Times Cryptic 29264

72 comments on “Times Cryptic 29264”

1. I had the same problem with 9d ARENDT but assumed ‘death’ would be just ‘d’ so bunged in ‘Brandt’ from the checkers. I thought this was fairly easy but didn’t think so when I started as it took me a while to get started and had to move south to get some of the answers in to get a foothold. DECOY had to be d-something-y but I was trying to think of a shade of green to go in the middle before the penny dropped. ALOPECIA came late as I failed to separate American agency and so thought it would be CL?P??IA. Liked COBBLER which fooled me for a while but got it from the checkers and ‘last’. Had UNDID but failed to parse ‘funds’ for uncovered money. Didn’t know that a ‘Lad’ was male or female in LAPLAND. Liked the hidden THING in 22d. COD to AGITATO, a NHO but the director gave it away.
   Thanks Jack and setter.

   Edit: my take on EXTRACTED was in the sense of extracting/forcing a confession.

   1. I nearly did the same with BRANDT but decided that D could mean Died but not Death.

      1. Also a Brandt for me and also an animago!

         Philosophers, artists and musical terms are not strong points for me.

2. DNF
   Slow going from the start, with the upper half especially recalcitrant. I wasted a lot of time trying to think of a philosopher’s name ending in N_T (finally came up with END and the penny dropped), or of a work by David (I knew the name). I came up with e.g. SHAKO, UNDID, but didn’t see how they worked. What really did for me was PERTURB: I couldn’t let go of AR (a Republican) and forgot a=PER. A poor performance all around.

3. Fortunately, I knew both David (famous for The Death of Marat) and Hannah Arendt. I biffed alopecia, which gave me albatross and chute. I couldn’t parse shako, but it’s the only possible headgear for the crossing letters.

   On a roll? That’s the usual way of ordering a sandwich in the US – on a roll, on rye, on whole wheat.

   Time: 29:47

4. As per Vinyl J.L David’s painting of Marat dead in his bath after being assassinated by Charlotte Corday is indeed famous and was reproduced in wax by Mme. Tussaud. He spent a lot of time bathing because of a skin condition – not alopecia.

   1. Still… bit of a coincidence, n’est-ce pas…

      1. CHUTEs are quite common channels in dams engineering but, interestingly (perhaps), my friend offered that one after I had tried (the slightly tortured) FLUME.
         (Apologies – wrong message.)

5. CHUTE LOI. POI the skin condition.
   I used to wear a SHAKO, as a (don’t laugh!) drum major. (I couldn’t play second trumpet anymore because of too many dental extractions. Appalachia!)

6. Terrific puzzle I thought. I got across the line after a 39.04 minute struggle in which I was probably saved only by the number of anagrams. Some were dastardly, but at least they were anagrams. Only got SHAKO from memory and took a post-solve age to figure out PERTURB, that a/per thing eluding me yet again. Thanks Jack, not an easy day to blog.

   From Mississippi:
   I know that fortune is waiting to be kind
   So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine
   The emptiness is endless, cold as the clay
   You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way
   Only one THING I did wrong
   Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

7. 18:07. I found this quite tough and was just pleased to find all correct after finishing with a doubtful ARENDT, never having heard of either person. As usual I did my best to stymie myself along the way, nearly going for a biffed ANIMATO and initially parsing LIBERATED as LACERATED. I particularly liked COBBLER.

   1. Arendt is probably best known for her book on the Eichmann trial, where she coined the phrase “the banality of evil”.

8. DNF couldn’t get the philosopher in what would have been a second fastest time of just under 17 minutes. When I first saw the clue I was happy, ready to write in SOCRATES before realising it both didn’t fit and this wasn’t the GK crossword. Great surface. Guessed BRANDT in the end who atleast was a philosopher.

   I actually really enjoyed that and quite a few good clues. I really don’t want to pick a favourite.

