All clues solved and ready to blog. 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:
-
- where explanations are necessary, synonyms and the like appear [thus].
- 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 | Output of sewer covers wide area with wee mostly (7,6) |
| BLANKET STITCH – BLANKETS [covers wide area] + TITCHY [wee, mostly]. I didn’t know the term, but it’s the stitching around the edges of blankets, as you’d guess. |
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| 9 | Despicable individual tracks Indian? (5) |
| CURRY – CUR + RY [railway tracks]. | |
| 10 | Wine finally quaffed by Pacific Northwest people — afraid of claret? (9) |
| SQUEAMISH – E [WINE, finally] quaffed by SQU⁁AMISH. Again, I didn’t know the term Squamish, but it seemed very plausible. They are peoples from around the British Columbia area. Does “Amerindian” cover Canadian tribes too? |
|
| 11 | Boxers in communication after fracture get niggly (5,5) |
| SPLIT HAIRS – HAIRS [in communication, sounds like HARES=boxers] after SPLIT [fracture]. And, yet another unknown! Apparently, hares do box each other in spring. Perhaps then they’re as mad as a March hare? |
|
| 12 | Bar in EastEnders? (4) |
| SOAP – double definition. EastEnders is a SOAP, of course. And, not relevant but perhaps amusing, I imagine much of the action takes place in bars – not referring to bars of soap, there. | |
| 14 | Country region of Spain ablaze to the west (7) |
| ALBANIA – reverse (to the west), hidden (region of). | |
| 16 | Bugs Bunny ate carrots originally with green-looking one (7) |
| BACILLI – BAC [Bunny Ate Carrots, originally] + ILL [green-looking] + I [one]. | |
| 17 | Ready, a cover when pulled back opens up (7) |
| DILATES – SET [ready] + A + LID [cover], all pulled back. | |
| 19 | Tender-hearted cabal affiliated to a party (7) |
| ADORING – A + DO [party] + RING [cabal]. | |
| 20 | You couldn’t see me for dust in Asian country (4) |
| IRAN – I RAN. Eat my dust. Ho ho. | |
| 21 | Fleshy tissue in fat apostle wobbling about (4,6) |
| SOFT PALATE – (FAT APOSTLE)*, wobbling about. | |
| 24 | Old girlfriend I fancy — pardon? (9) |
| EXONERATE – EX [old girlfriend] + ONE [I, personally] + RATE [fancy=like]. | |
| 25 | Some lemon? That would be a surprise (5) |
| TWIST – cryptic hint, referring to a plot twist. | |
| 26 | Succeed as photojournalist — capiche? (3,3,7) |
| GET THE PICTURE – the clearest of hints. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Champions scoff over club being a nuisance along the way? (4-4,6) |
| BACK SEAT DRIVER – BACKS [champions] + EAT [scoff] + DRIVER [club]. | |
| 2 | Penny in currency raised for end of tax year? (5) |
| APRIL – P [penny] in A⁁RIL [LIRA, raised]. | |
| 3 | Bane of comic character’s shtick ultimately: pity not funny in vacuous routine (10) |
| KRYPTONITE – K [shticK, ultimately] + (PITY NOT)*, funny, in R⁁E [vacuous RoutinE]. | |
| 4 | Good man feeding animal a Mexican dish (7) |
| TOSTADA – ST feeding TO⁁AD + A. | |
| 5 | Chest bone perfectly aligned, then pull leg? (4,3) |
| TRUE RIB – TRUE [perfectly aligned] + RIB [pull leg]. | |
| 6 | Asian moor on the phone? (4) |
| THAI – on the phone, sounds like TIE [moor]. | |
| 7 | Masses of chicken in Benidorm gobbled by two beneath house (3,6) |
| HOI POLLOI – HO [house] + POLLO [Spanish for “chicken”] gobbled by I⁁I [Roman numeral two]. | |
| 8 | Arcade looking lively in Cologne, residence empty (8,6) |
| SHOPPING CENTRE – HOPPING in S⁁CENT + RE [ResidencE, empty]. | |
| 13 | Educational classic and hot novel (10) |
| SCHOLASTIC – (CLASSIC HOT)*, novel. | |
| 15 | Price to pay, a toll for still water (9) |
| BILLABONG – BILL + A + BONG. | |
| 18 | Put up with bagged cat hissing initially (7) |
| STOMACH – TOM in S⁁AC [bagged] + H [Hissing, initially]. | |
| 19 | American gull seen round northern European port (7) |
| ANTWERP – A [American] + TWERP [gull] seen round N. | |
| 22 | Stop wearing a uniform, I’m taking leave! (5) |
| ADIEU – DIE [stop] wearing A+ U. | |
| 23 | Score, after losing opener and tail end, completely collapsed (4) |
| WENT – TWENTY after losing opener and tail.
Rhymes ‘R us: |
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Last in 23d after gazing at -E-T for some time, despairing at the number of possibilities, before the penny finally dropped.
Lots to like in this puzzle, but 7d gets clue of the day for its smooth and misleading surface. I probably got POLLO from ” Breaking Bad” or Lionel Shriver’s ” Better Life”.
19 mins
NIce puzzle, much to enjoy. Didn’t know hares boxed or Squamish. Took an embarrassingly long time to get BILLABONG, expecting it to end -RING or -DING and be the name of an unknown UK lake. Couldn’t parse ALBANIA: ALBA a region of Spain (it isn’t), IN to the west for lit, and where does the A come from?
Got the STITCH immediately, took the B downwards to get BLANKET. LOI SOAP. COD BACK-SEAT DRIVERS.
But, the ‘region’ just refers to the answer being a reverse hidden.
Understood after reading the blog, but I was very dense when solving it.
I didn’t get the wordplay in 11ac (although I knew hares box), and 20ac. ‘Tender-hearted’ seemed a poor definition for ADORING.