Times Cryptic 29288

62 comments on “Times Cryptic 29288”

1. After failing on the TIROL front yesterday, was relieved this was a breezy one where my answer agreed with the published one. 7:58, no major holdups. I really liked the clues for MARAT and FURBELOW.

   1. I still chuckle over the definition of furbelow decades ago as ‘flouncy mink underwear?’

2. As it happened, I had the top half finished before I ventured into the bottom. Having read Jack’s truncated intro on the homepage, I was tensed for danger. The finish was then anticlimactic, with BASILICAN and WREATHED holding me up only slightly longer than any others.

3. Finally, a day without a typo. I don’t recall coming across FURBELOW before, but I already had the U so there weren’t many choices to fit the wordplay. I’d also forgotten the mouse/BLACK EYE thing, although again the wordplay was very direct. I got TANGELO from cross and time, and took it on faith that ANGELO must be some duke’s deputy (I guessed Merchant of Venice). LOI was STINKER which took far too long since I was trying to insert L (individual finally) into a word for obnoxious. I was going to say it was a nice gentle start to the week, but I’m in California so although it is Monday still, it is Tuesday’s crossword.

4. I whipped through most of it, including tamarin and Marat, but then got most thoroughly stuck in the SW, even though I had furbelow. I thought I was looking for some sort of outlaw, and pursued that line longer than I should have. Eventually, it all came together.

   Time: 25:15

5. 29 minutes. I found this more to my liking than yesterday’s. I had no idea about the ‘duke’s deputy’ at 28a though and half-parsed a few others such as MORALISER. If I ever knew it, I’d forgotten BLACK EYE for ‘mouse’. LOI was SOMME with the required sense of ‘certain’ taking a while to come.

   Interesting to see TANGELO, the necessary reference to “tangerine” and TAMARIN(d) all in one puzzle; I always mix up the monkey and the fruit.

6. Well, that was a bit weird. We got everything 13ac and above correct but nothing below by the time we pulled stumps.
   Having seen jackkt’s notes it is hard to understand why. We can have no serious complaints, and so full credit to the setter.
   Thought of those that we missed 26ac SWEAR WORD and 18d PULL OUT were actually quite clever and simple.
   As usual had to look up the duck to find the one that started with ‘m’ and could be parsed to fit. Also checked JUDE in 7d, once the answer was guessed. Insufficient classical education.
   Still not sure whether ‘land’ was really required for 10ac INDIA.
   Probably what caused difficulty with divining some lower clues were the occasional synonym eg. ‘career’ = ‘belt’ (which I presume is a speed thing), and ‘cardinal’ = ‘main’ and ‘outlaw’ = ‘ban’ which were deliberately misleading and to be admired. Did not know the MARAT history, so that did not help.
   NHO FURBELOW, but might have got it if not for thinking there was an anagram of ‘cat’s coat’.
   Well done setter and thank you jackkt.

7. Done in 60 mins, with a couple of aids.

   Had to check FURBELOW, that it was really a type of ruffle. And was pretty sure that I needed a NHO duck for LOI MERGANSER. Guessed right that answer=ANS, but couldn’t see a word to wrap round it so tried “mirror”, looked up “mirransor” then saw it and stopped the clock.

   Didn’t parse ANALYST, as Anna Freud was one as well as her Dad.
   NHO BLACK EYE =mouse, still looks odd.
   “Here perhaps film” and “poker I love” looked like a double definition for Strip.
   Still don’t understand “at length I” for INDIA. Is the idea that the NATO alphabet is “at length” for the alphabet? Doesn’t really work for me.

   COD SITTING PRETTY

   1. The letter I is extended in the NATO alphabet to ‘India’ for the sake of clarity. INDIA is longer word, so ‘at length’.

   2. I think it just means that India is the long form of I in the NATO alphabet, so it’s I at length. Maybe.

      1. Or wot Jack said…

         1. How about ‘in dia’ for ‘at length’ (diameter).
            Either way, is land required or close enough for a country.

8. 36.46. I think I convinced myself this was harder than it was, and took way too long to get ALLEY, for instance, and MORALISER. Anyone claiming to have worked out TANGELO via the character in Measure for Measure? Thanks Jack for the blog and for sorting that one out.

