Times Cryptic 28976

74 comments on “Times Cryptic 28976”

1. 15:58
   Something perhaps to bore the horses, including initial/final letter clues: 5ac initially, 10ac initially, 24ac at first, 1d ultimately, 4 finally, 21d ultimately. Two ‘initially’s and two ‘ultimately’s is at least one each too many. NHO the cat stories, but I knew the city, so no problem. I toyed for a while with AGOG at 12ac: MAGOG crushing M leaving ‘of reckless spirit’ but gave that up quickly enough. LOI AIL, which I put in mainly because it wasn’t ALL or AWL; I just couldn’t come up with ILL.

2. I assumed ORLANDO must be one of Eliot’s cats but I knew the city (been there a few times even). TARADIDDLE required me to guess that Tara was the seat of Irish kings which I did not know. It sounds more like somewhere in Gone with the Wind (because it is). There are small hills outside Cambridge called the Gog Magogs, and Cambridge had (maybe still does) a Gog Magog Mountain Rescue Club. I believe a lot more beer was drunk than mountaineers rescued.

   1. The plantation is named after the seat.

   2. The mountain rescue club is news to me, though I lived and worked in Cambridge.
      Since the highest point is 246ft (75m) above sea level, I imagine they were not called upon very often, if ever.
      I am thinking of starting a mountain rescue club here in Maidstone, since my home is a giddy 95m above sea level. The point about beer is duly noted ..

3. Around 50 minutes. Reasonably straightforward. FOI BAT then NEEDED, ANANAS. Held up by NW corner
   with 1d, 1a and 8a. 1d clearly ended in “light” but kept seeing bird ultimately rather than bird with N missing. In 8a I had trouble with the definition fixating on “Worry principally” or W. Also had troubles
   with support in 1a thinking of LEG rather than something longer ending in ING. Finally dawned on me after taking a break.
   Thanks Jack for the parsing

   1. It’s the all-important break that makes all the difference, isn’t it? I find that even a short break can result in many more answers flowing in, and a whole night’s rest may even result in a completed crossword! Apparently our subconscious does NOT rest: rather it works away at those clues you didn’t even know you spotted – so in future I’ll be relaxing and not racing to finish it before starting my day.

4. I have to admit this was easy, as I cheerfully biffed away. I started by entering scowling and spoof, and was able to get all the downs clues hanging down from them. I just worked my way until I finished. I biffed eglantine, instead, nourished, chatelaine, and nauseating.

   Time: 14 minutes

5. I noted the same repetitive devices as Kevin, and like my fellow American also had not heard of the cat, but the city sufficed.

6. As Kevin says, having nine or ten initial/final letter clues is too much.

7. 9:02. Like yesterday I got stuck on one at the end, but not for an inordinate amount of time. Today it was STARLIGHT which doesn’t seem too difficult with hindsight.
   I think I’ve seen TARADIDDLE enough times now to remember that it’s not a drum roll, which is PARADIDDLE. Curious that the two words don’t appear to be linked.

8. 9:48, with the unch-filled NAUSEATING my LOI. I noticed the glut of first/last letter selections, although not the repeated devices. FOG BANK held me up a little, as BAR from the surface could have slotted straight in.

   Thanks both.

9. 11:19. I didn’t find that particularly easy. My main problem was self-inflicted though: I got fixated for far too long on the idea that the bird in 1dn was a SWAN and ‘scant’ was indicating LIGHT. SWAHLIGHT just obviously wasn’t a word though so I went round in circles for a few minutes.

   1. I’d parsed 1D the same way, though hadn’t thought of swan. In the end I just did an alphabet trawl and biffed it.

10. 12.56, probably longer per clue than the quick cryptic (10.21), so on the wavelength. Possibly a PB.

11. 19 minutes with LOI DEFECT. It was a top-to-bottom, left-to-right solve with some brief hesitation over TARADIDDLE. Cricket club, indeed! Blackball that setter from the MCC. A puzzle to help with the self-confidence, at least until I found that nearly everyone here had been quicker. Thank you Jack and setter.

12. O let me once more hear the linnet’s note!
    Before mine eyes thick films and shadows float
    (Endymion, Keats. Not his prettiest couplet)

    15 mins of growing irritation, counting the start/end letter indicators. I mean, Initially, Principally, Initially (again) in the first five clues says it all. The editor should have a quiet word.
    Ta setter and J

    1. Do we have an acting crossword editor or has Richard’s successor been appointed? Has it been announced?

       1. I read that Roger Phillips aka Nestor is acting as crossword editor..

       2. The most recent Crossword Centre newsletter said that Shane Shabankareh is – or will be – the new crossword editor. He is perhaps more familiar to people who move in Listener/Magpie circles.

