Saturday Times 24341 (26 Sep)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Or 23341 if you printed it off from the website last Saturday (thanks to jackkt for pointing out the error). Solving time 22:47, on the train the following Monday as I didn’t have any time over the weekend. I think I probably made more of a meal of it than it deserved though, as I don’t see now how I got into such difficulties with it.

Across
1 RIPE – (g)RIPE. “Right” in the sense of “ready” or “fit”. Chambers doesn’t really give an exact correlation, but it seems OK to me.
3 APOSTROPHE – A POST (a job) next to ROPE (guy) around H(our).
9 BESIDES – BEES around S(pades) + ID.
11 BEWITCH – WEB rev + ITCH
12 THRESHOLD – THRESH (move violently) + OLD (out of the ark). I thought “beginning” was a fairly loose definition, but Chambers gives “outset” as one possibility.
13 NOISE – 1 in NOSE.
14 COMPOUND TIME – (nod put)* inside MIME, all after CO. Not being a musician, I didn’t know what this was. “Time in which each bar is made up of two or more simple measures, each divided into three.” I’m none the wiser, really.
18 UNATTRACTIVE – U (for all to see) + NATT(e)R + ACTIVE. A U-rated film is one anyone can watch (equivalent to a G rating in the US, Australia or NZ).
21 IRONS – R + ON inside (cr)IS(is).
22 IMAGINARY – M.A. + GIN inside (d)IARY.
24 HUMMOCK – MOCK after HUM.
25 OVERTLY – O + VERY (jolly, as in “jolly good show”) around LT reversed.
26 PERPETRATE – PER (a) + PET (particular) + RATE (class). A = per comes up now and then in the reverse order too.
27 SCUD – (fraca)S + CUD. The main definition of ruminate is “to chew the cud”.

Down
1 ROBOTICS – C (about) inside (orbit so)*
2 PASTRAMI – PAST + RAM + I
4 PESTO – PEST + O(verdo)
5 SUBEDITOR – BED (crib possibly) inside SUITOR.
6 ROWING MACHINE – RHINE around OWING (outstanding) + MAC (waterproof).
7 PUTRID – PUT (plonk) + RID (free).
8 ECHOED – hidden in “speECH OEDipus”.
10 DISCOUNT STORE – DISCO + (tune sort)*
15 NITPICKER – IN (elected) reversed + TICKER (watch) around P.
16 GIGANTIC – GIG (booking) + (act in)*. Walloping for gigantic might be just a Britishism, not sure.
17 DEWY-EYED – DEED around WYE + Y. This gave me loads of trouble, as I first thought the river was DEE. The crossings-out were extensive, and I can’t remember now what my first couple of guesses were before neatly writing DEWY down the outside of the grid.
19 BISHOP – (his)* inside BOP. “See supervisor” is good.
20 FORMER – FOR + MER(it)
23 ABOUT – A.B. + OUT

PS: Due to an unfortunate clash of dates I won’t be able to make it to Cheltenham this year, so I’d just like to wish good luck to all those who will be competing, and I’m sure I’ll see you all next year for a few pints at the Kemble.

14 comments on “Saturday Times 24341 (26 Sep)”

  1. Quite liked doing this at a leisurely pace over breakfast last week: 32 mins. (Watch out for WYE again though!) 15dn reminded me of a certain member of the Philosophy Department at a certain Australian University in the 1970s and 80s. He was German and his surname was Splitter. I kid you not!
    Re 26ac: isn’t the PER given by “for” so that the def is “be responsible” and the “a” is redundant?
    1. If in doubt, apply the substitution test: to perpetrate a crime, to be responsible a crime. Nope! to be responsible for a crime? Yes.
        1. Well, like in “tomatoe’s 50p a £” etc. And yes, I have seen exactly that on a greengrocer’s board!
          1. Thanks for that. Filed in that strange part of the cerebral hard disk where we keep such things. Must have been a while ago you saw that: $2.20 a kilo!
  2. This puzzle was right in the middle of the run of rather bland offerings that are reasonable but somehow unexciting. My print out has no ticks, no question marks, no comments of any description.

    Special thanks to Jack for enabling me to find my way through the latest Times cock-up last Saturday.

  3. The trouble with solving online is the total absence of documentation. I can’t recall much about this but I can recall totally missing the “see supervisor” and the “a=per”, so thanks for the full explanantion. I’m getting far too sloppy of late.

    As for compound time, this is more a question of notating the music rather than the music itself. Your source’s technically correct (as far as it goes) but unenlightening description adequately describes a jig (diddledee diddledee etc) where each beat is a triplet, but doesn’t seem to stretch to more complicated rhythms.

  4. I made heavy weather of this, particularly in the NW where it took me a long time to accept the tenuous definition of Ripe. I know you can substitute “the time is right” for the time is ripe” but I don’t think they mean the same thing. At 26, I also thought that Pet Rate for Particular Class was tenuous as was Scud for Race at 27. All of these can just about be justified from one or the other of the three main dictionaries but it makes for unsatisfactory solving
  5. Another 60+ minutes for this one and I know I gave up and used aids at some point. I tend to do that once the hour is up unless I am really enjoying the solve. I didn’t understand UNATTRACTIVE at 18 until coming here.

    This Sat’s was another difficult one and I still have a clue unsolved.

    1. Today’s – quite so, Jack. I’m about 6 clues away from a finish and really struggling!

      Sad to hear you won’t be at the champs Andy, was very much looking forward to meeting up again. I’ll take a pint on your behalf.

      1. Re todays: I finally ‘finished’ it after about 40 minutes, but there’s one clue in the SE that I wouldn’t stake a farthing on. I’ve rethought it every which way until my head’s spinning.
        1. How strange – I polished it off in 10 mins this morning and saw few difficulties. I’m guessing 24D was your sticking point, as it held me up at the end for a minute or so. Brilliant clue when you see how it works!
          1. I agree about 24D – very good wording. I’ve got two possible answers for 10A – I’m certain which one is intended but it really is amazing how often these little words give rise to such confusion!
  6. Any chance we could leave out the comments on current crosswords, please? Even statements about how it might be easy/hard etc can be upsetting, to us sensitive types. Ta!

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