Times Cryptic No 29345 — Respite

66 comments on “Times Cryptic No 29345 — Respite”

1. Thoroughly enjoyed this. A bit easier than the average Friday puzzle. Lots of IKEA clues and some nice anagrams, especially the clever BULLETPROOF VEST. Didn’t get the parsing for LOFT, thanks Jeremy, didn’t know there was such a thing as ‘Lo-Fi’. Didn’t get and still don’t get the ‘busters’ part of LIKE GANGBGBUSTERS. COD to LITHOGRAPH.
   Thanks Jeremy and setter.

   1. Both Texan and from Louisiana just indicate American usages. Buster is just a rather dated term for man, from 1940s US slang.

      1. Thanks. I thought it might be that simple.

2. 27:16
   Definitely not as hard as your average Friday puzzle; Verlaine would probably have complained. I biffed the vest, LITHOGRAPH, HYDROGEN, RUDIMENT, & COMPOSER. DNK GI. Grief is not an apt definition of despair. I assumed that ‘from Louisiana’, like ‘Texan’, was an indication of an Americanism. The problem is that ‘buster’ does not mean ‘man’; it’s a vocative only. COD GEL.

   1. An interesting point about ‘buster’ being used in the vocative case only. Maybe here ‘men from Louisiana’ (= the US more generally) could be taken as men who might be named, or at least usually known as, ‘Buster’?

   2. I thought the same but OED says ‘a form of address to (or occasionally a term for) a person, esp. a man’. The only citation though is ‘an extremely wealthy old buster’, which is from Wodehouse and I guess might conceivably be an invention of his.

      1. That’s Bertie speaking in 1917, and it doesn’t really lower my eyebrow much, but it didn’t slow me down, so wotthehell.

         1. Yes my eyebrow-reaction is similar. A single very old quotation from a fictional character written by an Englishman spending a lot of time New York is pretty thin support for a definition, even if qualified by the word ‘occasionally’.

            1. On the other hand, it did occur to me that it would be more likely for a noun to appear as such (She’s my honey, You’re a fathead, …) before being used as a vocative (Listen, honey/fathead….). Still, a faulty clue, says I.
               And it just occurred to me to Google ‘buster etymology’ :
               https://www.etymonline.com/word/buster
               buster(n.)
               1838, “anything large or exceptional; a man of great strength,” American English slang (originally Missouri/Arkansas), perhaps meaning something that takes one’s breath away and thus an agent noun from bust (v.). Around the same years, buster (as an extended form of bust (n.)) also meant “a frolic, a spree,” hence “a roistering blade” (OED’s definition), which might have influenced it. As a generic or playful address to a male from 1948, American English. The meaning “horse-breaker” is from 1891, American English; hence the back-formed verb bust (v.) “break a horse.”

               1. That theory doesn’t square with the citations in OED: ‘buster’ appears as a vocative first, in 1838.

3. I found this plenty hard, and didn’t have a single answer for eight minutes. My solve might be described as an accelerando, with half the answers put in during the last eight minutes, as the crossing letters turned it into a biff-fest. The H for hydrogen is an old trick, I should have seen that one first.

   Time: 46:58

4. Good solid puzzling! This took me a bit longer than any other this week but was not an ordeal. I didn’t know the martial arts costume.

5. 43 minutes. On the gentle side for a Friday but I was still slow to pick up on the anagrams, H for HYDROGEN, the parsing for BAGGIEST & LIKE GANGBUSTERS and my LOI the old chestnut ‘in’ def for POPULAR. STEPS ON helped by the appearance of STEPSON in the QC a couple of days ago. Interesting to see the mid-clue def for EGG.

   Thanks to Jeremy and our kind (for Friday anyway) setter

6. DNF, thought of PRIM but rejected it def-wise so a fail in about 34. All up an enjoyable puzzle though I needed J’s blog to unravel quite a few. Like LOFT, COMPOSER, EGG and RESIDES. And PRIM. Still don’t get martial arts uniform and think ret = wet has fooled me before. Sympathy to the non-cricketers.

