Saturday Times 25119 (24th March) – Times for The Times

18:17 for this one, fairly tricky with a lot of GK required. May be my highest ever number of Wikipedia links in this blog, or about average for a Topical Tim one!

Across
1	NEWCOMER – NE’ER “without” = around W(omen) + CO + M(arried). The wordplay seems a bit forced here to fit the smooth surface reading.
9	ESCALLOP – (f)E(a)S(t) + POLLAC(k) reversed. Hmm, I think the setter may be getting confused with escalope, which is a cut of meat. Chambers doesn’t allow that they’re interchangeable, but maybe another dictionary might.
10	RECANT – RANT (diatribe) around EC (the City, postcode letters for London’s famous Square Mile).
11	RHETORICAL – (their coral)*
12	STEW – WETS reversed.
13	PAUL BUNYAN – (Saint) PAUL + (John) BUNYAN, two Christian writers.
16	SHARPLY – SLY (making insinuations) around HARP (a member of the orchestra).
17	SALVAGE – SAVAGE (wild) around L(ennon). Would have been better if Get Back had actually been written by John Lennon!
20	METHUSELAH – ME + THUS (so) + HALE (healthy) reversed. Definition is the whole clue, as he was the oldest man in the Old Testament, living to the ripe old age of 969.
22	SWAM – MAWS (jaws) reversed.
23	ROUTE MARCH – ROUTE(d) (nearly defeated) + MARCH (days of wind and snow, sound like it might be a quotation but I can’t find it).
25	ENTREE – E(nglish) + AINTREE (racecourse near Liverpool, home of the Grand National), minus A1 (not of the best quality).
26	ROUSSEAU – (so sure)* + AU (gold). Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), French philosopher>
27	PODIATRY – AID (help) + OP (work), all reversed + TRY (crack). Great definition, “restoration effort for plates” (Cockney rhyming slang – plates of meat, feet).

Down
2	EYEPATCH – (cheap yet)*
3	CHATSWORTH – C(onservative) + S(mall) + WORTH (value), around HAT (Derby, say). Home of the Duke of Devonshire, and a great place to visit. Worth going just for the estate farm shop.
4	METROPOLIS – (More spoilt)*. A 1927 silent film by Fritz Lang.
5	REVENUE – RE (concerning) + VENUE (concert hall, perhaps).
6	ECHO – first letters of Extensive Caverns Have One, &lit.
7	PLUCKY – LUCKY (character in Waiting for Godot) following P(ozzo), in the play as well as in the wordplay!
8	OPULENCE – (clue, nope)*
14	BEACHY HEAD – ACHY (in pain) inside BEHEAD (top). The inserticator is unusually precise – “less than half way along”. A chalk headland in East Sussex, notorious as a suicide spot.
15	NOVA SCOTIA – VASCO (da Gama, Portuguese explorer) inside NOT I A (not one area). I thought the definition was a bit vague until I looked it up and found that Nova Scotia is one of the four provinces making up Atlantic Canada.
16	SOMBRERO – SORER (more irritated) around MB (doctor) + O (round).
18	GRANDEUR – GR(eece) AND EUR(ope).
19	FLARE-UP – FLAP (panic) around R(esistance) + EU (European Union).
21	TAURUS – T(hree-quarters) + R.U. (rugby) inside AUS(tralia).
24	MIEN – I inside MEN (husbands).

3 comments on “Saturday Times 25119 (24th March)”

45 minutes. COD has ESCALOPE and ESCALLOP interchangeable.

I had a query over ‘days of wind and snow’ = MARCH – wind, yes, but snow, hm? However your suggestion that it may be a quotation could account for it although I can’t find it either. Still a very enjoyable puzzle.

10:32 for me. No problem with any of the GK, though I hadn’t spotted that there was possibly something fishy (or at any rate non-meaty) about ESCALLOP.

I felt “days of wind and snow?” (with its question mark) was probably OK for March. I can’t come up with a quotation unless its Flanders and Swann’s A Song of the Weather.

I agree about Get Back, linxit! I nearly made a comment to that effect in The Times forum at the time but thought better of it. Re SALVAGE, the author Geraldine Brooks, in her novel,”Caleb’s Crossing”, about the first Native American to study at Harvard (in the 17th century) uses language of that time including the word SALVAGE to describe native americans. Obviously a precursor of savage.

Edited at 2012-04-01 06:26 am (UTC)

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