Times Cryptic No 26818, 31st August 2017. Up across and down.

40 comments on “Times Cryptic No 26818, 31st August 2017. Up across and down.”

1. @ 11ac was not parsed and after 40 mins. this was a DNF as 21dn TERRANE was not entered! What a shocking bit of ‘IKEAN’ cluing on such a dodgy word!!

   FOI 25ac SPEAR LOI TAKE THAT who I thought were a boy band!

   COD 15dn NEW YORKER fine mag. and WOD DAMASK ROSE

   TGIF

2. I struggled a bit, but got home eventually. My main problem was biffing ‘baggage’ instead of ‘luggage’.

   A few other pedantic notes, ‘terrane’ having already been taken:

   1. Olwen: “In Welsh mythology, Olwen is the daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden and cousin of Goreu. She is the heroine of the story Culhwch and Olwen in the Mabinogion.
   Her father is fated to die if she ever marries, so when Culhwch (sometimes spelled as Kilhwch) comes to court her, he is given a series of immensely difficult tasks which he must complete before he can win her hand. With the help of his cousin King Arthur, Culhwch succeeds and the giant dies, allowing Olwen to marry her suitor.”

   2. Another name for the avocado is the ‘alligator pear’, so that is probably what is meant here.

3. Help please: hole = jam?
   This was a DNF due to terrane and Olwen. Cheapjack is just at the edge of my vocabulary. Acronyms for women’s military (and also women’s nursing) organizations live in the same inaccessible place for me that plant names, Welsh proper names, and unusual African elk and lemurs do, so I took 10a and 22a on faith and bif. Nice blog; some nice clues – buttoned up in particular.
   1. Both hole and jam are colloquial synonyms for a difficult situation: both defined as such in BRB
      1. Of course. Silly not to see that. Thanks, Z.
4. Terrain (the shape of the land generally) and terrane (rocky land specifically) are two distinct words

   And I took avocado (shaped) to mean the same as pear (shaped). Maybe people do like to eat pear and avocado together—I wouldn’t know cos I don’t eat em

   1. I stand by avocado and pear belonging together, as for example in this helpful Tesco guide to real food
      1. Oh, and in the BRB, the entry says terrane: see terrain. I concede the former is rockier in definition.
5. I am aware of ancient Olwens: I did my best to find a modern one, and succeeded.
   1. I know a couple of contemorary Olwens but it doesn’t seem to be a fashionable name among the young – even here in Wales. Maybe your Olwen will do for the name what Ms Paltrow did for Gwynneth. Btw both names contain the word for “white” (Gwyn/wen). When I read the story of Kilhugh and Olwen she was called “Olwen of the white footprints”. I think a white flower sprang wherever she trod. He had to go on a quest to win her hand – very Arthurian.
6. Had to cheat with olwen, emma, and cheapjack to finish.

   13a o for of seems odd.

   COD coquet.

   1. 
      “Top o’ the morning to you…”
      1. Thanks, and to you too!

7. … but with TO-DO and CHEAPJACK unparsed, and ATS and TERRANE unknown.

   Was sure 10ac was going to end with —seller (cellar) for a while, but no.

8. DNF here, as I only had a few minutes to go with the crossers of 30a and 21d left. As I could see most but not all of 21d, I bunged in TERRAIN, never having heard of TERRANE, then desperately stuck FOR SNIPE in 30a, mostly because it sounded vaguely like it could be a Shakespearean-era phrase for “indefinitely”… Bother.

   Didn’t help that I was convinced 30a would begin FORT… as that’s what’s crenellations are for, right?

   Thanks to setter and blogger.

9. I got all the way to ARGO before writing in my first answer so after such a slow start I was a bit surpsed to finish in 33 minutes, only 3 past my target time.

   In my experience the flirt at 6ac is more usually spelt “coquette” so I had think twice about that one. Some sources give the spelling required today as male, and the other as female, but other sources are gender neutral and list them as alternatives.

   On 25dn, as noted in the Waitrose link in z’s blog, an alternative name for ‘avocado’ is ‘avacado pear’ so we don’t need to look further than that for an explanation.

