Saturday Times 25335 (1st Dec) – Times for The Times

Pretty straightforward fare for a Saturday, 15:16 to solve. I loved the pair of linked clues at 5 & 6 down, not a great deal to say about the rest of it.

Across
1	IN DEPTH – N(ew) + DEPT inside I(pswic)H.
5	FIFTIES – F(erdinand) + IF (provided) + TIES (moors)
9	TALL ORDER – RE (about) + DROLL (funny) + ‘AT (Cockney’s titfer), all reversed.
10	WIPER – VIPER (snake), double-headed with W seen as VV.
11	KEMPT – K(ing) + EMPT(y) (almost purposeless). Past participle of the old verb “kemb”, meaning to comb, normally only seen in the negative.
12	AFTERNOON – NO (number) OF A, reversed around TERN (bird).
14	KALAHARI DESERT – A RIDE (trip), inside (the kraals)*.
17	CANNED LAUGHTER – cryptic definition.
21	BONAPARTE – APART (at a distance) inside BONE (radius, perhaps).
23	IMPEL – IMP + EL(f) (mischievous pair of creatures), the second lacking an F for female.
24	ALLAY – ALL DAY (from dawn to dusk), minus a D for daughter.
25	GRAVITATE – GRATE (jar) around VITA(mins) (half of diet supplements).
26	DESTROY – DES (“from the” in French) + TROY (beleaguered old city).
27	DOYENNE – DONE (finished) around YEN (desire).

Down
1	INTAKE – I.E. (that is) around (Kant)*
2	DILEMMA – A(nswer) + MME (madame) + LID (cover), all reversed.
3	PROSTRATE – ROSTRA (platforms) inside PTE (private).
4	HEDDA GABLER – HE (the man), then A + G(ood) + ABLE (fit) inside DDR (East Germany, Deutsche Demokratische Republik as it used to be). A play by Ibsen.
5	FUR – U (letter sounding like you) inside FR (father).
6	FEWER – EWE (sheep sounding like you) inside FR (father). Lovely pair of linked clues.
7	IMPLORE – I (one) + MORE (a greater amount) around PL(ate).
8	SERENITY – (yes inert)*
13	TRIBUTE BAND – TRIBUTE (tax) + BAND (bracket). e.g. Dread Zeppelin or The Bootleg Beatles, to name a couple.
15	ETHNICITY – (in the)* + CITY (metropolis).
16	SCABBARD – SCAB (to undermine striking) + BARD (poet). Brand meaning sword has come up a few times recently.
18	NONPLUS – NON-PLUS, i.e. not positive.
19	EXPLAIN – EX-PLAIN
20	FLEECE – double definition.
22	PAYER – PRAYER (petition), minus an R for Republican.
25	GUY – alternate letters of YoUnG, reversed.

5 comments on “Saturday Times 25335 (1st Dec)”

24 minutes, which for me would be good on any day but on a Saturday is extremely rare as is anything sub-30.

A delightful lively and amusing puzzle with some quite complex wordplay. I really enjoyed this one.

All that work blogging and only one comment! Thank you though for the blog. I always read them even when I have nothing to add, as now. Nice, enjoyable straightforward puzzle. 19 minutes. Ann

Would have been a rare unaided solve had it not been for 4d . Sadly hadn’t heard of Hedda Gabler and with a name like that, it is not easy to get from the cryptic.

Thanks linxit for the blog, I had it all right but didn’t see some of the parsing fully until today. Nice to know one can be KEMPT as well as UNKEMPT. Can one be concerted or only disconcerted?

The Jumbos are getting harder, but the last 2 Saturdays have been –well, I won’t say easy, but awfully fast for me: 28′ on this one, an unbelievable 18 on yesterday’s. DNK ‘titfer’ or TRIBUTE BAND, which was my LOI. Had an exclamation point or two in the margin on 10ac. Nit-picking, no doubt, but I think I’d have preferred ‘decorated’ to ‘decorative’ at 19d; a plain throw rug, say, can be decorative. And, although I enjoyed the puzzle–I’d damn well better have, having got through it in half my normal time–I did find a couple of the clues rather ugly: Brand protector is to undermine striking poet? I second Ann’s thanks, by the way, to all the weekend bloggers.

Edited at 2012-12-09 05:10 am (UTC)

Comments are closed.