Times Cryptic No 29309 — Vacation

76 comments on “Times Cryptic No 29309 — Vacation”

1. I wonder if others had “aloft”=up for AFOOT at 25a. When Holmes tells Watson the game’s afoot he doesn’t mean it’s up so that’s where I came out being unable to parse it either way. Good work by our blogger.

   1. Put me down for ALOFT Olivia, after eliminating ABOUT (up to), ABORT (fall back), ABOOT (???) and a few others. Fortunately saw what was AFOOT before submitting.

   2. Yes, ALOFT was my best guess. I never thought of AFOOT, but wouldn’t have seen the parsing anyway so it’d still have been a guess.

   3. I toyed with ABOOT (up to Scots) and ALOFT also, but eventually put in AFOOT unparsed. Will need to check out ‘FA’ now.

2. 23:42 DNF due to two pink squares: ABLASH for ABLUSH, and ABOOT for AFOOT (both gettable with more staring, but in a rush this morning).

   An interesting and entertaining puzzle, where I felt I was definitely relying on wordplay more than usual. NHO DEADEYE, PANTALOON (in that meaning), ABLUSH, ANGELUS (assuming ‘clanger’ refers to the related bell-ringing), STIFLE (in that meaning). Not sure what ‘bars’ are as relating to vineyards.

   Got lucky with a bit of GK, including having read TITUS ALONE, ‘the dark night of the soul’, bringing the old red dye to mind, the stables, and My Fair Lady.

   Enjoy the vacation!

   1. Think it’s just that vineyards are a “source for certain bars”. Wine bars if you like, but any bars really.

      1. Oh really? That’s interestingly general, makes sense though! Probably wine bars, as you say.

3. 35:59. Tough workout. They could have handed this one to Hercules after he was done with the stables (I love to drop in a classical reference as if I didn’t just learn it five minutes ago).

   “Girl made grand” was my pick of the bunch today, while LEGION, STIFLE and NIGHT went in semi-parsed.

   None of it came easy but it was all gettable in the end, so kudos to the setter. And thanks for the blog Jeremy.

4. A tough puzzle and a tough day to blog, so thank you J. I think ‘over’ is used in the sense of ‘I am so over these Acts’ which you hear people say all the time. There were many here that mystified me, like NIGHT = sorrow, STIFLE = knee, FA = fall in Scotland. Thanks to the blog I now understand how the parsing of the Peake book, the party and Eliza D works. An enjoyable challenge done in about 50.

   From Tangled Up In Blue:
   We drove that car as far as we could, abandoned it out west
   Split up on a dark sad NIGHT with the feeling it was best
   She turned around to look at me as I was walking away
   I heard her say over my shoulder We’ll meet again someday, on the avenue
   Tangled up in blue

   1. All these years, I’ve thought they split up on the docks that night.

      1. From now on I suspect that will be all I hear! Seeing Bob himself is Master of the Mondegreen (he thought the Beatles were signing I get high, I get high in I Wanna Hold Your Hand) he would no doubt understand and probably like it…

      2. OMG. Me too, and it’s one of my favourite songs of all time. Half a century of self-delusion, although they may of course have spent their final evening together at the docks. I like to think they did.

         Nice puzzle by the way. Good to know more about equine knees. Titus Alone is a dreadful book by the way. Mr Peake was well past his prime when he got to that one.

   2. And I always thought it was “both agreeing it was best”. But yes, Bob has probably the most misheard lyrics of anybody – but that only makes him better!

      1. Yes, that’s the correct lyric.

         From official site: “ Split up on a dark sad night. Both agreeing it was best”

         1. Unfortunately the official site is occasionally way wrong and sometimes bizarre (eg if you see her say hello). But on this occasion I should have gone there because, yep, that’s right, it’s ‘both agreeing’. So, in one line, two 50-year mondegreens!

