Saturday Times 26034 (28th Feb) – live from Coventry!

Posted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Well, almost live. I started this in hospital, but didn’t get much chance to look at it, got maybe 5 answers. My wife had an accident on Monday and tore a knee ligament, so she’s on crutches. That meant I’ve been working from home all week, and as we’re really busy at the moment I lost my usual commuting time for crosswords, so I haven’t done any at all. I’ve only just finished this one (took approximately 20 minutes, but I didn’t set the stopwatch).

BTW, there’s no possible reason for the big gap between the acrosses and downs – it just came out like that today, same template used as always, so must be a weird LJ bug.

Across
1 Sort of publishing editor back, stuck on outside with chief (7)
DESKTOP – ED reversed + S(tuc)K + TOP (chief).
5 Project by kid describing knight’s battle in the main (7)
JUTLAND – JUT (project) + LAD (kid) around N (knight – chess notation). Not our finest hour.
9 High-flier‘s diatribe against my doctor (9)
CORMORANT – RANT (diatribe) next to COR (my) + M.O. (doctor)
10 Relation‘s wife regularly dividing money (3-2)
TIE-IN – (w)I(f)E inside TIN (money).
11 Cold in command to dog that’s brought back worm (5)
LEECH – C(old) inside HEEL (command to dog) reversed.
12 Soldiers breathed heavily a long time, reflecting service? (9)
TABLEWARE – T.A. (Territorial Army, soldiers) + BLEW (breathed heavily) + ERA (a long time) reversed.
14 Architectural feature in the air, just alongside some thatch (6,8)
FLYING BUTTRESS – FLYING (in the air) + BUT (just) + TRESS (some thatch).
17 Cardinal perhaps a tormentor holding religious scholar underground (5-3-6)
CLOAK-AND-DAGGER – CLOAK (cardinal perhaps) + NAGGER (a tormentor) around DD (Doctor of Divinity, religious scholar).
21 Sculptors work with this muscle when involved in recast (9)
ALABASTER – AB (muscle) + AS (when) inside ALTER (recast).
23 Crushing defeat engulfs team leader returning to coach (5)
TUTOR – ROUT (crushing defeat) reversed around T(eam).
24 Business acquires area rearmost to house potter’s work surface (5)
BAIZE – BIZ (business – it’s official now) around A(rea) + (hous)E. O’Sullivan rather than Wedgwood, obviously!
25 Sally joins staff wearing otherworldly gear (9)
EQUIPMENT – QUIP (sally) + MEN (staff) inside ET (Extra-Terrestrial, otherworldly).
26 Meet celebrity coming over to embrace chosen one (7)
ELECTEE – hidden reversed inside “meet celebrity”.
27 What are you going to do about that drunkard present? (2,5)
SO THERE – SOT (drunkard) + HERE (present).

Down
1 Married one leaves abode that’s easy to manage (6)
DOCILE – M(arried) + I (one) removed from DOMICILE (abode).
2 Bizarre sport going up river disturbs aquatic mammal (7)
SURREAL – RU (rugby union, sport – the only one crossword setters care about!) reversed + R(iver) inside SEAL (aquatic mammal).
3 First item of travel kit pooch utilised — a canine-cleaning device? (9)
TOOTHPICK – T(ravel) + (kit pooch)*.
4 House key carried by factory representative (11)
PLANTAGENET – E (key) inside PLANT AGENT (factory representative).
5 Scrap ancient fencing our side dismissed (3)
JOT – JOUST (ancient fencing) without US (our side).
6 Tips to help each avoiding fifty percent tax (5)
TITHE – take away 50% of TI(ps) T(o) HE(lp).
7 It’s common to state how old one is (7)
AVERAGE – AVER (to state) + AGE (how old one is).
8 She takes steps, travelling Andes with practice (8)
DANSEUSE – (Andes)* + USE (practice).
13 Clumsy person reported vehicle after slip (11)
BLUNDERBUSS – sounds like “bus” (vehicle) after BLUNDER (slip). Not according to Chambers, which only gives the usual definition of a gun. Not according to Collins either, but I eventually found it in the OED as “a talkative or blundering person”.
15 Fix hose on grass (5,4)
TIGHT SPOT – TIGHTS (hose) + POT (grass).
16 Car’s unusual emblem losing ends in motorsport event (8)
SCRAMBLE – (cars)* + (e)MBLE(m).
18 Old pasty keeps in whitish glass (7)
OPALINE – O(ld) + PALE (pasty) around IN.
19 Most remote motorway seen in paper, apparently (7)
EXTREME – M(otorway) inside EX-TREE (paper, apparently). “Ex-tree” – Love it! Seen it before, but still love it!
20 Decline, as partner finally rises to do the twist? (6)
WRITHE – WITHER (decline) with the R (last letter of partner) going up.
22 Expert: central feature of academy training (5)
ADEPT – (ac)ADE(my) + P.T. (training).
25 Organ definitely heard (3)
EYE – sounds like AYE (definitely).

