Times 26557 – The goodbye-to-BST biff-fest

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 20 minutes

Music: Rachmaninov, Symphony #1, Previn/LSO

I completed this in 20 minutes on paper, mostly biffing the answers as the literals were quite obvious in this one. But in order to resolve a possibly ambiguous answer, I had to type in my completed solution to make sure I was totally correct. For 22 might have been either ‘Nedia’ or ‘Nadia’, since the Irish lad is most commonly spelt ‘Aiden’, but ‘Nadia’ is a more likely girl’s name. I went for ‘Nadia’, and that was correct.

I did have a sudden shock when I logged onto the site at the usual time, and saw Sunday’s puzzles were still up. I then realized that the UK had gone from BST to GMT, but over here we are still stuck on EDT until next Sunday. I was all set to start solving and blogging, too, and had to find something else to do for the hour.

The puzzle had a number of potentially tricky clues, but I was on the wavelength and sailed past them. I am getting better at trusting the cryptics and saying it can’t be anything else, so that’s what it must be. This method is certainly faster, but you may just end up with an error or two!

Across
1 ONLY, [p]ON(L)Y. If you don’t know that a ‘pony’ is £25, you should! Betting shop slang, I believe.
3 JAM SESSION, JAM + SESSION in different senses, one we’ve seen before.
9 THYRSIS, TH(YR, S)IS, a famous poem by Matthew Arnold, read by all English Lit grad students and few others.
11 ANOTHER, A + NOT HER, which I seem to recall has been used before.
12 FORTUNE TELLER, FORTUNE + TELLER in various senses.
14 HADES, [s]HADES.
15 INSPECTOR, IN S(P)ECTOR.
17 PORTRAYAL, PORT(RAY)AL, a definite chestnut.
19 BELOW, BE + LOW in different senses.
21 SECOND CHAMBER, double definition, one contrived.
24 PORTEND, PORT END, rather obvious after PORTRAYAL.
25 IRELAND, I + RE + LAND, again, suggested by 22 down.
26 NAMES NAMES, anagram of AS MEN + NAMES.
27 TYPE, double definition.
 
Down
1 OUT OF SHAPE, double definition.
2 LAYERED, anagram of EARLY + ED.
4 AUSTERITY, anagram of ESTUARY around IT. One of the older senses of ‘austerity’ is meant here.
5 STAGE, STAG + E[quity].
6 SHOULDER BLADE, SHOULDER (as a verb) + anagram of BLED containing A. Probably biffed by nearly everyone.
7 INHERIT, anagram of RHINE + IT.
8 NORM, N OR M? An obscure Christie title I did not know, but ‘norm’ is the only English word that fits the crossers and means anything like ‘pattern’.
10 SQUASH RACKETS, SQUASH + RACKETS in different senses. A chestnut, for sure.
13 DRAWBRIDGE, DRAW + BRIDGE from a different set of contexts.
16 SELECTIVE, S[equence] + ELECTIVE.
18 ROSTRUM, R + O +STRUM, with a cross-reference literal.
20 LIBRARY, cryptic definition, referring to the Jane Austen novel.
22 NADIA, AIDAN upside-down. This is a faddish boy’s name in the US, but it is often spelt Aiden. However, I thought Nadia was the more likely girl, and I was right.
23 SPAN, S(PA)N, a compendium of cryptic cliches.

70 comments on “Times 26557 – The goodbye-to-BST biff-fest”

  1. A nice Monday morning canter – but fell at the Iceland fence (“c”=about, couldn’t figure the “e”, grrrrr). THYRSIS only vaguely remembered, waited for all the crossers before writing it in. SHOULDER BLADE wicked clueing – wasted time looking for a (longer) anagram. COD NAMES NAMES.
  2. This took longer than it should have, probably because I solved it in a rather Verlaine-like style. Not eschewing the biff, no, but after a visit to the local brewery. NORM was LOI, though I had doubts about ‘pattern’, and the obscure poem was constructed via the clear wordplay. Well done by galspray and Stefan. Regards to all.
  3. The QC blog tipped me off that this was relatively easy.
    And so it was. I finished it fairly quickly but with Iceland at 25a-which appears to fit the clue exactly as someone has remarked above.
    Anyway, steady progress. David
  4. 6:28 for me, dithering over NORM at the end, only vaguely recalling the Agatha Christie and not entirely sure about NORM = “pattern”.

    No problem with THYRSIS though: it and THYRSUS have been on my list of difficult words for almost as long as it’s been going. I’m pretty sure the first time I came across it was in a Times crossword clue which consisted simply of a cryptic reference to Clough. Those were the days.

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