    2. That’s a rather more literary association with linnet than the song I have had running through my mind: (All together now) Off went the van with my home packed in it, I walked behind …

13. 8.20
    A typical Tuesday, with plenty of biffables. The late Prodigy frontman Keith Flint once owned a pub in Essex called The Leather Bottle (not the Clockwork Orange one, though he would have made a good Droog).
    LOI AIL

14. 28:53

    On train using fiddly mobile app and fat fingers but all correct and understood, where the most difficulty was a change at B’ham New St and poor Wi-Fi hindering submission (and again after Tamworth to post this).

    FOI: SCOWLING
    LOI: TARADIDDLE

    Thank you, jackkt and the setter

15. No big problems but LOsI DEFECT and LEATHERN held me up. Ended up biffing STARLIGHT and only realised the bird was a starling when Jack explained. Like BW I thought my time, 21.05, was quite reasonable until I came here. Less worried about initial/final letter clues than the unfortunate juxtaposition of CHEESECAKE, ANANAS, SEA BASS and GROG which was quite NAUSEATING.

    From Workingman’s Blues #2:
    There’s an evening haze settling over the town, STARLIGHT by the edge of the creek
    The buying power of the proletariat’s goin’ down, money’s getting shallow and weak
    The place I love best is a sweet memory, it’s a new path that we trod
    They say low wages are a reality if we want to compete abroad

    1. I lost my bet. I’d got money on Hard Rain, with ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard.

       1. It was absolutely a toss-up. In the end I opted for something a bit more recent and also I think the lines about low wages and the buying power of the proletariat have a lot of force, especially in the context of what’s happening in the US right now. But it’s great to have a couple of heavy hitters to choose from!

          1. I’m so glad no one’s mentioned Victoria’s Secret…

16. DNF. Although I biffed the unknown cat, I simply couldn’t see the STARLIGHT/AIL crosser and surrendered after two alphabet trawls came to naught. I never really took to it – Kevin’s view is very much shared.

17. 27m 57s
    For 22d, with -E-E-T in place I initially biffed DESERT but then couldn’t make that equate to ‘fault’.

18. DNF, back in OWL club thanks to 17a, though the letter I got wrong wasn’t the letter I thought I would get wrong: I put ‘Tarafiddle’ with fingers crossed that the R was right (I didn’t know Tara as the seat of Irish kings, and lots of other consonants could have fitted), but of course it turns out ‘swindle’ was cluing diddle rather than fiddle.

    Relied on wordplay for the unknown EGLANTINE; didn’t know ORLANDO the cat or YAWL as a sailing vessel; and not familiar with the biblical giants needed for GROG.

    Thanks jack and setter.

    COD Graveyard

19. 30:11
    Not my finest solve. I took an eternity to put together SCOWLING and STARLIGHT. FOG BANK and ANANAS similarly.

    Both TARA and TARADIDDLE were unknowns.

    A pleasant enough crossword which in hindsight was mostly straightforward. Some days it just doesn’t flow.

    Thanks to both.

20. Many of the clues seemed more QC standard I felt, so I was quite disappointed that I took just under 18 minutes to finish. On a better day maybe I could have made a PB.
    Thanks setter and blogger

21. Very quick today, under 10. Dkn Orlando the cat (assumed it to be one of TS Eliot’s).
    There is a Leather Bottle pub in Cobham, Kent. Not aware if it had an N dropped, it has been like that as long as I remember

22. 35 mins with a couple of aids needed.

    DNK “seat of Irish Kings”, so looked that up, then TARADIDDLE came to mind (thanks G&S, it appears in Iolanthe)
    Could not see the double def DEFECT, went with REVERT.

    Confidently started typing ORANGE for marmalade clue, but I think it’s a city in California, not Florida.

    1. Orange County, CA.

    2. Florida and California each have an Orange County.

23. 16.41, but I spent some time trying unsuccessfully to parse 1d and 8a.

24. I was very much on wavelength today, and finished in a PB of 15:43, breaking my previous PB by over a minute.
    LOI was DEFECT.
    The highland cow in my avatar resides in the Gog Magog hills, so the giant in 12a came easily to mind.

    Thanks Jack and setter

    1. Scorchio 🔥

25. 16 minutes. I couldn’t work out the parsing of CHEESECAKE and like several others I didn’t know ORLANDO the ‘cat’, but otherwise I didn’t find this too difficult. MER at UNDERDOG as a ‘being of little influence’ rather than someone not expected to win but I see the ODE has the sense of “a person who has little status in society” so fair enough.

