Saturday Times 25263 (8th Sept) – tricky but brilliant!

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time, probably about an hour, but I was pretty hung-over when I attempted it the day after Dean’s party! This generated 44 comments on the Times forum, but inexplicably most of them were negative. 1ac (which I and a couple of others thought brilliant) came in for the most scathing attacks, although the flawed 19dn passed without comment. Maybe it was the culmination of a week of very hard puzzles – possibly the hardest 6 consecutive puzzles since this blog began) that got people all fired up, but personally I welcome the challenge. Oh yes, and it’s a pangram (thanks to jackkt for reminding me).

Across
1 WORD SQUARE – I guess this counts as a cryptic definition. The words “ITS THE SEA” form a 3×3 word square when arranged one on top of the other. Brilliant and innovative for me, but it came in for a lot of vilification on the forum.
6 GRAF – FAR GONE (much the worse for wear, as I ended up on Saturday) reversed and minus ONE, for a German count.
10 IDLER – I (one) + ADLER (Alfred Adler, the famous Austrian psychologist) minus the A (first letter of Artful). I have to admit I initially went for ADLER as the answer here, and as a result 1dn was my last one in.
11 SPOKEN FOR – double definition.
12 CEREBRAL CORTEX – (al correct beer)* + X (times), &lit. A dig at me from the setter, it seems!
14 REMORSE – R.E. (Royal Engineer = sapper) + S(on) inside MORE (further).
15 TRIVIUM – this was the (singular) name for the three subjects mentioned (grammar, rhetoric and logic) in medieval schools. The plural would be trivia, as used in a quiz night perhaps.
17 IMPACTS – Robin Goodfellow is a mischievous sprite, so his work could be described as IMP ACTS.
19 CREOSOL – (coolers)*.
20 PERSONAL COLUMN – double definition, the second whimsical.
23 WINNEBAGO – INN (hotel) inside WEB (intrigue) + AGO (in times gone by). Native American tribe better known as a brand of motor home.
24 NAIRA – ARIAN (i.e. born in the sign of Aries) reversed. Nigerian currency.
25 ROPE – just a GK clue I think. Alfred Hitchcock directed the film Rope in 1948, starring James Stewart. A hitch can be a knot in a rope, but not the rope itself, so I can’t see it as a double def or an &lit. Edit: jackkt points out that “rope” can also be a verb meaning to connect together with a rope, so that covers the DD.
26 LEAD PENCIL – LEAD (top) + PENCIL (drawer).

Down
1 WHIZ – double definition.
2 RELIEF MAP – (ramp I feel)*
3 SIR HENRY COOPER – (rhinoceros, prey)*. British heavyweight boxer famous for his powerful left hook, known as ‘Enry’s ‘ammer. Almost saw off Muhammad Ali with it in 1963.
4 UPSURGE – PS (addendum to letter) inside U (quality) + URGE (press).
5 ROOTLET – ROOTLE (grub, as e.g. a pig for truffles) + (stree)T. There was one complaint on the forum that the definition should have been spelt “radicle”, but that would have spoiled the surface, and Chambers allows both spellings anyway.
7 REFIT – hidden reversed in “antiferromagnetic”.
8 FOR EXAMPLE – FOR EX, AMPLE.
9 PEROXIDE BLONDE – (noble died)* underneath PER (a) + OX (steer).
13 BRAINPOWER – I + N(ote) inside RAP (strike), all inside BOWER (recess).
16 INSOMNIAC – IN + (bu)S + O(ld) + M(ale) + CAIN reversed.
18 SWANAGE – SAGE (learned) around WAN (washed out). Swanage is a seaside town in Dorset.
19 CUCKOLD – CUCKO(o) (loveless bonkers, i.e. missing an O) + (wou)LD. Nice clue, except I can’t find a dictionary that allows ‘ld as an abbreviation for would, only ‘d. Surprisingly nobody picked up on this on the forum.
21 RUN UP – RUN (a single, in cricket) + UP (revolting).
22 JAIL – AIL (trouble) after J(udge).

10 comments on “Saturday Times 25263 (8th Sept) – tricky but brilliant!”