   From Rollin’ and Tumblin’:
   I got up this morning, saw the rising sun RETURN
   Well I got up this morning, seen the rising sun return
   Sooner or later, you too shall burn

   1. See my comment below about the costume.

7. DBF. Resorted to aids after an hour had passed. I’d had a stressful day yesterday and my brain may not have been coping as it should, but enjoyed many of the clues that I was able to crack.

   the ones that beat me were LOFT, PRIM (should have got after the clue referencing prime numbers in a puzzle I blogged earlier in the week), and BULLETPROOF VEST (also should have got) where I had become obsessed with the second word being BELT for some reason.

   I surprised myself by coming up with LIKE GANGBUSTERS, and expression I never heard and had not the faintest idea what was going on in the wordplay. I put it it in only as two words that fitted the checkers and then googled to see if it meant anything.

   At 1ac I didn’t know GI as martial arts costume. I gather it’s pronounced “ghee”.

   1. It is; Japanese G always is ‘hard’.

8. 13:01. Quite tricky, and I failed to parse EGG. I also didn’t know GI, but didn’t really need to.

9. 34 minutes, definitely a PB for a Friday so not surprised it wasn’t high on the snitch. PRIM was last in and still don’t really get it. Biffed BAGGIEST as I know nothing of martial arts attire. LIKE GANGBUSTERS took a while as I was puzzled by the double indication of its US origin and so sought something more obscure. NHO ret but could see no alternative.
   Thanks to setter and plusjeremy.

10. Liked this, harder than some but not ridiculously so. Just my level.
    Several question marks .. the martial arts costume, the men from Louisiana (dodgy clue that one, imo), the lo-fi, the beggar .. but none prevented solving the clue. Good stuff.

11. 23:48
    Struggled with a lot of this although at least prime numbers didn’t catch me out for the second time this week.

12. 51 minutes. I see that folk have liked it but I never felt on wavelength. LOI was LIKE GANGBUSTERS, an expression I don’t recall having heard before. I suppose HiFi must have its antonym but I’ve never heard of that either. COD to STRAYED. Thank you Jeremy and setter.

13. Forgot it was Friday, and this was well out of my league. Got about half, but was well advised to stop when I did.

    Why is ret=wet?

    1. Via Chambers, ‘to soften, spoil or rot by soaking or exposure to moisture’.

14. About 20 minutes.

    – Didn’t know gi as a martial arts uniform, but BAGGIEST had to be
    – NHO LIKE GANGBUSTERS but got there from wordplay and it sounded plausible
    – Dimly remembered ret=wet from before to get RETURN
    – INEXORABLE or BEGGAR went in unparsed

    Thanks Jeremy and setter.

    FOI Gel
    LOI Rudiment
    COD The very idea

15. DNF. Opted for PAIR and LOFT at the last on 37 mins or so in something of a Russian roulette finish. Annoyed to miss the Prime trick.
    Not one I enjoyed much on the whole, some clever stuff marred by cricket and Americanisms. NHO that GI.
    EGG was neat and COD to HYDROGEN by a country mile. Thanks to Jeremy and setter.

16. Dnf, stopped after 34′. No idea at all about the Americanisms. 🙁

    Thanks jeremy and setter.

17. 46:56
    Decent puzzle. Just sort of drifted through it.
    Thanks, pj.

18. Had to use aids for LIKE GANGBUSTERS; I know the expression, but never had it down as an Americanism, nor connected it with ‘enthusiastically’. I’ve only ever heard it in the business sense of ‘doing well and making huge profits’. The rest of this I eventually filled in, but somehow without enthusiasm. Lo-fi? Really?

    And PRIM seems odd, to me, as a synonym for ‘precise’.

    1. not quite “prime” (primes being 2 or 3)

       1. That’s the wordplay, which is fine. I also wasn’t sure of “precise” to mean PRIM, but I see Chambers has “rigidly punctilious and precise” as prim’s first definition.

          1. Collins says (affectedly) precise too.

19. About 40′ which I’d always take for a Friday (…assuming I finish). Easier than many, and had to convince myself that nothing nefarious was going on. A few that I didn’t parse so thanks Jackkt. LOI NHO LIKE GANGBUSTERS, I worked for American firms for over 25 years and never heard this as a phrase.
    Thanks Jackkt and setter.

20. 21:48
    A relatively straightforward Friday, and I always like it when 1A goes in on first reading as I get to experience for a very brief period what it must be like for the championship level boys. It didn’t last very long.

