Many clues this week were puzzling: what does this word mean? is that actually a word? But, when the penny dropped, smiles! 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
| Across | |
| 1 | Suspect clues introduced by agent matter fundamentally (9) |
| MOLECULES – MOLE (agent) + anagram, suspect, of: (CLUES). | |
| 9 | Catch on toilet sticks in this makeshift shelter (7) |
| TWIGLOO – TWIG (catch on) + LOO. Is that a word? Yes – it’s in the dictionary. |
|
| 10 | Cross evacuated zone with military officers (7) |
| ZEBRASS – ZONE + BRASS. Is that a word? Yes, it’s a male zebra crossed with a female ass. |
|
| 11 | Acceptable charges overturned after tax reminder (5) |
| TOKEN – OK (acceptable) goes inside (charges) TEN (NET=after tax, overturned). | |
| 12 | Hooter set in oil well blasted a couple of times (6,3) |
| LITTLE OWL – TT (a couple of T=times) set in anagram, blasted, of: (OIL WELL). | |
| 13 | European aircraft holding 100 men one could expel (7) |
| EJECTOR – E (European) + JET holding C (100) + OR (men). | |
| 15 | Single bit of evidence attorney put before Corporation (5) |
| DATUM – DA + TUM. | |
| 17 | Cheesy sauce over puff pastry for starters (5) |
| SOPPY – SOY (a sauce) over PP (starters of Puff Pastry). | |
| 18 | Head of Scotland Yard team (5) |
| SQUAD – S (head of Scotland) + QUAD. | |
| 19 | Spirits guiding information I repeated (5) |
| GENII – GEN (information) + I + I. “Guiding” is definitely a word, but I don’t know where it fits in this clue. I couldn’t find dictionary support for either “gen” as “guiding information”, or “genie” as “guiding spirit”.On edit: as Peter W explains below, a GENIUS (pl. GENII) can mean a guiding spirit that is with a person from birth to death, so the word is part of the definition. |
|
| 20 | Servant carrying too much soup (7) |
| POTTAGE – PAGE carrying OTT. | |
| 23 | Cardinal is essentially parish priest in red uniform (9) |
| RICHELIEU – RI (paRIsh, essentially) + ELI in CHE + U. | |
| 25 | Clobber worn by a bishop? (5) |
| HABIT – HIT worn by (A + B). And, the whole clue is “&lit.” – both wordplay and definition. | |
| 27 | Bush sheltering a river location where drinkers gather (7) |
| BARROOM – BROOM sheltering A + R. NHO BROOM as a bush (rather than a “brush”), but it is in the dictionary. |
|
| 28 | County Kerry condemned hard border (7) |
| ROCKERY – anagram, condemned: (CO KERRY). | |
| 29 | IT execs affected by cut in US surcharge (6,3) |
| EXCISE TAX – anagram, affected: (IT EXECS) + AX (the U.S. spelling of AXE). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Smuggler penning final letter in duplicate — it’s at gunpoint (6) |
| MUZZLE – MULE penning Z x 2. | |
| 2 | Trap leaderless gangster parking in building site (7,3) |
| LOBSTER POT – MOBSTER + P (parking) in LOT (building site). | |
| 3 | Cautious drawing in lad’s daily (8) |
| CHARLADY – CHARY drawing in LAD. | |
| 4 | Look to rope in quadruped with this? (5) |
| LASSO – LO to rope in ASS. The definition refers back to the rest of the clue. |
|
| 5 | Groom’s crazy about old flame (9) |
| STABLEMAN – STAB (BATS, about) + LEMAN. Yes, LEMAN is an [archaic] word, meaning “lover”. |
|
| 6 | Six day nurses run practice of excellence (6) |
| VIRTUE – VI (six) + TUE (day) nurses R. | |
| 7 | Adverse criticism of lakeside houses (4) |
| FLAK – hidden (housed). | |
| 8 | Cut off my daughter ringing up before noon (8) |
| CORNERED – COR (my!) + D, ringing NERE (ERE Noon, up). | |
| 14 | Last header on target — own goal scored by United attack (5,2,3) |
| TOUGH IT OUT – T (header on Target) + OG (own goal) scored by U + HIT OUT (attack). Sorry, I can’t think of a sense in which “scored by” means “inside”. Suggestions welcome. |
|
| 16 | Silicon based mineral is a sort of geyserite (6-3) |
| TIGERS-EYE – anagram, sort of: (GEYSERITE). | |
| 17 | Criminal perhaps might pinch one (8) |
| SAPPHIRE – anagram, criminal: (PERHAPS I). | |
| 18 | Sister keeping concept manuscript pieces close at hand (8) |
| SIDEARMS – SR (sister) keeping IDEA + MS. | |
| 21 | National song book collection purloined by attention seeker (6) |
| ANTHEM – NT purloined by AHEM. This is a bit clearer than 14. If you purloin something, you might hide it in something, I suppose. |
|
| 22 | Lout failing to start puzzle (6) |
| LUMMOX – FLUMMOX. | |
| 24 | Her sweet drops could be like sugar-lumps (5) |
| CUBIC –C Phew – last one parsed. And a struggle it was! |
|
| 26 | American’s ready for stag, perhaps (4) |
| BUCK – a cryptic hint, or you can call it two definitions if you insist. Firstly money, secondly deer. | |
Very interesting blog – lots of things I’d missed.
