The western side of this puzzle put up good resistance! Also, there were gettable answers that featured NHO components, so always good to find a way through. Thanks, setter. How did all you solvers get on with this one?
Note for newcomers: The Times offers prizes for Saturday Cryptic Crosswords. This blog is for last week’s puzzle, posted after the competition closes. So, please don’t comment here on this week’s Saturday Cryptic.
Definitions are in bold and underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Someone who investigates naughty crime (6) |
| PIRACY – P.I., RACY. | |
| 4 | Escaped convict has periodical yen to drink whiskey (8) |
| MAGWITCH – MAG (periodical) + ITCH to drink W. A character in Great Expectations. I knew the name, but nothing more. |
|
| 10 | Female, somewhat game for no privacy settings? (9) |
| FISHBOWLS – F (female) + -ISH (somewhat) + BOWLS (game). “Settings” here are “locations” which have no privacy. |
|
| 11 | Idiot back from Odeon where Wall Street’s seen (5) |
| NINNY – odeoN + IN N.Y. (where you’d find Wall Street; the road, not the movie). | |
| 12 | Learner given promotion is a stable employee (3) |
| LAD – L (learner) + AD. | |
| 13 | Cook’s co-worker, having space, stuffs fish and turkey the wrong way (6,5) |
| DUDLEY MOORE – ROOMY stuffs EEL + DUD, all the wrong way. Pete and Dud appeared in Not Only … But Also. |
|
| 14 | Articles by male, a number stirring up emotions? (6) |
| ANTHEM – AN + THE + Male. | |
| 16 | I’m going to musical in dodgy rep (3,4) |
| ILL FAME – I’LL (I’m going to) + FAME (a stage and film musical). | |
| 19 | Sign of rank cheese not quite acceptable (7) |
| CHEVRON – CHÈVRE (goat’s cheese without the last letter … not quite) + ON (acceptable, as used in “it’s not on, old boy”). | |
| 20 | Throw buns and meat, throwing out starters (6) |
| UNSEAT – bUNS + mEAT. Thrown from a horse, for example. |
|
| 22 | Limit area covered by car in serviceable condition (11) |
| OPERATIONAL – RATION (limit) + A, covered by OPEL. | |
| 25 | Cheer from kind of café, we hear? (3) |
| OLÉ – café au lait. | |
| 26 | Ruminant one put behind west-facing pen (5) |
| ORIBI – BIRO backwards (west-facing), I. | |
| 27 | Architect by awful housing left country’s main city (9) |
| NASHVILLE – NASH the architect + VILE (awful) housing L. The home of country music. |
|
| 28 | Like Egyptian king, see, in smart fashion (8) |
| ASTUTELY – AS (like), TUT (Egyptian king), ELY (see, aka bishopric). | |
| 29 | Bowman miles away from infantryman? (6) |
| ARCHER – MARCHER. Marching would once have been the main activity of foot-soldiers! |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Rubbish heap’s gathered with great volume (6) |
| PIFFLE – PILE has gathered FF. | |
| 2 | Stripped chair cover from chatelaine’s dwelling (9) |
| RESIDENCE – pRESIDENt (chair, stripped), cover from ChatelainE. | |
| 3 | Junior and senior journalists cut up (5) |
| CUBED – CUB, ED. Both are familiar types of journalist, but normally not appearing together in the crossword! |
|
| 5 | Laying off business team so unexpectedly (14) |
| ABSTEMIOUSNESS – anagram, unexpectedly, of BUSINESS TEAM SO. | |
| 6 | Take philosopher’s breath away with small energy generators (9) |
| WINDMILLS – WIND (take breath away), MILL (John Stuart Mill, the philosopher), S (small). | |
| 7 | Brown Golf by roundabout? It follows Sierra (5) |
| TANGO – TAN (brown), G (Golf, in the phonetic alphabet), O (a “roundabout letter”). Tango follows Sierra, since S and T are of course Sierra and Tango in the phonetic alphabet. |
|
| 8 | Literary town always hosting fine comic play (3,5) |
| HAY FEVER – HAY (Hay-on-Wye, the home of the Hay Festival), F (fine), EVER. Hay Fever was written by Noël Coward in 1924. |
|
| 9 | 20 cents to tour northern island lake lacking depth (3-11) |
| TWO-DIMENSIONAL – TWO DIMES (20 cents in US currency) touring N + IONA + L. | |
| 15 | A source of therapy, rehab still mostly works (9) |
| HERBALIST – anagram, works, of REHAB + STILL (mostly). | |
| 17 | Bikini, say, kept by nursemaid for leading cleric (9) |
| AYATOLLAH – ATOLL (Bikini, say) kept by AYAH. | |
| 18 | In the main, order old fish, with ace wraps best (8) |
| OCTOPODA – O + COD + A (ace), wraps TOP (best). If you haven’t guessed, the octopoda are a biological order. |
|
| 21 | Space traveller satisfied with detour avoiding odd places (6) |
| METEOR – MET (satisfied) + dEtOuR (avoiding odd places/letters). | |
| 23 | Novelist is endlessly worked up (5) |
| ELIOT – TOILEd (endlessly, up!). | |
| 24 | Organ, as it happens, close to altar (5) |
| LIVER – LIVE, altaR. | |
My time of 54 minutes suggests I struggled with this but I don’t remember a problem other than having to resort to aids for my LOI, OCTOPODA at 18dn.
