Times Cryptic 29222

89 comments on “Times Cryptic 29222”

1. After NAIL appeared yesterday with ‘quick’ in the clue I looked up the word ‘quick’ and was reminded of the ‘living’ meaning, which I knew but had forgotten so no problem today with INANIMATE.
   VERNIER eluded me and had to look it up, but should have known it as I have vernier calipers in my toolbox. Had forgotten ‘ERNIE’ as the computer and it also reminded me of the late, great Benny Hill. No doubt I’ll have an earworm for the rest of the day.
   TRIANGULATION took some time as I’d bunged in ‘ing’ for the last three letters. ASSEVERATE was a NHO and had assumed that the glut would be ‘spate’. The two long acrosses came pretty quickly and liked NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT for the tiny museum. I also missed the ‘unfair’ meaning in the clue, very clever. PRIMOGENITURE came from the wordplay and anagrist. OMIT from the literal only, thanks Jack, the play rings a bell. Didn’t know how to spell MILWAUKEE. COD TORTE.
   Thanks Jack and setter.

2. I didn’t know VERNIER, or ERNIE either, for that matter, and had forgotten that I hadn’t solved this yet when I looked at the blog!
   Quite enjoyable, though. So there’s a special word for a poetic acrostic!

   1. And, if you can assure me in all honesty that you have used “Telestich” accurately in real conversation and without artificially steering things around to it, I’ll buy the drinks next time we meet up.

      1. I’ll look f0r an opportunity, though I doubt if it will come up before we convene again (which I hope is sooner rather than later).
         I have certainly written, though ignorant of the word, a TELESTICH or two in my day—in a relatively recent year, one for my dear pal Heather’s traditional birthday verse.

         1. I note Jack’s explanation states that the message is revealed by the final letter of each line, not the first in the manner of most acrostics I have encountered. Sounds tricky, I hope Heather appreciates the effort!

            1. Oh, merde ! That very important detail somehow slipped right by me. Else I wouldn’t have called a TELESTICH a poetic “acrostic.” I should have seen it, though… if I’d thought at all about where the word comes from.

               It’s a subtler device than using the initial letters… so much so, that I think some reference to it should probably be, equally subtly, included in the verse. Well, I have till December 13 to work on this…

               1. Good luck! I hope you share it with us when it’s done. I just tried playing around with the concept and it’s damned hard. Tell Heather happy birthday for December 13…

3. Thanks for pointing out the clever(er) meaning of un-fair, jack. I missed that.
   I wasn’t enthusiastic about “introduced by” as a containment indicator at Titillate.

4. For me the easiest Tuesday offering for some time. FOI NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT which provide plenty of crossers. Held up in SE corner when I put TITTIVATE in without thinking about the unusual spelling.
   Thanks Jack. I needed the blog for the parsing clarifications.

5. Well, I did solve it eventually. I knew vernier but just could not remember the word, until the word Ernie popped into my mind – is that a computer? Sounds right. Self-advancement was not at all what I expected owing to the tricky literal, but that’s what the anagram indicated. I did know asseverate, and once I saw sever I could see how the cryptic works. I biffed Milwaukee and then parsed it – no auks were used. I was left at the end with the capital, and biffed Vilnius. I was worried it might be Vilnias, but then I saw the wordplay – clever!

   Time: 38:39

   1. Ernie used not to be a computer, because (in the old days at least) a computer could only generate pseudo random numbers. It was a special purpose electronics kit that would generate really random numbers.

6. VERNIER/ernie? TELESTICH? AQUARIA defined as ‘which may contain a lot of bass’? Strewth! I finished this in 24 flat but I’m not sure how except by pure guesswork on the poem and the computer, writing in a series of letters that kind of looked right, and were. A lot of fun clues and some great anagrams, thank you Jack.

   From Not Dark Yet:
   Well I’ve been to London, and I’ve been to gay PARIS
   I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
   I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
   I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes
   Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
   It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

7. 34:38 With the last two the NHOs TELESTICH & ASSEVERATE.

