Times Saturday 24006 (Aug 30)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 18:46, pretty slow I think, as there doesn’t seem to be too much particularly difficult here now I’m looking at it again.

Across
1 DEADLY SIN – (dines, lady)*
6 LAGOS – O inside LAGS.
9 UNDERGO – ERG inside UNDO.
10 NOT HALF – which can paradoxically mean both “very much” and “in the minority”.
11 DRONE – DR + ONE (= I in Roman numerals).
12 DO ONE’S NUT – (sound note)*
13 CREDO – C (about) + REDO.
14 FIELDSMAN – i.e. FIELD’S MAN. I’d never heard of him, but it must refer to John Field, the Irish composer.
17 BOATSWAIN – OATS inside B(ritish), WAIN
18 TOAST – S(on) inside TO A T (nicely). For a while I wondered what TOAT was supposed to mean!
19 RIGMAROLE – RIG (doctor) + M.A. + ROLE
22 RESIT – I in REST (as in remainder).
24 VITRIOL – TRIO inside VIL(e).
25 TRICEPS – C.E. inside TRIPS
26 RODIN – R + ODIN
27 SALIENTLY – ALIEN T(ourist) inside SLY.
Down
1 DRUID – RU (“Are you”) inside DID
2 ANDROMEDA – in Greek mythology she was chained to a rock, and rescued by Perseus. When she died, Athena placed her amongst the constellations in the northern sky.
3 LARCENOUS – clear* + NOUS
4 SWORD OF DAMOCLES – more Greek myth (or perhaps legend). The sword was suspended from a hair over Damocles as he dined at the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse.
5 NON-GOVERNMENTAL – N in (novel manner got)*
6 LITRE – LIT (settled) + RE (on)
7 GRAIN – G + RAIN
8 SAFETY NET – TYNE inside feats*
13 CAB DRIVER – C(rook), A B(ook) + DRIVER (club).
15 DETERMINE – TED rev. + ERMINE
16 MEANS TEST – (statesmen)*
20 GATED – hidden in “excellinG AT EDucation”. Boarding school slang for being punished with a curfew or confinement to the grounds.
21 ASIAN – A inside A SIN. According to Wikipedia, Asia contains over 60% of the world’s population.
23 TESTY – TEST + (jur)Y

7 comments on “Times Saturday 24006 (Aug 30)”

  1. 24 minutes. Didn’t really grab me, this one. I felt a couple of clues were weak: ANDROMEDA was pretty much a general knowledge clue, and ASIAN at 21d – where the definition is a sort of implied categorical syllogism and where “anger, say” as a cue for ‘A SIN’ also feels vague.

    On the plus side, ticks for 1 DEADLY SIN (maybe 21a should have referenced this), 10 NOT HALF and, the best of them, 18 TOAST.

      1. I took it as an instruction to the solver – a filler word that doesn’t harm the cryptic grammar but improves the surface reading.
        1. Thanks, that was my take on it too but I thought I may be missing something. It’s very distracting to have a filler word right at the start of a clue.
  2. 9:35 for me. I thought this was pleasant enough, with some nice clues, particularly 9A (UNDERGO) and 16D (MEANS TEST) – I don’t recall coming across that anagram before (but possibly have in over 55 years of doing cryptics!?).
  3. Only just looked at this one today.

    At first I thought 6dn was METRE, where met = settled (as in settled the bill), although lit is better.

  4. All this went swimmingly until my LOI at 14a – I just could not fathom it at all. The self-kicking boot came out as soon as I resorted to aids and got FIELDSMAN. Argh – I did not even get a cricket based clue. I had not heard of the Irish composer John Field either. Mistress Wiki tells me he invented the Nocturne which was later used to great effect by Chopin for example. I shall attempt to log John Field into my composers list.
    Thanks for the blog Linx.

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