Times Cryptic No 28577 — No problems with 2 Down

56 comments on “Times Cryptic No 28577 — No problems with 2 Down”

1. 26 minutes. IMMOLATE was last in, after eventually seeing that ‘for me’ was IMO rather than just IM which didn’t seem quite right. I did have problems with 2d for which I’d initially put in “time lapse”.

   Happy to have remembered ANAPAEST. I didn’t know the required sense of REFRESHER; looking at the clue now, could it also be parsed as a cryptic def with ‘barman’ as a barrister rather than someone serving drinks behind a bar?

   Thanks to Jeremy and to setter

   1. Yes – I’m sure that was what was intended. The guy serving drinks was just misdirection.

      1. I suppose it was, however, it still makes sense with that meaning!

2. This one was not too bad for a Friday, and I got going pretty quickly. I did have a different take on tenor, I thought it was R(ONE)T upside-down. The alternate spelling of anapest also threw me off for a bit, but eventually I figured out where to put the extra A. It took me a while to figure that my LOI, ignite, was a simple hidden.

   Time: 26 minutes.

3. About half-an-hour of actual solving, I think, although I had dinner in the middle of this.. I also took TENOR to be R-ONE-T reversed (“round”). At first I thought it might be that fact that tenors tend to be fairly round! I also biffed IMMOLATE but when I went back to work out the wordplay I couldn’t see where the O came from since I didn’t think of IMO text-speak. Not what Verlaine would have called Fridayish.

4. Way off the wavelength, slow, but enjoyable to come back to normality. I parsed TENOR as vinyl did, and completely missed the bar-man. But then again I hadn’t remembered that a refresher was specifically given to a barrister.
   Lots of different meanings of round in the clues, and a plurality of Matryoschka clues.

5. Didn’t seem anything like a fabled Friday, but wasn’t that yesterday anyway? Ha. No mystery Mephisto words here, and it went fairly quickly. I was looking for a reversal indicator, to parse TENOR (my LOI) the way Vinyl, Paul and Isla do, but there ain’t one there.

   1. Round as the reversal indicator. (Told you I was off the wavelength!)

6. 16:33
   Definitely not your typical Friday puzzle. Like Bletchlyreject and others, I took ‘barman’ to be a lawyer. I parsed TENOR as Jeremy did. IMO never occurred to me (it never does), and I biffed IMMOLATE. Took me ages to spot the hidden in IGNITE, but ANAPAEST was my LOI.

7. 42 minutes with only one unknown word, which came as a relief after yesterday. That was ANAPAEST which seems to have appeared several times in Mephistos over the years but has shown up only once in a regular cryptic, in January 2018 when I also didn’t know it. Both on that occasion and today I was able to construct the answer from wordplay.

   I parsed TENOR as Jeremy did, but had RERESHER as a cryptic. I learnt the word in the legal sense from watching Rumpole of The Bailey.

   Incidentally, whilst checking on previous mentions of ANAPAEST I chanced upon this item posted by Peter B in May 2008 listing a number of books he felt may be helpful to Times crossword solvers wishing to enhance their knowledge of various subjects that setters expect us to be familiar with. I’ve never seen it before and I pass it on for those who may find it of interest.

   1. I recommend the Hornblower books for their own sake. *So* much better than those by that “Irish” fraud O’Brian. CS Forester really knew his way around a ship of the line.
      Unaccountably Peter has left Georgette Heyer off his list!! An Infamous Army is a fine read for those who shy away from some of the more romantic ones (though Arabella is good too). I find the vocab useful every week, pretty much.. chaise, ombre, negus, endless list.

8. Firmly on Team Jeremy for the parsing of TENOR, though it took me ages to decipher it at the time.

   Didn’t know ANAPAEST, hope I didn’t know it last time it appeared.

   Always admire the sheer anagrammability of “triangle”.

   NSW had its first TETANUS fatality in 30 years this week. Must get a booster.

