Solving time: 15 minutes
(Posting this all the way from America — it’s Saturday afternoon here and presumably dead of night in London).
The Sunday Times puzzle gets a lot of disrespect from the cognoscenti – it does indeed have its fair share of typos indicating lax editing, but no more egregiously than The Guardian. There’s the occasional bad clue, as well – which I’ll note if spotted. On the Timesean (if Ximenean can be an adjective…) scale it’s a relatively easy puzzle (akin to Monday/Tuesday).
In this case, I needed dictionary.com for 1A and 26D – and I’m a little unsure about the soundness of 10A.
Across
| 1 | ARETHUSA – double meaning,: orchid and nymph. Though the orchid is named after the nymph. Had to trawl wikipedia for this. |
| 10 | PIECRUST – seems to be a cryptic definition. |
| 11 | OESOPHAGI – another cryptic definition. Pleasantly misleading since the clue looks like it could be a double definition. Had to check spelling. |
| 13 | I+RAN – Not surprised. |
| 17 | INCOMPATIBLE – anag(“p + claim to be in”) |
| 19 | IN+CH –church is either CH or CE in England |
| 21 | ETNA – contained in Vietnam |
| 24 | COCKATOO – double definition. Cockatoo is an Australian species of parrot, so appropriately it’s also oz slang for a look-out. See this |
| 27 | SEARED – anag(“Red Sea”). I considered “erased” a bit but couldn’t quite make it close enough in meaning to “dried up”. |
Down
| 3 | TOM – first half of a tom-tom drum. Use of “he” indicated a name. |
| 4 | UNSOPHISTICATED – anag(“suit is patched no”). Screamed anagram given the contrived surface and “replacement” indicator. Sometimes I use an anagram solver for these long ones when I don’t have any crossing letters yet. |
| 6 | PLENIPOTENTIARY – anag(“toe in Pinter play”). Another long anagram. Pinter play titles tend to have the “The ‘noun’” format: e.g. “The Birthday Party”, “The Caretaker”. He probably should write one called “The Ambassador”. |
| 7 | TERMINATION – anag(“into minaret”). Oh, we haven’t had a long anagram for some time. |
| 12 | SLEEPWALKER – clever cryptic definition. |
| 18 | OUTCOME – it’s what you get when you come out! |
| 23 | TROLL – double definition. Trolls can be big or little (at least in Norway). My first guess was “titan” – which is also a kind of fish. Crossing letters didn’t agree. [clarification: Troll is a verb: to fish] |
| 26 | GEB – rev(“beg”) turns out to be an Egyptian god according to this. “Directed heavenwards” is a nice way to indicate reversal in a down clue. [Update: now that I own Chambers I can tell you that geb isn’t there — which doesn’t help me solve the mystery of what reference ST uses: wikipedia? — that’s a joke] |
9a Hostility’s a problem in recession = ANIMUS (a then sum in backwards)
14a Keen to hand round the joint = KNEE – gratuitous drug reference there!
15a Inescapable – a born exile must travel around! = INEXORABLE (a born exile)*
22a In a rigid stupor? Tom needs a stimulant! = CAT A TONIC
25a Sportsman ran with leg injury = ANGLER (ran leg)*
28a Loafer? Was resting before a wrestling match! = LAY A BOUT
2d Disparage, though not very well = RUN DOWN (DD)
5d Star letter written in Greek = ALPHA (this could also be other 5 letter greek characters – eg Gamma – as stars are named after their constellation and greek-lettered in order of brightness)
8d Position taken by everyone on fashionable street = IN ST ALL
16d Retire in the main = EBB
20d French artist and film director portraying commandant in acute distress? = COCTEAU (for this clue to work the commandant must be OC inside the anagram of ACUTE). One of Jean Cocteau’s notable films was Beauty and the Beast (1946). I have only seen the Disney version on video with my kids.