   3. Hmm, that definitely has the right sense, but I don’t think OVER can be replaced with ‘unwanted’ in your example.

      1. Probably not, it was a desperation shot…

   4. Shakespeare inevitably used it brilliantly… “Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I should say good night, till it be morrow”

      David

      1. I don’t see how words become synonymous just by being in the same sentence….

5. 75 minutes with some use of aids after the hour had passed. It felt easy for a moment with 1ac, 1dn and 5ac going straight in, but from then on the answers arrived very slowly. Too many clues contained obscure usage or wordplay for my taste, and there’s been rather too much of that sort of thing in too many recent puzzles in my view. If this is the result of a deliberate change of policy at The Times I can’t say I like it much. I can get that at The Guardian any time.

   1. I completely agree.
      Not sure it’s a good idea to be plugging The Times Crossword Championship 2025 above the convoluted puzzles of the last two days either.
      Perhaps they’re trying to limit the numbers this year by inducing solver demoralisation? If so, they’re certainly going the right way about it.

      1. I can’t subscribe to the conspiracy theory (maybe not meant seriously anyway?) but I definitely feel that something has happened in recent months. I imagine it’s the result of the change of editor as inevitably anyone taking over the role will bring their own individual style to the table.

         1. No, not meant seriously.
            But they’re not going to get many takers if solvers see the plug, eagerly put the date of the Championships in their diaries, only to get completely flummoxed by the crossword accompanying it.
            Taking the evidence of this crossword, the event might be perceived to have lost its fun and social element , and they’ll bail out.

   2. Couldn’t agree more Jack. My enjoyment levels have really taken a downturn these last few months, so much so that, after 40-odd years of solving addictively, I’m not even that bothered any more if I don’t get round to solving them.

      1. I’m glad others are feeling like this

         I certainly feel the change in direction over the last few months

         I have toyed with the idea of giving up altogether having been a solver for best part of forty years

         The joy seems to have gone out of it

      2. So pleased to read your comments, 7d. I was beginning to wonder if it was just me, but your opinion as a founder-member of TFtT carries a lot of weight. I hope Times management are aware of this growing unease amongst seasoned solvers.

         1. Hopefully they read this blog.

         2. It’s nice of you to say so Jack, but these days the only weight I carry is around my middle. I do wonder how many people have been wondering if it’s “just me”.

6. A couple of witty definitions but too many unnecessary obscurities for me to complete or enjoy this one. Thanks Jeremy for the blog.

   1. I see the point you and others are making. I love encountering obscure words et al in my puzzles. But I don’t feel particularly tickled when the setter needs to clue a common word, and chooses an obscure definition to be tricky. I’d rather the setter find a way to hide the meaning more subtly through the surface reading of the clue, so that I get that head-slapping sensation when the penny drops. As opposed to: oh, I guess ‘sorrow’ is a definition of NIGHT.

7. 1h 53 min. Oh dear. For once, when I tapped on “Submit”, I was hoping for at least one pink square so that I could have reported a DNF here without mentioning the time, but no such luck.

   Like Jack, I started off well, including getting COCHINEAL early on, but then I came to a stop and had to grind the rest of the puzzle out, obviously very slowly. I’d NHO FA’ or FRANGIBLE, the relevant senses of NIGHT, YELLOW and STIFLE and had forgotten / didn’t know the ‘Venetian dotard’ at 6d and the ‘Book’ at 8d. The ‘Girl made grand’ def was my favourite too.

   Obviously he’s not the only difficult setter, but another John Henderson puzzle?

8. I found AFOOT very good, though a clue I had to come here to see. I think it’s mainly just that it’s been a long day, but I also know FA about the works of Mervyn Peake.
   Apparently it’s the ANGELUS that gets me up many mornings (when I’m not sleeping on my non-deaf ear), ringing out at 10 AM (9 on Sunday) from the Lebanese church outside my window. I asked the priest about it some years ago when I ran into him at my longtime (now defunct) favorite local restaurant. The sound is from an audio file.

   1. Ha!

9. Very tough puzzle, I managed to get close but muffed a couple and had two others unsolved after just shy of an hour. Oh well.

   Re 4D, it’s OVER as in surplus to requirements, i.e. unwanted.

