Times 24,289 A Sabbat for Bigfoot

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 20 minutes

There’s not much to say about this puzzle. It’s very straightforward with no particularly unusual words, obscurities or clever devices.

Across
1 WESTWARD,HO! – two meanings 1=novel by Charles Kingsley 2=place near Bideford, Devon;
6 FOCI – IC=in charge + OF all reversed;
10 KNELL – K-NELL; K=king; NELL=Nell Gwyn the “protestant whore” mistress of Charles the second;
11 SASQUATCH – SA-SQUAT-CH; SA=sex appeal=it; Canadian Bigfoot;
12 FLIGHT,RECORDER – RECORDER=musical instrument; FLIGHT=stairs; the “black box” that records the functioning
of an aircraft’s systems;
14 ADIPOSE – A-DI-POSE;
15 NO,SWEAT – (not as we)*;
17 ONESELF – reversed hidden word (waf)FLES ENO(ugh);
20 WITCHES,SABBATH – WIT(CHESS-AB-BAT)H; AB=Able Bodied seaman=Jack; ladies golfing section committee meetings;
23 REPOSEFUL – (four sleep)*;
24 ANNAL – ANNA-L; reference Anna Karenina; L=length;
 
Down
1 WAKE – two meanings 1=trail left 2=Irish funeral party;
2 SHELLFIRE – SHEL(L)F-IRE;
3 WILD-GOOSE,CHASE – (disclose how age)*; looking for my ball in the rough;
4 ROSETTE – RO-SET-TE;
7 OCTAD – OCT-A(n)D; a group of eight;
8 INHERITORS – IN-HER-I(TOR)S;
9 MUCOUS,MEMBRANE – (a bum summer once)*;
13 CAN,OF,WORMS – (womans frock – remove “k” = shortened)*;
16 EXISTENCE – EX-I(STEN)CE;
18 FISTFUL – F(IST)FUL; LUFF=wave a crane’s jib around (sounds interesting!);
19 SCARLET – SC-(v)ARLET; SC=namely; dear old Nell again;
21 TOPAZ – alternate letters T(r)O(d) P(i)A(z)Z(a);

29 comments on “Times 24,289 A Sabbat for Bigfoot”

  1. 5:55 – not quite as quick as yesterday, but all correct I think. (8,2) should make 1A an easy start for anyone who knows their UK geography trivia and/or Charles Kingsley, and (4-5,5) should help a lot with 3D too.

    7 and 19D written without complete wordplay understanding – a(n)d and (v)arlet were the missing parts.

  2. Something of a relief to see the comments so far as finished with 2 unsolved.
    Agree with Jim that it was straightforward enough so I don’t know why I found it such a struggle (maybe lulled by yesterday’s?). Took an age to get the long but simple anagrams, missed the IT for SA(squatch) and worst of all missed the reversed hidden ONESELF, which in turn meant I was never going to get FISTFUL.

    Have seen WAKE for party more than once in my short career but still somehow reluctant to put it in.

    One consolation is that I remembered scilicet.

    (Setter will no doubt get it in the neck for DI, but she’s a very useful lady).

  3. I shall be interested to see if others found this as easy and straightforward as Jimbo did. I had difficulty finishing it and certainly couldn’t have explained it all without resort to aids. About three quarters of it went in within 30 minutes and I struggled with the rest.
    1. I finished it within the hour, which doesn’t happen very often. Needed some help from my electronic friend to understand it all though.

      Isabel

  4. 13:06 here, but should have been much quicker. At the end I was stuck for a few minutes on the ONESELF/FISTFUL pair, and SCARLET.
  5. 22 mins here. I got stuck at the end on SCARLET (19dn), having forgotten “varlet”. 1ac is interesting as possibly the only Times clue I’ve ever seen that requires two characters in one square. The final “O” should be “O!” — for both the novel and the town which, I’m told, are connected. Had to look up my copy of Kingsley. And there I found the first Eizabethan cruciverbalist: Mr[.] John Brimblecombe! The spelling has changed but the message is obvious.
    The reverse concealed in 17ac was nice, I thought. But I’ll give COD to 18dn for its sheer peculiarity.
  6. This was one of those irritating puzzles that starts at a gallop and ends in a crawl. I struggled with three interconnecting clues on the left. I guessed that Luff was something to do with a crane’s jib so that gave me Fistful. Then I kicked myself for not getting the reverse hidden word Oneself earlier. Then I took a long time to parse 2. This was made difficult by the fact that “Pound’s” denotes L not LL. I thought maybe the apostrophe had been left out of “pound’s” but I suppose the clue just passes on the basis that L, or more usually £, can denote a number of pounds.

    Finally, I went back to the mythical creature that was unknown to me. I was trying to include “see” in the wordplay until I realised that it was just part of the surface and “it” was our sexy old friend.

