Saturday Times 24652 (September 25th)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 11:38, a much easier one than the previous week’s, helped by four crossing 15-letter entries that all went in straight away. Would have been a bit quicker but I carelessly put NUTS in at 16A, which stopped me getting 13D for a while. Other than that, plain sailing.

Across
1 BOMBSHELL – double definition. I think Jean Harlow was the original “blonde bombshell”.
6 HOP IT – OP in HIT.
9 VIDEOCONFERENCE – (overconfidence)* + (rac)E.
10 YELLOW – double definition. Not sure why it’s “offensively sensational” though. Chambers has yellow as offensive when referring to oriental races, but just informal in its sensational meaning. What am I missing?
11 CHARTIST – CHAR + T(w)IST. Chartism was a political and social reform movement in the mid-19th century.
13 HOOTENANNY – (anyone not)* after H(our). I always watch Jools Holland’s annual Hootenanny around midnight on New Years Eve.
14 ISLE – (m)ISLE(d).
16 BATS – STAB reversed.
17 TAKEN APART – TAKEN A PART.
19 OPEN-PLAN – OPEN (flower) + PLAN(e)
20 ADEPTS – AS housing (i.e. containing) DEPT
23 LEONARDO DA VINCI – (I can, vain doodler)*. Nice anagram, but my favourite one for this artist is “Vindaloo and rice”.
24 NUDGE – E (point) + GUN around D(aughters), all reversed.
25 REASSURED – REARED around [S(outh) + US reversed].

Down
1 BEVVY – sounds like “bevy”. Short for “beverage”, and can also be spelled with a single V.
2 MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD – cryptic definition. (6-2-3-4) gave it away without having to read the clue.
3 STOP OVER – V(ery) inside (poorest)*
4 ETON – E(uropean) TON (style). An Eton jacket and an Eton collar both take their names from the school, where pupils still have to wear them.
5 LEFT-HANDER – LEFT HER around AND (with). I’m a sinister person and proud of it. In the middle ages I’d have been accused of being possessed by the devil though, hence the more usual meaning of the word.
6 HARARE – HARE around R.A. (Royal Artillery). Capital of Zimbabwe.
7 PENCIL-SHARPENER – cryptic definition.
8 TREATMENT – double definition.
12 SALAMANDER – (deals)* around A MAN + R(ation). Not the newt-like amphibian here, but an elemental spirit that lives in fire.
13 HOBGOBLIN – GO (shot) inside HOBBLIN’. Puck is one such in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
15 MALDIVES – DIVES (a rich man in the Bible) after MAL (short for Malachi, last book of the Old Testament).
18 UPDATE – UP (higher) + DATE (court).
21 SHIED – SHED around I
22 EDNA – ANDE(s) reversed.

8 comments on “Saturday Times 24652 (September 25th)”

  1. Collins has “Offensively sensational, as a cheap newspaper (esp in the phrase ‘yellow press’).

    This took me an hour with a couple of cheats but I failed to get 16ac correctly. In desperation I had BITE (lunch, as in ‘a bite to eat’) by taking the BACK out of BACKBITE (meaning to go for someone). I wasn’t confident but it’s all I could think of.

  2. A straightforward puzzle of average difficulty – fun to solve without ever being over taxing.

    The yellow press originates from New York and refers to scurrilous and sensational fiction invented in pursuit of a circulation war. Agree with you on the long clues. They were fairly obvious with 7D being a bit of a chestnut and the painter (8,2,5) with a “v” in the anagram leads straight to the vindaloo and rice eater (how sad are we when we know anagrams off by heart?)

    I thought 15D was a bit too biblical with two slightly obscure references in the one wordplay but no quibbles about the rest of it.

  3. I can’t remember how long this took me but I found it quite difficult, even for a Saturday. MALDIVES was last in and I had no idea how it worked, so thanks for the explanation.
  4. Also had ‘nuts’ at first and needed to resort to aids for HOBGOBLIN. Otherwise, fairly straightforward, especially compared to this week’s – an absolute corker with one sublime clue.
  5. I enjoyed this one and solved everything except for “shied” which I had as “spied,” hoping that “I dropped round to see” meant spied. I don’t see why shied is the answer – it must be that shied means cast somehow? I’ll Google it.
  6. Indeed, according to Dictionary.com, “shy” means to “cast” in the sense of throwing something. I don’t recall ever seeing this usage here in the States. is it common to use “shy” to mean “cast” or “throw” in Britain?
    1. It’s not common, but the main usage is very familiar in a Coconut Shy at a fair, where punters have to throw small wooden balls at coconuts to try and knock them off a stand to win a prize.

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