Saturday Times 26094 (9th May)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 10:53, but would have been about 3 minutes quicker but for the pesky 15D and 25A! So, a very easy solve for a Saturday, and I noticed some pretty fast times on the Club website too. The neutrinos were out in force last week though, so the top 100 were all under 8 minutes: mohn’s 4:41 (in 65th place!) looks to be the quickest genuine time. Not sure what happened to Magoo, but then we have Jason in 4:55, with verlaine (6:51) and keriothe (7:45) also deserving a mention.

Across
1 Breeches altered to accommodate impulse for fast food (12)
CHEESEBURGER – (breeches)* around URGE (impulse).
8 Covering western performance artist (7)
WRAPPER – W(estern) + RAPPER (performance artist).
9 Spread out and mostly diverge crossing United States (7)
DIFFUSE – DIFFE(r) (mostly diverge) around US.
11 Son has glove taken (7)
SMITTEN – S(on) + MITTEN (glove).
12 Ingenious and simple jumbo’s good for public house (7)
ELEGANT – ELEPHANT (jumbo), with G (good) replacing PH (public house).
13 Light vehicle is faulty in operation (5)
BUGGY – double definition.
14 Shorts, possibly, for every one we got inside pub (9)
BEACHWEAR – EACH (every one) + WE, inside BAR (pub).
16 Artist receives vote after competition in Byzantine style (9)
COMPLEXLY – LELY (artist) around X (vote), after COMP(etition). Sir Peter Lely (1618-80), Dutch-English portrait painter.
19 Make fun of us over fattening food (5)
SUGAR – RAG US (make fun of us) reversed.
21 Understanding the first royal barge (7)
LIGHTER – LIGHT (understanding) + ER (the first royal – presumably meant as in “most important”).
23 Squirm uncomfortably around a victim of the French revolution? (7)
MARQUIS – (squirm)* around A.
24 Exaggerated where boxers appear to be gradually deteriorating (7)
ROTTING – OTT (over the top, exaggerated) inside RING (where boxers appear).
25 Handle not a thing this rail worker could turn (7)
LINEMAN – NAME (handle) + NIL (not a thing), all reversed. All the elements are there, just not in the usual order. I don’t have a problem with that, but it confused me for a while and this was my second last one in.
26 Met penury and worked for insufficient money (12)
UNDERPAYMENT – (met penury and)*.

Down
1 Constant mad hunger (7)
CRAVING – C(onstant) + RAVING (mad).
2 What Kong felt for Ann in stirring ape myth? (7)
EMPATHY – (ape myth)*, semi &lit. (“Ann” being Ann Darrow, the girl in the 1933 movie King Kong).
3 Brawny fight renders little safe (9)
STRONGBOX – STRONG (brawny) + BOX (fight).
4 Cutting back on plan for Treasury move (5)
BUDGE – BUDGET (plan for Treasury), minus the last letter.
5 Update reference, adding on not another word (7)
REFRESH – REF(erence) + RE (on) + SH (not another word).
6 Mimic bird with two notes (7)
EMULATE – EMU (bird) + LA, TE (two notes).
7 Errol Flynn perhaps was hard to catch in Silver River, initially (12)
SWASHBUCKLER – WAS + H(ard) + BUCKLE (catch), all inside S(ilver) R(iver).
10 Showing initiative, come into power by insurrection (12)
ENTERPRISING – ENTER (come into) + P(ower) + RISING (insurrection).
15 Area beside poky yard is in a bad way (9)
ABYSMALLY – A(rea) + BY + SMALL (poky) + Y(ard). My last one in – when I had A?Y?M???Y, the only word I could think of was ASYMMETRY, and as I was also struggling with 25ac I was wondering if there’s a type of rail worker called a TANKMAN!
17 Soldiers around got upset with a bomb unit (7)
MEGATON – MEN (soldiers) around (got a)*.
18 Liberal Greek leading European framework (7)
LATTICE – L(iberal) + ATTIC (Greek) + E(uropean).
19 Queer Street came calling with me having lost millions (7)
STRANGE – ST(reet) + RANG (came calling) + ME minus the M for millions.
20 Foodie bumped into carrying a lot of pumpkin, perhaps (7)
GOURMET – MET (bumped into) under GOUR(d) (a lot of pumpkin, perhaps).
22 Quickly arrange to phone, but number’s missing (3,2)
RIG UP – RING UP (phone), minus the N for number.

8 comments on “Saturday Times 26094 (9th May)”

  1. A smashing time for a Saturday for me, and I went and spoiled it by sloppy checking: I’d flung in ‘imitate’ at 6d, feeling pretty sure of the -ate, later saw the error of my ways, and changed the imi to emu, giving ’emutate’, which I suppose could mean ‘mimic bird’.
  2. A lot of biffing went on with this one as I was in a rush to get out. Clues like 25A invariably catch me out because that kind of word order is so rare that I never expect it – though in this case the checkers and the presence of “rail worker” in the clue led to the answer and I then saw how it worked. Some nice clues in this, not least for CHEESEBURGER and SMITTEN.

    Andy – I think the Jumbo blogging calendar is out of sync again (perhaps because of the last Bank Holiday.)

  3. I seem to have been on the wavelength for this one. I thought for a while I might be on for a PB but then a couple of clues slowed me down. I’m not sure which now: 16ac and 15dn I think.
    I think I’ve only ever come across the LINEMAN in his Wichita variety.
  4. 11 mins. ABYSMALLY was also my LOI, but after BEACHWEAR which qualifies as my Dean Martin of this puzzle.
  5. 24 minutes for the easiest Saturday puzzle for some time. LINEMAN comes up regularly on Countdown.
  6. My print-out says 15 minutes, with little memory of it a week later, easy for a Saturday.
  7. Me too. The first time in a while that I haven’t needed any part of the blog to explain something too me. The out of order lineman was my loi.

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