18ac: a 'halt' might be described humorously as a 'mini-station'.

I had most of the top half done within 5 minutes but then slowed considerably to complete the grid in 26 minutes. That's 4 out of 5 under 30 minutes for me this week so it's as well yesterday's gave me problems or I might have thought I was improving rather than the puzzles are simply going through an easier patch.

What's with all these French departments this week? Much more of this and I shall have to print a list and learn them!

I'm very familiar with 'lit' and 'lit-up' for 'drunk' as there's a famous wartime song 'I'm going to get lit-up when the lights go on in London'.

Didn't know the seal at 8dn or understand 'amplitude' which I assume has scientific connotations beyond my ken.

A very enjoyable puzzle.

Edited at 2012-04-27 01:00 am (UTC)

...but whipped through this one in 37 minutes, getting stuck only in the SE corner. Rather a scientific puzzle, with 'trigonometry', 'amplitude', and 'oxidation'.

I only saw the joke in the mini-station while Jack was posting, having merely entered the obvious answer during my solve. Nothing here I didn't know, and I am always careful with the letter-substitution clues, looking for the directional indicator so I know what to substitute for what.

30 minutes but fell into the 'infernal' trap. 'Halt' no problem, as Longcross Halt, a stone's throw from the ninth tee on Wentworth's West Course, was a short bicycle ride through the woods when I were a lad.

It's definitely French fortnight what with all the départements and brassières.

Edited at 2012-04-27 02:28 am (UTC)

But as usual on a Friday, I only had a few minutes solve time before having to set off for work. Had to make a guess at the "otary". "Mini-station" was a bit of a laugh. Like most, found the SE hardest with AMPLITUDE and INTERNAL* taken on faith. Would have been much longer on a day that allowed time for more thought. Now there's a lesson.

On edit: oops! INFERNAL. See how easy it is to mis-type the two even after the fact!

Edited at 2012-04-27 03:59 am (UTC)

I thought I had the puzzle wrapped up in an hour but now I see that I have been tripped by the evil 17 Dn going for internal..mostly, I did not get the wordplay and put it down on crossings and wrongly identifying the def. At least I take heart that wiser heads have also taken the wrong turn at these crossroads.

Well I got past the 17down trap, but managed to put an errant R instead of E at the end of 2down to scupper what I thought was a decent solving time. Grrr!

13:54, a PB. As often when I try to solve online (itself not often), the pressure of the clock makes me toss in solutions based on gut feeling and checkers, only parsing after I've typed the thing in. I didn't understand 17d until Dave explained it, but luckily didn't think of the T possibility. 'Otary' (an eared seal, if I recall, and I probably don't) shows up often enough in the NY Times crossword to have been easily retrievable. LOI 1ac of all things. I second jackkt's opinion: a very enjoyable puzzle.

After 3 French departments in recent days, I'm waiting for a combination of Mayenne and Aisne which could, with some tweaking, make mayonnaise. One of my fastest times - 39mins, including a 5 minute break to hang out the washing- was spoilt by an internal error in 17d. 18ac was my favourite clue. Thanks for the enlightenment on drunks and seals. LOI was, ridiculously, 27ac.

Agreed,ulaca. "Ridiculously" was wrong. I meant my comment as a follow-on to Kevin's "of all things" comment on 1ac. Both bookend clues were, as you say, excellent. Mea Culpa!

That's one of those US/UK differences: I'd always heard it as "Give him an inch and he'll take a mile".

How about "It's all over but the shouting"? My sense is that 'but' is always 'bar' in Britain.

Indeed. My quotation was from 1692.

And round here it's a "yard" that you take. Very regional. Someone should do a study...

17 minutes for this. Fortunately I took a couple of minutes at the end to reconsider the hastily bunged-in WALK-OUTS at 1dn.
I didn't understand 18ac because I thought a "halt" was just a station, but Chambers specifies that it is "not fully equipped".

15 minutes, and all's well!
AMPLITUDE looks like one of those two-step Thesaurus clues where definition and entry meet in a third word, "expanse" being the candidate in mine. Perhaps the scientific version doesn't really help here.
N-OTARY went in on vague memory, thinking it might be the other sort of seal: heraldry has many weird words.
DEAL also my last in. At one stage, (c)REAM was a candidate, as an assumed strange word for agreement.
CoD to MINISTRATION both for a smooth and believable surface and the delightful whimsy of halt.

27 minutes but with the infernal internal. Had quotidian (oxidation) for a time which didn't help the scientific branch. A neat little number overall.

Some of this was very, very easy (for me), and some of it much more tricky...

