Saturday Times 26046 (March 14)

Author   oliviarhinebeckPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Temping for linxit for the next few weeks while he takes a well-deserved break and ministers to Mrs. L’s torn knee ligament. No big pitfalls here and I clocked in at 19.19 which makes it about average for me on a Saturday. I attempted to highlight the clues in a different colour but I’m unfamiliar with the formatting here and according to the preview I may not have succeeded – so I’ve also italicized them. Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Significance of what’s coming from abroad.(6)
IMPORT – Double definition. IMPORT as in a thing brought in from abroad and as in meaning or significance.
5 Note misuse of “me” and “I”, borders on careless one.(8) –
SOLECISM – SOL=note. Followed by anagram of ME and I plus C[areles]S. A grammatical error rather than a social one here.
9 Titan, excitable chief rejected.(8)
HYPERION – One of the titans in mythology. HYPER=excitable plus NO1=chief reversed. Hamlet compares his father as the godlike titan to his hated uncle Claudius the satyr.
10 Fleet Street shunned by celebrity married lady (6).
ARMADA – [st]AR (street removed from STAR) plus M=married and ADA the lady.
11 Rogue ordered two grand.(3,3)
BAD EGG – BADE=ordered plus 2Gs.
12 Leg hit is out.(2,6)
ON STRIKE ON=leg (cricket) STRIKE=hit. Walking the picket line.
14 Protest about Belgian town’s sleepy state (12)
REMONSTRANCE – Posh word for protest. RE=on MONS=Belgian town (now best known for the horrors of WWI) TRANCE=sleepy state. Parliament sent a Grand one to Charles I in 1641 which was not well received. It ended badly.
17 With little love, they learn to adapt in empty lives?
LONELY HEARTS – Nice clue. Anagram of O (little love) and THEY LEARN contained in L[ive]S.
20 Move staff in periods of good fortune (2,6).
UP STICKS – S=staff in times when the FTSE and the DOW tick upwards. Scrub that. It’s STICK in UPS. Thanks to mohn infra. I don’t know exactly what it means – perhaps moving one’s sticks of furniture.
22 Ply a street in London. (6)
STRAND – PLY as in thread. Very fine thoroughfare, home to the Law Courts, Simpsons restaurant, the Savoy Hotel and the D’Oyly Carte theatre. Also the name of the magazine where Sherlock made his debut.
23 Fly first-class twice – not second class – and back. (6)
TSETSE – For some reason I always want to make this 2 words. [b]EST=first-class, dropping the B for 2nd class, and reversed. African scourge.
25 Huge admirer shows marriage promise after a time. (8)
IDOLATER – I DO=marriage promise LATER=after a time. Some misdirection here for the clever clogs among us (yes that means you Olivia) who may have gone looking for OS (outsize) or L (large) preceded by something like T or era.
26 Parking car I get careless – ticket! (6,3)
PRICE TAG – Anagram of P CAR I GET which gives you the answer.
27 Hot tip in tax. (6)
TRENDY – END=tip contained in TRY=tax.

Down
2 Flying, Amy died, alas – after sending this? (6)
MAYDAY – Anagram of AMY D[ied] AY (alas) sending distress message.
3 Too serious back in romantic retreat, topless (11)
OVEREARNEST – REAR=back in [l]OVE NEST.
4 Slim, toothless person whose name one’s forgotten. (9)
THINGUMMY – THIN=slim GUMMY=toothless.
5 Evening broadcast covers pool bar opening. (7)
SUNDOWN – SOWN=broadcast containing [f]UND=pool.
6 Stable workers banking nothing very much. (5)
LOADS – Stable LADS containing O.
7 Part of engine still left out. (3)
CAM – CA[l]M=still.
8 Associate party with brief enjoyment. (8)
SIDEKICK – SIDE=party KICK=brief enjoyment.
13 What, cobbled, might be used for a car. (4,7)
ROAD SURFACE – Anagram of USED FOR A CAR.
15 Debate party not in office. (6,3)
THRASH OUT – THRASH=party OUT=not in office. In the US it’s usually BASH meaning party, but not too much of a stretch.
16 Bliss, perhaps found in competition puzzle sharing quietly. (8)
COMPOSER – Sir Arthur Bliss, former Master of the Queen’s Music. COMP[etition] and POSER (puzzle) sharing P[iano] as middle letter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bliss
18 Worrying about small distance measured (7)
EASTING – This was new to me but easy enough. S=small contained in EATING=worrying.
19 Mean clue, hard going? Editor keeping note! (6)
INTEND – [h]INT=clue dropping H for hard and ED containing N=note.
21 Divided with a hundred over. (5)
CLEFT – C=100 and LEFT=over
24 Busy, maybe going into rising inheritance tax. (3)
TEC – BUSY is slang for policeman, as TEC may also be if it doesn’t mean a PI. Hidden in [inheritan]CE T[ax] – reversed (rising).

