Times Cryptic 28070

44 comments on “Times Cryptic 28070”

1. Just over 20 minutes for me, so pretty easy. I totally missed the “More work” but I had several checkers so nothing other than CORNUCOPIA was going to fit so I moved on.

   Edited at 2021-08-31 02:09 am (UTC)

2. LOI IOTA, which I couldn’t parse, and therefore hesitated to put in. But what else could I-T- be? Thanks Jack for the explanation. I’ve been caught by this X to Y device before, but somehow it gets me every time.
   21:56

   Edited at 2021-08-31 02:24 am (UTC)

3. I loved this puzzle. The penny drop on ‘more work’ was palpable: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1134603544. Wasn’t the hugest fan of IOTA. I’m fine with the device but the reference ‘nine’ felt a bit loose. (I now see that it means ‘nine letters’, but still.)
4. Like Paul, I totally missed ‘More work’, and had no idea how the clue worked, except CORN; which was enough. Slowed down by wrongly thinking 27ac was R___ARIUM rather than ___RARIUM; it took NEOPHYTE to disabuse me of that.
5. …although I had to think to get neophyte and sepulchral. I had biffed election, thinking ion was the particle, but it turned out to be the literal when I eventually saw pleasantry. I was a little worried about blah being nonsense, but the cryptic was clear.

   And, of course, I always know what they call a flax-soaking contest!

6. 36 minute solve, though missed the parsing of the ‘nine written in reverse’ for IOTA and the ‘More work’ (v. good) bit of CORNUCOPIA. Took a while to get SHERRY, as I couldn’t think beyond SH for ‘quiet’. If gin is trendy again, I wonder if sherry will ever make a comeback.

   Favourite was CHARD. As a carnivore, it qualifies as an all-in-one in my book.

   Thanks to Jack and setter.

   1. I don’t want it to. The quality is as good as ever and it is dirt cheap, for what you get ..

      Edited at 2021-08-31 09:16 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks. Yes, I know what you mean. Sherry might have an image as being old-fashioned – Grandma having a tipple in the parlour and all that – but I like it and there’s nothing genteel about it’s alcohol content.
      2. Absolutely. See also port.
7. Also, DECEITFUL was a very difficult anagram (for me).
8. Found it tricky, but liked it a lot. Last two in were the PROFITS part of 7dn and CORNUCOPIA. I realised I hadn’t parsed either when reading the blog. A good thing, too; it would have taken me ages to work them out, if ever, not knowing fits for spells or Thomas More’s Utopia. And another who found deceitful difficult. Lots of nice penny-drop moments, even with the best one sailing straight over my head.
9. After a few days away from the routine, I felt terrified that I’d lost all the momentum gained oved three months or so of regular solving – and at 56m I had about eight clues to go. I was completely resigned to a DNF – then SPLIT HAIRS led me into an avalanche of biffing, until suddenly I just needed 5a.

   I normally have a one-hour cut-off before giving up, but in this case I allowed myself enough time to figure out CLOWNS. So quite an 11th-hour turnaround – very happy to achieve a solid 60:32 completion of a 111-rated (at time of writing) 15×15. “Crossword-only” word RET going on the learning list.

   Thanks to jackkt and setter

   1. White Rabbits!

      32 seconds over one‘s limit!! The eternal fires of hades await!
      Why, oh! why did you ever mention it? We’d have all believed you! Denise!?
      The Old Pink Square

      Edited at 2021-08-31 05:41 am (UTC)

   2. To be fair, ‘ret’ is getting into Mephisto territory. Struggled with some of this, one of my many weaknesses being gardens, flowers and things to put them in.
10. 
    DNF 27ac TERRARIUM is not in my vocabulary. They, TERRARIA, are probably on sale at the new IKEA Shanghai.
    So I too gave up after 60:32-ish.

    FOI 4dn CHARD which wasn’t hard

    (LOI) 14dn SPLIT HAIRS

    COD 2dn AMUSEMENT ARCADE! mature Damascene conversion! What a lark!

    WOD 9dn SEPULCHRAL although it might well be AFGHANISTAN

    Do they still make ‘Famous Amos’?

