Saturday Times 24771 (12th Feb)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 11:40, which seemed quite quick for me considering the number of clever clues. A wrong answer at 25 held me up for a minute in the SW corner, but my Tippex is too good and I can’t remember what I put now.

Across
1 DEPICT – D(ocil)E + PICT
4 CARTLAND – CART LAND, i.e. take the earth in a cart. Barbara Cartland (1901-2000) is the romantic novelist, who published an astonishing 723 books.
10 CATATONIA – NO TA-TA reversed inside CIA.
11 MUMPS – MU (letter from Greek) + MP’S.
12 SENSATIONALISM – (Man’s liaison set)*
14 VERGE – E.G. REV reversed.
16 EDWARDIAN – ED + WARN around AID reversed.
18 LIFESTYLE – (eyes’ll fit)*
20 BANJO – BAN JO, i.e. remove JO from JOIN to get IN.
21 ENFANT TERRIBLE – (Better, infernal)*
25 HUNCH – H(ot) + (l)UNCH
26 OPERATIVE – OPT + I’VE around ERA.
27 THE BRINY – (herb)* inside TINY.
28 CEMENT – C.E. + MET around N(ew).

Down
1 DECISIVELY – DEC IS (l)IVELY.
2 PUT ON – NOT UP reversed. Definition is “stage” as a verb.
3 COTTAGE – OTT inside CAGE.
5 AGAIN – AGA (miltary leader) + IN (at the office).
6 TUMBLER – double definition.
7 ADMISSION – and another.
8 DESK – first letters of Details Employees Should Know.
9 ENTIRETY – (eternity)*
13 INCOHERENT – INHERENT around CO.
15 REFINANCE – REF IN (d)ANCE. Hmm, “headed” has to mean “beheaded” for this to work. According to Chambers it can, in an obsolete meaning.
17 WHENEVER – W(ife) + HER (the woman) around N(ew) + EVE (original one).
19 SMASHER – double definition.
20 BARRAGE – BAR RAGE
22 THORN – THOR + N(ame)
23 BEIGE – B(lack) + alternate letters of mErInGuE.
24 SHOT – (case)S + HOT.

9 comments on “Saturday Times 24771 (12th Feb)”

  1. I struggled with this one taking about an hour. I then spent another 30 minutes trying to explain 23 down and satisfy myself the answer was correct. Talk about a ‘Doh’ moment!

    I seem to be particularly slow on Saturdays. Today’s (24777) was going in nicely until I reached the SW corner which I found totally impenetrable without the use of aids.

  2. 11 minutes for this, which I think must be my record for a Saturday. Today’s was much harder.
  3. Oh, NOW I see 20ac. I guess that makes me 27ac in 24777. Agree about the SW corner in today’s
  4. I agree about 15D where the unsignalled use of an old and obscure meaning of “headed” for the benefit of surface reading is shall we say offside. The rest was on the easy side of average I thought, reasonable but not taxing rather like the four daily puzzles that followed it.
    1. I think gardeners talk about dead-heading flowers, roses, for example, which surely is the meaning required here, so not all that obscure. But actually I solved this clue without ever understanding how it worked.
  5. 29 minutes, quite quick for me for Saturday (today’s was 46′). I agree about ‘headed’, although I don’t think it slowed me down, given the definition and a couple of checking letters. I didn’t care much for pale=beige or nonconformist=enfant terrible (which I put in as ‘infant’, only spotting the slip as I was submitting). Took me forever to figure out BANJO ex post facto, but I felt fairly confident that bongos aren’t stringed. No COD (if I chose 10ac, would that be homage to catatonia?).
    1. Very good, Kevin! I’m lost for words!
      Of course, that classic should not be confused with Saint-Exupery’s little-known account of the pioneering days of flying French produce over the Pyrenees to Barcelona: Fromage to Catalonia.
  6. 9:38 here.

    I started writing in INFANT for 21ac, but realised as soon I’d reached the end of the word that that was a truly TERRIBLE spelling.

    I wasn’t worried by “headed” in 15dn (I suspect I’ve seen it used in that way before).

  7. No clue for TheBriny left me with a dnf in 20 minutes. Darn you Mr Murdoch.

Comments are closed.