Times Cryptic 27698

50 comments on “Times Cryptic 27698”

1. …just couldn’t see them. I had earlier thought that reserve might fit, and I saw diets all along, but couldn’t parse the cryptic.

   Nothing else was very difficult. I had never heard of “make great play of”, must be a UK-ism. On the other hand, I was not surprised that the lawyers’ continuing education centers around how to charge more fees.

   Time, 24 minutes.

2. Nothing wrong with either clue, but odd to have both DO FOR and WENT FOR in the same crossword. My big surprise was that 22A was 5 letters since it was obviously PRI(n)G. I’d even started to type it. I also had a MER at EAGERNESS and anxiety, but since it was an anagram there was no doubt.
3. I’m having problems again with the club site, so I had to go to the Times site; so I don’t have a copy of the puzzle itself. I wondered about EAGERNESS, too; equating eager=anxious is a standard ‘error’ attacked by those people who like that sort of thing, but I wasn’t sure if the same equation was made between the nouns. I also had a latent MER with WENT FOR, but if it went for $1000 it cost $1000, no? Stalled for a while in the SE, trying to make PROMPTER work.
   1. I could see that if you were “anxious to get on” with something, then you could be seen to be eager. Not the greatest clue though.
4. This all went in fairly quickly… no distractions, for a change! Just did yesterday’s before it. Last ones in were PROPOSED, PROUD (“not ALOOF?”) and DIETS, special meals indeed.
   Indie bands still produce EPs, both in physical and digital form.
5. I’m very familiar with lawyers charging extra fees, usually for solving problems they’ve created, but didn’t realise they were called ‘refreshers’. Until now.
6. Whilst Paul noted that we had both WENT FOR and DO FOR, I noted that we had RASH in both 1A and 1D, albeit clued differently.

   I was fine with WENT FOR – it seems to fit both definitions well to my mind. And whilst I can see why Jack had misgivings about the “In” in 1D it was OK by me. I read it as “In writing front of car then spots you get accident”. I guess the setter could have used By instead of In.

7. Straightforward top to bottom solve with no hold-ups.
8. 14 minutes with LOI DESERVE, while charging up (hopefully) car battery. (“My battery’s flat.” “What shape should it be?”) So I was supercharged today. COD to SHEEPDOG in memory of my old border collie. Straightforward but very pleasant puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter.
9. 32 minutes. Despite working for a law firm at the moment I didn’t know about refresher fees, but that didn’t hold me up for long. Also didn’t know 2d MAKE GREAT PLAY OF, and looked ASKANCE with Jack at the anxiety in 27a.

   I had the most problems with my final two, 25a DESERVE and 16d PROPOSER, where I’d separated out “plain” and “English” a little too much to see what was going on until I spotted the answer and worked backwards…

   1. Indeed, pros as plain mystified me, too!
10. …Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain,
    Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain.
    25 mins pre-brekker.
    No dramas once I decided there was no food store called a Pinery.
    Thanks setter and J.
11. Hovering around easy/very easy on the Snitch today. I think 1dn does work (Comprised in) ‘front of car, spots’: accident. MER at RASH appearing in 1ac and 1dn, at least they used different senses. Don’t we deprecate definition by example (ASKANCE, dance for waltz)?

    Some of us are lawyers, you know, we’re not all greedy!

    COD: DRY-EYED – amusing surface, and didn’t have the obvious W for whiskey.

    Yesterday’s answer: a VW Polo is virtually the same as a Skoda Fabia, and Lotus currently produce Elise, Exige and Evora. What committee decided those?!

    Today’s question: HARD TIMES is Dickens’ shortest (complete) novel by number of words, but which is his longest?

    1. No idea but Pickwick Papers must be up there .. I certainly felt it went on and on and on..
    2. Afraid I found Hard Times unreadable, which was unfortunate, as it was one of my English A-level texts.
    3. Whichever one you are reading at the time.
       1. You make me feel better about giving up on A Tale of Two Cities recently.
          1. I gave up when they were villages.
    4. I once did this clue for a character in it.
       One ruined by Chancery nonsense and rhetoric about estates? (7,8)
       1. I don’t recall that from the TLS – nice one.
          1. I am about halfway through A Tale of Two Cities having nearly given up. I had to look up the plot on Wiki to find out what was going on. Not one of his best. I read Bleak House not long ago -excellent but seemingly endless, like Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
             1. Have you tried the Ronald Colman version of TOTC? It’s pretty good.
12. 9:27 with a fair amount of biffing. LOI eagerness as I didn’t quite believe it. It was only reading the blog I remembered I had heard before “refresher” as a fee – thanks for that Jack. COD to CHARTRES for evoking memories of singing there.
13. 10.41 for one of those puzzles where you don’t really feel the need to work out all the wordplay once you’ve entered the right answer. I did go back after submission to sort out most of them, but omitted SHEEPDOG from that list, and was so fixated by the shelter in 12 across being A NEAR NEST (whatever that is) I failed to unscramble that too.

    In any other profession, REFRESHER fee would be a shame-faced euphemism. Almost the last lawyer I dealt with charged £700 and hour (10 years ago, probably double that now) and I bet he refreshed up the minutes. I ended up telling him (correctly) what the law actually was.