   1. I think that just about works! Thanks!

10. I enjoyed this, finishing in 29’48”, with AFOOT LOI and unparsed. Pity about the obscurity of the wordplay.

    Knew COCHINEAL as a young daughter, many years ago, let a bottle of the said colouring go all over the kitchen. The ANGELUS is still played daily on Irish radio.

    Thanks jeremy and setter

11. 48 minutes, with AFOOT picked over ALOFT simply because I like saying the game’s afoot when Wanderers kick off. COD to Eliza DOOLITTLE. I’ve never heard of the horse’s knee or the sensational yellow but either the cryptic or crossers were kind. Enjoyably tricky. Thank you Jeremy and setter.

12. 52 mins. I think I spent 10 minutes on my LOI – AFOOT – having too much to choose from: ABOUT, ABOOT, ALOFT, etc. Then the Scots tendency to shorten words to two letters ending in ‘a’ rang a bell and once I went with AF the rest made sense in no time. TITUS ALONE must have been impossible for those unfamiliar with the series, though.

    COD – DEADEYE which was short and sweet but still took me a while to see what the setter was getting at. Plenty to like and chew over for this Friday and I seem to have survived the week with very few pinks! Thanks blogger and setter 🙂

    1. I’ve never read any of the books, but recalled a controversy on here from a little while ago about TITUS GROAN, which snagged and eventually got me to the answer.

       1. Gormenghast and Titus Groan were great. Titus Alone was perhaps a logical progression with Titus eventually having to break out of the closed world into the real one – but it definitely didn’t work.

13. Just over half an hour – a puzzle that I feel more positive about because I managed to complete it, despite there being plenty of unknowns along the way.

    – Didn’t know (or had forgotten) chine, but COCHINEAL rang a bell
    – Had to trust that NIGHT can mean sorrow in some sense
    – Didn’t know ‘fa’ as Scottish for ‘fall’ as needed for AFOOT, and I’m glad ALOFT never occurred to me
    – Couldn’t have told you that FRANGIBLE means delicate
    – No idea about the Venetian dotard, but spotted PANTALOON from the anagrist
    – Pieced together the unknown TITUS ALONE from checkers and wordplay
    – NHO yellow=sensational as required for YELLOW CARD
    – Didn’t know STIFLE as a knee joint, but it had to be right based on the anagrist

    Thanks Jeremy and setter.

    FOI Bead
    LOI Titus Alone
    COD Exhibit

    1. Yellow is sensational as in the ‘yellow journalism’ of the late 19th century, characterised by exaggeration, sensationalism, etc. Some might say it never left us…

14. Medium hard but not as bad as some Fridays lately.
    Struggled to parse the Irish party.
    Was glad to remember stifle, even though attempting to ride a horse once was more than enough.
    Loved Titus Groan and Gormenghast, never bothered to read Titus Alone.

15. Thankfully, in one way (for someone brought up in The Troubles), I forgot how SINN FEIN was spelt, throwing in an H for hotel, while having no clue what MDMA WAS – even though it’s come up before. That made the cunning VINEYARD impossible.

    Excellent workout, for all that.

16. 46 mins so middling tough despite all the NHOs. YELLOW=sensational, STIFLE, NIGHT, didn’t parse LEGION and Mrs Rv contributed ALONE.
    Couldn’t get Willow-the-Wisp out of my head once the W appeared.
    LOI VINEYARD.
    COD DOOLITTLE
    Thanks both

17. A bit over 25 minutes, with some of that down to tricky setting and/or unusual words (PANTALOON, ANGELUS, VINEYARD, TITUS ALONE), some down to my own sluggishness (ASPHALT, SINN FEIN), and some down to thinking of a possible answer but not being confident (NIGHT, LEGION, the latter of which I never quite parsed). That many of these crossed on the RHS of the grid meant it was quite a tough solve, but one I ultimately enjoyed getting to the bottom of.

    The couple of minutes spent on my LOI VINEYARD were well worth it – lovely clue.

    Thanks both.