   Thanks Jeremy and setter, have a good weekend everyone.

9. Back to normality. Hoorah!

10. 27:35
    A good end to a very good week. I’d hazard a guess that there might have been at least one new setter.

    “Foot” is always a trigger word but the alternative spelling of ANAPAEST made me pause for a moment. As did the parsing of SIROCCO where I initially read “like this” as SO. I got TENOR the same way as vinyl.
    Lots of very good clues with TENOR, REFRESHER, & ADHESION the pick of the bunch for me.

    Thanks to Jeremy and the setter.

11. 34 minutes with FOI INTEGRAL and LOI ANAPAEST, not a word I know. I finally thought of nape because of the p and then put the letters in and it worked. Apart from that last one, pretty steady progress through the whole thing.
    I’m going to google anapaest now, I guess it’s the base of a statue or something like that?? (Eta- oh completely wrong!!!)
    Yes have a nice weekend everyone and thanks.
    Steve B

12. 15’08”, with the nho REFRESHER LOI unparsed.

    Thanks jeremy and setter.

13. Carrying on from yesterday…. had to look up the NHO ANAPAEST (note to Jerry, I will remember it!) . Otherwise 48 mins and quite enjoyable really.

    I liked IMMERSION HEATER, LUNCHEON VOUCHER and HIT IT OFF.

    Thanks plusjeremy and setter.

    1. It is one of a range of ghastly verse-related words, like iambs, dactyls, trochees and so forth, which I know purely from crosswords. You can kill several birds with one stone by reading this wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_(prosody)

       1. If you took Greek Lyric Poetry in college, and wrestled with Sappho, Bacchylides, and Pindar, you will have seen them all.

          1. If on the other hand, you did engineering … 🙂

          2. As a fella, I never wrestled with Sappho…

             1. Shame … I would have paid to watch it

       2. Thank you Jerry. Added to my list of words to learn.

14. This world is the Nurse of all we know,
    This world is the mother of all we feel,
    And the coming of death is a fearful blow …

    30 mins mid-brekker. Lots of good stuff and nothing too far fetched. I spent too long parsing Polecat, thinking the kitty was cat. Doh!
    Mostly I liked “the Alsatian”.
    Ta setter and PJ.

    1. (On Death, Shelley)

15. 43 minutes with LOI the unknown ANAPAEST, which I spelt various ways as crossers kept proving me wrong. REFRESHER as a fee was vaguely known and I eventually accepted the tenuous link with a barman. I never quite felt on top of this so I was pleased to get here unscathed. Thank you Jeremy and setter.

16. 10:11, taken over the 10-minute mark by ANAPAEST, which I recognised once I’d constructed it from the wordplay.
    Two clues with two equally valid wordplay interpretations today, which is unusual. I parsed both TENOR and REFRESHER as Jeremy did but the alternatives work, and in the case of REFRESHER I suspect the double meaning is deliberate.
    I like seeing modern usages like IMO.
    Interesting choice of example to illustrate this meaning of ‘purchase’, J!

    1. A great movie, and it’s where I know the word from!

       1. I remember thinking it was a great movie when I watched it but it was such a long time ago that I remember almost nothing about it. I should watch it again – I love the Coen brothers.

17. 23.05 but I didn’t parse them all.

18. 16:45. Held up by IMMOLATE and the vaguely remembered ANAPAEST, which I didn’t know how to spell. I’m another who parsed TENOR as ONE in RT all reversed. IGNITE took me ages to see even when I was sure it was a reverse hidden. ENROLLED was then my LOI. Thanks Jeremy and setter.

19. Just under half an hour, with the unknown ANAPAEST having to be constructed from wordplay.

    MER with SET ASIDE = reject. I’d use that phrase while cooking, for example – preparing something and setting it aside for later, which isn’t the same as rejecting it. But I imagine there’s a situation where it works.

