Times 24810 — What’s worn underneath the kilt? (Reprise)

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 58 minutes

Probably the most difficult puzzle I’ve had to blog since I took over the Wednesday slot. A bit like sticking your head in a bucket of water: horrible at the time but feels good when it’s over. I’d have been stuffed on 21ac if I hadn’t suspected the double pangram early on. A very highly crafted puzzle.

 

 

Across
 1 ZIPPER. Two defs. Some prefer ‘zip’ and ‘flies’ for the fastener. Jim Royle: “The cage is open but the beast is asleep”.
 4 UPBRAIDS. U, as so often, for ‘posh’; PB (lead) for the heavy metal, RAIDS for busts. The def is ‘carpets’, admonishes.
10 LIE DOWN. Anagram of ‘Now idle’.
11 ANGU(I)S,H. The Scots division (local government area) is Angus, once known as Forfarshire; as in the great football result: East Fife 4, Forfar 5. Also includes the inimitable Brechin City (wilderness years, 1906 to the present).
12 HOAX. Last letters of ‘with two aquaria’; X for ‘ten’. The def is ‘cod’, trick.
13 GOODS TRAIN. GO (proceed); OD (take too much); STRAIN (tax).
15 KI(LOVO)LTS. The bracketed bit is V (very, briefly) in the LOO. And: see title.
16 Omitted. Though it is a bit fishy, you could probably catch it by sheer serendipity.
18 CIDER. This is RIDER with a C for the initial R (right, hand).
19 GUFF,AWING. The crack is a joke.
21 ART,AXER,XES. Drawing → ART; lumberjack → AXER with a SEX (relations) reversal. Any of several Kings of Persia. Never heard of him.
23 SNUB. Turned up, as in retroussé. Reversal of BUNS.
26 ON THE Q T. Take ‘This tone’ and drop the IS (one’s lacking). So anagram of TH+TONE around Q. The def is ‘in confidence’. Is there any other expression that goes (2,3,1,1)?
27 ZER,MATT. ZERO minus its last. Somewhere in Switzerland.
28 TIMIDEST. Lift and separate ‘paper towel’; so the badge (ID) is in this paper (TIMES), plus the initial of ‘Towel’.
29 JERKIN. The letters J and K come after I, alphabetically. They include ER (our leading lady who’s about to turn up in 1dn). IN is in the clue before the def: ‘jacket’.
Down
 1 ZIL,CH. Here she is! Then Cold and Hot (taps).
 2 P(REV)A,I,LED. I LED after PA packs his gun (REV, verb: as in to gun one’s engine).
 3 Omitted. You can get sore looking up at it.
 5 Ps AND Qs. S’posed to sound like ‘Pisan queues’. Ho ho!
 6 RIGHT OF WAY. OK → ‘righto’; WAY (method) containing F for ‘following’.
 7 I,BIZ,A. BIZ is ‘deals, informally’.
 8 SCHÖNBERG. Arnold, Austrian composer. Anagram of ‘song Brecht’ minus T (‘timeless’).
 9 UN,ROLL. A successful run, when you’re on it, is a roll. (The clue reminded me of Nicole Kidman; but then many things do.)
14 OVER,EX,TEND. Done → OVER; former → EX; nurse → TEND.
15 KICK ABOUT. Anagram of ‘1 back to UK’.
17 UNION JACK. ‘College’ → UNI; ‘working’ → ON; ‘to raise’ → JACK.
19 G(YR)ATES. Yr, abbrev. for ‘younger’, in GATES (wickets).
20 FREEZE. Peg, as in fix (prices). Sounds like ‘frieze’.
22 TOTEM. Reverse inclusive.
24 BATON. Reverse inclusive from the regular letters in ‘aNnOy TeAm By’.
25 BRIEfed.

Total Scrabble score for this puzzle: 230dn + 232ac = 462.
Highest scoring column or row: ZILCH / KICK ABOUT = 40.

55 comments on “Times 24810 — What’s worn underneath the kilt? (Reprise)”

  1. Late coming to the blog thanks to a puzzling inability to access it from my hotel room in AlMaty. Thoroughly enjoyable puzzle but spoilt by two awful errors in 19d and 20d. No excuse; I was just in a hurry to put something in that felt like the correct answer and didn’t bother to analyse what I had written. COD for me was 5d and the well-behaved tourists in Italy. Enjoyed the blog very much, too, especially the reference to the obscure nature of Scottish football results. I have a theory that none of these places exist but were invented by the BBC as a time-filler when it started Grandstand in the 1960s and have since been given existential credibility by the sonorous tones of James Alexander Gordon. On the other hand, back in 1979, while working at Glasgow Airport, one sleepy Sunday afternoon I went for a lengthy drive and passed through somewhere like Dumbarton, or perhaps it was Kilmarnock, but either way it was closed!

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