Saturday Times 25843 (19th July)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 24:15 for this one, but that doesn’t represent the degree of difficulty. I had a bad week last week, rarely getting in under 20 minutes for some reason. Plenty to like about this puzzle – good surface readings, some imaginative definitions, and well-crafted wordplay. My favourite was 14D and last one in was 22D, which must have held me up for about 5 minutes at the end.

Across
1 Old people settling proposal, concise but detailed (8)
PLANTERS – PLAN (proposal) + TERS(e) (concise, minus the last letter). Refers to early settlers in America.
6 Just manage to arrive at party (4-2)
MAKE DO – MAKE (arrive at) + DO (party).
9 What gardener does in drought likely to cause a lather? (5,8)
WATER SOFTENER – A gardener WATERS OFTENER in a drought.
10 Malicious heartless boy, long imprisoned (6)
BITCHY – B(o)Y around ITCH (long).
11 Shrink from deposing last dynasty in another realm? (8)
DREAMING – DREA(d) (shrink from, minus the last letter) + MING (dynasty).
13 Where journalism’s substandard but regret’s improbable (4,6)
GRUB STREET – (but regret’s)*. From Chambers, “a former name of Milton Street, Moorfields, London, once inhabited by booksellers’ hacks and shabby writers generally”.
15 Knot, turnstone etc may feed here (4)
REEF – double definition (although as the knot is also a type of shorebird, it could be read as a straight definition!)
16 Waste product from bureau (4)
UREA – not very well-hidden in bureau.
18 Spirit-filled host blessed the Blues (10)
MELANCHOLY – ELAN (spirit) inside MC (host), + HOLY (blessed).
21 Disco dancing is linked to a blood disorder (8)
ACIDOSIS – (disco)* + IS, next to A.
22 Our personal inheritance for which financier holds key (6)
GENOME – GNOME (financier) around E (a key).
23 People on trail of wild cat once joining together (13)
CONCATENATION – NATION (people) following (cat once)*.
25 Reason for greeting little bird? (6)
WEEPIE – WEE (little) + PIE (bird). Greeting is a Scottish word for weeping.
26 Support for driver rising in ranks, not one proved unsteady (8)
TEETERED – TEE (support for driver) + T(i)ERED (rising in ranks, minus the I).

Down
2 Rook joins bird in fiction further down the pecking order (7)
LOWLIER – R(ook) following [OWL (bird) inside LIE (fiction)].
3 Council supporting spot where bills may be presented (6,5)
NOTICE BOARD – BOARD (council) underneath NOTICE (spot).
4 Prematurely old (5)
EARLY – double definition.
5 Speed crazily, going round on foot (7)
SPONDEE – (speed)* around ON. A poetical foot of two long syllables. I had to learn all about them and others such as trochees, iambs, dactyls and anapaests for Latin O-Level, but these days they’re only good for crosswords.
6 Scruffy chaps turning up to get warm inside (4-5)
MOTH-EATEN – MEN (chaps) around TO reversed + HEAT (get warm).
7 Members of family sort daughter out (3)
KIN – KIND (sort), minus the D for daughter.
8 Poet describing game sent up US comedian (7)
DURANTE – DANTE (poet) around RU (game) reversed. I briefly entertained the idea of some unknown comedian called DURONNE, but thankfully remembered Jimmy Durante eventually.
12 Worker involved in E-crimes shifting goods (11)
MERCHANDISE – HAND (worker) inside (E-crimes)*.
14 Holiday home to which access is restricted by race (9)
TIMESHARE – TIMES (by) + HARE (race).
17 Creatively adapt touching series of songs? (7)
RECYCLE – RE (touching) + CYCLE (series of songs).
19 Most extravagant desire that man’s admitted to (7)
LUSHEST – LUST (desire) around HE’S (man’s).
20 Creature from south, foremost of egg layers (7)
LAMINAE – ANIMAL reversed + E(gg).
22 Polish crop changing hands (5)
GLAZE – GRAZE (crop), with the R changed to an L.
24 Dash, creating small draught (3)
NIP – double definition, the second meaning a shot of spirits.

