Saturday Times 24718b (11th Dec – online)

Solving time 12:50, considerably easier than the one in the paper, but still a pretty good puzzle.

Across
1 TRIP – R(iver) inside TIP.
3 FORM LETTER – FORM (class) + LETTER (character)
10 IN-CROWD – double definition.
11 THEOREM – O.R. (soldiers) inside THEE, + M(issed).
12 MISAPPREHENSION – MIS(s) + APPREHENSION.
13 HEALTH – L(ake) inside HEATH.
14 LORRAINE – LORE around RAIN, with two definitions for some reason.
17 MUTILATE – 1 + LATE after TUM reversed.
18 PRESTO – PEST + 0 around R(uns).
21 SIR JOHN FALSTAFF – (join flash Regiment)* + STAFF (planning group).
23 INNINGS – (w)INNINGS
24 BREATHE – (herb tea)*
25 APPARENTLY – AREN’T inside APPLY (fruity, i.e. like an apple). A bit cheeky but fine by me.
26 GROT – double definition.

Down
1 TRIUMPH – TRUMP around 1, + H(it).
2 INCESSANT – INCEST around SAN
4 ORDERS – (b)ORDERS
5 MATCHBOX – BOX after MATCH.
6 ELEANOR CROSSES – ELEANOR (Roosevelt, Franklin D.’s wife) + CROSSES. I’d never heard of these, but they’re a set of twelve crosses put up by King Edward I in memory of his wife, Eleanor of Castile. Only three are still standing.
7 TARSI – 1’S RAT reversed.
8 ROMANCE – A.N.C. (African National Congress) inside ROME.
9 HOSPITAL CORNER – (corporal then is)*
15 INSTANTER – (entrant is)*. A legal term meaning “without delay”.
16 STAND-IN – STAND + SIN.
17 MESSINA – MESS + IN A. Port in Sicily, right in the NE corner meeting the toe of the Italian boot.
19 OFFBEAT – OFF BEAT
20 GAMBOL – GAOL around M(o)B.
22 RUN UP – RUN (ladder, e.g. in a pair of tights) + U(sual) P(latform).

5 comments on “Saturday Times 24718b (11th Dec – online)”

  1. Just as well I do these things online, as even this ‘easy’ one took me 99 minutes. Not helped by failing to see the correct anagrist at 9 (as well as by not knowing the expression ‘hospital corner’). The use of ‘matchbox’ as an adjective was clever and brought back memories of Brian and Michael’s 1978 hit tribute to L. S. Lowry ‘Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’, which I had always thought of as ‘Matchstick Men …’

    COD to GAMBOL and a shout-out to 6dn for its challenge to the inner (sexist) man.

  2. Quite an entertaining puzzle, not too difficult.
    I have not looked at your other blog yet linxit, not having done the crossword.. presumably there is nothing available online yet?
  3. Unfortunately not. There’s still a link to it here, but it still points to a pdf version of the one that appeared online.
  4. OK, I have it now, thanks to a kind person on the crossword website. Anyone with access to the main Times website can get it, it is on p111 of the print edition..
  5. 30″, slowed down a bit by putting in ‘in-group’ first, and by never having heard of the Eleanor Crosses. Even with Eleanor and a couple of the crossing letters, I still had to look it up.
    21ac was one of those that can quickly be solved because of the enumeration: 3,4,8, cowardly soldier, ;join flash’, say no more. (A recent Jumbo had Dante Gabriel Rossetti as the solution: poet, 5,7,8, A in the first word, say no more.) A pity, actually–although I’m grateful for any help I can get–since the clues were quite clever.

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