Saturday Times 26316 (23rd Jan)

Solved in exactly 10 minutes to the second,and on paper, so definitely an easy one. A lot of the wordplay was quite intricate, but it seemed to me that the definitions were often very specific, and a few were quite wordy, so maybe that helped. There was a lot of confident biffing, and a few I didn’t parse properly until this morning!

Across
1 Who needs to discharge jet? (11)
FIREFIGHTER – cryptic definition. [ Edit: as mohn2 points out, it’s actually a semi-&lit, with FIRE (discharge) + FIGHTER (jet) as the wordplay ].
7 Miss all but the last runner (3)
SKI – SKIP (miss), minus the last letter.
9 Fine distinction made by peacekeepers in politic manoeuvring (9)
PUNCTILIO – UN (peacekeepers) inside (politic)*.
10 I vote for everyone to stop politician’s confusion (3-2)
MIX-UP – I + X (vote) + U (for everyone, film classification), inside MP (politician).
11 Sick in one taxi on the way back — are these to blame? (7)
BACILLI – ILL (sick) inside [I (one) + CAB (taxi) reversed].
12 Building only half used, despite being cool (7)
EDIFICE – ED (half of USED) + IF (despite) + ICE (cool).
13 Put up with yogurt initially like cottage cheese? (5)
LUMPY – LUMP (put up with, as in the phrase “like it or lump it”) + Y(ogurt).
15 Playwright about to ring character in Chicken Run? (9)
ORPINGTONORTON (playwright) around PING (ring). It’s a breed of chicken.
17 Evolutionary pioneer’s success is seen in small river fish (9)
DARWINIST – WIN (success) + IS, inside DART (small river fish, another name for a dace).
19 Study origins of extraordinarily blue star (5)
DENEB – DEN (study) plus initial letters of E(xtraordinarily) B(lue). A blue-white supergiant star in the constellation Cygnus.
20 Meals cut down all round after overabundance of big muscles (7)
GLUTEAL – (m)EAL(s) after GLUT (overabundance).
22 Anger about working silver when another metal was being worked (4,3)
IRON AGE – IRE (anger) around ON (working) + AG (silver).
24 Good deal closed game (5)
LOTTO – LOT (good deal) + TO (closed, like a door).
25 Early part of costume fabricated liner keeping in hoop shape? (9)
CRINOLINE – C(ostume) + (liner)* around IN + O (hoop shape). &lits aren’t usually so complicated, but this just about works. A comma after costume would have improved the surface.
27 Work steadily at college to avoid getting second (3)
PLY – POLY (college) without the second letter.
28 Prove modern taste is degenerate (11)
DEMONSTRATE – (modern taste)*.

Down
1 One who’s turned out well following a little work (3)
FOP – F(ollowing) + OP (a little work).
2 Work in charge of collection of old letters (5)
RUNIC – RUN (work) + IC (in charge).
3 Obese throughout the year, so as to cause death (7)
FATALLY – FAT (obese) + ALL (throughout the) + Y(ear).
4 Turkish town girl tops sauce with unusual oil (9)
GALLIPOLI – GAL (girl) + LIP (sauce) + (oil)*. Ancient Turkish port on the Dardanelles strait, now known as Gelibolu. Only familiar to me as the scene of a major battle in WW1.
5 Steak is black in colour (1-4)
T-BONE – B(lack) inside TONE (colour).
6 Wild orpin conceals a minute bellflower (7)
RAMPION – (orpin)* around A M(inute). Orpin is “a purple-flowered broad-leaved stonecrop”, but I have no idea how likely those broad leaves are to conceal a rampion!
7 Flirty woman succeeded without clothing size for the smaller figure? (3,6)
SEX KITTEN – S(ucceeded) + EX (without) + KIT (clothing) + TEN (size for the smaller figure?).
8 Puzzling G in preamble is beyond doubt (11)
IMPREGNABLE – (G in preamble)*. Sounds like a defence of some dodgy instructions for a Listener puzzle!
11 Papers are gripped by this person in university office going on strike (7,4)
BULLDOG CLIP – BULLDOG (person in University office) + CLIP (strike). A bulldog is apparently a proctor’s attendant at Oxford University. I suppose you’d know if you’d been there. Someone the students don’t want to upset by the sound of it!
14 Make of car to experiment with inlaid work (9)
MARQUETRY – MARQUE (make of car) + TRY (experiment with).
16 Simple plant toxin trapping a noble Roman (9)
PATRICIAN – PAT (simple) + RICIN (plant toxin) around A. I’m really not keen on simple for PAT, but I suppose it almost works in the sense of “convenient”.
18 Siberian diamonds need cutting (3-4)
ICE-COLD – ICE (diamonds) + COLD (cutting).
19 Free spirit? Fall unconscious! (7)
DROPOUT – DROP (fall) + OUT (unconscious).
21 Substitute copper for one ring in weaving machine (5)
LOCUM – CU (copper) replacing one of the O’s (one ring) in LOOM (weaving machine).
23 A cat and a dog from Japan (5)
AKITA – A + KIT (cat) + A. There’s a great film about one of this breed called Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, starring Richard Gere.
26 Ruminant of arable wetlands (3)
EWE – hidden in “arable wetlands”

