Times Cryptic 29372

70 comments on “Times Cryptic 29372”

1. Not so easy for me as I found it quite tricky. Thank you for the parsing of RETAIL, which I failed to see. IBEXES seems wrong for the plural somehow but it must be correct. PANTALOONED held out as I thought we were looking for ‘trousers’, so could only see ‘pantaloons’ until I realised what was going on. SCABBARD was clever, I was thinking ‘boneyard’ for the longest time. OBLONG for ‘like my phone’ seemed odd but I suppose so. Liked BLOODSTREAM. NHO PINOLE but got from the wordplay. Couldn’t parse the ‘arch’ in ANARCHIST, so thanks again. Saw GANYMEDE but no knowledge of the ‘waiter’ meaning. Fun crossword.
   Thanks Jack and setter.

2. Wow, I certainly didn’t find it as easy as you! At 26:01 a few pinks thanks to a very sloppy WAGNERIAN and hence no CLEANER. The ALL answer also felt weird to me. Definitely didn’t know GANYMEDE was a waiter. NHO PINOLE. Well off the wavelength. Thanks Jack and setter.

3. 23:21 WOE
   I managed to overlook a typo. Couldn’t parse DEPUTY. NHO PINOLE, DNK GRENADINE was a syrup, DNK DANGER MONEY. I hesitated over ALL, thinking there must be more to it than that, but evidently not.

4. I found this a bit tough, but the main problem was I didn’t know Airdrie and didn’t know pinole, and they cross. For that matter, the cryptic for pantalooned was not easy, although in fact I ignored it completely and wrote in the obvious answer.

   Time: 39:25

5. RETAIL was also my LOI, and took longer to parse than anything else (started out thinking RAT too). PINOLE was new to me and I hastily put in WAGNERIAN at first. Very smooth otherwise.

   Something did seem missing from ALL.

   1. I think the double definition of ALL is as a one each goal tally for example, and then everyone. Not sure if I explained that very well!

      1. Yes, they were all given three apples = they were each given three apples.

      2. How about in a football score? “Two ALL” means two each.

6. 4:58. I realised I was on for quick time so started recklessly bunging in what seemed the likely answers based on cursory attention to the clue. I was surprised not to see a pink square. PINOLE the obvious exception, constructed from wordplay.
   Particularly surprising as it’s not even 6am yet and I haven’t had any coffee.

   1. That is an insane time.

      1. Er… thank you? 😀

7. 25:46, no cheats or cheeky checks. Couldn’t parse a few, but this was pretty straightforward all over.

   — LOI PINOLE, which was NHO.
   — FOI SCABBARD
   — AIRDRIE only ever heard from the Scottish Football results. That’s true for many towns in Scotland.
   — I think of GANNYMEDE as one of Jupiters moons (like Io), but did know his nectar-bearing role.
   — The first definition of ALL could be in a football score? “Two ALL” means two each.
   — I know fancy plurals are on the decline, but why not Ibices as the plural of Ibex? Alternatively, since they are most encountered in a hunt or safari, we should defer to the “zero plural” rule “I just bagged two lion and three ibex”.

   1. The OED says: “Plural ibexes, rarely ibices”

   2. Careful about bagging Ibex, from Wiki:
      “Rescue from extinction
      …
      The relentless hunting of the alpine ibex might have led to its extinction were it not for the foresight of the dukes of Savoy. Charles-Felix, Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia, banned the hunting of the ibex across his estates of the Gran Paradiso after being persuaded by a report on the animal’s endangered state. The ban was implemented on 12 September 1821 and its law was soon extended to the rest of the kingdom.”

8. Some lovely clues, but I don’t see how the grammar for 1a passes correctly, how can the “at intervals” be read as applying to “temp” there?

   1. I think you have to read it as: Not the principal (ans) then wp: allegiance temp at intervals, is bound by. That’s how I worked it out anyway!

      1. Thank you, Jack. I came here to try and understand how 1a works and thought I was being really thick as none of the previous posts mentions it.

         Also, thank you Rosédeprovence. I can see what you are getting at but I don’t see how the clue as written works. The order still seems wrong.

         I would be very grateful if someone could elucidate further.

         Thanks in advance.

