Saturday Times 26208 (19 Sept)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time 10:08, so pretty straightforward for a Saturday. Sorry for the brevity today, but I’m off out and only had half an hour to throw something together!

Across
1 A great deal, reduced green fruit (5)
MANGO – MAN(y) + GO
4 Headache as fighter plane almost came down (8)
MIGRAINE – MIG + RAINE(d).
8 Mediocre university student initially works about half the weekend (14)
UNSATISFACTORY – UNI + S(tudent) + FACTORY, around SAT
10 Old soldiers not allowed, it’s announced, on public transport (9)
TRAINBAND – sounds like “banned” next to TRAIN.
11 Oral examination in foreign language (5)
CZECH – sounds like “check”.
12 Recordings of six sample tapes lacking musicianship, principally (6)
VIDEOS – VI + DE(m)OS.
14 Graduate in his own time getting important post on board (8)
MAINMAST – M.A. IN M.A.’S T(ime).
17 Editor’s job, concealing Democrat opposition to political change (8)
REACTION – RE(d)ACTION.
18 Awkward task for doctor (6)
FIDDLE – double definition.
20 Cream envelope containing meal ticket (5)
SALVE – SAE (stamped addressed envelope) around LV (Luncheon Voucher).
22 IT guarantee covers old type of software (3,6)
SEX APPEAL – SEAL around EX, APP.
24 Have a good moan, during first bits of German tutorial, about course (4,10)
BEEF WELLINGTON – BEEF WELL IN G(erman) T(utorial) ON.
25 Level of attainment rose, perhaps (8)
STANDARD – double definition.
26 Former US president creating confusion in speech (5)
HAYES – sounds like “haze”.

Down
1 Venturesome sort reaches top of this? (5,7)
MOUNT EVEREST – (venturesome)* + T(his). Great anagram &lit.
2 Female admitted to finest academy (5)
NESTA – hidden in “fiNEST Academy”.
3 Absolute decision by two umpires in agreement? (3,3,3)
OUT AND OUT – this makes more sense these days with the DRS!
4 Essential to store up appellation controlee wine (6)
MUSCAT – MUST around AC reversed.
5 Guardsman trained to ignore posh old ladies? (8)
GRANDMAS – (guardsman)*, minus the U.
6 Room At The Top script — it was returned, with odd bits excised (5)
ATTIC – alternate letters of “sCrIpT iT wAs”, reversed.
7 Upwardly-mobile ladies manage to employ one? (9)
NURSEMAID – DAMES RUN reversed around I. Brilliant &lit – it’s between this and 1dn for my COD.
9 Fish in batter’s served after cold offal dish (12)
CHITTERLINGS – LING inside HITTER’S after C(old). Yuck!
13 Daily Express leaders having various details of least interest (9)
DEADLIEST – D(aily) E(xpress) + (details)*.
15 Scotsman turned up before meal carrying power tool (4,5)
NAIL PUNCH – IAN reversed + LUNCH around P(ower).
16 Severely criticise a climber (8)
MONSTERA – MONSTER + A. LOI, as it was for most, although I did know the plant. Didn’t know it was a climber though.
19 English team in a row, losing at home, is sent abroad (6)
EXILED – E(nglish + XI + L(in)ED.
21 Small delicate female stuck in swirling river (5)
ELFIN – F(emale) inside NILE reversed.
23 Competitors go after points (5)
ENTRY – TRY after E,N.

8 comments on “Saturday Times 26208 (19 Sept)”

  1. I’ve no finishing time noted, but from memory I think I completed all but one answer fairly quickly (for me) and couldn’t think of anything to fit 15dn so I looked it up. Sometimes when things have gone well I do not feel inclined to spend ages trying to work out a final word I probably don’t know anyway, and I’d already deduced it was going to be the name of a plant which is not exactly my area of expertise.

    Never heard of TRAINBAND.

    Edited at 2015-09-26 06:51 am (UTC)

  3. I was sleepy so didn’t record a time, but even if I had done it wouldn’t have counted because I had to use aids to get MONSTERA. I’d forgotten the plant and monster/severely criticise would never have occurred to me.
  4. I had to put MONSTERA because it was the only plant that fitted the checkers. But I still cant see MONSTER as “severely criticise”. I pondered that LOI for over 5 minutes. Ann
  5. As far as I could make out when I did some searching post-solve it is more of a slang word and not exactly in common use.
    1. I doubt I’d ever have thought of it, but once I’d found the answer using aids I did recognise the usage. It’s in all the usual sources with only COED qualifying it as “informal”. The OED lists its earliest use as 1976 and all the examples from that era are Australian.

      Edited at 2015-09-26 04:55 pm (UTC)

    2. I had no problem with the ‘criticise’ bit: the meaning is familiar to me. I just thought the plant looked very unlikely!
      A quick google throws up a recent piece in the Grauniad in which Andrew Rawnsley says that Jeremy Corbyn has been ‘monstered by Tories and the rightwing press’.
    3. It’s very specifically a term from the world of tabloid journalism. It became widely known in journo circles during the Kelvin MacKenzie years (essentially the 80s) at The Sun, a paper which entirely perfected the appalling ‘art’ of monstering.I thin kit might have been brought to The Sun by its (then) new owner, the Dirty Digger.

      The essence of it was to attack someone so outrageously and repeatedly that they were too demoralised to fight back. And it worked, until Elton John finally stood up to them and called in the lawyers (a move which many previously ‘monstered’ public figures advised him not to make). The Sun’s practice, when anyone tried to stand up to them, was to monster them even more. That’s what they did to Elton John over a number of months, but they made a rare and critical mistake by accusing him of something which he could definitively prove was not true, at which point The Sun caved. Bravo, Sir Elton.

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