… accompanied my struggle with 22dn. Thanks, setter. How did all you solvers get on with this one?
Note for newcomers: The Times offers prizes for Saturday Cryptic Crosswords. This blog is for last week’s puzzle, posted after the competition closes. So, please don’t comment here on this week’s Saturday Cryptic.
Definitions are in bold and underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Suppose visitors to be short of time (5) |
| GUESS – GUESTS. | |
| 4 | Strong emotion about son chasing appointment with urgency (4-5) |
| POST-HASTE – POST = [job] appointment, HATE about S (son). | |
| 9 | Facing deadly tree, time to keep secure (2,7) |
| UP AGAINST – UPAS + T to keep GAIN (secure). Britannica tells me: The latex of Antiaris toxicaria (upas tree) contains an extremely toxic cardiac glycoside, which has the effect of increasing the force of contraction of the muscles of the heart; in tropical Asia it is a valuable source of poison for arrows and darts. |
|
| 10 | US agent gives name, with a bow (5) |
| NARCO – N, ARCO (a musical instruction). I assumed the bow would be an ARC, but that left the O unexplained. I later discovered ARCO is a musical instruction for violinists, indicating that the bow is to be used in the usual way, following a passage that is played pizzicato. |
|
| 11 | Think on one’s feet, as it were, and follow (5,2,6) |
| STAND TO REASON – cryptic hint. | |
| 14 | One’s back, very loudly displaying resentful feeling (4) |
| MIFF – MI (I’M = one is, back), FF. | |
| 15 | One warning signal in itself limits banter (10) |
| PERSIFLAGE – PER SE (in itself) limits I + FLAG, | |
| 18 | Overcame outspoken knight on horse (10) |
| SURMOUNTED -sounds like (outspoken) SIR, MOUNTED. | |
| 19 | Very highly placed in opening course (4) |
| SOUP – SO, UP. | |
| 21 | With broken limb, the scaffolder is a cheat (13) |
| THIMBLERIGGER – THIMBLE (anagram, broken , LIMB THE), RIGGER (scaffolder). | |
| 24 | A disguise is said to be useful (5) |
| AVAIL – sounds like (is said) A VEIL. | |
| 25 | In formal dress a large number finally left, the place now empty (5,4) |
| GHOST TOWN – HOST (a large number) + T (finally, LEFT) in GOWN. | |
| 27 | Decree not repeated about broken drain (9) |
| ORDINANCE – ONCE (not repeated) about RDINA (anagram, broken, DRAIN). | |
| 28 | Head off crossing line of rock (5) |
| RIDGE – take the head off BRIDGE. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Swelled, say, gaining several stone — extremely horrible (10) |
| GRUESOMEST – GRUE sounds like (say) GREW, SOME (several), ST (stone). | |
| 2 | Nothing odd in best man being a character (3) |
| ETA – even letters of bEsT mAn. | |
| 3 | Tristram, horse ridden by Alexander (6) |
| SHANDY – H ridden by SANDY. So, nothing to do with Alexander the Great! His horse was Bucephalus, anyhow. |
|
| 4 | For a stew, open a tin containing black legume (5,4) |
| PINTO BEAN – anagram (for a stew) of OPEN A TIN, containing B (black). | |
| 5 | Composer finally takes a bow (5) |
| SATIE – S (finally, takeS), A, TIE (bow, for example). | |
| 6 | Not interfering with presents belonging to female (5-3) |
| HANDS-OFF – HANDS (presents), OF, F (female). | |
| 7 | Popular girl punches muscular fool (6,5) |
| STRING ALONG – IN + GAL punches STRONG. | |
| 8 | It would be painful to topple this statue (4) |
| EROS – SORE, toppled. | |
| 12 | To start with help directly (2,5,4) |
| AT FIRST HAND – AT FIRST (to start), HAND (to give a hand = help) | |
| 13 | Moderation in anger over social event not starting (10) |
| TEMPERANCE – TEMPER over dANCE, not starting. | |
| 16 | Port worker to deserve getting sacked (9) |
| STEVEDORE – anagram (getting sacked) of TO DESERVE. | |
| 17 | Sick after an attack, but no temperature, taking broth (8) |
| BOUILLON – BOUt (no temperature), ILL, ON = taking [antibiotics, for example]. | |
| 20 | Good state of Scottish outfitter? (6) |
| KILTER – a cryptic hint, unless the Scots do call their tailors “kilters”. “Out of kilter” is much more familiar than “kilter” unqualified. |
|
| 22 | Boy avoiding blade on weapon set off (5) |
| BEGUN – BladE (avoiding LAD), GUN.
