Saturday Times 26460 (9th July)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
14:09 on the Club timer for this, so a tad harder than a few recent ones. 1ac was simple and brilliant, one of those memorable clues that you might use as an example to someone who doesn’t do crosswords. 18ac also deserves a mention, very neat.

Across
1 Take in? (4-4)
HALF-INCH – IN is half an INCH. Rhyming slang for pinch.
6 Homeless person‘s papers I mislaid (6)
DOSSER – DOSSIER (papers) without the I.
9 Watering hole, one supplying port (4)
BARI – BAR (watering hole) + I (one). An Italian port on the Adriatic.
10 Struggle with friend, breaking device on camera (10)
VIEWFINDER – VIE (struggle) + W(ith) + (friend)*.
11 Ship’s officer starts to harangue old sailors by phone (10)
HORNBLOWER – H(arangue) O(ld) + RN (sailors) + BLOWER (telephone). Horatio Hornblower is the protagonist in a series of novels by C. S. Forester. I inherited a complete set of Folio editions from my dad, but haven’t got around to reading them yet.
12 Low alcohol wine in last third of bottle (4)
LITE – IT (wine) inside LE (last third of bottle). IT is an abbreviation for Italian vermouth, if you were wondering.
14 In heart of America you’ll find me, a setter (8)
CEMENTER – ME inside CENTER (heart of America).
16 Flag vehicle down at last, with a wave of the hand? (6)
ENSIGN – last letters of (vehicl)E, (dow)N + SIGN (a wave of the hand?).
18 50% of European nationals, for instance, rejected their ice-creams (6)
GELATI – ITAL(ians) (50% of European nationals) + EG (for instance), all reversed.
20 Criticised a diplomat’s skill during discussion (8)
ATTACKED – sounds like “a tact”.
22 Top primate in front of cross (4)
APEX – APE (primate) + X (cross).
24 Old fellows beginning to relish assortment of sage Derby sandwiches (10)
GREYBEARDS – R(elish) inside (sage Derby)*.
26 Urge daughter to leave Anglican church and make new start (10)
RECOMMENCE – RECOMMEND (urge) minus the D for daughter + CE (Anglican church).
28 Brother’s habit to frown when scratching head (4)
COWL – SCOWL (frown) minus the first letter.
29 In war, Germans heartlessly capturing south-eastern island (6)
JERSEY – JERRY (in war, Germans) minus the middle letter (heartlessly), around SE (south-eastern).
30 Guardian’s utterly embarrassed about article (8)
TUTELARY – (utterly)* around A (article).

Down
2 Spanish individual’s caught in a storm (9)
ARAGONESE – ONE’S (individual’s) inside A RAGE (a storm).
3 Dodgy dealer keeps cracking ceramic items (7)
FAIENCE – FENCE (dodgy dealer) around A1 (cracking).
4 Book of verse received by Christmas (5)
NOVEL – V(erse) inside NOEL (Christmas).
5 Old career choices regularly disappearing (3)
HIE – alternate letters of (c)H(o)I(c)E(s).
6 Do away with social unrest, as it were — it’s off-putting (9)
DEFERMENT – if ferment is social unrest, you’d have to DE-FERMENT to get rid of it (as it were).
7 Reduce vocal performances shortly for recordings (7)
SINGLES – SING LESS (reduce vocal performances), minus the last letter (shortly).
8 Quits final part of talent contest (5)
EVENT – EVEN (quits) + (talen)T.
12 Servicemen, lacking experience, summoned up energy in conflict (7)
WARFARE – RAF (servicemen) + RAW (lacking experience), all reversed + E(nergy).
15 Spare a couple of months during stay for whatshisname (9)
THINGUMMY – THIN (spare) + MM (a couple of months) inside GUY (stay).
17 Revolting Welshman to make advances through peninsula near Swansea (9)
GLENDOWER – LEND (make advances) inside GOWER (peninsula near Swansea). Owen Glendower 1359-1415, last Welshman to hold the title of Prince of Wales, who led a revolt against the English in 1400.
19 In a sense, team’s a bundle of nerves (7)
ANXIOUS – A NOUS (sense) around XI (team).
21 New in church — one large screened-off section? (7)
CHANCEL – N(ew) inside CH(urch), ACE (one), L(arge).
23 Bug always contracted after gym session (5)
PEEVE – EVE(r) (always contracted) after PE (gym session).
25 Feeble attempt to contain minor complaint (5)
BLEAT – hidden in feeble attempt.
27 One mad for some fruit (3)
NUT – double definition.

13 comments on “Saturday Times 26460 (9th July)”

  1. I absolutely agree – 1ac HALF INCH – my LOI was quite brilliant. COY so-far!

    15dn THINGUMMY was quite decent.

    9ac BARI was FOI but I was never quite convinced until 2d ARAGONESE and 3dn FAIENCE arrived.

    I thought Gareth Bale was the last Welshman to be titled The Prince of Wales!

    horryd Shanghai

  2. 19:15 so yes, quite tricky without being a stinker. A few things I knew but still needed the wordplay for: FAIENCE, ARAGONESE, GLENDOWER. The last should have gone straight in, because I studied all the Henries (and the Richards, come to that) a fair bit between school and university, but it didn’t.
  3. Enjoyable but I found it tricky and went well over an hour. BARI was LOI as I didn’t know the port but I kicked myself over the wordplay when I spotted it. I think 2dn and 3dn (also very difficult) must have been holding out on me almost to the last and when I got them from wordplay the checkers made 9ac what it had to be.

    Edited at 2016-07-16 05:29 pm (UTC)

  4. Linxit, sir,
    Are the two a/m Js blogged? I can’t find them (which doesn’t mean that they’re not but….)
    Thanks in advance,
    Adrian Cobb
    1. Hmm, there’s a placeholder for 1209 as there was a cock-up in the paper version which set the closing date to 9th July, but I know Helen had already written the blog for it. The blog for 1214 should have appeared on the same day I think.

      Leave it with me.

  5. Golly Andy, you are in for a treat.. the Hornblower series of novels is absolutely the very best of its kind. don’t listen to any of those undeducated halfwits who say they prefer O’Brian’s books, these are far superior. Forester was a naval architect who knew the Royal Navy backwards, and a fine writer to boot.
  6. Thanks, Andy. And setter. Every time we get the CRS for half- inch I swear I’ll remember it. And every time I don’t. A lot of words today right on my knowledge border.
  7. for some reason I put in ‘deferrent’ at 6d; I don’t know now if that was a typo, or a bungled BIFD, confounding ‘deterrent’ and ‘deferment’. I remembered HALF-INCH, but was too dense to see the wordplay, so BIFD. DNK GOWER Peninsula, but knew my Shakespeare, so. Fortunately we had ‘watering hole’=bar recently, so BARI was no problem. Despite the slip-up, I enjoyed this a lot; some lovely surfaces, which I always like.
  8. Back from a visit to Troon on Thursday where I ran out of sun cream (not something that often happens in Scotland).
    I spent a lot of time on this over several days and found it harder than any in the last few weeks. In the end I had three blanks. At 6a I had noted Dosser but couldn’t parse it. At 30a I had spotted the anagram but the best I could devise was Tutalyre. 13a was blank and I did not understand the clue. I wasn’t helped by having Sonnets at 7d ( SONGS shortened with NET (shortly) included ).
    But there was lots to enjoy including a new meaning of Setter. David

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