and made a roll for lunch. Guessed WK for the abbreviation of week, and that the lawyer would be an unknown Dickensian character say, making what was easy very hard.
   1. Um, I was trying to wedge WK or W (is that really an abbreviation of week?) into a craven person…
      1. w = week, is the first abbreviation under (lower case) w in Collins and Chambers but not recognised at all by the Oxfords. They all have wk = week.
         1. Which begs the question what abbreviations are doing in the dictionary at all? I’ve never understood that-but then I’m a dinosaur in many respects. Mr Grumpy
4. Fairly happy to complete this in under 40 minutes and pleased not to be slowed down too much by the proper nouns and unknowns. I was lucky that JOHN CAGE was a write-in and afreet and FREETOWN were both recalled reasonably quickly. And knowing that Paddy Ashdown was some politician helped LIB to make sense.

   Thanks, Jack, for the explanation of line=inside. And for the early blog. And thanks to the setter for the helpful clues on my DNKs.

5. 47 minutes, so spanked by the New Galspay. I thought DOING was the pick of the bunch, always excluding my first attempt at the old academics – ‘uducati’, no less.
   1. At least you were on the right track – I’d assumed the Eremiti were a particularly smart tribe from millenia past, not unlike the Ititi/Hittites and Anacoreti/Anchorites. Without recognising the known Latin word Emeritus.
   2. Maybe the spanking was a punishment for yesterday’s shenanigans. You stitched me like a kipper !
      1. Yes, I fear karma may be long and lingering.
6. Nice to see John Cage here, though it will be a shame if that one act of provocation winds up being the main thing he is remembered for. I didn’t know the demon (also spelled “Ifrit”), but did look it up after(?) inking it in.

   I didn’t get to the puzzle till late last night and by the time I looked at the blog, Ulaca’s prank was over. Though it was really given away in his headline (if you knew the French expression), and his confessions of increasing incapability certainly stretched credulity, his masterful ploy of announcing last week that he was on the verge of a momentous announcement made me at least fleetingly think he might be sincere.

   Edited at 2019-04-02 05:24 am (UTC)

7. 16:47 … pleasantly tricky, and a lot of first rate clues. WOODY NIGHTSHADE is brilliant. And props to DOING, JOHN CAGE and THEOCRAT.

   While solving I thought HOTELIER was a slightly lame ‘French word’ indicator, failing to notice the anagram of ‘the Loire’, so thanks for putting me right, jackkt.

8. 56 minutes here. I thought this wasn’t too hard, until I realised on encountering EMERITI and WOODY NIGHTSHADE that I was about halfway through my hour, but not the answers, and that I needed to kick my brain into higher speed…

   FOI 5a BLITHE always reminds me of seeing Rik Mayall playing the lead in Blithe Spirit, so that was a good start. From there proceeded downwards, held up by knowing I’d kick myself when I remembered JOHN CAGE’s last name, and the unknown OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

   Finished up in the SW corner with 17d FREETOWN. I didn’t know it was a capital, but it sounded like it should be, and luckily “afreet” (or another of its eighteen spellings) has come up before, so it’s on my Big List.

   Edited at 2019-04-02 05:51 am (UTC)

9. A steady top to bottom solve of an interesting puzzle. WOODY NIGHTSHADE is exvellent
10. 28 minutes with LOI FREETOWN, suspected earlier and finally biffed without knowing of an afreet. JOHN CAGE constructed and then vaguely remembered. I thought the BREADLINE was where, not who, the needy people were. I can never remember if this a metonymy, synecdoche or neither. COD to WOODY NIGHTSHADE. For a while, the only Woodys I could think of were Guthrie, Allen, Harrelson and the cowboy in Toy Story. I’m better on garden than wild plants. Contrary to my wishes, I must be more suburban than rural. Better that than urban, I suppose. I liked OXIDANT as a homophone. An excellent puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter
11. 27:54. I found this extremely hard, especially the top half which was like pulling teeth. I’m not sure why, although getting WOODY NIGHTSHADE (NHO) more quickly would probably have helped.
12. Beaten by a few. Guessed FREETOWN. COD to WOODY NIGHTSHADE.
13. DNF…. 2 wrong after 23 mins. Not helped by having LIFETIME for 1A, fixed only when I realised 3D was SKY HIGH. Beaten by trhe SW corner where I had FREEHOLD (which is some capital, right? or maybe not) thinking the town was FREEPORT and ruling that out, and thinking the demon was AFREE.. And then DEGATE to finish. Never mind. A lovely puzzle. I loved LASTING, WOODY NIGHTSHADE, HOTELIER and JOHN CAGE.