   From Tombstone Blues:
   Mama’s in the factory she ain’t got no shoes
   Papa’s in the ALLEY, he’s looking for food
   I’m in the kitchen with the tombstone blues

9. 18:59. I was well off the wavelength today, finding myself with a personal NITCH at the opposite end compared to yesterday. I finished with the unrecognised FURBELOW where I was half tempted to put in RUMBELOW as I knew it as a word, but thankfully the parsing was clear. I say unrecognised rather than unknown as I see FURBELOW has appeared once before in the daily about a year ago.

   1. Well I did put it in, as obviously the only word that was going to fit. It helps to read the clue. Particularly annoying because I’ve seen FURBELOW before, although I wouldn’t have been able to define it (or RUMBELOW for that matter).
      7:52 with that stupid error.

10. DNF at 33′ due to errors RUMBELOW and (less forgivably) WRESTLE for NHO FURBELOW and WREATHE. Should have trusted the wordplay on FURBELOW, although I thought ‘fur’ was a bit general for cat.

    I felt this was tricky but fun; DNK ‘mouse’ as black eye (‘shiner’, anyone?) or the meaning of MERGANSER, though had vaguely heard the latter.

    1. Fur is cat’s coat not just cat.

11. 21:40

    After a decent start I made hard work of a few of the easier clues, finishing a few shots over par.

    MERGANSER and FURBELOW were unknowns, TAMARIN rang only faint bells, and I had to take ANGELO and Mouse (BLACK EYE) on trust.

    Thanks to both.

12. 46 minutes, the last five on the FURBELOW/ WREATHE crosser having cracked BASILICAN. I guessed that Angelo must have been the Duke’s Deputy in a Shakespeare play, title not known, and either didn’t know or had forgotten that MOUSE could be a black eye. COD to JUDGE for its economy. Good puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter.

13. DNF after failing to get TANGELO, albeit I knew it was referencing a hybrid of sorts (the “Duke’s deputy” meant nothing to me; something more low-brow such as an awful Brotherhood of Man song might have worked! ). FURBELOW is a word I’d heard of but could not define and I’ve never come across that meaning of mouse. Thanks Jackkt and setter

14. Well. I must have MERGANSER as my COD. sawbill.

15. 51 mins with some assistance from a colleague in parsing some of those biffed, truth be told. The Shakespearean character was always going to be a NHO – has anyone actually seen Measure for Measure??? Bah.

    Tuesday is the new Friday!

    1. Yes, I saw Measure for Measure in 2004 at what we now have to call ‘Shakespeare’s Globe’ when Mark Rylance was still running it, and he played the Duke. Excellent as it was, I hadn’t remembered the names of the characters though.

    2. Many times and still a very popular A level text

16. Just over 10 minutes.

    – Pieced together the unknown (or forgotten) MERGANSER from wordplay
    – Also didn’t know or had forgotten TANGELO, but Angelo being a duke’s deputy range a vague bell
    – Again only dimly remembered that meaning of mouse for BLACK EYE, but the cluing was kind
    – Trusted the wordplay to get FURBELOW
    – Was thrown by the ‘a’ in the clue for SOMME – why is it there? I don’t think it goes with ‘certain’, as ‘a certain’ doesn’t equal ‘some’

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    FOI Bemoan
    LOI Stinker
    COD Wreathe (not least because ‘change of heart’ for once didn’t mean ‘change a letter in the middle to any other letter’)

17. 33 mins and a great relief to see no pinks. While I agree that the lower half was even more tricky than the top, for me there were NHOs and on the margins of GK all over that one. At least I knew the bird and monkey.
    I liked the two long crossers which opened thing up.
    Thanks to setter and to jackkt for the many I needed explaining.

18. Much more of a Monday job than yesterday’s I thought, 22 minutes. MARAT was a good one with the relevant surface. Not familiar with that ANGELO but knew the fruit. Thanks George.

19. Decent puzzle. I liked MARAT and LIMBO. I was reluctant to put in my LOI INDIA because I didn’t understand it. MOUSE/BLACK EYE learnt from a crossword here a few months ago. Didn’t know the duke (and was slightly confused because I’m listening to Private Angelo on BBC Sounds this week).

    Thanks to Jack and the setter.

    1. I just discovered that as of yesterday BBC Sounds is no longer available outside the UK. This may come as a disappointment to some of our overseas contributors; I know it has to a couple of my contacts in the USA.