   Thanks blogger and setter

9. Found this tough in spots but cleverly and (more importantly) very fairly clued.
   Managed to get all correct but (as always) very grateful for certain parsing.
   For example, also could see 11ac probably had to be PERTURB but not where the PER came from.
   Like another poster 16ac had to be SHAKO, but was blocked by looking at the K for king.
   Thought 13ac ‘fight date’ a very simple, clever and potentially somewhat humorous clue.
   Actually parsed to get answer for 9d, then checked to see whether such a philosopher existed.
   Assumed 5d had to be LAPLAND, and was interested to find the genderless UK use of LAD.
   Struggled with parsing for 25d, until revelation re cockney ‘half-inch’ here.
   While I understood ALBATROSS as a burden (including in golf?), was interested to research that they are apparantly quite high fliers.
   19d, seemed to me to include a bit of an unspoken homophone clue.
   Thank you setter and Jackkt (again).

   1. Albatross is a score of three under par on a hole, hence not a burden at all.

      1. It is if U have to live up to it.
         I think it was named that way on purpose.

10. I had DUPER instead of DOPER, since I thought if you dupe someone you could be said as to be using them.

    1. I wondered about that, and am a bit surprised there aren’t more errors on the Snitch – it felt very biffable. In the end I decided it was too close to the ‘idiot’ part of the wordplay, and as I knew ‘dope’ could be drugs, trusted that DOPER could be a thing.

11. Another good start to the day, really liked some of the clues: I knew SHAKO from Sharpe; ARENDT came after a crosser (jack, you have misgendered her); and ALOPECIA featured in an old crossword my wife and I tackled recently.

    12’51”, thanks jack and setter.

    1. Thanks. I spotted that and corrected it at 07:59, probably while you were writing. My original blog used ‘philosopher’ twice in close proximity and I changed the second to ‘he’ without attention to the context.

12. Well beaten today, with many blanks mainly at the top. Really want 1d to be DUMMY, but couldn’t see green=umm. Dummy.

    ARENDT and AGITATO were way beyond me. And biffed EGGSHELL on the basis of “surely that’s the only thing that could fit”. Like others, I was stuck on AR in a five letter boat. I’m forgetting some of the tricks like a=per and the COBBLER’S last.

    I knew SHAKO, having just mentioned it when writing this mornings blog for the QC.

    COD INCH

13. A good puzzle though it took me some time to get on the setter’s wavelength.
    COD ALOPECIA.

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

14. 16:55
    No major hold-ups today but it took a while before I gained a foothold. Luckily for me the GK elements of the clues all rang a faint bell, and I liked COBBLER even though it strikes me as a bit of a chestnut.

    Thanks to both.

15. DNF with ARENDT and SHAKO missing. I watched a programme about the death of Marat recently so knew of Jacques-Louis, but that was more a hindrance than a help. I was slow in not finishing. Thank you Jack and setter.

16. A little learning – and it is a little – can indeed be a dangerous thing. My LOI was ARENDT; at first I fastened on David, philosopher and death, and immediately started to try various combinations of MARAT and D. Several minutes later I gave up and resorted to checkers, and had that familiar facepalm moment when you realise you’ve been comprehensively outwitted. Just under 28 minutes but I will call that a DNF and move on.
    Well done and thanks Jack and setter.

17. 23.50

    I don’t mind clues like ARENDT where the answer is a NHO but the w/p is clear (enough if you know who David was).

    Otherwise PERTURB was tricky for the reasons Kevin mentions, and another sea related clue delayed me at the bottom as I was able to bring to mind every single marine occupation known to man and beast apart from the one I wanted.

    Thanks Jackkt and setter

    1. I was the other way around – didn’t know David, but knew of Arendt, so once the latter looked buildable, I was happy enough to believe the former was an artist.

18. Quick at 26 mins but a few NHOs in both clues and answers meaning ARENDT and SHAKO were submitted with fingers crossed along with DOPER. I think we’ve had ARENDT in here quite recently, it rang a bell.
    I liked the wordplay for YORK.
    Thanks both.

