Times Cryptic 28622

105 comments on “Times Cryptic 28622”

1. 8:50 with a bit of hesitation at the end over SPUN. It seemed fine to me once I’d figured it out.
   I’m less sure about 19dn: the required meanings of WARD strike me as a bit arcane so I wonder if it isn’t just a mistake.

2. 44 mins which pleased me, then saw CASH BOOK not my CASEBOOK. Now displeased. Grr. Thanks everyone, always enjoyable to read.

3. 24 mins with the much commented several minutes spent on SPUN. Embarrassingly I had to biff AMBULANCEWOMAN and SEMAPHORE, missed both anagrams.

4. 20 minutes with two to go in the NE corner, but then held up by 9ac and 7dn, which took another 5 minutes to sort out. Then SQUEEZE dawned on me, so the last one in had to be SPUN, though I would echo others’ hesitations on this clue. I recall some recent discussion here on THORN, one of our ancient letters.
   FOI – DIOCESE
   LOI – SPUN
   COD – THE OVAL
   Thanks to jackkt and other contributors.

5. 08:43, held up, like a lot of other people on SPUN, but I was happy with my answer once the alphabet trawl yielded it (I am another who immediately pictured Minder for that meaning of SP).

6. For once I saw the Spoonerism straight away and 1a was FOI. My main hold ups were THOR, ENGELS and LOI, SPUN. No problems with the latter once I’d seen UN as the article in Le Monde. 19:07. Thanks setter and Jack.

7. Toddlers do have SMALL ARMS but until the crossers made it impossible I had entered their more infamous SHORT FUSE.
   Not quick again today but no dilemmas for me and correctly finished. Still my main objective.

   Thanks all.

   1. “Short fuse” is not “weapons,” though I see you have children, and I feel your pain …

      1. Was it that obvious? Yes I bear all the scars, love ‘em.

8. 14:13 with the adjectival/gerund SPUN easily justified once I had convinced myself about the SP bit. Hesitated over REWARDS as I’d always thought of a ward as the one being guarded rather than the guardian, but Chambers has no such misgivings.

9. 8m 12s with the last 2 mins or so spent on ENGELS. My least favourite kind of clue is one where we’re told to change a letter, but no indication of what it should change to – always seems rather lazy from the setter, to my mind.

   Aside from that, and the SPUN controversy that I think has been settled now, it was a nice puzzle.

10. Couldn’t parse SPUN either so went for the other option SLUG which I seem to recall having something to do with headlines. Apart from that, not too much bother.

11. SP is an abbreviation of “state of play” in my vocabulary.

12. 42.05 to complete, but like others was perplexed by SPUN. I eventually got there on the basis as someone else has already described it as ‘heard it on the sp’, which I’ve heard used many a time without fully understanding what exactly the sp stood for. I’m not convinced that starting price comes into it, but can offer no alternative.

13. Solved via the app so just under 20 minutes this morning. Nice to see it all green, LOI BEDSOCKS – where I had been trying to use NUT.
    Pleasant solve, thanks setter and blogger.

14. 18.52 for my quickest solve (and first under 20 mins) since I started timing myself 3 months ago. Hurrah!!

    1. Congratulations ! These milestones are important. I used to do the crossword with a pal over a coffee and cigarette many moons ago. I was the first to break an hour, 30′, 20′ and 15′, but for us the “4′ mile” was 10′. I played Chattaway to his Bannister; HE broke 10′ and I never have. Hey-ho.

15. 23:40
    I thought this was pretty decent. I was sure that WARD was a mistake but now know better. AMBULANCEWOMAN looked too tortuous to work out so I waited till all the crossers fell into place and made it simple. SPUN was LOI but I thought the clue was fair enough.

    The author of GARGANTUA and Pantagruel is said to have gone to unversity here in Poitiers, though there is no definite proof, and once every year the student don fancy dress and go on a Rabelasian pub crawl around the town. A sort of French Bloomsday, I suppose.

