Saturday Times 26556 (October 29, 2016)

This one occupied me for 62 minutes. It was a steady solve with only one unknown word, yet another plant to add to my vocabulary, but it was gettable from wordplay. As I’m standing in at short notice my comments are minimal, but please feel free to discuss in more detail.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]

Across
1 Most shoddy copier parts bust (8)
CHEAPEST – APE (copier) inside [parts] CHEST (bust)
5 Outdated measure reduced assistance on public transport (6)
BUSHEL – BUS (public transport), HEL{p} (assistance) [reduced]. Not outdated in my youth!
9 Profligate trio, with halo slipping (8)
LOTHARIO – Anagram [slipping] of TRIO HALO
10 First to cut up sticks, or stick (6)
CLEAVE – C{ut} [first], LEAVE (up sticks)
12 Trimming down executive body that’s usually in office (6,7)
FILING CABINET – FILING (trimming down), CABINET (executive body)
15 Large track which cattle go back inside (5)
ROOMY –  MOO (which cattle go) reversed [back] inside RY (track)
16 So one might, like a friar perhaps, recall scriptures (2,5,2)
IN ORDER TO – IN ORDER (like a friar, perhaps), OT (scriptures) reversed [recall]
17 Hardliner’s spoken of fancy diary (9)
IDEALOGUE IDEOLOGUEIDEA (fancy), sounds like [spoken of]  “idea” (fancy) “log” (diary). Thanks to aphis99 for pointing out my slip here.
19 Occupied, as an admirer may be (5)
TAKEN – Two definitions
20 Means of controlling the flow, primarily for sailing craft at sea (7,6)
TRAFFIC SIGNAL – Anagram [at sea] of SAILING CRAFT F{or} [primarily]
22 All the time that’s left in game (6)
WHILST – L (left) in WHIST (game)
23 Junior to dash back to get support (8)
UNDERPIN – UNDER (junior), NIP (dash) reversed [back]
25 Like Beau, ignoring the odds, persist with dull clothing (6)
DRESSY – DRY (dull) containing [clothing] {p}E{r}S{i}S{t} [ignoring odds]
26 Skilled American on reserve briefly in party (8)
DEXTROUS – EXTR{a} (reserve) [briefly] in DO (party), US (American)
Down
1 African oil’s fluid state (10)
CALIFORNIA – Anagram [fluid] of AFRICAN OIL
2 Decapitated nimble little creature (3)
EFT – {d}EFT (nimble) [decapitated]
3 Overtly trendy Liberal introduced to sport (7)
PLAINLY – IN (trendy) + L (Liberal) in PLAY (sport)
4 Cutting tweet about charmer not in good taste (9,3)
SWITCHING OFF – SING (tweet) contains [about] WITCH (charmer), OFF (not in good taste)
6 Wrinkle-free dancing nude holds nothing back (7)
UNLINED – Anagram [dancing] of NUDE contains [holds] NIL (nothing) reversed [back]
7 Desolate ground with elevated height made public (11)
HEARTBROKEN – EART←H (ground) [with elevated height] BROKEN (made public)
8 Small section of notable estate remains (4)
LEES – Hidden in [small section of] {notab}LE ES{tate}. Dregs, or sediment in wine or beer.
11 Only wearing blue, Conservative later accepted redundancy (12)
OBSOLESCENCE – SOLE (only) is contained by [wearing] OBSCENE (blue) with C (Conservative) inside [later accepted]
13 Most unrestrained, rampant wild flower (11)
LOOSESTRIFE – LOOSEST (most unrestrained), RIFE (rampant). Of the primrose family, apparently – a new one on me.
14 Abandoned types cavort topless during rave-ups (10)
FOUNDLINGS – {b}OUND (cavort) [topless] inside FLINGS (rave-ups)
18 Runs away from ill-disposed Israelis and gets in touch (7)
LIAISES – Anagram [ill-disposed] of IS{r}AELIS [runs away]
19 We’re told to consider religious faction equally split (7)
TRISECT – Sounds like [we’re told] “try”, SECT (religious faction)
21 Fearful African leader to join Union (4)
AWED – A{frican} [leader], WED (join Union)
24 Backing / expert (3)
PRO – Two definitions

21 comments on “Saturday Times 26556 (October 29, 2016)”

  1. I had IDEOLOGUE for the hardliner (where both parts are homonyms). I think both work, but I didn’t check whether my submission was correct.

