Saturday Times 25957 (29th Nov)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
All bar 1D solved in about 15 mins, but add another 10 on to that before I finished. I don’t even like apples (unless they’ve been turned into cider), and have never heard of that variety in my life! Hmph! I didn’t like 2D either, and have no idea what’s going on with 21D.

Across
1 Electronic device — type spymaster used (5)
MODEM – MODE (type) + M (James Bond’s boss).
4 Avoided Times secretary’s son and her boss? (8)
BYPASSED – BY (times) + PA’S (secretary’s) + S(on) + ED (her boss).
8 What good is messing with repair — buy new! (1,3,4,6)
I BEG YOUR PARDON – (good repair buy n)*.
10 Cockney demeaned in attempt to use spin and hot air? (6-3)
TUMBLE-DRY – ‘UMBLED (Cockney demeaned) inside TRY (attempt).
11 West’s sheltered place for shrub (5)
MAPLE – MAE (West) around PL(ace).
12 Crafty personnel to mend bridges with head of department (6)
SHREWD – HR (personnel) inside SEW (mend) + D(epartment).
14 Supergroup performing with cat briefly (8)
PANTHEON – ON (performing) next to PANTHE(r) (cat briefly).
17 Track press, US style (8)
RAILROAD – double definition.
18 Crack from strain having absorbed pressure (6)
EXPERT – EXERT (strain) around P(ressure).
20 On the way back, hit bottle bank (5)
DEPOT – TOPED (hit bottle) reversed.
22 Thank Maud for arranging capital (9)
KATHMANDU – (Thank Maud)*. Capital of Nepal.
24 Charming group meet secretly about film location in London (8,6)
COVENTRY STREET – COVEN (charming group) + TRYST (meet secretly) + RE (about) + ET (film). A street which runs from Piccadilly to Leicester Square, and the three make up the Yellow properties on a Monopoly board.
25 Unsatisfactory person winding up a criminal (8)
OFFENDER – OFF (unsatisfactory) + ENDER (person winding up).
26 Part of flight back from Azores I reserved (5)
RISER – hidden reversed in “Azores I reserved”.

Down
1 Host keen on mince and small apples (8,4)
MCINTOSH REDS – MC (host) + INTO (keen on) + SHRED (mince) + S(mall). Great clue, but totally lost on me as I’d never heard of them and thought it was going to be an anagram. The penny finally dropped when I thought of MC as host, but it was my last one in, about 10 minutes after the second last!
2 Vision is one coming before me in wall? (5)
DREAM – RE (the note that comes before ME – although I’ve always spelled it as MI) inside DAM (wall). Put in from the definition plus checkers, only just figured out the lousy wordplay.
3 Is not certain to pick vessel for transatlantic voyage (9)
MAYFLOWER – MAY (is not certain to) + PICK (flower). One of the ships the Pilgrim Fathers sailed on.
4 Limits great progress? (6)
BOUNDS – double definition.
5 Time to remember old man on foot going round yard (5,3)
POPPY DAY – POP (old man) + PAY (foot) around YD.
6 Sadistic, extremely, descending on farm animal to beat it (5)
SCRAM – S(adisti)C + RAM (farm animal).
7 Old seaman parking in this place — space next to it? (9)
EXOSPHERE – EX (old) + OS (seaman) + P(arking) + HERE (in this place).
9 Spread bun out with tea club sandwiches (6,6)
PEANUT BUTTER – (bun, tea)* inside PUTTER (club).
13 Blame canopy protecting home if it isn’t? (9)
RAINPROOF – RAP (blame) + ROOF (canopy) around IN (home), semi-&lit.
15 Extra time exceptionally provided for one to show fare (9)
TAXIMETER – (extra time)*.
16 In case, judge proceeded without King’s evidence at first (8)
JACKETED – J(udge) + ACTED (proceeded) around first letters of King’s Evidence.
19 One’s persistent — in a way always right (6)
STAYER – ST(reet) (a way) + AYE (always) + R(ight).
21 Word to comfort a number with energy at rock-bottom (5)
THERE – THREE (a number) with the E moved. That makes no sense to me at all. Hopefully someone has a better explanation. Edit: oops, wrong sort of number! Of course, it’s ETHER with the first E moved to the bottom. Thanks mohn.
23 Left out of spite revolting Swedes (5)
NEEPS – SPLEEN (spite) without the L and reversed. Scottish word for swedes, served with haggis and tatties (potatoes) on Burns Night (25th Jan).

