Times Cryptic 28064

80 comments on “Times Cryptic 28064”

1. Got bogged down in the Margaret River corner, with SOMEHOW and WATERY being the last to fall. Only realised after reading the blog that I hadn’t fully parsed HEARTBREAK HOTEL or STIR, but they went in regardless.

   Thanks Jack and setter.

   1. And meant to say, I’ve been doing the Guardian during my absence, so saw the WINDCHEATER device pretty quickly. Surprised to see it used here though.
   2. Margaret River – is that the one in the SW of Western Australia?
      Andyf
      1. Yes Andy. Top-notch beaches, forests and wineries. All protected by a megalomaniac who won’t allow you into the state.
   3. Ah! I found the wine but somehow missed the beaches.
      Andyf
2. My friends Joshua & Henri run words together that way in their clues, and it’s still slightly controversial among the test solvers. I don’t expect that here, but I was also held up by having written in HIDEOUS while thinking HIDEOUT and then forgetting about it before I went back to finish.

   John Cale’s version of HEARTBREAK HOTEL is definitive.

   I have to go back and look at the blog for yesterday now, as I had to finish that one first.

3. ….but I had difficulty because I couldn’t read my handwriting – was looking for _ _ _ _ H _ D for 18 down. Once that was straightened out, shinned and mass were obvious. I did biff stir without understanding the cryptic, but what else could it be? Time, 39 minutes.
   1. How many times have I said, “what else could it be?” only to find I’m wrong…..
4. I was desperate to crack 20 minutes on this one, but sadly the crumbs were hard to finish off: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1127722577

   16:40 and I had only four left: TWISTER, FRIENDS, SHINNED, and that goddamn STIR. Another two minutes and I had all but STIR. But that danged last clue took me a further four and a half minutes! I’d suspected (and written in several times) STIR on account of ‘flap’ = STIR, but I refused to rush into anything and risk the dreaded pink squares. Four and a half minutes! until the (quite crafty) prison meaning dawned on me. Oh well, it seems like my time was decent for this puzzle, by comparison.

   Still, though, wish I’d trusted my gut.

   1. Is there supposed to be sound on that link, Jeremy? If so, I’m not getting it. I checked that neither the video nor my system is muted.
      1. Had to go without sound/video tonight, as my wife was working in the same room.
         1. Ah, right. You know it’s to the Quick Cryptic, not the 15×15?
            1. It’s both. (and more)
5. Not sure if SHINNED works for went down, rather than went up.
6. I wondered too, but Lexico has:
   British shin up/down
   Climb quickly up or down by gripping with one’s arms and legs.

7. 33 minutes. I don’t mind a “lift and separate” clue like ‘Windcheater?’, even if TWISTER for the ‘cheater’ bit took a while to come to mind. Best clues of the day though were the ‘What might have wings for doing bird’ part of the wordplay for STIR and the excellent HEARTBREAK HOTEL – only 65 years young. Didn’t know QUARE as an Irish word for “queer”.

   I’ll admit to having watched a lot of mindless, trashy TV in my time, but I draw the line at BIG BROTHER, so I’m happy to leave it as a double def.

   Thanks to Jack and setter

8. … but seemed a struggle. I have seen ELAND many times and graceful is not a word you would use … galumphing, perhaps. Don’t like TWISTER. COD to LIB DEMS.
9. SNITCH at the time of writing = 108 – so this one was bound to be a tough challenge for me. And I almost made it, ending up at 52m with 28a and 26d to solve before my 60-minute deadline expired.

   A DARK SKY fitted “concerning for one potentially” fairly well, but the rest made no sense, so I wasn’t really convinced. (Note to self – I’ve previously failed to decode “papers” = ID – don’t do that next time!)

   As it happened, my wrong solution also fitted all the crossers correctly, leaving me with 26d T_S – so naturally I went through all the vowels in my head, completely failing to realise that a word with leading apostrophe could be a valid solution. Guess my brain was fried by that point, seconds away from the deadline. I entered a wrong guess.

   1. However, on a more upbeat note, I checked the post, and found a letter enclosing a £20 Waterstones voucher.

      I was a winner of Saturday prize puzzle 208056 – so don’t get too smug, all you speed ‘n’ accuracy merchants – my efforts are being rewarded in a more material way.

