Saturday Times 24084 (29th Nov)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 12:39, which felt really quick for quite a tricky puzzle. For once I seemed to be on the setter’s wavelength from the beginning, although there were more than the usual number of easy clues to get started with. Having said that, quite a few answers went in without a full understanding of the wordplay at first.

Across
1 GETS AT – TASTE G(ood) reversed.
5 CELIBACY – (a bicycle)*
9 MORPHEME – P(resident) + HEM in MORE. Hesitation is nearly always UM or ER – it took me a while to see how this worked.
10 GROUND – double definition.
11 HELOTS – hotels*
12 PUT ABOUT – A + B(ook) inside PUT OUT
14 IMPERSONATOR – SON inside IMPERATOR, a plug for Anax’s new barred puzzle perhaps?
17 MUD IN YOUR EYE – cryptic definition.
20 STAND FOR – (frost and)*
22 SINBAD – surely an old chestnut of the hoariest kind!
23 PELLET – double definition, the first of which is quite descriptive.
25 AUGSBURG – AUG’S + GRUB reversed.
26 ATTORNEY – sound like “a tourney”. Brief is slang for a lawyer.
27 TITLED – last letters of viscounT and earL inside TIED.

Down
2 ELOPER – O inside (h)ELPER.
3 SUPPOSITION – SUP POSITION
4 THEOSOPHY – THE O(ld) SOPHY. Not the usual spelling of the girl’s name, but it’s one of the alternatives given in Chambers.
5 CHEAPER – “cheeper”
6 LEGIT – or LEG IT. I think this clue probably needed a question mark at the end.
7 BRO – hidden in aBROad.
8 CONJUROR – i.e. CON JUROR
13 BRACE AND BIT – (RACE inside B AND B) + IT. Good clue, my favourite in the puzzle.
15 OVERSIGHT – (give short)*, well disguised anagram.
16 NUTTIEST – NUT + (I in TEST). NUT = National Union of Teachers.
18 UNREADY – READ inside NY, with U added at the front
19 BARRIE – sounds like Barry, which is a Welsh seaside resort.
21 FUTON – TO inside FUN.
24 LOO – last letter of (Arsena)L + 0-0. It’s a type of card game.

11 comments on “Saturday Times 24084 (29th Nov)”

  1. He-he. While solving this, the IMPER(SON)ATOR ref passed me by. No reference to my puzzle though, just coincidence. The Imperator name came about perhaps a month ago (Anax Imperator is a beast of a moth – it eats insects, wildfowl, small cars etc) whereas Times puzzles are submitted several months before they’re published.
  2. In hindsight I think this was rather a good puzzle, but I have to say that at the time I got rather fed up with it.

    I had to guess at 19dn and 25ac, never having heard of BARRY (sorry Susie) or AUGSBURG.

    I lingered over 12ac for a long time as I couldn’t believe it would really have “ABOUT” in both the clue and the answer.

    I found the homophone at 26ac hard to take, although the dictionary says that it’s OK. (Come to think of it, I’m not sure that I have ever actually heard the word TOURNEY uttered! In reading, I had always assumed it was pronounced TOUR-NEY but apparently TURN-EY is also possible.)

  3. I have no record of how long this took but I don’t think it was more than 30 minutes. I agree with kurihan that 12 is very odd, and surely must have been an oversight or the setter would have found an alternative to using “about” in the clue.

    Fortunately I have been to Augsburg so that didn’t present a problem.

  4. All I’d scribbled was “OK puzzle, NW corner hardest”.

    So there you have it.

    Barry Island? Tidy!

  5. And I’d scribbled “Leisurely 29 minutes – nice anagrams and a few giggles”.

    I’m guessing the ‘celibacy’/’a bicycle’ anagram can’t be new, but it’s a mind-boggling delight.

  6. I used even less scribbles on my Saturday puzzles, this one just had a question mark next to MORPHEME. I think it was a single-sitting solve though.
  7. This puzzle was in a stack of unfinished ones and I finally got round to it again this evening.

    By pure coincidence, 9ac was the first clue I looked at. Fitting, on this historic day. Go, Obama!

    –Cathy van Starkenburg (Canada)

  8. One across that is. Bugs taste good? The reverse. Good clue.
    DNK MORPHEME at 9a. Now 10 years later we have Go Trump. As in please – just go.

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