18 comments on “Saturday Times 26034 (28th Feb) – live from Coventry!”

  1. commiserations to the wife andy from one of the walking wounded. i did in my left radius 3 weeks ago. yes EXTREME was excellent and i didn’t remember seeing it before. 22ish.
  2. All the best to Mrs Andy for a swift recovery.

    Not a difficult puzzle but I was tempted by the momble TABLEWAGE for 12A, which fitted the wordplay but left me with the definition of “reflecting service?” – I wondered if this might be a word related to tipping, but then I saw the light.

    The second part of the 22D clue (“Expert: central feature of academy training (5)”) seems to have been screwed up by the colon.

    1. Thanks, didn’t spot that in my cursory look through earlier. I use Sublime Text to edit my entries and it often guesses what you want to write, e.g. after a U or A tag it automatically completes the end tag as soon as you get to </. Maybe that’s what happened here?
    2. BTW mohn, just a gentle reminder – it appears that you’re up for the Jumbo blog today for 1135. I’m just updating the calendar and I see it’s got out of sync with reality again. Damn Bank Holiday Jumbos tend to do that!
      1. I hadn’t been back to the “A couple of vacancies” post so I had no idea I was due to do this. On the case now …
  3. 19 mins. My LOI was TITHE after TABLEWARE and I only parsed it post-solve. The clue for EXTREME raised a smile here as well. I hope your wife is on the mend.
  4. 13 mins – can’t remember a lot about it apart from having to explain 17a to a slightly confused friend.

    Hope Mrs Linxit is on the mend – does she do cryptics? If not, a good time to start while she’s hors de combat.

    1. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Does she do cryptics? Um, no. Although she did get one in the 3D Calendar Puzzle Championships when I won it a few years ago, so her name is on the trophy too. I later found out John Henderson gave her the answer. It was a 3-letter word, probably the easiest clue in the puzzle, one I hadn’t looked at.

  5. I can’t figure out why “cardinal” means CLOAK.Is this like using “suit” to mean “businessman”?
    1. I bunged that one in without understanding the ‘cloak’ bit, either, but turns out it’s:

      “a woman’s short cloak with a hood, originally made of scarlet cloth and popularly worn in the 18th century”

      I think we can safely file it under “useful for crosswords”.

      20 minutes here. ‘fraid I remember nothing other than trying out a couple of different spellings on PLANTAGENET.

      Best wishes to your better half, Linxit. I don’t know what your cooking is like but I hope it’s survivable, for her sake.

      1. My cooking’s better than hers, thankyou very much (although she’d never admit it). We normally share culinary duties though. I’m more worried about the ironing!
      1. So I did. Oh, the dangers of being in my “speed-solving” semi-parsing mode!
  6. No time to offer but it was nowhere near my target 30 minutes, probably more like double that. I did note that I spent a long time on my LOI which, not for the first time (or the last I regret) turned out to be hidden (26ac).

    Didn’t know BLUNDERBUSS as person. Can’t think at this moment of an example where “but” and “just” are interchangeable (14ac).

  7. I think but/just are interchangeable in contexts like “he has but two years experience in the field”.

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