Saturday Times 24759 (29th Jan)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I solved this on the train on the way to Derby last weekend for the first non-London Sloggers and Betters event. A fairly quick solve – approx 15 minutes including 2 or 3 at the end for 2D and 10A.

Across
1 EMPHATIC – E(nergy) + P(ower) inside (match I)*
9 HOW-D’YE-DO – W(ife) + DYE inside HO(use) DO. I figured this one out from the (3-3-2) and worked backwards.
10 TAIL RACE – AIL inside TRACE. I put in MILL RACE at first from the definition, which caused me all kinds of problems with 2D later. Got there in the end from the wordplay, but I’d never come across the word before. A few people I met in Derby who’d solved it, their first question was “What did you have for 10 across?”
11 CHEW OVER – HEW in COVER.
12 NAIL POLISH – cryptic definition.
14 PLOT – double definition.
15 SLEEPER – double cryptic definition. Nice little sequence there!
17 KAISERS – (risk sea)*
21 I-SPY – IS + PY (remove ART (skill) from PARTY)
22 APARTMENTS – APART (separate) + MEN (soldiers) + ??? I stuck this in without much thought last week, but I can’t make it work now. Maybe there’s a word for “soldiers in tanks” with a missing initial letter, but what’s “civilian” doing there? I have to be missing something! [ Actually, it’s PART + MEN inside (v)ATS. See tringmardo’s comment. ]
23 AGNUS DEI – I.E. + SUNG around D(ay), + A, all reversed.
25 TOPOLOGY – POLO (explorer Marco) inside GOT reversed, + (German)Y.
26 TREASURE – T(hink) + RE + A + SURE
27 DING-DONG – double definition.

Down
2 MEATBALL – MET + BALL around A. Easy in hindsight, but I was totally stuck for a while looking at the perfectly plausible M?I??A?L due to my mistake at 10A.
3 HALF-BLUE – BLUE after HALF. A university sportsman who’s only made it to the subs’ bench.
4 TEAM – alternate letters of ThE fArM.
5 CHECK-IN – “Czech” + IN
6 SWEETHEART – (sweater)* around HE + T(-shirt).
7 MELVILLE – V(ery) ILL inside MELE(e).
8 SOCRATES – SO C(onservative) RATES.
13 OVER AND OUT – OVER (about) + (h)ANDOUT
15 SKI PANTS – SKIP + ANTS
16 EXPENDED – EX + P(enny) + ENDED
18 SPECKLED – PECK (Gregory, old actor) + LED after S(haky).
19 RATTIGAN – (in regatta)* without the E. I liked “playfellow”, but I think I’ve seen it before.
20 HABITED – H(ot) + ABED around IT.
24 OPEN – hidden in “EurOPE Not”.

15 comments on “Saturday Times 24759 (29th Jan)”

  1. I agree with you, linxit. Where does “civilian” come from and where do the 2 letters after “men” come from? I’ve been waiting a week to find out!
  2. I think it is part = separate, men = soldiers, in vats without the v
    (ie tanks initially missing) and civilian accommodation = apartments, as a contrast to military accommodation presumably.
  3. 36 minutes. Here’s another who had trouble unpicking APARTMENTS. I’d contrived a barely plausible justification by taking the initial C of civilian away from cats (tracked vehicles); Trigmardo’s explanation is much more likely.

    Thought SLEEPER had a clever clue.

    So Gregory Peck is now considered an “old actor”. It seems only yesterday that I saw him play Captain Ahab, whose words come to mind when I’m struggling to finish a puzzle: “to the last I grapple with thee”. (And I’ve just noticed that Melville is there at 7 down.)

  4. This came up in the puzzle I blogged on 24th September last year, No 24651. You mentioned it in your contribution, linxit, but not as an unknown. The mind plays tricks sometimes!
    1. Forgot to say 35 minutes for me, so one of the easier Saturdays. And no queries or quibbles.
  5. 30 minutes. TAIL-RACE had appeared recently enough that it hadn’t entirely faded from my memory, or it might have taken me longer. I’m happy to find that John from Lancs and I came up with the same ex post facto explanation for APARTMENTS; would have been happier, of course, if it had been the correct one. Since we know that there are no living people in these puzzles, I do think the setter could have spared the sensibilities of us over-40’s and just said ‘actor’; Pola Negri or Rudolf Valentino are old actors.
  6. Same problems as Andy at 10ac and 2dn, but about an hour, and with recourse to aids to finish off with the unknown TAIL RACE.
    1. Ulaca, you also mentioned TAIL RACE in the discussion on 24th September last. How soon we forget! I happened to remember this one, probably because I wrote the blog that day, but I’m sure there are many other new words that go in one day and drop straight out the next.
      1. Not even a glimmer of a remembrance. Perhaps unknown words in certain lexical areas stick better than those in others, and I fancy for me at any rate single words are easier to remember than multi-word phrases. Still purring that I dug up ‘niacin’ the other day, so I’ll just ‘accentuate the positive’!
  7. I did most of this in about 25 minutes but then stared and stared at 10ac. Eventually I gave up, came back to it later and pieced it together from wordplay. I was still unsure because from memory (I don’t have the puzzle to hand) the TRACE synonym wasn’t quite a slam dunk. Still TAIL RACE was the best I could come up with so I bunged it in and a quick Google dispelled my doubts.
    This is my practice with the daily puzzles: I always make myself put something in before resorting to aids. This is partly so that if I happen to be right I can say with a clear conscience that I finished successfully, and partly to implant whatever it is that I’m learning more firmly in my memory. If I did this the last time TAIL RACE came up it didn’t work – like Ulaca I see that I mentioned it on 24 September. A good memory would make these puzzles so much easier…
  8. 11:44 for me. No real problems as I knew TAIL RACE. I’m with those who thought calling Gregory Peck an “old actor” was a bit much!
  10. Not at all happy with this. You would NEVER hear it uttered by an air traffic controller. It’s either OVER or OUT but it cannot be both.

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