         1. I didn’t notice when solving but I think you have a point, I don’t think the grammar works.

            1. Completely agree; maybe the wordplay would work for Yoda, but it doesn’t work in English. Given that “allegiance” does not mean “duty” either, it’s a bloody awful clue in an otherwise very enjoyable crossword.

         2. I agree with Adolpho-Rodolpho (above). It’s Yoda-speak, like several clues in yesterday’s puzzle.

9. 39 minutes. Another WAGNERIAN (it sounds much better than the correct answer) until pulled up by wordplay. I didn’t know that GANYMEDE was a server to the gods, like Merlin mainly having heard the word as one of the moons of Jupiter. As an uncommon (= never seen before) word, PANTALOONED took a while to work out. NHO PINOLE which I popped in as it fitted the wordplay but I still thought I’d probably missed something else which I did know.

   Thanks to Jack (excellent time) and setter

   1. I think the setter is a fan of As You Like It in which Rosalind takes the name Ganymede when she disguises herself as a man since she/he has become her cousin’s valet/cup-bearer. And Jacques in his seven ages of many speech refers to the pantaloons old man. I think it’s the sixth age, before we come to sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything.

10. 38 mins and pretty straightforward. A couple of NHOs, PINOLE & DESCRY but the wp was fair.

    I liked DANGER MONEY & GODZILLA, fun putting that one together.

    Thanks Jack and setter.

11. Great time today, Jack! I often compare our times as we’re regularly within a few minutes of each other but today you left me in the dust as I limped home with AIRDRIE and PINOLE after 35 minutes. I even feel fairly awake today and I’ve had my coffee, so no excuses.

    The bottom half went in fairly easily but holdouts from the top like BLOODSTREAM and OPALS had me crawling at the end.

12. 24:42 a pleasingly symmetrical time. I found this more of a struggle than I expected going by others times. perhaps a bit early in the morning…

    I seem to remember that Jeeves was a member of the GANYMEDE club, which was my break into that clue.

    1. Yes! The Junior Ganymede to be precise. It’s how Jeeves finds out Spode’s guilty secret, which Bertie then uses to blackmail him.

13. 17:13
    The only real hold-ups were self-inflicted as I biffed WAGNERIAN, and my eyes still refuse to distinguish the difference between counties and countries.

    PINOLE was the only true unknown so that was a fingers crossed moment and I didn’t know what Ganymede got up to in his spare time.

    A gentle solve which probably should have been a bit quicker. Thanks to both.

14. 24:42 (I see someone else posted that exact time) but about 10 of that was in the NE corner and trying to think if there was a better answer than the NHO PINOLE.

    Unlike the blogger I was fully aware from my struggles this wasn’t the QC.

    COD GODZILLA

    Thanks blogger and setter.

    1. I was convinced – convinced! – I’d been fooled by a different ‘staff’ in the past, so took a while as well just in case it turned out there was another one that created a more familiar dish. Then I decided “Well, it parses, fingers crossed…”

15. Well I didn’t find this hard but I didn’t find it especially easy either, so well done Jackkt ..
    I havered over pantalooned, a particularly silly word, and the nho pinole, which on investigation sounds pretty yucky.

16. 17.56. Couple of delays, the worst being related to seeing pantaloons ratherthan pantalooned. But got there in the end. LOI retail.

17. Solved in 22:20. Steady work through. Knew of Ganymede as a moon but my classical education clearly failed me. Pinole went in with a decent chunk of “what else works” as NHO.

18. 33 minutes with LOI the unknown PINOLE constructed. COD to GODZILLA. I was held up by first making DANGER MONEY garden money before I heard the strains of Arrivederci Roma. A pleasant puzzle. Thank you Jack and setter.

19. About 25 minutes.

    – Didn’t see how DEPUTY worked as I was fixated on temp meaning temperature, i.e. giving T
    – Relied on wordplay for the unknown PINOLE
    – Does ARRIVEDERCI mean ‘cheers’?
    – Got GANYMEDE from the anagrist without knowing the classical reference

    Thanks Jack and setter.

    FOI Cor
    LOI Deputy
    CODs Retail / Otter

    1. ARRIVEDERCI means goodbye, so any version of goodbye is equivalent. Cheers.

20. Very mixed. 33 mins some of which spent romping through like a QC with slight pauses over SCABBARD, RETAIL, BLOODSTREAM but a good 10+ mins at the end over the NHOs DESCRY and PINOLE held up by failing to pull COD AIRDRIE from my stock list of Scottish football teams.
    There was some tricky parsing in there too, not straightforward. Thanks both.

