Solving time 7:55
Not that snappy, but a good puzzle – no obscure words except maybe CUTIS, and wordplay subtlety rather than difficult “general knowledge”.
A quick reminder that today sees the second qualifier for the championship, available as a PDF file which is done better than last time, and is available without Times crossword club membership. CLosing date for entries from this qualifier is 18th April.
Those who fancy a different challenge can take a look at an article about the recent American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, including a link to a PDF that lets you tackle the final puzzle using any of the three sets of clues for different divisions – A is hardest, and I believe the time limit was 15 minutes.
Across | |
---|---|
1 | MI(C)RO – Spanish artist = Joan Miró |
4 | TEST TUBE – split “matchbox” into two words – (international cricket/rugby) match, and tube = TV = “box” (slang) = |
8 | KITCHEN CABINET – (be at check-in in T)* |
10 | I,NSURANCE=(nurse can)* – “trained” = anag. indicator |
11 | DE(B.)AR |
12 | S(ecurit)Y,STEM |
17 | AVER,SION=Zion=Zionism |
20 | PET,E.R. – peter = a prison cell as well as a safe, in slang. |
24 | ACTION(STATION)S – curious that this should be checked by BATTLE at 19D, only a while after we discussed BATTLE STATIONS as a synonym |
25 | MEGABYTE – (maybe get)* – note that a “word” is a number of bytes (4 or * from mempory), so “hundreds of thousands of words” is fairly accurate for 1024 squared. |
26 | REFER – a palindrome |
Down | |
1 | MAKE IT SNAPPY – 2 meanings |
2 | CUT,1’S – cut = “look straight through” as in “he cut me dead” |
3 | OT=to<=,HER,NESS |
4 | TU(r)NING – radio stations rather than railway ones |
5 | SPACEMAN = (name,caps)<= |
7 | BEER BELLY, bitter being a type of beer |
9 | CROWD PLEASER – (replaces word)* |
13 | SPECTACLE – unusually long hidden word |
15 | HOLD WATER – 2 meanings, one being “window cleaners use buckets to (do this) |
19 | B,ATTLE(e) – Clement Attlee, who I believe was a Times solver. |
21 | RAITA – (a tiara(a))<= |
23 | IN,OFF – in = friends via an in-joke being a joke for friends and so on, I guess. |
Al
I figured that the ‘in’ part of ‘in-off’ was from “he’s in with that gang”. Slightly confused as to why ‘while’ = ‘spell’ in 22A.
Colin
How does “too” act as a definition? Is it short for something like “if advert makes a comeback then this, too, is an advert”? Seems pretty feeble to me.
Buzzword
14a Ready to proceed? A must for solvent businesses (4,4)
CASH FLOW
18a Cause problems resulting in stress (4,2)
PLAY UP? This is the DD in question. Is it a DD?
22a Two spells at the same time? (9)
MEAN WHILE. Don’t get this one either?
6d Had a crack checked out (5)
TRIED. Another one !?
16d What’s very often described in a plebian manner? (8)
COMMONLY