8. 14:01. When I had the P of PARMA I tried to make Paris work as a guess for “city”, so it was funny to then see it appear elsewhere in the grid!

   I was glad that the letters for TELESTICH only fitted in one way that seemed to make any sense because it feels a pretty obscure word to me. With that said I’ll probably see it used somewhere else imminently if past experience of claiming obscurity is anything to go by.

9. Here’s a Telestich, from the Claude AI model. I had to experiment with different constraints. A formal rhyming scheme and strict scansion had to be jettisoned. It still hallucinated a couple of words that didn’t end with “i”. In the end I made manual edits.

   The puzzle solver works until the night**t**
   Crosswords make the mind feel as confetti **i**
   Players ponder clues with decorum**m**
   Answers emerge after thinking supreme**e**
   Word games challenge even the optimists**s**

   Riddling words make solvers puff**f**
   Grids filled with terms both high and basso**o**
   Players work with pencils near**r**
   Completing sections brings delight**t**
   Word masters show impressive growth**h**

   Challenges keep players quite discrete**e**
   Puzzles that make novices doubt**t**
   Wordplay serves as mental origami**i**
   Crosswords push thinking to the maximum**m**
   Solvers gain skills that are complete**e**
   Games with letters bring endless success**s**

   1. Very clever!

   2. Pleased to see that AI is emerging (just!) from the infinite typing monkeys stage. You’ll might also be pleased to know that AI teaching in American schools is in safe hands. This from Trump’s Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon.

      1. Good luck Guy

10. DNF
    I finally recalled REIVE for 1ac, but still couldn’t come up with anything to fill in the rest. And PARIS(H) never occurred to me. And DNK VERNIER, and forgot about ERNIE. So all in all a bad day. NHO TELESTICH (not in ODE, in my E-J dictionary). Biffed OMIT, but immediately thought of Timon (one of my least favorite Shakespeare plays). Once I had the N_T/_U_ _ of 14ac, I thought of NOT JUST (unfair) and spent a lot of time chasing that wild goose.

    1. I had NOT JUST for a long time as well, Kevin.

11. 11’44” today, trusting that the nho TELESTICH was the only letter combination that made sense. Knew REIVE from visiting Northumberland / Scottish borders. Have seen ASSEVERATE but had no idea of its meaning.

    Thanks jack and setter.

12. 37 minutes with LOI RESIN. I’ve had three premium bonds since my sixteenth birthday (a disappointing present even for 1961) and Ernie has never once obliged. I do remember something about the Vernier Scale at school but not later. I now know what ASSEVERATE must mean. The C and the H could have gone in either way in the unknown TELESTICH and for once I plumped for the right one. An interesting puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter.

    1. My grannie bought me two £1 premium bonds as a baptism present, in 1950. A year or two back, one of them won me £25, so there is still hope BW ..

       1. 1956 was the first year of issue, Jerry. I was given one that year but the number has never come up. I gather there comes a point that if you hold enough of them you can earn a prize most months.

          1. Ah, interesting! I have dug out the two £1 bonds in question and they are stamped 4 Jan 1958 and 7 Jan 1959 respectively .. must have been just birthday presents, I suppose.
             What a cheapskate! Must be where I inherited my own financial carefulness from. To be fair she would have had a widow’s pension and not much more. Yorkshire grannies ..

          2. £2 invested in 1956 at 5% compound interest would be about £54 today.

       2. I worked on a Post Office counter in the 1960s. Only parents could legally buy bonds for children under 16. Grandparents used to try to but it caused problems if one won as the prize money went to the parent, nor the child, till 16.

13. 25:25

    I never quite got to grips with this one. TELESTICH, VERNIER, and ASSEVERATE were the only unknowns but I quite often found myself at the bottom of the garden with nowhere else to go.

    A good challenge and no complaints so thanks to both.

