Saturday Times 24664 (October 9th)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
No idea of solving time. I saved this for Championship practice last Sunday morning, but wish I hadn’t! It puts you right off when you get stuck. I eventually finished it on Sunday evening after I got home from Cheltenham, and it was at least as tough as any of the puzzles in the final, and a pangram too.

Across
1 DREAM UP – D(aughter) + RE (touching) + PUMA reversed.
5 ROCKALL – (p)ALL following ROCK. Inch is a Scottish word for an island.
9 NUT – triple definition.
10 FALSE BOTTOM – (leaf’s)* + BOTTOM (one of the “rude mechanicals” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream).
11 ANACONDA – A CON inside AND A.
12 TUCSON – TUC’S + (z)ON(e).
15 EOIN – even letters of dEvOtIoN.
16 PICARESQUE – PIQUE around CARES.
18 WAGE-FREEZE – W(ith) AGE + “frees”.
19 WELL – double definition.
22 AUNTIE – A (first-rate) + UNTIE. A nickname of the BBC.
23 MAJESTIC – MA + JEST, C (about) around 1.
25 NUMBER-PLATE – NUMBER (feeling less) + P(ressure) + LATE (once).
27 ADO – hidden in “tea? Don’t”
28 TABASCO – BAT reversed + AS + CO
29 ZANIEST – IN A reversed inside ZEST.

Down
1 DAN DARE – DAND(y) + ARE. A comic strip in The Eagle
2 EXTRA VIRGIN – if you’re a maiden over you’ve got an EXTRA VIRGIN.
3 MY FOOT – double definition.
4 PILE-DRIVER – PILE (mansion) + DRIVER.
5 REED – “read”
6 CROCUSES – CROC USES
7 ART – last letters of ultrA superioR argumenT.
8 LE MONDE – (old men)* + E(nergy). A French national newspaper.
13 SEQUESTRATE – SET RATE around QUE + S.
14 RAZZMATAZZ – R.A. + [MAT(e) + A inside ZZZZ.
17 IFFINESS – IF + FINESS(e), &lit.
18 WHATNOT – (want to + (flouris)H)*
20 LUCK OUT – not quite sure how this works. My guess is (p)LUCK (yank with the first letter removed) + OUT (striking), the definition being “win, by chance”, but I’m not convinced.
21 DEMEAN – first and last letters of D(esperat)E M(easur)E A(gai)N.
24 UP TO – double definition.
26 MOB – another one I don’t quite get: it’s the first letters of Book Of Mine reversed, but the clue doesn’t say that.

11 comments on “Saturday Times 24664 (October 9th)”

  1. Just over an hour on this enjoyable puzzle. A few clues might, I imagine, have mystified anyone from outside the UK: DAN DARE (the character and the reference to the Dandy comic) AUNTIE BBC and sweet ROCKALL, to name three.

    The top half went in very quickly, but I was delayed by RAZZMATAZZ. I thought it might be RAZAMATAZZ or perhaps RAZZAMATAZ, possibly because I remembered the line “I love your jazz, Razz-a-ma-tazz”, from Cinderella Rockefella. (The singer, Esther Ofarim, was the focus of an epidemic of desire among the young men of the 1960s and probably explains why I remember such ephemera.)

    Finally, is a WAGE FREEZE anti-inflationary? In his speech at Chippenham in 1968, Enoch Powell remarked that governments insisting that wage increases cause inflation was “equivalent to stealing a man’s wallet and then getting him locked up for theft”.

  2. Very heavy going, this one. It took me 80 minutes (as did this week’s) and I used aids a few times towards the end just to get it finished.

    It’s a pangram.

  3. An excellent puzzle full of invention as well as yet another trip down memory lane with Dan Dare. The comic The Eagle was a major revolution representing a complete break with mini-papers such as The Champion and was read by fathers as much as by sons. Thank you setter.

    I agree on 20D (p)LUCK-OUT

  4. I can’t remember how long this took me but it was around the half-hour mark I think. Quite tricky but very enjoyable indeed.
    For 26dn you have to remove the second B (book) from BOMB (mine) and then reverse it.
  5. I was waiting with bated breath for this blog, as 1d was the one clue I couldn’t for the life of me figure out. It’s a relief to find that I couldn’t possibly have solved it, never having heard of Dan Dare or The Eagle
  6. Watch out also for The Mekon – Dare’s habitual enemy who floated around on a small spacecraft

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