Saturday Times 24347 (3rd Oct)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 10:07. I found this pretty straightforward, although very good nevertheless. I know others struggled with it from comments on last week’s blog, so maybe I was just “in the zone” for a change.

Across
1 THAMES – (has met)*. Nice easy starter, with the banker=river cliché.
5 DEMOCRAT – DEMO (protest) + C (about) + RAT (one crossing floor). A rat can be someone who changes sides, so keeping with the political theme of the clue, someone crossing the floor would go over from Labour to the Tories (or vice versa) in the House of Commons.
9 FOUR-POSTER – (roofer puts)*
10 AVID – A VID (short for video). Jimbo mentioned that he had two possible answers for this, although I can’t think of an alternative. I’ll be interested to see what else he came up with!
11 CALABASH – A LAB inside CASH. This is a type of gourd used as a vessel.
12 LEGUME – GUM inside LEE (General Lee, famous car in The Dukes of Hazzard. Oh, and Robert E., the confederate general.)
13 MOSS – MO + S + S = three seconds.
15 LANDS END – LAND (bring down) + SEND (dispatch).
18 STANDARD – double definition.
19 LARK – and another one, although “one singing high” could be construed as cryptic.
21 SHOGUN – GO rev. in SHUN!
23 SEASCAPE – S + ESCAPE around A.
25 IDES – (h)IDES. “For execution” is an instruction to remove the first letter, i.e. beheading, not the electric chair.
26 HEARING AID – double definition, one whimsical.
27 HAY-ON-WYE – HAY + (now)* + YE. The famous “town of books” – I used to live about 20 miles from it and visited it most weeks. I still manage to get down there three or four times a year.
28 GILDER – cryptic definition, as in the phrase “to gild the lily”, to attempt to decorate something already beautiful.

Down
2 HOO-HA – HOO(c)H + A. I’ve seen this in two or three other puzzles in the last couple of weeks.
3 MORTAL SIN – MORTALS IN
4 SLOGAN – SLOG + AN
5 DUTCH ELM DISEASE – (death missed clue)*. I initially tried to use “over death missed” as the fodder but soon realised my mistake.
6 MARBLING – MAR BLING
7 CLANG – CLAN + G
8 ASIA MINOR – I underneath A SIAM, then NOR
14 OCTAHEDRA – CO reversed + (eat hard)*
16 SILICA GEL – SILL around 1 CAGE. The stuff you find in little packets with “Do not eat” on the cover. Put inside packaging to keep the contents dry.
17 EARNSHAW – EARN + SHAW (George Bernard). Earnshaw is Cathy’s family name in Wuthering Heights. Luckily for me I only read it a couple of weeks earlier. 19th century novels are a vast resource for crossword setters, and as there are dozens of them loaded free on my Sony e-book reader and I have a two-hour daily commute I’ve been working my way through them.
20 DARING – DAR(l)ING
22 GUSTO – GUST + O(ut).
24 PRIME – double definition. Two for one, i.e. two is an example of a prime number, and to prime = to brief (someone). Great clue, last one I got after considering several possibilities before seeing how it worked.

9 comments on “Saturday Times 24347 (3rd Oct)”

  1. I too found this relatively straightforward. Not as easy as Linxit but certainly not difficult – about 25 minutes if I remember correctly.

    During last week, when it appeared in one of the puzzles, I nearly made a reference to HOO-HA at 2D – just stopped my self. Odd that a relatively strange phrase should crop up twice like that. I thought 24D “two for one” was brilliant.

    At 10A Clue: “very keen to see a short film” the first thought that came into my head was A-(el)-CID but some nagging little voice said look for an alternative and I found AVID, which I’m sure is what the setter intended – but interesting!

  2. I stopped the clock at 13 minutes with 24D undecided between PRICE and PRIME. I eventually submitted with PRIME, but did not fully appreciate the rationale behind the answer until seeing the blog – thank you.
  3. I was torn between Apic and Acid at 10. I finally rejected Apic on the grounds that I had probably made it up (I had) and bunged in Acid. Only afterwards, when I checked the dictionary, did I come up with Avid, which is obviously the right answer. I have never come across the word vid before. If I were at Cheltenham I would probably argue that Acid is a valid alternative on the grounds that both the definition and the wordplay fit. I doubt if I would get much sympathy though. “Very keen” points the definition towards avid and short film would usually indicate a film with its end chopped off, not the definite article missing.
  4. 22 mins. Noted a few interesting overlaps: the HOO-HA mentioned in the blog which was reprised in 24351; WYE from the previous Saturday’s DEWY-EYED; and a ref to “short film” which ended up somewhere else recently as INDIE.
    When the Stones put out “Aftermath”, apparently Ringo wanted the next Beatles LP to be called “Aftergeography”. Being rubbish at both, I struggled with PRIME and ASIA MINOR.
    Always pleased, though, to see that old fave Robert E. Lee getting a guernsey. Reminds me of my stay in New Orleans where there’s a statue of him right in front of the YMCA building with its prominent neon sign. Local lore has it that it’s a warning: Yankees May Come Again!
  5. I’m struggling a lot at the moment and this one was no exception taking 70 minutes with 24dn still outstanding at that point. I got to PRIME eventually on the basis that “Two” = PR (pair) + I + ME, words for “One”, perhaps in royal and other posh circles.

    Today’s wasn’t helped by the Crossword Club being down for maintenance YET AGAIN until late morning so I wasn’t able to do it at my usual solving time

  6. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard ‘vid’ on its own, but somewhere I’ve come across ‘kidvid’. Toyed with ‘agog’ for a moment –there was an awful SF movie (but I repeat myself) ages ago called ‘Gog & Magog’–but reason prevailed.
  8. Thanks for the correct answer HOO-HA. I had RUN IN, which also fits the clue perfectly (or even better). Bootleg liquor = RUN GIN. Not initially – RUN IN !!! – Tenbob

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