14. 25.18 over breakfast. When I saw “Rob in Edinburgh” my first thought was “Rab” not “reive” (and I live in Edinburgh…..). Pleased that I managed to puzzle out TELESTICH (NHO) but VERNIER (LOI) required checkers.
    Thanks Jack and setter.

    1. I also toyed with Rab for a while.

    2. Me Too with the “Rab”, Inverleith, so went nowhere with that one.

15. 35 minutes. Without any crossers in place I wondered if ‘Rob in Edinburgh’ might be “Rabbie” but getting the first few down clues helped and I did remember REIVE from the Border Reivers. I wasn’t too happy about the Obscure Word Clued as Anagram TELESTICH but crossing letters helped and the -TICH ending seemed more likely than -CITH. Thanks to Merlin for the example; I know you’ve modestly mentioned AI, but all your own work I’m sure.

    Seeing ‘Drinks manufacturer’ at 20a and MILWAUKEE at 7d brought to mind the slogan “Schlitz: The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous”.

    1. …and then there’s the song that Rod Stewart used to sing:
       “What’s made Milwaukee famous, has made a loser out of me..”

       1. Let’s not forget the originator, Jerry Lee Lewis

    2. And then there’s the old shaggy dog joke, the beer that made Mill Famie walk us!

16. 24:15

    Some tricky stuff here. TELESTICH, ASSEVERATE, VERNIER, all fairly clued. I liked TITILLATE, TORTE and the two clever anagrams but OMIT seemed a bit weak.

    I was in VILNIUS last year but it still took a while – I have a bee in my bonnet about the use of “note” to mean any of a number of different letters.

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

17. DNF, defeated by VERNIER (didn’t know the scale or Ernie the computer).

    – Had to trust that ‘reive’ is a Scottish word for rob to get REPETITIVE
    – Never knew that Frankincense is RESIN
    – Like Pootle above, tried to fit PARIS in 22d then realised it was actually the answer for 2d
    – Biffed MILWAUKEE once I had enough checkers, with the K being particularly helpful
    – TELESTICH was unknown but the most likely option from the checkers

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    COD Not much to look at

18. 41m 11s so, as is often the case, a time very close to Jack’s!
    I enjoyed this puzzle and 16d -titillate- particularly. I thought that was well-disguised.
    NHO Telestich. Sounds like something out of that TV programme, ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’.
    Mention of ‘frankincense’ brought back memories of the soukh in Riyadh where one could luxuriate in the aroma of it.
    I did wonder if our overseas solvers would know anything about ERNIE in 9ac. Alas, two years ago I had to cash in my premium bonds, some of which I had had since Day 1, because my UK bank, Barclays told me I had to close my accounts because I no longer had a UK address and NS&I won’t pay into an overseas account.

    1. Well, apparently I do know about Ernie, probably from decades of doing UK crosswords.

       1. I’m sure there have been other occasions, but ERNIE came up here 3 times in QCs in 2022.

    2. True that. Bunged it in anyway. The ear worm didn’t come to mind until I read the blog. Bother.
       Milwaukee…gave up, so DNF. Not the first time I’ve been defeated by an enclosure within an enclosure. I’m somewhat heartened by the blogger finding this puzzle tricky. Thanks to him and setter.

19. 33 minutes. Inordinately pleased with myself.
    Biffed TELESTICH, of course.
    VERNIER gradually emerged from the morass of my memory. ASSEVERATE took the same route.
    Forgot all about border raiders and convinced myself that Rob’s were sufficiently frequently encountered in Edinburgh for the purpose.
    Thanks to setter and jackkt.

20. DNF, or rather technically DF but with 6 errors. Lucky to get away with just 6.

    TELESTICH (NHO) was a guess based on an arrangement of the letters that seemed plausible.

    I highly, highly suspected something was wrong with my VILLAIN, as I couldn’t parse it, but had determined that there was no capital I knew beginning with V, which wasn’t true, as I did know VILNIUS.

    NHO REIVE and rather suspect I won’t remember it if it comes up again.

