I found this harder than recent Saturdays. Progress was along the diagonals – the NW and SE put up most resistance. I loved the clever clueing and applauded the scarcity of obscurities! LOI was 19dn; some may have picked out the definition quickly, but I found it all very cryptic. 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 | Featured entertaining Queen hit in jazz music (4,3) |
| HARD BOP – HAD (featured) entertaining R (queen) + BOP (hit). | |
| 5 | Learner in depression over Master’s degree (7) |
| DIPLOMA – L in DIP+ O (over) + M.A. (Master’s) It’s true that an M.A. is a degree, but for the clue it’s just a “Master’s”. “Degree” is the definition. |
|
| 9 | Asian curses, receiving happy greeting (11) |
| BANGLADESHI – BANES (curses) receiving GLAD (happy) + HI. | |
| 10 | Copper arresting current underworld boss (3) |
| DIS – D.S. receiving I (electrical current). | |
| 11 | Kind of dash astride horse in St Albans or Telford? (6) |
| EPONYM – EM (the longer version of a typesetting dash) astride PONY. I didn’t really remember what “eponym” meant, although now I’ve looked it up I have no trouble seeing St. Albans as a “definition by example” of a town named after a person. “Telford” on the other hand … I didn’t know either the town or the person, so no hope! |
|
| 12 | A cold drink fully contains one toxic liquid (4,4) |
| ACID RAIN – A (there in plain sight) + C (cold) + DRAIN (drink fully) contains I (one). | |
| 14 | Light yarn binding close to door fixture (8,5) |
| FRICTION MATCH – FICTION (yarn) binding R (close to dooR) + MATCH (fixture). NHO friction matches. Apparently they predated safety matches. Read more here. |
|
| 17 | Fan of black, crude humour hard to execute in the face of reservations (2,7,4) |
| GO THROUGH WITH – GOTH + ROUGH+ WIT + H | |
| 21 | Novelist endlessly attacked online about work (8) |
| TROLLOPE – TROLLED about OP. | |
| 23 | Discomfort in side street — problem near Bow Bells (6) |
| STITCH – ST + hITCH. | |
| 25 | Cover for head dropping by in public school (3) |
| RUG – RUGby School is where the eponymous game was invented. | |
| 26 | A Parisian, at home, seeking to ditch a flat (11) |
| UNINSPIRING – UN (“a”, in French) + IN (home) + aSPIRING (“seeking”, to ditch “a”). | |
| 27 | One with plain dressing case (7) |
| PATIENT – PATENT (plain, as in “patently obvious”) dressing I. | |
| 28 | European forbidding smuggling article from China? (7) |
| EASTERN – E (European) + STERN (forbidding), smuggling A. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Renaissance thinker one associated with Calvin (6) |
| HOBBES – two definitions. Read about Thomas Hobbes here, or Calvin and Hobbes here. | |
| 2 | Stop calling for gin rummy loudly (4,3) |
| RING OFF – anagram (rummy!) of FOR GIN, then F (loudly – the musical instruction). | |
| 3 | Account showing pork pie manufacturer’s invoice fairly settled, avoiding fine (5,4) |
| BILLY LIAR – BILL (invoice), anagram (settled!) of fAIRLY, avoiding the F. Two clues in a row with exotic anagram indicators. Billy Liar was a novel, later adapted to stage and screen, about a fabulist. |
|
| 4 | Home Secretary at the outset treads carefully (4) |
| PADS – PAD (home), Secretary at the outset. | |
| 5 | Looker unwilling to don jacket of curious rags (10) |
| DISHCLOTHS – DISH (looker), LOTH to don the jacket [outside letters] of CuriouS. | |
| 6 | Was nosy parker not content with English in papers? (5) |
| PRIED – ParkeR + E in ID. | |
| 7 | Crew member considers missing hotel key (3,4) |
| OLD SALT – HOLDS (“considers”, missing H) + ALT (computer key). | |
| 8 | Drink six-pack, maybe followed by cool tea abroad (8) |
| ABSINTHE – ABS (sixpack, maybe) + IN (cool) + THE (“tea”, in French). | |
| 13 | How one may be held up heading for Almeida, putting on plays (2,8) |
| AT GUNPOINT – Almeida (heading for …) + anagram (plays) of PUTTING ON. | |
| 15 | Observes area toured by sea vessels (9) |
| MAINTAINS – A (area) toured by MAIN (sea) + TINS (vessels). | |
| 16 | A game revolutionary with support for Communist works (8) |
| AGITPROP – A + GIT (TIG, a playground game, revolutionary) + PROP. It’s a reference to Soviet era propaganda – read here. |
|
| 18 | Notion of time still coming first (7) |
| THOUGHT – THOUGH (still) + T. | |
| 19 | Start, as criminals may, to put up with rent skirts (3-4) |
| HOT-WIRE – HIRE (rent) goes outside (skirts) OT=TO, put up, + W (with). | |
| 20 | Monopolise source of energy drinks for army chief (6) |
| SHOGUN – SUN (source of energy) drinks HOG (monopolise). | |
| 22 | Top bishop’s eschewing contemptible person (5) |
| LOUSE – bLOUSE (top, eschewing B). | |
| 24 | Man, perhaps, I almost killed (4) |
| ISLE – I SLEw. | |
“I found this harder than recent Saturdays” You found it harder, Bruce?! At 2hrs and 52 seconds it beat my previous Sunday’s time of 98m53s as posibly the longest I’ve taken since I first started doing The Times Crosswords back in about 2002.
