Saturday Times 24149 (14th Feb)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I put in a comment on yesterday’s blog that the 33:40 I took to solve it was my slowest of the year, having already forgotten that this one took me 37:15! Another brilliant puzzle, very hard but not without some controversy (see 8D). Unsurprisingly for the Times, there’s no Valentine’s Day theme.

Across
1 HAND-ME-DOWN – HAND + OWN around MED (warm salt water)
6 SPIT – TIPS rev.
9 GETHSEMANE – G(rand ) + E(nglish) + NAMES rev. inside THE. This was the garden in Jerusalem where Jesus and his disciples were supposed to have prayed on the night before his crucifixion.
10 AMIR – A.M. (before twelve) + I.R. (Inland Revenue, although they no longer exist as such).
12 WARNER BROTHERS – R in BOTHER, all inside WARNERS.
14 BOLSHY – LOB rev. + SHY
15 REDBRICK – BRICK following RED. Described by Chambers as a university built in the 19th to early 20th century, i.e. not Oxford or Cambridge.
17 VISCONTI – (is TV icon)*. Luchino Visconti, famous Italian film director. I’d never heard of him, but his surname was easy enough to guess from the anagram.
19 ROSTOV – R(uns) + OS (? charters, presumably – don’t understand this bit) + TO + V (see, from Latin vide). [ As Jimbo says, OS = Ordnance Survey = mapmakers = charters. I’m sure I had no problem with the clue last week when I solved it, but don’t remember that train of thought at all. I knew of the city, so probably just glossed over the wordplay at the time, figuring I’d work it out later… ]
22 WALKING WOUNDED – great cryptic definition, although I got it quite quickly.
24 TITO – TIT + O. Former president of Yugoslavia.
25 PACE-SETTER – PACE + SETTER, simple charade.
26 ROPY – hidden reversed in “twentY PORtraits”. Very well hidden in fact, and the last one I got.
27 OTTER SHREW – (tree throws)*. Never heard of it, but after a few checking letters SHREW became obvious, which left TRETO in the anagram fodder. Bingo!

Down
1 HUGE – last letters of “witH yoU solvinG thE”, and a plug for its sister puzzle.
2 NETBALL – T.B.A. inside NELL
3 MISANTHROPIC – T(ime) inside (posh car Mini)*.
4 DEMURS – EMU (one grounded) inside DR (patient investigator) + S(earch). Very clever, if a bit wordy.
5 WINTRIER – WIN (land) + TRIER.
7 POMPEII – E + II after POMP.
8 TERESHKOVA – SH inside (takeover)*. Definition is “first lady launched”, as she was the first woman in space. The one unbreakable rule in the Times crossword is that no living people (apart from the Queen, ER) are mentioned, but Tereshkova is still alive and kicking at the not-that-ripe old age of 71.
11 STUBBORNNESS – STUB (grub up) + BORN (natural) + NESS (lake). That’s the second time in a week that lake rather than loch has been used for NESS.
13 ABOVE WATER – V(i)EW inside A BOATER.
16 STAGNANT – TAG NAN inside ST.
18 SPLIT UP – S.P. (starting price – “better info”) + LIT UP.
20 TWEETER – WEE inside (u)TTER. I thought it was part of a speaker myself, as in “tweeter and woofer”, but I suppose high-end systems have separate speakers for high and low frequency sounds.
21 COHERE – C.O. + HERE (take this).
23 DRAW – double definition.

12 comments on “Saturday Times 24149 (14th Feb)”

  1. At 19A, OS=Ordinance Survey=map producers=charters

    Absolutely cracking puzzle and just perfect for a lazy Saturday morning. I couldn’t believe 8D and wrote it down outside the grid at first. But as the checking letters fell into place it couldn’t be anything else. I think it’s a daft rule anyway so would welcome it being done away with.

    Congratulations to the setter on a real gem.

    1. Not a daft rule – too many living bods are obscure to those not interested in their field, dead and famous enough to be known to most solvers is sensible.
      1. Seconded, Anon. I have only to pick up a tabloid newspaper to confirm the world is full of “famous” people that I’ve never even heard of. And surely most of them will be long forgotten by the time they pop their clogs.

        65 minutes here with the OS in 19 unexplained at the time. I also couldn’t quite see the workings of 21 but they came to me this morning as soon as I took another look at it.

  2. This was certinly the toughest I can remember this year. But all good stuff, and unless anyone does their obituary publication by waiting for Times xwd appearances, the cosmonaut error barely matters.

    OS: as Jimbo says, but Ordnance (gunnery), not Ordinance (a command) – from the grim original purpose of making their accurate maps.

  3. Around thirty mintues for a fine puzzle – a return to form for the Saturday.

    I liked the idea of tagging Granny, except that it’s probably on its way to becoming reality. Terrific cryptic def. for WALKING WOUNDED, and the Oscar for the year’s most artfully concealed clue goes to ROPY.

    Question for American solvers: if the British REDBRICK (15a) is “not Oxbridge”, is there an American term for “not Ivy League”?

    2. Maybe “affordable”. A friend of mine just had the same experience as me in applying to an Ivy League school, him to try to get in as a graduate student, me trying to get in on a pilot teacher/professor scheme. We both sent in our applications thinking “if nothing else, a rejection letter from a prestigious school would be good for a laugh”. We both had our applications returned with a plain post-it note with a handwritten indication of lack of interest.

      Since it happened to me in 1998 and him this year, it must be a long-standing practice.

      Oh, I liked the crossword, got TERESHKOVA from the checking letters and didn’t realise she was still alive, but will have a vodka in her honor tonight.

      1. Nothing says “Get back to us when you’ve discovered your granddaddy was a Vanderbilt” quite like a hand-written post-it note!
        And nobody does snobbery quite like New England old money.
  4. A very good puzzle indeed! I had a first look at it when I was tired and got about 10 answers. Came back yo it later and finished without much trouble.

    I thought the hidden word and rope=painter at 26 particularly nice, and the cryptic definition at 22.

    Thanks for drawing my attention to Ordnance Survey, Peter. It was something which had set me thinking on more than one occasion, when “Ordinance” (ie ordained by authority) would seem to make more sense. The Wikipedia entry is interesting.

  5. Nothing terribly formal, but possibilities include “state college”, “land grant”, and, once used to describe the agricultural colleges of the Middle West, “directional universities” (Southwest Texas State, et al).
  6. … probably far too late to be read, but nonetheless…
    Ref Tereshkova and some of the comments, I will admit that Russian space travel is an interest of mine, so on the one hand I would claim her to be so famous that she must be dead (!). On the other hand, less excuse for not realising she was still alive.

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