I found this harder than recent weeks. Possibly that was because I tackled it in the brief breaks in an otherwise busy day. It will be interesting to know what others thought. Thanks, setter. How did you all 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. With the luxury of a week to do the blog, I can expand on the wordplay:
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- where explanations are necessary, wordplay fodder – synonyms and the like – appear in [square brackets]
- wordplay instructions appear thus
- anagram fodder is (THUS)*, with the anagram indicator in italics
- a ^ symbol indicates where text is to be inserted.
| Across | |
| 1 | Grandeur that is recalled by one ancient city (7) |
| POMPEII – POMP [grandeur] + EI [IE, recalled] + I. The ancient city is usually UR, so I wasted time looking for a synonym of “grandeur” also ending in UR. |
|
| 5 | Bulk of money earned for each journal submission? (5) |
| PAPER – PA [bulk of PAy] + PER [for each]. | |
| 9 | God particle? A godsend, securing lead in sciences (5) |
| BOSON – BO^ON [a godsend] securing S [lead in Sciences]. The media like to call the Higgs boson the “God particle”, but the name has been criticised by physicists. In quantum mechanics, this is the particle that gives other particles their masses. Don’t ask me how that works! I suspect the particle is more commonly called “the Higgs” rather than just “a boson”. The wordplay showed which was the answer. |
|
| 10 | Music’s pulse — odd thing to drop it for a while (9) |
| TEMPORARY – TEMPO [music’s pulse] + RARitY [odd thing, dropping IT]. | |
| 11 | Times function in cathedral city? Absolutely (7) |
| EXACTLY – XACT [times + function] in E^LY. Another where I wasted time, here trying to use “TT” for “times”. |
|
| 12 | Back working with India — a little disagreeable? (7) |
| NOISOME – NO [ON, back] + I [India, in the phonetic alphabet] + SOME [a little]. | |
| 13 | Thames activity beginning to see a Parisian returning in Thames location (4-6) |
| SWAN UPPING – S [beginning to See] + NU [“un” = “a” in Paris, returning] in WA^PPING. [Once I knew the last letter was “G”, I thought the Thames location might be Ealing.] We’ve met swan upping before, most recently in Jan 2022, although it did get a passing reference in June 2025. |
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| 15 | Boss never coming between king and bishop (4) |
| KNOB – NO! [never] coming between K+B. | |
| 18 | Botched component of later course? (4) |
| DUFF – the definition is “A DUFF/BOTCHED JOB”. As well as being a pudding, DUFF can mean “dough”, from which the pudding is made. | |
| 20 | One looking to plunder drink coming round to enter message on page’s bottom (10) |
| FREEBOOTER – REEB [BEER, coming round] to enter F^OOTER. | |
| 23 | Dispute diminished one pursued by the French revolutionary (7) |
| QUARREL – QUARRY [one pursued, diminished] + EL [revolutionary LE=”the” in French]. | |
| 24 | The writer, with method, is penning start of racy autobiography of a sort (7) |
| MEMOIRS – ME [the writer] + MO [method] + I^S penning R. | |
| 25 | After end of course, understood one’s habitual response praising oneself (9) |
| EGOTISTIC – E [end of coursE] + GOT [understood] + IS [one’s] + TIC [habitual response]. | |
| 26 | Poet to assess cutting 40 per cent, even cutting out middle section (5) |
| AUDEN – AUD [AUDit, cutting 40%] + EN [EveN, cutting out middle]. | |
| 27 | Fit cast on the radio (5) |
| THROE – sounds (on the radio) like THROW [cast]. I was slow to recognise “throe” as a word, especially since we usually see it in the plural! |
|
| 28 | Confused style limiting advanced books (7) |
| CHAOTIC – CH^IC [style] limiting A + OT. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Give a word of thanks for tomato sauce (7) |
| PASSATA – PASS + A + TA. | |
| 2 | Child transfixed by cross monster (8) |
| MINOTAUR – MINO^R transfixed by TAU. I appreciated the help with spelling the answer! |
|
| 3 | Privileged classes ignoring first item in list (5) |
| ENTRY – gENTRY, ignoring first. | |
| 4 | Pervasiveness from men working with cinema (9) |
| IMMANENCE – (MEN CINEMA)*, working. | |
| 5 | Verbose part cut in films (6) |
| PROLIX – ROLe cut, in P^IX. | |
| 6 | Group of soldiers also covered by proposal (7) |
| PLATOON – TOO covered by PLA^N. | |
| 7 | Translation of Homer omitting nothing, but including unknown verse (5) |
| RHYME – RH^ME [translation of (HoMER)*, omitting O], including Y. | |
| 8 | Obsolete dispersal of seeds? Unable to consider anything new, perhaps (8) |
| OBSESSED – OBS [obsolete] + (SEEDS)*, dispersed. I wouldn’t have recognised OBS as this abbreviation, but it’s in Chambers. (I seem to hear Guy saying, “it would be”?) |
|
| 14 | Drunk old man with clarity impaired (9) |
| PARALYTIC – PA + (CLARITY)*, impaired. | |
| 16 | Nature notes? Pen no good to capture sources of delightful sounds (8) |
| BIRDSONG – BIR^O + N.G. [no good], to capture DS [sources of Delightful Sounds]. This was hard. With the helpers, I guessed the answer and reverse engineered the wordplay. |
|
| 17 | Damage to lawn? Cut up about rook with company (8) |
| WORMCAST – WO^M [mow, up] about R + CAST [theatre company]. | |
| 19 | Quality line receiving approval? On the contrary (7) |
| FLAVOUR – F^AVOUR receiving L. “On the contrary” signals that “line” goes into “approval”, not the other way around. | |
| 21 | Court case finishing early with detectives turning up as small group (7) |
| TRIADIC – TRIAL finishing early + CID turning up. | |
| 22 | Evidence of assault? Bachelor is covered in regret (6) |
| BRUISE – B + IS covered in RU^E. | |
| 23 | Seek peace, abandoning island around South (5) |
| QUEST – QUiE^T abandoning I, around S. | |
| 24 | Second Charlie overturned a hot drink (5) |
| MOCHA – MO [second] + C [Charlie, in the phonetic alphabet] + HA [a hot, overturned]. | |
I gave up with several unsolved in the SE, and returned to it a few days later. My biggest problem was having biffed PIXILATED at 14d (drunk, with clarity impaired). I spent some time trying to account for ‘old man’, but did not, as I should have, erase it, until I saw CHAOTIC. That led to PARALYTIC, POI FREEBOOTER, & LOI WORMCAST. I remembered SWAN-something, finally looked it up.
This was intertaining and doable unlike some of the dailies (eg. the Thursday in the week that followed).
The Saturdays seem to be more like traditional Times Cryptics. Only issue is Times subsription is a bit expensive to justify a once a week habit.
In this one, liked 26ac AUDEN for the slightly unusual direction, 6d PLATOON and 7d RHYME for simple direction, and 21d TRIADIC for completeness.
Honourable mentions to 23ac QUARREL and 24ac MEMOIRS.
Had to research 11ac SWAN UPPING and 20ac FREEBOOTER to get options to fit the clues. Also was unsure how damaging WORM CAST (one word?) 17d was.
But overall, enough challenge and rewarding.
Thank you setter and branch.