21. 26:41 with PINOLE my LOI. Was pleased the setter forced me to spell ARRIVEDERCI Correctly. Enjoyed this, thanks to blogger for unraveling PANTALOONED amongst others.

22. 16.22, so not quite the same sort of romp as others, not getting DEPUTY straight off, which slowed the top left corner and thence the whole grid. PINOLE was my last in, assuming it was some sort of Mexican concoction and crossing fingers. Can’t think there was another “staff to be recalled, but you never know.
    Another perplexed by ALL: I suppose it’s a double definition, and contributions here confirm, but on entry it hardly seemed cryptic at -um- all.

23. 13:30
    Slow in the NE constructing the unknown PINOLE and taking an age to see that ‘in trousers’ was the required definition for 12a.

24. As @jerry said, not hard but not too easy either, took me about 25 minutes with a coffee-making pause in the middle. I knew GANYMEDE was a large moon of Jupiter but always though he/she was a female, so have learnt something today. PINOLE rang a faint bell. PANTALOONED is a silly word. I liked GODZILLA for “huge film star”.

25. 31 mins. AIRDRIE went in last with a sigh. I need to get out and about north of the wall more, it seems. I did like PANTALOONED and GODZILLA though, so a good time had overall. Thanks blogger and setter.

    1. You don’t want to be North of The Wall, not with Winter Coming! 🙂

26. DNF

    All but PANTALOONED and PINOLE in sub 20 but even after the former arrived, several alpha trawls and racking of the brain couldn’t bring another sort of staff to mind so I was left with an unsolved _INO_E.

27. For me, that was a game of two halves; the bottom half went in quickly, especially the SE corner, but the top half gave me a lot more trouble until a couple of pennies dropped and the resultant checkers helped me to unravel the ones I was struggling with.

    Along with, it seems, almost everyone else, I had never heard of PINOLE and wrote it in with fingers crossed purely from the wordplay.

    I couldn’t parse DEPUTY at all; now that I’ve read jackkt’s explanation (for which thanks), I’m not surprised. I don’t think that “duty” and “allegiance” are synonyms; allegiance may impose duties, but it doesn’t mean duty, it means loyalty to a person or cause, does it not?

28. My thanks to jackkt and setter.
    I didn’t find it easy, particularly in the North where I had very little for a long time.
    12a Pantalooned, added to Cheating Machine. Had pantaloon(s) but not ED.
    2d Pagan. Not really meaning faithless, although pagans are definitively not Christian.
    9d NHO Pinole, but the worplay was OK with crossers.
    18d Ganymede I had forgotten his story, so was foxed by the waiter bit.

29. I found this quite easy outside of the north west corner, which is where I always start so it was a bit sticky at first. I saw the likelihood of DEPUTY right away but couldn’t see the parsing: the dictionary no doubt proves me wrong but in my head duty is not a synonym for allegiance. I’d never heard of PINOLE and even though the cryptic suggested the correct answer right away I hesitated. With no confidence in my solution to those clues I was slow to see PAGAN and WAGNERITE. I moved on to the rest of the puzzle and when I returned I took PINHOLE on trust and inserted DEPUTY without parsing and the rest fell into place.

30. Like several here I didn’t think this was so easy as Jack clearly made it. 28dn (ALL) is still rather unconvincing. PINOLE I got from wordplay but wasn’t at all sure, so broke my no-aids rule by looking it up to see if it existed. DEPUTY at 1ac I only entered because it had to be. I never understood why, either before or after, and am still a bit unhappy with the wording. 43 minutes.

31. Had to check what PINOLE was, otherwise straightforward. No, I don’t get ALL either.
    Just selling a flat in AIRDRIE at the moment. Any takers?

32. 30 – trickier than yesterday particularly in the NW where the AIRDRIE/PINOLE nexus held me up for a while. ALL seemed strange, as mentioned, and I cannot get 1ac to parse even allowing for the most generous interpretation of Yoda-speak.

33. 19:07

    Great time, Jack! I found myself completing this by quadrants, SE, NE, SW, NW. A few I was slow with towards the end (CLEANER = office worker? Well, yes, CLEANERs do work in offices, but…) and did check for the existence of the unlikely PINOLE before pressing Submit.

