Saturday Times 25017 (26th Nov)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Sick dog, sick wife, no time to post this morning. Will try later once I’ve had them put down. OK, back from the knacker’s yard with an extra fiver in my pocket to show for it (£4 for the dog and a quid for ‘er).

Another very difficult puzzle last week and a pangram too, but not as enjoyable as the previous one for some reason. 47:57 it took me, and looking at the forum posts on the club website that seems to be a pretty good time. Some of the clues were just…unsatisfactory to me, and I still don’t understand 14D.

Across
1 PIED-À-TERRE – DATE (amorous acquaintance) inside PIERRE (S Dakotan city).
6 UP TO – (pot)* next to U (you on mobile, i.e. in txtish), definition “doing”.
9 SMETANA – A NATES (bum) reversed around M(ass). Latin for the buttocks in there, a word that only crossword setters (and long-suffering solvers) know. Czech composer.
10 GAZETTE – no idea. Anyone?
12 MIND-READER – DREAD (great fear) inside MINER (originator of gallery, where one meaning of gallery is an underground passage or tunnel).
13 HIT – double definition, the second of which I didn’t know until I looked it up later.
15 ACTING – another double definition, much easier.
16 FORT KNOX – “fought knocks”, groanworthy homophone for the US army base.
18 KNEE-DEEP – NEED (badly want) inside KEEP (patrols), but the inserticator “guard” should really be “guards” to make cryptic sense.
20 PLATEN – hidden inside “uP LATE, Naturally”.
23 TUG – GUT reversed, as to work hard is to “bust a gut”. It owrks, but doesn’t read well.
24 HIPPODROME – HIP (in) + POD (school, e.g. of whales) + ROME (all roads lead to it, therefore everyone’s eventual destination).
26 ATROPHY – A TROPHY (some silverware).
27 BANDEAU – BEAU (Brummell) is formed from B AND EAU, which makes a kind of headband.
28 SHED – double definition, one which wasn’t all that convincing and was my last in along with 14D.
29 BEFOREHAND – BE (live) + FOREHAND (at Wimbledon shot, i.e. a tennis stroke).

Down
1 POST – triple definition: Pole / after / a job.
2 ELEGIST – LEG (on, side in cricket) inside (site)*, definition is therefore “quite serious linesman”. All the bits are there, but again I found it a bit forced.
3 ABANDONED SHIP – (in no bad shape)* around D(aughter).
4 ENAMEL – LANE (part of the road) reversed around ME.
5 RIGADOON – DO (party) inside RIG (set up) + A(mplifier) + ON.
7 PITCH IN – PIT (stone, e.g. cherry) + CHIN (feature).
8 OVERTAXING – OVERT (public) + AXING (acts of Lizzie Borden, although she was acquitted).
11 ZERO TOLERANCE – ZERO (example of love) + TOLERANCE (enduring). Got it when I had the Z in place, but didn’t like it much.
14 JACKSTRAWS – I don’t know what to make of this one. It looks like it should be SWART (peasant) reversed, underneath JACKS (steals) to make the game, but Chambers supports neither of those definitions, and the game should be either hyphenated or two separate words. Alternative explanations will be most welcome. Edit: see falooker’s comment below. I’d never heard of him.
17 NEOPHYTE – (one)* + “fight”.
19 EN GARDE – (Grenade)*
21 TEMPERA – MET reversed (over-satisfied, a bit un-Times-ish) + PER (by) + A.
22 BOOBOO – double definition, the animated bear being Yogi’s sidekick.
25 QUID – double definition.

