Saturday Times 25771 (26th April)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 17:42, slowed down a bit at the end by 8dn for some reason. Hats off to the setter for 2dn and 19dn for making me laugh, and for 1ac and 26ac for the “wordplay-in-answer” device, which I always enjoy. Regular readers will notice a change in style – I had a bit of time on my hands this morning (for the first time in months), so decided to experiment. Hope you like it. Not that the time off will last – I’m back at work tomorrow and Monday.

Across
1 Go ballistic in suggestion of hot war? (5,1,6)
THROW A WOBBLY – wordplay in the answer, as THROW A is an anagram of “hot war” and WOBBLY is the anagram indicator.
9 Old study for old Italian (5)
OSCAN – O(ld) + SCAN (study). “An Italic people of Campania and Latium adiectum during Roman times”, according to Wikipedia. Often seen in crosswords but hardly anywhere else as they were assimilated into Rome in the 4th century BC.
10 Go off to erase notes? (9)
DECOMPOSE – musical ones that is. If to compose means to make notes, then…
11 Youth work grant with energy tripled? (8)
TEENAGER – anagram (work) of grant and 3 E’s.
12 Fungus among group, brought over (3-3)
INK-CAP – IN (among) + PACK (group) reversed. Apparently edible, although I’ve never seen them in the shops.
13 Column I bandaged? (8)
PILASTER – I inside PLASTER, hence “bandaged?”
15 One employing doctor as pest controller (6)
MOUSER – MO (Medical Officer) USER (one employing doctor).
17 Look to hold in stomach, being pudgy (6)
STUMPY – SPY (look) around TUM (stomach).
18 One’s entitled, providing sword passes between the hands? (4,4)
LIFE PEER – IF (providing) + EPEE (sword), inside L(eft) and R(ight).
20 List the best performance (6)
RECORD – double definition.
21 Tormented Chinese revolutionary strangled by ancient (8)
AGONISED – SINO (a prefix meaning Chinese) reversed inside AGED (ancient).
24 Independent fish from the poisonnier? (9)
FREELANCE – EEL in FRANCE, so it would have been a clever bit of wordplay if they hadn’t spelt poissonnier (French for a fishmonger) wrong!
25 Animal requiring very dry climate, ultimately (5)
BRUTE – BRUT (very dry, of wine) + (climat)E.
26 Matthew and others implied statement? (3,9)
NEW TESTAMENT – similar to 1ac, wordplay in the answer. NEW (anagram indicator) + TESTAMENT (anagram of “statement”. Liked the definition, so much better than the usual “good books” or just “books”.

Down
1 Domesticated pig, trotters initially up for dance (3-4)
TWO-STEP – PET SOW (domesticated pig) + T(rotters), all reversed.
2 Person dining on salad concealing a weapon (6,8)
ROCKET LAUNCHER – ROCKET LUNCHER (person dining on salad) around A. Great clue, raised a chuckle.
3 Taste of marshmallow on garlic bread (5)
WONGA – hidden inside “marshmallow on garlic”. Slang for money. Chambers says “origin uncertain” but several sites on the Internet say it’s from the Romany word for coal.
4 Discuss the reason it’s coloured green (4-4)
WIDE-EYED – sounds like “why dyed”. Green as in naïve.
5 Resist impetuous youth (4)
BUCK – double definition.
6 Fish – reject one under a foot (5,4)
LEMON SOLE – LEMON (reject) + SOLE (one under a foot). One of my favourites (fish, that is – the clue was ok).
7 Blend correct, as we use anchovies in it (9,5)
WORCESTER SAUCE – anagram of “correct as we use”, &lit. A bottle of Lea & Perrins gives the name as Worcestershire Sauce (and they should know), but Chambers has both versions.
8 Little for every one down, evidently? (6)
WEEPER – WEE (little) + PER (for every). Last one in for me, and I had to run through the alphabet before the penny dropped. Cost me a couple of minutes at the end, yet it seems so simple in hindsight.
14 Substance used to stick leg up, sure unconventional (9)
SUPERGLUE – anagram of “leg up sure”.
16 Incapable of taking off gown at first, having always lost clothes? (8)
WINGLESS – G(own) inside WINLESS (having always lost). I always look out for words like “clothes” or “houses”, as they’re often used as indicators that something needs to go inside something else, in such a way that (like this) they appear to be a noun but are in fact a verb.
17 One probably wouldn’t wash the back of the neck (6)
SCRUFF – double definition.
19 Minor thing rolled out for royalty stuffed with English beef, say? (3,4)
RED MEAT – RED MAT (“Sorry yer majesty, we couldn’t afford the carpet. Will this do?”) around E(nglish). Laughed out loud at this one – luckily for a change I wasn’t doing it on the train!
22 Ancient kingdom in essence borders on India (5)
NUBIA – NUB (essence) + I(ndi)A. Region of Africa in Egypt and Sudan that used to be a kingdom in its own right.
23 Flier in binder? (4)
KNOT – double definition with a link-word so the surface makes sense.