    Thanks Jack and setter

34. Not an easy one for me. SCABBARD was FOI. I was slow to see most of the definitions and wordplay, but was particularly delayed by the unknown PINOLE, DEPUTY, WAGNERITE and LOI, RETAIL. 23:59. Thanks setter and Jack.

35. All but 1 done in 10 minutes, but then got stuck on the NHO PINOLE and looked it up after another 3 minutes not thinking of that sort of staff. Grr. Thanks Jackkt and setter.

36. The bottom half filled in a lot quicker than the top. All very enjoyable. Very impressed with your time, Jack.

37. I was fairly steady with my solve, with a few holdups over unknown Scottish towns, and being convinced of PANTALOONS, but not thinking of PANTALOONED until the D crosser appeared. I didn’t really have a problem either over DEPUTY (his allegiance/duty is to his country) or ALL. As Merlin points out, it’s used in scoring – ’40 all’ in tennis means 40 each. OTTER as a swimmer seems to occur in one or the other cryptic about twice a week at present. Along with the entire blogging community, I have NHO PINOLE, and actually said it as a joke, presuming it would be something else I had heard of. Mr Ego meanwhile looked it up and told me it was a thing.

38. I did not find this particularly easy, needing 38 minutes in all, either side of lunch. But I enjoyed a lot of the clues, including BLOODSTREAM, ARRIVEDERCI, and IBEXES. Just a MER at PAGAN, which for me suggests either faithless (adj.) or a faithless person (noun), but not faithless people, accepting that it is synonymous with pagan in the first place. But a pleasant puzzle nonetheless.
    FOI – COR
    LOI – RELEGATED (having wasted too much time looking for a word involving LIGHT)
    COD – SCABBARD
    Thanks to jackkt and other contributors.

39. 16:49.

    COD: GLOVED

40. 47 minutes. Slow throughout. I liked ARRIVEDERCI. NHO PINOLE. DESCRY was biffed to finish. I didn’t understand ALL but I think Merlin nailed it. Thanks Jack.

41. Interesting split of opinion today- those who rather dismissively found it very easy and those who struggled. Needless to say ,I’m in the latter camp but I got there in the end.

42. All complete after a long morning on the golf course followed by some grandparent duties. Not as easy as some but 30′ which is just a few over par for me. Nice to see Godzilla get an outing and I went out with a girl from Airdrie when in my teens. Wonder where she is now….

    thanks Jack and setter

    1. Mention of Godzilla and a girl you once went out with in the same sentence doesn’t sound like a happy memory! 😂

       1. I think that was her mum 😁

43. Congratulations to Jack on his amazingly good time, which I hoped may lead me to a quick one … only to be disappointed. No exact finishing time as grandpa child caring time intervened, but probably about the forty minute mark. Jack’s stumbling block RETAIL came quickly to me ironically, but I caused myself a bit of time loss by originally inserting DOWNTURN for 1dn.

44. 32:04 so not particularly easy but I found the top half much easier than the bottom unlike most here, though working in RETAIL and previously working for a company with a branch in AIRDRIE probably helped me out. FOI COR, LOI NHO PINOLE. Trying to put IBEXES as 22D not 21D didn’t help. Let’s call AIRDRIE COD as I never realised how similar it was to ‘airdried’ before.

45. No time but straightforward enough except for pinole. Does anyone ever hear Cor! as an expression of surprise these days? It surely disappeared when boys and girls stopped being christened Kenneth and Mavis.

46. DNF after half an hour; couldn’t get DEPUTY, PINOLE or RETAIL. What’s “investment” doing in 17a, Jack? It’s not referred to in your parsing and I can’t see what it’s doing there, since I = international and “receiving” is the containment indicator.

    1. I think ‘receiving … investment’ is the containment indicator. That’s really for the surface, but the cryptic instruction still works. A bit like “regularly” and “regularly lost” both being able to be alternation indicators if needed.

       1. Ah, thanks for dealing with this. I’d just seen Templar’s post and came here to rectify my omission in the blog.

          1. Thanks both!

47. DNF after 32 minutes – could not get PINOLE.

48. Several weeks later … 19’28” (and I had to check PINOLE … but I would have put it in anyway, honest guv)

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