Saturday Times 24478 (6th March)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 33:22, making it one of the toughest this year for me. It took me a while to get on the setter’s wavelength last Saturday, as there are quite a few clues where the wordplay is in reverse order, and a lot of very well disguised definitions.

Across
1 BOVVER – B + OVER around V. Possibly a troublesome start for overseas solvers?
4 UPSTARTS – PS (extra words to say) inside U TARTS. Not keen on the definition. I can’t see any justification for braggart as a synonym for upstart in either word’s entry in Chambers.
9 WHOOPEE – HOOP inside WEE.
11 OPTICAL – TOPICAL with the T moved inside.
12 TRAIL – (duve)T + RAIL.
13 PROLONGED – (s)O(i)L inside PRONGED.
14 HOUSEBOUND – USE (operation) + BOUND (obliged), following H(ospital) + O (circular). Clever use of “lift & separate” to hide the definition.
16 MISS – double definition.
19 DUMB – DUMB(o)
20 WIDESPREAD – WIDE (extra, a cricket term) + SPREAD (meal laid out).
22 MANGANESE – NE inside GAS, all inside (mean)*.
23 COBOL – B(ook) inside COOL. Stands for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, a computer programming language, not as popular now as it once was.
25 DEFLATE – D, E FLAT, E. Clever stuff. How many thought “DEF, LATE? How’s LATE clued?” I admit I did at first.
26 TEASING – TEA + SING.
27 MELODIST – DOLE rev. inside MIST. I spent a while trying to think of the name of a composer here.
28 WEIGHT – W + EIGHT.

Down
1 BEWITCHED – WIT + CHE in BED.
2 VIOLA – sort of double cryptic definition, lead character of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and a musical instrument.
3 ESPALIER – LIE inside (pears)*. A latticework up which fruit trees are trained to grow flat, or a tree so trained.
5 PRONOUNCEMENT – PRONOUN + CEMENT
6 TATTOO – TAT + TOO.
7 RECOGNISE – E(nglish) SINGER reversed around CO (joint).
8 SOLID – SO (then) + LID (top).
10 EXPLOSIVENESS – (open vessel is)* around X.
15 UNMINDFUL – MIN(ister) inside (fund)* + U(ndermine) L(eadership).
17 SIDELIGHT – DELI (shop) “in SIGHT” = visible.
18 SPACE-AGE – SAGE (learned) around PACE (measure).
21 CANARD – R(use) inside CANAD(a). That’s a good one – “useless ruse” to get an R.
22 MODEM – ODE inside MM.
24 BRING – B(oats) + RING.

15 comments on “Saturday Times 24478 (6th March)”

  1. Took this on holiday and did it in snatches of 10 mins here and there. Defeated by 21d & 27a -and used a solver to get 3d. Seemed pretty tough to me.
  2. A mere 2 hours and 20 minutes for me over several sessions, but no aids, so very satisfying. Compared to this one, today’s was a walk in the park.

    First in BEWITCHED, last in ESPALIER. 17 and 25 put in without seeing the full cryptic – thanks to linxit for elucidation. COD to UPSTARTS – close enough for me. They give themselves airs, don’t they?

  3. Strangely I had no problem with this one and jogged to the finish in 25 minutes. I was quickly onto the setter’s wavelength and made simple steady progress. A slight hint of IT with MODEM and dear old Grace Hopper’s COBOL that was a bit easier to use than machine code!
    1. I found this one fairly straightforward as well, and my slowish 16:29 is probably because as usual it was the last of a batch of six I solved on Sunday morning.

      It’s possible I benefitted from having the same advantage of an IT background going some way back, having wrestled with COBOL in the 1970s (writing programs for the MOD) and MODEMs off and on over the years (but particularly in the 1980s when I had to set up a gateway linking two very different electronic mail systems, one of them in the US). (I’ve written in machine code too, but that goes back to 1963!)

  4. I struggled with this one and took a break after an hour with about 12 unsolved scattered across the grid. 30 minutes later I returned out and wrote in the remaining answers with hardly a pause for breath.

    Initially I gave myself a problem in the NW corner where I had confidently written FESTE at 2dn, he being the one who provides all the music in the play.

    I scored a PB for a Saturday puzzle (24478)today. 25 minutes is a cause for celebration around here until I find out that others have beaten the 5 minute barrier.

    1. As I was doing 24478, I kept saying to myself some buggers are going to be waltzing into this blog languidly declaring Roger Bannister times – “I must go faster, I must go faster”. The pressure this group puts you under …..
  5. I’ve seen enough Catherine Tate clips on YouTube to grok BOVVER, but the satisfaction gained from that is lost to the shame of not seeing how DEFLATE worked.
  6. I quite liked this one, though thanks to linxit for the full glory of DEFLATE: should’ve, could’ve, didn’t.
    Comment of the day to jon88 for the correct and delightful use of “grok” – it occurs to me that it would have lots of uses in cluing.
    A pleasant cruise in just over 20 mins.
  7. I missed your explanation previously and realise now that I didn’t understand the clue fully. I had DEF as the three consecutive notes and then added LA and TE as two more notes. I’m sure I would have paid more attention to the detail if it had been my day to blog the puzzle but I was struggling and this answer came easily so I didn’t think about it for very long.

    On a club matter, I always print the grid using the grey option but Saturday grids over recent weeks print with a blue tinge. Does anyone else experience this?

    1. I can’t say I’ve noticed any change in hue on Saturday; just the same drab greyness of the rest of the week. I print in black only, but I dare say you do too.
  8. Another good Saturday puzzle. Thanks for the correct explanation of DEFLATE. I remember thinking exactly along jackkt’s lines and not being at all convinced by the argument. COD to CANARD. Does this mean that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it might just be a canard?
  9. Like Jimbo, I found this of average difficulty for a Saturday and took about 17 mins. Great fun, lots of excellent clues, as with most of the Saturday puzzles.

    Tom B.

  10. Can’t remember a time for this one.

    At 4A, the Oxford and Collins def’s for upstart both mention arrogance – Collins has roughly “arrogant and presumptious person” as one def, and Oxford has “especially an arrogant one” or similar in the expected def.

    1. Sorry, that was me. Copy now found – solved in 18 minutes with some time wasted by writing 11 as TOPICAL, with the wordplay read as “time to move in (for viewing)”. Nearly a “works both ways” clue though “for viewing” should really have been “of viewing” for my reading to be completely solid. Also played with the possibility of ___AGENT at 5D, with Bond = AGENT, and had a careless UNNEEDFUL at 15 for a while.

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