Saturday Times 25382 (26th Jan)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
No time for this one as I solved it on the train but my phone was dead so I had no stopwatch. Around the 20-minute mark though. Another very good puzzle, COD for me 10ac.

Across
1 OFF-WHITE – (c)OFFE(e) around (with)*.
5 PAWPAW – P.A. (per annum) + W(eekly), twice.
9 AUTUMNAL – A + UNA (girl) + L(eft), around TUM (middle).
10 CHARON – CHAR (what singers do – rhymes with gingers) + ON (performing). Great bit of misdirection. “The Ferryman” is an Irish folk song, by the way.
12 EXALT – EX (old) + ALT (key).
13 OTHER HALF – OF around [ER (queen) + HAL (prince), next to TH(ursday)]. Tortuous wordplay, but it works. The convention is that “on” in an across clue always means “to the left right of”.
14 SURFACE-TO-AIR – TO AIR (purpose of broadcaster) after SURF ACE (this bloke, for example?).
18 UPRIGHT PIANO – U(niversity) + (hoping a trip)*.
21 VAMOOSING – A MOO (neat (cattle) sound) between V(erse) and SING (hymn). A word that you don’t see much these days, but for some reason reminds me of the Dandy and Beano!
23 AGAIN – AGIN (opposed to) wit A (article) inside. I wasted a bit of time trying to figure out how “reserving article” could mean “remove ST from the end”.
24 DOOMED – DO MED (cruise from Gibraltar to the Levant perhaps) around O (no-one).
25 NIJINSKY – I + J(udge) + IN SKY (cloud position), all after N(orth) (wind direction).
26 SALVIA – SALIVA (mouth-watering stuff) with a couple of letters switched. I didn’t know it as a herb, but it’s another word for sage.
27 SKINCARE – SCARE (alarm around KIN (family).

Down
1 O’CASEY – YES (agreed) + A + C.O. (conscientious objector = pacifist), all reversed. Sean O’Casey, Irish playwright.
2 FAT CAT – hidden reversed in “contact, after”.
3 HAMSTRUNG – H(eight) + A + M(etre) + ST(reet) + RUNG (level).
4 TEAR-OFF STRIP – TEAR OFF A STRIP (dress down) with an A removed.
6 ABHOR – AB (muscle) + HOR(n) (cut part off rhino).
7 PARMA HAM – PAR (standard) + MA’AM (way of addressing Queen) around H(ospital).
8 WIND FARM – IN + (lan)DF(ill), inside WARM (heated).
11 SHOCKING PINK – SHOCK (upset) around KINGPIN (pivotal figure). Difficult to parse; the first K confused me for a bit.
15 TANZANIAN – sounds like “tans an Ian”.
16 QUO VADIS – QU(estion) + (avoids)*. Latin for “where are you going?”, and a novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz.
17 DRUM ROLL – RED RUM (racehorse) without RE (on), + ROLL (list).
19 MARSHA – MARS (ruins) + H(e)A(t).
20 ENZYME – FRENZY (fury) without FR (father), + ME.
22 OBELI – OBE (gong, medal) + I (one) around L(ooking). Some of these – ††

8 comments on “Saturday Times 25382 (26th Jan)”

  1. I found this yesterday in a pile of random paperwork, all completed except for 1dn and 12ac, and it still took me fifteen minutes to finish. I have trouble with (1’5) described as (6), even though I know that’s the convention. Customary it may be, but wrong it still is… as for 12ac, that meaning of “key” always seems to cause me trouble
    Nice crossword though
  2. Not so easy for me, as I see from my print-out that it took me 69 minutes. No idea now what the problem was.
  4. Couldn’t come up with TEAR OFF STRIP, but enjoyed the rest of it.

    I’ve run across SALVIA before as some forms are potent hallucinogenics and since it is not yet illegal here (it doesn’t grow that well in the US) I’ve had more than one student bring me bunches asking if I can help with isolating the important part.

    Sigh (I’m not that sort of chemist).

  5. I gave up timing early on, but over an hour, I’m sure. Thanks, linxit, for explaining CHARON; it was totally opaque to me, and now I can see why. I’d marked 1ac as my COD, but it will have to yield to this one.
    I realize that hyphens are indicated in enumerations, but I have the feeling that apostrophes would be more likely to give the game away. Here, for instance, ‘playwright’ would give us a choice between O’Neill and O’Casey. (Ironically, 1d was my LOI; I just couldn’t summon up the name from memory for some reason.)
  6. 50 minutes – quirky and amusing. Laughed at ‘do Med’ and vamoosing – last in enzyme. One of those puzzles with few anagrams.
  7. Back home now after two weeks working in London. Caught up with all last week’s puzzles this weekend.

    Nothing too taxing here, but I couldn’t get Enzyme despite having all the checkers. Disappointing, with me being a PhD chemist and having studied biochemistry for a year!

    O’Casey and Salvia from wordplay. Andy, thanks for explaining the “char” part of Charon.

    My wife and I cruised in the Med last May and called in at Gibraltar on the way back to Southampton. Spent a very interesting half-day with the apes and exploring the WWII tunnels.

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