Saturday Times 24855 (May 21st)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 25:05, one of my slowest for quite a while. I blame tiredness, as I solved it on Monday morning on the train, having solved Monday’s and Sunday’s puzzles first. A silly mistake which made me have to alter nearly every letter of 12D, and a final struggle with 16D also didn’t help.

Across
1 CANDLES – CANOODLES (necks) minus the two Os.
5 GOSLING – GO (shot) + SLING (primitive weapon).
9 COSTA RICA – CO-STAR + I + CA (about).
10 OZONE – O (ball) + ZONE (patch). One of the definitions given in Chambers is “loosely, fresh bracing air”.
11 LATCHKEY CHILD – (kid they’ll catch)*, minus a T (last letter of parent). Good attempt at an &lit for this term, which describes a child whose parents both work, so are out when he gets home from school.
13 UNDUBBED – UNDUE around BB (books) + D(aughter).
15 NELSON – NEON around L(arge) and S(mall). A wrestling hold.
17 STREWN – T(o) R(un) inside S, E, W and N (every direction).
19 DIOGENES – I inside DO (swindle) + GENES (means to inherit). Greek philosopher who famously lived in a barrel.
22 PLANTER’S PUNCH – PLAN (prepare) + TENCH around (Pru’s)*. Quite a nice touch for the apostrophe to be included in the correct place! A cocktail of rum, lemon juice and grenadine.
25 IRISH – IRIS (flag) + H(orse).
26 THEREUPON – (Peru then 0)*
27 EARLDOM – (y)EARL(y) = DO + M(ile).
28 TASERED – D(eparts) + ERE + SAT, all reversed.

Down
1 COCK – triple definition – a bird, bull (as in nonsense), and to ready a gun for shooting.
2 NESTLED – SEN (State Enrolled Nurse) reversed + T(ime) + LED.
3 LEAPT – P.T. alongside LEA.
4 SLIGHTER – S(econd) + LIGHTER.
5 GRAZED – double definition.
6 SCOTCH EGG – SCOTCH (do for) + E.G. (say) + G (short for Grand, £1000).
7 IVORIES – IVIES around OR (gold). Champers = chewers = teeth.
8 GREEDINESS – (a)GREES around DINES. My printout had a typo in the clue, which held me up for a bit – “eating stuffing” instead of “eats stuffing”, but in the end I realized there could only be one answer, and when I checked later the clue had been corrected online.
12 RUSSOPHILE – (lies or push)*. I immediately thought of (and entered) URSOPHILES for this, which I realized instantly had to be wrong for two reasons: it couldn’t be a plural, and anyway the word for a bear-lover is ARCTOPHILE. I then remembered the Russian Bear and changed it. Really messed up my grid.
14 BEWITCHED – BE WITH (partner) around C(aught) + ED (senior journalist).
16 ZIPPIEST – ZIP (do up) + (step I)*. Last one I got, maybe 5 minutes after I’d finished the rest. The problem was “do up”, which to my mind was almost certainly a synonym of “do” reversed. Finally I considered each letter of the alphabet in turn, almost put in NIPPIEST, but luckily carried on to the end, when the penny dropped.
18 READIER – DIE inside REAR.
20 NO-HOPER – NOH + OPER(a).
21 PRO TEM – hidden reversed inside unwholesome torpor.
23 NEEDS – sounds like “kneads”.
24 ENID – alternate letters of “been kind“.

10 comments on “Saturday Times 24855 (May 21st)”

  1. Just under 90 minutes for this one with a few cheats towards the end (TASERED for example). Digging this out has reminded me that my run of bad solves started before Monday of last week however it ended (or at least has been interrupted)today with a moderately easy Saturday puzzle.
  2. I needed to resort to aids in the NW for today’s, but completed this one, albeit in an hour and 24 mins. Noted the same ‘dining’ problem at 8dn, but didn’t actually get off the mark for 8 minutes, after which three downs went in in a row. Mirrored many of Andy’s mis-steps. Didn’t know the cocktail – of course. Last in GRAZED, shortly after ZIPPIEST, which together took me most of the 24 minutes.
  4. Incidentally, I saved last week’s newspaper to do this and the typo at 8d was in the paper version as well.
  5. Comfortable but slowish solve over this morning’s first cup of tea. I had ARCTOPHILE as well and wondered for a while whether I had UNDUBBED wrong. I tried to fit in REDUBBED till I remembered the Russian bear. Very enjoyable. 40 minutes.
  6. I recall working steadily through this without any particular scares or excursions down red herring lane. ZIPPIEST also my last in after trying to justify “PIN up” for “nippiest” but rejecting it.

    LATCHKEY CHILD reminded me of our days as foster carers when the term took on a very real meaning which often extends beyond parents at work to parents absent most of the time day or night.

  7. 50 minutes. I can no longer recall where I was particularly slowed down, but I, too, toyed with URSOPHILES (never heard of arctophile) before twigging; and I don’t think I was ever tempted by NIPPIEST, although 16 may have been my LOI. I had to look up SEN to confirm NESTLED, but it had to mean ‘nurse’. There were a number of beautifully smooth surfaces: 5ac, 9ac, 15ac, 19ac, 22ac,21d; CODs to those last two.
  8. I just looked up arctophile in my English-Japanese dictionary (the only dictionary I have here), and it says it means teddy-bear collector or lover. And now I Googled ‘ursophile’, to find that it does, indeed, mean ‘bear-lover’, but in the gay sense, a ‘bear’ being a big, hairy man.
  9. 17:36 for me, a good deal of it down to URSOPHILES, which I couldn’t resist despite thinking that it didn’t really fit the clue. I got ZIPPIEST in the end, but only after (like Jim) spending far too long trying to justify NIPPIEST.
  10. I justified nip not as pin upwards, but as what you do to nuts and bolts – nip them up at the end, do them up so they don’t undo.

    And stumped by “up” in 5 down. To my mind “fed” and “fed up” are two entirely different things. In an American language crossword “fed up” might define “grazed” given an American’s propensity for randomly adding or omitting prepositions, but surely not in The Times?

    Rob

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