18 comments on “Saturday Times 25843 (19th July)”

  1. The name of Grub Street was changed in 1829 to Milton St (after John Milton) at the petition of the residents, who wished to show they were more literary in nature than the previous name implied!
  2. That week was a harder than average one for me too, and I thought it was ending on quite a straightforward puzzle until I came to 25A. I eventually got it from “little” and the checkers, but with PIE more of a Mephisto/Listener word and that meaning of greet not known to me, I submitted this with some trepidation. Didn’t know PLANTERS or ACIDOSIS either but the wordplay didn’t allow any obvious alternatives.
    1. I’m a bit surprised you haven’t come across ‘greet’ in this sense before. It is one of two words – the other being ‘keen’ – that I am crossword-conditioned to consider as a synonym for ‘weep’ or similar.
      1. As is often the case with my “I’ve never heard of this word” pronouncements, looking through my notes I see that GREET in this sense has appeared at least once in both the Guardian and the Independent in the last year. However the most recent of those occurrences was in January (i.e. effectively an eternity ago) and in both cases the answer was easily derivable by other means, so it didn’t stick in my mind. Next time though …
  3. 23:27. Andy I think the reason you struggled last week is that the puzzles were hard!
    I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Jimmy DURANTE but thankfully I thought of the right poet first and it looked right.
  4. I agree about last week’s puzzles being hard – this one took me just over 13 mins with lots of ‘changes of mind’ scribbles all over the grid.
  5. 21 mins, and WEEPIE was my LOI. 9ac raised a smile, and ACIDOSIS went in from the wordplay. I knew Jimmy Durante so 8dn went in straight away. I’ll always associate him with “kicking the bucket” in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
  6. 15a I’m probably being picky here but Knot’s and Turnstone’s are waders, they wouldn’t feed on a reef. Also 25a , why is a pie a bird?
    1. Knot is the definition: reef knot. ‘Pie’ is another name for a magpie. I can’t help with turnstones!
        1. Just unspammed this comment after I’d posted my reply – LJ tends to mark comments as spam if they contain hyperlinks.
    2. Hi dscoll, I’m not enough of an ornithologist to comment about the feeding habits of knots or turnstones, but if you want picky, what are those apostrophes doing in your plurals?! 😉

      As keriothe mentioned, a pie is a bird because Chambers dictionary says it is – another name for a magpie. It goes on to tell us that mag and maggie are also alternative names for it. In fact it gives the first definition of magpie as “the pie (Pica pica), a black-and-white chattering bird of the same type as the crow”.

      1. Looks like I need to buy chambers as i’ve been caught out like this before. I’ve always struggled with apostrophies as grammer was not taught much at my school (in the 70’s)
  7. Quite heavy-going but very enjoyable. I ended with one letter wrong at 26 where I was unable fully to parse TEETERER; I should have persevered on the basis if you can’t parse it it’s probably wrong.

    I imagine most UK solvers would be familiar with Eric Morceambe’s regular impersonation of Jimmy Durante (places paper cup over nose and sings “Sitting at my pianna the udder day”) without necessarily knowing his name or who he was. Aka “The Schnoz” and “The Great Schnozzola” he was a great entertainer from a bygone era.

    Edited at 2014-07-27 07:11 am (UTC)

  8. From downunder, finally an easier one, but still one wrong – I went with the lesser-known Duronne. I’ve heard of Jimmy Durante and Dante, but they didn’t come to mind.
    If you water oftener during droughts in Perth (the real Perth, Western Australia) you’ll cause a lather, and get fined. So 9 ac has extra layers of meaning here.
    Rob
  9. My 1968 edition of the LOD has the main definition of pie as: ‘kinds of bird, esp woodpecker’. Interestingly, the second definition is: ‘dish of meat or fruit covered in paste’. How times have changed!

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