    Edited at 2021-08-31 05:42 am (UTC)

11. Like Denise I’ve had a few days away from the routine, spending a pleasant week in Devon. Back to the early mornings today and pleased to find my senses not too dulled. Jack mentions some solvers not liking the “switch a random letter” device but I think it’s OK when it’s obvious enough like today. Not that I saw it until post-solve but I thought it a great clue when I did. I finished with a tentative CLOWNS where I’d thought clubs was CS and “depressed” was an insertion indicator so ended up relying on the definition. With hindsight it seems straightforward so I feel a bit of one myself!
12. It deepens like a coastal shelf.
    Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself.

    What a gloomy thought.
    25 mins pre-brekker. I really liked it. Very neat and witty clueing. My eyebrow did flicker, once, not at Ret but at ‘circulating’ as a reversal indicator.
    Thanks setter and J.

    1. A METEOR came from out of the blue
       And ELECTRON was good to sèe too
       Old LARKIN was witty,
       But a bit Walter Mitty
       The best verse is both funny and true
13. A rare attempt before the QC and even rarer straight solve in 90+ mins. Shamefully, my LoI was AMUSEMENT ARCADE, for the longest time all my checkers were vowels, giving nothing to grab on to.

    Wanted waters=SPA at 22a (HORSESHOE) leading to the curved ‘spacetime’ or even ‘spadeedge’ where the river Dee followed the spa.

    COD IOTA, although really wanted xi in there somehow, which would have perfectly solved the clue
    Letter from nine written in reverse (2)
    Guess two letter clues are rare these days.

14. 47 minutes, so after yesterday’s triumph, down to earth with a bump. LOI was IOTA, unparsed. I took ages on AMUSEMENT ARCADE, the cacophony from which I detest, perhaps not the ideal sentiments of someone born in Blackpool. I didn’t know TERRARIUM which was gingerly constructed. unconvinced of the meaning of ret. COD to ACID RAIN amongst the many clues that were good. But I made hard work of this. Thank you Jack and setter.

    Edited at 2021-08-31 07:59 am (UTC)

15. 16:07 I’m another who didn’t get “More work”, although I parsed everything else. LOI IOTA. Stalled for a while over wondering what came after WINDFALL, thinking of different types of curves and trying to make 10A MINIATURE. Good puzzle. Thanks setter and Jackkt.
16. The Greeks used letters to represent numbers, so I immediately thought of theta, which represents nine. Confusingly, it is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, and doesn’t fit anyway. IOTA is the ninth letter — the system incorporates some obselete letters. (Apparently it is still used when numbering book pages, rather like our use of Roman numerals).

    I knew CORNUCOPIA from the Hunger Games books and films, and from school Latin — we were most amused by the translation of ‘in cornu’.

    13′ 35″, thanks jack and setter.

    1. Those interested in such things Greek may like to tackle today’s Guardian cryptic.
17. ….I must thank Jack for parsing IOTA, which I personally thought was a deliberately abstruse clue. I didn’t enjoy this one much anyway, and put the cap on a sluggish performance with a typo. It didn’t help that my FOI was a ridiculous biff (1A : mattress) which I had to back out later. Not my day.

    FOI (correctly) CLOWNS
    LOI (with a shrug) IOTA
    COD (once I parsed my biff) SPLIT HAIRS
    TIME 16:56 (with a typo)

18. Another who missed More’s work.

    COD: Cornucopia

19. Felt a bit off the pace early doors, but had a strong middle section before leaving half a dozen in the bottom half which took a further ten minutes to unravel.

    PLEASANTRY and HORSESHOE then gave NEOPHYTE and EARLY, which led to TERRARIUM — think RET = damp has been here before but had forgotten it — and finally SPLIT HAIRS.

20. Like one or two others, I’ve got a bit out of practice with irregular solving while on holiday in Wales, and it showed this morning (just over 25 minutes), though I think this was a challenger anyway.
    I’m inclined to let the setter off the random C for T, not least for the More work idea, which made a welcome return.
    I failed to parse IMAGE, somehow smudging it from the wordplay and IMAGINE (doesn’t work) and fluffed TERRARIUM, forgetting RET and blatantly biffing. The ARCADE took a long time to untangle, but I liked HORSESHOE (curved shape!) and IOTA, which I worked out properly, having discarded TO A T as the precise part of 14d.
    I worked for a while on small picture reduced by 50% being PIL (clever, eh?) but couldn’t make it do anything sensible.
    Good crossword, quality clues, helpful blog. Cheers!