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

16. If ‘bias’ can be a transitive verb – “I don’t want to bias you” – then I suppose the clue for SPUN works. But I think it sucks, as others obv agree. Finished this one in 45 mins, but somehow really didn’t like it. SPUN irritated me, as did the inclusion of the definition article in the 19dn clue.

    1. Re SPUN, that’s not how to spin that. Kevin Gregg et al. are correct, above.

    2. In the clue ‘biased’ is an adjective.

    3. But surely bias only works as a transitive verb? Do spin doctors go out and just bias? “Honey, I’m home; did some good biasing today” – ???

       Don’t understand why everyone’s overcomplicating this clue
       Bias view = spin
       Biased view = spun
       “Provided” is just clue glue

       1. Biased view = spun view. There’s no way it equals “spun” tout court.
          If a news item is “spun” by a talk-radio host, that means listeners are “provided a biased view” on it.

          1. The definition of bias that I’m thinking of (that keeps the clue nice and simple) is “distort (a statistical result); introduce bias into (a method of sampling, measurement, analysis, etc.” which seems close enough to a non-pedant like me

             1. No one’s arguing that this isn’t the case. We’re only pointing out that the past participle acts as an adjective here in this clue. “Providing” is essential to the definition, not a mere connecting word.
                Which seems to me simple enough. Suppose that makes me a “pedant” to you. That doesn’t bother me.

                1. I’m probably not as smart as you or anyone else here because despite my best efforts, my poor brain simply cannot grasp how “providing biased view” = spun. Whereas “biased view” = spun makes perfect sense to me.

                   But then again – I only spent a few seconds on the clue so maybe it’s smart to be dumb?

                   1. You’re spending way more time on it now, Lou. I also worked it fairly quickly.
                      “Biased view” could equal “spin.” That’s also a noun.
                      But “spun” can only be a past participle or adjective. That’s why the clue has “providing,” to make a adjectival phrase.

                      “Watching the Murdoch channel biased my friend’s view of current events” can be rephrased using SPUN instead of “biased,” but SPUN by itself doesn’t include the object, the “view.”

                      1. It’s the time on the crossword clock that counts

                         No idea what half of what you said means. Adjectival phrase – good grief. Spun is past tense, biased is past tense, what’s the problem?

                         1. I don’t time myself when I work the puzzle. That’s not the point for me. What’s the rush? What would I be trying to prove? To whom? If it’s taking too long, I put it aside for a while.

                            Your flaunted (feigned?) attitude of anti-intellectualism is somewhat incongruous with your repeated efforts to work crossword puzzles.

                            Yes, “spun” is past tense and “biased” is past tense too. “Biased” all by itself could actually have been used as a definition for SPUN, but this clue isn’t worded exactly that way. Almost, but not quite.

                            1. I mean this is “times for the times”, and yes I do have a good time when I have a good time.

                               Not anti-intellectual, just anti-obfuscation. Crossword clue explanations should not require an advanced knowledge in…anything, really.

                               You say almost, I say close enough.

                         2. I can’t reply below, we’ve reached our limit.
                            Nothing “advanced” in any field has been involved here.
                            If you really can’t see what we’ve been driving at and are not just being stubborn, OK, can’t help you.

                            1. Ok, well thanks for trying

17. Like Zabadak I had OSBOURN and ETHU. ETHU – I told myself — was one of those old Anglo-Saxon letters. Thank God, 16 and 24 could only be HEATHEN and ENGELS so I set about finding my error. 16’19” all up

18. 28:08 but…

    …had CASE-BOOK rather than CASH-BOOK – initially I’d bunged in COOK-BOOK but when 2d appeared to have two Os, revisited 1a – when CASE-BOOK gave the right answer at 2d, I looked no further.

    My spin on SPUN – I think that if when reading the clue after entering the answer, it isn’t clear, then it’s not a great clue – the clue should clearly point to the answer once it is known and clearly be nothing else. Other contributors’ comments may have helped to explain the answer, but I still get the sense that there has been some shoe-horning involved to make the clue fit the answer.

