Times Cryptic No 28056 – Saturday, 14 August 2021. Wine, cigarettes, song … no women!

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This was all enjoyable, but I got stuck on three (!) clues … 20ac, 6dn and 19dn. None of those were impossible but I found them hard to see. Oh well. Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle. How did you all get on?

Notes for newcomers: The Times offers prizes for Saturday Cryptic Crosswords. This blog is posted a week later, after the competition closes. So, please don’t comment here on the current Saturday Cryptic.

[Read more …]Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. Deletions and commentary are (in brackets).

Across
1 Inspiration pilot ultimately found in feature of his training (10)
STIMULATOR –  T from (pilo)T in SIMULATOR.
7 Workers’ traditional housing long ago (4)
ERST – hidden.
9 Reminder to stock wine (8)
KEEPSAKE – SAKE is the Japanese rice wine that you need to KEEP.
10 Parisian goes for smoke, maybe (6)
VAPOUR – on VA POUR une fumeé, non? Not idiomatic, perhaps!
11 Bring out drug sanctioned by law (6)
ELICIT – E, LICIT.
13 Copper left post, admitting booze primarily to blame (8)
CULPABLE – CU, L, B(ooze) in PALE=paling=post.
14 Extraordinary rendition (sic) a foolish act (12)
INDISCRETION – (extraordinary) anagram of RENDITION SIC.
17 Deliver jokes, leading horse to ditch (8,4)
DISPENSE WITH – DISPENSE WIT, H(orse).
20 Shortly one’s told to dance, bursting with energy (8)
ANECDOTE – anagram (bursting) of TO DANCE + E=energy. Cunning definition. Do anecdotes have to be short? Chambers suggests they are.
21 Shoppers finally pay the driver aboard coach (6)
BUYERS – last letters of (pa)Y (th)E (drive)R, aboard BUS.
22 Attend wake (4,2)
COME TO – double definition.
23 Veteran‘s former wife in the chair (3,5)
OLD SWEAT – OLD, W in SEAT. Not a familiar expression, but I may have heard it before.
25 Be wary of female attention (4)
FEAR – F, EAR.
26 Flasher on the coast amusing those at theatre (10)
LIGHTHOUSE – LIGHT=amusing, HOUSE=theatre audience. I liked this.

Down
2 Fearful, with missing millions fast accumulating? (8)
TREBLING – TRE(m)BLING minus M.
3 Politician without a plan (3)
MAP – MP outside A.
4 Lecturer’s first point of minimal importance (5)
LEAST – L(ecturer), EAST=compass point.
5 Too much sentimentality arising from Electra complex (7)
TREACLE – anagram (complex) of ELECTRA.
6 Pair of silver buckles fop sadly lost in duels (9)
RIVALRIES – anagram of (buckles) PAIR OF SILVER, minus FOP that’s sadly lost.
7 Try to excuse old flame with blunter manner, so to speak (7,4)
EXPLAIN AWAY – EX, PLAINA sounds like plainer=blunter, WAY=manner.
8 Artful, drawing in sucker with a smirk? (6)
SMUGLY – SLY draws in MUG.
12 Couriers worried about last month’s appeals from abroad (4,2,5)
CRIS DE COEUR – (worried) anagram of COURIERS around DEC.
15 Accountants joining troops in work moving medicine (6,3)
CASTOR OIL – CAS=accountants, then OR in TOIL.
16 6 of leading actors in film franchise? (4,4)
STAR WARS – the STAR actors are in the WARS=rivalries (cf 6 ac).
18 The Sound of Music extended by and by (7)
ERELONG – ERE sounds like AIR a.k.a. the Sound of Music, LONG=extended. I’d rather someone promised to pay me ‘ERE LONG’ than ‘by and by’!
19 Dress needing bottom of sleeve taken up (6)
ENROBE – E from (sleev)e, BORNE=taken, all ‘up’=‘backwards’, for this down clue.
21 Request gents oddly refused for washroom fitting (5)
BIDET – BID, gEnTs ‘oddly’.
24 Personal question from health authority (3)
WHO – World Health Organisation.

17 comments on “Times Cryptic No 28056 – Saturday, 14 August 2021. Wine, cigarettes, song … no women!”

  1. …to pick out the literal pretty well after decades of experience. Enrobe was indeed difficult, and I had to use to cryptic to get that. Otherwise, not too hard, all done in 29 minutes. You don’t often see subtractive anagram in the daily puzzles, although they are common enough in Mephisto. I did like vapour, where the whole cryptic is in French.
    1. I only worked it out when I read Brnchn’s explanation. I guess that’s post-submission too.
  3. ….a need to brush up my Franglais for the LOI.

    FOI ELICIT
    LOI VAPOUR
    COD DISPENSE WITH
    TIME 10:42

  4. Enjoyed the definition of CASTOR OIL. Took far too long to see that ANECDOTE was simply an anagram, and so it was last one to be elicited. 27:35
  5. 19 minutes so on wavelength. LOI OLD SWEAT. COD to DISPENSE WITH followed by ANECDOTE. These crosswords with such as VAPOUR and CRIS DE COEUR are increasingly testing my memory of 1961 O Level French though. Thank you B and setter.
  6. Liked this one, clever stuff..
    Enrobe took forever to find. And I don’t remember ever seeing erst without its accompanying while before. Try slipping that casually into the conversation ..
  7. I enjoyed this. Like others, I was held up by ENROBE. My favourites were VAPOUR and ENROBE but COD to ERELONG.
    Thanks, Bruce.
  8. FOI MAP and 14 solved in my first session. I was trying to make AIRMANSHIP fit into 1a which held me up a bit.
    A longish second session got me home. LOI KEEPSAKE. STIMULATOR late in; glad it did not end ER. ENROBE derived from cryptic.
    I liked ERELONG and KEEPSAKE best.
    David
  9. A good one. Very pleased with my time — 35:47 — but with one pink square for CRIE DE COEUR. Murder, as they don’t say in France
      1. Ha! For once my ignorance of French helped me: I did notice the plural, and vaguely knew the English saying, so typed in cries de coeur. Except of course it didn’t fit… quick check of the anagram fodder, and managed to delete the (in)correct E.
  10. Another CRIE DE COEUR ici. Didn’t register the plural in the clue. 35:32 Merde!

    Edited at 2021-08-21 02:14 pm (UTC)

  11. Was a bit foxed as I pronounce this eerlong rather than airlong. Am I right? Whatever.
    Whether I am right or wrong, homophones do tend to cause the odd complaint.
    I do waste a bit of time finding the referred to clue when 99a/d (e.g 18d) not in the comments, as this Xword was solved a week ago. Remembering what was said 2 minutes ago is not easy; a week ago is a no-no. But I still remember all of the O-level stuff from 56 years ago. Oh well.
    Andyf
  12. No real difficulties, though it took me 21.11. I believe the (quite easy really) STIMULATOR was nearly last in. Just couldn’t see it.
    “Short” ANECDOTE is correct, of course, but some anecdotes of my recollection have been interminable, even when they “cut a long story short”.
  13. Quite a chewy Saturday offering, I found. FOI 15d CASTOR OIL, LOI 6d RIVALRIES, because it fitted, to be honest, rather than because I understood how the clue led to it. There were several like that, but enjoyed “getting” 18d ERELONG, eventually. As usual the blog has educated and informed, so thank you, and to setter.

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