I had all but three clues solved in around 12 minutes and then agonised for half as long again over BLUE, MOLOSSI and RICHARD UPWITCH, failing (perhaps not entirely surprisingly) to come up with the last of these.
I’ve followed the same tack as I did with TLS 856 and omitted answers that I’ve considered too obvious to need explanation. Once again, if that leaves anyone mystified, do let me know.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | RICHARD VERNON – a character in Mary Cholmondeley’s novel Red Pottage (1899) |
| 12 | RAIN – Somerset Maugham wrote the short story Rain (1921) (Rain clues used to crop up regularly in the old days of the Times cryptic) |
| 13 | FOSS – the name of Edward Lear’s cat, which you can see pictured here |
| 15 | DETROIT – the gambler Nathan Detroit appears in Damon Runyon’s short story The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown (1933) which formed the basis of the 1950 musical Guys and Dolls |
| 17 | SPECIAL – Mary Agnes Hamilton wrote Special Providence (1930) |
| 20 | SCIENCE – a citation from the OED |
| 21 | INGE – presumably William Inge (1913-73) |
| 22 | BLUE – William Boyd wrote The Blue Afternoon (1993) |
| 23 | STOIC – The Stoic (1947) is the final novel of Theodore Dreiser’s A Trilogy of Desire |
| 26 | CAINE – Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny (1951) deals with rebellion aboard the fictional USS Caine |
| 27 | SOAP OPERA – Figaro is the title character in Rossini’s opera Il barbiere di Siviglia (based on Beaumarchais’s play) |
| 28 | THE KINGFISHER – William Douglas-Home wrote the play The Kingfisher (1978) |
| Down | |
| 1 | RICHARD UPWITCH – a greengrocer who is called in the trial of Bardell v. Pickwick in Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers:
(since that is the one and only mention of Richard Upwitch, I can’t really blame myself too much for not remembering him, and would argue that some helpful wordplay would have been in order!) |
| 3 | ACROPHOBIA – Boileau-Narcejac’s novel D’entre les morts (1954) was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo |
| 4 | DIDEROT – the French philosopher is Denis Diderot (1713-84) |
| 5 | ELEGIES – William Mason wrote the poetry collection Elegies (1763) |
| 6 | NIPS – another citation from the OED |
| 7 | NESTORIAN – arguably the answer should really have been NESTORIANISM |
| 8 | THE SILVER CHAIR – the title of the fourth book (published in 1953) in C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series |
| 14 | GENIUS LOCI – genius + (the muse of history = Clio)*; Vernon Lee (Violet Paget) wrote the travel book Genius Loci (1899) |
| 16 | THE EGOIST – George Meredith wrote The Egoist (1879) (at one time Egoist clues used to crop up in the Times cryptic with roughly the same frequency as Rain clues – see above) |
| 19 | MOLOSSI – LOSS in MOI; the plural of “molossus”, a metrical foot of three long syllables (I don’t recall coming across this word before, but it was guessable from the wordplay) |
| 20 | SHEBANG – double wordplay: (Nash beg)*; she + bang |
| 25 | VERE – Vere is the name of the captain of HMS Bellipotent in Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd (finally published in 1924, 33 years after Melville’s death) |
This will be my last blog, as Andy and I have agreed (at least I think we’ve agreed) to stop blogging the TLS puzzle at the end of this year. This is partly due to lack of interest – basically it seems to have come down to the two of us commenting on each other’s blog entries – but also because I shan’t be renewing my Times Crossword Club subscription when it expires at the end of the month, and although I could photocopy the TLS crossword in Ealing library, doing the puzzle for the last year or so has reminded me of how many books I haven’t read, and I feel my time would be better spent reading some of them. I’m going to continue buying The Times on Saturday, which will give me the Listener puzzle plus a 15×15 and Jumbo Times cryptic, and I’ll continue to compete in the Times Crossword Championship (assuming I’m not barred) but otherwise it’s the Guardian crossword for me from now on.
Music: I listened to Messiah on the radio yesterday (Thursday) evening and thought of the many times I’d sung it at the Albert Hall with the LPO under the baton of John Alldis, who died on Monday (20 December). After coming down from university in 1966, I joined the LSO Chorus which had been founded earlier that year with him as chorus master, and I followed him to the London Philharmonic Choir when he took over as its chorus master in 1969. He was a brilliant choral conductor and it was a privilege to sing under his direction.
A Merry Christmas to you too (and to all other Kiwis).
I’m more disturbed to see that Tony’s not renewing his sub to the club; I’m hardly the only duffer who’s been enlightened by his comments and encouraged by his scores. And surely, you can’t read that much of a book in 8 minutes?
In any case, let me be the first on this blog to express my thanks and best wishes; as we say in my adopted country, ganbare! (Which means more or less, good luck, and hang in there.)
My fastest time for a TLS puzzle is 8:54 for No. 812, but all too often I find myself still struggling at 30 minutes (the time I allow myself before resorting to solving aids), after which it takes me even longer to check my answers (sometimes quite tricky even with the help of Google) and write my blog entry, so the total usually comes to 8 minutes many times over!
I haven’t yet tackled TLS 860, and it’s a bit late (and I’m feeling bit too jaded) to do it now, so maybe I’ll have a go at it tomorrow. (I’ll try not to feel too mortified if I fail miserably 🙂
Thank you Tony for all your contributions to RTC and TFTT and the website.. even the rude ones 🙂
I tackled Friday’s Guardian cryptic by Orlando and found it most enjoyable, but the Guardian site seems to have been having some problems over the Christmas / New Year period, making Saturday’s puzzle not yet available solve online – as I expect you’ll be pleased to hear ;-). (But at least it’s free so I’m not complaining too much 🙂
Perhaps Tony will read this one day on the Ealing Public Library PC while taking a break from The Egoist!
And while I’m in that neck of the woods, perhaps I should read some of Disraeli’s novels.
Oh dear! The list grows and grows.