    NHO WASP = White Anglo Saxon Protestant.

    Otherwise my LOI was THOR – I’d initially tried to justify THET{a} but tore that up when OSBORNE filled itself in.

19. 24 minutes, delayed at the end by SPUN like everyone else

    Sexistly it took me forever to think what five letter word might go after AMBULANCE.

20. A DNF for me as I would never have got BEDSOCKS in a month of Sundays and AMBULANCEWOMAN was unparsed through a failure to recognise the obvious BMA. No liner I ever saw could be properly called a boat: they were very definitely all ships, and some of them quite beautiful as well – the original Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the United States and the France (later the Norway) being among those I remember seeing coming up or down Southampton Water as a nipper. Boats are either submarines or vessels small enough to be carried on a ship, often for emergency use.

    1. The second definition of ‘boat’ in Collins is ‘(not in technical use) another word for ship’.

       1. Even so, I stand by my comment. Dictionaries are records of the language as it is used, not always the same as the way it should be used. Virtually every time I object to a word in the crossword, someone kindly points out a dictionary entry which somehow ‘validates’ the word to which I object. (Often this happens even when the ‘word’ is nothing more than a grunt or frustrated exhalation: I think a recent example might have been ‘harumph’ or some such nonsense.) Dictionaries have their uses, of course, and there are several of them on my shelves. But citing a dictionary entry, while perhaps being sufficient to bring a word within the ‘rules’ of crosswordland, will not do to excuse a word’s misuse in the real world. I made a similar comment recently on a puzzle in The Guardian which relied on ‘refute’ being a synonym of ‘deny’, which, widespread misuse notwithstanding, it is not. I think most crossword enthusiasts are, at least to some extent, lovers of language. As such, shouldn’t we be protecting it – or at least trying to – from the sort of devaluation of which this an example?

          1. There is no such thing as how words ‘should’ be used: their meaning is defined entirely by how people do use them so ‘widespread misuse’ is, linguistically speaking, a contradiction in terms.
             There is also no such thing as ‘devaluation’: the meanings of words evolve and change all the time, this fluidity, along with double meaning (almost all words have multiple meanings) and the resulting ambiguity, are inherent characteristics of language.
             ‘Boat’ is just an example of a word that has a general meaning and an (in this case I’d wager less-known) specialist one. There are thousands of words like this.

             1. It’s an argument, certainly, and one which was advanced for some time on a weekly basis by Oliver Kamm in his columns (now defunct) in The Times, but I’m afraid it’s not one that I’m buying. If language evolves (which I accept it does) in such a way that fine distinctions are lost (as in the ship/boat or deny/refute examples which started this sub-thread), I don’t see how that can be anything but a devaluation of the language – irresistible, perhaps, but a devaluation all the same. In the final analysis, if, as you propose, words’ meanings are defined entirely by how people use them, then we get to the position of Humpty Dumpty, and, taking his assertion (‘When I use a word … it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less’) to its logical conclusion leads to a situation in which every one of us is using words differently – at which point the language becomes useless as a means of communication. I don’t suppose we shall fall out over this – at least I hope we don’t – but I regret that I can’t agree with your position.