    Didn’t parse the ‘esion’ bit of ADHESION (I need to remember that ‘tips’ can mean a reversal as well as taking the first/last letters of a word) and didn’t know about REFRESHER fees. Also considered ‘Persian’ for 19d, thinking the woman was our old friend Sian, before getting PANTHER once I’d figured out TETANUS.

    Enjoyable stuff. Thanks setter and blogger.

    FOI Drift
    LOI Anapaest
    COD Conceal

20. 22:48. Right in my comfort zone and greatly aided by knowing ANAPAEST, although at first I tried ANAPEST and gave up when I saw it only had 7 letters.

    I thought it was a really nice puzzle, with some clever but not obtuse wordplay elements – “Austen novel” probably shouldn’t catch me out but it did!

    Thanks both.

21. I had TIME LAPSE for a long time, which caused me lots of problems until it became clear that IMMOLATE had to be right. I struggle to see TENOR meaning ‘content’, but nobody else does so I’m the outlier. It had to be right, nonetheless. Lots to like here, but PALM OIL and AURORA stand out. Luncheon vouchers immediately put me in mind of Cynthia Payne.

22. It’s always maddening when the hidden reversed (IGNITE) is the LOI. And I’d even considered that it might be a h. r. but rejected it! Otherwise all fine, 35 minutes. TENOR is open to either of two equally sound parsings, but I had (r(one)t)rev. and it seemed to me that that was a bit less tortuous than the other parsing. Stupidly missed that ‘tips’ is a reversal indicator in the ADHESION clue and just put it in, not being able to see why “esion” sounded like tips.

23. Very enjoyable puzzle today, which took me about 35m. I like it when a clue seems impenetrable but on closer inspection reveals its secret and I had a few like that today – REFRESHER, TENOR and IMMOLATE. It always makes me feel the setter wants me to get to the answer, unlike some where I have the feeling sometimes that the setter feels it’s an insult if some old duffer at my level can crack the clue.
    Thank you, setter and Jeremy for the guidance. FWIW I had refresher as a cryptic too, with ‘barman’ equalling ‘barrister’.

24. Not too hard today, no nhos and I remembered luncheon vouchers, even though I never actually managed to score any.. we did have subsidised canteens though.
    I suspect our devious setter maybe intended the barman to be read both ways..

25. 23.30 for the most part reasonably straightforward till 9 dn. Agonised for what seemed like ages before committing to anapaest. NHO before and rushed to check. What a relief. Well clued but if you don’t know the word it’s hard to convince yourself the answer contains apae in the middle.

    Enjoyed it though. Thx setter and blogger.

26. An enjoyable puzzle, all done in 20 minutes. I’m with vinyl on TENOR, and saw no need for any reference outside the law for REFRESHER. As I recall, a barrister took a lump sum ‘brief fee’ and was paid a ‘refresher’ for each extra day on the case. Nice work if you can get it, and no need to rush. LUNCHEON VOUCHERS took me back, not to Cynthia Payne, but to the days when I was given them. They were limited to 15p a day, else they were taxable as a benefit in kind. We used to save them up and have a good blow out once every three months or so.
    FOI – IMMERSION HEATER
    LOI – AURORA
    COD – TONSURE.
    Thanks to jeremy and other contributors.

27. 18:04

    Good progress throughout with this grid, though with a few lapses in parsing/knowledge as follows:

    IMMOLATE – never knew it meant sacrifice, just thought it meant ‘burn’
    AURORA – didn’t compute the ‘Golden’ bit
    TENOR = content – don’t think I really knew this, so it was an educated guess from checkers
    SIROCCO – only saw the ROC part
    ANAPAEST – NHO, but built from cryptic
    REFRESHER – didn’t know the legal implication

28. Thought that the Austen novel had to be xxxEMMA, but eventually got the message (T AUSTEN*)=tetanus.
    I nearly gave up, but eventually got to grips with it.

