Saturday Times 24472 (Feb 27)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 13:47, fairly straightforward for a Saturday (unlike this week’s, which put up a hell of a fight). Nice to see my old friend Isaac Asimov put in an appearance – I read all his SF and most of his non-fiction when I was a teenager (and that is a lot!)

Across
1 RHINOCEROS – SORE + CON + 1 HR, all reversed. Put in from the clichéd definition while still reading the clue!
7 WEAK – W(hos)E A(rtwor)K. One of the last ones I got, needing the checking letters before I realised how it worked.
9 ESPECIAL – ICE inside LAPSE, all reversed.
10 ASIMOV – AS I MOV(e) – another one put straight in from the def. before I read the rest of the clue.
11 BARTOK – BAR (a measure of music) + T(ons) + OK. Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer.
13 THIRTEEN – (here it isn’t)*, without “is”. Clever self-referential clue.
14 LIVERPUDLIAN – (I land up)* next to LIVER. Would have been an even better clue if Harrison had actually played a keyboard instrument, but as far as I know he only ever played guitar.
17 INFLAMMATORY – cryptic definition.
20 GREAT APE – “grey tape”
21 BANNER – double definition.
22 IN KIND – INK IN (indelibly write) + D (note).
23 INSIGNIA – hidden reversed in “trAIN GI SNIpers”
25 SOWN – W in SON.
26 ROYAL JELLY – double definition, one cryptic. This is the substance fed to bee larvae which turns them into queens. In one of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected, it’s fed to a baby and he grows into a giant.

Down
2 HISPANIC – HIS PANIC.
3 NEE – NEE(d).
4 CLINK – C(hain) + LINK
5 RELATED – double definition.
6 STALINISM – (Islam isn’t)*. A message to Geert Wilders perhaps (who’s currently back in the UK showing his film to the House of Lords).
7 WHITTINGTON – W(ife) HITTING TON.
8 AZORES – middle two letters of lAZy wORk lESs.
12 TREPIDATION – (partitioned)*. Great anagram – I tried for a while to make something out of (Uneasy state)*, which was probably the setter’s intention.
15 PUFF ADDER – RED DAFF UP, all reversed.
16 FREE WILL – FREE WILL(y), a 1993 film about a killer whale.
18 AMENITY – (any time)*
19 BRANDO – BRAN (husky parts) + DO. Great clue, counts as an &lit I reckon.
21 BASIL – BASI(c) + L(asagne).
24 GEE – E.E.G. (electroencephalograph) reversed.

7 comments on “Saturday Times 24472 (Feb 27)”

  1. A one coffee puzzle. Entertaining but not particularly difficult. I liked THIRTEEN.
  2. I think I managed this one in 17 mins, and I’m sure I found it very enjoyable. 25A worked very well, I thought.

    Tom B.

  3. Good for a Saturday when there’s time to mull over tricky parsings like those in 7ac and 8dn. Despite the acclaim for AZORES, I found it rather clunky. With the def in the middle, indicated by “these”, I thought we might be in popular [in pre-PC days: “Women’s”] magazine territory.
  4. An hour for me before heading off to sing at the St David’s Society Ball. Still on the musical theme, Bartok will for ever be associated for me with Michael Halliday’s son Nigel, the subject of his book on language acquisition (‘Learning How to Mean’, if memory serves).

    Halliday records that at the age of two, his lad was going “Ba … Da …” Linguist Dad glosses the utterances as “Put on the Bartok and the Dvorak”. Priceless!

  5. I attempted this puzzle in novel fashion, taking it with me on a training run for the High Peak Marathon. 30 miles and 6 hours later I had a very crumpled grid with only 12 answers filled in, the first being RHINOCEROS and the last being FREE WILL. After a hot shower, a hot meal and several hours of recuperation I returned to the grid and completed all but two in quick order. Needed aids to get AZORES and to understand THIRTEEN. Lots of super clues. I particularly liked HISPANIC, BRANDO, BASIL, IN KIND, ASIMOV, WHITTINGTON and the superb hidden INSIGNIA. Thank you setter!

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