Saturday Times 24424 (Jan 2nd)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 12:03 – fairly gentle first Saturday puzzle of the new year, without any obscure vocabulary and a couple of easy 14-letter answers to get off to a flying start.

Across
1 FIASCO – IF rev (uncertainty around) + AS (since) + CO (business). Very smooth surface, and could quite easily pass for a headline these days!
4 PROTOCOL – [LOCO + P(ressure) all reversed] around ROT (decline). Tricky one to parse.
10 ROUTINELY – RELY (lean) around OUT (revealed) + IN (fashionable).
11 BOARD – “bored”.
12 BENEFIT – N (knight, chess notation) in BEEF (power) + IT (attractive quality).
13 HURTLED – HURT + LED. I don’t think LED=induced works. Induced could mean “led to”, but not led on its own. [OK, objection withdrawn, as Chambers has “to induce” as one of the definitions of lead. I still can’t think of a sentence where led on its own could replace induced and still make sense though.]
14 AT SEA – alternate letters of “ArTiStE wAs”. Is this the most commonly used two-word phrase in cryptic crosswords? Probably.
15 AMARETTI – MARE inside A + TT (teetotal, hence dry) + 1. Very nice with a cup of espresso.
18 IRONCLAD – DALI around C(onstant) + NOR (and not), all reversed. I checked in Chambers here whether C is just an abbreviation for constant or a particular constant (the symbol for the speed of light). If we interpret it as the speed of light we can count it as “science” for Jimbo’s stats.
20 DODGE – DO + (e)DGE. Nice smooth cricket surface reading. Good bit of prediction too, as Ashwell Prince was out for a duck the following day, giving England an advantage early on.
23 ANGELIC – ANGE(r) + LIC(k)
25 LOW-RENT – WREN inside LOT. I already had the L and W here so assumed the bird would be an OWL, which held me up for a bit. Luckily I wasn’t convinced by LOW-LIFE so I waited for more checking letters.
26 OUTER – ROUTE with the R moved to the end.
27 INELEGANT – 1 + NET (after deductions) around (angle)*. Surprisingly, the only across clue with any anagram component.
28 FANDANGO – FAN + DAN (degree of proficiency in judo, karate etc) + GO.
29 STAYER – ST(umped) + AYER (A. J. Ayer, British philosopher).

Down
1 FOREBEAR – F(ollowing) + OAR around REBE(l).
2 ALUMNUS – (usual)* around M(a)N.
3 CHIEFTAIN – [I.E. + FT] inside CHAIN.
5 RHYTHM AND BLUES – (by thrush led man)*. I said this was easy above, but I still had to write out the letters in a circle before I spotted it. However, I figured it was worth spending 20 seconds on at the start to open up the grid.
6 TABOR – TA + B(ritish) + O.R.
7 CHAPLET – P in CHALET.
8 LA-DI-DA – AD inside LID + A(rea).
9 CENTRAL LOCKING – CENT + COLLAR rev + KING. Got this straight from definition and enumeration, working out the wordplay as I wrote it in.
16 ENDOWMENT – MEN inside TWO rev, underneath END (resolve). I was a bit doubtful about the definition “talent”, but Chambers gives as one definition “a quality, aptitude or skill bestowed on anyone”.
17 TESTATOR – TEST + A.O.R around T(ime). This clue confused me when I first looked at it, but finally saw that “Will composer” was the definition and not the start of a question. I didn’t know that “album-oriented rock” had a dictionary abbreviation though, but now I’ve looked it up in Chambers I think they made a mistake. They give “adult-oriented rock; album-oriented rock (or radio)”. Surely the “or radio” should be after the “adult-oriented” bit?
19 RIGHT-ON – RIG + H(ot) + TON (style)
21 DIETARY – DIARY around ET (and in French).
22 FAR-OFF – FARO (card game) + FF (very loud).
24 LARVA – hidden in “ParticuLAR VAult”.

7 comments on “Saturday Times 24424 (Jan 2nd)”

  1. Much the same experience – a 20 minute stroll in the park with some good surface readings but little real difficulty.

    At 13A Chambers gives lead=induce as a direct synonym so I guess led=induced follows from that?

    At 17D I read the clue and thought what is album-oriented rock when it’s at home? So looked it up in C – no mention. Years of doing barred crosswords prompted me to wonder if it was an abbreviation and there it is AOR – never seen it before and still no wiser as to what it is in either its radio or album form!

  2. Well, it’s a real surprise to me that blogger and only commenter so far found this so easy. It took me nearly 2 hours during the second of which I used the full range of aids available to me. I just couldn’t get on with it.

    By this standard I would expect to see some sub 5 minute timings for today’s puzzle 24430.

  3. I found this quite straightforward too (sorry Jack). We were all complaining about the Saturday puzzle being too easy a couple of months ago and, perhaps as a result, we were hit with a couple of stinkers. I think, on the whole, I am in favour of these more gentle puzzles that we have had for the last couple of Saturdays. It gives me a chance to have a go at the Jumbo and the Mephisto, not to mention getting on with my life.

    I knew AOR as a dismissive term used by my children to describe the sort of music that I sometimes listen to.

  4. No trouble here, either, about average I would say, or a fraction easier.. though not as easy as this weeks. Led = induced was close enough, for me, and in view of its Chambers definition, I don’t see the objection to AOR, not that I’d ever heard of it.

    Ayer = philosopher, I now officially declare to be a cliche

  5. Closer to jackkt than linxit on this one, struggling with IRONCLAD and also distracted by the possible OWL at 25. I thought finding “collar” reversed in CENTRAL LOCKING was very clever. As to a commutation test sentence for “led” = “induced”, look no further than 5dn perhaps?

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