Times Cryptic 27596

55 comments on “Times Cryptic 27596”

1. Slower than I should have been, sticking too long with AL for the gangster for instance, or thinking PO was the banker in 20d–falling into the mistake that Jack alludes to–and being pathologically obtuse in my failure to see the hidden in ULTRA (LOI!). [on edit: flung in MYSTERY PLAY, dropped it after some consideration, thought of MORALITY but too many letters, then couldn’t for the life of me remember MIRACLE.] I also had forgotten what ‘bolshie’ means, which delayed 7d. (I remember once when the Bolshoi was in San Francisco, a Pacific Heights (=rich) grande dame phoned the ticket office to order a pair of tickets to the Bolshwa Ballet.)

   Edited at 2020-02-25 03:26 am (UTC)

   1. I thought Bolshwa was the sort of thing that could only happen in the pretentious parts of England!
2. ….so 51 minutes, but all correct. I thought that ‘Capone’ would be the outer part of the drink, and had ‘Passion Play’ for a while, too. The old computer was going to be a DEC – remember them? It seems like the 80s were only yesterday.
   1. Otherwise known as Digital. Good machines. I worked with them before they failed dramatically and were absorbed by Compaq. The whole mess eventually ended up being taken over by Hewlett-Packard. They were interesting times.
   2. The famous PDP-11 – Personal Data Processor, though by today’s standards ‘personal’ is a bit of a stretch
      1. When I was studying IT(it was called Computing then) at Durham, we had a PDP-11 that was our interface to the IBM 360/67 at Newcastle. We used teletype terminals and were allocated 7k of storage to store our programs! For my final year project I developed a Processor-I/O simulation program using GPSS, which was stored on punched cards. It took around 5 minutes of CPU time to compile and run, so could take a day or two left to its own priorities. I used to go in during the night and chat to the operator. He could adjust the priority so that it was done in 10 or 15 minutes:)
         1. Forgive the digression, but I am reminded of the following, and I thought I might show off my literary prowess (ahem!).
            Many years ago, we were doing a procurement exercise of servers for a client and DEC was one of the suppliers. They invited us up to their performance engineering labs in Ayr as part of demonstrating how they could meet our processing workloads. It being a bit of a long way from Suffolk, I stopped off at my parents in County Durham on the way home. I told them that, while I was in Ayr, a little poem had slowly surfaced in my memory…
            “In summer when the moon is roon,
            The fishies swim from Ayr tae Troon.
            In winter when the moon is square,
            The fishies swin from Troon tae Ayr.”
            And then I remembered what came next..
            “By William McGonagall, Scotland’s greatest poet”.
            My Mum laughed.
            “Your grandfather Willie Brown taught you to recite that when you were about 3 years old”.
            Now if only I was able to remember all the similarly classical literature, like Shakespeare, Dickens etc. that I’ve never read, I’d find some crossword clues a little easier.
            1. P.S. It’s not even by McGonagall anyway!
3. …because I mixed up E’ER with ERE which resulted in RECODE.
   COD = BISON
   Otherwise, like Kevin and vinyl I played with PO and Capone until the pfennig dropped.
4. I spent about 10 minutes at the end trying to either justify RETORT or find an alternative which fitted the flask part of the clue. I still had no idea about the flask until Jack’s blog, so thanks for that. Part of my reason for hesitating was that I thought REBOOT could be a come-back, more so as it is used with films rather than with computers.

   The Thought Police at my work have blocked access to Live Journal since yesterday. I can still look a it on the phone, but it’s not quite the same.