      1. Congratulations! Makes the subscription all the more worthwhile. I had nothing for years, then won twice in as many months before cornering the £100 for the club special. I’m still waiting for my fountain pen for the Sunday!
         1. Sorry to be anonymous but i just don’t seem to be able to log in. The ST Cross fountain pen proved to be a real disappointment, flimsy makecand scratchy. Would much rather have had the ball point.
            Compliments to all the bloggers and contributers for a witty, entertaining and edifying read each evening.
      2. Been completing them for years but never won a dickie-bird. Enjoy it while it lasts 🙂
         1. Don’t give up. As per reply to Z8, four Saturday Times wins, one Sunday Times and one Independent when it was a proper broadsheet — at the second and only time I submitted it!
10. Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
    Wandering companionless
    Among the stars that have a different birth,
    And ever changing, like a joyless eye
    That finds no object worth its constancy?

    Nice to see Shelley and the hotel single. 25 mins pre-brekker.
    Thanks setter and J

11. Isn’t really a double definition but a play on words.

    I don’t think running two words together is an issue as long as they form a compound. Especially one which means what it says it does “a wind cheater cheats the wind”
    Where it’s iffy is defining “cup” as “atrophy” etc

    1. Thanks for responding. I hesitate to disagree with an eminent setter, but I don’t see the clue as a play on words other than in the sense that most cryptic puzzle clues are just that. A windcheater is something that cheats the wind (hence the name of the jacket), but a TWISTER is not. It can be a wind (tornado) or someone/thing that cheats – two quite separate meanings. One can make a case for treating compound words separately in cryptic puzzles (the Guardian, for one, uses the device almost daily) but it’s not something that turns up very often in Times puzzles (this is the only time I can recall it, but I expect there have been other instances), so it’s a break from convention and therefore cause for comment.

       Edited at 2021-08-24 08:16 am (UTC)

       1. Wind = Twister, Cheater = Twister, whole thing works as well and there’s a ? to indicate something dodgy’s going on. Damn good spot by the setter in my view, so can’t see the problem. Old Vic.
          1. Your analysis of the component parts of the clue is entirely in line with the double definition I described in my blog. The ‘problem’ under discussion remains that ‘windcheater’ doesn’t = ‘twister’, so for the clue to work the components need to be treated separately to make a double definition, but the setter has said this wasn’t the intention.

             Edited at 2021-08-24 02:28 pm (UTC)

             1. Your analysis is based on the idea that wind is one definition and cheater another, and the setter has simply run them together

                However, speaking as the setter in question I can confirm that that wasn’t really the idea.

                So you say “windcheater” doesn’t = “twister” and indeed it does not, but neither does “flower” = “river” etc. Cryptic clues are there to exploit these plays and word associations.
                Sometimes it doesn’t do to analyse things TOO scientifically.

                1. Perfectly sound and solvable clue. Can’t see what all the fuss is about (as per usual)
                   Unwritten rules aren’t worth the paper they are printed on
    2. Nice to hear from the setter, thanks for commenting.

       In case there was any doubt, my “surprised to see it” was in no way meant as a criticism. Seems like as reasonable a device as any, just hadn’t seen it used in the Times (notwithstanding the interesting distinction you make regarding compound words).

       1. I’d wondered about the convention on that in the past. It’s nice to get a view, and maybe clarity, from the setting/editing side
          Also, from the one-word structure of the clue it was pretty clear what had to be going on.

          Edited at 2021-08-24 03:23 pm (UTC)

12. 25′ 16″, a worthy challenge. FRIENDS took a long while, and I needed the F for BOASTFUL, my LOI.

    BIG BROTHER was called ‘Loft Story’ in France, but it never caught on. I wonder why?

    Thanks jack and setter.

13. 29:02
    Windcheater … Not quite a Times clue.
    Thanks, jack.
14. In 1969 New Musical Express went all front-page over an Irish Band – ‘The Quare Fellas’* – but they were hardly ‘The Pretty Things’; they disappeared one album later. I have all their hit!
    *Named after Brendan Behan’s first play ‘The Quare Fellow’ 1954

    Spot on 31 minutes.

    FOI 19ac LIB DEMS – my lot!

    LOI & COD 24dn STIR – coo!

    WOD 25ac HEARTBREAK HOTEL (Tommy Durden & Mae Axton) -Elvis Presley’s first No. Hit. Mae introduced Col. Parker to Elvis. I’m sure The Bolton Wanderer knows more!

