Some wry humour. 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 | River on Henri’s land full of fish, a variable earner (10) |
| FREELANCER – FRANCE (Henri’s land!) full of EEL + R (river). | |
| 7 | Large book showing selfish dedication? (4) |
| TOME – I dedicate this self-congratulatory book … TO ME. | |
| 9 | Cause promoter fuss with a VAT code (8) |
| ADVOCATE – anagram, fuss: (A VAT CODE). | |
| 10 | Illicit delivery which Cinderella expected, initially? (2-4) |
| NO-BALL – a cricketing clue, with a whimsical reminder of the fairytale. | |
| 11 | A bit of fish sent back, given meal stank (6) |
| NIFFED – NIF (FIN, sent back) + FED (given meal). An informal British word, I gather. NHO it. |
|
| 13 | Plastic beer mugs in sink (8) |
| SUBMERGE – anagram, plastic: (BEER MUGS). | |
| 14 | Insufficient amount from a Thermos, cast agreed (5,7) |
| SHORT MEASURE – anagram, cast: (A THERMOS) + SURE (agreed). | |
| 17 | Time late riser’s appearance is noted in church? (6,6) |
| EASTER SUNDAY – just a cryptic definition, unless I’ve missed something. The “late riser” is rising from the dead. |
|
| 20 | Anniversary couple keep hotel robes (8) |
| FORTIETH – FORT + H robes TIE (couple). | |
| 21 | Best school gymnasts possibly tender no longer (6) |
| PESETA – the gymnasts might, whimsically, be sorted into PE SET A, PE SET B, etc. In the definition, tender=currency; that of Spain before the euro. |
|
| 22 | Bogus note written after signing off party in Brussels? (6) |
| PSEUDO – PS (note written after signing off) + EU DO (party in Brussels). I got into a tangle thinking the DO at the end was a musical note. |
|
| 23 | Publican emptied leaky bottles with son (8) |
| LANDLADY – LY (LeakY, emptied) bottles AND + LAD. | |
| 25 | A page turned over for homework (4) |
| PREP – PER (A, as in “tenpence per/a dozen””) + P (page), all turned over. | |
| 26 | Essentially identical straw regularly eaten by brown horse (10) |
| TANTAMOUNT – TA (sTrAw, regularly) eaten by TAN MOUNT. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Signal ship must show to port Spooner’s shown to starboard (3,5) |
| RED LIGHT – Spooner’s LED RIGHT. | |
| 3 | Energy doubled self-confidence (3) |
| EGO – E (energy) + GO (energy, again). | |
| 4 | Grant’s off in Scotland with doctor, heading north (5) |
| AWARD – AWA’ (Scottish form of “away”) + DR heading north. | |
| 5 | Sort of bun beside tea cups (7) |
| CHELSEA – CHA cups ELSE. | |
| 6 | Motors with limited range burn out as modelled (9) |
| RUNABOUTS – anagram, modelled: (BURN OUT AS). | |
| 7 | Computer blitzed nine second game (5,6) |
| TABLE TENNIS – TABLET + anagram, blitzed: (NINE) + S. | |
| 8 | A girl, not yet twelve, set up resort (6) |
| MALAGA – backwards (set up): A + GAL + AM (not yet 12; before noon). | |
| 12 | Oscar winner as relaxation quietly eats chewy sweet (7,4) |
| FORREST GUMP – FOR REST (as relaxation) + P eats GUM. | |
| 15 | Ill relation of Mike lives on wine (9) |
| MISREPORT – M + IS + RE + PORT. | |
| 16 | Large mammal that’s vanished mother never spots returning (8) |
| MASTODON – MA + NO DOTS returning. | |
| 18 | Awful leech attached to tier of organisation (7) |
| ECHELON – ECHEL (anagram of LEECH) + ON (attached to). | |
| 19 | Speedos serve to cover bum (6) |
| DOSSER – hidden. | |
| 21 | Notice fuzz from beneath furry forest creature (5) |
| PANDA – AD (notice) + NAP, from below. | |
| 24 | Somewhere to go for a game of cards (3) |
| LOO – two meanings. Rather an old game of cards, I suspect. |
|
43 minutes. I had no queries or comments on my print-out, but on revisiting the puzzle today I am struck by how good many surface readings are, and has been noted by our blogger, how gently amusing.
Took me an age to parse FORTIETH but after seeing keep/fort it went together. Liked the ‘selfish dedication’ for TOME. Didn’t parse Easter Sunday at the time so thanks for the ‘rising from the dead’ hint. LANDLADY had me stumped as all I could come up with was ‘landlord’ which didn’t parse or fit the crossers. I simply didn’t think of the female equivalent. Liked RED LIGHT and Spooner’s starboard low-voltage version. NHO the game LOO.
Thanks B.
This was a relief after yesterday’s ( Friday’s) horror show.
Nice puzzle, no questions this week. Good blog.
I did attempt to play loo once. Like many 100s of traditional card games they are seldom played these days. Even bridge has taken a back seat. Pity!
Don’t remember too many major problems with this – NIFFED was the only word I wasn’t familiar with, made clear by the wordplay made it clear, and like Quadrophenia I took a while to realise that the publican might be a woman and get LANDLADY.
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI No-ball
LOI Misreport
COD Submerge
Wasn’t keen on NIFFED, but generally I liked this a lot. COD to EASTER SUNDAY – brilliant clue and took me ages. I liked MISREPORT, RED LIGHT and FORTIETH, too. There was the usual hiaitus over the rn/m Times typeface problem in 19a, as I tried to work out whether it was burn or bum, but luckily saw the hidden eventually which resolved the issue. Note to self: disregard PS in an alphabet trawl at your peril! PSEUDO LOI.
I thought I had lost my copy, but I found it in the discard pile. As I recall, I thought peseta and pseudo were brilliant, and the rest very good. I was a bit surprised to see Forrest Gump, as we don’t usually get movie names.
Time: 54:22
Managed this in a leisurely manner. I thought the cluing was fair throughout as, unusually, I had no questions over parsing.
Nice Xword. Hardest for me seem to have been 1a Freelancer, 21a PE set A, 7d TableT enni s and 12d (COD) Forrest Gump which fortunately I saw once.
A day late but wanted to thank branch for sorting out some of the trickier parsings (and a couple of answers: ADVOCATE (doh) and MISREPORT). Lots of humour which was right up my street. Didn’t finish, obviously, but enjoyed what I could manage, especially RED LIGHT, NO BALL and PESETA. I did know NIFFED and remember using it as a student in the 80s. Many thanks branch.
Like Fabian, but a month late, and there were a few I had to look up. Did not know that meaning of MISREPORT , had forgotten PESETA, and EASTER SUNDAY was too clever for me. But overall I did ok, getting 19 out of the 26 with no difficulty, and a little smile.
Cannot for the life of me work out how misreport has any connection with ill relation…
He told the story badly. It was an “ill” relation of the story. He mis-reported it!
Thanks