    Edited at 2021-08-31 08:44 am (UTC)

21. I struggled with this one, taking over 50 mins. Took an age to see SPLIT HAIRS, after which the last three , IOTA, HORSESHOE and EARLY went tumbling in. IOTA unparsed, of course. Like some others, I am not sure I enjoyed today’s offering, though I cannot put a finger on why. Probably just me and the filthy weather we are currently (not) enjoying. I also saw “Pick” at 9 ac and bunged in plectrum without reading the rest of the clue. This also held me up for a while, especially for CORNUCOPIA which was my COD in the end. Note to self: READ the clue.

    Thanks Jack for the explanations, eg IOTA, and setter.

22. No problems today, at least once I had backed out of herbarium .. wife has a terrarium in our bedroom. It looks like a plant prison to me, left to my own devices I would let them out to run free ..

    Edited at 2021-08-31 09:19 am (UTC)

23. Made heavy weather of this, and never felt that I was quite on the setter’s wavelength. Luckily, TERRARIUM rang a distant bell, and I was content to stagger across the line without having parsed IOTA. (That should clinch the Nobel Prize for mixed metaphors).

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

24. Another who missed the More work and biffed. I also failed to parse IOTA. RET for damp was another forgotten, if I ever knew it. Like Jerry I had to back out of HERBARIUM when NEOPHYTE arrived. SPLIT HAIRS took an age to see. Otherwise no particular problems apart from a delayed SEPULCHRAL due to having biffed RUN-IN at 11a. 35:16, with a couple of minutes wasted trying and failing to parse IOTA. Thanks setter and Jack.
25. I think of nonsense as needing a second BLAH. A singular blah is what I’m feeling like this morning after being deprived of a night’s sleep by a fresh crop of mosquito bites. Good puzzle though. 22.16
26. Didn’t parse CORNUCOPIA or DUTY, although I was more confident with the former than the latter. Thanks for clearing them up Jack.

    Pretty steady solve otherwise.

27. Foiled by TERRARIUM – not having heard of ret, I thought damp = rot, so put that backwards and figured out the rest to make the non-existent ‘Torrarium’.

    Had no idea what was going on with IOTA or with CORNUCOPIA after the ‘corn’.

28. 12:15. I started really quickly on this, then slowed down considerably at about the half-way mark. Interesting puzzle with almost no obscurity (defined as things I didn’t know): just TERRARIUM, where like a few others I initially put in HERBARIUM but then took it out again when I couldn’t parse it. It’s not the kindest of clues, with an obscure answer (see previous definition) and the rather Mephistoish RET.
    Nice to see LARKIN.

    Edited at 2021-08-31 01:33 pm (UTC)

29. Very much on wavelength but a dreaded pink square – SPLIT HAITS – and that was after (supposedly) checking.

    Couldn’t parse IOTA so thanks for the explanation Jack. Reminds me of one of my favourite clues: HIJKLMNO (5)

    1. I first heard of HIJKLMNO IN 1972, but have no idea of the provenance; anyone?
       1. Oh dear, I should have read the previous entries first. My dad reckoned it was a Daily Telegraph clue. Unfortunately he’s nolonger around to confirm.
30. I struggled with this for what seemed like ages and eventually nodded off with only two or three clues solved. Reinvigorated after an indeterminate number of minutes, I then polished off all bar one in what might have been a PB. No idea of time elapsed, although all was done between lunch and tea. And it’s a DNF anyway, as SEPULCHRAL just wouldn’t succumb, or certainly not as easily as I did.
31. 37.12. I found this difficult but a real pleasure to solve. The clues all seemed to require intricate parsing and each first led me in completely the wrong direction. 13ac rather summed it up for me – deft clues misleading me at every turn.
32. 20.00 which came as a welcome surprise as it took me ages to get going. LOI iota, never worked it out but seemed likely. My COD cos I like the humour involved. Reminds me of that classic clue hijklmno (5 letters) . No need to send answers on a postcard.

    Thought Larkin was a contender for COD till iota.

    Thx setter for a very enjoyable puzzle and blogger for giving me the construction of iota as well as the same for terrarium. Can’t say I can remember ret for damp but I will now.

33. Daren’t (durst not) give my time today as it was off any scale. Not helped by entering “Run Up” instead of “Run In” which made “Sepulchral’ even tougher than it was.
    As many others, failed to parse “Iota” and “more work” went over my head.
    Enjoyed the puzzle in a masochistic fashion!
    1. Presume you meant the reverse of what you said, which is what I did, making SEPULCHRAL impossible till I realised
       1. Yes — you’re correct — well spotted, thanks.

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