18 comments on “Saturday Times 26046 (March 14)”

  1. Some DNKs slowed me down even further than Saturdays usually do: EASTING, of course, and not quite ‘easy enough’ for me, as it was my LOI; BLISS, and the association of lads with stables. Where Olivia wanted TSE TSE, I think I would have spelled it TSE-TSE; either way, the enumeration caused me problems. Congratulations, Olivia, and thanks, for your first major blog. Does the appearance of capital letters indicate a return of radial was it power? I hope so.
  2. Don’t have the paper to hand here in Doha but I don’t remember this as being too difficult.
    Very nice blog Olivia, welcome aboard! The colours didn’t show up but it looks good the way it is.. the clues need to be there if you want to see them, but unobtrusive if you don’t. I might try the same style myself, next blog.
  3. No time to offer as it was done over two sessions and I lost track, but I certainly didn’t get anywhere near breaking records. And anyway it was a technical DNF because I needed aids for 9ac.

    Congrats on the blog, Olivia. There are no colours as viewed on any of my three devices but I don’t think they’re necessary as I’m used to reading Quickie blogs which also include clues and nobody there uses colour, or italics. The only time I see clues in colour is when reading linxit blogs on my phone or tablet and actually I find it a bit distracting because they look like hyperlinks, at least the underlined definitions in blue do.

    Edited at 2015-03-21 07:50 am (UTC)

  4. Solid fare, with a couple not fully parsed (AY for alas in Amy’s sad demise) and SUNDOWN just went in on definition.

    Thought ARMADA was cleverly deceptive with the Fleet Street reference and COMPOSER was very good.

    Thanks for the blog Olivia.

  5. thanks gang! kevin, i’m back to being a one-armed bandit for now. for the blog i had it jury-rigged with an arrangement of cushions and free use of a medicinal rye old-fashioned. jack and jerry, i certainly won’t bother with attempting the colour again.
    1. If you fancy trying a daily blog as a once-off Olivia, I believe that Pip Kirby is looking for a sub for next Wednesday’s crossword.. it will appear at 7pm EST on Tuesday I think, New Yorkers have the handy benefit of having it appear at a civilised time. I would do it myself but here in Qatar I haven’t any computing facilities

      Edited at 2015-03-21 10:31 am (UTC)

      1. I would but i can’t jerry. i’m booked to mind the grandsons that evening and when i get back from brooklyn it will be straight to bed. very sorry.
  6. Thanks for stepping in for Andy Olivia, especially as you aren’t 100% yet. 19 mins for this one with STRAND my LOI after the excellent &lit ROAD SURFACE. I thought the &lit for LONELY HEARTS was also very good. Although I could have biffed SUNDOWN I wanted to parse it and it took me a while to see how it worked.
  7. Thanks for the blog Olivia and hope your recovery is progressing apace. For 20A, I hadn’t seen S=staff before so I parsed it as STICK in UPS instead.
  9. 19:27 … don’t remember much, other than wavering over HYPERION before the No1 thing clicked. I know I enjoyed the puzzle.

    Well done, Olivia. Quite a feat doing all that detailed parsing and text formatting with just the one arm available. Tip o’ the hat to you.

  10. I’m a day late and a dollar short. I thought it was this past Saturday’s cryptic that you were blogging! Sorry! Enjoyed your comments, particularly the one on REMONSTRANCE: “It ended badly”. With MAYDAY, Wonder if the setter had the pioneer aviator Amy Johnson in mind? She died after she had to bail out of a plane she was flying.

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