Saturday Times 24909 (July 23rd)

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Andy’s not around today, so he sent me his blog to post on his behalf.

Solving time 18:49, so a bit trickier than average for me. Partly due to putting in a wrong answer to 13D, although I forget now what, as my Tippexing has neatly removed all traces of the error! Remembered now – INSENSIBLE. As a result 14A was my LOI, just after the pair at 1A/1D.

Across
1 ONSET – (mo)ONSET. Seems obvious to me now, but I was stuck on this one for ages last week.
4 OGDEN NASH – ANNE’D GO reversed + SH (peace). Will’s wife was Anne Hathaway, the poet Ogden Nash was well-known for his short humorous verse.
9 BLACK MASS – double definition, the second merely descriptive.
10 TROON – R(ight) inside TOON (Scottish pronunciation of town). One of the golf courses used for the British Open, where it was last contested in 2004.
11 ICONIC – I + CONIC. In maths, a conic section (or conic for short) is any curve that can be formed by intersecting a cone with a plane, e.g. a circle, ellipse, parabola or hyperbola.
12 BEHOLDER – BE HOLDER.
14 GOALLESS DRAW – cryptic definition. Struggled with this until I got 1D, as I had an N as the second-last letter of the first word.
17 RISE AND SHINE – (hd rain is seen)*, hd = extremely H(ar)D.
20 MALAGASY – GAS inside MALAY. The name of the people of Madagascar, which was formerly called the Malagasy Republic.
21 PROPER – sounds like “propper”, with “told to be” as the homophone indicator.
23 KAZOO – (stoc)K A ZOO.
24 BAILIWICK – (alibi)* + WICK (Scottish town that also appeared as an entry in the previous week’s Saturday puzzle). An area under the jurisdiction of a bailiff, as is Jersey.
25 STRINGENT – RING (jewellery) inside STEN (gun) + T(hreaten).
26 EGG ON – E.G. (say) + GO (leave) + N(ame).

Down
1 OXBRIDGE – OX (domestic beast) + BRIDGE (cross). Generic name for the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
2 SEASONAL – A SON inside SEAL.
3 TAKE IT LYING DOWN – TAKE IT DOWN (transcibe speech) around LYING (whoppers).
4 OKAY – YAK (beast of burden) + O, all reversed.
5 DESCENDANT – DESCANT (talk at length) around END (aim). I didn’t know that meaning of descant, and Chambers has it as obsolete.
6 NATIONAL SERVICE – (trains alone)* + VICE (weakness).
7 AT ODDS – A TODD’S, ref. Sweeney Todd, a.k.a. The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
8 HUNGRY – HUNG(a)RY
13 OSTENSIBLE – O + ST + (s)ENSIBLE.
15 RIPPLING – RIPPING around L(ake).
16 BEARSKIN – (banker is)*
18 SMOKES – MOKE (donkey) inside SS.
19 BLAZER – double definition, the first a touch cryptic.
22 GILT – sounds like “guilt”. A dialect word for a sow, which came up again later in the week.

14 comments on “Saturday Times 24909 (July 23rd)”

  1. Enjoyed this (all Saturday and Sunday!) Spent forever on GOALLESS DRAW and OSTENSIBLE. Is “no”=O strictly Ximenean?
    1. I think you’re reading more into this clue than is there. It’s just a pure cryptic definition

      In another context I don’t think no=o would be very good

      1. Sorry, I was referring to Andy’s parsing (13dn above) — which seems sound to me and requires “no way” to be 0,ST.
        1. OK I see it now and you have a point. I think I must have solved from definition and checkers without giving the cryptic too much thought or I would have annotated my solution

  2. Solved this on the plane returning from the UK, and it took me a lot longer than 19 minutes! Still, all present and correct eventually, with the longest hold-ups in the SW. ‘Moke’ for donkey noted for further use, or, as is more likely, amnesia.
  3. Straightforward puzzle, no hold ups or queries as I recall. About 20 minutes to solve.
  5. Having found glasses strong enough to decypher this weeks, I seem to have solved all of the clued answers, but can’t make head nor tail of the rest of it. What is shading or a shaded answer??? The only theme I am heading for is 14ac!
    1. Ah, the Sunday puzzle!? The instructions are a bit ambiguous. “Of the same kind” means, “of the same kind as the four unclued answers” — i.e, they also are “either leaders or followers of a theme word”. Said theme word is not one of the answers: you have to make it up for yourself — because it can go before or after (a) the 4 unclued and (b) 2 of the clued answers to make other words. When you have (b), you have to colour them in before you post off your solution (= shading). That’s 6 in all and their defs are roughly given by the “helping” words.
      1. I didn’t have any problem with the instructions as this is a very much watered-down version of the type of puzzle that appears in the Oldie each month (and elsewhere, for all I know. I’ve an idea that the Spectator has something similar).

        My policy for tackling them is to read the instructions and bear them in mind but I don’t necessarily concern myself too much with them in the early stages of solving. Most of the clues are likely to be straightforward so I fill in what I can and the other stuff tends to fall into place quite easily.

        I welcome this innovation which livened up what would otherwise have been an easier than average ST cryptic by recent standards.

  6. I quite enjoyed today’s 4444. Tim Moorey does similar themed crosswords in “the Week” from time to time so I am used to them, if not much of a fan.
    Note that you can email the solution to [email protected] as well as post it, I scanned in my solution and attached it to the email.
    Anyone who does like 4444 should take the trouble to say so in the Crossword club forum, if a member, as the comments there could do with a bit more balance!
      1. Duly rebalanced. (As you’ll see, my initial response to Ross was not a complaint; on the contrary, just a clarification of his uncertainties.)
  7. I lost track of how long it took me; a half-dozen sittings and well over an hour, but with no questions or quibbles at the end. 5d: Richard III, in his famous opening soliloquy (‘Now is the winter of our discontent’) expresses his preference to do something other than ‘descant on my own deformity’.

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