Saturday Times 26220 (3rd Oct)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I found this a real brute of a puzzle which I tackled while tired, and stopped after 20 minutes with less than half of it done. However, I came back to it refreshed the next day and found it much easier going, but I don’t have a time other than > 30 minutes. Loads of clever clueing devices – I’ve never seen the trick in 25ac used like that before, and 21dn was hilarious! Oh, and it’s also a pangram.

Across
1 Ignore the staff set aside during Conference? (4,2,3)
PLAY BY EAR – LAY BY (set aside) inside PEAR (Conference?).
6 Spotted peeled fruit (5)
APPLE – DAPPLED (spotted) without the “skin” (outside letters), i.e. peeled.
9 Name of place where boy’s crossed small mount (7)
TOPONYM – TOM (boy) around PONY (small mount).
10 Records reflected desire to spend heavily (7)
SPLURGE – LPS (records) reversed + URGE (desire).
11 Letter from overseas company getting you online backing (3)
PSI – ISP (Internet Service Provider, company getting you online) reversed.
12 Taking in success: piece appearing on cover (11)
HOODWINKING – WIN (success) + KING (piece), next to HOOD (cover).
14 I must bring in Jack briefly for flogging (2,4)
ON SALE – ONE (I) around SAL(t) (Jack briefly).
15 Without room, difficulty finding shortcut in theory (8)
WORMHOLE – WO (without) + RM (room) + HOLE (difficulty).
17 Safety feature benefitting houses I arrange afresh (4,4)
FIRE DOOR – FOR (benefitting) around I REDO (I arrange afresh).
19 One selling wheels by ton — small for time being (6)
PERSON – REP (one selling) reversed + TON with S(mall) replacing the T(ime).
22 Not over easy being cheerful with team ahead (5,4,2)
SUNNY SIDE UP – SUNNY (cheerful) + SIDE UP (team ahead). Why anyone would want a fried egg “over easy” is beyond me!
23 Good exercise (3)
USE – double definition. A lot of people on the Times Forum couldn’t see this one, and Puzzleplease asked for help directly. Exercise is an obvious synonym, so I assume the problem was with “good”. You’ll have to look up good in Chambers to see it defined as such, but it passes the substitution test in a phrase like “It’s no good” for example. I hope your cats are in hiding, Sarah!
25 Foreigners going around Lima in D’Oyly Carte (7)
YANKEES – NATO alphabet – the Y’s (YANKEES) surround the L (Lima). I don’t think I’ve seen this exact device before, although words from the NATO alphabet crop up often enough to make it well worth while to learn them all, so when one of them appears you know what to expect.
27 Fluency in speech after gin in swinging bar (7)
TRAPEZE – EZE (sounds like “ease”, fluency) after TRAP (gin).
28 Stick pants on Elizabeth’s head (5)
EPOXY – POXY (pants) next to E(lizabeth).
29 Unfamiliar, neat state (3,6)
NEW JERSEY – NEW (unfamiliar) + JERSEY (breed of cattle, neat).

Down
1 Nominate board for such a dishonest job (3-2)
PUT-UP – triple definition really, but “nominate” and “board” lead to PUT UP unhyphenated.
2 Foreign workers answer with happy voices (2,5)
AU PAIRS – A(nswer) + UP (happy) + AIRS (voices).
3 Save lido swimming, cutting grass, for now? (4,7)
BANK HOLIDAY – BANK (save) + (lido)* inside HAY (grass). By “now?”, I assume the setter means “on a Saturday”. That isn’t true any more, as most branches open at least on Saturday mornings these days.
4 Partner no longer to make fast ground in SW England (6)
EXMOOR – EX (partner no longer) + MOOR (to make fast).
5 Timber pole in which to stitch rings (8)
ROSEWOOD – ROD (pole) around SEW (stitch) + OO (rings).
6 Bore everyone talking (3)
AWL – sounds like “all” (everyone).
7 Left in charge of old architectural feature (7)
PORTICO – PORT (left) + IC (in charge) + O(ld).
8 Continually popular the Queen, and good with soldiers in uniform (9)
EVERGREEN – ER (the Queen) + G(ood) + RE (Royal Engineers, soldiers), all inside EVEN (uniform).
13 Where Reg is feeling less pressure, behind (6,5)
NUMBER PLATE – NUMBER (feeling less) + P(ressure) + LATE (behind).
14 Start when Duke moving key defence installation (5,4
OFFA’S DYKE – OFF (start) + AS (when) + D(uke) + (key)*.
16 Christmas cards often have this literary family (8)
ROBINSON – Christmas cards often have ROBINS ON. Ref. The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss.
18 Single keen on encounter (3,4)
RUN INTO – RUN (single, in cricket) + INTO (keen on).
20 Dickensian villain taking rum on board vessel (7)
SQUEERS – QUEER (rum) inside SS (vessel). Wackford Squeers, the cruel headmaster of Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby.
21 Award winner in hooting competition perhaps hasn’t finished (6)
BESTOW – BEST OWL (winner in hooting competition perhaps), minus the last letter. I laughed out loud when I saw this one!
24 Polish nanny remembered after upsetting hosts (5)
EMERY – hidden reversed inside “nanny remembered”.
26 See replay where every second counts (3)
ELY – alternate letters of replay.

