Saturday Times 25681 (11th Jan)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Sorry this is a day late. Solved in about 15 mins on the train on Wednesday evening. 1ac went straight in, but then I went blank for a bit and the next one in was 28ac. Luckily I sped up a bit after that, as the downs seemed to be a bit easier.

Across
1 INCISE – hidden in “zinc is easy”.
4 GET THERE – double definition.
10 DOWN TOOLS – LOOT (money) reversed inside DOWNS (rural areas).
11 GHOST – (hog)* + ST(one). Definition e.g. the real authors of most celebrity biographies.
12 CULPRIT – CU (copper) + [PR(iest) inside LIT (drunk)].
13 CORNICE – COR (my!) + NICE (delightful).
14 TOPIC – TROPIC (a large circle) minus the R for radius.
15 EMMENTAL – MENTAL (ridiculous) with ME (setter) reversed in front of it. A bit convoluted, but I can’t see how else it can work.
18 IRON DUKE – (round)* inside IKE (general, i.e. Eisenhower). Wellington’s nickname.
20 SATIN – SAT IN (demonstrated), the two words brought together.
23 OEDIPUS – OED (Oxford English Dictionary – famous reference) + OPUS (work), with I (one) replacing O (old).
25 SPINNER – SINNER (criminal) around P(ower).
26 NOOSE – O (love) inside NOSE (bill). Bit of a pessimistic view of marriage from the setter (although I don’t disagree with the sentiment myself!). And yes, I know it’s in the dictionary as a (joc) definition, in case anyone mentions it!
27 INGENUOUS – INGENIOUS (skilful) with the small change of an I to a U. I had this right on my printout, and then entered INGENIOUS when typing it up on the website. Damn!
28 WELL DONE – double definition.
28 BEETLE – (let)* after BEE (another insect).

Down
1 INDICATE – INDICT (charge) + E(uropean), around A.
2 COWSLIP – double definition, the first a bit tongue-in-cheek.
3 SATYRICON – SATYR (man obsessed with sex) + ICON (symbol). Classical, as in ancient – it was written by Petronius (AD 27-66).
5 EASY COME EASY GO – EASY (be careful!) + COME (to arrive) + EASY (effortless) + GO (work).
6 TIGER – G(ood) inside TIER (a row).
7 EROTICA – OT (books) inside ERICA (heather).
8 ESTEEM – E(mployee)S + MEET (qualified) reversed.
9 POP THE QUESTION – (to equip shop, net)*
16 NESCIENCE – NE(w) (de-tailed additional) + SCIENCE (maths, say).
17 EN BROSSE – BROS (siblings) inside (seen)*.
19 REDPOLL – sounds like “read” (understood) + POLL (cut horns off).
21 TUNE OUT – in French, UNE (one) inside TOUT (everything).
22 NOW NOW – double definition.
24 PSEUD – P(regnancy) + DUES (fees) reversed.

8 comments on “Saturday Times 25681 (11th Jan)”

    1. For old men (previously young men) of a certain age, the 60’s film Fellini Satyricon (directed by Federico Fellini) will never be forgotten.
  2. An hour for this enjoyable and slightly quirky offering. I am currently reading Gore Vidal’s essays, which helped with Satyricon, while sources suggest that the cow is normally spelled with two words and the bird (redpoll) with one.
    1. Yes, I only knew it as a type of bird. Just checked in Chambers, and it gives the cattle under the same single-word heading as the bird.
  3. About an hour and a half. It took a while, along with the absence of anything else that would fit the checkers, to decide that NOOSE was right. at 16d, dictionaries and common usage aside, engineers believe maths to be as different from science as RED POLLs are from REDPOLLs

    I was pleased to learn that the IRON DUKE got his nickname not for fortitude in battle, but for the iron shutters he had installed on his London house to keep pro-Reform rioters at bay.

  4. 16 mins so fairly straightforward. REDPOLL was my LOI from the wordplay (didn’t know the cattle breed) after IRON DUKE.
  5. I had a problem finishing this one off and still ended up with two wrong, INGENIOUS and TONE OUT (where I hadn’t realised that both parts needed translation). Never heard of EN BROSSE, NESCIENCE or the cow, so that didn’t help.
  6. Anxiously awaited this blog, as I had a flock of ?s by my solutions: couldn’t parse 12ac, for instance or 14ac, or 15ac,… I was, on the other hand, pleased to spot, for the first time, ‘my’ as another example of COR. I suppose mathematics is a ‘science’ in French, but not, to me anyway, in English. Math has proofs, for instance, where science has to settle for convincing evidence–except where it can make use of math.

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