For 19ac, I think we need one of the later definitions of GENIUS – rather than genie/jinni.
From Collins:
5. Roman mythology
a. the guiding spirit who attends a person from birth to death
…which in that sense has the plural GENII.
14d. I hadn’t thought much about “scored by”, probably thinking of scoring (cutting into) the skin of meat before cooking. But that might not be the best explanation.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a TWIGLOO but I love the word, easily gettable from the wordplay. I agree with Peter above that scored means ‘cut into’ in 14d TOUGH IT OUT. NHO ZEBRASS either. I like TIGERS EYE for the mineral. Had no idea about leman in STABLEMAN and had CUBIC but only from sugar-lumps, so thanks.
TWIGLOO came up about 18 months ago in Mephisto shortly after the equally splendid TWIGSOME. If I recall correctly ZEBRASS has also appeared there more recently.
The parsing of CUBIC also eluded me.
I often read the Mephisto blog for fun but would never attempt it. Just looked up twigsome to find it means ‘covered with twigs’. Thanks.
Well, I’m glad at least that George and I have a few readers. Often we get only a few comments – feel free to speak up, even if you don’t do the puzzles.
I’ve added Twigsome and Twigloo to the Cheating Machine, and was surprised to find both in Wiktionary. I found a Twigwam on Google, but not in Wikt, and added that too.
Due to a cock-up, I didn’t do this puzzle last Friday evening, so instead I did it this evening. It was a bit chewy, but as a hardened solver I have seen zebrass and twigloo before, and f/lummox is an old friend. Of course I know leman – it’s in Chaucer, and probably Spenser as well. I didn’t bother to parse tough it out and Richelieu, since they were the obvious answers. I thought lobster pot and anthem, my LOI, were going to give trouble, but then I saw them and then parsed them.
Time: 30:40
52m 55s
I’m pleased I’m not the only one who wondered if TWIGLOO and ZEBRASS were real words!
Same with LEMAN. I know Lac Léman i.e. Lake Geneva, but that has an e acute in it.
Thanks Bruce!
One hour with one look-up – TWIGLOO. It has appeared only three times in the TfTT era and the last two were in Mephisto puzzles which I don’t do. Its only outing in a regular puzzle was 9 years ago in a 15×15 blogged, but not remembered, by me. On that occasion it was clued perhaps more generously: Cotton on large rings forming shelter (7).
Elsewhere I solved but failed to parse GENII and CUBIC which both turned out to be somewhat tricky.
Do bishops wear habits? They would need to for the &lit definition to work at 25ac.
Hardest Saturday puzzle for a while. Some of the containing indicators ( purloined..charges..scored by) stretching it somewhat.
54:56. found that very hard. quite weird having those hybrids at the top (MULE, ZEBRASS) as well as other animals… TWIGLOO was a new one on me. thank you!
‘EXCISE’ a tax? Not here in the UK as I remember…But I have to accept that the Americanism is creeping in!
Hardest Saturday one I can remember, in two years. I too did not like TOUGH IT OUT, for the reason alluded to above.
A bit of British history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excise_Bill
I was an 18th-century specialist in English Lit grad school, and the opposition to Walpole’s policies by the Pope-Swift-Gay group came up quite a bit.
Hello Vinyl1
I have to say “touche” (not knowledgeable enough to do the accented ‘e’). But it still grates!
I suppose the whole point of our pastime is teasing out definitions which are, deliberately, stretched beyond the norm. And I will accept that, although my personal maximum stretching point jibs at “tax”, there are other views!
As a beekeeper I have long since been able to stay calm when people say ‘hive’ when they mean ‘colony’; or ‘swarm’ when all they mean is a few bees more than they expect, rather than reserving that word’s use for a reproductive event.
Thanks for the response.
John
A pangram – and not far off being a double pangram! I had trouble with the NE corner, but realised that we hadn’t had a V or an F – so that helped with solving it. Also there were 11 instances of double letters, so the setter was certainly trying for something.
Loved (F)lummox – not seen that one before.
78 minutes. That was hard. I did about 70% to start with, leaving most of the SW and NE blank. They needed several visits. TWIGLOO was new and CORNERED was LOI.
Got there in the end, but with several unknowns where I was crossing my fingers.
– Relied on the wordplay for the TWIGLOO and ZEBRASS
– More familiar with ‘potage’ rather than POTTAGE
– Recognised the name RICHELIEU from somewhere but couldn’t have told you he was a cardinal
– Didn’t know bush=broom for BARROOM
– Dimly remembered leman as a lover from previous crosswords for STABLEMAN
– NHO TIGERS-EYE but it was the only realistic option with the checkers
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Buck
LOI Zebrass
COD Cornered
Thought this was a cracker, albeit taxing. I really don’t mind unknown words (to me) in a crossword, so long as they are fairly clued, which ZEBRASS and TWIGLOO were. Liked LITTLE OWL and ROCKERY.
Phew. Took me 2 weeks but got there in the end albeit three unparsed being token stableman and cubic. I think cherubic meaning sweet is stretching it a bit. Not heard of leman as lover although my husband has apparently not that he came up with it to help. I think my favourite was ejector which took me a long time till the penny finally dropped. Discovering twigloo is a real word was hilarious. Thanks for the blog.