12 comments on “Saturday Times 26316 (23rd Jan)”

  1. I thought this was a bit ho hum at the time but now it looks ok. Not sure that SEX KITTEN is exactly a flirty woman. I just about remember the term being applied to the likes of Brigitte Bardot eons ago. Unfortunately this end of the Atlantic AKITA brings to mind the gruesome minutiae of the trial of OJ Simpson. 12.20
    1. Despite having a mainly American cast and shot in US locations, Hachi was never released in the US. Not a dry eye in the house when it played over here though. All I remember about OJ Simpson is the live-on-the-news car chase.

      Edited at 2016-01-30 11:09 pm (UTC)

      1. And one specific detail of the car chase – both OJ and the police kept scrupulously to the 55 MPH speed limit.

        25 minutes, never close to the right wavelength.
        Rob

  2. A lot of biffing for me in this one too, with pauses for RAMPION, DENEB, and PUNCTILIO, which all sounded vaguely familiar but I was glad the wordplay didn’t offer many alternatives. Not seen the Hachi film (the link may need a %27) but a statue dedicated to the dog used to be a standard meeting place outside Shibuya station in Tokyo. I had exactly the same thought as Andy regarding the surface of 8D.

    I had 1A as a semi-&lit, with the wordplay FIRE (discharge) + FIGHTER (jet).

    1. Thanks, didn’t spot the wordplay in 1ac. LJ rendered the literal ‘ as ascii char 39 as an html entity, which would have been okay to display but broke the hyperlink. I’ll have to watch out for that in future. Fixed now.
  3. I managed to do most of this without aids which was pleasing and perhaps indicates a slightly easier puzzle than normal.
    Struggled with 1a and thanks for the enlightening explanations. Couldn’t think of the Japanese dog. Deneb and Rampion unknown and still look strange to me.
    Was surprised to find a new meaning for Orpington (some would say it needs one). David
  4. 9m, which counts as very easy for a puzzle that includes ORPINGTON, DENEB, RAMPION and AKITA. I vaguely remembered DENEB but I still needed the wordplay. CRINOLINE is also a bit tricky if you’re not entirely sure what one is, or was.
  5. There were too many unknown or half-forgotten words here for me to race through this one. I thought it was the most difficult Saturday puzzle for a while after a run of easier ones. 52 minutes.

    Lost ages on the last three letters of 17ac before the checkers were in play. I suppose the answer has to be used adjectivally to fit the clue but I couldn’t see that at the time. I also wondered why the Dart should be clued as “small river” and what “fish” had to do with it. I don’t recall coming across this name for “dace” before.

  6. Another easy Saturday cryptic for me anyway, probably my first ever under 10 minutes. But I was lucky that RAMPION and ORPINGTON surfaced in my memory quickly, and that a childhood interest in astronomy made DENEB easy once I’d given up on CON- for ‘study’; and ‘dog from Japan’ made AKITA a gimme (I’ve often met friends in front of Hachiko’s statue, but had forgotten that it was an Akita). DNK BULLDOG CLIP; my dictionary says that in the US it’s an elephant clip, which I also DNK.
  7. I found this pretty easy too – maybe it was the Americanisms, but I more agree with Andy that the clues were generally clear. So in the 25 minute range. I had thought that 4 was a small size, 6 or 8 about normal, and 10 large – which kept 7d lightly pencilled in for a while. I am thinking that the original bulldog clips were the ones, usually chrome plated, which used a metal cylinder as the spring. Now, in the US, it i think it refers to the (usually) black triangular ones.

    Edited at 2016-01-31 01:22 pm (UTC)

    1. A 10 in the UK is the equivalent of a 6 in the US, whereas a 10 in the US is like a 14 over here. Must be very confusing for women either way!
  8. As with jackkt I had a real struggle deciding on 17ac. Darwinist over Darwinism? Is the River Dart small & where does the fish fit in? Eventually plumped for Dart rather than Darm as being the tricky small river fish, not getting Patrician until the very last.

    Equally unknown the unlikely sounding Deneb plus Punctilio, Akita & Rampion but the clueing was fair & pleased to see I got them all right.

    Around 50 minutes for me.

    Thanks setter & blogger – I learnt a few new interesting things from this.

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