This flowed smoothly (like an Italian flōwer, not a garden flŏwer), although the cricket reference in 2dn may be particularly puzzling for non-aficionados! 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 | Wonderful news about alumnus who was poorly hidden? (8) |
| OBSCURED – OB’S CURED. Rejoice! | |
| 6 | Cask tap very tight at first? Guzzler’s into that! (6) |
| SPIGOT – PIG (guzzler) into SO + Tight (at first) | |
| 9 | Uncompromising approach in Enduring Love? (4,9) |
| ZERO TOLERANCE – ZERO (love) TOLERANCE (enduring). | |
| 10 | Scots sweetheart opening cold beer — get round? (6) |
| CAJOLE – JO opening C+ ALE. I didn’t know this Scottish expression. |
|
| 11 | Husband cooked steak outside home: plate cooling? (4,4) |
| HEAT SINK – H (husband) + EATSK (anagram, cooked, of STEAK) outside IN. | |
| 13 | Pose holding large fish — runs inside for shelter (4,6) |
| SLIT TRENCH – SIT holding L + TENCH with R inside. | |
| 15 | Portend odds of bloody end to blockade (4) |
| BODE – BOD (odds of BlOoDy) + E (end to blockadE). | |
| 16 | Heroine wants mutton: lamb’s heart sent back (4) |
| EMMA – EM (a “mutton” is an “em” space in typesetting) + MA (heart of lAMb, sent back). I knew “en” spaces could be called “nuts”. This is the first time I’ve come across “mutton”. |
|
| 18 | Horrible din from low crows (4,6) |
| BLUE MURDER – BLUE (low), MURDER (the collective noun for crows). | |
| 21 | Alien confined edges away from cold weather requirement (8) |
| INTERNEE – edges away from WINTER NEED. | |
| 22 | Panic gripping Conservative — that’s rare! (6) |
| SCARCE – SCARE gripping C. | |
| 23 | Enemy released? Old judge saving Frenchman from distant past (4,3,2,4) |
| TIME OUT OF MIND – TIME (according to the proverb, Time is the enemy) + OUT (released) + O + F(M)IND (FIND=judge, saving M=Monsieur, a French man). | |
| 25 | Poet, Italian flower, died on lake (6) |
| ARNOLD – ARNO (a river in Tuscany), L (lake), D (died). | |
| 26 | Machine-gun position covering ground where Syria lies (4,4) |
| NEAR EAST – NEST (machine-gun position), covering AREA (ground). | |
| Down | |
| 2 | An unknown in B&B all for playing it aggressively (7) |
| BAZBALL – the unknown is A “Z”. Assemble as instructed. The word is a reference to how the English cricket team tries to play. See here. |
|
| 3 | Bargains here possibly offered by saloon-keeper? (3-4,4) |
| CAR-BOOT SALE – cryptic definition. The saloon is a car, not a bar! | |
| 4 | With second rook sacrificed, withdraw: join again? (5) |
| RETIE – RETIrE. | |
| 5 | Clever swimmer left Greek character in Wear (7) |
| DOLPHIN – L + PHI in DON. | |
| 6 | Free entertainment found in false London location (9) |
| STREATHAM – TREAT found in SHAM. | |
| 7 | Unusually courageous person beheaded — one charged? (3) |
| ION – LION beheaded. | |
| 8 | Nymph Echo stops wolf perhaps going after duck (7) |
| OCEANID – O (duck) + E (echo, in the phonetic alphabet) stops CANID. | |
| 12 | Man about town? Bishop seen with Pope once entering rooms (11) |
| SUBURBANITE – B (bishop) + URBAN (pope, once) entering SUITE. | |
| 14 | Outlaw what muggers may do to conceal themselves? (5,4) |
| ROBIN HOOD – whimsically, a mugger might ROB IN [a] HOOD. | |
| 17 | Abnormally formed animal in gym — on steroids! (7) |
| MONSTER – hidden. | |
| 19 | Uniform tidy: left after meal (7) |
| UNEATEN – U (uniform, in the phonetic alphabet) + NEATEN. | |
| 20 | US codes broken in Cape Verde’s capital (7) |
| ESCUDOS – anagram, broken, of US CODES. The currency of Chile – that sort of capital! |
|
| 22 | Excellent female with big back comes to city (5) |
| SOFIA – AI (excellent) + F + OS (big), back. | |
| 24 | Unfinished display behind is low (3) |
| MOO – MOON, unfinished. | |
36:36
Slow going, although I can’t remember why. NHO BAZBALL, but the wordplay was kind, and luckily the Z was a checker. JO I knew from Burns’s ‘John Anderson my Jo, John’. Biffed a few–SPIGOT, ZERO TOLERANCE, CAR-BOOT SALE, OCEANID–parsed post-submission. I liked the surface of EMMA.
