Times Cryptic 29186

88 comments on “Times Cryptic 29186”

1. Around 60 minutes for a nice puzzle. The top went in fairly easily but the bottom held me up a bit. COD
   PINAFORE. Got it after biffing ODE with no idea how it worked. Liked INSENTIENT. Had to biff AFAR to get out FRACAS and RELIEF.
   Thanks Jack. I agree that “panels” is weird since to me the people involved are single agony aunts, one named person per paper or magazine.

   1. I suppose it’s that the agony aunt just fronts the column. There’ll be a team behind them, and a consulting of professionals on an ad hoc basis. Whether that amounts to a formally constituted panel is perhaps a bit of a stretch.
      But it makes sense when you consider that some of the individuals seem barely qualified to give important advice, other than on the basis that they’ve ‘lived a bit’, and can do empathy.

2. 32:57, so just under my normal time. And I mostly enjoyed this one.

   In 4d I took the “panels” to refer to multiple appearances of the “column” in the newspaper or magazine, perhaps over multiple days.

   1. AGONY COLUMNS pretty much a write-in but on thinking about it I share the disquiet. My (ancient) SOED has quite a number of definitions but only two relate to people: a jury ‘panel’ and, peculiar to the UK a century ago, the panel of doctors offering patients treatment on government terms. So for me the clue would read better in the singular, the “advisory panel” denoting the collective of those helpful aunties.

3. I too missed INSENTIENT after thinking I was looking for something meaning ‘not feeling excited’. I thought there was a large number of words in the clues today so some of the parsing was a bit tricky. Overall though, a nice puzzle. I originally had ‘Norman’ in 10a for wisdom. Haven’t heard of BLACK-EYED BEAN but it had to be. Thought RAINY was clever. OKLAHOMAN took a bit of teasing out and a great anagram, I thought. TREE HOUSE was a write-in, are there any ‘free houses’ left? I had WIN but failed to parse so thanks Jack, very neat and so unusual to have the definition in the middle of the clue. I thought maybe the ‘columns’ in AGONY COLUMNS was another word for ‘panels’ but not sure.
   Very enjoyable crossword.
   Thanks Jack.

   1. J D Witherspoon’s are Free Houses

      1. Wetherspoons please, not Witherspoons. Actually they are a pub company so technically not free houses according to strict interpretation of the term. They fulfill the same purpose for customers in providing a superb range of beers, but they are still managed houses.

4. I thought this was quite a challenge and feared a DNF when I had just one or two after my initial sweep of the board. But I started making headway with a few inspired guesses and finished in a respectable 43.30. Many thanks to Jack for explaining what exactly was going on with complicated clues like DELIBERATE, WIN, MACBETH and ACUMEN. I suspect most of us know black-eyed peas from ODE to Billie Joe. As for ‘sent’, I don’t think being dead and buried decades ago matters much around here!

   From Love Minus Zero/No Limit:
   The wind howls like a hammer
   The night blows cold and RAINY
   My love she’s like some raven
   At my window with a broken wing

   1. I agree about ‘sent’ and didn’t mean to suggest it shouldn’t have been used, only that it’s so long since I heard anyone say it I had completely forgotten its existence. I think it was on its way out when I was still in my teens, sadly many decades ago now.

      1. I only know this meaning of ‘sent’ because it appears from time to time in these puzzles. I’ve never encountered it in the wild.

         1. In my limited experience it was used by people strongly affected by a piece of music, jazz fans, for instance.

            1. When it comes up here people often reference the 1957 Sam Cooke song You Send Me.

               1. And may he rest in peace

               2. Or the Beach Boys Good Vibrations – “I don’t know where it is, but she sends me there”

      2. Jackkt, Jackkt … Beerbohm will be spinning in his grave. And Nancy Mitford too.

5. Q, the short answer to your question about free houses is “yes”, and stats published in 2019 revealed that approximately half the pubs in the UK were independently owned.

   1. Thanks. Very interesting. So different from when I left in the seventies when they were all brewery owned and managed. I imagine pubs are very food-centric nowadays.

      1. Very much so. The whole pub-owning landscape changed with the arrival of pub companies many of which are not brewers and are therefore able to offer customers a wide range of beers. Also brewery-owned pubs mostly continue to offer “guest” beers from other breweries as was required by a law passed in 1989 but since repealed.

         If you were to return you may not see as many Free House signs outside pubs as in your day as it’s not in itself the USP for customers it once was. Very important for the landlords though.

         1. Breweries still exert a degree of control over the beers on offer through offering loans for refurbishments. These loans are then “repaid” by virtue of a “barrelage discount” (I think it was called), so you aren’t tied to their beer but every time you buy their stuff it reduces the outstanding loan a bit. That was how we funded bar refurbishments at my cricket club a few times down the years. I remember when we paid off the loan we were then able to shop around again thus getting better prices and more variety.

6. Not too bad but a lot of time spent on INSENTIENT (which I didn’t understand until I read the blog) and PINAFORE (which I was just slow for).