Thanks for UNINSPIRING. NHO the game TIG nor had I heard of HARD BOP.
6d was SPIED for a while iso PRIED but this was a really taxing puzzle.
I look forward to a slightly easier weekend!
Gold medal for perseverance!
Thank you, but I haven’t found this weekend’s puzzles any easier!
87 minutes over two sessions as I dozed off during the first one for lack of progress.
My unknowns were HARD BOP, HOBBES and FRICTION MATCH. I knew there were two types of match and I remember Bryant & May and Ship safety matches, but I don’t think the leading non-safety brand Swan Vestas used the term ‘friction matches’ to describe their product. Their strapline was ‘The Smoker’s Match’.
Frankly, I gave up after about 2/3rds completed. Just didn’t have the time to devote – always leaves a sour taste
Just looked back – 73:10 so obviously I also found it hard, but I seem to remember taking a couple of hours on the previous Sunday so not as hard as that one.
NHO HARD BOP, I can remember googling it to check it existed
Also FRICTION MATCH, I think I might have heard the phrase before, not sure
My LOI was OLD SALT
48:29
Mostly OK, though I’ve never heard of HARD BOP. Needed the Y of BILLY LIAR to see EPONYM, immediately seeing how it was relevant to both St Albans and Telford. Slowed down considerably with half-a-dozen left – AGITPROP was the key in providing the G for GO THROUGH WITH, which in turn, gave the H for HOT-WIRE. Last two in were SHOGUN and OLD SALT.
Thanks Branch and setter
I found it hard to get going on this one. PADS and BANGLADESHI (straight in from the D in PADS) went in first, but every time I solved a clue the new letters led nowhere and I had to leap around the grid looking for easier meat. I eventually figured out BILLY LIAR and turned my attention from Klein to HOBBES. RING OFF led to FRICTION MATCH and the HARD bit of 1a. GO THROUGH WITH took ages and I only parsed it post solve. HOT WIRE gave me the WITH. LOI was OLD SALT. 31:46. Thanks setter and Bruce.
107 minutes over several sittings. I found this really hard. BILLY LIAR, HARD BOP and OLD SALT were the last few. I got LIAR from “pork pie manufacturer” and remembered the novel but never parsed it. PRIED was also a mystery to me. Very pleased to finish though. Thanks branch.
Thank you for the blog, and the informative links to background information.
The Shropshire town Telford (11ac) appeared a few weeks ago in a Sunday Times clue.
Thanks to these puzzles I think I’ve finally understood why this 1960s “new town” in England (where I spent my early childhood) is named after a Scottish civil engineer whose most famous work was done in North Wales!
I see the local “Telford and Wrekin” council uses pictures of the famous Iron Bridge in its branding – it’s an important historical feature. However this was not done by Thomas Telford: indeed Wikipedia says he “observed that it was grossly over-designed for its function, and many of the component parts were poorly cast”.
Don’t seem to have found this as hard as some, nho hard bop but OK otherwise. Had heard of Hobbes but am considerably more familiar with Calvin & H.
Thomas Telford, on of the great engineers. Among his many works is the Loose viaduct a mile or two from my house here in Kent, built in 1830 and still carrying heavy A road traffic volumes, today.. it is listed, but not listing 🙂
I thought that NHO 1a Hard Bop was very obscure and cheated to confirm my guess. Added to Cheating Machine.
Absolutely had to cheat for 1d (Calvin and) Hobbes; as philosophers they are roughly contemporary but are otherwise totally unrelated. NHO the strip cartoon; it IS American so why would I? And these 2 intersect, adding to my woes.
Otherwise I agree it was a good Xword.
Hour and hours. This was so hard. Never heard of hard bop. Some clues seemed more complicated than they turned out to be. But phew I got there.
Well I didn’t “get there”! Had to cheat to even get started, then cheat some more …so a very unsatisfactory Saturday morning’s work for me: I only biffed 12 out of the 28, and that was with extensive help from the look-ups. Thought I had a handle on all things jazz, but have never heard of HARD BOP, and I was often misled on the definitions by very clever cluing! (Eg: “fan of black”, “light (yarn)”, “case” in 27a. So not surprised to see so few entries from the solvers – they may be in the minority this Saturday.
Frustrating that the setters seem to feel they must present a puzzle which becomes more and more obscure as each week goes by.There is little pleasure for me as an average solver when I am forced to cheat and even then do not know how the answer was determined.When I finally read the excellent blog I realise that my years of enjoying solving these puzzles is sadly coming to an end. The pleasure is fast disappearing sadly.
Sorry to hear it. Carry on as long as you enjoy it!