Times Cryptic 29124 – Sat, 11 Jan 2025.

Author   branchPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

In a hectic week, I was glad this was fairly straightforward. How did you do?

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

Add your introduction here

Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Cordial grand coalition’s over for our times (8)
GALLIANO – G (grand) + ALLIANCE (coalition), with O (over) for[replacing] CE (common era/our times).
6 Raised rent for auditors (6)
HIGHER – sounds (for auditors) like HIRE.
9 Sappers gripping boron drills in base (13)
REPREHENSIBLE – RE (Royal Engineers/sappers) + B (boron) drilling PREHENSILE (gripping).
10 Hound pompous fool engaged in speculative venture (6)
BASSET – ASS engaged in BET.
11 Calamitously paralytic, spending penny in haste (8)
ALACRITY – anagram (calamitously): (PARALYTIC). (No P: spending penny).
13 In middle of playing recorder, copper appeared again (10)
REOCCURRED –  CU (copper) in the middle of REOCRRED (anagram, playing, of RECORDER).
15 Soldiers losing second off-road bike (4)
QUAD – SQUAD.
16 Regularly denied vicarship in Romanian city (4)
IASI – every second letter (regularly denied) of vIcArShIp.
NHO the city; it’s in Moldavia [also NHO].
18 Kill snake with axes after husband and I fretted (10)
ASPHYXIATE – ASP (snake) + H (husband) + XY (axes) + I + ATE (fretted).
If “it ate at him”, then “he fretted about it”. But, can we find a sentence where “ate” can directly replace “fretted”?
21 Unforgettable ace taking part in The Chase (8)
HAUNTING – A taking part in HUNTING.
22 Abstract, inane ideas on origin of Parks and Recreation (6)
PRECIS – P (origin of Parks) + REC+ IS (inane [empty!] IdeaS)
23 Careless hoteliers lost cat (13)
TORTOISESHELL – anagram, careless: HOTELIERS LOST.
25 Extremely censorious about my cakes (6)
SCONES – SC (CS=extreme letters of CensoriouS, about) + ONE’S (my).

Over here, “scone”has a short O. Pronunciations vary; listen here, or recite this ditty:

In my most dulcet tones
I asked the maid for a buttered scone
The silly girl has been and gone
and brought me back a buttered scone.

 
26 Switch on tea-maker for top performer (4,4)
STAR TURN – START + URN.
Down
2 Florid court poet forgetting line (7)
AUREATE – LAUREATE.
3 Surgical procedure wasted copious lint (11)
LIPOSUCTION – anagram, wasted: (COPIOUS LINT).
4 Stop in state capital of Tennessee (5)
AVERT – AVER (state) + T.
5 Old couple drinking last drops of sloe gin outdoors (4,3)
OPEN AIR – O + PAIR drinking EN (last letters [drops] of sloE giN).
6 Rush with small team to replace middle management (9)
HUSBANDRY – S+BAND replacing the middle R in HUrRY.
7 Talk at length and catch up (3)
GAB – BAG, up.
8 Tragedy of poor Lear, etc (7)
ELECTRA – anagram, poor: (LEAR ETC)
12 On paper, males aren’t ultimately essential (11)
REQUIREMENT – RE (on) + QUIRE (paper) + MEN + T (aren’T, ultimately).
14 United Nations article returning Finland to the Finns without dissent (9)
UNANIMOUS – UN + AN (article) + IMOUS (SUOMI = Finland, in Finnish, returning).
17 Attila’s final manoeuvre is uncoordinated (7)
ATACTIC – A + TACTIC.
A medical term, NHO.
19 Peru’s First Couple chat with American stars (7)
PEGASUS – PEru + GAS + US.
20 Amateur right back tackling shooter (7)
TRIFLER – TR (RT=right, back) + RIFLE.
I slowed myself down by assuming the answer started with TR representing “right”, backwards. I finally realised the “TR” went round the outside!
22 Food from grandpa’s table (5)
PASTA – hidden.
24 Hear you can finally flee (3)
RUN – last letters.

29 comments on “Times Cryptic 29124 – Sat, 11 Jan 2025.”

  1. Having ASPHYXIATE and QUAD fairly early on had me on the track of a pangram, trying in vain to find where the Z and J would go. I took a good part of my 27 minutes on last in PRECIS – could an’Eci’ really be an inane idea? In the end I put in PRECIS as the only word I could find to fit the definition. Thanks to our blogger for unraveling the parsing, though I remain a little unimpressed by ‘inane’ as an indication to lose inner ideas.

    1. I had the same thought about ‘inane’ but according to Collins the primary meaning is ’empty, vacant’. It also has the nounal meaning ‘that which is inane; esp., the void of infinite space’ – news to me!

