I made rather heavy weather of this and came in only just under an hour.

I didn't know the second meaning of LIGATURE, SHAW = wood or the French name although I knew of the incident having looked her up later.

BRADSHAW was in my mind as I am currently following Portillo's latest travels through Europe. 9dn cheered me up during my long haul.

"The Möbius strip is not that" seems fine to me. Bring ’em on I say, Dear Setter! Also a way of keeping the sci-wallahs happy.

...of more of less steady solving. My main problem was that I had never run into Charlotte Corday, so had to work her out from the anagram. But 'vespers' was my last in, as I had been fearing some dreadfully obscure canonical hour until I saw 'privates'.

I put Bradshaw in almost on sight, being familiar with it from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Otherwise, non-UK solvers might have a difficult time with that one.

23:24 .. nearly 10 minutes at the end on BRADSHAW, CLEPSYDRA, MARYLAND and CHARLOTTE CORDAY (a recurring mental blank for me).

Quite a few things in here which, if not obscure, certainly took some serious dredging up for this solver.

Not at all straightforward in my opinion. Lots of meaty stuff and then the murderess (murdereuse?), who I restyled as 'Dorcay', which rather mucked things up down below. Needed aids after an hour for the original anorak, the water clock and the state - which was rather good, and certainly too good for me today.

For once I was on the wavelength, ripped through in fifteen minutes while England bowled four overs at India. Some easy clues gave enough checkers for the rest and made me see CLEPSYDRA was a nice anagram. Just had to check that DRIBLET was a word.

I felt whilst solving that apart from Mobius there was a lot of oldish stuff in this - answers that I knew because they had caught me out in years gone by. That was certainly true of LIGATURE, CHARLOTTE, CROESUS, BRADSHAW and CLEPSYDRA.

I thought Mobius might cause some problems because I don't recall seeing him before in this puzzle - but that might just be my inceasingly fallible memory. I remember learning about the one sided strip by a teacher taking one of those old paper-chain strips, giving it a single twist and then joining the two ends together.

Thought this was quite difficult due to various gaps in my knowledge - hadn't encountered CHARLOTTE CORDAY, BRADSHAW, and shaw, and though I (thought I) dimly remembered CLEPSYDRA from somewhere I was worried that the anagram offered other possibilities.

A DNF after an hour as Bradshaw and sacra were unknowns and ungettable as the cryptics were also unknown being the wood and the state capital. My life is much too short to learn such geographical trivia so I am resigned to such failures. I doubt I could remember the county towns of England and Wales never mind overseas ones! Rutland anyone?

I've heard of a bradawl (sis was a saddler), so guessed the brad = nail part and a sneaky look in the dictionary confirmed the rest
Generally found this quite tough (esp to start, FOIs were SACRA and CLEPSYDRA!). Well over the hour but still enjoyable nonetheless

JB

Exactly!

I had all but two done after just under 20 minutes but got no further than that:
> I didn't know either meaning of LIGATURE
> I have never come across brad, shaw or BRADSHAW.
At least the assassin was gettable from the cryptic.

About three-quarters of an hour with 1.ac. last in. All in all quite a tough little number I found. I'd call 17 definition via a unique point of interest rather than by non-example. Good to be reminded of The Beggar's Opera; something special in that and what's been done with it. And clepsydra for the word somehow, maybe its delicate ugliness. (Not to speak of driblet.)

I struggled with this one. Came up two short after much perseverance (Bradshaw and the well-disguised Maryland missing). For a while I feared I might have to turn to aids with more than half the grid bare (!!) but once I’d corrected 17 down from One-Sided to Two-Faced and then got Fashion and Charlotte Corday the bottom half more or less yielded. Guessed Ligature from the checkers. Brayed made me chuckle and reminded me of last week’s excellent Oink.

Much of this puzzle was reasonably straightforward, but with some obscurities and tricky and ingenious wordplay (RUGBY and BRAYED were both very good, I thought). CLEPSYDRA, which as Jimbo says has cropped up in the past, swam slowly to the surface from the murky depths of memory.

Re 20 ac (MASSAGED), I can attest from time spent on the Board of a local hospital that masseurs and physiotherapists regard themselves as belonging to very distinct and jealously guarded disciplines, but, for xword purposes, I don't think we need quibble too much about this definition.





Re 20 ac

Not much trouble today, getting through in 20 minutes, ending with the well disguised MARYLAND. Never heard of BRADSHAW as railroad timetables, but I put it in anyway based on the nail and that the wood must be 'haw', and not worrying about the 's'. CHARLOTTE from the anagram, ditto CLEPSYDRA, though I admit I've seen it in here previously. The chance that I'd remember how to spell it is, well, unlikely at best. I smiled at PRIVATES, and I like the def. for WIRED. Regards.

8:32 for me - not quite up with the fast brigade, but not completely out of touch. Nothing unfamiliar, and very much up my street really.

Fairly easy, finished in about 45 minutes only to discover I had 580 points as a score. But the mistake was only a typing error (DLLATE rather than DILATE). I could have caught it by proofreading, but greed and haste got the better of me. LIGATURE I thought a very clever clue, and LUTHER and BRAYED quite good too. BRADSHAW was just a lucky guess, since I rarely ride trains in Britain (BRAD fit the nail, and SHAW seemed plausible to follow it -- this must be one of the many things I know by osmosis and nothing more).

P.S. I see now they are HISTORICAL timetables. Still a lucky guess, since I NEVER rode trains in Victorian Britain.

Edited at 2012-12-05 11:30 pm (UTC)