    VIBRATO and ASSEVERANCE also an issue.

21. I quite enjoyed that, challenging but I felt you could make steady progress with the tricky but fair word play.

    Not sure where my ERNIE knowledge came from but I seemed to remember quite a bit about it.

    I had to engage the geography part of the brain with six places appearing today. A true whistle stop tour of Europe with a quick hop over the Atlantic. Thankfully all heard of.

    A late save on this changing TARTE to TORTE. I struggle enough in English without making it harder for myself.

    COD: NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT simple, but it gave me a chuckle.

    Thanks blogger and setter. And you’re right about me atleast, I didn’t get OMIT from wordplay or manage to parse it afterwards.

22. Found this on the easier side albeit at about 30′. VERNIER gauge from my early engineering days. Manufactured NHO TELESTICH. Like Pootle I almost had Paris for PARMA only to find it again, and only once I found VIBRATO did I see the Edinburgh clue and forget about Rabbies and Robbies and even”Boabs”. Enjoyed this, thanks Jackkt and setter.

23. 12:02 with fingers crossed for the unlikely looking TELESTITCH. Rather heavy on the geography I thought, although all familiar places.

24. Correctly guessed (no other word for it) the gaps in TELESTICH only to be undone by a typo in REPETITEVE which was also totally unparsed.
    Somewhere around 28 mins so not tough overall but a smattering of absolute stinkers amongst the fun stuff.
    TELESTICH is an example of my least favourite clue type: NHO word (even in this erudite forum) with no sure way to construct from the wordplay.
    I enjoyed VILNIUS and the tiny museum.
    Thanks to setter and to jackkt for untangling.

    1. TELESTICH is a bit of a grey area IMO. I completely agree about clear cluing for words likely to be NHO for solvers, but in this case it did look like easily the most plausible arrangement of letters. The relatively few errors on the Snitch, and the fact that no-one here has yet fessed up to plumping for TELESCITH, seem to support that.

       So, just about fair in my book, albeit not hugely satisfying.

    2. If you know a little Greek, you will know that telos means far or distant, and a stikhos is a line of verse, as in stichomythia.

       1. My only Greek comes from science terminology (I know Tele) and plant naming in both of which it is often jumbled up with Latin. My favourite example being Aesculus hippocastanum. So wrong its fun.

    3. Think of it as an opportunity to learn a new word. I’ve been solving the Times cryptic since the mid 1960s and yet previously unheard of words crop up regularly enough. Complaining about it has not helped me, so instead I look up the word in the OED and read the accompanying article. Helps to lodge it in the old memory bank..
       As for the wordplay, what other word could it have been?

       1. Not complaining, merely expressing an opinion though having only started on these in the 80s I realise I am but a novice.
          Part of the reason I enjoy them is precisely to learn, particularly to fill the huge gaps in my GK like classical music.
          Plus, I did get it right.

25. Beaten by REPETITIVE and VERNIER, though I knew the latter word. NHO the ERNIE computer or the Scottish ‘reive’. Otherwise the rest of this was quite easy.

26. 110 mins.
    I thought this was very difficult. NHO telestich; Mrs H_R does sewing while watching Netflix, though. Also NHO reive despite being of Scottish heritage, but my parents were from deprived areas of 1920s Glasgow (Parkhead and Cambuslang) – it must be a word better known to Edinburgh poshos, as the clue implies. Good puzzle, though, and an enjoyable challenge.
    Thanks, jack.

27. 29 minutes with my LOI a bit rushed: I didn’t think much about it, having P.R.S and City, and confused it with the Parma clue, thinking it was R in something, and not knowing what Pais meant but knowing that it existed. An aunt gave me a premium bond in the 1950s when they started, and I’ve never chased it. May be sitting on a fortune. I’ve long lost the bond itself and they obviously haven’t kept up with my address.