I wasted time toying fruitlessly with BEGIN and BEGAN, before the penny dropped. Time not altogether wasted … it did remind me enjoyably of a Cole Porter song. Apparently, he was first exposed to Latin American music on a Caribbean cruise, and immediately wrote this giant hit: When they begin the beguine I’m with you once more under the stars, |
|
| 23 | No gain anonymously, perhaps, showing up villain? (4) |
| IAGO – hidden (showing), backwards (up), in nO GAIn. See also Peter W’s comment below about anonymity! | |
| 26 | Yellow — no good: grey perhaps? (3) |
| OLD – gOLD. | |
Is “anonymously, perhaps” in 23d, indicating that if we remove the n’s (for “names”) from “NO GAIN”, then it will “show”, when displayed upwards, IAGO?
I think you’re right!
23:30
I spent a lot of time on LOI KILTER, taking ‘good’ (a case where lifting and separating was not called for) to be either G or PI.
My print-out has no queries indicated or workings other than one anagram circle, but I note my solving time was 56 minutes, suggesting I didn’t find this at all easy.
DNF. Found this one really tricky, again defeated by words or terms NHO: 15ac PERSIFLAGE, 21ac that a scaffolder is a RIGGER, and that a cheat is a THIMBLERIGGER. 19ac, 23d remained unfinished, and couldn’t decide between BEGAN/BEGUN for 22d. Also, couldn’t parse the biffed 9ac UP AGAINST. Thanks, all.
DNF, back in OWL Club thanks to ‘begin’ rather than BEGUN.
Didn’t know the Upas tree for UP AGAINST; more familiar with seeing ‘miffed’ as an adjective rather than MIFF as a noun for the feeling; NHO THIMBLERIGGER but it sounded plausible; didn’t know the arco bow for NARCO; took a very long time to get BOUILLON; and I agree with Peter W’s parsing of IAGO, though I didn’t see it at the time.
Thanks setter and blogger.
COD Stand to reason
DNF after 30
Wrote the top half in without stopping but mightily struggled down south with no KILTER (clever) nor PERSIFLAGE (DNK and could untangle the w/p).
Thanks all
60 minutes, DNF. I completed the first two-thirds in ten minutes but got stuck. THIMBLERIGGER was new. TEMPERANCE and SOUP took twenty minutes at the end. I failed with a biff of BEGIN for the obvious-once-I-had-the-pink-square BEGUN. Thanks branch.
9a Never found the Upas Tree so biffed.
10a NARCOS never sussed “arco” so biffed.
15a PERSIFLAGE never noticed the Per Se, so biffed.
4d Had forgotten the Pinto Bean, but not a hard anagram. It was in Cheating Machine, so prob has come up before.
17d BOUILLON, reminds me of Bouillabaisse, so eminently biffable.
22d Liked the ref to “begin the beguine”.
Just under 30 minutes, but failed with BEGIN. Thanks setter and Bruce.
Lots of DNFs today. My mistake, after 70 minutes, was THIMBLEFINGER, which somehow sounded more likely than any other THIMBLE?I?GER, despite the scaffolder in it. But everything else was OK and much of it was very good indeed. It was clear 22dn would have a GUN in it, although I never really tried to explain the BE… My LOI and COD was SOUP.
DNF. Found this really hard. NHO PERSIFLAGE, THIMBLERIGGER or Upas and just didn’t get BEGUN (do now). Only aware of the Julio Iglesias version of Begin the Beguine. No idea it was a Cole Porter song 😃 Many thanks for the blog branch.
Another motley crew: a few expressions used in different ways and a few absolute NHOs, so wasn’t too long before I’d to start cheating to move things along. Quite a few biffed from definition alone (UP AGAINST, STEVEDORE, HANDS OFF) and others carefully worked out from cryptic (GRUESOMEST, ORDINANCE, SOUP and BEGUN). Some, I’m happy to say, went in POST HASTE, like GUESS, SHANDY, STAND TO REASON, my COD. Generally a bit too tough for me, but a clever crossword.