    1. An archive search reveals this is the very first appearance of ARENDT here, although in 2019 the duty blogger mentioned “Hannah Arendt’s magnificent, and ever relevant, book The Origins of Totalitarianism”.

       1. Thanks for the reminder. 2019 was the year of the last open elections in Hong Kong, before the total system strangled the place.

19. Generally quite straightforward except the NW where I was shockingly slow and was never going to get the NHO ARENDT, so I gave up.

    There were some nice juicy anagrams to keep me amused and I was pleased to have remembered the hat and the battle.

    Thanks Jack and setter.

20. 12:07. I felt I was channeling the spirit of Tony Sever this morning, seeing both Jacques-Louis David and Hannah Arendt described as ‘obscure’ 😉 The Marat painting is famous of course but so is (or rather are) Napoleon crossing the alps and his coronation. Arendt’s work is much-referenced these days, as Donald Trump treats it like a user guide.
    LOI EDGEHILL: I know very little about that period of history but it rang a bell. Naseby is the other one can name.

    1. Napoleon did not lead an army over the Alps while mounted on a mettlesome charger; he was in the middle of the procession, riding a mule with a local guide. As an artillery officer he was not a particularly skilled horseman.

       1. You mean the official court painter embellished the truth? Surely not!

          1. Lol

    2. Marston Moor is another well known battle.

    3. Yes Naseby’s the one where Charles I’s goose was cooked.

       1. Where not for the first time, the excitable Prince Rupert’s antics with his cavalry put the Royalists at a crucial disadvantage by riding off the battlefield in search of Parliamentarian plunder, leading to the Cavalier’s defeat.
          This time it was irreversible, but the idiot hadn’t learnt his lesson from Edgehill three years earlier where he did exactly the same thing. Edgehill was a stalemate, but crucially, as a result of his vanity, the main Parliamentarian army escaped to London fully intact ahead of Charles.

21. 49 mins.
    I knew Arendt was a viable name, as I was at school with a Dutch lad called Arendt. David – yes, as noted by others, famous for depicting Marat in his bathtub just after Charlotte had clipped him. Good challenge.
    Thanks, jack.

22. 20:42. LOI ARENDT which I was stuck on for a least 3 minutes and was expecting to be wrong. I wondered if the surface reading related to a famous death and so it proved. I’ve heard of the death of Marat but have never been bothered to engage with the detail of the event and certainly not to commit it to memory.

    Similarly the details of the death of the Napoleonic French diplomat Talleyrand who was famous for his devious scheming. Other than recalling the reaction of the Austrian minister Metternich who, on hearing the news of the death of his arch rival is supposed to have mused out loud, “I wonder what he meant by that?”

23. DNF with one error in just over 20. I completed three quarters of this in very rapid time before hitting a wall in the NE, which felt almost like the work of a different setter. LOI CHUTE – not the most obvious synonym for channel plus the name of a random film. The C from ALOPECIA finally got me there.

    1. If you film something you shoot it – no knowledge of 1970s cinema required.

24. No problem with Arendt or alopecia but I now see I put AMBITIONS for 8dn, not sure why .. a bit too philosophical perhaps..

25. 16.48 It was the NE section that slowed me most, ALOPECIA’s terrific definition fooling me for a long time. It had to be SHAKO (seen elsewhere recently) but the monarch was elusive. The PERVERSITY of cluing LAD with stablegirl was a further delay.
    The philosopher rang a faint but audible bell, and I see I should be much more familiar with her work. Her analysis of current politics would be interesting.
    A puzzle I was rather relieved to finish unscathed. Thanks to Jack for elucidations.

