Saturday Times 25646 (30th Nov)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time approx. 20 minutes. Again I didn’t get around to solving it until Friday evening, but at least that means it’s still fresh in my mind! Pretty good puzzle, but not as tricky as the time I took seems to indicate (I blame tiredness), although were a couple of tricky words in there.

Across
1 PANIC GRASS – GRASS (inform police) after PANIC (bad scare).
6 IDEA – I + DEA(r) (mostly cherished).
10 SEW UP – SET-UP (arrangement) with the T (time) replaced with a W (wife).
11 EGOMANIAC – E.G. (say) + OMANI (an Arab) + A + C(old).
12 MARCHING ORDERS – MARCH (a month) + IN + GO (advance) + R(i)DERS (conditions, minus the I (one)).
14 EVENING – CHEVENING (mansion in Kent) without the CH for church. Never heard of it but easy enough to guess and confirm later. It’s a country home for the use of government ministers these days, currently shared by William Hague and Nick Clegg.
15 RE-ELECT – REEL (stagger) + EC (European Commission) + (righ)T.
17 OPTIMAL – TIM (man) inside O(ld) PAL (friend).
19 ANOTHER – THE (article) inside (Nora)*.
20 EXPANSION JOINT – EX (former wife) + (no pains)* + JOINT (reefer).
23 EXCHEQUER – sounds like X (illiterate signature) + CHECKER (vet). I don’t think this one works – vet is a verb in this sense, not a noun
24 INCUR – INCURIOUS (not wanting to find out) without IOUS.
25 TOTE – TOT (salvage) + E(uropean). Not the first meaning of TOT one thinks of, but I knew “totter” as another word for a rag-and-bone man, so it was sort of in my vocabulary.
26 LEBENSRAUM – (mensurable)*. Literally German for “living space”.

Down
1 POSE – S(ociety) inside POE (Edgar Allan).
2 NEWSAGENT – (wa)NT, after NEW (fresh) + SAGE (herb).
3 CAPUCHIN MONKEY – (a chipmunk, coney)*.
4 REEKING – RE (on) + (in keg)*.
5 SLOGGER – S(weden) + LOGGER (lumberjack).
7 DRIVE – DRIVEL (talk like an idiot) minus L(arge).
8 ACCUSATORY – ACC(ount) + USA + TO (closed) + R(apidl)Y.
9 MACROECONOMICS – (A R on comic comes)*. Took a while to figure out what the anagram fodder was, and I needed most of the checkers in place to get it (by which time I was working back from the answer).
13 DENOUEMENT – (need men out)*
16 ECHINACEA – E(ast) + CHINA + alternate letters of eCzEmA.
18 LEISURE – I.E. (that’s) + L(eft), all reversed, + SURE (for certain).
19 AINTREE – AIN’T (common is not) + E’ER (at any time) reversed.
21 PICOT – PIC (photograph) + TO reversed.
22 GRIM – half of GRIMOIRE (book of spells).

8 comments on “Saturday Times 25646 (30th Nov)”

  1. I’ve written 10 mins ish by the grid but have no idea what I was doing last Saturday which meant that I didn’t time it exactly. judging by my handwriting, I’d say I didn’t have any particular problems with the clues.
  2. I liked this one, with some unusual vocab and an unexpected reference to Nora Batty. LOI MACROECONOMICS, the latest in a recent string of long answers that my brain has frozen on.
  3. Just under the hour in another long solve for me. Didn’t recognise PANIC GRASS or PICOT.

    I’m not sure there’s a problem with vet in 23ac. There’s a noun ‘vetter’ meaning a person who checks things i.e. checker, so it’s no great stretch in Crosswordland to abbreviate that to ‘vet’ I’d have thought.

    1. Well, exactly – that’s my point. The clue could just as easily have had “vetter” in it rather than “vet”. It’s not like there was a surface reading requiring an animal doctor.
  4. 19 mins.

    LEBENSRAUM was my LOI after I entered GRIM from the definition. I checked my Chambers post-solve and found “grimoire” so I knew GRIM was correct. EVENING was also entered from the definition and I confirmed the existence of “Chevening” via Google post-solve. I thought the clue for MACROECONOMICS was excellent.

  5. I really liked the “Nora Batty” reference.
    It didn’t bother me unduly at the time but looking again now, you might think something like “auditor” would actually improve the surface reading of 23ac. God knows the BofE have plenty of them
  6. Enjoyed this, if only to find a new (for me) meaning of TOT and what CHEVENING is. With those two residing there (together?), I’m surprised there isn’t a verb “to cheven”.

    Convinced early on that this would be a pangram. But we’re short an F and a Z. My fix?

    6a => EZRA.
    7dn => ZAIRE
    22dn => FROM

    For what it’s worth. Probably not much now.

  7. 13:13 here, with a few at the end on 22dn. I had no idea about GRIMOIRE so was worried there might be something that fitted better than GRIM. I couldn’t think of anything so I submitted with trepidation.

Comments are closed.