Saturday Times 25167 (19th May)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 25:05, and another real treat on a Saturday morning. There were a lot of tricky clues, with the fiendish 19ac probably the pick of them. There were a few complaints on the forum about that one, but it’s perfectly fair in my opinion (just not easy to see). 15ac was also very clever, and took a while to sort out even after I had put in the only possible answer that fit.

Across
1 GRAPHITE – PH1 (of high acidity) inside GRATE (jar). The stuff pencil lead is made of.
5 LOGGER – double definition.
10 POLITBURO – PRO (in favour of) around O (nothing) + (built)*.
11 ARTIC – ART (craft) + I (one) + C (symbol for the speed of light, hence maximum speed).
12 SPAM – MAPS reversed. I’m not sure “thoughtlessly send” is an accurate definition though – spammers know exactly what they’re doing!
13 HIGHLANDS – N(ame) inside HIGH (school) LADS (boys). Lots of Bens in the Scottish Highlands!
15 HUNTINGDON – HUNG (mounted) “cops” (inserts) TIN (can), + DON (slip into). Small town in Cambridgeshire.
17 ISLE – IS LE(d) (takes guidance without end). i.e. the Isle of Man, but that’s an old chestnut frequently used in wordplay.
19 LAHS – alternate letters of “a lead, he’s“. In the tonic sol-fa, Lah is equivalent to the note A, with Do being C, etc.
20 BACKPACKED – BACK (returned) + PACKED (full of it?)
22 SAWHORSES – SAW HORSES (witnessed National (i.e. the Grand National steeplechase)).
24 TOTE – TOTE(m). I think that’s all this is, although surely it’s in or on a pole rather than round it?
26 LYING – double definition.
27 NARCISSUS – SUSS (twig) I (one) RAN (managed), all reversed, around C (circa, roughly).
28 YATTER – (try,eat)*
29 IMAGINED – I’M AGIN ED (I don’t toe the editorial line). Exactly the same clue, or at least the same wordplay, appeared somewhere else recently I think.

Down
1 GAPE – G (Gown without own (not to have)) + APE (take off).
2 A SLAP ON THE WRIST – (with a parson’s let)*. A compound anagram &lit, the only sort of clue (it seems to me) that ever wins the Azed clue-writing competition. The — in the clue is where you’re supposed to insert the answer. A clue type very rarely seen in the Times.
3 HATE MAIL – cryptic definition.
4 TOUCH – double definition.
6 ORALLY – O.R. (other ranks = men) + ALLY (band together).
7 GET ONE’S SKATES ON – “GET ONE SKATE, SON” (request to boy going to Billingsgate, a famous London fish market) around S(mall).
8 ROCKSTEADY – (York cadets)*. I don’t know if this is the same as reggae or not, but Chambers has them both as music styles originating in Jamaica in the 1960s.
9 SONGBOOK – SON (boy) + GB (this country) + OK (fair), around O(ld).
14 CHILD’S PLAY – CHILD (one young) + SPLAY (fan out).
16 GRAY’S INN – (angry)* around SIN (crime). One of the Inns of Court.
18 CASTLING – CAST (players) + NIL reversed (love to mount) + G(rand).
21 TONGUE – hidden in “Wait on guests”.
23 SCRUM – SCRUM(p). Scrump is to half-inch (pinch) fruit from an orchard. Traditionally it’s always apples, but I suppose any tree-grown fruit will do!
25 USED – USE (milk, i.e. exploit) + D(eparts).

14 comments on “Saturday Times 25167 (19th May)”

  1. 63 minutes but needed aids to check a couple of things such as ROCKSTEADY .

    I wasn’t sure about SAWHORSES, plural, defining the singular but assume you need two of them to support a single item although I haven’t been able to verify this in any of the usual sources.

    Surely defining graphite as lead without any sort of qualification is incorrect? Chambers has it as: the ‘lead’ in lead pencils, with quotation marks to indicate the inaccuracy. I’d have thought a question mark or ‘perhaps’ would have served the clue better.

    The fuss in the forum about 19ac must be because those complaining were unaware of the fixed-doh system by which doh is always C and lah is always A. In standard tonic-sol-fa, doh is a movable feast and is simply the first note of a scale. For those more familiar with spreadsheets than musical notation it’s akin to the difference between absolute and relative cell references.

    Edited at 2012-05-26 10:37 am (UTC)

    1. Having been a musician all my life, i was at a loss to understand why A=Lah. Yes, in the key of C, but what of the other 11? So thanks Jackkt for clearing that up. Never too late to learn something!
        1. Db, D, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, Ab, A, Bb, B.
          I make that 11. Are you telling us that there aren’t 12 keys? The note A doesn’t appear in all of them, of course (only 7), but I previously thought LAH appeared in all of them.

          Edited at 2012-05-28 10:16 am (UTC)

    2. Count me in as another musician who didn’t know this! I had LAHS but with serious reservations. My LOI. Thanks for the explanation. (I must admit that I can’t see the purpose of a “fixed doh system”. The justification and beauty of tonic-sol-fa is that it can be used in any key)
      1. As a non-musician I had no idea about any of this, but “knew” that the whole do-re-mi sequence started with middle C on the piano, so it worked for me!
        1. All the more interesting then, that the system you knew turns out to be the ‘fixed doh’ variation that our musicians and others in the Forum didn’t know about! I believe it’s the system taught in France whereas most other countries favour ‘variable doh’.
  2. 92 minutes for me on this excellent puzzle, with my COD to LAHS. I took the ‘thoughtlessly’ in ‘thoughlessly send’ as ‘inconsiderate’.
  3. I stopped timing myself after something under a zillion hours, and evidently didn’t throw in LAHS, even though I read the clue correctly. I got SCRUM, but only because I had the checkers and ‘packs together’; couldn’t make any sense of the clue, not knowing ‘half-inch’ or ‘scrump’. Still, it was fun. (All the more, in retrospect, when compared with yesterday’s walk in the park.)
  4. Quite a challenge. Like many I struggled with LAHS, so thank you, Linxit and jackkt. It is indeed a poor day when one doesn’t learn something. Talking of scrum(ping) I was talking about that very activity yesterday with a friend who hails from Hull. He said they used to call it “chuddling” or perhaps “chudding”. I somehow got LAHS right but, stupidly, fell over a LOG(GER). COD? SAWHORSES won by a head from HUNTINGDON. BTW, Kevin, my “walk in the park” yesterday was full of obstacles. Out walking our dogs, several times I had to take avoiding action to prevent being run down by a couple of hundred cross-country running schoolboys.
  5. Very chewy puzzle this. About 50 minutes. It would have been more enjoyable if I’d left myself more time. In the event I made us late for lunch!
    I had the same reservations as others about LAHS, because I didn’t know about fixed-doh system. Can someone tell me what on earth is the point of this? If doh is always C, why not just call it C?
    I don’t think rocksteady is quite the same as reggae but they’re certainly close enough in my view. Not to be confused with electric boogaloo.
      1. Thanks. Reading that I do seem to remember that in France they don’t use CDE etc. I took piano lessons for several years in France. My teacher was a bit of a free spirit who didn’t believe in any of the formal side of teaching (he never made me do scales for instance, which I rather regret now) but I do remember him referring to doh re etc.

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