This one took me 10 minutes but I find it hard to judge how others may have fared so I won’t say that it was easy. Most of the clue construction is straightforward but there are a couple of tricky ones.
I note Andy tried a new method of indicating definitions in his Saturday blog which looked fine to me so in accordance with that I am putting them in bold italic to see what others think about making this standard practice (if the blogger includes clues).
Deletions as usual are in {curlies} and indicators in [squares].
For those unable to access by other means the puzzle can be found here in the old format: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/puzzles/crossword/20151228/12125/
|
Across |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | The endless uneven progress around ring road (12) |
| THOROUGHFARE – TH{e} [endless], O (ring), ROUGH (uneven), FARE (progress) | |
| 8 | Gradient in Cape railway (7) |
| INCLINE – IN, C (cape), LINE (railway) | |
| 9 | A street outside county town of Berkshire (5) |
| ASCOT – A, then ST (street) encloses [around] CO (county). The words ‘county’ and ‘town’ need to be separated in the mind of the solver as together they have no bearing on the answer. However, for those who might have wondered what the county town of Berkshire is, it’s Reading. | |
| 10 | Cereal crop is little good with wet weather (5) |
| GRAIN – G (good), RAIN (wet weather) | |
| 11 | Damage passenger ship, losing large sailor (7) |
| MARINER – MAR (damage), {l}INER (passenger ship) [losing large] | |
| 12 | Cyclist‘s condition (5) |
| RIDER – Two definitions | |
| 14 | Brief chapter formerly cut by one section initially (7) |
| CONCISE – C (chapter), ONCE (formerly) encloses [cut by] I (one) + S{ection} [initially] | |
| 15 | With equal totals like twenty-five and sixteen and nine? (3,6) |
| ALL SQUARE – Cryptic clue. 25, 16 & 9 are all square numbers. | |
| 17 | Decline in Welsh mining valley not quite finished (3) |
| EBB – EBB{w} (Welsh mining valley) [not quite finished] | |
| 19 | Thought in advance upsetting me with trepidation (13) |
| PREMEDITATION – Anagram [upsetting] of ME TREPIDATION | |
| 21 | Wife smitten with Yorkshire resort (6) |
| WHITBY – W (wife), HIT (smitten), BY (with) | |
| 22 | Small native boar, perhaps disembowelled monkey (5) |
| PIGMY – PIG (boar, perhaps), M{onke}Y [disembowelled] | |
|
Down |
|
| 1 | Quick to fire friends of Pooh and Snow White – and about right (7-5) |
| TRIGGER-HAPPY – TIGGER + HAPPY (friends of Pooh and Snow White) enclose [about] R (right) | |
| 2 | Short harvest upset firm that’s producer of fruit (7) |
| ORCHARD – CRO{p} (harvest) [short] reversed [upset], HARD (firm) | |
| 3 | Vegetable ingredient of macaroni once (5) |
| ONION – Hidden in [ingredient of] {macar}ONI ON{ce} | |
| 4 | Single American having to appear bright (5) |
| GLEAM – Hidden in [having] {sin}GLE AM{erican} | |
| 5 | Cologne possibly printing newspaper in adjacent country (9) |
| FRAGRANCE – RAG (newspaper) inside FRANCE (adjacent country – to Germany where Cologne is situated). The defintion refers to the world famous Eau de Cologne. I think one has to mentally insert a couple of words to make sense of the clue e.g. Colgne possibly (is arrived at by) printing newspaper in adjacent country | |
| 6 | Note Conservative team call for having a fresh think (13) |
| RECONSIDERING – RE (note), CON (Conservative), SIDE (team), RING (call) | |
| 7 | Serious European author (6) |
| STERNE – STERN (serious), E (European). Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) may not be known to many but his surname crops up again and again in crosswords so he’s worth remembering. His most famous work is usually referred to as ‘Tristram Shandy’ though it has a longer title. | |
| 13 | Ask about expedition (7) |
| REQUEST – RE (about), QUEST (expedition) | |
| 14 | Financial aid has mostly ill effect in somewhere like London (7) |
| CHARITY – HAR{m} (ill effect) [mostly] inside CITY (somewhere like London) | |
| 16 | Extortionist given shelter by church (5) |
| LEECH – LEE (shelter), CH (church) | |
| 18 | Crooked as a result of concealing purpose (5) |
| BENDY – BY (as a result of) encloses [concealing] END (purpose) | |
| 20 | A contributing feature to Cleopatra’s passing (3) |
| ASP – Hidden in [a contributing feature to] {Cleopatr}A’S P{assing}. The definition is &lit | |
Jack your new ‘format’ worked fine for me.
Brian
I got STERNE because I think it appeared in a Jumbo cryptic earlier this year.
I put in 22a as PYGMY since I wasn’t aware of the alternative spelling used here – I presumed “perhaps” was a rather loose homophone indicator.
I did finish it eventually; Sterne was last in; 14a,14d 18d and 17a were left for my second sitting;and I would normally spell pygmy so but the clue required otherwise.But on reflection no real obscurities and enjoyable. Need good UK geography. David