5. Not much came easily to me which is a compliment to the setter, I suppose. I had CHEST for TRUNK until the Rizla rolled up. Some clever stuff. COD to BISON by a furry head.
6. 17:20. I found this hard, and not only because I too had BACKSTAB in at 5ac, although that did cause me a lot of trouble because it didn’t occur to me to revisit it for ages. I also had trouble in the SW including with the hidden ULTRA – doh!
7. … or chi squared test. I always called it the latter and I gather I was wrong. J’accuse my tutors of misleading me. 32 minutes with LOI TOR. I had to biff FINE ARTS to open up the NW. I prefer GARGOYLEs. I really liked the whole NE corner with BISON, BACKBITE, CURRY FAVOUR. BOLSHOI, ROCKABILLY and ROLL UP all great clues Out of those, COD to the bolshie ballet dancers, I think. Thank you Jack and setter.
   1. Zola really upset the apple cart when he wrote about the “Dray Fuss Affair”.
8. 25 mins with croissant and blackcurrant and amaretto jam. Hoorah!
   I liked it; very witty. Mostly I liked the rocked Billy and choosing a fabric.
   Thanks setter and J.
9. My only problem was self inflicted. BACKSTAB for BACKBITE. Eventually saw TRUNK to sort that out. Otherwise a largely straightforward puzzle.
10. 20:21, with 4 minutes over my last 3, PRONE, TOR and RETORT (LOI). I see I failed to go back and parse ENCODE and MIRACLE PLAY, so thanks for explaining those, jack. I liked TOR (when I got it) and BISON.
11. 24 minutes, with significant delay in SE because I had AIR at 27d, At 20d the old computer had to be Pegasus, on which I learnt all about computing – Ferranti was the great might-have-been for the British computer industry, which lost out to US imports.
12. This little joke in Flanders and Swann tended to be overlooked I think:
    http://historyofsciencesongs.blogspot.com/2009/01/first-and-second-law.html
    1. I unspammed you Will.
13. Lots to enjoy here. I remembered it being explained to me that all gargoyles are grotesques, but not all grotesques are gargoyles (there are lots of interesting examples of both to be seen around Oxford if one remembers to look up occasionally). For a while, I thought the old computer was going to be ENIAC, but that would have made for a very obscure river. I also misled myself by wondering if you’d prepare a cell for a raver by putting an ‘E’ in it, which would have been very 90s. Nice one, top one, sorted.
14. Couldn’t understand 27d due to pronunciation. Did get 9ac but didn’t parse correctly as I was working on farts for breaking. Spent too much time on Private Eye crossword apparently!
15. No time (having forgotten to start the stopwatch) but I’d guess about 13-14 minutes, going by the time I got up and the time I finished the crossword, subtracting the time to go to the loo, make tea, make toast, eat toast, take pills, print puzzle, check email and news headlines etc.

    Some nice clues, but I was delayed for a while by having BIG for 4d. (Reverse of GIB.) I’d thought it pretty poor, having that wordplay for a down clue, and a ropy definition. (‘Big’ could just about mean ‘mass’, as in ‘there was a mass outcry.’)

    I should have trusted the setter, and looked elsewhere.

    1. I contemplated GIB too with similar thoughts, but of course it would be “coming from right” not left.
16. After a run of quick(for me) times, this one took me close to my SNITCH average time and I had to engage an extra neuron to come up with MIRACLE PLAY(which I didn’t parse) EXPIRATION and PRONE, which held me up for quite a while. WORN and OVERRUN were my first 2 in. FINE ARTS was my last. Liked CURRY FAVOUR. POTOMAC and ULTRA took ages to see too. Enjoyable puzzle. 35:40. Thanks setter and Jack.
17. CAPPUCHINO! Aaarghh.

    COD: CURRY F(L)AVOUR. Hot stuff.

18. Another “backstabber” here. I don’t know if this influenced me but a convoluted train of thought might have been – Elvis Presley=ROCKABILLY, backstabbers=song recorded by Elvis Costello. In any case that added a good 5 minutes to my 20.23 sorting out the resulting muddle in that corner. I also had a go at “feed” at 21a which yielded an incomprehensible “extra” at 22d. I’ll attribute it to the worst cold I’ve had in some years.
    1. Snap! or words to that effect: I spent many an unprofitable minute trying to justify the one with the other. I remember offering you my brother’s sovereign cold cure the last time, so I’ll just wish you a speedy recovery.
       1. Thanks Kevin. I remember your brother’s cure. Might be worth a try – it couldn’t possibly make me feel worse.
    2. I had no idea that Elvis C had covered Backstabbers. Will check it out as I love the O’Jays’ version.
19. That jam sounds like a thing of beauty !
    1. I spotted a Pimm’s jam in Sainsbury’s yesterday (strawberry, tangerine and mint).
20. ….for making 29A comprehensible ! I agree with him about the hyphen in ROLL-UP, and also as regards “worn=exhausted”.

    I biffed FINE ARTS, but parsed it afterwards.

    FOI ROLL-UP
    LOI EXPIRATION
    COD CAPPUCCINO
    TIME 10:53

21. 12:39. During the solve I felt I was making decent progress on a trickyish puzzle. I had one or both of BOLSHOI and TRUNK in place before I got back to 5a so didn’t fall into the backstab trap.

    Expiation was the only unfamiliar element, COD to PADDING.

22. Please, how do the 3 dots work in 25A and 26A? I regularly fail to understand this.

    Also, how does “please” become “o” in 26A?

    Thank you. Anyone?

    1. You’re not alone in failing to understand this, anon. Indeed a few days ago it was remarked that there were a couple of clues in which the three dots actually had a function. Normally they don’t seem to, and this looks to me like a particularly nonsensical example. I can’t see any need for them, or indeed any logical connection between the two clues.
       In 26ac ‘please write’ becomes ‘O, PEN!’, a sort of whimsically poetic equivalent.

       Edited at 2020-02-25 02:03 pm (UTC)

       1. Thank you for the answers. Much appreciated, Simon Thorne.
       2. Thanks, only just got round to this one and these were the two questions I also had.