26. I often seem to struggle when others find it easy, for some reason. So it was today. While the top half went in pretty quickly, I laboured over the bottom. Finally crossed the line at 48 mins, panting. DNK YAWL and TARADIDDLE, but clues were fairly generous. Loved Orlando the cat as a child, so that was a write-in.

27. 10.50 today, which gained admittance to my top ten times, an accomplishment repeated in the Quickie today too. Perhaps it’s starting just that hour or so later.
    I entered TARADIDDLE and EGLANTINE on trust, with a faint tinkling of bells. EGLANTINE I knew as a word, but my inner thesaurus was telling me it was something we brits call something else, as with aubergine.
    I think speed today was helped by the already noted repetitive instructions.
    Today’s pairings have inspired me to create a GROG CHEESECAKE. Could be an entry for Dragons’ Den. Yum.

    1. So what *do* we brits call an aubergine, Z? That’s what I call them, on the rare occasions when the opportunity arises ..

       1. Ah, yes, well, we Brits prefer aubergine, partly because it derives from Sanskrit via Catalan. I am reliably informed that less careful languages call it eggplant, brinjal, or even baigan.

28. 23 minutes, no serious hold-ups. Good thing I didn’t think too hard about Orlando and T.S. Eliot, because I could have spent some unnecessary time with Virginia Woolf. AIL my LOI because it seemed to fit, also “what ails thee?”, but not really parsed at the time.

29. 18:17

    Should have trusted an unparsed CHEESECAKE sooner. It’s surprising how much difference it makes to me to have “I think that’s the starting letter” in my head rather than “I know that’s the starting letter”.
    Consequently finished with ENLIGHTEN, and LEATHERN.

    Thanks all.

30. 15:49

    I quite enjoyed this though did not know TARA and toyed with PARADIDDLE wondering if 1d ended with LAMP. Also had ILL pencilled in for 8a and AGOG at 12a which made 1d tricky. Not getting anywhere, revisited 12a and saw the LIGHT which put me on the right path.

    There is/was? a Ye Olde Leather Bottle between Wimbledon and Raynes Park where in the very early ’90s, their comedy club treated us to pre-fame gigs of luminaries such as Eddie Izzard and Jenny Eclair…

    Thanks Jack and setter

    1. A crawl around these candidate pubs would take a while, it seems. The one I know of used to be on the Edgware Road (A5) near Canons Park, north London but I’ve never been in it. The prospect of finding a modernist interior might tempt me to visit.

       1. Yes, that was the one – that part of the Edgware Road being known locally as Stonegrove. The pub was demolished in 2002. Here’s a link to some photos – the ones in colour are stills from the film. Nothing I’ve found of the history of the pub online mentions its name as having been LEATHERN originally rather than ‘Leather’, but as a local born and bred I remember it distinctly at some stage, so perhaps the N was added by an owner and later removed.

    2. The Leather Bottle is still there! Closest pub to me, though I’d not call it my local. No longer any comedy nights. Big screen sport, quiz night on Thursday, bit of a fight on a Friday.

31. DNF; 8a refused to enter the obvious AIL as I didn’t see the parsing. Not entirely convinced by jackkt’s explanation as endless evil would be vi or evi not il.
    Wiktionary marks 11a Ananas as obsolete. I only knew it from some holiday or other, probably Spain.
    Otherwise I enjoyed a rattling solve, not timed but one of my quickest and no cheating.
    COD 14a Cheesecake.
    POI 2d Orlando NHO the cat, but it wasn’t hard to guess from the city.

    1. Sorry if my annotation didn’t make it clear that ‘evil’ in the clue defines ILL and then you knock the end off that.

       ‘I wish you no ill / evil’.

       1. Oh, thank you jackkt. It is rather indirect is it not? But I have to admit, it’s OK.

32. I agree this was on the easy end of the scale and I was overthinking at almost every turn. I see I’m the only one who came up with the unknown TARAfIDDLE.

    Thanks Jack

33. A very quick time by my standards at 15.39 with everything parsed as I solved. The only unknowns in parsing were TARA and ORLANDO the cat. I also parsed AIL as being A + [ev]IL unconventionally knocking the front end off! I readily concede Jackkt’s parsing to be correct.

34. New Monday. There is, or was, a pub named the Leather Bottle in Belvedere.

    8’26”, with DEFECT LOI.

    Thanks jack and setter.

35. 12:20 – with only TARADIDLE needing to be retrieved from deep storaage. EGLANTINE. popped into my head as soon as I read the clue for some reason though I didn’t consciously know it as a Eurasian rose and had to parse the cryptic carefully to be sure. If asked to define it, I would have said it was some sort of vegetable. I see it is also known as sweetbriar.