    1. Not sure this is kosher, but I always wanted Cyclops in Private Eye to clue tetanus as:
       A pox on offensive arsehole (7) or Complaint from offensive arsehole (7) or something. I’m not old enough to remember the Tet offensive, but have read about it.
       Moderators, feel free to delete this as unseemly.

       1. I’m sorry, but you’ll never get deleted if you ask for it.

       2. Belongs in a clue-writing competition I reckon. Have you put together an entire grid of these Isla?

29. TENOR was my LOI as I was unsure of the definition, but I eventually parsed it as Vinyl did. Jeremy’s parsing also works. SIROCCO was FOI and the NW populated nicely before I moved on. ANAPAEST was laboriously constructed as the checkers appeared. I missed the parsing of NOISE tips in ADHESION, and didn’t remember the legal meaning of REFRESHER. Anyway all done in 30:12. Thanks setter and Jeremy.

30. DNF. Gave up after 35 min with 8d unsolved, and only got ANAPAEST by looking up the Wikipedia entry for dactyl.

    A MER at “the Alsatian” being LE. Although Alsace is part of France, and most people there speak French, the Alsatian language is a dialect of German, and the definite article is DR.

    Like others, my knowledge of Refresher in the legal sense comes from reading Rumpole of the Bailey.

    Many thanks.

31. 26:04. Several unparsed or only partially at the end, including the clever ADHESION. Chewed on TENOR and its multiple pile-up clue until the penny half dropped for the simpler, non-ronet, parsing. Pleased to see it was correct.

32. As many have said already, not hard, though I worked through it at a leisurely pace, taking 34 minutes.

    Like Will Ransome above, IGNITE was my last entry

    I liked the deceptive use of ‘kitty’ in the clue to POLECAT, and the deception in the clue to TETANUS. I felt sure the answer ended in -EMMA.

33. I’m always pleased to compete a Friday crossword. Found this easier than yesterday’s offering. The only unknown was the foot, which was laboriously constructed and my last one in.

34. A fairly speedy solve for me at 32.40, but with an error, carelessly putting in SORROCO at 3dn. So once again back to my old habit of getting one letter wrong – nothing more frustrating!
    Everything else went in fully parsed apart from the IMO part of IMMOLATE where the use of texting shorthand never occurred to me. My LOI was the unheard of ANAPAEST but it was at least gettable from the clueing.

35. Straightforward stuff mostly and, as has been mentioned, much more so than yesterday’s offering. About 40’ in two sittings with the NHO abut generously clued ANAPAEST my LOI. I liked TIME LIMIT and LUNCHEON VOUCHER which, I assume, no longer exists, various Chancellors of the Exchequer having declined for years to allow more than 15p per voucher to be treated as tax-free. (When originally introduced, employers could provide one voucher per day to employees. The face value was 3 shillings, which bought a good two course lunch and was tax free. By the time I last heard of them, which I guess was in the late 80s, 15p probably got you a cup or two of Nescafé or similarly foul instant imitation of coffee – and in those days it really was foul – but one voucher certainly didn’t get lunch and the tax relief, worth about 5p per day, was not worth the trouble for pretty well any employee or employer.)

36. Thanks Jeremy. No fusses. My weekend started 20 minutes early as a consequence.

37. No problems here except for ANAPAEST which I did not know at all and the required sense for REFRESHER which I guessed correctly. Thanks for the blog!

38. Once again just under an hour, taking ages to work out ANAPAEST. But that was the only unknown today and this puzzle was much better than yesterday’s slog. I also took a long time to see the hidden IGNITE. Otherwise, not much to say.

39. DNF I had never heard of ANAPAEST, and I couldn’t think of a synonym for NAPE. All other clues correct and parsed. I liked the LUNCHEON VOUCHER clue.

40. First time to complete the Friday biggie so well chuffed. No idea about the time-who cares. Finished sometime on Saturday afternoon-with the odd break

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