   LOI was WIN which after not coming up with anything better I made a risky decision to just opt for the definition in the middle. I guess it could only be that in hindsight. Still not sure I entirely understand it.

   FOI: DOWNPLAY
   Liked: ADULTERATION, MACBETH

   1. Sorry, I have to ask or it is going to bug me all day.

      2 down: I get DRAWING is WIN inside DRAG. How do you know WIN is the answer? Is it the ‘this’ in the clue that indicates it? If there was no numeration could it equally be DRAWING, WIN or DRAG?

      I must have solved 1000s of cryptic clues but I think this is the first time I have come across one like this.

      1. Good point. To me it looks as if DRAWING ought to be the answer… but you only have three spaces to play with!

         1. I think DRAWING could be the answer here. As I read it there are two possible grammatical readings of ‘X this Y containing Z’:
            > this Y containing Z would be X: Y is the answer (I find it helpful here to imagine a comma after X)
            > this Y containing Z gives you X: X is the answer

      2. Please see Ulaca’s further explanation downthread. I don’t think the reverse nature of the clue is that unfamiliar to regular solvers but as mentioned in my blog, having the definition in the middle of the clue is an additional complication that makes it harder to untangle. EDIT: Ah, having read Jerry’s comment I see I misunderstood your point. In isolation the answer might be different but the constraints of crosswords are also in play so one has to work within them. Some purists object to this but I view it as another weapon in the setter’s armoury that adds a bit of variety.

         1. Cheers, Ulaca’s explanation is great. It still doesn’t sit right with me but I think that might be in the same way I don’t like when they change a website I visit regularly. The site will perfectly fine but it’s just not what I’m used to.

7. Nice puzzle. A shade under 24 minutes, I’m letting myself off a technical DNF for entering UNENTHUSED instead of INSENTIENT and being rescued by the checker. COD RAINY. Thanks J and setter.

8. 20:57. I was surprised and relieved not to have any pink squares having failed to parse a few.

   I’ve been wondering about 2 down. Does “X: this Y wearing Z ” denote Y? Initially I thought no – but it’s growing on me and I think it’s OK.

   COD: MACBETH.

   1. The grammatical construction is like saying ‘vicious, this dog’ as an alternative for ‘this dog is vicious’.

9. 19:53
   There were a few moments when I started to get bogged down but a clue would then materialise to get me back on track. I didn’t really know what was going on with WIN, but it was so obviously WIN that I just went with it, and I was far from INSENTIENT as I stared at the blanks in my last clue watching the seconds and minutes tick by.

   A fairly middle-of-the-road sort of puzzle I thought but a pleasant solve all the same.

   Thanks to both.

10. 30 mins for this easier puzzle. Think I’ll probably have to plump for the Scottish lad as COD, but there were some nice ones here. Exhilarated? No, but I was happy with the parsing for all of it.

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    1. Hardly call him a lad

11. Nice puzzle. Just under an hour for me which included my regular 10 minute battle with my new coffee machine.

    I suspect that one’s knowledge of ‘black-eyed peas’ may vary by generation. Personally I remember it from an REM song on the peerless ‘Automatic for the People’

    ‘A can of beans or blackeyed peas
    Some Nescafe and ice
    A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading from Doctor Seuss’

    Younger solvers will be more familiar the pop group, fronted, I believe, by a chap called WILL.I.AM

    Thanks to Jack and setter

    1. “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” I think

    2. In the rural US South, black-eyed peas are traditionally eaten on New Year’s Day to bring good luck.

12. 17’34” today, with much time spent on WIN and also on AGONY COLUMNS, which only went in with all the checkers.

    Aren’t the BLACK-EYED peas some sort of beat combo? Liked MACBETH, biffed TREE HOUSE and thought ACUMEN was good too.

    Thanks jack and setter.

    1. Black-Eyed Susans were. At least in Oz in late 70s-ish. Looked it up – it’s an actual plant, not a commentary on domestic violence.

13. Well, I was surprised by the Snitch rating as I managed to finish it in 23 minutes so it surely can’t have been anything other than easy!
    Surprised by the BEAN but ROMAN banished my doubts.
    Am I alone in thinking the use of the final ‘guards’ was redundant in 19ac ?
    Nevertheless a very satisfactory start to my day.
    Thanks to setter and Jack.

    1. By convention wordplay is in some form of the present tense, as you are being asked what the answer *is*. So ‘guards’ is necessary to give it that tense. Alternatives could be ‘…insurgent holds back’ or ‘…insurgent’s held back’, but it’s just a matter of preference at that point.

       1. Thank you

14. DNF, back in OWL club with LINE rather than LANE (I thought Nile might be the passage).

    – Not familiar with BLACK-EYED BEAN, but have heard of the Black Eye Peas and eventually worked out the parsing
    – Didn’t understand how RAINY worked as I didn’t separate ‘beam’ and ‘joint’
    – Was also confused by WIN

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    COD Macbeth

15. 38 mins and pretty enjoyable. Stuck for a while on LOI INSENTIENT. It was really a question of which letter went in after the first N and the alphabet trawl ended finally at S. Odd word really.