    Edited at 2019-04-02 07:31 am (UTC)

14. Wished I could have completed this in 4′ 33”, but it took 27′. WOODY NIGHTSHADE hard to find, EVENTING and OXIDANT LOsI – is EVENTING always three-day?

    Nice to see the ! in the musical.

    Thanks jack and setter.

    1. 4:33 would certainly have silenced the rest of us !
15. Very tight clues, not sure if this makes ’em harder to unravel, but pretty damn tidy anyway. As others observe WOODY NIGHTSHADE is class in a high quality bunch.

    No problem with the booze…

16. 22 minutes, all but. Decent, challenging puzzle, amazed at the elegance of the anagram for the WOODY clue, even if I didn’t really know the definition as such. LASTING pips several other excellent clues into most favoured position.

    A (sort of) complaint is my perennial against cryptic definitions with valid alternatives. My LIFETIME had no reason for being wrong other than half the crossing letters. Despite (or because of) the word in the clue, it might just as well have been LIFELONG. But hey, these things are not meant to be without deception.

17. More bottom to top for me, ending with 8d and 12a. Didn’t parse FREETOWN or see the LINE meaning either, so thanks for explaining jackkt. Nice tricky but satisfying puzzle, 40 minutes with an interruption.
18. A satisfying 30 mins for me. I liked this one. I chuckled at 1a and was not at all bothered by the potential alternative solutions to this sly CD. I also liked the misdirection of the “Either” in the ENDEMIC anagram. The Irish writer and the composer were write-ins, but it took me ages to hear OXIDANT=agent even as I enunciated ‘occident’ over and over to myself. Prompted by gothic_matt’s example, I must embark on a programme of directed study, (with flash cards, keyword lists, reading material, etc.) for all things scientific and technical. NHO afreet, but biffed it. I don’t think NEGATE means ‘discredit’ — even if all the dictionaries say it does.
    Thanks for your sincere blog today, Jack.
    1. Don’t take it too far—I’m off to see Richard III at the Bristol Old Vic tomorrow, and it’s possible I’ve bitten off more than I can chew!
19. ….WOODY NIGHTSHADE ! It’s not often I give COD to an anagram, but this one was inspired.

    An excellent puzzle, where, like Kevin, I took far too long to spot BLITHE, and struggled a little in the NE corner as a result. Thanks to Jack for parsing LINES UP.

    A friend of mine who doesn’t share my taste for real ale has confused many a bartender in Joseph Holt pubs by asking for “a pint of palindrome”. The house offering is Regal Lager.

    Chambers gives “afreet – see afrit” and the latter was sufficiently known to me to allow a MER and a confident biff.

    JOHN CAGE would have been COD most times, and this was a super puzzle.

    FOI OXIDANT
    LOI TIARA (shades of Cilla Black)
    COD WOODY NIGHTSHADE
    TIME 12:02

    1. Yes, 18 caused me to doff my metaphorical cap to the geniuses in the Holt’s marketing department who came up with that one.
20. 40 mins. Phew – this was tricksy. Woody Nightshade just has to be a jazz musician from the 50s.
21. Tough one! Managed to get there in the end.

    COD: WOODY NIGHTSHADE.

22. Slow going, got there in 41 min. While I wasn’t an Ashdown fan I find the final clue a bit of a harsh sideswipe. Well, ulaca, your fishy jape had the trace of a whiff to it. It reminded me by contrast of the Dorset 1/4 brilliance a few years back. Didn’t know afreet here but it had to be.
23. A tricky offering which kept me on my toes for 37:37, with OLIVER and FREETOWN holding out until the end. I had GOLDSMITH, but couldn’t get his given name until I spotted OWN for have and FREETOWN went in despite the unknown demon.
    EVENTING held out almost as long, with GABON giving me the final crosser and pen, paper and a short alpha trawl doing the rest. I had the Highland FLING early on but the debtor took ages to see, but then allowed me to confidently enter WOODY with the rest of the anagrist finally turning into NIGHTSHADE. Good fun. Thanks setter and Jack.
24. Is our setter a botanist? The NIGHTSHADE is related to the evening primrose and Olivia Primrose is a character in GOLDSMITH’s Vicar Of Wakefield. I didn’t see the anagram of the nightshade until afterwards. Very neat puzzle which took me almost twice as long as yesterday’s. 20.57
25. Tough for me too at 19:45.

    I had the same unfamiliarity problems as others with afreet, the not woodpecker and to a degree the composer (his first name at least). Thanks Jack for making alles klar.

