Saturday Times 25077 (4th Feb)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Attempted to solve on the train Monday morning after already doing Monday’s and Sunday’s puzzles. I got 3/4 through it in about 15 minutes, but then my brain seized up and I fell asleep with the whole of the SE corner untouched, apart from a wavery line where my pen had slipped across the page. When I looked at it again a few hours later it took less than a minute to put the rest of the answers in.

Across
1 DONATIVE – ON (about) inside DATIVE (case).
5 TRIP UP – TRIP (excursion) + UP (to summit).
9 BROWNING – OWNING (having), next to B(o)R(e).
10 CURATE – CUR (dog) + ATE (had dinner).
12 THEME – THEE (you) around M(arks).
13 READDRESS – RED DRESS (colourful robe) around (M)A(y).
14 MINIMISATION – MINION (servant) around I’M + I (one) + SAT (day).
18 IN THE BALANCE – double definition.
21 MENAGERIE – MEN (chaps) + AG (silver) + ERIE (lake).
23 RISHI – IRISH, with the first I moved to the end.
24 TRILBY – TRY (attempt) around I LB (a bit of one’s weight). 1894 novel by George du Maurier. Nowadays one of the characters, Svengali, is probably more well-known than the book.
25 FILAMENT – IF (condition) reversed + LAMENT (sorrow).
26 REGINA – A + NIGER (republic in Africa), all reversed.
27 SAINTDOM – (admits no)*

Down
1 DEBATE – DEB (old-fashioned socialite) + ATE (avoided anorexia).
2 NOOSED – NODOSE (knotty) with the D (heaD finally) moved to the bottom.
3 TENDERISE – (desire)* after TEN (X).
4 VIN ORDINAIRE – (inn do I arrive)*.
6 ROUND – double definition, the second of which I didn’t know, but Chambers has “a canon sung in unison” as one of the many definitions.
7 PHASED IN – “Fay’s din”.
8 PLEASING – P (quiet) LEA (meadow) + SING (grass).
11 LATIN AMERICA – (Inca material)*
15 ASCERTAIN – A STAIN (blemish) around C.E. (church), R(ight).
16 DIAMETER – MAID (girl) reversed + (tree)*.
17 STANDING – STAND-IN (substitute) + G(ood).
19 ASCEND – (dances)*
20 DICTUM – DUM(b) (nearly speechless) around I (one) CT (court).
22 GABON – GAB (talk) + ON (being broadcast).

10 comments on “Saturday Times 25077 (4th Feb)”

  1. Had to check “Trilby” before submitting, not having heard of it.
    not that it matters Andy but I think some of your html has gone awry, notably 4dn.. too much vin ordinaire, perhaps?
  2. An hour, with the unknown sage last in. I also finished in the SE corner, held up a little by putting ‘dictat’, which seems not to exist! Liked the two crossing anagrams at 19dn and 27 ac.
  3. 25 minutes for all but MINIMISATION and five in the lower half which required a further 25 minutes including a little help on the last one in, RISHI, which I’ve never heard of. Not absolutely sure I knew DONATIVE but with wordplay and checkers the answer was never in doubt.
    1. not familiar with rishi either, but decided that a maharishi was just a head rishi, as it were..
    2. Got TENDERISE (which the spell-checker is querying here) but used a ‘z’ for
      MINIMIZATION (which the spell-checker says is OK)…it was to be my undoing
      in submitting online for a crack at the prize . MINIMISE …spell-checker no likey.

      I still think they look silly spelled with an ‘s’.

      Under an hour and quite happy about the rest of it…even TRILBY and RISHI.

  4. 8:24 for me, though I thought I’d been a little faster for what seemed a pretty straightforward puzzle. (Could be the difference between solving on paper and online as I type faster than I write by hand.)

    TRILBY used to turn up regularly in the days when the Times crossword was more literary – but it appeared as recently as No. 24,543 (21 May 2010): “One pound cut in tax? That’s novel (6)”.

    RISHI has also turned up fairly often in the past, with its latest appearance in Jumbo 848 (19 December 2009): “Knight stands up, greeting sage (5)”.

  5. 42 minutes, 18ac of all things being my LOI. I slowed myself down by hastily putting in ‘donation’ at 1ac, which made 4d difficult to get. I could have sworn that both TRILBY and RISHI had appeared more recently than Tony indicates, which is the way my memory works in general these days. Was no one else bothered by the equating of ASCERTAIN with ‘divine’? The one implies some sort of effort to me, while the other implicitly excludes it.
  6. Rishi new 2 me also – still checking dictionaries – which is how I seem 2 spend my life…T/Y all as usual..enjoyed puzz. ..Cheers.

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