Saturday Times 24442 (Jan 23rd)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 21:02, slowed down a bit by a couple of silly mistakes. Otherwise another fairly straightforward one for a Saturday, although there were a couple of obscure words and a literary reference that might not be too well known.

Across
1 FORESIGHTED – “four cited”. This looked suspiciously like a made-up word to me, but it’s in Chambers as an adjective.
7 ROC – COR reversed. Doesn’t pass the substitution test though – I can’t imagine Victor Meldrew saying “Cor!”
9 DAMNATION – DAM + NATION
10 SWANN – SWAN (pen) + N(ame). Charles Swann is a character in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. In a hurry, I initially read “one of Prost’s” in the clue and stuck in ALAIN without thinking.
11 MINIMUS – MINIM + US. Used in boys’ schools to differentiate the youngest of the surname, as they wouldn’t dream of calling boys by their first names.
12 ABRIDGE – A + BRIDGE. Also works as a straight clue, but in the cryptic reading “contract” is a verb.
13 SUSAN – ref. Black-eyed Susan, the garden flower.
15 EXPEDIENT – EX + PEDI(m)ENT. I initially made up the word IMPEDIENT as I’d misspelt 4d (well, it does exist if you look in the OED, but it means obstructive). In fact it was still in there when I stopped the clock, but I checked GAITSKELL afterwards and corrected it.
17 JERUSALEM – J(udge) + L in MEASURE reversed. Excellent clue, and no sign of the WI for a change!
19 POSER – (ropes)*
20 CATCALL – CA (about) + LL (lines), after (act)*
22 EVENTER – VENT inside E’ER.
24 ELGAR – RAG (jazz piece) + LE, all reversed. Another stumbling block for a while because of 18d.
25 SUN HELMET – UN (peacekeepers) + HELM (I suppose the helm’s at the front of the ship), inside SET (arranged).
27 SUM – MUS(t) reversed.
28 WEST LOTHIAN – (Leith’s a town)* although it’s not in West Lothian.

Down
1 FED – double definition.
2 RUMEN – R.U. MEN. The first stomach of a ruminant. Familiar from barred cryptics.
3 SWAGMEN – (news mag)*. Surely this only works in Australia – in the UK a swagman is the guy who holds the burglar’s swag (sees mental image of a fat guy with a cap, eye mask and hooped jumper, climbing through a window holding a big sack labelled SWAG).
4 GAITSKELL – GAITS (ways of proceeding) + KELL(y) (Ned the outlaw). Hugh Gaitskell (not Gaitskill), former Labour politician. I must have thought he was in favour of the death penalty!
5 TONGA – double definition, another one I knew from barred puzzles. It’s also an African tribe and a Fijian toothache remedy.
6 DESIRED – SIR in DEED.
7 READDRESS – A D(aughter) inside REDRESS.
8 CONJECTURER – CON (study) + LECTURER with the 1st letter changed to a J.
11 MESS JACKETS – MEETS around SS + JACK.
14 STRATAGEM – TART reversed inside SAGE M(aiden).
16 PIMPERNEL – ERNE inside PIMPL(e).
18 SPARROW – PARR (a young salmon) inside SOW. Initially I saw S?????W here and stuck in SWALLOW without thinking.
19 PRECEPT – hidden in “toP RECEPTionist”.
21 LASTS – (b)LASTS
23 TEMPI – TE(a)M + P1
26 TUN – TUN(is)

7 comments on “Saturday Times 24442 (Jan 23rd)”

  1. I was, as they say in Everton, dead-chuffed-like to get this out in 9 minutes: a Saturday PB. There are in fact three Oz refs: not just Kelly and the Swagmen (Paul K’s old bush band?) but also at 13ac. A CD collection of the best work by the great Blackeyed Susans was reviewed in the Oz Review the day this puzzle came out. Repeats: Pimpernel and the Megatarts — another band perhaps?
  2. Straightforward 18mins with no complaints but no obvious COD either. No problems with SWAGMEN, thanks to a passing acquaintance with the work of that great Australian, Rolf Harris..

    My parents couldn’t afford to give me the sort of education where you only get called by your surname, but surely minor would be more usual than minimus? Possible minimus when there’s three? Anyone in a position to elucidate?

    I am about half way through vol. 2 of In Search of Lost Time at present, a wonderfully vocabulary-expanding work, and also a fine cure for insomnia so I probably won’t be finishing it any time soon 🙂

    1. No direct experience but I’m sure you are right on major, minor and minimus. I’m not sure what happens if there are four – something like this perhaps:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3jIE3b-bhY

      I once tried reading Proust in French and never got past halfway through the first book – it’s something I have marked down for my retirement.

  3. Very straightforward – about 25 minutes to solve. No problem with SWAGMEN, easy anagram. At my old school, the ancient and venerated Ba’ersea Gramma’, we were all called “boy” or “lout”. Somebody called “minimus” would have been unlikely to have survived a day.
  4. Once again I’m an odd one out because I found this very difficult and had completed only about two-thirds of it after 90 minutes when I resorted to aids. I don’t really know what the problem was.

Comments are closed.