   The name OLWEN first came to my attention many years ago in the title of a piece of music “Dream of Olwen” written by Charles Williams (né Isaac Cozerbreit) for the 1947 film ‘While I Live’. It’s a somewhat melodramatic film and the music in the style of Rachmaninov, was well suited to it. It became a concert piece in its own right. Here’s one version of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J5J1shElmk

   Edited at 2017-08-31 05:58 am (UTC)

10. 25 mins with overnight oats (inc. Scottish raspberries) – and enjoyed it. A much smoother solve than of late – with rocky patches: wondering why dog-like in 18ac and convincing myself Terrane must be a thing.
    Mostly I liked: ‘support of course’ (not just support), Damask Rose anag and COD 30ac – those crenellations last for ages.
    I know people who still call them Avacado Pears rather than the more trendy ‘Avvo’ (usually ‘smashed avvo’ on toast – must try that).
    Thanks tricksy setter and Z.
11. Found this easier today and home in enjoyable 22 minutes despite a flirtation with the tasty new French sauce ‘roumelade’ until our favourite, EMMA, brought the REMOULADE in. Felt rocky with TERRANE, but cryptic was clear. I’m not a skier and the first Alpine transport to spring to mind was an elephant, a letter too long to fit in the room, before LUGGAGE became clear from crossers. I also had a bit of a TO-DO over the parsing of 13a. Hasn’t Gary Barlow become such an institution that he can be clued before his death, though right now I’m struggling to name a single song? COD FOR KEEPS amd BUTTONED UP jointly.Thank you Z and setter.
12. I found this a bit of a struggle but got there in the end. My fault I think, nothing wrong with the clues. No queries or quibbles.
13. I vaguely remember when avocados first hit British supermarkets in the 70’s and they were definitely called ‘avocado pears’. The ‘pear’ was probably added to reassure people who were easily startled by ‘foreign muck’. I also remember people being literally scared of garlic.

    ‘IKEAN’ clueing? Is that where you think you’ve assembled something correctly but there’s a piece left over?

    1. Memo to the Surgeon General: indeed ‘IKEAN’ is a fine description of a clue where one attempts to follow the insructions to assemble a bookshelf and ends up with a trestle-table with a bit over!

       Jack, it certainly wasn’t me, but who invented the ‘IKEA’ desription. Keriothe?

14. 12:49. I remember them being called avocado pears so no problems there.
    REMOULADE is creamy only in the sense that a tuna fish and mayonnaise sandwich is creamy, but I guess that works texturally.
    I very nearly bunged in TERRACE, never having seen TERRANE before, but fortunately I doubted it enough to check the wordplay.
15. The NW was too tightly 11a for me, so I left it until the end. My FOI was EMEND, and I then turned rest of the NE into a right 13a and moved to the bottom half where I managed not to 24a myself. I was tempted by TERRACE for 21d, but happily decided to stick with the wordplay. Moving back north, most of the NE filled up apart from 10a, which was my LOI after WRITE OFF and EMMA opened up the final corner. Our Welsh girl finally switched the light on for our complete vendor. Nice puzzle. 36:55. Thanks setter and Z.
16. 26.30. Engaging in one or two unexpected words and ways. It seems a pity Austen’s deepest romance has become a crossword staple. – joekobi
17. Failed to make the link between ‘again’ and ANEW so bunged in TERRACE.
    My wife bought me a subscription to the New Yorker last Christmas and I find it lives up to it’s own publicity: “The best writing anywhere”. It also helps that it hates Trump.From this week’s editorial Comment:
    “This is the inescapable fact: on November 9th, the United States elected a dishonest, inept, unbalanced and immoral human being as its President and Commander-in-Chief,”
    That has just added three more disparaging adjectives to the dozen or so I already have lined up to qualify the descriptive noun of ‘snake-oil salesman’.
    32m 27s
18. Bunged in TERRACE as only word I could see for TERRA*E, never heard of terrane. Otherwise 25 minutes no issues.
19. 16:35 with TERRANE unknown and TO-DO unparsed. I had a bit of trouble (Ooh Betty) in parsing CHEAPJACK as I wanted CHAP to account for the MAN part and I’d wager I wasn’t the only one to try frantically to remember what a RAF conscript might be to go in the middle of 12 (ERK, CADET, ATC etc.)

20. Pretty steady and pleasant solve until I came up against TERRANE, whicb was unfamiliar (*goes off to check this isn’t exactly what I said the last three times it appeared, is relieved*). I took a fair while working out that it had to be what it is; I haven’t come up with a MOMBLE for a while, but I’m always on the look-out.