14. 7:56. I really whizzed through the first half of this, but slowed down a bit (not much obviously) particularly in the SE corner.
    No problem with WENT FOR or ‘in’ in 1dn, which seems (even if not necessary) a legitimate part of the assembly instructions.
    Like Kevin I’m not entirely sure about anxiety=EAGERNESS. You might say ‘I’m anxious to go to the pub’ but would you say ‘in my anxiety to go to the pub…’? I suppose you might.
    I am used to paying lawyers by the hour so the concept of a refresher fee doesn’t come up.
    1. In your example, anxiety might suggest you have “a drink problem”.
       1. Well I do have a drink problem: the pubs are all shut!
          1. Seen outside a pub yesterday… “If you were planning on a Sober October or dry January please do them now. The Pub.”
15. Mostly zipped through without incident until I reached the SE, as well, and was briefly held up by PROUD and DIETS for – in retrospect – no particular reason.
16. No problems with this for me, only OLEANDER going in unparsed before I figured out that the “with” in the clue meant “including”. Never heard of “heel” as despicable person, but it couldn’t have been anything else. Misunderstood 17a for quite a while, thinking it would have an H at the end, until the two checkers were in.

    FOI On edge
    LOI Fits
    COD Perth/Whim

17. Day 2 of the 5 day Test from Edgbaston (constituency). Not been caught out or stumped yet.

    COD: CAMERA-SHY

18. Born in Gorton, Manchester (it was his Cockerney, laid on with a trowel, that bugged me)
    1. Maybe he had a northern accent drummed out of him at RADA which he attended from the age of 18. He certainly couldn’t maintain it in Kavanagh, even for a whole scene.

       Edited at 2020-06-23 10:39 am (UTC)

19. Nice and quick today, but left YAWNED till the end, as unaware of AWNED for with a beard. That meaning of AWN has somehow passed me by after 67 years…
20. Thought I was on for a sub-5 minutes but got tangled with OFFHANDED / FITS / OLEANDER, none of which seem that tricky now, and ended up with 6m 30s. Lots of biffing elsewhere.

    For OLEANDER – one of the few shrubs I know, thanks to crosswords – I’d got convinced that ‘maybe planted’ meant something was going to have BED around it, so that side-tracked me for a bit.

    I agree, definition in 1a is very nice.

21. If he’s not in the Python philosophers song lyrics I don’t know him. I did try to read some of his stuff – once – after which any Dickens would come as light entertainment. We had “renegue” with a U recently and there it is again in today’s Guardian. I didn’t see OFFHANDED and FITS right away but otherwise straightforward. No problem with any of the defs. 14.08
22. For grindingly impenetrable prose Hegel is right up there with Kant ( see Olivia above ) and I recommend to our esteemed blogger that if he only knows Hegel from crosswords he keep it that way, lucky man.

    Time: 35.30 the last five of which were spent head-scratching over OLEANDER, shrubs and plants being my least favourite types of answer.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

    Dave.

23. ….after 6 minutes. Damn ! That brick wall has been put up again !

    Almost a further 2 minutes needed to crack OFFHANDED, after which my LOI laughed at me. Bah !

    Parsed ALL AT ONCE afterwards.

    FOI CAMERA-SHY
    LOI FITS
    COD WENT FOR
    TIME 7:48

24. I fell straight into the trap so deftly avoided by myrtilus000 – ‘pinery’ for PANTRY. No further comment needed.
25. 15.42 but undone by fits. I read the clue as attacks endlessly followed by hard ergo fith! Ah well the reasoning wasn’t so bad, even if I’d never heard of fith before, nor will I again.

    Apart from that, an enjoyable puzzle just annoyed I fell short.

    1. I fell into the same trap. Apparently FITH can stand for Fire In The Hold, and if you set off the cannon, you’d certainly by trying to repulse someone!
       1. 😊
26. Rather like old times today,solving on the train to and from London. Trafalgar Square was pleasant and empty -probably that’s the first time I’ve been able to say that.
    I must have followed Phil’s route on the puzzle (but much more slowly) as I finished with OLEANDER, OFFHANDED and FITS. Done before a late lunch.
    There were several unparsed including DIETS so thanks for all the explanations. I also wondered about EAGERNESS = Anxiety. David
27. Exactly the same as topicaltim but ten minutes or so longer.
28. I thought I was on for a quick time today (for me – I’m not thinking 10 minutes or anything like that!) as the first half dozen went in very quickly, but things slowed down with 24a, 2d and 7d, in particular, taking their time. 25a was frustrating, as I could see that it was de+something, especially as we had a similar clue in the quickie today, but the serve part was elusive. I biffed a few – SHEEPDOG, ALL AT ONCE and REFRESHER COURSE, so thanks Jack for elucidation.

    It was a pleasant enough outing, but TBH, nothing really stood out for me. Still, I’ve finished two days on the trot, so that’s good enough. I don’t hold out any hope for tomorrow – Wednesdays always seem to give me grief.

    FOI Camera shy
    LOI Deserve
    COD Oleander – frequently seen in Crosswordland as well as the Med, but a nice version of the clue
    Time 29 mins

    Thanks all

    1. And Memphis in June.

       Edited at 2020-06-23 07:10 pm (UTC)

29. 15 minutes today which is a very good time for me – hampered as I am by poor eyesight and the need for frequent sips of tea. I knew REFRESHER only from Rumpole of the Bailey and his “nice little refreshers”. Ann
30. Biffed REFRESHER COURSE (no idea what that is to do with lawyers) and CAMERA SHY – didn’t bother to parse.

    Thought WENT FOR was quite reasonable. Didn’t like anxiety = EAGERNESS.

31. 24:40. I drifted off mid-solve and started daydreaming. I’m not sure whether I came round after a few seconds or a few minutes. Nice puzzle not too hard although I failed to properly parse offhanded.
32. Pressure of work meant done a day late.

    24 mins.

    FOI 1ac CAMERA SHY

    LOI 23dn DIETS

    COD 13dn OFFHANDED

    WOD 11ac HEGEL

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