14 comments on “Saturday Times 25957 (29th Nov)”

  1. Quite a tough one, with MCINTOSH REDS also my LOI. I’d always thought the Apple Macintosh computer was named after an apple – Wikipedia says it was, but it was deliberately misspelled to avoid conflict with some hi-fi firm’s name.

    Re 21D, it’s Crosswordland’s favourite number ether.

    1. Thanks for parsing the apples and the street. After a bit I just gave up playing musical chairs with the letters – too many to fit. The afterlife of Mae West is remarkable and although I suppose a maple can be a shrub, the ones at our place in upstate NY are a good 40 feet high. Don’t know how long I took because I got pushed off the bottom of the Club board. Over 25 probably.
    2. I thought the number referred to the way THERE is used as a word of comfort – either THERE THERE or THERE THERE THERE, ie a number of “there”s
  2. 34:22 .. the checkers for MCINTOSH REDS had me convinced I must have made a mistake somewhere. I spent I don’t know how long trying to sort it out. Will have to try to remember the Mc possibility in future. I got there in the end, so no knock-out, but a clear win on points to the setter!

  3. There there, Andy, my, we are Mr Grumpy today, aren’t we? New jobitis? 🙂

    I am surrounded by apple orchards, here in mid-Kent, but I hadn’t heard of 1dn either

    Yes I think ETHER is the number.
    I had real trouble spelling katman.. whatever

  4. Interesting comment on 23D – neeps. As a southerner, I always thought of these as swedes (ie biggish orange things) and not turnips (smaller whitish things). However, discussions over the years with my Aberdeenshire in-laws (and subsequent research) has revealed that it is not as simple as that. The things that I call swedes are often referred to as turnips (neeps) in Scotland but equally, the whitish things that I call turnips are often referred to as swedes up there. I sorted this out one Burns night by presenting the two raw veggies to my in-laws and asking which they preferred. They went for the larger orangy things.
    Any Scots person wish to comment?
  5. No idea of the time now but finished with the apples. The THERE clue was rather clever and can’t see a problem with DREAM. The factoid I remember about Mae West is that what she actually said to Cary Grant was, ‘Why don’t you come up some time and see me?”
  6. Only got 2/3 done this week – called away by work too soon – and couldn’t parse some that I did get. Thanks Andy. Otherwise, I’m with Olivia that a maple is a shrub mostly in the poetical crossword sense, and where I came from railroad has a rather different connotation from press – coercively and unstoppably gotten to an endpoint you don’t want to be at.
    1. Press has that meaning, too; #2 in my Chambers app: PRESS GANGS used to railroad or press men (who didn’t want to join) into the navy.

      Shrewd gave me inordinate trouble – had RE for personnel to mend bridges, W from with, D from head of department, totally confused about the unclued SH for ages. And feel like a goldfish with MC for host, which comes up every few weeks but still gets me every time.
      31:29, so harder than average with 12 ac/1 dn last in.
      Rob

  7. Similar problems here, not knowing the apple or understanding how 21dn worked – I also took the starting point as THREE, but it simply didn’t make sense. I didn’t know EXOSPHERE though it wasn’t hard to work it out, and spelling KATHMANDU as KHATMANDU rendered 19dn unsolvable.

  8. All done except the apple, searched through numerous pages of listings of apple varieties but never found this one, and ddn’t twig it from the WP, so a DNF otherwise a plain sailing outing.
  9. Although it took a while to come up with MCINTOSH, my LOI was of all things 9d; had the BUTTER part early on, but a sudden attack of dimness kept me from completing it. Did wonder about the shrubbishness of the maple, glad to see I wasn’t alone. I had trouble with 13d because I had come up with ‘reproof’ for ‘blame’, and stuck with that for too long. I must have come across NEEPS here once, so strictly speaking not a DNK, but.
  10. 21:51, helped by very specific knowledge on clues that caused others trouble:
    > 1dn is my wife’s favourite variety of apple. She is Canadian, and they are reasonably common over there. I had never heard of them before I met her.
    > One of the very few things I know about plants is that the shrub in our garden with red leaves is an acer, which is a type of maple.

    Edited at 2014-12-07 10:12 am (UTC)

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