                1. I hope we won’t fall out by I’m afraid you’re simply wrong about this.
                   People have complained about language ‘deteriorating’ for as long as language has existed (there are examples of ancient Greeks and Romans doing it!), but this phenomenon is simply a natural dislike of change: meanings change, certain distinctions are lost, others arise. Older people naturally dislike the way younger people speak.
                   That language does not ‘deteriorate’ (in the sense of becoming less rich, precise, accurate, whatever criterion you choose) is simply an empirically observable fact. Modern English has developed over centuries from a language that is completely incomprehensible to us, and has at no point lost complexity. There is also no significant difference in the complexity of different languages. If anything the opposite happens: the creation of a creole from a pidgin is a process of spontaneous complexification of language as it develops from a lingua Franca of populations whose native languages are different to the native language of subsequent generations.
                   As for your ‘Humpty Dumpty’ point, how do you think we get from Old English to Modern English over the course of a thousand years? People use words differently. Language is always contested: people use words in different ways, there is often confusion (think ‘disinterested’) but over time consensus will emerge (and then change again). This happens naturally: there is no point at which an authority says ‘this is the correct meaning’. No such authority exists, and when people try to create them (the Académie Française springs to mind) they inevitably fail. But at no point in this process – the transformation from Old English to Modern English say – has language ever failed as a communication medium. You are concerned about something that has simply never happened and never will.
                   Again, all of this is simply a natural and inherent feature of all language. If you are a lover of language you should embrace it. If you don’t, what you are loving is not really language at all, but some abstract and fixed embodiment of your own preferences.
                   Oliver Kamm’s book (Accidence will Happen) is excellent on all of this, I recommend it!

                   1. Thanks for engaging – it’s great to have something to think about, but I am not convinced. And, with a university exam to complete tomorrow, I’m afraid I don’t have time at the moment to think about this much more. I haven’t looked at Oliver Kamm’s book, but I might pick it up if I find a copy in the bookshop one day. I say ‘might’ because I can’t promise to do so: his columns, as you might expect, tended to irritate rather than entertain and, although he made many points with which I agreed, there were rather more with which I was uncomfortable or just in disagreement.

                      I need to move on to other things now or I may not even have time later to look at today’s crossword. Thanks again for your thoughts.

                      1. I do recommend Kamm’s book when you have time to think about it, and if you’re interested. Linguistics is a science and one that Kamm understands well, and communicates in an accessible manner, IMO.

          2. “Harumph” is a great word. It’s even what I’m prompted to say by your screed.

             1. You may see it as a word; I don’t. I’m content to disagree on the point.

21. 16:56

    Nothing to add. COD: The Oval.

22. SPUN was my last one in. Once I’d got S.UN, it kind of made sense that it had to be SP, starting price, and then I didn’t dwell on the niceties of the clue’s wording and parts of speech. SQUEEZE was my penultimate one in. Saw HETH earlier on, but resisted the temptation. Quickly realised that Thunderer implied Thor (who invented Thursdays). Happy with 25 mins overall.

23. GO WEST young man !
    Thanks for the young, but I went west long ago.
    On the -ing debate and SPUN:
    What are you ****ing doing in my bed ? (intensifying adverb)
    What are you doing ****ing in my bed ? (gerund)
    These are taken from a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, grammar by Michael Swan, which I would highly recommend.
    “When -ing forms are used as verbs, adjectives or adverbs, they are often called ‘present participles’. (This is not a very suitable name, because these forms can refer to the past, present or future.)…….”  –  Practical English Usage, by Michael Swan, 2nd Edition (OUP, 1995) pp 277-287

    Slowly away, never nearer:
    25′ 37”

24. 45 minutes, the last ten or so spent wondering if there was an alternative to SPUN and finally deciding that SP was probably some Latin abbreviation I didn’t know. I liked OSBORNE and CHARRED (and not much else).

25. Surprised that there have been so many comments about SPUN. As soon as I thought of it I was certain it was correct, but in an ignorant sort of way some would say.
    Undone by my LOI which should have been ENGELS but wasn’t.

    1. No, sir you were entirely correct; albeit the clue would have been better with an indefinite article.

26. 30 min for all but SPUN which I spent a further 20 mins on leaving plausible possibles SOUR, SPUN, SAUL and SEUL. 22ac had THET as unfinished THETA which is also nested in THE Times but OSBORNE sorted it out

27. Found this reasonably easy except spun which I got – and Engels which I didn’t. Thanks.

28. I think I’m beginning to catch up with you guys! (Famous last words…). Started off really well with my very first working of a Spoonerism successfully, then just kept going. Only hold-ups were SPUN of course, and ENGELS (who I’d forgotten) but otherwise all present and correct in under the half-hour. 😑

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