    LIKE GANGBUSTERS was the only unknown but that rang a faint bell, and all parsed whilst solving except for the pickled EGG.

    An entertaining solve so thanks to both.

21. 39:26

    Pleased to get under my target of 42 minutes (114 Snitch when I looked), and while there was some very good stuff to enjoy, was less enthused by 25a which struck me as something you’d probably know if you were west of the Pond, but far less likely if east of the same – I pieced it together from the wordplay, but had no idea which end of the clue was the definition.

    In the North, BULLETPROOF VEST held out for a very long time but proved to be the key to 1d, 2d, 3d, 6d and the two in the top row.

    Thanks PJ and setter

22. Staggered through this one, and regretted not submitting off leaderboard as I had an unnoticed typo.
    LIKE GANGBUSTERS is a flawed clue, IMHO. Two specific States to indicate just “American” had me wondering whether the unknown (to me) phrase included some specific term for either, like Hoosiers for Indiana residents. Turns out Louisiana people are rather boringly Louisianans.
    Not much fun to be had, though I liked the clever EGG. Do bars still stock the pickled variety, or is it only chippies?

23. 34:18 Good Friday puzzle which was challenging but didn’t push my brain to melting point.

    Far too slow to get TEST CRICKET partly as I thought ANT was going to be the six-footer. I went through everything TEST matches, series etc but just blind to the most obvious.

    NHO LIKE GANGBUSTERS (LOI). Needed all the checking letters for that. Glad to see that go green.

    LOFT I didn’t fully understand and did consider if gallery could equal prison for some CD of LIFE. Thankfully opted for the more obvious definition.

    BULLETPROOF VEST by far my favourite today if not this week.

    Thanks blogger and setter.

24. I didn’t find this easier than the average Friday. I did complete it but with a couple unparsed. I didn’t see LOF as short for LO-FI. I didn’t fully parse LIKE GANGBUSTERS and agree with others that the use of both Texan and from Louisiana to indicate American was unsatisfactory. But I knew the expression and once enough checking letters were in place it couldn’t be anything else. I didn’t know that meaning of PRIM, only the “fussily proper” one, but again it had to be that from the cryptic.

25. Many of the same problems as have already been mentioned, particularly with LIKE GANGBUSTERS, which I stumbled to by a combination of checkers and wordplay, but had to look up to see if it really was an expression. The does pair seemed a bit odd. 67 minutes, much of it pleasant and easier than some Fridays, but I had a long list of clues where I thought I was missing something, and sure enough I was, often through stupidity.

26. The only current use of the word “buster” for a man (singular not plural) that I know would be addressed by a woman to a male pest – as in “don’t you get any ideas buster”. No idea how Buster Keaton got his name.

    1. Joseph Frank Keaton
       According to a frequently repeated story, which may be apocryphal,[16] Keaton acquired the nickname Buster at the age of 18 months. After the child fell down a long flight of stairs without injury, an actor friend named George Pardey remarked, “Gee whiz, he’s a regular buster!” (Wikipedia)

    2. Calvin’s mom (of Calvin and Hobbes) often calls him ‘buster’ — and I suppose he might be considered a male pest!

       Mind you, I think of Calvin and Hobbes as something recent but it’s nearly forty years old now…

27. 27 – painstakingly entered on an iphone with much fat-fingeredness. Enjoyable romp with several unparsed (the gangbusters, EGG etc) but never any real uncertainties. I was very slow to spot HYDROGEN which is enough of a chestnut to be a write-in.

28. around an hour for this due to a typo fouling up some of the southern grid, as once I corrected it the answers just fell in. Came here to get the parsing for EGG – I’m still bad at spotting these DIY solutions, but this was a good one! COD to HYDROGEN for the amusing 90s pop ref. Thanks blogger and setter.

29. Managed this with only a couple of reveals (LOFT, LIKE GANGBUSTERS). Had to look up latter to check usage as entirely new to me. Needed blog to sort out parsing of EGG, COMPOSER and GEL – Is leg/on a cricketing term?

    Many thanks all.

    1. Yes – the on side and the leg side in cricket are the same thing. Very useful for setters!

       1. Many thanks – one to remember

30. Found this tough – 53 mins – LOFT was my last parse!

31. DNF after 45 minutes with 4 left. Seeing the answers here, I could have taken 45 hours with the same result. IMO such esoteric Americanisms as 25ac have no place in a Times crossword.