    WIN went in with a shrug and despite the explanations above, thank you, I still don’t get it!

    I liked RAINY.

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    1. Sketch this accomplishment of Victor wearing drag

       Start with DRAWING (‘sketch’ from the clue), and pretend that it is the definition. In order to get it, you would have to surround WIN (‘this accomplishment of Victor’) with DRAG (‘drag’ from the clue). So, the definition is in fact WIN.

       Any better?

       1. Ah yes. Thanks U, I get it now.

       2. Ah, I finally get it – many thanks!

16. Perhaps an agony column regarded as a forum for discussion of problems with reader participation is in effect a panel but it is a bit of a stretch.

    Tiny point: I think ‘is’ is not part of the definition in 1dn.

17. “Why did that take me so long?” was the overwhelming feeling today when finally twigging. Thats a sign of a good puzzle and a slow solver. 50 mins in the end.
    Failed to parse WIN or PASSKEY so thanks for those.
    Dislike T for Tense but it seems to be accepted. Otherwise all good stuff.
    Thanks both

18. 14.26, with the clever WIN entered unparsed. Afters discounting AUNTIES for the agony panels, I was fine with panels and columns being synonymous as they appear on newspaper pages. Similarly missed how TREE HOUSE worked, but tried not to worry. INSENTIENT last in once I properly divided definition from wordplay. A kindly puzzle gently enjoyed.

19. Enjoyed it.
    On ‘panels’, elements of a newspaper as laid out on a page can be called ‘panels’, when not part of the main text – so this could well apply to agony columns.

    1. Yes, Wiktionary has as its third definition for panel: “A portion of text or other material within a book, newspaper, web page, etc. set apart from the main body or separated by a border”.

20. 11:28. Nice one.
    I’m a bit surprised by the lack of familiarity with BLACK-EYED BEANs. They were a household staple when I was growing up and to this day we are never without a can or two in the larder. I’m also enjoying the inevitable references to a new-fangled beat combo the kids might know about, whose breakthrough album came out 22 years ago 😉

21. Had to come here for the parsing of TREEHOUSE, DELIBERATE, WIN and (inexplicably) PASSKEY. Completed in 25:08 though, so average difficulty. FOI DOWNPLAY and LOI PINAFORE. I suppose AGONY COLUMNS is a bit strange but I had no qualms about that one while solving and ‘agony column’ would be a worse answer IMO.

22. Over an hour.
    Got through it, but not really feeling it today.
    Thanks, jack.

23. It must be obvious because nobody seems to have mentioned it but how is grip = interest in 26ac? All was easy enough except that I never understood WIN at the time, although I think i do now. And I was dim in not understanding RAINY. 35 minutes.

    Yes I suppose if something grips you it interests you.

24. DNF, 2d, Win and 26a, Inter-est. I should have got the latter, and didn’t put Win ‘cos I couldn’t understand what was going on and just felt bolshy.
    12a NHO the B-E bean, only the pea; they are the same thing, and I cheated by checking.
    14d Insentient, I don’t think I fully parsed this, but didn’t notice at the time.
    Thanks to setter and blogger.

25. 26.19

    PINAFORE was a big hold up at the end. WIN then inserted with a shrug. For me if you can’t see the parsing after getting the answer without a lot of squinting it isn’t a great clue. Rest was good though. Thanks Jackkt and setter

26. I drew a blank in the NW and finally got started with ACUMEN. The NE populated nicely and I continued in a clockwise direction, finally arriving back at LOI, WIN. Took a while to see the parsing, but I got there in the end. Was helped by seeing BLACK EYED BEAN, ADULTERATION and DISENGAGEMENT quickly, so had lots of crossing letters to work with. 19:55. Thanks setter and Jack.

27. 34’30”
    Mount clearly unwilling, but, kept up to his work, got there finally.

    Thank you G&S for Pinafore.
    Enjoyed this; thank you setter and Jack.

28. Enjoyed this. A few biffed but not parsed – thanks Jack. Revealed LOI INSENTIENT. Finally understand parsing of WIN (thanks ulaca). Didn’t know A = advance in PINAFORE and had forgotten T= tense in TREEHOUSE. Got hung up on verb form of DELIBERATE (doh). Liked RAINY. Many thanks Jack and setter. Lots of learning…

29. 3 or 4 where I had not much idea of the parsing, which I’m sure says more about me than the setter! Always less than satisfying though.

    LOI INTEREST which was simple when I finally saw it – I was looking for a plant.

    Took an age anyway, it would have been a very poor NITCH for me, but “rescued” by my inability to spell the OKLAHOMAN or indeed check the anagrist, as I substituted the first A for an O.

    DNF

30. 25 minutes, about my usual. Nice level of puzzle for me, although “win” went in with a shrug. Now Jack has explained it, I like it.
    I’m clearly alone having a MER at page meaning side.
    COD to rainy as it made me smile.
    Many thanks Jack and setter.

Comments are closed.