18. Glad I gave up after 20 mins with only a third complete. Could tell it would have taken more time than I could give it, and seeing the above I certainly wouldn’t have got some of these if I’d had a decade, eg NIGHT.

19. 31.22, which is apparently quite a decent time. It’s possible a familiarity with the eccentricities of TLS puzzles was handy, though I hesitated between alternative TITUSes, and only parsed late on, as also with the rather simpler DONATED.
    I tried to make BETH SHIN work for 19a, despite the fact that it doesn’t work, and isn’t a party.
    I found this illustration of the Scots FA’, accompanied by a picture of an Icarus-like character:
    Sorry pal ah dinni want tae be fykerie.
    But yer no actually fleein – yir in free fa.
    Ahn you are fa’n fast cos ahm having tae flee doonwards like buggery tae keep up.
    Dinni worry tho it disni hurt.
    Til ye hit the grund.
    Then yir deid.

20. DNF. Defeated by the unknown book , which I searched for(I got the TITUS but not the second word having heard only of TITUS GROAN) and AFOOT. (ABOUT? ABOOT? ALOFT?). Too many obscurities here for my liking, such as the meanings of YELLOW and NIGHT. VINEYARD my favourite, but I liked SINN FEIN too. Thanks Jeremy and setter.

21. Another Friday failure. Gave up after 56 mins realising I had no hope in beating the hour. Eight incomplete.

22. Too clever for me. Beaten by VINEYARDS, TITUS ALONE, and NIGHT. My excuse is that it’s currently 33c here, due to rise to 37 this afternoon, and my brain is turning to mush. But to be honest, a sudden snow shower probably wouldn’t have helped.

    Thaks to Jeremy and the setter

23. Defeated by AFOOT. I had ABOUT. Also got another pink square for a careless AEGEAN STABLES. Stupid boy! Some enjoyable stuff, but a bit of a chore overall. 48,11 with 2 errors. Thanks setter and Jeremy.

24. Another Friday DNF. No chance with the book or the Scots dialect where ALOFT was the best bung-in-and-see word I could come up with.

25. 1 hour on the nose WOE

    Another ALOFT. Bit poor as the TO O thing occurred to me but the hour mark was approaching.

    Completely failed to remember that sort of LABOUR (again). Also missed some easier stuff amongst the harder bits but overall enjoyed it with some interesting vocabulary.

    Thanks Jeremy and setter

26. A tough one and a DNF, failing to see DEADEYE. I’m sure I’ve come across this expression before but probably not since childhood and it was buried very deep. With benefit of hindsight the cryptic should have got me there but with checkers A_E in the middle I got fixated on the idea that the missing letter was C (ACE = very good shot) which of course led me nowhere. Always irritating when you fail on a clue that isn’t among the hardest in the puzzle.

27. All very difficult and I took 83 minutes, with some aids. One or two were quite easy and I thought that perhaps we weren’t going to have what is nowadays the really difficult Friday puzzle. But no, it soon bogged me down. There were some difficult allusions etc, like night = sorrow, yellow = sensational, the Venetian dotard and the title of the book. I wasted time on Ironside in 27ac. But no complaints really, good clues and I found some a bit more tractable by spending longer on them rather than flitting around. I instantly entered ‘fire’ at 1dn, since it half works, but at 1ac a two-letter word starting F put me right.

28. Same problems as most everyone, ABOUT instead of Afoot, TITUS BLOND, ALONG, FLING, would prolly never have arrived at ALONE, being unaware of the book, and do not know how i never got Vineyard, but left it blank. A long time spent enjoyably in the shade by the river! Thanks all, Cx

29. DNF. I can’t believe I couldn’t see VINEYARD having owned one for umpteen years. I was definitely a source for the local bars and restaurants so that, when I went out « on the sauce », I could drink my own plonk!

    Finally back home and extremely rusty cruciverbally wise, that’s my excuse anyway.

    Thanks PJ for the blog.

30. 54 – ending a week that must have murdered my personal snitch/witch time. Mostly the same guesses, doubts and difficulties as others.

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