21 comments on “Saturday Times 26220 (3rd Oct)”

  1. Blimey – what a struggle. But weird as well for me. After the first session, I had slightly less than a third done. Two more sessions produced no further progress whatsoever. Then I saw that an anagram of ‘lido’ led to part of ‘bank holiday’. The ‘H’ gave me ‘hoodwinking’ after which the thing unravelled and I was home in about 20 minutes, although with some biffing. Total time – about 2 hours, but I definitely felt pleased with myself.
  2. Same boat for me though I spent rather more than 20 min on the Saturday! “Harsh but fair” a la Spiny Norman of the Piranha brothers.
    What a contrast to the coffee time offering today.
  3. 17:14 … weirdly, I found this fairly straightforward, but no less enjoyable for that.

    Lovely selection of vocabulary, and some delightful clues. No question about the COD for me. BESTOW really is a hoot!

  4. Reassuring to learn that others found this tough as well! Tackled it whilst on a flight from Tokyo to London. Started whilst still on the runway at Narita, and finally “finished” somewhere above Moscow(ish). Which represents a long, long time…

    And I didn’t actually finish, as I had EYE at 26dn (yes, I know…) and was then (not surprisingly) unable to get 28ac.

    21dn was indeed a wonderful clue, 2dn very clever and 1ac neat. In fact, the whole thing was pretty classy I thought. Thanks for the blog Andy.

    1. A hint for the future Nick (but I’m sure you already know this) – if “see” is in a clue, it means either V or ELY is in the answer. 😉
      1. I seem to remember there have been other sees seen on odd occasions, was one Truro perhaps ? I am sure Sotira or one of the other super heroes will oblige.
        1. Always happy to be on team Super Hero (my special power is dogged persistence in the face of my own ignorance).

          I do hope you’re not thinking of a contribution I made to the site re ‘v’ and ‘see’ earlier this year, which turned out to be entirely bogus. Way back when I was learning to solve The Times, without benefit of sites like this or any knowledgeable guide, I ‘deduced’ that the ‘V’ in these cases was the Vatican, or Holy See, a misunderstanding which took 20 years and an embarrassing post to put right!

          1. I promise no reference to that rather quaint misconception.Super impressed by your time last Saturday not to mention desert tea brewing and heroic sandwiches! Now going to watch a DVD of North by Northeast.
      2. Yes, thanks Andy. For some reason, I have a total blindspot on the bishopric meaning of see: I know the usage well, and I know I have the blindspot – but still it keeps tripping me up! Damned annoying.
  5. 27 mins. I hadn’t been at my best for the previous few prize puzzles, and I’m very pleased I was relatively alert for this one. I’m impressed with your time Sotira. I had the most trouble in the SW with the clever YANKEES my LOI after OFFA’S DYKE, FIRE DOOR and ON SALE. My favourite puzzles are those that combine ingenious cluing and humour, and this certainly fitted the bill. As has already been mentioned above the clue for BESTOW was very amusing, and I think the one for ROBINSON wasn’t far behind it. As far as the clue for USE is concerned I had no problem at all with “good” as one of the definitions for exactly the reason Andy provides. A tip of the hit to the setter for a cracker of a puzzle.
  6. Difficult but very enjoyable. After the hour had passed I used aids to get EPOXY, a word that I didn’t know, though I now note I said the same when it appeared on 7th January this year.

    Edited at 2015-10-10 09:17 am (UTC)

  7. Tough and very enjoyable, helped along by wit and humour throughout. “Ignore the staff” for PLAY BY EAR and “shortcut in theory” for WORMHOLE were great definitions but I’ll go along with BESTOW as COD. I hope American solvers didn’t mind having to think of themselves as foreigners at 25ac.
  8. I got through this in my usual time of around an hour. I liked it for pretty much the same reasons Andy B mentions, but including today the (somewhat rare in these quarters) pleasure of having seen pretty quickly how most of the ingenuity worked. I am going to spend 10 minutes with the NATO alphabet this afternoon; that’s an easier way for me to get a leg up than learning all the Dickens characters who pop up, and much easier than tackling the plant and garden kingdom. Thanks for the blog, and especial thanks to the setter
  9. Well I breezed through this in 11:48 without really noticing anything particularly out of the ordinary: kind of the reverse of my experience yesterday. Just goes to show something or other.
  10. I didn’t think through my LOI, 28ac, and flung in ‘ebony’ (stick?). Some biffing (didn’t get the Conference reference until after), but mainly slow and steadyish. Another vote for BESTOW as COD.
  11. I was pleased to finish this in 36:36 without needing aids as I thought it was quite tough. Lots of cracking clues, though – I can’t remember ticking so many. 25a was very clever, but I also enjoyed 1a, 12a, 17a, 14d, 16d and, yes it gets another vote – most of all the hooting owl at 21d. Delightful.
  12. Tough all right, 50 mins against the usual 20-30. But one wrong guess – Christmas cards down here have snow or nativities or kangaroos or gum trees on, never knowingly seen a robin on one. So guessed God is Son, the family of authors after whom Godisson Park in Everton is named. Might have guesses Swiss Family Robinson otherwise, used to watch their travails nightly on “Lost in Space.”
    A bit unsure about USE and SQUEERS (forgotten since last time?), but needed the Q for the pangram.
    Rob
  13. I found this hard to finish, but only because although I know the words EPOXY and WORMHOLE I didn’t know they had the meanings given. I note that others did not have this difficulty.
    Curiously, I solved 19A early on assuming there was something wrong with the clue! As it turns out, the words ‘One selling wheels’ are not needed: ‘by ton’ leads directly to PERTON, and the rest of the c!ue does the rest. However, the setter had to come up with a decent surface.
    Alan in Oz!

Comments are closed.