22 comments on “Saturday Times 25017 (26th Nov)”

  1. Jack Straw was one of the leasers of the Peasants Revolt – not as well known as Wat Tyler.
  2. Sorry for bitty comments but I’m waiting for a taxi – choral concert tonight. Does GAZETTE have anything to do with GAZELLE as a tiger’s prey? I just put it in from definition but can’t see the cryptic. A slog – 45 minutes and imperfectly understood.
  3. Re 10ac: yes, I think the intention is to start with gazelle = tigers prey, and physically convert the two Ls to Ts in some way I can’t quite work out.. (“to double-cross without capital”) to make GAZETTE = paper.
    Re 14dn: JACK STRAW (revolting peasant) + S (at first, steals) = JACKSTRAWS, a game, more often called spillikins..
    1. I wondered if double-cross = two-time = TT and capital = LL (pounds) but even if so, I can’t see the instruction to substitute them.
  4. Sorry, forgot to add a comment for GAZETTE, as I couldn’t figure out how it worked and was going to revisit it after doing the rest. As gazelles live in Africa and tigers in Asia, how would one ever be a tiger’s prey? And even if that were it, I can’t make “double-cross without capital” mean “swap two L’s for two T’s!”

    I’d never heard of Jack Straw the peasant, but I think I should have at least Goggled him now I’ve read the clue again.

    1. Jack Straw’s Castle is a very famous pub in Hampstead and it’s from that I knew the peasant leader.
  5. OK, I have it now: without capitals, ie lower case, double cross ll to make tt. And gazelles are found in Asia as well as Africa, including India, according to Wikipedia..
    1. Now back from warbling in choral concert and, to my sightly inebriated brain, your suggestion seems to make perfect sense. It’s so satisfying to go to bed with problems sort-of solved. Cheers all!
  6. And I spent more time, even after deciding it had to be Ft. Knox, how FOR could mean ‘against’? How could an army base be an air base? Now I know. 68 minutes. COD to HIPPODROME and BANDEAU.
  7. I agree, a bit unsatisfactory in parts. As an example the only reason dear old Lizzie is remembered is because she was acquitted and thus didn’t do any axing – no real excuse for that sort of inaccuracy.

    It’s still devilish hard to post anything here.

    1. Jim, the reason that I (and presumably the setter) remember Lizzie Borden is because of the rhyme:

      Lizzie Borden with an axe
      Gave her father forty whacks.
      When she saw what she had done
      She gave her mother forty-one.

      1. Maybe so Tony but the song is wrong on 3 counts: she was found not guilty; father did not receive 40 whacks; mother did not receive 41 whacks. If the setter wants to rely upon the song he/she must indicate that in the clue.

        The case is also remembered for being of considerable interest on a number of counts, including the police refusing to use the newly discovered finger printing technique (the path by which I originally came to it)

        1. >…
          >If the setter wants to rely upon the song he/she must indicate that in the clue.

          On that point, we’ll simply have to agree to differ.

          1. Yes…Lizzie Borden is known by and large for what the rhyme says. It’s not even a Cnut/Canute situation where the refutation of the myth has passed into popular knowledge to some degree. Macbeth is now the character of the play and Lizzie is who she is in the rhyme. Crosswordwise, one feels.
  8. In 18 keep (guard) patrols need. 10 ingenious but what says it’s the ls that are lower-case? In 28 shed is poor as separate. Apart from these two something of a cracker…but for a ha’porth of tar…
    1. I can’t see a problem with SHED = separate. It’s in all the usual dictionaries, two of them as the very first meaning of the verb.
        1. There’s one in Collins for a start:

          A good dog can shed his sheep in a matter of minutes.

          1. Ah, that shed. I’d forgotten it. Thanks a lot. (I don’t have Collins and hardly ever use a dictionary on a puzzle – I know at least for the comments I should.)
  9. This took me on and off for the whole of last weekend until I got it all sorted out. Think it was worth it!
  10. 23:53 for me, with the last five minutes spent on JACKSTRAWS and SHED.

    I desperately wanted 14dn to be BASKETBALL, assuming that the “revolting peasant” must be John Ball, even though I wasn’t completely convinced he was actually a peasant himself. Eventually I gave up trying to work out how one could possibly make BASKET from “steals” (and trying to think of an answer to 28ac that would fit L-E-), and kicked myself when light dawned at last.

    A most enjoyable puzzle. My compliments to the setter.

Comments are closed.