Solving time: 4:52
This should have appeared on Sunday – sorry it’s a couple of days late. It’s a shame this website doesn’t have a facility to schedule posts in advance, otherwise I could post these blogs in the week and it wouldn’t matter if I subsequently lack Internet access at the weekend.
Anyway, I thought this was the best Sunday Times puzzle for a while: generally very sound cryptic readings, some very good surface readings and a couple of really inventive clues. I’m not sure I understand 25dn though.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BREAK OUT (two defs, the second to ‘break-out’) |
| 5 | S.P. + RANG – SP for ‘starting price’. |
| 10 | DE-FROSTER; (RESTED FOR)* – ‘refit’ can be an intransitive verb, so is a perfectly good anagram indicator here. |
| 12 | NINTH (cryptic definition, referring to golf) – I liked this. |
| 13 | LOAF SUGAR; (FOALS)* + (A RUG)* |
| 14 | BATTLESHIP; (PAST THE BIL[l])* |
| 17 | TILL (two defs) |
| 19 | EX-A.M. – a slight quibble with this clue is that the question mark refers to the first word, not the second. |
| 20 | DAISY-WHEEL; (WISELY HEAD)* – a large wheel used in printing with characters at the end of the spokes. |
| 22 | KNAPSACKS; “NAP” + SACKS – excellent surface reading. |
| 24 | MANIC; (CINEMA – E)* – another good surface; ‘last scene’ for ‘last letter of ‘scene” is a standard Sunday Timesism. |
| 26 | ANGLE (two defs) |
| 27 | TRIGEMINI; “TRY” + GEMINI – the trigeminus is a nerve in the face. |
| 28 | THRILL (initial letters) – not sure about this. Either it’s a curious attempt at an &lit or ‘Kick-start’ is doing double duty as the definition and the indicator of initial letters. |
| 29 | WEAR THIN; (IN THE WAR)* – elegantly concise. |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BED AND BREAKFAST – it wasn’t until after solving that I realised ‘Band “B”‘ = ‘B and B’. This is a little bit naughty without a question mark but I still liked it. |
| 2 | ELF + IN – ‘elf’ is German for ‘eleven’. This clue has another very good (football-related) surface. Talking of football, ‘penalty’ in German is ‘Elfmeter’, i.e. 11 metres, although of course it’s really 12 yards. |
| 3 | KNOTHOLE; “NOT WHOLE” |
| 4 | UNTIL; (UNLIT)* |
| 6 | P + RAISE |
| 7 | ALONGSIDE; (IDEAL SONG)* |
| 8 | GENERAL ELECTION; (RE-COLLATE ENGINE)* |
| 9 | BREAK-INS; (SIN)* – wordplay in the answer, and again an excellent surface reading (and a nice counterpart to 1ac/1dn). |
| 15 | TRAFALGAR (two defs) – excellent. |
| 16 | SCAR + CITY |
| 18 | SWIMWEAR (cryptic defn) – not ‘swimsuit’, which I originally put in. |
| 21 | A SWELL |
| 23 | SEIZE; “SEAS” |
| 25 | NEIGH (two defs) – not sure about this one. ‘Nay’ is an old word for ‘no’, but I can’t find that definition under ‘neigh’ anywhere. |
And I suspect that at 25ac “neigh” the cry is trying unsuccessfully to do two jobs as the cry of the horse and to indicate that it is the sound of “no old”.
However I don’t agree that “start the human race into longer life” isn’t a very good indication to take the first letters to get T H R I L L. I thought it was excellent.
There is one omission:
11a A party sailors held on deck (5)
A DO RN. Deck as in “deck the halls with boughs of holly”. A bit early for Christmas I know.