Times Cryptic No 28925 — I do love chives – Times for The Times (2024)

About 90 minutes. Very hard but enjoyable. Wordplay very clever in many. Loved FETID, NEE, CRANMER, DREAM TEAM and more. Not the vaguest clue how WENCESLAS, ATRIUM, LIFELINE worked.
Thanks to Jeremy for his explanations.
Wides in baseball I think are when they are going to walk a batter and the pitches are deliberately pitched a yard or so from the plate and the batter.
Your DREAM TEAM is a hypothetical team made up of the players from all the teams and as such cannot play a match. It’s like the US picking players as All Americans.

Great puzzle today but beaten in the northeast. Liked bestowed and pyromania. Thanks setter and Jeremy.

I really liked this—good thing, too, as it took me long enough!—though I admit I just shrugged at the math in the definition for LIFELINE.
I wrote “ha!” next to BESTOWED and BUDGET.
But yesterday we had EVISCERATION and today ELECTROCUTE.
BABY BLUES is quite sad too…

DNF but an excellent crossword. A DREAM TEAM has no match (ie equal). It’s XL(40) over ie LX (60) fewer (60 – 51), isn’t it? Loved burning desire, Carol’s bloke on lookout, dispatch from chair and little hope.

Good puzzle but a fail after about 50 minutes with a careless CRAMMER at 9a. Some excellent clues with the surface for TANKINI and the def for BABY BLUES my favourites.

I found that very hard and when I finished in 59:06 just now I was very pleased to be inside an hour.
LOI was TANKINI which was really hit it and hope, so I was delighted and relieved that was right
Before that I struggled stupidly with a few that should have been easy, notably with BABY BLUES UPTURNS and NORWAY. I think when a puzzle is hard one can get mentally blocked in general.
COD for me was THATCHERISM
As already said that was a great and challenging puzzle
Thanks setter and Jeremy

25:25
Tremendous!
LOI NORWAY: I was thinking NARNIA until I got THATCHERISM. Not keen on “formed” as an anagrind and “by the right” might have fitted better with the marching theme, but otherwise COD.
LOL WENCESLAS.

On dogsitting duties for the weekend, so no time to offer with multiple interruptions, but I was slow. DNF anyway, as I missed the unknown TANKINI. Some great clues, particularly CRANMER, WENCESLAS and COD BESTOWED. Better to marry than to burn! Great puzzle, deserving of my undivided attention.Thank you Jeremy and setter.

Nice chewy Friday job, 35 minutes, no complaints.

Surprised to actually finish this, but all green in 38 mins is good for a Friday for me. One of the most enjoyable solves ever – hard to pick a favourite as there are so many clever surfaces, with many chuckles along the way. Well worth persevering with!

21:53. Very tough, very enjoyable. Like BUSMAN I felt like I was making very heavy weather of it but perhaps it was just difficult.
I’m surprised nobody’s complained about the hom*ophone. ‘Whence his lass’ isn’t how I pronounce WENCESLAS but it’s close enough AFAIC.
I wonder if the setter decided on ‘over forty’ in 15ac just because he or she couldn’t decide if a cat has 8 LIFELINEs or 9.

Hard one but got there in an hour or so with LOI NEE when “before union” finally dropped (unfortunately I didnt get the hom*ophone, for some reason I’ve always pronounced it as in nee-d). NHO TANKINI, thankfully, but similar construction to mankini I suppose (and no, I don’t have one..). I get the DREAM TEAM parsing but don’t care for the clueing and couldn’t work out WENCESLAS nor LIFELINE but were nevertheless write-ins. Good morning’s work, thanks Jeremy and setter.

Gave up on the hour with half a dozen missing. Wouldn’t have seen TANKINI. Had the TEAM part of DREAM TEAM, but don’t understand it. I assume simply that the dream team is the best possible one and therefore peerless. But seems weak.

28.55, and pleased to finish all green as several of these really clever clues were only nearly parsed. So with PYROMANIA, I was so pleased to be able to discard COLT (younger Arab, of course, always is) I forgot to see how it all worked. Still looking for the why of DREAM TEAM: Spurs had one in the early 60’s but played plenty of matches! I believe the 1992 US Olympic Basketball team was known as the Dream Team, and no-one could match them. Perhaps that’s it.
For those worried about looking up TANKINI, fear not: it’s a relatively modest pairing of a tank top and bikini bottom, and won’t frighten the censors.
Great stuff, like being allowed in to the inner circle of the elite while knowing it was only a special concession.