28. REVERENDS was FOI and I experimented with RAB for 1a, but the penny didn’t drop until much later when REPETITIVE looked likely from the crossers. I was then able to reverse engineer it from petit and the Border Reivers, with whom I was familiar from many visits to Newcastleton in the Borders. Managed to recall Timon of Athens when OMIT presented itself as a likely candidate for 6a. No problem with Ernie or VERNIER. TRIANGULATION and TARNISH having provided -U-H, NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT more or less typed itself in. SELF ADVANCEMENT took longer to see. LOI, VILNIUS went in unparsed from crossers and definition. TELESTICH went in from the most likely arrangement of the left over letters! 21:33. Thanks setter and Jack.

29. On seeing the first instance in a Times crossword of the entry at 15d:
    To write a TELESTICH is
    Surely difficult enough
    To get the lines to rhyme
    Takes almost all your time
    I’ve managed it with this
    (The scansion’s a bit rough!)
    Unusual to have weapons grade clues in a Tuesday puzzle, though I managed it in 17.11. Impressed by the device producing VILNIUS – I think that’s also a first, is it not?

    1. Splendid!

30. 17:30 – TELESTICH rang the very faintest of bells once solved but only then. Tricky and innovative on the whole, though I did wonder – irrelevantly- how many aquaria would ever have bass in them. A very upmarket fish restaurant perhaps.

    On edit: Factoid: I learn that keeping bass in an aquarium is actually illegal in the UK – unless you have a special licence, so I think the answer to my question is very few. I claim my £5.

    1. Some would argue that Bass as brewed was virtually indistinguishable from water, and might well sustain fish at a pinch.

       1. And that’s the polite version. The one I know compares it to making love in a punt…….

          1. Was it the Warden of an Oxford college who said that punts were not for kissing in … ?

          2. Surely that was Watneys! Bass was difficult to keep well, but not that weak. 43 mins on this one. Very belated comment this, so I expect no one will read it. (Incidentally, I did get the ‘Timon’ reference! )

             1. ( belatedly) I think you’re right.

    2. One problem with keeping bass in an aquarium is that they’d eat the other fish!

31. I was fairly speedy by my standards on this one, finishing in 34.33 with everything parsed. Quite a few were inserted where initially I hadn’t a clue how they worked, such as VILNIUS, but I took the trouble to make sure they were all parsed before stopping the clock, as I have had too many disappointments of late chasing faster times.
    Part of my job at times involved using a dumpy level in surveying, and TRIANGULATION is an important part of the process, so no problems with that. I had to work quite hard on the parsing to make sure I spelt MILWAUKEE correctly, ignoring an overwhelming wish to put a second L in there somewhere.

32. 11:08. Tricky in places. I don’t think I’ve ever come across TELESTICH before but there are other poetry-related words that end -STICH so I was sure of the answer. NHO VERNIER, didn’t know that frankincense is a RESIN.

33. 1a Repetitive only from crossers. Toyed with Rabbie (Burns) and Rob Roy. Forgotten about oddly-spelled Reive. Didn’t think of petit nor am I keen on flat=repetitive.
    24a Aquaria. DNK it was a Queen number. And I doubt anyone keeps bass in their aquarium, not even the freshwater varieties (as david_ch above points out).
    4d Tarnish. I misparsed this as Tarn + (F)ish. Missed the “is” in the clue. I was surprised, but it could be done. I expect it would be a headless fish in crosswordese.
    11d Primogeniture. Couldn’t be bothered to work out what was being anagrammed. Lazy biff.
    NHO 15d Telestich, but not a difficult anagram. Looked it up. Added to Cheating Machine.
    Thanks to jackkt and setter.

    1. I’m sure Aquaria was not a Queen song.
       As the blog says:
       A (A), Queen (Qu), Song (Aria).
       Lift and separate, as the saying goes.

34. 18.39

    Was lucky with TELESTICH. In view of my handle clue of the day to VILNIUS though I still tried to make Vienna work 🤷‍♂️

35. 25.55. Lots of chewy clues and I nearly fell at the last hurdle. I was convinced Rob in Edinburgh would be Rab until I letter trawled the city to reveal Paris.