       1. VPN might work for anyone in that posn

       2. I am in Spain and it seems to be working still. I thought plans to prevent overseas use had been shelved.

          1. It was delayed from earlier in the year whilst tech problems were resolved.

       3. To my chagrin, I found this out yesterday. It seems that UK residents can still access it and I have a work around by using an old UK phone that I still own. You don’t need a phone contract, just access to a wireless network.
          I have tried using a VPN with my French phone but the buggers still seem able to detect that I’m in France.

          1. Interesting. I am on holiday and able to access it on a UK phone and a smart speaker – both presumably using a UK registered log-in.

             1. Curses and teeth grinding. Friday night comedy has been my go to for years.

20. Not my favourite. I am always a bit irritated when most of the puzzle is a doddle with one tricky corner. But that is perhaps just me…

21. Nothing to soil the big pants about but did find one corner especially tricky and opposite to others it was the SW which held me up. I had FURBELOW as my first thought (it’s one of those words I must have encountered before but my brain can’t recall anything about it) but wanted the checking letters before turning the pencil to pen. Not helped by missing the relatively kind WREATHE for longer than I care to admit.

    Are monkeys coming up a lot in recent cryptics?

    Incorrectly solved INDIA as a triple def thinking of IN DIAmeter for ‘at length’. Thanks for the blog for setting me right, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it.

    Liked the NOSE JOB/ BLACK EYE pairing.

    Thanks blogger and setter

22. 13:46
    A game of two halves for me too. Not familiar with Measure for Measure so TANGELO entered entirely on the strength of the definition. FURBELOW is one of those wonderful words that you learn only from solving crosswords (with apologies to any professional furbelow makers who I have now offended).

23. NHO mouse in that sense, but the answer was clearly right. Found all of this just the right side of challenging and had everything bar TANGELO in 22 mins. NHO the cross and not seen or read M for M for over 40 years, so just passed on it, though I had all the crossers.

24. Easy until it wasn’t; I had 2 problems in the SE; I thought the primate at 19d was a tamarind (which is a tree) and never read Measure for Measure so didn’t recognise Angelo who is required for the 28a Tangelo hybrid. No problem with 24a Marat (in the bath, rather gruesome oil paintings, see Wiki) though.
    16d Furbelow, I was tempted initially by an anagram for cats coat and wondered if staccato had another meaning of which I was unaware. No.
    9a Merganser is a crossword-only bird IMO; never seen one.
    Many thanks to jackkt and setter

25. 23:10 – a classy puzzle that got progressively harder down the grid. Remembered just in time that the very familiar-sounding rumbelow was actually a white goods store where I bought my first washing machine (other definitions are available). The remaining obscurities seemed pretty generously clued.

26. I wondered if BEDRAT was a word at 1dn. It fits the wordplay and if one says ‘drat’ … but I rejected it. Good thing too. 28 minutes. All quite nice and I didn’t find the bottom really any different from the top. I can’t understand why some people are suggesting the word ‘land’ is redundant in the INDIA clue. Surely if it wasn’t there then there’d be no definition?

27. 24 mins so pretty easy. NHO that meaning of mouse.

28. Pulse makes me think of beat so I invented bembat which looked no less of a word than say furbelow. Sadly since I could parse it I didn’t think I needed to worry too much! Otherwise all correct in a bit over 20 minutes. I will try to associate pulse with bean in my bean in future!

29. Like Jack, I found the top half much easier than the bottom half. From ALLEY to SOMME in 22:49. I’ve come across FURBELOW in a very short song by Tim Hart and Maddy Prior on their Summer Solstice album(I think), in which Adam apparently catched Eve by the said item! I tried to justify SUMRE as a French area, but couldn’t bring mysellf to believe it. Luckily it wasn’t long before the correct answer appeared. I knew TANGELO and assumed Angelo was a Shakespearean character. Didn’t know BLACK EYE/Mouse, but the wordplay and crossers confirmed it. Did know the duck. Thanks setter and Jack.

30. A pleasant puzzle, all done in 29 minutes. Like others I was held up for a while in the SW corner until I twigged FURBELOW, after which everything clicked into place. Failed to parse 28ac as I was not familiar with that particular play, but there was only one cross to fit T_N_E_O, a fruit known to me only in crosswordland.
    FOI – MERGANSER
    LOI – SOMME
    COD – SWEARWORD
    Thanks to jackkt and other contributors.

