Saturday Times 24401 – placeholder

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Sorry, working again this weekend – and this time the boss is here! Also, I’ve lost my copy of the puzzle, but I’ll try to get something up this evening.

Well, that didn’t go according to plan – I got back late and tired, and I have to go in again today. I’ll do a bit now and finish later, but it will get done, honest!

Solving time 18:30, definitely trickier and of a higher quality than the last few Saturday puzzles (although I think this week’s was even better).

Across
1 CUT UP – CU (copper) + PUT rev.
4 TRAGEDIES – RAGE DIES after T(ime)
9 PENSTEMON – PEN (confined space) + STEM (part of it) + ON (one side, in cricket). I’m not normally that good with plants, but I knew this one. Maybe there’s one in the garden (Sue says yes there is).
10 CHINA – CH + IN + (gl)A(de).
11 DUENNA – DUE + ANN rev. Everyone noticed that PENSTEMON was also in last Sunday’s puzzle too, but no-one mentioned that DUENNAS was in there too. Still a coincidence I suppose.
12 SHADWELL – (has)* + DWELL. I have to admit I’d only heard of him because he’s appeared in the Times crossword before.
14 BETTER HALF – double definition, wife and football team.
16 WARP – WAR + P
19 WAKE – double definition.
20 PROTRACTOR – PRO + TRACTOR
22 BANJOIST – JOIST after BAN
23 IN CARE – IN CA(d)RE
26 TRADE – T(i)RADE
27 OPERATIVE – (poet I rave)*. I saw no problem with this when I solved it, although on checking after seeing the comments, Chambers doesn’t back the setter up. Chambers isn’t perfect though – I still think it’s OK.
28 HIMALAYAN – HI + MALAYAN
29 DANCE – C in DANE

Down
1 CUPID’S BOW – hmm, sort of cryptic definition? BOW = salutation or shape of upper lip, so there’s some minor misdirection.
2 TENSE – TENS + E (the drug of choice for crossword setters).
3 PATENTED – P.A. (office assistant) + TENTED (in a marquee).
4 TOMB – TOM + B(orn)
5 ANNIHILATE – (an alien hit)*
6 ESCUDO – (co + used)*, where “co” is a third of “copper”
7 ITINERANT – I + TINE + RANT
8 STALL – (grow)S + TALL
13 SHORT STORY – TORY under SHORTS
15 TAKING AIM – T.A. + KING + A1 + M(en).
17 PERSEVERE – P.E. + R(uns) + SEVERE
18 DAWN RAID – (did warn a)*
21 POWELL – POLL around WE. Enoch Powell was the controversial politician.
22 BATCH – C (about) in BATH.
24 ARIAN – (m)ARIAN
25 DEAN – A in DEN.

10 comments on “Saturday Times 24401 – placeholder”

  1. 50 minutes with a little cheating at the end to get PENSTEMON (never ‘eard of it) which helped me nail 1dn and 2dn. Didn’t understand “significant” = OPERATIVE at 27ac and having looked it up I’m still not sure that it’s fully justified. No problem solving it though so why worry?
  2. Operative = significant is justified in the Oxford Thesaurus of English in the context of ‘ ‘Might’ is the operative word’. It’s also listed in Collins in the same context. The setter.
    1. “The operative word” was certainly what came to mind. COED has “having the most significance in a phrase”. I saw no problem.
      K
  3. Penstemon was my nemesis too. I had heard of the wretched plant but did not know how to spell it. I confidently parsed “confined space with part of it to one side” as Penstamen. That makes two puzzles last week where I fell foul of the plant. At least I knew how to spell it by the next day when the same plant turned up in the ST crossword.

    I suppose one person’s obscurity is another’s gimme. I had no trouble with Shadwell, although I knew him more as a playwright than a poet, having seen The Libertine and The Virtuoso at Stratford.

    My only other query last week was with Better Half but now I see that “improvement after refreshments and pep talk?” alludes to a possible improvement in the second half of a sporting match.

    Thanks to the setter for an entertaining puzzle.

  4. Just a note to say that Chambers 21st century dictionary seems to cope well with Times daily puzzle vocabulary- I know some were commenting that Collins wasn’t what it used to be.
    Somethin to put on your Christmas wish list
  5. There were some very tidy clues in this puzzle, upping the ante a bit for Saturday puzzles. Maybe the setter had been reading this blog: i.e., s/he was not tempted to call a banjoist a musician? There will be at least one regular who might have liked the full-anagram alternative at 27a: “evaporite”. Question: is Wilfred Owen’s poem, “Shadwell Stair” about a place named after the other poet?
    1. It’s a relief to find that SHADWELL, the poet (and playwright), is quite familiar to a number of Times solvers. (I’m still amazed that there seemed to be a significant number who hadn’t heard of BURNE-JONES!)

      My guess would be that one of Shadwell’s ancestors came from (and was accordingly named after) some place called Shadwell, perhaps the one by the Thames (with the Stair(s)) or perhaps the village in Yorkshire (not far from Leeds).

  6. Quite a decent Saturday puzzle with some original definitions and interesting wordplay. A pity it was spoilt a little by the inclusion of the ludicrous SHADWELL. This fixed idea that setters have that they must include a poet however obscure when there are so many other fields of human endeavour open to them quite defeats me.
  7. Dear Jimbo. Glad you liked the puzzle, but please don’t downgrade this poet laureate. He may not be well known, but he survives in the ODQ at any rate and a quotation of his was used in an Azed competition puzzle recently. Don’t be like that famous Oxonian Jowett (‘there is no knowledge but what I know it’ or some such). As an ex-physicist I have to introduce myself to poets, in the same way that I introduce ignorant arts people to Appleton! Till the next time. The setter.

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