    Non-WOD 8dn PILATES!

    Edited at 2021-08-24 11:54 am (UTC)

15. ….at HEARTBREAK HOTEL. “Deany”, the owner of the garage where my cab got fixed, had moved in with his girlfriend, and his 4 bed semi became a house-share for cabbies whose relationships had gone down the pan. The rest of the drivers quickly adopted the nickname. I was there for 18 months just post-Millenium, with a frequently changing cast of up to 3 colleagues. This occasionally included Deany himself, since his girlfriend wasn’t the easiest to live with. Telly with all the channels, well equipped kitchen, comfy bed, great shower — and very cheap….I sometimes wish I’d never moved out !

    This was quite a tricky puzzle, and I started slowly, but I had no query with the “lift and separate” windcheater, which is simply an example of “ignore punctuation” as far as I’m concerned.

    I only parsed WATERY afterwards.

    FOI DEAD AS A DOORNAIL
    LOI SHINNED
    COD FRIENDS
    TIME 14:48

    Edited at 2021-08-24 08:03 am (UTC)

16. 15:12 Surprised like others that SHIN can mean climb down. NHO QUARE and didn’t care much for BIG BROTHER. But I liked TWISTER, STIR and my COD, FRIENDS. Thanks Jack and setter.
17. Relieved to come here and find my last two in, BLUEBOTTLE and STIR, were right, as I didn’t remember ‘blue’ = waste or that bluebottle is old slang for a police officer and I had no idea what was going on with the wings and the bird. I also didn’t know the ‘quare’ is an Irish word for ‘strange’, though the clue was helpful.

    Otherwise this wasn’t too tricky. I quite liked FRIENDS (the clue, not the sitcom, which I’ve never watched), even though it took a while to dawn on me.

    FOI Lib Dems
    LOI Stir
    COD Shinned

18. I went for Houseful instead of Boastful. Plus two typos despite a quick check.
19. 31 minutes with a walk in the middle. COD to OUTLANDISH. Horryd challenges me to say more about Heartbreak Hotel. I was only just turned ten when he recorded it and my older sister didn’t even like Elvis, so I used to listen to him on the jukebox at Southport Fun House while trying to stay on a wheel that went round ever faster. I see that Chet Atkins did the guitar solo. And if Mae Axton did introduce him to Colonel Tom Parker, she has a lot to answer for. “When I first met Elvis, he had a million dollars worth of talent. Now he has a million dollars.” To the puzzle, a good one I thought. It took a while to finish in the SW with MASS, SHINNED and SOMEWHOW LOIs. I saw it was QUARANTINE and then remembered Brendan Behan. Mrs BW is currently doing her PILATES upstairs. There’s no accounting for taste. Thank you Jack and setter.

    Edited at 2021-08-24 08:46 am (UTC)

20. 53 mins with the last ten or so spent on the crossers ABANDONMENT, ADIT and LOI FRIENDS. I also thought SHINNED meant to go up, But there you go. Liked HEARTBREAK HOTEL, great song still today. A number unparsed so thanks Jack for the explanations.

    Edited at 2021-08-24 09:10 am (UTC)

21. Good fun throughout. Was struggling for a while, but then HIT SQUAD and REVAMP both suddenly dawned on me, and the rest collapsed like a Fred Dibnah chimney.

    My dad would often refer to someone he didn’t quite trust as “a quare hawk” (if his suspicions were later confirmed, said individual then became a “gobshite”).

