Times Cryptic 28250

49 comments on “Times Cryptic 28250”

1. ….cross-referenced clues, and obscurities clued as anagrams. I also expect a little amusement, but couldn’t find any. A waste of my time if the truth be told.

   FOI SCUM
   LOI E-TAILER (kept seeing e-mailer)
   COD BOOTLEGGER
   TIME 12:30

2. Another who normally dislikes cross referenced clues, but enjoyed these. I got IN TOTO from ALTOGETHER and then saw DOROTHY. BRIO and INVETERATE were first 2 in. AT ALL COSTS and E-TAILER were APOI and POI respectively, leaving 5d. I hadn’t heard of the troubled region, but carefully wrote out the anagrist, assuming OK for fine, and assembled the jumble of letters into what looked something like a possibility, then looked it up before submitting. As it happens I’d managed to assemble the letters correctly, but I’m distinctly unimpressed with the clue. I thought it was difficult enough without the fine ambiguity! 38:08. Thanks Jack.
3. 19.17. No real problems with this, had heard of the troubled area (probably from a news report at some point) just don’t ask me to find it on a map. Got Toto before Dorothy. The Metro (G)nome raised a smile. I finished in the NE corner struggling to find bent double and biome but got there in the end. A lot of this solve involved spotting the solution from definition and checkers and then reverse engineering the parsing to justify which I find a less satisfying way of solving.
4. 53 minutes, but I found it enjoyable. Since I didn’t get ALTOGETHER until near the end, it was no help with 11ac and 6dn, but that didn’t matter. In fact, with the crossing letters I biffed IN TOTO and then it was clear that 6dn was going to be DOROTHY even without reading the clue. I rather liked that. My last two in were the unknown BIOME and finally, GOON. NAGORNO-KARABAKH was no problem once I had some of the letters in the right place and realized “fine” and “husband’s” would not be FHS, but H and something else that was “fine”. I have recently been reading independent Russian newspapers (until the last one was closed down yesterday), so I’m sure I’ve seen this place name recently, but expected it to be Nagorny Karabakh — of course the STORYBOARD saved me from that.
5. Interesting how divided the comments are. Nagorno-Karabakh is one of my favourite place names which can be rolled around the tongue to create all sorts of different effects. It’s so long since it has been in the news that I couldn’t remember where in the world it was but it sprang to mind instantly.
   I liked the cross-reference for once.
   This was a good time for me but the only clue I failed to complete (and would not have got right if I had given myself the rest of my allotted hour) was 27ac which no one else has mentioned. I like wine. A lot. I have never heard of tent in relation to wine. Perhaps I should have thought of TT in relation to ‘dry’ which may have led me to the solution but I would have been wary of inserting something which made no sense whatever that I could see.
   Oh well. Still working towards a fully correct week.
   Thanks to setter and to Jack for the enlightenment.
   1. You are not the only one who failed at TENT having successfully completed the rest of the puzzle. I was astonished that no one else seemed to have a problem with it, as I am also familiar with most wine types . I can only surmise that it is a ‘crossword’ wine, unreferenced in the real world. I shall store it for the next outing…
6. With reference to comments about 5d including my own in the blog, it seems that most (if not quite all) of the posters defending the clue knew the answer or at least were aware of the existence of a place named something like that which was historically a ‘troubled area’. That’s fine, and I’m pleased for them, but I covered that in my original comment. To others, and there are a good number of us represented above, the answer was utterly obscure and there was no way to the answer other than getting the checkers and then trying to arrange the remainder of the anagrist into something that looked feasible. The fact that the clue turned out to be only a partial anagram so that one had to deduce fine = OK rather than F, and husband = H made this even more difficult. In my book, that ranks as an unfair clue.
7. I didn’t have any problem with N-K. It’s occasionally in the news, and for me forms part of general current affairs. Tent is definitely an old crossword fave. My OED says it’s from the Spanish tinto: “A Spanish wine of a deep red colour and low alcoholic content. Often used as sacramental wine.” Liked the Dorothy Toto Altogether connection.
8. ….I would have been more accepting of such an obscure word/name like NAGORNO KARABAKH as a clue if a full anagram had been used rather than a partial one.
   One reason I had heard of that enclave was a piece in Private Eye which referred to someone riding something like a “six cylinder Nagorno Karabakh motor cycle”.

   Edited at 2022-03-29 08:18 pm (UTC)

9. 22.15. A very enjoyable puzzle which had me hooked and nervous all the way through. LOI biome, shortly after the forehead thumping goon. Have to confess to looking up the spelling of Nagorno Karabakh but excused myself on the basis I did know the answer!

   Lots to like but my COD in toto.

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