32. Thanks to plusjeremy and setter.
    For a Friday it was NEARLY doable. A bit of a biff-fest here. Starting with 1a, Baggiest, for what does GI stand? It’s not martial art costume is it? Ah, looked it up, gi.
    15a Despair, biffed. Didn’t separate love and match, doh!
    19a Resides, mis-parsed as (p)resides, I didn’t know what “anyway” was doing there.
    21a DNF, biffed pair rather than Prim. Bother. We had the prime trick only yesterday, so short term memory loss strikes again.
    22a Amalgamate biffed.
    25a NHO Like gangbusters so biffed. DNK busters come from Louisiana or is it Texas? Ah, see above, thanks. Still don’t understand the clue. Also I thought it was green paint, but it’s in Wiktionary, so OK then.
    27a Return; we’ve met ret before so dimly remembered.
    6d Loft biffed, NHO Lo-Fi except in jest. Would not have parsed that even if I had thought Lo-Fi was a thing.
    26d Egg biffed. Actually that was rather good; went over my head like much else.

33. Top half good: bottom half not so good. To appease Macguffin, may I compliment the setter on BULLETPROOF VEST.

34. What does “biffed” mean ?

    1. Bunged In From Definition 🙂

       1. Thanks

    2. Please refer to the Glossary to be found on our Help menu.

35. Had to biff LOFT, still don’t get it.

    Six-footers are always insects, aren’t they?

    I think I’ve heard “like gangbusters” lately, but apparently there used to be a radio prog in the USA called Gang Busters, which was the origin of the expression.

    Prim was good.

    Probably 30 mins or so.

36. I found this harder than others did. It took me just over an hour to finish.

    Some nice, neat clues here, but I agree with everything that’s been said about LIKE GANGBUSTERS

37. A gentler experience than I expected, and a relatively quick finish for me at 38:55. But there were plenty of things I could not understand, especially those Texans and Louisianans (and I am a Yank); the crossers gave me the answer there. I enjoyed the topical AMALGAMATE. Despite an only partial parsing BAGGIEST went in quickly, which gave me heart for tackling the rest.

    Thanks to setter and Jeremy.

38. Failed on INEXORABLE, LITHOGRAPH and GLUTEN and made the right guess for an unparsed LOFT (but considered ‘naff’). Not sure if I’ve ever encountered ‘lo-fi’ but it seems logical. I had heard of both LIKE GANGBUSTERS and the scrabble word ‘gi’ though.

    1. I’m a ‘long-time lurker’ too, and I considered NAFF, as LO-fi had never entered my lexicon!

39. Amazed to finish correctly, as LIKE GANGBUSTERS seemed so unlikely! Thanks to Tuesday:s crossword, PRIM was parsable, alert to primes. Couldn’t parse EGG or DESPAIR (despite considering odes!) amd LOFT seemed an unlikely synonym for gallery, but it must exist in a dictionary somewhere… NHO gi. Some lovely clues, though the Americanism is not one of them!

40. DNF after 60 minutes, defeated in the SW corner by the NHO LIKE GANGBUSTERS. Otherwise I agree with those who found it easier than most Friday offerings and with those who who did not particularly enjoy it.
    Thanks to plusjeremy and other contributors.

41. Found this quite tough and got stuck halfway through. Eventually managed to assemble BULLETPROOF VEST and LIKE GANGBUSTERS and got going again. From GEL to LOFT in 41:34. Thanks setter and Jeremy.

42. 37’52” wrecked by misspelling RUDIMENT – I had RUDEMENT. Lovely tough puzzle. Thanks

43. Much too hard for me today: just not on the wavelength? Expected the Friday puzzle to be slightly easier than usual ( since my overall solve-rate has improved), but it was not to be. It was the ‘martial arts costume’ that I had no idea about, and threw me off building a word ending in IEST and including AG – ah well. I had the BSLE of 1d , but not the perseverance to construct BOBSLED, and ruined my chances with the marital relations by thinking IT for the second word. Liked the STRAYED/TRESPASSER crossers particularly. Too much time spent on very little accurate solving!

44. None of these are enjoyable any more they are just hard time wasting work.

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