12 comments on “Saturday Times 25771 (26th April)”

  1. I must have been on the setter’s wavelength as this only took me 8:50 – very neat writing too which is always a sign of both enjoyment and time taken.

    Thanks for the blog – like the new style.

  2. I enjoyed this (‘Throw a Wobbly’ for heaven’s sake) but dropped on the wrong side of the KNOT/GNAT divide so not successfully completed. Agree with CS about the blog and its format.

    Edited at 2014-05-03 11:12 am (UTC)

  3. 21 mins for this delightful puzzle, with WIDE-EYED my LOI after the DECOMPOSE/WEEPER crossers. My only minor quibble is at 16dn where “winless” isn’t quite synonymous with “having always lost”. A draw isn’t a win but it isn’t a loss either, although there are enough activities where the only options are a win or a loss so I guess it works.

    I like your new blog format Andy.

  4. 22:42, with ages at the end agonising over KNOT. I didn’t know the bird, and although KNOT is an obvious answer for ‘binder’, GNAT is an equally obvious answer for ‘flier’, and I worried there might be something else that was a reasonable answer for both. In the end I couldn’t think of anything else, decided that KNOT was more likely to have an unknown meaning than GNAT and crossed my fingers.
    It occurred to me that rocket (on its own) isn’t really a salad, and lunch isn’t really dinner, but then it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be such a ridiculous pedant.
  5. Nice puzzle, with ROCKET LAUNCHER raising a smile and several minutes at the end spent agonising over GNAT/KNOT. Great format, which I will be copying!
  6. Another like for the blog format. I included KNIT with GNAT and KNOT as a bit that might fit leaving a bit I clearly didn’t know. I guessed right on that one. Stuck in RED CENT (near enough a minor amount), didn’t parse, and the checkers didn’t show up the error. Consequently, no laughing here.
  7. 12 minutes to start, 15 minutes to finish (decompose & buck), 68 minutes in all, and gnat for knot. Particularly liked wide-eyed and weeper.
  8. Format looks nice Andy, do you (or I) have to write in all those colour changes in HTML? Especially a good idea for the Saturday and Sunday blogs where the original clues have been binned or forgotten!
    1. Yes, but only once – I’ve changed my template, that’s all. I still have to manually add the underline markup, but that’s not hard.
  9. A lively and very enjoyable puzzle with at least a couple of really great clues (if one overlooks the spelling mistake at 24ac – not the setter’s fault, presumably).

    I like the style of the blog which looks similar to the one that’s most used for the Quickie. I shall try to do the same or similar when I blog my first Sunday puzzle.

  10. Managed to chew my way through this one over the course of the weekend and arrive at correct solution, so pretty chuffed with that!

    Agree 2dn and 19dn were genuine rib-ticklers. Also enjoyed 1dn and 18dn, both of which I found particularly tricky but sense of triumph when the penny dropped. Fortunately knew KNOT – “confessions of a teenage twitcher…” – still waiting for ptarmigan to get an outing…

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