47.46. I don’t know why, but I was really off the pace with this one. ‘Wenceslas’ was a cracker. I’m relieved to learn from other comments that I was not a complete snail.

48.50, but pleased to finish correctly. Distracted by Narnia so NORWAY last in. A vague recollection of there being a line “once king or queen in Narnua, always a king or queen” which led me astray.

DNF, had to cheat on 11a, NEE, 14a, BUDGET (DNK bud=graft,) 17a BESTOWED.
Stunned by intersecting 14d BABY BLUES; had singular in my Cheating Machine but not plural so missed it for ages. Plural is in Wiktionary (and, now, in my Cheating Machine). I was totally unaware that mild post natal depression is called Baby Blues, and made it more difficult by missing the anagram for ages.
5d ANARCHIC couldn’t parse; thanks Plusjeremy. I knew Ranee ands Rajah but not RANA, which is absent from Wiktionary in both English and Hindi, so it is arcane IMHO.
To be picky (and really this isn’t even a MER) you could hit 24d WIDEs, and safe as you won’t be out.
Overall a jolly Friday.

I made very heavy weather of this, finishing (actually not finishing, because I never got WENCESLAS, couldn’t understand it at all and because it was a proper name my search never showed it), after eventually using aids freely, in 94 minutes. So many were entered with a shrug, not really understood as I did them, but after reading this I see they were often very clever good clues. No excuse, just dimness.

Another good workout! I had to leave the NW after FOI, REAR END, as nothing else surfaced. I eventually got moving again in the SE with ATRIUM, and managed to build on it with the bottom half filling up nicely. WENCESLAS was a cracker! Back upstairs, FETID, FAD ANDANTE and DREAM TEAM dropped in leaving the tricky stuff. MUMS THE WORD opened up PYROMANIA and the NW yielded. THATCHERISM, LIFELINE (I’m with Amoeba here) and finally TANKINI finished the job. 27:39. Thanks setter and Jeremy.

65:35. Wow. That was a good one

I put in NAE thinking it was something to do with Scotland pre-union ! How stupid! Otherwise completed fine in 52 minutes or so while awaiting an auction at Drouot. So not the best conditions. Thanks to all. It was a great puzzle!

Well this for me was like i was back in the old days when I began The Times Cryptic: one hour and six clues I could not see. Mind you these days at least I spot the fish that only swims in crosswordland.

Nowhere near finishing in far too long.
But, thoroughly enjoyed the slow reveal of the clues I did get. Needed Jeremy’s superb explanations to appreciate the excellence of this very challenging puzzle.
Thanks Jeremy, and setter.

Took me more than 1 hour but completed – great puzzle.
Thanks for the explanation for Dream Team which escaped me.

Having been out off grid all day in a far flung corner of Scotland, I completed this off the Crossword Club, and am now waiting for the clock to register 30 mins, which is approx how long it took. Mind you, I couldn’t parse REAR END, because I was looking for EAR? as the neighbourhood, so tx Jeremy. I also didn’t quite get BESTOWED because of failing to separate GAVE and ADVICE, so tx again.

I was defeated more by the definition than the maths for LIFELINE which seems to be a blemish on an otherwise tidy puzzle (do cats get lifebelts and lifejackets as well?). NHO TANKINI. Can’t think of a way to justify the use of “tracking” but it’s only a tiny grumble. Thanks for the blog!

This was like yesterday’s (which at least kept my spirits up during the long slog): stopped after an hour, then came back and finished it correctly in another 18 minutes or so. A brilliant puzzle with subtle clues requiring careful reading. I especially liked BESTOWED and BABY BLUES, once I saw that was an anagram. NEE and “waves to Richelieu” were also superb. I’m not sure what the spade was doing in PECAN, since other suits have aces, too. And I also don’t get the arithmetic in LIFELINE, but that was easy to biff. So, a gem of a puzzle with a few minor blemishes.

Great crossword, thanks for explaining lots of things I didn’t get, or did get but didn’t understand. Apologies if this has already been pointed out but I think 20d: “tracking” means the gal follows (tracks) the E.

Surprised nobody has noted that ‘andante’ doesn’t actually mean ‘slow’… Best description is ‘moving along at an easy walking pace’. It’s gentle movement. Sure, it’s slower than ‘allegro’! But it’s never really understood as ‘slow’ in musical terms. That’s reserved for adagio / lento / largo.

I think DREAM TEAM is a sneaky double definition. You can have, as Jeremy notes, one that is without equal (as coined/popularised by the 1992 USA Olympic basketball team) – but it can also be used as a synonym for fantasy sports and also for team of the week/season which makes it a group of players that never actually plays a match together.