          Jonjam

    2. An ellipsis or 3 dots are usually a distraction in cryptic crosswords. They suggest a link between adjacent clues but it’s very rare that such a link exists. I treat them like surface readings and other punctuation and ignore them.

       As for O = please, I can’t find a definitive statement on this in any of the usual sources, but ‘O’ tends to be a polite way of starting a a request for something (see the Book of Common Prayer) and ‘please’ fulfils the same purpose.

23. I found it quite easy, on the wavelength I guess. Only slight holdups at the end were prone, retort where I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, and tor which I couldn’t parse until after a few minutes thought. Entered backbite without thinking of backstab, had the O at the end so cappuccino was a write in, curry favour is in my chestnuts list – seen an identical (maybe different) clue before, and managed to avoid all other problems.
    One of good those days.

    Edited at 2020-02-25 02:13 pm (UTC)

24. On the wavelength, and had Trunk and Bolshoi before I got to Backbite, which probably saved me some trouble. I liked Bison – cute, that – and also At Will. Like others, I squinted at O for a second. Fortunately, there wasn’t really another possibility.
25. I got stuck late last night with a few unfinished, and this morning, thanks to TRUNK, I can blame it mainly on having BACKSTAB instead of BACKBITE.
26. Much trickier than yesterday, took a good while to get going but did manage to keep nemesis ( the right one this time!!) at bay.

    Given a slow start pleased enough to finish in 23.23. LOI was pink which could qualify as COD as well for me. Backbite confirmed bison for me and tor took a while and just assumed it was right in the end. Shouldn’t forget fine arts, nice clue.

27. Another CAPUCHINO here… and it took me far too long. Definitely not on the wavelength today.
28. What happened there? I was going fine at 20 minutes with four to go and then I ran into a wall. Got so stuck I dozed off. The four killers were in the NW: Bison, Fine Arts, Tor and Retort fell in that order, but oh so slowly! Was it just me?
29. Another who had BACKSTAB written in, so had to think again to get the NE corner finished. Otherwise 20 minutes of easy enough, CURRY FAVOUR my CoD.
30. Well pretty hard for me but I did manage about 2 thirds. I thought 11 across was tricky as I didn’t get that it was an anagram! Also 23a tricky for me and I didn’t get retort, put reboot although it didn’t seem right. It’s over 50 years since I used a retort at school! Still enjoying learning loads every day. Thanks to you all!
31. No definite time as I did this in two parts, but around about 45-50 minutes I think. All correct but some doubtful parsing – obviously 12d – I can never do reverse anagrams. I just biffed that one. I was also unsure about my parsing of Bison but it seems to have been ok. Tor flummoxed me!

    People have commented in the past about inappropriate references to mental health, and although I don’t have a problem with lightweight slang like crackers or nuts when you mean something is just a bit ridiculous, I really didn’t like 19d Padding today. So much so that I put a cross next to the clue!

    However, quite a few got ticks – Retort, Hike, Curry favour and Cappuccino for starters. The penny positively clanged when I got Bolshoi but in the end, the smiley face went to 25a.

    FOI Necromancy
    LOI Tor
    COD At will

    Bolshwa – brilliant! The same people would probably talk about villages like Chesham Bwa and Theydon Bwa (not that I ever did that when I first saw them written down 😉)

    Thanks setter for a nicely challenging puzzle and Jack for the blog

32. Another cappuchino. I blame it on the Capuchin monks, who first developed the technology to create a milk froth and deposit it on top of an espresso. The resulting drink has a black body and a white head, which is why the capuchin monkey was named after it. But I’m sure you already knew that.
33. 22:56 which feels like a pretty decent time for a puzzle that required quite some thought to get across the finish line. Ultra was one of my last in, well hidden!
34. Yet another backstabbing mystery player here, all of which took time to sort out ..
35. 51 minutes, but no real problems (I can spell CAPPUCCINO and I never thought of BACKSTAB and there was nothing really unknown in the puzzle). But the clues didn’t make me chuckle as they usually do, some of them are, well, a bit plump, like PADDING or the two features of cricket in 3dn, and even BISON, maybe the best of the lot, or MIRACLE PLAY seem a bit contrived.
36. I started very late 1.30am (Wed) and did not finish.
    Busy day at the office.

    FOI 2dn EMILE ZOLA (no relation to gorgonzola)

    (LOI) 210ac PINK

    COD 5dn BISON

    WOD 145ac ROCKABILLY

    Good morning!

37. ….with a pink square at BPLSHOI – clumsy typing.

    Gave up chemistry in the 3rd year (Year 9 in Yankland) so RETORT was a guess.

    NEAR = mean? Not sure I understood that either.

    Not greatly enjoyable though at least there was nothing else that I hadn’t heard of.

38. Please, how do the 3 dots work in 25A and 26A? I regularly fail to understand this.

    Also, how does “please” become “o” in 26A?

    Thank you. Anyone?

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