Saturday Times 25861 (9th August)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 19:28, so my slow-solving malaise continues. I didn’t really notice while solving, but now I’m writing it up there seem to be a record number of double definitions for a Times puzzle, rivalling a Monday Guardian by Rufus!

Across
1 Back-stabber has drag artist clutching lower back (8)
EPIDURAL – LA RUE (Danny La Rue, drag artist) around DIP (lower), all reversed. A pain-killing injection into the spine – my mum had one when trying to deliver me into the world. I was worth it though 🙂
6 Saw cut out fairly dark clothes (6)
DICTUM – (cut)* inside DIM (fairly dark).
9 Rum folderols I organised as master of revelry (4,2,7)
LORD OF MISRULE – (rum folderols I)*. In medieval times, someone in charge of drunken partying around Christmas time. As if they needed encouragement…
10 One caught in red fabric (6)
TRICOT – I (one) + C(aught), inside TROT (red). A hand-knitted woollen fabric.
11 Native Australian disease, always the drink (4,4)
ROOT BEER – ROO (native Australian) + TB (disease) + EER (always). An alcohol-free American invention, yuck.
13 Healthy encouraging words (4,3,3)
GOOD FOR YOU – double definition.
15 Players lose toss (4)
CAST – triple definition.
16 Crusty despicable type? (4)
SCAB – single definition, but with a hint of another meaning.
18 Change row (10)
DIFFERENCE – double definition.
21 Pay decrease for a number of people entering shop (8)
FOOTFALL – FOOT (pay) + FALL (decrease).
22 Singing in bath, finally in the pink (6)
CHORAL – H (batH, finally) inside CORAL (pink).
23 Writer’s assistant got printable works to cover page (8,5)
BLOTTING PAPER – (got printable)* around P(age).
25 Say, bigger cheese diminished by it? (6)
GRATER – sounds like “greater”.
26 Giving up being soft? (8)
YIELDING – double definition.

Down
2 More faded, second city of Italy (7)
PALERMO – PALER (more faded) + MO (second).
3 Payment with plastic credited before coin (6,5)
DIRECT DEBIT – (credited)* + BIT (coin).
4 Perch like this standing amongst garbage (5)
ROOST – SO (like this) reversed inside ROT (garbage).
5 Sucker punch on victim (7)
LAMPREY – LAM (punch) + PREY (victim).
6 Abandoned ship getting old, water down port and starboard? (9)
DISSOLUTE – SS (ship) + O(ld) inside DILUTE (water down). I don’t think I’ve “port and starboard” used as a surroundicator before, but it works fine, especially in the surface of this clue.
7 Source of alcohol in scrumpy (3)
CRU – hidden in sCRUmpy. French for a vineyard.
8 Very poor – so save? (7)
USELESS – “USE LESS”.
12 Chap with twenty children and untamed leopard in place of single man (8,3)
BACHELOR PAD – BACH (chap with twenty children) + (leopard)*.
14 Art seldom seen as new? (3,6)
OLD MASTER – (art seldom)*, &lit. I’m sure I’ve seen this one before, so probably an old chestnut.
17 Belt for clothes (7)
CLOBBER – double definition.
19 Prison reformer outlines halving of stretch for criminals (7)
FELONRY – FRY (prison reformer Elizabeth Fry) around ELON(gate) (halving of stretch).
20 Vexation when girl oddly breaking links (7)
CHAGRIN – G(i)R(l) inside CHAIN (links).
22 Manage small breaks in wood (5)
COPSE – COPE (manage) around S(mall).
24 For example, caught unconscious (3)
OUT – double definition.

18 comments on “Saturday Times 25861 (9th August)”

  1. 17 mins. I also felt that my time could have been quicker because there wasn’t anything in this puzzle that should have held me up. The FELONRY/YIELDING crossers were my last ones in. I like the concept of a LORD OF MISRULE.
  2. Not a difficult one but there were some amusing clues, e.g. the chap with 20 children and a leopard. Ashamed to say that I put in RUM for 7D at first.
  3. An excellent puzzle completed in 42 minutes.

    Didn’t know TRICOT but the wordplay was clear. I assumed 15ac must be a triple but I’m still struggling to justify “cast” and probably missing something obvious.

    I also struggled with with “rot = garbage” taking the first as a verb and the second as a noun, but then I thought of the expression “don’t talk rot”.

    I bet I wasn’t alone in confidently writing RUM as the answer at 7dn and then needing to correct it.

    I liked the “port and starboard” trick at 6dn but then wondered if it really works as a Down answer? There may be conventions on this sort of thing that I’m unaware of.

    I also enjoyed BACH and his 20 children which I happened to know. Not sure if those who didn’t will appreciate it that much.

    2. If it’s the ‘lose’ definition you’re thinking about, it’s as in a snake casting it’s skin.
      1. Yes, I think that serves. Having read that, I wondered about “Ne’er cast a cloot til Mey’s oot” but I don’t think that passes the substitution test as well as your example.

    3. I thought the same about ‘port and starboard’. It’s a neat trick, so regardless of conventions I think it’s a bit of a shame the setter didn’t manage to make it into an across clue.
  4. No time for this, but not likely to be quick as I didn’t know LORD OF MISRULE, TRICOT or last in FOOTFALL (in the required sense). Also managed to enter BUSH BABY at 11a as well as a confident RUM. Very pleasant offering.
  5. I didn’t record my time for this, but I think it was about 20 minutes.
    I initially wanted 9ac to be LORD OF MISCHIEF, but ran out of letters. I was thinking of the hip-hop band, but of course that’s Souls of Mischief, isn’t it?
    1. I wonder how many people have stumbled at the Championships because of hip hop-related confusion?
        1. No hip hop confusion here, but some difficulty thinking of the correct sense of some of the definitions. I have two pertinent comments.
          For Andy: we were always told that e e cummings claimed that his favourite poem of all time was “Root beer, sold here” ( though the internet credits Thos Aldrich).
          For mohn2: it’s reasonably well established that Bach had the twenty because…. his organ had no stops.

          Edited at 2014-08-17 03:45 am (UTC)

  6. Nothing to do with the grid or the setter, ie no criticism implied, but I hate the word “scab,” used in this sense. It is laden with a particular value, and one that often stands no close examination at all. Like many acts of conscience, it can be a truly heroic thing to do.
    1. I have felt the same way since I first heard the word in the days of strikes and power cuts 45 years ago.
  7. 66′; slow and steady etc. DNK the drag artist or the prison reformer; never having seen the word FELONRY, that made 19d more difficult than it should have been. I had been under the impression that ‘scab’ was US usage, ‘blackleg’ UK; is the latter term still used?
  8. Just a minor quibble with the definition at 3d. A direct debit is surely the complete opposite of a ‘payment with plastic’. You fill in a paper form and the money is sucked out of your account directly. No plastic involved at all.

    BTW I seem to have been banned from this forum under my username tenbob. I don’t think I did anything naughty. Does anyone know how to fix it?

    1. Just cryptic misdirection – the definition is just “Payment”, with plastic an anagram indicator for “credited”.

      No idea how you got banned – I don’t think we’ve ever banned anyone, although I have in the past deleted a few ex-members whose LJ accounts had been removed (they appear crossed-out in the list). I’ve just reinstated you anyway.

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