26. ALOPECIA – from the Greek for fox. It originally meant dog-mange. OED has this cure from 1585: Burne the heade of a great ratte and myngle it with the droppynge of a beare or a hogge and anointe the head, it heleth the desease called Allopecia. Terrible spelling in those days. LOI CHUTE. Spend too long looking for a film called SHOOT. My daughter teases me for being the only person she knows to pronounce WH- differently from a solitary W-. I know I am right. WHALER and WAILER are not homophones in my world. Funnily enough, I just had Bunny Wailer’s debut album Blackheart Man on my shuffle. 18’46”. Many thanks.

27. I gave up after 15 minutes. I hadn’t helped myself by confidently entering “wailer” at 29A, which rendered INCH impossible. I have reread the clue two or three times, but still feel it could be taken either way. Probably just me.

    However my major problems were in the NE quadrant, and 9D, where I knew neither David nor ARENDT.

    A for American floored me for ALOPECIA, where I’d thought either CIA or NASA which wouldn’t work as a result.

    A being “per” did the same at 11A.

    Never saw SHAKO as I was trying to put something on the end of “slam”.

    With only the E in place, I wasn’t ever going to see CHUTE.

    The biggest bugbear was ALBATROSS, which I have no excuse for missing, especially as I passed English Literature largely on my knowledge of Coleridge’s masterpiece.

    Appalling day at the office – probably my worst for a week or two.

    COD COBBLER.

28. I’m going to plead that I had a couple of interruptions during this solve, but it doesn’t really excuse my stupid error, PERVERCITY, which I didn’t even pick up whilst wondering where the A was in the clue for CHAKO, (CHarles the monarch, KO the big hit). I’d even written out the anagrist and saw there was an S in it. Saw SHAh as soon as I clocked the pink square. Managed to assemble the unknown ARENDT. FOI was YORK and LOI, CHUTE. 17,47 WOE. Thanks setter and Jack.

    1. Interesting city . . . in the US of A perhaps ?

       1. Probably somewhere on the road to Perdition!

29. Doesn’t seem to have troubled most others, but CHUTE had me baffled for almost half an hour. Only bothered to persevere because it was my only missing answer. Only went in hesitantly, because DNK the (English) word. NHO ARENDT, either, but at least clue was generous. Wasn’t mad about forced=EXTRACTED, but it was obviously correct. Liked ALOPECIA.

    1. I thought “forced” was the clue for anagram (is that anagrind or anagrist, I can never remember)and “out” the definition of the answer.

       1. I guess it works if ‘forced’ is fulfilling that role, but don’t think I’ve ever seen that before – and it doesn’t really ‘work’ IMO. But it didn’t really matter, given that the answer couldn’t be anything else.

30. My Borough making its second appearance this week.

31. Really liked this, finding it hard but doable. NE tough, the almost impenetrable Alopecia finally opening it up. NHO of David (do know the Marat painting) or Arendt, but she went in easily with crossers. Edeghill was the undoing of me, never ‘eard of it, and failed to parse. In desperation wrote the only word that fit, eggshell. Embarrassing.

32. 31:10 – SHAKO dredged up from the memory of the last time it appeared and ARENDT and EDGEHILL invented specially for this one. Quite tricky.

33. Thrown by Marat’s death, but eventually realised that David was a mere artist. NHO Hannah Arendt and checked there, having tentatively solved it from wordplay. It had to be LAPLAND and I put it in although the gender of the stablegirl did seem odd. 56 minutes, plenty of nice clues.

34. 34:21 WOE. I knew The Death of Marat but it didn’t do me any good. I wrote in BRANDT just to fill the blank squares

35. “God save thee, ancient mariner, From the fiends that plague you thus! Why lookst thou so?” “With my crossbow I shot the albatross.”

    It was considered unlucky to kill an albatross, so the Ancient Mariner’s shipmates hung the dead bird round his neck. Hence a burden.

    However, the Mariner outlived them all, and so was able to tell the tale to the wedding-guest.

    Did this puzzle while watching my grandsons’ sports day. So time was irrelevant, but I wasn’t held up at all. Of all the art in existence, why pick on the Death of Marat? In fact I was expecting art to be ars ( French for art) but the philosopher had to be Arendt.
    Inch was good.

