Saturday Times 24724 (18th Dec)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 15:35, so about just-above-average difficulty. Actually, having read some of last week’s comments I was expecting a real toughie, but I flew through the top half in about 3 minutes flat. The bottom half was another story though. I ground to a complete halt for a couple of minutes before teasing out a couple from wordplay and slowly grinding out the last few. 3D, 25A and 16D made this one a cinch for the musical mafia, but they were some of my last few in.

Across
1 STALAGMITE – STALAG (prison) + MITE (child) for a pointy thing in a cave. My mnemonic for which ones point up and which down is that stalaGmites are on the Ground and stalaCtites are on the Ceiling.
6 CUSP – CU’S P(atrol)
9 FORTRESSES – FOR TRESSES
10 JUTE – JUT + E(uropean). The Jutes were Germanic invaders of Southern Britain in the 4th century or so.
12 COUNTER-EXAMPLE – double definition, the first of which is mildly cryptic.
14 ALISON – A LIAISON, removing the A1.
15 IDEOGRAM – I’D + (GO inside MARE) reversed.
17 CABALIST – BALI inside CAST. Prospero in The Tempest was one, in the looser meaning of the word.
19 DROP-IN – DROP (become less) + IN (popular).
22 NO-WIN SITUATION – NOW IN SITUATION.
24 EELS – SLEE(t) backwards.
25 FALL ASLEEP – FALLA’S + PEEL reversed. Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) was a Spanish composer, who I’d never heard of.
26 TARO – TARO(t). So that’s what those funny brown things in the supermarket are!
27 FORTY-NINER – double definition. Hmph, I had a 117-er once when I was about 12. Eventually it retired undefeated (well, it was starting to crack and I didn’t want to risk it in battle any more). The other definition refers to a prospector in the 1849 Californian gold rush.

Down
1 SIFT – 1’S reversed + F.T. (Financial Times).
2 A PRIORI – I underneath A PRIOR.
3 AARON COPLAND – A(ren)A + R(un) + ON + COP + LAND. Aaron Copland (1900-1990), American composer of concert and film music.
4 MASKED – M(illions) + ASKED.
5 THE BENDS – double definition, again with one mildly cryptic..
7 USURPER – USURER around P(ower). Has it ever been clued any other way, I wonder?
8 PREFERMENT – PRE-FERMENT. I put this in without understanding, and even started looking for relevant quotations before cottoning on.
11 FAVOURITE SON – FAVOUR (badge) + (on-site)*
13 MALCONTENT – M(agistrate) + (cannot let)*
16 OSTINATO – “O, TAN IT SO” reversed. I’ve learnt a lot of musical terms through crosswords, but this was a new one for me.
18 BOWDLER – D(eparts) inside BOWLER. Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), who published an expurgated version of Shakespeare supposedly suitable for women and children.
20 PROTEIN – PRO (for) + “teen”.
21 BULLET – as in the expression “to bite the bullet”.
23 APER – (p)APER.

12 comments on “Saturday Times 24724 (18th Dec)”

  1. Didn’t find this hard, if only because 1 & 9ac fell straight away.
    My mnemonic is simple: “Up go the mites, down come the tites..”
    1. Or: “mites grow up; tites come down” :-).

      11:26 for me. A clever puzzle with tempting false leads like BEAT for 6A and CASTAWAY for 17A.

      For some reason it seems to have vanished from the Crossword Club’s site. (Sigh!)

      1. Aha! The puzzle can be reached from the Forum entry, but apparently the solution will only be published on 3 January, so it’s possible that this blog entry is somewhat premature!
  2. Like Jerry I thought this rather easy, working from top left to bottom right with some of it barely cryptic. Do kids still play conkers – I thought health and safety had stopped fun things like that.
  3. Wish I’d taken this with me to pass the time, as I was stuck for six-and-a-half hours on the M40 last Saturday; ended up reading the car manual. Did this sometime the following day and can’t remember much about it, apart from the fact that it took me 29 minutes and I couldn’t make up my mind whether 26 was TARO or TART: it depends where exactly the pack was nibbled. Falla? I’m sure you’ll recognize The Ritual Fire Dance.
  4. 20:41 for me. Bowdler is reputedly responsible for rendering Othello’s “For she hath played the strumpet twixt my sheets” as “For she hath played the trumpet twixt my sheets” which strikes me as rather more perverse.
  5. In my paper (the New York Post), the clue for 16 down ends with “please be at it like this.”
    The blogger writes that the answer (“ostinato”) is the reverse of “O, tan it so.”
    I suppose that this is based on “o” for “please” (pretty lame), tan for “beat” (not “be at”), “it for “it,” and “so” for “like this.” Oh, please!
    This is altogether unsatisfactory, particularly if “be at” is indeed supposed to be the clue for “tan,” and since when does “o” mean “please”?
    I also have no idea what “conker” is (a game or part of a game, I guess, based on the blog and comment), but will Google it to find out. I did solve 27 across based on the American-oriented second half of the clue, and I solved everything else except for “ostinato,” which, in my view, is far too obscure a word to have been given such an obscure clue.

    1. Sorry, but the New York Post got it wrong. The clue in the Times for 16dn was “Persistent rhythm: to be taken up, please beat it like this (8)”. I agree with you that it’s a bit obscure, but Times solvers are expected to know musical terms. It doesn’t help when it’s printed wrong though!

      A conker is a horse chestnut, skewered and threaded with a string. One player holds his out, the other has to try and hit it. Details here.

    2. There was a lovely use of “O” for “Please” in a clue that
      went something like “Please do your Reagan impression, you fairy (6)”
      which had the answer Oberon.
  6. In “The Australian” version, 5 down has “driver”. Should this be “diver”?
    1. I think either can suit – I slow for the bends, drop to third etc. etc.

      How did I miss Copland (had Holland in the hope that there was such a man)? Faked Ostinato with Ostiparo – how’s that for a howler?

      Was harder that today’s as many have remarked.

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