36. About 30′ but with TARAfIDDLE error. I’d never heard of the word but knew the Seat of Kings. Gog from the Cambridge golf course. CHATELAINE came up recently which is where I knew the true definition from. Fairly gentle other than the error, thanks Jackkt and setter

37. 12.17,my fastest for a while. Nothing too onerous but very well put together puzzle. Stalled for a while over starlight and ail. Knew about Tara and Taradiddle was dredged from somewhere in my brian.

    All in all very enjoyable, I’ll be interested to see the snitch.

38. Flew through this until I was breezeblocked with 3 left; 1d, 8a and 17a. NHO Tara or TARADIDDLE, but it eventually arrived after correcting TROG to GROG when STARLIGHT arrived after accepting 8a was AIL. Surprisingly tricky to parse, that one! 20:44. Thanks setter and Jack.

39. I don’t normally attempt the 15×15 and, when I do, rarely finish it. However, encouraged by some comments on today’s QC blog I gave it a try and recorded a time of 26 minutes for completion. I’m pretty certain this is a PB and all the more welcome as I made a complete pig’s ear of the QC. All parsed except AIL. NHO Tara as the seat of Irish kings but otherwise no particular issues.

    FOI – 5ac SPOOFS
    LOI – 22dn DEFECT

40. Drat, drat and double drat (© DD). Having successfully remembered Chatelaine from a previous puzzle, and worked out the nho Eglantine, I was completely stumped at the death by another nho: Taradiddle. Didn’t know Tara as the seat of Irish Kings and, with no helpful GwtW reference, Ta*a- was a step too far. Invariant

41. Slightly easier than the Quickie, I think, with its fairly unfamiliar setter. No problems with any of the vocabulary, or parsing, though the quickly bifd CHATELEINE had to be corrected when I realised the name referred to was ELAINE. LOI was DEFECT, having thought initially of REVERT, SELECT and various other not-quite parsing answers. SLOI was AIL, which I left until I had 1d. The crossing L of this suggested -LIGHT, confirmed by GROG, and it was the last-letter H and T that revealed that the bird must end in LInG, giving me the solution. Neat. I can’t say I was put out by the number of initial or final letter indications – it was just nice to get it done in a reasonably quick time for once.

42. Finally managed to print out a copy today in my hotel. Pretty easy at 27 mins. No hold-ups.

    Agree with above comments re first/last word directions. A bit much really.

    I enjoyed CHEESECAKE & TARADIDDLE.
    Thanks Jack and setter.

43. A quick (for me) 15 minutes today – indeed a write-in for the first few Across clues, until getting abruptly stopped by TARA. Orlando brought back (very long-distant) memories of my childhood, when it was one of my favourite books.

44. Started well and was pleasantly surprised to complete this in 20 minutes. I found it fairly run-of-the-mill, and had not twigged the number of initial/final letter clues until it was pointed out by Kevin Gregg et al. Not that this bothers me as it is just a part of the setter’s armoury. I tend to be more upset by creeping americanisation or excessive slang. I must remember to add Elaine to my list of random women.
    FOI – SPOOFS
    LOI – AIL
    COD – GRAVEYARD
    Thanks to jackkt and other contributors.

45. A pleasant solve over lunch; LOI YAWL wondering if WAY =MEANS and assuming it could.
    I wasn’t put off by the setter’s style. Guessed or vaguely remembered TARADIDDLE.
    I played golf at the Gog Magog Golf Club in April this year; a good course. There is a second course there which I have yet to try.
    And I have visited The Leather Bottle at Cobham, more than once. You can sit in Dickens’s chair; they tell you it’s original. I remember a picture of Mrs Gamp on the wall amongst lots of Dickens stuff. My sort of place.
    David

46. 20:14 and all correct in the end. Stuck with LOI STARLIGHT for ages with a duff crosser from 12ac AGOG before I finally corrected it to GROG. Still a nice quick one

47. Ruined a sub 10 with TARAGITTLE.

    Bah.

    9:57 but..

48. The Gogs as we called them seemed hilly enough when I ran cross country there as a schoolboy. I knew of no silly mountain rescue there but fairly near to Cambridge in the fens is Pidley, and that did have one. Felt woebegone not to get ail.

49. 31.35 DNF. I spent a good while convincing myself AIL was right and then chucked in DESERT for DEFECT at the end. Thanks Jack.

50. Eglantine Eglantine, Hark to the Stars. Destiny calls us, the future is ours. Words sung by the incomparable David Tomlinson to the recently departed Angela Lansbury aka Eglantine in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I knew a Leathern Bottle pub once. Was it in Goring-on-Thames? Isn’t that two Orlandos in two days?? Loved the cat as a child. 14’08”.

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