Times Cryptic No 28685 — A solver biffs into a bar

57 comments on “Times Cryptic No 28685 — A solver biffs into a bar”

1. I’m one that found this tough on the whole. I found it fairly easy to begin with, but ended up flailing around and biffing where I had enough letters. I skipped parsing half a dozen clues to save time. I didn’t understand the definition for DIVER, which I wouldn’t have got if I hadn’t suddenly seen OVID. It took me ages to work out APOTHEOSIS with only _P_T_ _ _ _ S _ _ in the grid. Some word patterns are very elusive.
   50 minutes.

2. Very enjoyable. 32 minutes. ROSE MADDER reminded me of one of the cleverest limericks ever. I was going to post it but Busman beat me to it. My favourite example of the genre.

3. 34 minutes. With my bare bones knowledge of the works of Shakespeare, MISTRESS QUICKLY was no write-in for me; thank goodness for that crossing Q (always a bonus) from PICARESQUE. Otherwise I managed to complete this steadily with the help of wordplay for some less familiar terms like APOTHEOSIS and ROSE MADDER. Favourites were AHAB and the surface for DOG PADDLE.

4. 47 mins but held up for ages by CHAPS and AHAB. Managed to do a full tour of the West Indies and forgot about the Bahamas (AMAJ anyone?). Eventually it was spotting the SPA that got me over the line. Do taps have an order to be reversed?

   1. I think “hot and cold taps/water” is much more common (and thus natural-sounding) than “cold and hot”?

5. I’m with those who found this tough. Got off to a start with OCTOHEDRA, which I converted to OCTAHEDRA before submitting. PICARESQUE was LOI after I managed to recall the QUICK bit of the innkeeper. Lots to like but a sluggish performance from me. 38:12. Thanks setter and Jeremy.

6. All completed throughout the day. Dnk why NUDGE or ESTATE worked, dnk ROSE MADDER, PICARESQUE or MISTRESS QUICKLY but they could all, eventually, be worked out. Also, and stupidly, couldn’t see why SWEET was fool for ages.
   So a long solve but very satisfying in the end. Thanks for the blog for confirmations.

7. 46:19

   A bit too much of a parp to be enjoyed fully. Teeth were pulled due to a general lack of knowledge.

   NHO:
   DUN ?
   MISTRESS QUICKLY (though I got the MISTRESS bit er… quickly)
   ROSE MADDER (though I might have heard of the Stephen King book)
   Sibyl as SOOTHSAYER
   DOG PADDLE – we say DOGGY PADDLE where I’m from

   ONAGER – I’ve vaguely heard of but couldn’t have said what it was

   And for the parsing oversights:
   ESTATES – was thinking K or 1K for the thousand – didn’t see how it would work though.

   Slow to see:
   GAME WARDEN (was thinking KEEPER or RANGER)
   TAKE ORDERS

8. 31’0″
   Fortunate to get a clear run, stayed on gamely under pressure.
   Cock-a-hoop to have cracked this corker under my par. USED was BIFWP – ‘Oh, that kind of horse’ was a slow penny to drop.
   I’d echo Zabadak on the wavelength factor. OCTAHEDRA brought back childhood memories of Cundy and Rollett’s Mathematical Models and making polyhedra as gifts for folks with a mathematical bent. Great Stellated Dodecahedra proved very popular.
   I thoroughly enjoyed this very elegant puzzle, and also the great collection of comments here.
   A ‘Bravissimo!’ for the setter and thank you Jeremy et al.

   1. USED. Never spotted THAT horse, although I was in the HMC&E Investigation Division (drugs) and am fully familiar with horse and charlie and so forth. DOH!

      1. Clearly you have a future as a setter! Several of them seem to have had similar work experience..

9. Great puzzle, which is to say, I finished it correctly. More than the usual number of unknowns for me, DUN, MISTRESS Q, ROSE MADDER, PICARESQUE, OCTAHEDRA, so the word play must all have been clear. Fun.

   Thanks setter and Jeremy.

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