  1. My solving time was off the scale but I got there without resort to aids which came as something of a surprise.

    I’m sure you are right that the puzzle wouldn’t have received half the criticism if it been served up at the end of an easier week (this one for example), nevertheless I think there’s some justification in the most repeated complaint that the wordplay was often too convoluted and in some cases could only be worked out once the answer had been found by other means. I wonder if anyone can claim to have solved 1ac without having most if not all of the checkers in place first? 19dn was the worst example where, as has been pointed out in the blog, the wordplay doesn’t work anyway and I suspect nobody noticed this because many, like myself, were at that stage of the game just thankful to write in a relatively easy answer and didn’t bother to examine it too closely.

    There weren’t many unknowns for me, only TRIVIUM, CREOSOL and NAIRA.

    It’s a pangram.

    Edited at 2012-09-15 01:41 am (UTC)

  2. I seem to have tossed out my printout, but no doubt it took me forever. And I only finished because, in desperation I admit, I went to the club forum to see if there was anything I could legitimately use. Where I was reminded that it was a pangram, which led me to 1ac. DNK CREOSOL, but I figured that if there’s creosote, why not creosol? Also DNK Sir Henry, but got it nonetheless; he knocked out Cassius Clay that was, actually. TRIVIUM struck me as a giveaway, given the definition; ‘trivial’ in fact derives from the term, a bit of post-medieval snobbery (like ‘dunce’ from the rather intelligent Duns Scotus). Does anyone remember the wonderful Nichols/May sketch (impromptu, mind you) where Elaine May describes Adler as the man who made mice neurotic? http://vimeo.com/15265085

    Edited at 2012-09-15 03:31 am (UTC)

  3. Can someone explain how ‘psychiatrist not wanting to take tip from artful’ = remove the A from ADLER – the ‘not wanting’ bit especiallY?
    1. Ulaca,I read it as: 1 + ADLER, but the psychiatrist doesn’t want to take A (the tip from Artful) so he rejects it and 1DLER remains.

      Andy, on 25ac, COED has HITCH = ‘to tether with a rope’ and ‘rope’ (vb) = ‘to connect together with a rope’ – especially with reference to climbing. I think that covers the DD.

  5. Well, after a week of real crackers what else was I to expect? Didn’t make much progress for 15 minutes so went off and made an extra-strong mug of Twinings Breakfast Tea. After that it was a steady if lengthy solve. Must have been an hour in total.

    LOI was WHIZ, which I had considered but thought it was spelt WHIZZ.
    1 across deserved a medal, as did 3 down. but bonkers? ‘Pon my soul, what ever next?

    25 was clever but a bit of a struggle: once I had the P I thought Poe must be in there somewhere.

    NAIRA is a bit obscure isn’t it? I originally wrote NDIKA (kid+n(ee) reversed on A) till I checked and discovered that n is not an abbreviation for nee. There are, however, quite a few Africans called Ndika.

  7. A marathon solve – 81 minutes – with one wrong at 1d. For some reason I had WHIP. Probably thinking of the swishing sound. My LOI anyway. By then I’d become desperate to finish and get on with the rest of my life. I couldn’t see the cryptic of 1a. I had SQUARE quite early on but didn’t get the first bit until all other options had been exhausted. Even then, I had to come here to find the explanation. A brilliant clue but possibly too brilliant for me! What would we do without these blogs? Thank you Linxit. (Btw, I was once sold veg by Sir Henry. His twin brother, George, kept the greengrocer’s shop at the corner of my street when I lived in Wembley between 1967-69)
  8. This took me about 45 minutes in two sessions. I thought it generally a very good puzzle, but I wasn’t a great fan of 1ac and don’t really understand what’s so brilliant about it. If (like me) you don’t know what a word square is it’s completely baffling (albeit gettable from checkers), and if you do it’s presumably pretty obvious. If the surface were very good I could understand it but it doesn’t really make any sense.
    It took me ages to get TRIVIUM: not a term I’ve come across before.
  9. This was good, but was so difficult quite often because there were some bits of wordplay that were right at the edge: In 19ac ‘responsible for’ when it means ‘coming from’; ‘dark’ in 26ac; the unusual ‘whiz’ in 1dn; ‘so’ in 2dn; ‘given’ in 13dn; 19dn as has been said; and maybe others I have missed in my quick perusal.

Comments are closed.