36. 26:16 but…

    …unable to think of any philosophers who would fit the bill, and no idea after finding out who David was, which part of the answer he might help with. Convinced I should be sticking a D in there somewhere, didn’t know how the rest of the answer should be constructed, so I looked it up. I don’t know if ARENDT is very famous or not, just a bit of a disappointing finish to an otherwise entertaining puzzle.

    Thanks Jack and setter

37. DNF, too hastily writing in AMBITIONS for “High-flier’s burden” instead of ALBATROSS. It just about seemed a plausible answer, since high-fliers are typically ambitious and this may be viewed as a burden – and of course, more particularly, it fitted the checking letters. Even as I wrote it I thought it weak, but not necessarily more so than EXTRACTED. Otherwise a slightly strange puzzle with a lot of gimmes and a handful of tricky clues, particularly ARENDT. Disappointing to have solved all of these and come a cropper on one that should have been fairly straightforward.

38. 40:20. Very slow start for me with only THING going in on the first pass. sped up towards the end and finished off with NHO ARENDT. very nice puzzle though, lots of good surfaces.

39. 40 minutes, but with interruptions (work-related). No probs with parsing. I took ALBATROSS to be a burden because of the Ancient Mariner.

40. Finished inside target at 39.57 but with one wrong. It was my LOI and perhaps I didn’t give it the attention it merited, but I somehow ended up with DICKY for 1dn. Earlier I biffed CHICAGO for 26ac when I had the letters A-O at the end, but solving THING put me back on track. Annoyed not to finish with all correct, and really should have thought of ‘eco’ for green.

41. SCC territory in 30 mins but i blooming did it NWS Shako, Arendt, and agitato. I must be getting better at these at last. Good crossword

42. 24:18 with LOI ARENDT. I had no idea about the artist guy (and I was wondering if he was a mcguffin for travail or even arbeit) but luckily an alphabet trawl starting with A, and then thinking of END for death, got me there quite fast.
    Apparently a stablegirl is still known as a lad, my new fun fact for today!

    I still have the timer problem that it always resets itself to off, and then I get “completed 0:00” So i need to go quickly back to the puzzle and switch the timer on to see the time (the timer doesnt stop even though the puzzle is fjnished). Maybe I need to start using the crossword club version, that still works normally.

    Thanks setter and blogger, as always

43. If a philosopher isn’t in the Bruces’ Drinking Song, do they really exist? Discuss.

    Failed on Hannah, otherwise 15 mins. Thanks Jack.

44. DNF, defeated by DOPER (I put DUPER) and SHAKO, where I thought of it but had forgotten that it’s a hat and couldn’t parse it – didn’t think of a shah as a king or KO as a big hit.

    – Not familiar with COBBLER as a sweet and took ages to realise it was *that* meaning of ‘last’
    – Don’t see the need for the question mark in the clue for EDGEHILL
    – Got ARENDT without parsing it as I thought ‘death’ was giving just the D
    – Never knew that ‘lad’ is used in a gender-neutral way as needed for LAPLAND

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    COD Elucidate

    1. ‘Lad’ hasn’t been used in a gender-neutral way for a very, very long time. Possibly not in this century.
       But then we’re not allowed to disagree with Chambers or Collins are we?

       1. I think given how many people successfully solved it, you might have a bit of humility about ‘lad’ as a gender-neutral term.

          But then that’s not your style, is it?

45. 35 mins. I know all about Hannah Arendt which made it all the more frustrating because I had to look it up. Got very stuck in the NW.

46. 20.06. Late night finish. LOI chute which delivered a smile.

47. Knew all the GK stuff but a slow 44 mins. There’s a good episode of In Our Time about Hannah Arendt which can be found on BBC Sounds for those able to access it.

    In spite of the sluggish time I was never held up for long nor despairing of finishing. So thank you setter for a good challenge.

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