I raced through most of this (albeit it with ?s at NOTARY and MINIS..., ), but came to a halt, as others in the SE with 4 to go.

I then pencilled in 'inherent' for 17 dn (=within?), and 'stet' for 27ac (agreement, 'let it be'), which left no chance whatsoever to get 16dn and 25ac.

Oh dear. Roll on next week.

Very easy puzzle - 15 minutes to solve with no problems along the way

If you think of a sine wave then AMPLITUDE is the maximum distance of the wave at its peak from the zero base line. However, AMPLITUDE isn't just a scientific word. It also means width and range. So stretch isn't too much of a stretch so to speak.

The abundance of French Departments is very odd. Have all the setters been on Gallic jolly? I think we should be told!

A quick solve for me, just under 20mins, but sadly another careless internal here.. stupid really, because on rereading the wordplay, there's no excuse for it.

My only delay in today’s puzzle (which I thoroughly enjoyed) was caused by the use of cupboard to define pantry in PLEASANTRY. I was convinced that cupboard would be press, so the word would end in ness.

The dictionaries all agree that a pantry can be a cupboard but in my experience, a pantry is a small, cool room with stone shelves, used store cheese, bacon, hams, eggs, and the like. I suppose if I had come from a wealthier family the pantry might also have contained a butler, or at least a pantrymaid, … or maybe both.

When I wrote the blog last night, I wasn't aware that a halt was an official term for an under-developed station. I thought the setter was just making some vague association. Now that I know differently, I take back any reservations I originally had about it and think it's actually rather good.

One mistake today. I had Well for 27A (thinking it was, just about, Swell minus the S) and thought how curious it was that the word appeared twice in the same puzzle. Guess that should have rung alarm bells!

Coincidentally Oeuvre is in today’s Financial Times puzzle - clued as “Chap leaving drive for work"

Definitely got trickier as it went along (assuming you're a downhill solver).

My 16:23 was undermined by getting my vowels in a twist and submitting THUME and OUEVRE.

Thought I was going to be stuck as the acrosses weren't very helpful on first read through but the downs came to my aid. Although I did require two applications of Tippex, I did resist the 'infernal' and came in just under 15 minutes.

Anybody else feel 24 ac was a little insipid? Easy enough to solve, or think of a pasta beginning with 'R', but 'rook'— mostly' denoting r and a and I with viol inserted, unless rail is to rook? That aside, even infernal and internal, made for an encouraging start to the weekend.

Enigma

33.23 for me so average. 75% raced in in about 15 minutes but stuck in SE where ministration was the first to fall and is my COD; the rest soon followed. Thanks for blog and to Jimbo for fuller definition of AMPLITUDE about which I was at first dubious but not now.

Didn't get to start this last night, but in two quick breaks at work today it feel into place pretty easily. Last in was CARBONIFEROUS, and I only knew one of the definitions of PEPPERCORN (but it couldn't have been anything else, right?).

CARBONIFEROUS and OXIDATION in the same grid? Yay Chemistry!

Hi all. Long time lurker, first time poster. I'm not exactly sure what I can bring to the discussion, other than the perspective of a novice US solver who can usually get 75% of a puzzle without difficulty. (Thanks to this blog I can get a few hints and finish what's left of the puzzle.)

I finished the puzzle today in an hour at most. Since puzzles usually take me several hours if I finish them at all, I can only conclude this was an easier puzzle than most. I managed a lot of answers from definition alone.

I was unfamiliar with peppercorn = rent, ministation = halt (in the US we might call it a 'stop', but hardly a 'halt'), aude = french department, and otary = seal.

7d went in without understanding of wordplay.

Cheers!

Edited at 2012-04-27 06:56 pm (UTC)

I'm another who fell into the INFERNAL trap. This puzzle was fun and fair. 30 minutes. Nice to see another long-time lurker coming out. I myself lurked for over a year before joining the merry throng.

About 20 minutes, ending with FIGURINE/MINISTRATION. I didn't understand the latter until reading above, so htanks to all for that. It being so late, I won't say much more. Regards.

8:23 for me. The INTERNAL trap made this feel a bit like a Championship preliminary, designed to eliminate the overhasty (thus improving the chances of the tortoises among us :-). Nice puzzle.

and if we want to be strictly correct POWER is not the same as ENERGY (except in crosswordland, where STRETCH and AMPLITUDE are also synonymous)
I too had two WELLs, but that didn't fit in with the rather neat clue for INTERNET (which is surely where many follow this modern-day Evil?)
All sorted out in the end, except for that lingering T! That aside my first week of all finished (can't always get the paper)

JB

now if Daniel could just explain that FT clue...