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

22. Quite liked this, though I only saw FRI ENDS post submission and feared pink squares.
    I kind of gave up on QUARANTINE: I could see that quaint for strange might somehow be twisted into the clue, never knew what the Quare Fellow was anyway and wondered if ERIN for Irish might also be part of the mix.
    Should the Lib Dems consider suing for defamation? Woefully misled British politicians they may be, but I’m sure they’d rather nobody else knew.
    1. Oh, just over 20 minutes
23. I was also a bit uncomfortable with ‘shinned’ for ‘went down’. Surely it means ‘go up’, I thought to myself. But in that case ‘shinned up the rope’ would mean ‘went up up the rope’. Chambers has ‘to use one’s legs’, although the climbing thing is ‘(usu with up)’.
24. Me too.
25. Very slow start and any mention of tv programmes gives me brain freeze. I also made things harder for myself by putting Southey at 20d (anagram of “shout” or something) – too clever by half. Liked the Elvis one very much. 20.49
26. Not particularly tricky but, as others have commented, one with a decidedly different “feel” to it. A bit thrown by TWISTER but could see it as a cryptic/DD hybrid to keep everyone happy. Read my own H as an M in HOTEL so making BIG BROTHER — which should have been a write-in — difficult. I have decided to pitch my new sitcom MRS BLOOMER to the beeb, but suspect I may be a few decades too late. 32 mins
27. Not on the wavelength for this one at all. DNF. NHO ‘blue’ as ‘waste’ and 8dn needs ‘number’ IMHO for ‘irrational’ to make sense. I will no doubt be corrected.
    1. I don’t know about correcting you, but technical terms and jargon tend to get reduced when experts in a particular field are talking amongst themselves and the shortened form finds its way into dictionaries and onwards to crossword puzzles. For example, under ‘irrational’ the Shorter Oxford includes: math. An irrational number or quantity.
28. I was rattling through thinking I made a mistake, this must be the quickie, until it all ground to a halt. It was the sudden aha moment of HEARTBREAK HOTEL that got me going again, although tbh I didn’t understand the ‘single’ bit till I got here. After that it was relatively plain sailing. Personally I’d rather be engaging my brain than watching 📺, and I imagine that applies to most of us. The frequent TV programmes that appear on here are only known to me by osmosis.
    1. It’s coming soon, I can assure you!
29. Do the horses from the Guardian stables sometimes wander over to The Times? I dare say this was a very neat piece of setting, particularly WATERY and STIR – my last two in. COD HIDEOUT. Where have I seen ‘galspray’ before? Freemantle?
    1. Hmmm, this feels like a coded message. But there’s only one Guardian solver I know, and he would never spell Fremantle like that…
30. M. Poitier what a fine simile!
    1. Merci, monsieur.
31. After seeing the long anag straight off, I thought this might be easier than I found it. Somewhat off the pace, found a second wind after 20 mins or so, then slowed up for the last few — SHINNED, EZRA, MASS and STIR (which I thought was a poor clue, unless STIR is also a type of bird (one that flies rather than prison/bird)).

    Only just over my target 45 mins for a SNITCH which was 110 when I checked.

32. Re-18ac – Might we be on the wrong wavelength?

    “Yeah, imagine me shinnin’ on down to Mexico with Ben Wade on my arm.” – an old American aphorism.

    Had Andrew Johhnson’s impeachment been successful in the Senate, 1868, then Benjamin Franklin Wade would have been President.

33. No one has mentioned the adenoidal boy wonder – ‘Bluebottle’ of The Goon Show – played by Peter Sellers, who based him on Ruxton Hayward, a superannuated, red-bearded Scoutmaster from East Finchley, who knew Michael Bentine (Square World)

    And what of Little Jim (Eccles’ nephew)? “He’s fallen in the wa-ater!”
    The Goon Show Preservation Society

    Edited at 2021-08-24 12:39 pm (UTC)

    1. I couldn’t stand the Goons. They left me stone cold. I disliked Milligan and all his works forever. Sellars was okay in the right acting roles but those seldom came his way as his career developed and he tried to branch out, and Secombe couldn’t sing in tune but insisted on demonstrating it at every opportunity. I had a passing liking for Bentine when aged about 5, presenting The Bumblies on TV.
       1. Seagoon:
          …Ha ha ha ha. Laugh and the world laughs with you, they say.

          Grytpype-Thynne:
          You’ve proved them wrong, haven’t you, Neddy?