26. I think today’s setter was using Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary which gives “alibi: a plea in a criminal charge of having been elsewhere; the fact of being elsewhere; an excuse for failure(colloq).” I have not heard this “colloquial” sense in the present century, at least not in English. Occasionally it is used in Italian to mean excuse,(not for failure but for wrongdoing).
27. 45 min: no problem with 10ac as it grows in the plot by my entrance door. However, was stuck for a while in SW, as I’d biffed LANTERN at 19dn, and didn’t go back to look at the clue until I realised the reason why I couldn’t find anything to fit the checkers was because they were wrong.
28. Just over 12 mins; but with one mistake. Don’t know why but just banged LAMBERT in without really contemplating the wordplay. That’ll learn me. NHO the Woody plant but easy enough to work out, and an excellent clue. Liked LAST IN bit, too. AFREET occurs afreequently in advanced puzzles. Thanks to setter.
    (Btw, would love not to be anonymous but not entirely sure how I give myself a name; any guidance welcome)
    1. Interestingly a lambert is a unit of luminence – you could argue that it was a valid answer for “some light”, but a lamert isn’t a keen!

       To get a name, log in to create an account. Click on “LOGIN” at the top of the page, then if you can’t log in using Facebook, Google etc, click on “Create an account” in the top right corner.

       Edited at 2019-04-02 01:52 pm (UTC)

       1. I also had ‘lambert’ because I had forgotten all about lambent.
29. WOODY NIGHTSHADE was COD for me as well, in a tough puzzle. 15m 14s with FREETOWN the LOI, as ‘afreet’ did not come to me.

    I had the pleasure of carol singing with Paddy Ashdown on a few occasions – he lived in the village next to my where my parents lived. I recounted this to some people I met while in Montenegro for a few weeks, and was surprised that they knew him well, as the de facto leader of Bosnia. So… well-known in certain places outside the UK.

30. A bit slow on 42 mins but held up at the end by a couple of corners. Despite saying OCCIDENTAL to myself the X never came to me until I reread the clue later. LOI was EMERITI which only became easy when I got ALIBI. I think it was the unexpected I ending that threw me. Not sure about the people in need. Surely they are ON THE BREADLINE.
    1. One of the definitions of breadline is a group of people queuing for food so I think it works.
31. It’s also in Collins and ODO.
    1. But if like me, one has no access to Chambers, Collins or ODO, it just becomes a biff doesn’t it? And it’s a bit galling that even if one did have access, it turns out that it is the least known definition, and it has ‘colloq’ in brackets after it-implying that it hasn’t universally got that definition. Sure, it’s an obvious biff and a shrug of the shoulders-and it’s certainly not the end of the world. But I think The Times should be better than that? Mr Grumpy
       1. Collins and ODO are both free online.
          But as always if you don’t know a particular meaning of a particular word, i don’t think you have grounds for complaint if the wordplay is clear.
32. Phew. This one was a blinder, and kept me entertained for 45 minutes (even longer than my already long average). Many excellent clues, of which my favourite was the simple 1ac. EMERITI was my NTLOI – I spent a long time deciding that I was looking for something Greek ending in -ioi, before I grasped what the “old” was meant to be doing. Even then, I had to wield a pen and do some serious doodling before “temerity” occurred to me.

    I also had problems with 17d. I half-remembered coming across “afrit”, but wasn’t sure it could be spelled with a double-e. Nor was I familiar with the capital city. I did wonder if the demon might be a good old-fashioned varlet, but Arletown rang even fewer bells than FREETOWN. Relieved to have plumped for the right option, and I have since learned that “afreet” can be spelled with almost any permutation of vowels and/or consonants. I shall add it to my list of fluidly-spelled words, along with popadum, doner and Chanukah.

    Edited at 2019-04-02 06:51 pm (UTC)

33. The NE corner took me a while, with oxidant LOI, mostly because I’m not really happy with it as a homonym. Held up for a while because I put ‘lifetime’ in 1 ac. COD ‘flowering’.
34. Excellent puzzle, with many fine clues. I’ll go for the folk musician mentioned above, but the classical guy not too bad either.

    Many thanks setter and Jack.

35. After an hour, seven left all in the top half. Thought 1a might be LIFES— but didn’t think of LIFESPAN. Had five checkers for 10a and thought of WOODY but could not resolve as Bittersweet. Should at least have got 5a. Just a bad day for me.
36. Really enjoyed this one – thanks to setter and blogger.
    44 mins
    FOI 18a regal
    LOI 19d lambent
    COD 12a oxidant
37. Thanks setter and jack
    Agree that this was a fine puzzle with its tight, economical clues and the couple of gems that have been pointed out in the thread.
    Surprised to see how many people struggled with EVENTING – it has come up in numerous puzzles that I’ve done and didn’t think that it was an obscure sport by any means.
    Finished with THEOCRAT, OXIDANT and that FREETOWN (got the place easily enough but eventually had to resort to a word finder to get the demon from -FREET in order to properly parse it).

Comments are closed.