Although I didn’t know the word which seems to have been making its debut in a Times crossword I should have got it as I had considered all the elements of wordplay correctly including ‘best / TOP’ and ‘fish / COD’, but somehow I failed to assemble them even with all the checkers in place. This suggests that I had run out of steam by that time and just wanted done with it.
I had to finish this one just now with the last two ELIOT and ASTUTELY for a total time of 1 hour 50 minutes, so I found it hard (and/or took it at a leisurely pace). I particularly liked ASTUTELY, which needed the two PDMs.
I seem to struggle with East/West reversal indicators, as with the west-facing biro today. Words are normally west-facing (ie the front of the word is on the left). The reversal indicator ought to be east-facing?
Many thanks to blogger and setter
Didn’t know chevre cheese for CHEVRON; just about remembered Nash the architect for NASHVILLE, though even then I missed what the ‘country’ bit in the clue was getting at; wasn’t aware that HAY FEVER was the name of a play; 13a had me thinking who James Cook’s travelling companions were before the checkers helped me realise we needed a different person called Cook; took a while thinking of various US terms for small amounts of money before eventually getting TWO-DIMENSIONAL; and managed to piece together the unfamiliar OCTOPODA from wordplay.
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Lad
LOI Octopoda
COD Two-dimensional
DNF. I found this very tough and was left at the end with 10a and 16a unsolved. On studying the blog, I realised that my ignorance of US currency gave me the wrong answer to 9d. I put one-dimensional instead of two-, which meant that the only answer I could fit into 10a was FISHBONES! As for 16a I had ILL – A-E. I couldn’t think of a musical and have never heard of reputation being shortened to rep, so didn’t understand definition.
Thank you for the blog.
I enjoyed the puzzle, but I wondered if “car” = OPEL in 22ac was possibly a bit tough for a British crossword? As I understand it, the car brand is “Vauxhall” here in the UK, and “Opel” everywhere else they are sold (Europe and several other territories).
I can see it’s a useful set of four letters, but if I was asked to list car makes, I think it would take me a very long time to get to Opel!
I was also beaten by octopoda but even when I resorted to aids it wasn’t in my solver – a Seiko ER6700, can anyone recommend anything better?
There’s a web site called “one across”, and various good dictionaries. I use Chambers on an iPad which is very good at wildcard searches.
(And also at intriguing our bloggers with its obscure definitions! For instance, Keriothe said recently, “TRAMLINED is a word that isn’t recognised even by the OED, and the definition picks one single word from the definition in the only dictionary that has it, the ever-eccentric Chambers.”
Citation needed.
Quite. Quick search showed several people commenting to that effect about Chambers. I’ve picked on a lovely example. Thanks. Feel free to embellish 😃
Yet you don’t have one from me. I’ve never said I was “annoyed” by anything in Chambers, to my knowledge.
I did comment recently that Chambers was the only source I could find for a component of a clue in a non-Mephisto puzzle (“therm” for an ancient bath, it was). I didn’t say I was annoyed by that, nor in any way express displeasure. I find obscure definitions fascinating, or I wouldn’t hack away at Mephisto every week.
Sorry if I misread that! I wouldn’t want to put words in your mouth.
Hi again Guy. Just following up to say I’m sorry I misunderstood your views on Chambers. You’ll see I’ve changed my original comment to remove any mention of you. Sorry again.
No worries!
Ok, thanks, i’ll look at that, i’ve got a decent dictionary but I find it easier to use a hand held solver
39.56
Struggled half-way through this but PIRACY (should have got that sooner) opened up the grid for me.
OCTOPODA LOI but once the w/p became clear I worked it out
Loved OLE
Thanks setter and Bruce
Bit light-on in the comments today! As Dvynys above, I stopped halfway through (FsOI LAD and OLE) with the long downs defeating me, but very much enjoyed the struggle I had . COD to ASTUTELY.