I found this of moderate difficulty. Streatham and car boot sale might be a bit of a stretch for US solvers, but I had the knowledge. Only bazball was a complete unknown, but the checkers don’t leave any other possibility. I have known about nuts and muttons for some time now, since they come up a lot in Mephisto.
Time: 39 minutes
43 minutes. BAZBALL was unknown, also SLIT TRENCH. I suppose I have met CANID before associated with dogs but I’m not sure about wolves, so it was lucky that OCEANID rang a faint bell when I realised it fitted the checkers.
54m 29s
BAZBALL!! Never mind getting down with the kids in ‘Sign of The Times’ puzzles, state-of-the-art cricket terminology has hit Fogeyland! On which subject I believe a T20 tournament has just taken place in the West Indies and the USA. Let me know when the real stuff starts.
Thank you, Bruce, for SPIGOT, ZERO TOLERANCE, CAJOLE, HEAT SINK and TIME OUT OF MIND
No problem with OCEANID. I recently played a CD of Sibelius’ music with the symphonic poem ‘The Oceanides’ on it.
COD: ROBIN HOOD
Martin, There’s some new info and discussion about ‘Changing Times’ under today’s QC blog that you may find of interest.
Thanks, Jack. Yes, a very interesting discussion, especially your contribution.
I just hope the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater. I think there is a place for a Sign-of-the-Times-type puzzle but not at the expense of the ‘regular’ cryptic.
Just two answers in the best part of an hour, with the feeling that if I could only find the key… so I used aids to try to find a way in. But the answers that gave me were SLIT TRENCH, OCEANID and BAZOUKI, 2x NHO, 3x no idea how. A hopeless task with too many that were simply beyond me. BAZBALL? Ah well, back to trying to learn from the blog and onward to next week.
I found this much harder than usual and completed only 51%. I normally work outwards from the solutions I’ve found but my answers are scattered very uniformly around the grid. I couldn’t justify EMMA or MOO. I tried to anagram GYM while failing to spot the hidden MONSTER. JO, OCEANID and BAZBALL where NHOs. I should have seen ZERO TOLERANCE, HEAT SINK (I had the anagrist) and SUBURBANITE. Still, a couple of years ago I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with it. Thanks branch.
DNF, 10a failed to biff Cajole, DNK Jo=sweetheart. Should have biffed though because the verb is clearly defined and known.
11a POI, Heat Sink is in usual sources and is familiar, but unexpected in these parts. Ditto 13a Slit Trench.
16a Emma, easily biffed but DNK em=mutton in printing, nor em=mut, nor em=quad but knew en=nut.
POI again, Oceanid; have heard of but forgotten a long time ago.
20d Escudos from Cabo Verde, not Chile.
DNF, with a really silly ‘escodes’ rather than ESCUDOS.
Didn’t know Jo as a sweetheart for CAJOLE; had forgotten mutton=em for EMMA; and had to trust that the unknown OCEANID was right.
Thanks setter and blogger.
COD Car-boot sale
Managed this one in 31:14. NHO BAZBALL and JO was assumed from definition and checkers. Liked ROBIN HOOD, HEAT SINK and DOLPHIN. Thanks setter and Bruce.
I didn’t know JO so I went for CAROLE which made little sense. So DNF. I didn’t know either BAZBALL or EN as a “mutton”, but got them anyway without a problem.
I had to come back to this to finish it (in an hour and a half), but I didn’t get CAR-BOOT SALE, not because I didn’t understand what kind of saloon was meant, but because garage sales, as one has in the States, led me to CAR-PORT SALE (the hyphenation should have told me that was wrong). Otherwise, quite hard, lots of fun.
Phew. Defeated. Nho bazball. Had silt trench which didn’t help. Knew 7 down was ion but couldn’t think of lion to be beheaded. Internee was another obvious I didn’t see. Didn’t know mutton for em space but had to be Emma. Took me so long. Thanks for the blog to out me straight.