Saturday Times 25849 (26th July)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time was around the 20-minute mark again, and I don’t think it was that hard in retrospect. Sorry comments are a bit brief this morning, but I have a busy day ahead.

Across
1 Name missing from sign is a drag (4)
TOKE – TOKEN (sign) without the N for name.
3 Acted as solicitor to MP under one’s arrangement (10)
IMPORTUNED – (to MP under I)*
10 Pan and tube each filled with a drop of rum punch for one (9)
WORKHORSE – WOK (pan) and HOSE (tube) with an R (drop of Rum) in each.
11 Being on the fiddle, maybe, one’s shady (5)
BOWER – double definition.
12 New watch that’s for songwriter (7)
NOVELLO – NOVEL (new) + LO (watch that).
13 Friction a problem in wheels (6)
ANIMUS – A + [SUM (problem) + IN, reversed].
15 Hacks, presumably, at this pear, after attempt to get juice from it? (5,10)
PRESS CONFERENCE – CONFERENCE (pear) after PRESS (attempt to get juice from it).
18 Supposedly disapprove as a body, giving rise to underground movement? (4,2,4,5)
TURN IN ONE’S GRAVE – cryptic definition.
21 Betting fall can cause injury (6)
SPRAIN – SP (starting price, betting) + RAIN (fall).
23 “Mislay” tablet bottles to pass inspection (4-3)
LOOK-SEE – LOSE (mislay) + E (tablet) around OK (to pass).
26 Summoned to court, poor Republican’s deserted (3,2)
HAD UP – HARD UP (poor) without the R for Republican.
27 Turn cape and rise for cool effect (4,5)
WIND CHILL – WIND (turn) + C(ape) + HILL (rise).
28 Don’t see it right, sadly, with such a view? (4-6)
ROSE-TINTED – (don’t see it R)*, &lit.
29 Mock appeal for peace by dreamers in the centre (4)
SHAM – SH (appeal for peace) + AM (middle letters of dreAMers).

Down
1 What does racing driver want? Answer: the short, purpose-built track (6-4)
TOWING-PATH – TO WIN GP (what racing driver wants) + A(nswer) + TH(e). I’ve only ever known it as a towpath, but both options are in Chambers.
2 Put out volume about Irish dance company of old (5)
KIROV – KO (put out) + V(olume) around IR(ish). KIROV was the Soviet name of the Mariinsky Ballet. News to me.
4 Bucks town mostly welcoming busy old traveller (5,4)
MARCO POLO – MARLO(w) (Bucks town mostly) around COP (busy), O(ld). Someone always asks, so I’ll mention it – “busy” is slang for a detective, according to Chambers.
5 Turn up some spare police work for the Met? (5)
OPERA – hidden reversed in “spare police”
6 Squatter raised objection – the last stand? (7)
TUBBIER – BUT (objection) reversed, + BIER (the last stand).
7 Island resort a genuine source of wonderment (3,6)
NEW GUINEA – (a genuine, W)*
8 Very embarrassed after upsetting contents of tank? (4)
DERV – V(ery) RED, reversed.
9 School perhaps or hospital in part of UK (6)
WHALES – H(ospital) inside WALES (part of UK).
14 In church defiant smoker getting a piece of one’s mind (10)
CEREBELLUM – CE (church) + REBEL (defiant) + LUM (smoker).
16 Dramatist showing wishful remark from UKIP on fateful day (9)
EURIPIDES – EU, R.I.P. (wishful remark from UKIP) + IDES (fateful day).
17 On the house over the road, outside key’s unattached (9)
FREELANCE – FREE (on the house) + LANE (road) around C (key).
19 Having difficulty at home representing corporation (2,1,4)
IN A SPOT – IN (at home) + AS POT (representing corporation).
20 Shell from gunner that hurts, making us moan (6)
GROUCH – GR (outside letters of gunner) + OUCH (that hurts).
22 Without prospect of success, just returned home? (2-3)
NO-WIN – NOW IN (just returned home).
24 Singular story told of forger (5)
SMITH – S(ingular) + sounds like “myth” (story told).
25 Do tea and toast far too much? (4)
CHAR – triple definition.

18 comments on “Saturday Times 25849 (26th July)”

  1. 12 mins for this one, so I was either very much on the setter’s wavelength or it was one of the easier ones and Andy just had a bad day because I’m not usually quicker than him. It’ll be interesting to see what others made of it.

    The ANIMUS/TUBBIER crossers were my last ones in, and I thought the clue for TOWING-PATH was very good.

  2. Thanks for the blog Andy. For some reason 23a and 24d eluded me. As usual it seems so obvious now.
  3. 31 minutes, so on the easy side for a Saturday. No unknowns only I couldn’t remember what exactly a TOKE is.
  4. No problems with this, about 20 minutes. I admit to knowing what a toke is, although it’s nearly 50 years since I enjoyed one or two.
  5. 12:38, so I’d agree that this was straightforward. Much of it went straight in from definition. My one query is with ‘betting’ for SP, which seems a bit like defining ‘fare’ as ‘taking the bus’.
      1. I thought it was fine (and I used to be a betting shop manager). It’s used here as a noun, as on TV racing “let’s have a look at the betting”.
        1. In that phrase you might substitute the word ‘betting’ with ‘prices’, but I don’t think you can substitute it with ‘SP’.
          1. Agreed (having hit the winner of the Stewards Cup today). SP is a snapshot of the betting/prices at a particlular time (ie, the off)
            1. Congratulations! Was your bet SP? A surprisingly large majority of horse-racing bets are, but I still think it’s a much more specific term than ‘betting’ or ‘odds’.
  6. No keriothe, my bet was not at SP and very rarely is these days. I like to know what price I am getting and almost invariably bet on Betfair to achieve this but most bookies these days will price up most big races in the shop so that you can see what you are getting if you want it.
    1. I quite agree . I don’t usually bet unless I’m at the races, but when I have I’ve always wanted to know the price, and I’ve never understood why so many people take the SP. From memory it’s over 90% of bets on horse-racing in the UK. Of course it suits the bookies!

      Edited at 2014-08-02 10:02 pm (UTC)

  7. Must have been easy, as I finished in a long 45 minutes. LOsI WORKHORSE and WHALE. I think of whales in pods rather than schools, so it didn’t occur to me quickly. And I still don’t understand the workhorse = punch bit. Can someone help me there?
    1. A punch – or Suffolk punch – is a type of draught horse that appears reasonably frequently in these puzzles.
  8. Thanks, Keriothe (and mohn2, too). I didn’t see it in the OED, and didn’t know if I just needed to look harder or if it was a famous character in, for example, a children’s book that I’d never find. I’ll file it next to queen, the MB doctor, and the several kinds of duck.
  9. Not too chuffed by the def in 14dn. The cerebellum has nothing whatsoever to do with the mind. It’s part of the brain, a bodily organ, and co-ordinates muscular activity. “Mind” is a collecting term for mental predicates such as “believe”, “remember”, “think”, etc. etc.
  10. This evidently was not easy for me; I went offline after the half-hour and finished God knows how much later. For at least five clues I had to write down the solutions and look hard before finally parsing them. 9d was my LOI, and for the same reason as Paul: I thought whales hung out in pods not schools; but my SOED informs me that a pod is a small school. At the time it didn’t register, but I second Mctext’s comment on CEREBELLUM and the confounding of mind and brain.
  11. Brain for mind is in Oxford, and reflects how folks use the language. Cerebellum for a piece of the mind (standing for brain) is scarcely justifiable at all, on the other hand.

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