    NHO telestich but it was so clued as to make any other possible answer impossible. Aquaria took a while as I thought the answer would be the name of a queen.

    COD asseverate. Good puzzle.

36. Amazed that snitch rated this as ‘easier’ Couldn’t get 1a and it went downhill from there. About two thirds eventually completed.

37. This was really hard, as certain aspects of wordplay were not generously indicated, and I didn’t feel super-rewarded when I did crack one. Struggled through in 52 mins.

    UNFAIR for those interested is listed in Chambers app as meaning ‘not fair, ugly’, and so technically is not a cryptic definition.

38. Gave up with TELESTICH & ASSERVERATE unanswered.

    THANKS jack and setter.

39. Excellent puzzle 27:28. The long anagrams were tricky especially the NHO telestich which needed all the checkers. Spent a long time playing with Rab until Reive occurred to me – should have come a lot earlier to a Northumbrian.

    Thx J and setter

40. isn’t Valetta still the capital of Malta? Cos that was my first guess from the checkers V-L- – – -.🤔

    1. That doesn’t fit, as it’s spelt ‘Valletta’. I did all but two of these in about 35 minutes, so not too hard overall. I failed to get MILWAUKEE and failed to get or parse OMIT but I knew about border ‘reivers’, so ‘reive’ made sense as a verb (it appears in at least one border ballad (http://www.borderreivers.co.uk/Border%20Stories/Ballad%20-%20Parcy%20Reed.htm))

41. 29:44
    NHO TELESTICH, and only vaguely heard of ASSEVERATE.
    Only spotted TIMON after biffing OMIT.
    Before spotting how to construct AQUARIA I did briefly wonder if Queen had released a song called FISHNET.

    Thanks Jack and setter

42. 25 mins, but had to confirm that a TELESTICH was a poem, nothing else fitted. For one who prides himself on knowing all the capitals, VILNIUS was my LOI.

43. One of those very rare days where I completed the puzzle unaided. 6a had to be OMIT but I’d no idea why so thanks to Jackkt for the explanation.

44. Took ages to get my LOI VERNIER even though I have plenty of premium bonds. I was glad that I persevered because my other guesses, TELESTICH, ASSEVERATE, and RESIN were all good.
    FOI INANIMATE
    COD TORTE

45. 40 minutes.
    NHO of Telestich ( but it looked much more likely than Telescith).
    Probably have seen Asseverate before, but I can’t asseverate that I have.

46. 48:36. some challenging vocab indeed, but very enjoyable. thanks both!

47. All done in 32 minutes, thanks mainly to some kind anagrams. NHO TELESTICH, but like vinyl1 I knew both TELE and STICH so it looked right. I first plumped for AERARIA at 24ac, having misread the clue as ‘ … lots of brass’, and selecting a Latin word for treasuries, but I had to admit the error of my ways when PRIMOGENITURE showed it to be something else. Otherwise no issues.
    FOI – OMIT
    LOI – PRIMOGENITURE
    COD – REPETITIVE
    Thanks to jackkt and other contributors.

48. DNF for me since I went for TELESCITH for the totally unknown poem. Otherwise no real problems (other than spelling PRIMOGENITURE right). Plus not quite understanding VIBRATO since I thought I was working with a “viola” not a “viol” that does not work.

49. I think my Armstrong forebears were Reivers who were kicked into Northern Ireland at some point. I thought the FLAT was a musical term, so decided REPETITIVE must be too. Not that it mattered. Had to assume VERNIER and TELESTICH were correct. Had certainly never heard of either, but was happy to make their acquantances. Good, challenging stuff. Finished on 20’45” which is more or less exactly my average.

50. 28.07 I found this much easier than yesterday’s. OMIT was a biff and TELESTICH was a guess. I spent the last seven minutes on the obvious (once I stopped thinking of elections) NARRATE and ASSEVERATE. Thanks Jack.

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