    Edited at 2017-08-31 01:31 pm (UTC)

21. This one was a 1ac – I fell for “terrace” at 21d. Bang on the half hour.
22. The Times is still failing to download interactive puzzles to my desktop, so am having to print out to get them. 28 minutes today – I did know 21dn, but left a few unparsed, so thanks for the blog, Z.
23. This was about 25 minutes for me. TO-DO was unparsed here; same for STAG re ATS, which I didn’t know and probably won’t remember. I thought the match between pear and avocado had to do with color rather than anything else. The inside of the avocado spawned a lot of paint and appliance color names over here a long while ago, and certainly resembles the bosc pear. So that’s how I got there, right or wrong. My LOI was the weird TERRANE, corrected because I couldn’t parse TERRACE. I could parse TEREANE, but I didn’t know the word. I actually think I will remember that one. Regards.
24. I had half of this done in 25 mins on the morning commute and finished it off in 17 mins more at lunchtime. Held up shortly at the end by careful parsing of 21dn to avoid putting in a casual terrace and by working out 20ac. Thanks for the parsing of to-do, which went over my head. DNK the women’s army service but definition and checkers were a giveaway. Nice to see a couple of homophones thrown in for good measure. FOI 6ac. LOI 21dn. COD 10ac.
25. Finished in about 49 minutes, despite solving on a train which I had to traverse from one end to the other to find a seat. This is a train which should be travelling from Basel to Hamburg, but the German railways managed to destroy a stretch of track while trying to dig a tunnel under it, and so it was a pre-war? pre-Franco-Prussian War? replacement train travelling from Karlsruhe. However, quite comfortable once I did tunnel my way through loaded carriages in which every second passenger had a baby carriage in the aisles. I then NEEDED this puzzle to relax.

    Never heard of things like LUGE nor of course OLWEN, but the second component of those clues saved the day. Pleasant puzzle.

26. 21:12 for this enjoyable one. Things a tad frosty in the BT household having grilled geographer teacher Mrs BT on TERRANE without getting an answer. Oh well, the wordplay worked. Thanks S and Z
27. I really don’t see “write off” as “total.” It looks like a single definition to me. “For keeps” isn’t “indefinitely, perhaps,” it’s “forever,” definitely. (I once wrote a song called “She Plays for Keeps.”)

    Edited at 2017-08-31 11:03 pm (UTC)

    1. Particularly in driving terms, the verb to total means to damage beyond repair, which gives a second, distinct definition of “write off” to debt remission.
       I agree “maybe” (not “perhaps”) could be redundant in 30a, though given the lifetime of most crenellations, for keeps indeed may be wishful thinking.
       1. I was familiar, of course, with the first definition, but I couldn’t see the other one without having recourse to a dictionary (Collins Online) and looking under the headings for specifically British definitions. Aha, just as I expected!
          I think “maybe” must be there to indicate that only one sense of “indefinitely” is meant (i.e., in “for an unlimited or unspecified time,” only the former).
28. This was a biff-fest for me.

    I had a problem with 30a: being unable to get FOR LOOPS out of my mind. A loop is a hole in a wall for military purposes and a “for loop” is a very common construct in computing which may indeed be definite or indefinite. Perhaps too technical, but who knows, these day, and given the doubt in my mind over TERRANE (T+ERR+ something else maybe), I couldn’t discount the possibility of some Spanish word TERRA*O.

    In any case, is the *purpose* of crenellations FOR KEEPS? It doesn’t sit well with me, even with the “maybe” as a hedge. I much, much prefer “Use of crenellations”

    By the way, it would be great solutions could be amended for corrections suggested in comments. E.g. TERRANE here is not an alternative spelling for terrain, but is a rock formation, as commenters have pointed out. And as people have pointed out, avocado’s full name is avocado pear, so the question mark allows us to generalize to pear.

    1. I live in HK and I too didn’t get to do this until 15 November, from the SCMP. It took me an hour to finish in the Globe bar in HK accompanied by a nice two pints (or quart!) of local Gweilo beer
       1. I wondered if I was the only solver in HK! Glad South China Morning Post editors keep it in, as the last vestige of imperial days, even though it has to share the page with the Chinese & Western astrology columns. By the way, an item on my bucket list is to ask each astrologer what they think of being their fine work being printed next to the other astrology system. Intended as a trick question:
          – if one says the other astrology is garbage, then how do they tolerate begin associated with it?
          – if one says the other astrology is also valid, then how have they made accurate predictions themselves in the past by ignoring valid astrology?

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