Saturday Times 24048 (18 Oct)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Sorry this is posted so late, but I’ve been moving the “office” around over the weekend and all the PCs had to be turned off. Just finished now at 5:30pm on Sunday.

Solving time 19:53 (with a hangover). I actually can’t remember what slowed me down on this one – looking at it now they all seem pretty obvious, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Last Saturday morning I had a stinking headache and had a job focussing my eyes 🙂

Across
1 SHTUM – last letters of “otherS gusH buT yoU seeM”. A Yiddish word from the German stumm for silent.
4 MAIL ORDER – (I’m rare old)*
9 FLAGSTAFF – FLAGS + TAFF, “runner” here being a euphemism for river. Also use of a capitalised noun to mislead, something that’s been hotly debated on the Crossword Centre message board this week.
10 IDYLL – hidden reversed in “guLLY, DIscovers”
11 CHEAPO – HEAP in CO
12 CAKEHOLE – CAKE + HOLE, just slang for a mouth, like chops.
14 PETERBOROUGH – O.R. (men) in BOUGH after PETER (safe). Peterborough is a cathedral city in the East of England.
17 SPICE ISLANDS – (PC sailed in)* inside SS. Now called the Maluku Islands, part of Indonesia.
20 RED GIANT – (treading)*
21 ASWIRL – S,W (opponents in bridge) inside AIR + L(eft)
23 FOIST – O in FIST. “Sock dealer” is a nice definition for fist.
24 WEARISOME – I inside WEAR (sport) + SOME (certain).
25 BARN DANCE – DAN (i.e. Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future) inside NC, all inside BARE.
26 HUSKY – double definition, “Northern drag performer” made me smile.

Down
1 SOFT COPY – as opposed to HARD COPY, which would be a printout.
2 TRAVESTY – A VEST inside TRY
3 MISAPPROPRIATED – IS APPROPRIATE inside M(ai)D
4 MEAD – A inside MED (salty drink is another good def.)
5 INFRASONIC – FRA, SON inside 1 NIC(e).
6 OLIVER GOLDSMITH – R inside OLIVE, GOLD + SMITH (fashion). I didn’t know before that he was Irish though.
7 DRY ROT – TORY, RD reversed.
8 RELIEF – double definition.
13 YOU CAN’T WIN – i.e. YOU CAN, TWIN!
15 ENVIRONS – V, IRONS after (b)EN(d).
16 PSALTERY – T(ime) in (players)*. An ancient Greek musical instrument originally, similar to a zither.
18 PREFAB – PRE-FAB = before cracking
19 EDGIER – alternate letters of “fReEbIe GaDgEt” reversed.
22 MATE – T (cross) in MAE (Mae West). Definition is “Move terminal for King”. I think this was the last one I got, as I was a bit dubious about T for cross, but you can have a tau cross so I think it’s OK.

10 comments on “Saturday Times 24048 (18 Oct)”

  1. I found this pretty tough. I think it took around 25 minutes for all except MATE, which I had to leave and come back to.

    COD 23 FOIST – I love that ‘sock dealer’.

  2. About 45mins, at which time I still had MA?E at 22D. I simply didn’t see the definition (although even if I had I’d have struggled with the idea of T=cross).
  3. I thought this a good and entertaining puzzle. About 30 minutes to solve. MATE was my last struggle and I think it’s an excellent misleading definition. As to other capital letters such as Welsh at 9A I can only say that I learned within weeks of starting to do the Times cryptic (that was in 1957) to completely ignore capital letters in the clues.
  4. Excellent puzzle, not too difficult, but I did not get MATE which, with hindsight, was excellent. Still missed it even though I’d thought of MAE = WEST which left just one letter!

    Re Oliver Goldsmith, being born in Ireland is not that unusual a sense to be Irish…

    1. “Re Oliver Goldsmith, being born in Ireland is not that unusual a sense to be Irish…”

      No indeed! Unless you are a member of the Irish Rugby League team for the world cup!

  6. This was entertaining. I had trouble parsing 25a so thanks for that Linxit. I managed to get 22d eventually and so learned that Cross = T is a possibility here in crosswordland. Oliver Goldsmith has always been described as Irish as far as I knew but then I have never read any of his work. I have not heard CAKEHOLE or CHOPS used to describe the buccal cavity for a long time. That was my penultimate entry and finally allowed me to unravel the “problem with deal” at 7d for a LOI DOH! moment.
    Nice one setter & thanks Linxit for the blog.

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