Saturday Times 25388 (2nd Feb)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Easiest Saturday puzzle for a long time, solved in 10:30. Would have been sub-ten too, but for 21dn (my COD), which I knew had to be DEFEND but took ages to see how it worked!

Across
1 LONG JUMPER – double definition, the second descriptive of his auntie’s knitting perhaps!
6 OKRA – OK (decent) + R.A. (artist).
8 FEISTIER – I.E. (that is) inside (strife)*
9 GODIVA – “GO, DIVA!” Lady Godiva famously rode naked round Coventry in the 11th century. We have a statue of her in the city centre. Joan Sutherland (1926-2010) was an Australian opera singer.
10 SWOT – TOWS (pulls) reversed.
11 ANGEL FALLS – tabloid headline style description of his descent into Hell, or the world’s highest waterfall. I’d always thought of a force as a word for a small waterfall, but there’s no distinction made in Chambers.
12 VOICEMAIL – VOICE (as a grammatical term, e.g. active) + MAIL (sounds like male).
14 SLEET – LEE (away from the wind) inside (ca)ST(le).
17 REALM – REAM (papers) around L(iberal).
19 NEARLY MAN – double definition.
22 JUMBLE SALE – answer taken as wordplay gives “ales”.
23 ERIE – found in “sERIEs”, but the clue could also possibly be referring to it as one of the Great Lakes.
24 DIVINE – triple definition.
25 CONFETTI – cryptic definition.
26 RELY – ELY (city) next to R(ight).
27 DANISH BLUE – DAN (Dare, pilot of the future from the Eagle comic) + I’S + H(usband) + BLUE (waste).

Down
1 LIFESAVER – (flies)* + AVER (maintain).
2 NAIROBI – IBERIAN (Madrileno, i.e. citizen of Madrid) reversed, with O (nothing) replacing the E for European, which gives us the capital of Kenya.
3 UP IN ARMS – double definition.
4 PEREGRINE FALCON – P(ower) + (rifle once range)*
5 REGALE – R (rex, king) + E.G. (say) + ALE (drink).
6 OLD BAILEY – OLD (former) + BAIL (security) + YE (you) reversed.
7 REVOLVE – REV (priest) + OLIVE (symbol of peace) minus the I.
13 CELEBRITY – B(ritish) inside CELERITY (expedition, in the sense of getting a move on).
15 TANGERINE – TINE (sharp point) around ANGER (passion).
16 ARDENNES – (ensnared)*. A forested region of France.
18 ERUDITE – E (compass point) + RUDE (discourteous) around IT.
20 MARITAL – AL (Capone, gangster) underneath MAR (ruin) + IT.
21 DEFEND – FED up (bored, geddit?) + END (goal).

12 comments on “Saturday Times 25388 (2nd Feb)”

  1. Yes, easy, though with some elegant and concise clues..
    I have always thought of the Ardennes as being Belgian, but indeed it also goes well into France (and Luxembourg) and even has a Department named after it..
  2. Yes, straightforward stuff which I completed in 30 minutes. Not sure I have met Madrileno before. Also not sure why we have ‘she’ at 4dn.
  3. I also spent several minutes trying to justify DEFEND before the penny dropped. Particularly liked 1A, 9A, and 4D.
  4. Danish Blue from the crosses. Americans (or this American) don’t know Dan Dare, which sounds like our (my) loss. But help me parse blue = waste? Is this related to blue pencil?

    And do you really call okra Lady Fingers, which I only know as a kind of sweet biscuit?

    1. blue = waste: it’s in the dictionary under blue2:

      (inf) vt to squander. [Prob for blow1]

      And yes, okra is also called lady’s fingers here.

      1. Thanks. One of the reasons I like the puzzle is its use of the full richness of the language.
  5. 13:40. Quite straightforward, but I managed to type PERIGRINE. Grr.
    I’d never come across “blue” for “waste” in my life until it appeared in a crossword a while back. Since then I’ve seen it three or four times… always in crosswords.
  6. 12 minutes on a very enjoyable puzzle. DEFEND was a particularly good penny dropping moment.
  7. 52′, with 10ac, 12ac, and 2d as LOIs, I can’t remember in what order. Like Paul in London, lady fingers (or ladies’ fingers? I can’t remember which) for me are a kind of cookie, but the wordplay was compelling. 27ac involved 2 quasi-DNKs, again like P in L; both ‘blue’ and Dan Dare have appeared in recent cryptics, so I can’t claim pure ignorance. I’m not sure I like the equation of ‘teacher’s pet’ with ‘swot’; there are plenty of swots who don’t win the teacher’s affection, and teacher’s pets by no means need be swots. COD to 2d.

    Edited at 2013-02-10 04:49 am (UTC)

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