Saturday Times 24735 – New Year hangover!

Solving time 21:28, but I can plead overindulgence the night before for the slowish time. Even so, this was quite a tricky one to put before us on the biggest “morning after” of the year! Richard Browne showing his wicked sense of humour perhaps. Shame about the ambiguity with 23A, otherwise this was almost flawless.

Across
1	HIP-FLASK – HIP (trendy) + FLAK (slating) around S(ingular). Great definition, “facility for nippers”.
5	SQUIRM – QU(estion) inside SIR (teacher) + (ter)M.
9	BAR – triple definition: Pressure / that goalie’s under / (to make) save.
10	FIRE-CRACKER – FIRE (something you’d put out with water) + CRACKER.
12	LOOK SNAPPY – NAPPY after LOOKS.
13	TO GO – TOO around G(allons).
15	B-MOVIE – (mob)* + VIE (jockey, as a verb).
16	CHIMERA – CHIMER (doorbell, perhaps) + A (first class). I briefly wondered how RA could mean “first class”, but the penny soon dropped.
18	WASHRAG – W(ith) + ASH (powder) + RAG (cheap paper). I’m glad this one indicated the Americanism, but to my mind there are a couple of others in the puzzle not indicated (maybe because they’ve come into regular use over here too).
20	NO-SHOW – OHS reversed inside NOW.
23	TORN – TOR + N. There was a lot of discussion on the CC bulletin board about this one, as the answer could equally well have been TORE. As “rent” is both the past tense and the past participle of “rend”, I’m pretty sure that if this clue had appeared in the Championships both answers would have to have been accepted. It is annoying that a prize puzzle with an unchecked ambiguous letter has cost a lot of people a chance at a prize (although as I guessed correctly, I shouldn’t grumble).
24	SILVERWARE – R(o)W (row without old) inside (leaver is)*, “School” being the anagrind. Toughest wordplay of the puzzle for me.
26	HUNTING-CROP – HUNG (having no majority party) around TIN (can) + CROP (reduce). More devious wordplay, and a great surface too.
27	IMP – IMP(act).
28	RIYADH – alternate letters of “had many tiers”, reversed. Capital of Saudi Arabia.
29	GLAD-HAND – double definition, one of them cryptic.

Down
1	HUBBLE – HUMBLE (base), with the third letter replaced with a B(illion) to give Edwin HUBBLE, the astronomer after whom the famous space telescope is named.
2	PERFORM – PER (a) + FORM (class). A class clue!
3	LIFESAVERS – (fuel is)* without the U (dispatch United) + AVERS (States). Brilliant lift-and-separate on United and States and a smooth surface. Another cracker.
4	SPREADEAGLING – [SPREAD (feast) + E.G. (for example) around A (article)] + LING (fish).
6	QUAD – double definition, can be short for a quadrangle or a quad-bike.
7	IRKSOME – (risk)* + ‘OME (Cockney in).
8	MARJORAM – RAM rev. + [OR inside JAM].
11	CAPE CANAVERAL – (can a car leave p)*
14	PINSTRIPED – PINS (fixes) + TRIPE (bunk) + (cor)D.
17	TWITCHER – cryptic definition, slang for a birdwatcher.
19	SPRINGY – SPY around RING.
21	OCARINA – initial letters of “our chances at redemption is nigh — alas”.
22	KEYPAD – KEY (important) + PAD (home), with a very good cryptic definition, “where one may have pressing needs”.
25	WILD – sounds like “Wilde”, as in Oscar, the Irish playwright. My last one in, very hard to ignore the surface reading.

9 comments on “Saturday Times 24735 – New Year hangover!”

I thought this one of if not the best of the holiday puzzles. There are some really excellent but scrupulously fair clues that kept me busy for about 30 minutes. A great pity about TORN/TORE where I was also lucky enough to guess correctly. Thank you setter for making me work at it rather than just coast through.

90 minutes with one wrong at 19dn where I bunged in STRINGY and didn’t think it through.

May I add my congratulations to the setter. I think linxit has summed up my solve – wondering how RA could mean first class, the devilishness of HUNTING-CROP and SILVERWARE, and so on. PERFORM is brilliant. I needed something to do on a day when it was too hot to do anything else, and this did the job very nicely indeed.

Since I wss on holiday when this came out, I did it this afternoon and really enjoyed it, ‘though taking longer than Jack. Since north is more prototypically a direction than east, my guess is more people will have the ‘right’ answer. Like Andy, last in WILD. Noted a very strong American flavour to this as I was solving. Terrific long words, I thought.

Did this in bed this morning with my wake-up cup of tea.. I spent a long time getting started – first in B-MOVIE. But once begun it all went smoothly enough. Like everyone else I dithered over 23a but guessed correctly. An enjoyable 39 minutes.

22 minutes; too fast, as it turned out, as I got one wrong, simply by not taking the time to think: I put in ‘quay’ at 6d for some reason, and never went back.
Some wonderful clues, ‘perform’, ‘lifesavers’, & ‘hunting-crop’ being my favorites. Wouldn’t have ever figured out ‘lifesavers’ without linxit’s explanation.

Super puzzle, this. No time as I did it in a few sessions but it took quite a while: no doubt slowed down by a monster hangover. Last in was HIP-FLASK, a big and delightful Eureka moment. “Facility for nippers” is brilliant.
I put in “quay” at 6dn too but fortunately did go back.
Much easier Saturday workout this week.

Thank you for the kind comments on this puzzle. The intended answer to 23ac was TORN but of course TORE was an equally valid alternative. I’d like to think that people who submitted entries with the latter would be marked correct but I suspect they may not. So I have to apologise for this slip-up!

Thanks for the explanation of RA at the end of CHIMERA. I was working on CHIME as a doorbell, without the R. And thanks for the explanation of LIFESAVERS. Indeed, a brilliant separation of United and States! Like many people I chose TORE instead of TORN. Oh, well. Can’t complain. As I’ve discovered in the CC Forum, my two prizes in 8 years is a lot better than some who have slaved away at the coalface for up to 3 times as long a period of time.
MartinP

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