      1. ‘Primary’ as in ‘earlier’? When it entered English in the 16th century, it no doubt meant ’empty’; it came from Latin ‘inanis’=’empty’. Not primary otherwise today..
        I remember ‘the intense inane’–Northrop Frye, I believe, quoting (jokingly) Shelley (‘Prometheus Unbound’) : Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.

          1. What I was getting at is wondering if the no. 1 definition (hence primary def) is no. 1,
            a) because it’s historically prior, or b) because it’s the most common currently. ODE, for instance, evidently organizes its definitions by (b) (see e.g. ‘jejune’).

      2. A synonym for ‘inane’ as it is commonly used is ‘vacuous’ , which is perhaps heading in the right direction.

  2. I used aids to find IASI, which I recognized when I found it but would never have come up with. DNK ATACTIC. Couldn’t parse HUSBANDRY & PRECIS; like Corymbia I’m not keen on ‘inane’.

    1. The Chambers Crossword Dictionary has both “empty” listed under “inane” and “inane” listed under “empty”. Same for Collins Wordfinder. Both are large books with large lists under each entry.

        1. I think I’ve seen esurient here, and probably got it from the same source – the sung Magnificat.

  3. 71 minutes with breaks. I didn’t think I’d finish this but I came back to it after a few days and last three GALLIANO, ATACTIC and (shamefully) SCONES went straight in. Sadly my biffed REACQUIRED gave me three pink squares. Thanks branch for explaining PRECIS.

  4. 49m 55s
    GALLIANO a cordial? Shurely shome mishtake! In at least one dictionary (Collins Online) it’s defined, correctly (in my view) as a liqueur.
    Also it took me a while to accept that ‘inane’ in 22ac can mean empty. I just thought it meant ‘stoopid’.
    Thanks Bruce.

  5. 48 minutes, so not so easy for me. NHO GALLIANO, IASI or ATACTIC but relied on wordplay. I also had a query about ‘inane’ in PRECIS but concluded it’s less of a stretch than some of the anagrinds that have come to be generally accepted.

    My experience regarding the pronunciation of ‘scone’ is that when eating a cream tea, people who put the jam on first first say ‘scone’ and those who put the cream on first say ‘scone’. Hope that helps.

  6. Collins gives ‘to eat away or be eaten away by chemical action; corrode’ for ‘fret’. With ‘inane’ and ‘cordial’ this makes for a high count of (to me at least) unfamiliar meanings of familiar words!

  7. DNF, back in OWL Club with ‘trialer’ rather than TRIFLER.

    – Didn’t know GALLIANO was a cordial
    – Needed the wordplay for the unknown IASI
    – Took ages to see PRECIS, and like others can’t recalling seeing ‘inane’ used in that way before
    – Not familiar with AUREATE, but the wordplay helped
    – NHO ATACTIC

    Thanks branch and setter.

    COD Pegasus

  8. 16a Iasi, NHO as far as I know but the wordplay was easy enough. Could not resist the need to look it up.
    14d Unanimous. Wasn’t confident about my Finnish Suomi, but bashed it in anyway.
    17d Atactic, NHO, cheated by checking Wictionary.
    Not too challenging. Fun.

  9. DNF in 30

    Got PRECIS and TRIFLER which held me up at the end but could make nothing of A_R_A_E so a fail today.

    Nice puzzle; thanks Bruce

  10. 18ac. I see that “fret” comes from Old English “fretan” (to eat), which is related to modern German “fressen” – “to eat, consume, devour, destroy, corrode”.

    The Wright Brothers National Memorial in North Carolina carries an inscription, which is a translation from the Greek poet Pindar’s Fifth Isthmian Ode.
    (photo here: https://www.instagram.com/wrightbrosnps/p/C92SbscPEvG/?img_index=5 ):

    The long toil of the brave is not quenched in darkness nor hath counting the cost fretted away the zeal of their hopes.

    I think some modern counterpoint could provide a sentence where “ate” might replace “fretted”:

    Unfortunately spiralling costs fretted away all the initial enthusiasm for the project.

  11. Have some ticks for the great UNANIMOUS and ASPHYXIATE, also REPREHENSIBLE! Elsewhere, not keen on PRECIS and NHO IASI, ATACTIC or AUREATE. Very slow to get GALLIANO, LOI.
    Is a scone a cake? I’d say not – and so would many establishments offering scones and cakes as separate items.

    1. I would say it depends how you make them. Most scone recipes include eggs, which makes them cakes AFAIC. But there are traditional scone recipes that don’t.

      1. I would definitely not put eggs in scones. Never heard of that. I don’t think a scone is a cake but I could accept it in the puzzle

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