Saturday Times 24801 (19th March)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Sorry about the delay in getting this out, but I had to work all day yesterday and was out all day today, so this is my first chance to post this weekend – 10pm on Sunday.

18:05 to solve the puzzle, which was an excellent one. Very tricky in places, but there were quite a few “D’oh!” moments, when a seemingly intractable clue became blindingly obvious after an extra checking letter went in. I counted four or five scientific terms in this week’s grid. Jim will be pleased! 🙂

Across
1 KICKBACK – KICK (attack) + BACK (defender).
5 CASSIS – CAS(e)S (fortunE finally removed) + 1’S. An alcoholic blackcurrant flavoured cordial.
10 TEMPLE BAR – BE reversed inside TEMPLAR. The western entrance to the City of London.
11 OSIER – (c)OSIER
12 BOLD – sounds like “bowled”, e.g. in cricket.
13 DODECAGON – DON (teacher) around (DEC + AGO). A 12-sided plane figure.
15 LIPIZZANER – LINER around PIZZA. Very devious clue in hindsight, but I spotted it right away. The Z from 3D helped.
17 SNUB – S(econd) + NUB.
19 ELAN – hidden inside “barrEL, ANcient”.
20 PROTRACTOR – PRO (for) + TRAC(k) (endless path) + TOR (peak).
22 OVERSIGHT – (voter)* around SIGH.
24 DREW – St. ANDREW without A + N(ame).
26 LOOSE – LO (see) + OS (outsize = enormous) + E(nergy).
27 TRIVALENT – TENT around RIVAL.
28 ESKIMO – SKI inside E (one point) and MO (a second).
29 PERKED UP – double definition, the second one cryptic.
Down
1 KITE – ref. the phrase “as high as a KITE”.
2 COMMONPLACE BOOK – COMMON + PLACE + BOOK. A notebook for jotting down ideas, popular in the 18th-19th centuries.
3 BULLDOZE – BULL (speculator) + DO ZE(n) (meditate no end). I didn’t see that last week, thinking DOZE = meditate (facetiously) and not reading the whole clue.
4 CUBED – 1³ = 1, hence unchanging. I put CUBIC at first, but 13 wasn’t hard and set me straight without a hold-up.
6 AT ONCE – AT ONE (united) around C(lubs).
7 SWINGING THE LEAD – S(ee) + (aged in new light)*. What my dad always humorously referred to in fake Latin as “pendulum plumbi”, but surprisingly I can’t find it anywhere on the Net, so maybe he invented it.
8 STRINDBERG – ST (way) + BERG (mass of ice) around RIND (skin). Not an easy one to get from the definition, but this Swedish playwright is probably the most famous person called August. The only other one I can think of is August Derleth, the horror writer.
9 GRADIENT – GRANT (concede) around DIE (fail).
14 OLDE WORLDE – (doll we orde)*
16 ARROGATE – A + RR (Right Reverend = bishop) + 0 GATE (no people attending). I couldn’t get B for bishop out of my head on this one, and stuck in ABNEGATE at first, even though the meaning doesn’t quite fit and NE doesn’t mean NO!
18 AARDVARK – A RD inside AV (Authorised Version = Bible) + ARK. Great clue.
21 ESTEEM – E(a)S(y) + MEET reversed.
23 TWINE – TWIN + E(lectrical).
25 STEP – double definition, the first mildly cryptic although I doubt if anyone was fooled.

8 comments on “Saturday Times 24801 (19th March)”

  1. Took a while, but thought this an excellent puzzle. I imagine the rather loose definitions for STRINDBERG, LIPIZZANER and AARDVARK might upset some solvers, but I think they’re fair game for a Times crossword. 4 down was very clever, wasn’t it? (Though I initially put in CUBIC instead of CUBED.) Also gave ticks to ESKIMO and SWINGING THE LEAD.

    (Thought ESKIMO wasn’t PC these days, though Never Do A Tango With An Inuit doesn’t have the same ring.)

  2. Actually it’s ‘inuk’ for one person.

    ttp://www.btb.gc.ca/btb.php?lang=eng&cont=039

    Had fun with this but sadly forgot to input until it was too late.
    The loose definitions were a slog but solvable.

  3. 13:33 for me – not helped by taking ages to spot that I’d bunged in BULLDOSE. Thank goodness the Z was checked, otherwise I might have left the S there! Apart from that I was horribly slow spotting OLDE WORLDE (which didn’t leap out at me from the crossing letters) and a bit slow getting AARDVARK. No complaints about loose definitions though, so all in all an enjoyable crossword.
  4. I’ve been waiting all week to find out the solution to 12, since that was my one error; and I’m immensely relieved to find that it’s a cricket term. So I can hold my head highish, although it did take me 52 minutes. Once again I was assisted by the setter’s repeating a clue from an earlier puzzle, in this case ‘grey’ meaning horse.
    1. Not just a cricket term but a poor homophone into the bargain. The “w” in “bowled” is not silent!!
  5. Took me ten Severs, with a cheat on the unknown ‘grey’. Have a feeling I won’t be getting that one wrong again.
  6. I always save Saturdays newspaper for the following Saturday. So I completed this puzzle only 2 days ago. The enjoyment is still fresh in my mind. A lovely puzzle. I’ve got lots of ticks by the clues I particularly liked. COD ARDVAARK. Not a fast time but a wholly satisfying 40 minutes.
  7. An entertaining puzzle spoilt a bit for me by some sillyness.

    The homophone is poor. Pizza=takeaway perhaps would be far better. In 7D “sick” appears to be doing double duty as both anagrind and definition. I don’t like August for Strindberg and could throw the mathematician August Mobius into the melting pot if required.

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