Saturday Times 25658 (14th Dec)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
A two-week delay for this one due to the deadline being extended until today due to the Christmas post. The same applies to last week’s puzzle, which will be blogged on 4th Jan, then this week’s will be blogged on Thursday 9th Jan. Hopefully we’ll be back to normal thenceforth. As for this puzzle – I can’t remember a great deal about it, and didn’t note my solving time down at the time either. Looking back at it now, there doesn’t seem to be too much that would have held me up for long, so I’ll call it about average, i.e. 15 minutes or so.

Across
1 PLUS – cryptic definition.
4 ARCHITRAVE – ARC (Joan’s place) + HIT (success) + RAVE (party).
9 HYPERBOLIC – double definition.
10 PONG – double definition (or one-and-a-half!)
11 PLIANT – I inside PLANT.
12 RENEGADE – hidden reversed in “encouraged a general”.
14 DYED – sounds like “died”.
15 SIDE EFFECT – SIDE (team) + EFFECTS (luggage), minus the last letter.
17 BARENTS SEA – BARE (stripped) + (sent as)*.
20 REAL – REGAL (like a king), without the middle letter.
21 ADJUSTER – A + D (note) + JUSTER (fairer).
23 PATHAN – PATH (way) + AN.
24 DOCK – triple definition.
25 BANANA SKIN – BAN (veto) + AN ASK (a request) + IN (at home).
26 NOBLE GASES – NOBLE (earl) + GASES (talks boastfully). I think of gas as idle chatter rather than boastfulness, but Chambers gives it the nod, sort of.
27 ETNA – first letters of “examine the neighbouring area”.

Down
2 LOYALTY CARD – cryptic definition.
3 SKEDADDLE – SKIED (went downhill fast) without the I + ADDLE (go off).
4 ARBUTUS – A BRUTUS (a conspirator in Rome), with the R (for resistance) moving up.
5 COLORADO SPRINGS – COL (pass) + O(ver) + (road)* + SPRINGS (wells).
6 INCENSE – double definition.
7 AGORA – ANGORA (cloth) without the N.
8 EAGRE – AGREE (consent), with the last letter moved to the top.
13 DECLAMATION – (noticed)* around LAMA (priest).
16 FORETASTE – FORE (warning) + TASTE (discrimination).
18 TOTE BAG – TO (shut) + TEA BAG (leaves package) minus an A.
19 ALPINES – (plane is)*.
21 AUDEN – A + U(niversity) + DEN (study). Wystan Hugh Auden, the poet (no wonder he went by his initials).
22 JACOB – CO (firm) inside JAB (inoculation).

7 comments on “Saturday Times 25658 (14th Dec)”

  1. I don’t recall a lot about this puzzle either. The only notes I made say that it took 11 mins, so it was either on the easy side or I was very much on the setter’s wavelength, and that DOCK was my LOI, which was easy enough but I sometimes have trouble identifying triple definition clues.
  2. 41 minutes with the longest hold-up at 4ac for some reason. A very enjoyable set of clues.

    I received no email notifications of comments on my blog yesterday. Is the same happening to you today, Andy?

    Edited at 2013-12-28 10:13 am (UTC)

      1. Vinyl1 posted to my Friday blog early this morning (Sunday) and I’ve had notification of that. Still only one of nineteen though.
        1. Funnily enough, this comment appeared in my Inbox this morning (at 05:29, so straight away), but none of the others have come through yet.
    2. When I was doing the Christmas Turkey thing, I was getting email notifications of new messages for a few days then it suddenly stopped. Eventually they all turned up, days after the messages were sent. Seems to be a bit of a current glitch with LJ.
  3. The trouble about commenting on a crossword that I did two weeks ago that there is a lot of water under the bridge since. I have kept my hard copy and it is undoubtedly fillied in by me but looking at it today does not trigger any particular positive or negative memories so I must have just scribbled it in. Note to self – write solving times on hard-copy prize crosswords.

Comments are closed.