       2. The Goons left me cold as well, but I can’t agree with you on Spike Milligan. His output was admittedly variable, but some of his poetry is wonderful, whether serious or comical, and only Spike would ever have gone through on his promise about his headstone once dead. “I told you I was ill” surely must give a smile to everyone who reads it.
          1. His books on his time in the RA are brilliant!
             1. I’ve just been inspired to pick up ‘Adolf Hitler – My Part In His Downfall’. Haven’t stopped laughing all evening.
34. 17.58. A good time, no doubt aided by getting the long ones, Heartbreak Hotel and Dead as a Doornail in pretty early. Friends and Big Brother made this feel terribly modern (even if they are now decades old). DNK quare. The twister clue was not to my personal taste but it didn’t cause too much of a hold up. Shinned up was my first thought but shinned down sounded ok too, the most usual method of drainpipe ascent or descent.
    1. Yes, trees and drainpipes were the things! And one ‘barked one’s shins’ on the way up or down, or did that apply only to trees?
       1. I’m not sure I knew the expression ‘to bark ones shins’ I dare say it could apply to both trees and drainpipes!
35. FOI was TEA, then steady progress until I became becalmed in the SW, with the second part of 1a and 3d also still outstanding. The logjam was cleared when the SQUAD arrived. QUARNATINE followed and SHINNED led to SOMEHOW, MASS and LOI, WATERY. Nice puzzle. 27:30. Thanks setter and Jack.
36. All completed but came here for the parsing of STIR (fair enough – although a complex first definition) and BLUE – I’d heard of to blow money and wondered if there was a tense issue (blew having another spelling) but, Collins not proving useful, I found the other definition in Lexico. Well, I’ll be blowed!
37. 7m 9s – and as soon as I saw that I’d come in (fairly) comfortably ahead of Verlaine, I popped over to his Twitch, confident that he must have been narrating. So he was.

    I’m in the camp that doesn’t regard ‘Windcheater?’ as really fit for the Times crossword, but thanks to the setter for explaining the thought process behind it.

    I was a big fan of Friends during its run, and remember being very impressed when Channel 4 advertised its final episode with the simple: E.N.D.S.F.R.I.

38. Nothing much to add – Monday’s puzzle on Tuesday – but I’m another not impressed by Windcheater. And no matter what the setter says I’m struggling to see it as a “play on words”. Wind = twister, cheater = twister (maybe). How else can the clue possibly work? Windcheater is not twister, wordplay or not.
    But I do agree with only joining and splitting words as appropriate: very Ximenean.
39. 19:22. Felt I was making very heavy weather of this, a mixed bag of a puzzle with some good stuff and some things I was less keen on. ‘Quare’ for instance: I mean really, is this Mephisto?
    MER at the single-word ‘windcheater’.
40. Finished another, feeling good. A technical DNF as tried various things and checked them in the online grid. Thought it was dead as a dinosaur but could see that there was no u or second s so suspected it might be wrong. Tried Spenser for the poet and Shelley was my last one in with all the checkers in place, then I saw why. Put in hideous and sweater, puzzled by sweater, checked and found the s in hideous was wrong, gosh, anyway that helped solve the two. Lots I didn’t parse – outlandish, only saw the dish, friends, shinned, watery, I dare say, award, abandonment, pilates – didn’t see pi,this instant, didn’t see the TNT. Still chuffed with struggling on to the end of another one of these. Thanks, Jack, for explaining many things, and setter for a good hour and a half’s entertainment. And the online grid for the red squares, and the chance to reassess my attempts. GW.
    1. “ Windcheater is not twister, wordplay or not.”

       Imagine a word “windcheater” which means a “wind” that “cheats”

       That’s all there is to it

       You’re thinking too deeply about it

41. Must have been over an hour but got there eventually. LOI was friends and I had absolutely no idea why that should be the right answer. Never really on the wavelength at all today.

42. Surely blew ones money rather than blue?
    1. SOED has: blue – verb² trans. slang. Pres. pple & verbal noun blueing, bluing. M19.
       [ORIGIN Perh. from past tense of blow verb¹ 20.]

       Spend extravagantly, squander.

       I don’t know if your spelling may be an alternative with the same meaning.

43. 21:29 late afternoon, with a few interruptions for deliveries etc. which my “paper and stopwatch” approach can cope with, just about.
    Progress was similarly stop-start, across what I thought was a good range of interesting clues.
    The format of 15 ac “twister” didn’t concern me, to be honest.
    Less happy with the use of “with” in 23 d “eland” — I don’t think it’s necessary and could be deemed as misleading. However I don’t think anyone else has commented, so maybe it’s just me.
    COD 1d “hideout” . To me this is indicates the suitability — unique perhaps – of the English language to facilitate crossword puzzle clues, where 2 words need only differ by one letter but sound completely different.
    Thanks to Jack for his blog and further explanations and to setter.
44. An expression MUST have 2 or more terms, never just one. Rotten clue.
    1. Not so.

       Shorter Oxford Dictionary;

       expression – A word, a phrase, a form of speech. M17.

       term – An expression. [from Latin terminus]

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