31. 17.38 which was considerable quicker than I thought it was going to be. My first clue in was breakneck. But then the bottom half yielded and I got going. Really pleased to sort furbelow, not quite sure where the word came from but it lodged in my mind and I then worked out it fitted.

    Tangelo LOI. Good puzzle, thanks setter and blogger.

32. Similarly to our blogger, the top half flew in but the bottom half presented quite a few obstacles., in fact I didn’t finish with the unknown FURBELOW beating me at the last. At least I was sitting in a nice pub in Stow with some succor!

    I liked SITTING PRETTY.

    Thanks Jack and setter.

33. DNF with a fair few NHOs today, particularly problematic with knowing neither TANGELO or the character Angelo, which in turn gave me trouble with TAMARIN and then MARAT. MERGANSER and FURBELOW were also both new, along with the requisite meanings of BLACK EYE (and the belt/career link also never came to me – got the GREEN BELT definition almost immediately but couldn’t for the life of me parse it). Thanks jackkt and setter.

34. 12.28, so even quicker than yesterday, with only INDIA and TANGELO causing concern. INDIA had to be right because of the checkers, but I was late remembering the NATO alphabet. TANGELO, of course, because I knew nothing of Measure for Measure, and wondered whether John Wayne ever had such an assistant. Again, it really couldn’t be anything else.

35. 20 minutes today, better than average for me. I had the same unknowns as most of the above except TANGELO which was my first one in. Thank you, Jack and setter.

36. I DNF but that was due to the NW corner, so I’m deeply surprised that others found that to be the easiest corner. I considered ‘brown belt’ for a bit though due to Gordon/George Brown before I came to my senses and put GREEN BELT.

37. 45 minutes, guessing that Angelo must be the deputy in question. Some tricky clues here – Mondays aren’t what they used to be.
    My COD to Basilican.

38. Very late getting to this today as I’ve been entertaining my eight year old grandson all day. Well, I was entertained by him really as he’s so amusing!
    Like Jackkt, the top half went in with almost no thinking time required, and then the se corner although more problematical wasn’t too demanding. The se corner however was another matter. Only three answers required and about fifteen minutes expended. After what seemed an eternity BASILICAN came to me and then WREATHE. A further five minutes head scratching and at last I managed to construct the unknown to me FURBELOW. By this time the clock said 32.54, but at least I made it!

39. Very slow today, on 32’51”. I think I convinced myself it was harder than it was, and wasted time missing the obvious. If I’d had pen and paper to hand, I’d have been quicker. DISOBLIGE disobliged by taking far too long. And I couldn’t get GOOSANDER out of my mind for 9 ac. But fun was had. Many thanks.

40. 22 minutes, a bit quicker than yesterday. Had seen ‘shiner’ in crosswords before as a synonym for ‘mouse’, but until today hadn’t realised why. Measure for Measure is one of my favourite plays of all time so TANGELO was a shoo-in. The phrase ‘frills and furbelows’ was used quite commonly in my dim and distant youth. I can reel off the NATO alphabet so no problem with INDIA. I await the stinker(s) later in the week.

41. 27.00

    Slow here too but happy to blame it on the late hour and being two hours ahead body clock wise as well.

    Knew some of the harder vocab (not Black-EYE= mouse) but struggled to justify INDIA at the end (amongst other general slowness).

42. 26:44
    L2I were TANGELO and MERGANSER.
    TANGELO is a fruit I have only seen in crosswords.

    Thanks Jack and setter

43. I’m a long time lurker on this site which has been a huge help to my understanding of the times crosswords so I thank all the regular solvers and other commenters for that. I often finish the 15×15 but just as often have one or two clues that escape me. On this occasion it was 10a and 6d
    I got stuck thinking that finally referred to the l in individual and couldn’t fit the l into 6d and didn’t see that at length indicated I for India
    I’ll keep working at it and hopefully will get to submitting times to the snitch someday

    1. Welcome, Babydriver. Hope to hear more from you now that you’ve made yourself known to us.

44. Much to enjoy here, and I had all the GK (except for MERGANSER, which must have come up before). SITTING PRETTY a very good clue, and I like BLACK EYE especially. Good mix of classical education and street-smart words, and very clever deflection of definition meanings, especially Anna Freud!

45. Thank you blogger for explanation of black eye and tangelo. NHO the bruise phrase and was searching for an animal hybrid.

    Thank you setter, especially for the surface of Marat and swearword.

Comments are closed.