  7. Mixed bag for me also spending an age on 17, 18, 19d. Took a 15 to a 25. I blame not knowing varlet or Luff and even though I kicked myself on 17 I can’t quite see the substitution of oneself for individual?
  8. Off to a flyer with WESTWARD HO(!) (thanks to visit to Clovelly last time I was in UK) but slowed in SW to finish in 30 minutes. A larger proporion than usual were obtained by definition alone. Much to like here but NO SWEAT & CAN OF WORMS got ticks.

  9. Mixed bag for me also spending an age on 17, 18, 19d. Took a 15 to a 25. I blame not knowing varlet or Luff and even though I kicked myself on 17 I can’t quite see the substitution of oneself for individual?

  10. 39 mins, but finished slowly. Took a couple of minutes to get the ONESELF/FISTFUL combo, and then probably another 5 to get SCARLET.

    Words that were new to me: LUFF, WITCHES’ SABBATH & SIZE (in the gelatinous mixture sense).

    COD probably ONESELF for being so well hidden.

    1. I also quite liked the ‘was perfect’ construction in 5d and was surprised it didn’t warrant a mention in the blog.
      1. The one thing that can be guaranteed is that one normally manages to leave out a clue that somebody wants to discuss. I left this out because I felt 90%+ of solvers would get no further than “One no longer popular” which in 3,4 hasn’t many options! The cryptic portion hardly matters.
  11. 12:05 .. I was slow to see both of the long down anagrams – the can of worms and the wild-goose chase. Enjoyable enough experience. After two easy days, I fancy that something wicked this way comes.
  12. Not quite as easy as yesterday, (12 mins yesterday and 14 today) but very similar in as much as lots of the answers went in on definition alone. A sense of deja vu, all over again.
  13. Didn’t time myself, but I think it was under 10 – thought it was going to be a stinker, because I couldn’t get any acrosses on a first read until ADIPOSE, fortunately the downs helped a lot in seeing them the second time around. In the end nothing that came from definition or wordplay alone, so a good crossword using common words and wordplay.
  14. 26 minutes, so two this week under half an hour. It won’t last.

    Got off to a good start but then slowed down. SW corner took the time. Kept wanting to put in WAR OF WORDS at 13d but realised that the anagram didn’t fit. REPOSEFUL is not a word I use every day. Also got sidetracked by thinking about PERSONA (front) for 14a given that ‘on a’ was in the clue.

    I really ought to know by now that Tolstoy and Anna (Karenina) go together. I think they made a recent weekend appearance in some other publication.

    Last in was SASQUATCH on the grounds that it couldn’t be anything else at that stage.

    COD – WITCHES SABBATH because of its clever construction.

  15. I’m in the company of those who got off to a good start, then slowed down considerably. I struggled to get SHELLFIRE, SASQUATCH and ROSETTE towards the end. Forty minutes in all, about three times as long as yesterday.
  16. A pretty run of the m 17 mins – had to correct 13 from war of words having counted the Ws in the grist. Last 2 in were scarlet and te sabbath bit of 20a – I thought I had the “club with outside” bit taken care of with WIT(C)H and only saw chess and bat later.

    I think I might have struggled with octad had we not had pentad a couple of times recently.

  17. Greetings all.  I’m back from a working retreat in the Lake District – much more productive without the internet! – and will be operating a reduced service until I finish my thesis in two months’ time.  Thus:
    7:46.  Didn’t know SASQUATCH.
  18. I’d put LOCI here, rather than FOCI, but can see FOCI now… pity I didn’t first off….
  19. 16 min, so a bit slower than yesterday, but still fairly easy. And this one didn’t have a show-stopper like yesterday’s nelumbo. Many of the answers obvious without a full understanding, and did the loci foci for a time but managed to correct it.
  20. Sorry for entering late, but couldn’t get to the computer til now. So briefly, about 20 minutes, most went in quickly but I was held back by FISTFUL and SCARLET, which was my ending entry. First in: FOCI. COD: ONESELF, which I didn’t find for a while. Regards.
  21. I realise that many of you will be Times Crossword Club members who see the grid early, but I’m still impressed by how quickly your comments come in. Mrs ybelppar and I don’t usually have chance to start until evening using the printed grid.Managed it quite quickly tonight as everything seemed quite sraightforward.
  22. So the cryptic part hardly matters? It does when you can’t see what on earth is meant. How does ‘has been’ equate to ‘was perfect’?
    1. I put a question mark against that one, Wil, when solving last night, then forgot to raise it this morning. I think the idea is that ‘has been’ is the present perfect equivalent of ‘was’ in some grammatical categorisations, but I’d have been interested to see how others saw this one.
      1. That’s correct. Apropos the verb to be, third person singular, is = present tense, was = imperfect, has been = perfect and had been is, I think, past pluperfect.
  23. Did someone already say this? ‘was’ in the present perfect form (not tense) is ‘has been’

Comments are closed.