    Edited at 2016-11-05 03:55 am (UTC)

  2. We must excuse Jack his little slip at 17a, as he had to go back to the future in his time machine to blog this puzzle. Goodness knows what warps and vacua he encountered!

    We must also forgive him because I shoved in the word Chambers kindly lists only to tell you it’s wrong. That’s the sort of thing the wife does.

    1. Thanks for this. For some time now I have been preparing blogs by completing the puzzles on-line, having previously solved them on paper, in order to extract the html coding for clues and answers and save myself a lot of work. One of the luxuries of this is that if there’s a wrong answer the Times notifies the fact as soon as the final letter is placed in the grid. Unfortunately, as I don’t normally blog prize puzzles I had not realised that this check would be absent and I would need to check a little more carefully that an error had not crept in.

      On the Chambers entry, I see no merit in a dictionary listing a word only to inform the reader that it’s a misspelling of the correct word! It also corrupts their on-line dictionary as a database because their Word Wizard, presumably using their dictionary as its source, accepts IDEALOGUE and confirms it is valid at Scrabble.

      Edited at 2016-11-05 06:00 am (UTC)

  3. Forty-four less then glorious minutes – as for a long time I had 1ac as CRAPPEST!(FO)(most shoddy!)LOI EFT dedftly sorted that out.

    Further I ballsed-up 20ac with TRAFFIC LIGHTS but they changed fairly quickly to TRAFFIC SIGNAL and I was able to proceed with caution.

    COD 26ac DEXTROUS WOD 9ac LOTHARIO

  4. According to the crossword club forum lots of folk misspelt ideologue. I see it as analogous with ideology so had no problems myself. Also the clue doesn’t really work with a as “idea” is not homophonic.
    I’m as ready to criticise Chambers as anyone but they are only recording usage, as we seem to be illustrating quite well!
  5. I was with Horryd at 1ac – I guess others probably were too – there was almost an anagram. I found this difficult. Very straightforward clues that I just didn’t decipher. thanks for the blog, Jack, I definitely needed it this week.
  6. I did well this week. I solved almost all of it without concerns. I did pause over Ideologue but did not know any other spelling. The plant was new to me but gettable as described by our blogger ( many thanks for standing in, as I always look forward to the Saturday blog which is my one regular try at the 15×15).
    Lees was new to me.
    Thank you setter . Favourite 12a. David
  7. 11:41. No real problems apart from the plant, which looked very unlikely so was a bit of a leap of wordplay-faith.
    I initially put IDEALOGUE but changed it on the basis of the wordplay. I then also realised that I’d never write IDEALOGY so it had to be IDEOLOGUE.
  8. … challenging of puzzles to face us at the most recent Fremantle Sloggers meeting. (We haven’t found any Betters yet.) Took us a coffee each and a croissant on my part; plus a bit of gossip and banter as distractions from the morning’s business-at-hand. As I remember — it was 8 day ago! — my only interesting contribution was LOOSESTRIFE. Galspray, by contrast, had several interesting and speedy insights. But then, he seems to be on a roll right now, unlike yours truly.
    1. Too kind McT, I don’t think I’d have had any chance with LOOSESTRIFE without your intervention. Still doesn’t look like a word!

      Was a good puzzle for a pleasant catch-up.

      Thanks setter and Jack.

  9. ‘idealogue’ here, too; but that was because I had thrown in ‘idealists’, and when I came back to change it forgot about the A. Serves me right. COD to 1ac.
  10. Well, that was a bit of a disaster for me. Kept picking away at it during the week after an awful start at the weekend, but still didn’t finish. No LOOSESTRIFE for me, and sadly I was another “idealogue”… Also had no idea who Beau was, though at least I got DRESSY from the wordplay.

    Thanks as always to setter and blogger.

    1. I also wondered about Beau when blogging but after a bit of checking concluded it’s just the generic term for a fashionable man, fop, dandy, rather than a reference to a particular person, and the capital B is just a bit of misdirection.
  11. 45m for me and a trip down memory lane. My first ever clue solved in a Times puzzle at the age of 16 in the school library with my pal Abman was ‘African oil producing state’ for California. 48 years ago!
    Good blog Jack – thanks!

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