Saturday Times 25729 (8th March)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Unusually for me I solved this on the Saturday at home, rather than on the train on Monday or Tuesday as usual, and got it done in 13:09. A mixture of easy and difficult, just about right I thought. Got off to a good start with 1ac going straight in and most of the downs that hung off it too. A bit slower to work out the bottom 15-letter word, as I wanted it to be a full anagram at first. Some GK required, but nothing too obscure – I’d even heard of the ballet.

Across
1 TOULOUSE-LAUTREC – (easel, tutu colour)*. Great &lit. clue for the French artist – would have been even better if he’d been Degas!
9 ON THE TOWN – double definition.
10 TITLE – TILE (old slang for a hat) around T(imes).
11 NEPHEW – PHEW (what a relief) after (o)NE.
12 ABERDEEN – NEED RE B.A. (requirement concerning arts degree), all reversed.
13 ERSATZ – ER (monarch) + SAT (posed) + Z (an unknown). German word for fake substitute, which I’ve always associated with coffee for some reason. I think they used to make it from acorns or something during the war when the real thing wasn’t available. Yuck!
15 SAPPHIRE – APP (phone tool) inside SHIRE (see 26ac).
18 DEMURRAL – MU (letter) + RR (Right Reverend=bishop), inside DEAL (cope).
19 ATOMIC – NATO (post-war alliance) minus the N for November, + MIC (another abbreviation for microphone). Clever use of the NATO alphabet for misdirection.
21 SONGSTER – (net, gross)*. Irving Berlin (1888-1989), American songwriter.
23 RUEFUL – ROUÉ (debauchee) + FOUL (wicked), with the O’s removed.
26 SHIRE – sounds like “shyer” (more retiring).
27 SEA CHANGE – S(aint) + EACH (every) + ANGE(l) (divine messenger cut short).
28 DESERTIFICATION – (trees di)* + FICTION (story) around A(rea).

Down
1 TROUNCE – T(renche)R + OUNCE (weight).
2 UP TOP – U(niversity) + PT (part) + OP (work).
3 OVEREATER – MOVE (action) + GREATER (bigger), with the first letters of both removed.
4 SHOW – S(ociety) + HOW (in which style).
5 LONGBOAT – LONG (pine) + BAT (club) around O(ld).
6 UTTER – NUTTER (madman), minus the first letter.
7 RUTHENIUM – (I’m unhurt)* around (bas)E. A rare metallic element.
8 CLEANSE – CE (Anglicans) around LEANS (deviations from uprightness).
14 SEMANTICS – SCI(ence) + T(hat) + NAMES (identifies), all reversed.
16 PETRUSHKA – PEA (Princess’s annoyance) around T(ime) + RUSH (hasten) + K(ing). PEA is referring to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Princess and the Pea. The ballet is by Stravinksy.
17 WATER-SKI – cryptic definition.
18 DISUSED – DIED (went west) around S(outh) + US (America).
20 COLLEEN – COLLEGE (school), minus the G for Good, + N(ame).
22 SMEAR – hidden in “gets me arrested”.
24 FUNGI – GI (glycaemic index) underneath FUN (what’s enjoyable).
25 MAXI – IX (nine) + AM (in the morning), all reversed.

12 comments on “Saturday Times 25729 (8th March)”

  1. It has always seems strange to me that a princess can be identified by how sensitive her bottom is. I strongly suspect that most of the current British crop of princesses would struggle to pass this test..
  2. Unlike Jerry, I didn’t spend much time musing on princesses bottoms but solved this puzzle in 13:35. I think 28a was my last one in too.
  3. 48 minutes, last one in NEPHEW. I couldn’t parse the hidden at 22 (no surprise there), wondering if the setter was really using SAR in the sense Special Administrative Region, such as we have here in Hong Kong, for ‘part’. Now I need wonder no longer…
  4. Misspelling it as LATTREC, and settling for the unparsable, and probably invented deforresitation, slowed me down considerably.
  5. 29′, just under the wire; rare for me for a Saturday. 1ac was a lovely clue, but the enumeration pretty much gave it away. The poor man must have had to adjust his easel. I didn’t get 3d and 4d until after solving, and I got PETRUSHKA by associating ‘annoyance’ and PET without thinking; whatever works, I suppose. I was under the impression that ‘ersatz’ means ‘substitute’ rather than ‘fake’, and that indeed the word was popularized (if that’s the word) during the war. Of course, to substitute acorns for coffee is to make fake coffee.
    1. You’re right – it does mean “substitute; replacement” (I’ve just checked my Collins German-English Dictionary which is to hand next to Chambers and all the others). Corrected.

  6. 45 minutes of steady solving. Not bad for me for a Saturday. I never managed to fathom how 14dn worked. Nice to know that Irving Berlin is not forgotten.
  7. I found this comparatively straightforward with only the rather silly cryptic definition causing me to wince. didn’t know the ballet but easily derived from the clue.

    A bit surprised that 28A caused problems. The structure FICTION about A to end a long word meaning “to become something” with ….FICATION is hardly new

  8. 15 mins for this one and I’d have been quicker if I’d seen 1ac as quickly as quickly as some of you did. I don’t think I bothered to parse PETRUSHKA. SEMANTICS was my LOI after DEMURRAL. I thought the clue for 28ac was excellent.
    1. Cryptic definition… not my favourite type of clue.

      PLANE as a verb = “(of a boat) to skim across the surface of the water” in Chambers.

      So when you water-ski (verb), you plane along on water-skis (noun) being towed by a boat – the tower.

      Rob.

      Top half easy, 6 mins, heading for PB. Bottom half quite hard, took almost 40 mins all up. But happily all correct, including the unknown Petrushka, from the unknown (or long forgotten) Princess and pea. It just sounded like a Russian name that might be a ballet.

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