Times 24849 (May 14th)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 15:33 – apologies for the brevity of this report, but I only have about half an hour today. The two 14-letter entries went in immediately, and I was hoping for a very quick time, but I got bogged down in the bottom left for a while, not helped by putting in ABYSS at first for 24D.

Across
1 PUNISH – “punnish”.
4 MOLASSES – ASS inside MOLES.
10 LAGER LOUT – LAG + OUT next to E(a)RL
11 SOLDO – SOLD 0 (nothing). A old Italian coin worth 1/20th of a lira. Not a lot then!
12 INTONER – hidden in “counterpoINT ONE Renders”.
13 EVEREST – “EVE, REST!” as Adam might have said.
14 THERE – (San)T(a) + HERE.
15 TOTALITY – TOY around [AL(l) inside TIT].
18 BASTILLE – TILL inside BASE.
20 NEWEL – NEW + L(etter) around (envelop)E.
23 AFGHANI – GHAN(a) inside (m)AFI(a). Currency of Afghanistan, unsurprisingly.
25 HEARING – double definition.
26 GULLY – GUY around LL. A cricket fielding position.
27 GONE TO POT – double definition.
28 STRUMPET – STRUM + PET
29 X-RATED – (extra)* + D(ance)

Down
1 PALMISTS – PAL + MISTS
2 NIGHTIE – NIGH + TIE
3 STRINGENT – RING inside STEN + T(roops)
5 ON THE OTHER HAND – double definition
6 AISLE – “isle”, i.e. the Isle of Dogs in London.
7 SOLVENT – (stolen + V)*
8 SNOOTY – N(ame) inside SOOTY
9 YOU’RE TELLING ME – double definition
16 LANCASTER – double definition – Burt Lancaster the actor, and the Lancaster bomber.
17 SLIGHTED – LIGHT + (bundl)E, inside S(on) and D(aughter).
19 ANGULAR – (l)ANGUR around (f)LA(b).
21 WHIPPET – WHIP PET
22 GANGES – GANGS around (tre)E
24 ABYSM – BY S(arcophagi) inside (pyr)AM(ids).

10 comments on “Times 24849 (May 14th)”

  1. Yes, the SW corner did for me too. I had the borders on three sides formed by 9dn, 18ac and 28ac but was unable to crack the rest of it without substantial use of aids. Even then it took me about 30 minutes to find the answers to 19dn, 22dn, 24dn, 23ac and 26ac. The one of these that I should have got unaided and without checkers in place was GULLY because I had considered rope = GUY and L for Line but not followed through to spot the answer which I knew was a fielding position in cricket.
  2. This was something of a struggle, taking 56′ in all. I got the two long downs quickly enough, but that didn’t seem to help much. It also didn’t help that I put in ‘insistent’ (well, it had ‘sten’) at 3d without thinking; the fact that it was consistent with THERE and BASTILLE simply delayed my solving the rest of the NW. I’d never heard of Sooty the bear, but if he didn’t exist it would have been necessary to invent him. And I thought gully=field hard to justify; should have known it was a cricket term!
  4. Did most of this in 25 minutes then took another 15 for the last couple. Having ABYSS messed me up and stopped me seeing the STRUMPET for a while. Also one wrong – SALEO instead of SOLDO. I was on the right lines but seem to have temporarily forgotten my Latin.
  5. Managed to avoid the traps and finished in around an hour, as I recall. Burt Lancaster is becoming something of a fixture around here.
  6. Found this just a little harder than average, mainly because of the vocab.. abysm, newel etc. About 20m overall. I thought 7dn was a very elegant clue, straightforward but nicely misleading & no wasted words..
  7. This took me 25 minutes. I wasted quite a lot of time by putting in NEWLE. I’m sure I’ve come across this word before (in crosswords of course) but it’s not very familiar and I misread the wordplay. This made 17dn impossible until I went back and checked everything. Ho hum.
  8. I had rather hoped that it would be the Capuchin monkey which would be doffing its ‘cap’.

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