Saturday Times 25945 (15th Nov)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Good puzzle, no solving time noted as I was just looking at it in bits and pieces last week while working on the computer. A couple of unknowns for me (BRIDGE ROLL, the required meaning of gyp), and I invented a Ugandan currency for 29ac. LOI was 7dn though, as I thought it would have a double N in the middle, and couldn’t get past that.

Across
1 Sergeant Major wears down “backward jerks“! (6)
SPASMS – SM (Sergeant Major) + SAPS (wears down), all reversed.
5 Constant publicity surrounds state bodies (8)
CADAVERS – C(onstant) + ADS (publicity) around AVER (state).
9 Rather arresting church glass (8)
SCHOONER – SOONER (rather) around CH(urch).
10 Forward close in scrum initially, leg behind (4,2)
SEND ON – END (close) inside S(crum), ON (leg).
11 Eruptive beginnings in time affect flying? Rail’s the answer (10)
VITUPERATE – (eruptive,T,A)*, the T and A from the initial letters of “time affect”.
13 Important initiative has the making of an Opposition member (4)
ANTI – hidden in “Important initiative”.
14 Runners touch lightly, second moving to front (4)
SKIS – KISS (touch lightly), with an S for second moved to the beginning.
15 Not determined where to look for loot? (2,3,5)
ON THE FENCE – double definition, the second a bit shaky I thought, as they’re unlikely to keep the stuff in their pockets!
18 Mini-submarine has list seen on highest part of vessel (6,4)
BRIDGE ROLL – ROLL (list) next to BRIDGE (highest part of vessel). A long thin bread roll smaller than a sub. I’ve eaten my fair share of them over the years but never heard them called that before!
20 Chicken and ham, say medium cut? (4)
EATS – cryptic definition? Chicken and ham are both meats, but with the M for medium removed they’re both eats. Strange clue, unless I’ve missed something.
21 Seafood, not very good, can give you gyp (4)
SCAM – SCAMPI (seafood) without PI (very good). I didn’t know that meaning of gyp, but Chambers says it’s US slang.
23 Military PA in reserve, missing start of service leave (4-2-4)
AIDE-DE-CAMP – ASIDE (in reserve) without the S(ervice) + DECAMP (leave).
25 Revolutionary republic defends army of nearby Arabian state (6)
QATARI – IRAQ (republic) reversed around T.A. (army).
26 French writer seen where two rivers merge (8)
VOLTAIRE – the VOLTA in Africa merges with the AIRE in Yorkshire!
28 Weak cutting edges of rapiers used in fencing (8)
RAILINGS – AILING (weak) inside R(apier)S.
29 Trip over rhino in Uganda and African’s first to run! (6)
OUTING – O(ver) + TIN (rhino, money) inside UGANDA minus AND A(frican). Took me ages to figure out how that worked! When solving I assumed they must have a coin called the utinga, but when I checked while writing this up I discovered they just have shillings.

Down
2 Diner, one choosing to sit outside in biting cold? (9)
PICNICKER – PICKER (one choosing) around [IN around C(old)]. Considering the time of year, it’s an &lit.
3 Commanders-in-chief fired endless weaponry (7)
SHOGUNS – SHO(t) (fired, endless) + GUNS (weaponry).
4 American politician in short ready for Japan (3)
SEN – SEN(ator) and an old Japanese currency unit worth 1/100th of a yen, unsurprisingly discontinued about 50 years ago, as you’d get 184 of them to the penny.
5 Excellent former force shown up in court (5)
CURIA – A1 (excellent) + RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary, former force as it was renamed in 2001).
6 Lovely to replace student at top of flat that’s untidy (11)
DISHEVELLED – DISH (lovely) replacing L (student) at the start of LEVELLED (flat).
7 Old and new name in dispute (7)
VINTAGE – N(ew) + TAG (name) inside VIE (dispute).
8 Keeping top of order, sort out place for rest of bats? (5)
ROOST – O(rder) inside (sort)*.
12 Old individual helping to get acquittal (11)
EXONERATION – EX (old) + ONE (individual) + RATION (helping).
16 Very good retiring from a hot country (3)
TOO – G(ood) removed from TOGO (a hot country).
17 Girl in tin boat (9)
CATAMARAN – TAMARA (girl) inside CAN (tin).
19 Perhaps a curse of cobblers, saying nothing (4,3)
DAMN ALL – sounds like “Damn awl”. I suppose I can imagine such mutterings from a cobbler if one snapped while making a lace-hole in a tough piece of leather…
20 No parking on inclination in entrance (7)
ENCHANT – PENCHANT (inclination) minus the P.
22 Caught by hospital, an initially arrhythmic pulse (5)
CHANA – C(aught) + H(ospital) + AN + A(rrythmic). Hindi word for a chickpea, and also (irrelevantly) the name of a second-hand car showroom just round the corner from me.
24 Rupees taken from several moneybags (5)
DIVES – R(upees) removed from DIVERS (several). Latin word for “rich man”, used as a name in the bible in the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31).
27 Ladies, perhaps, in academy not half upset (3)
LOO – SCHOOL (academy), halved and reversed.

8 comments on “Saturday Times 25945 (15th Nov)”

  2. 25:02 … I wonder if BRIDGE ROLLS are a regional name because I’ve never heard of them, either. I think we called them “rolls”. We were very isolated in rural Gloucestershire and didn’t know any better.
  3. Mistake here as I wrote in MALAWI without knowing why. Never heard of BRIDGE ROLL but stuck it in. Perhaps a consequence of 10 years from age 8 in single sex boarding schools in the wrong part of the country.
  4. A really enjoyable inventive puzzle that I failed fully to parse though I didn’t try quite as hard as I would have on blogging duty. Didn’t know CHANA or SCAM/gyp. BRIDGE ROLLS were also part of my childhood, but ‘submarine’ in this connection was something I learned from crosswords only a few months ago and I was pleased to remember it. I also raised an eyebrow at ON THE FENCE.
  5. I actually knew the things quite well. Egg and cress or smoked salmon (quite edible compared with the galantine we had recently)at my mother’s ladies’ luncheons. If I was at home I was supposed to hand them round politely. However I really don’t want to tell you how long it took me to solve this clue. Score this one for the setter. On the plus side it reminded me of a story (which I recounted on the Club Forum) that I hadn’t thought of for a while, having to do with the guys who ran the mail room in certain Lincoln’s Inn chambers many decades ago when I was a young pupil. On reflection it may have been a Swiss roll that featured but either way it reduces me to helpless giggles. I quite agree about the second part of 15a – rather dodgy.
  6. Completed except I had to resort to aid to get BRIDGE ROLL (breached my “unfeasible amount of my life spent on one clue” threshold). Should have got it, as these items were very prominent in my childhood in both Kent and Somerset (usually filled with mashed sardine or ham as I recall): it was the submarine that threw me…

    Did not know the DIVES reference, but answer was clear enough from the wordplay.

    The cobbler’s curse had me chuckling, but personal favourite was QATARI which I thought was very ingenious.

  7. 28:27, most of which spent trying to figure out how to fit ‘highest part of vessel’ into _R_D_E. If you’ve never heard of the rolls in question, and you have a sailing vessel in mind, this takes some time.
  8. 46′. Glad to find I wasn’t alone in not knowing BRIDGE ROLL or CHANA and in viewing 15ac askance. I see from my marginal scribbles that I actually wrote down Natari first for 25ac.

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