A good puzzle to do over lunch, I found. My favourite was 9ac. How did you all do?
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 | Something pub may serve fraud investigator (6) |
| SCAMPI – SCAM + P.I. | |
| 5 | Humbug sweets (8) |
| COBBLERS – 2 meanings. | |
| 9 | Enterprise perhaps plays a leading role with it (8) |
| STARSHIP – STARS (plays a leading role) + HIP. A Star Trek reference. |
|
| 10 | Visibly upset, losing face in rebuke (6) |
| EARFUL – TEARFUL. | |
| 11 | What you might see in a drill case, not all at once (3,2,3) |
| BIT BY BIT – a cryptic hint, to do with drill bits. | |
| 12 | Comedy’s opening with deity one’s seen in Greek play (6) |
| CHORUS – Comedy + HORUS (Egyptian god). | |
| 13 | Making clothing line is irritating (8) |
| NETTLING – NETTING (making money) clothing L. My instinct was to biff NEEDLING. The helpers sorted that out. |
|
| 15 | Boss working hard to clear evidence of debts (4) |
| STUD – STUDious. | |
| 17 | Love foreign bread you reportedly put away (4) |
| EROS – EuROS. As so often, see “bread”, think “money”. |
|
| 19 | A theologian welcomes lead Anglicans in Lent (8) |
| ADVANCED – A + DD (Doctor of Divinity=theologian) welcomes VAN (lead) + C.E. | |
| 20 | One drug in prison in time for chilling? (3,3) |
| ICE AGE – I (one) + E in CAGE. | |
| 21 | Figure hosting company knocked back vermouth — it’s addictive stuff (8) |
| NICOTINE – NINE (figure) hosting CO (company) + TI (IT=vermouth, knocked back). | |
| 22 | Country wanting Yankee in charge, showing a certain inclination (6) |
| ITALIC – ITALY + I/C. | |
| 23 | Steak sandwiches mostly capital for one in the orchestra (8) |
| TROMBONE – T-BONE sandwiches ROME. | |
| 24 | Holder of a light fixture by area in theatre (8) |
| MATCHBOX – MATCH (fixture) + BOX (area in theatre). | |
| 25 | Consider fixing frame of lattice repaired at last? (6) |
| HEELED – HEED (consider) fixing LE (frame of LatticE). A cobbler’s last, of course. Ref 5ac. |
|
| Down | |
| 2 | Spooner’s heavy bird of prey in kerfuffle (8) |
| CATFIGHT – “FAT KITE”. Spoonerisms swap the sounds; the spelling may change en route! |
|
| 3 | Lacklustre guy entering bank (8) |
| MORIBUND – RIB entering MOUND. | |
| 4 | Settled soon astride horse of French revolutionary (9) |
| INHABITED – IN A BIT astride H + ED (revolutionary form of DE, French for “of”). | |
| 5 | Revenue for government head opposed to postponing a vote (7,5,3) |
| CAPITAL GAINS TAX – CAPITAL (head) + GAINSTA (AGAINST, with the “A” postponed) + X (vote, as marked on the ballot paper). | |
| 6 | Hold huge bra tight (4,3) |
| BEAR HUG – anagram (tight): HUGE BRA. | |
| 7 | One doing rough physical work, or fencer at work (8) |
| ENFORCER – anagram (at work): OR FENCER. | |
| 8 | Big stories of bands holding record up (8) |
| SPLASHES – SASHES holding LP up. | |
| 14 | Accessory for man reluctant to have drink cold at first (9) |
| NECKCLOTH – NECK (drink) + C (cold) + LOTH (reluctant). | |
| 15 | Funny sitcom about lives in an ancient school (8) |
| STOICISM – anagram (funny): SITCOM about IS (lives), producing STOIC(IS)M. | |
| 16 | Can’t rude jockeys perform with some restraint? (8) |
| UNDERACT – anagram (jockeys): CANT RUDE. | |
| 17 | Unpackaged beds and one item of furniture that can be adjusted (8) |
| EDITABLE – ED (unpackaged BEDS) + I + TABLE. | |
| 18 | Nerd can do wrong, with daughter going great guns (8) |
| ORDNANCE – anagram (wrong): NERD CAN DO, minus one of the Ds (daughter going). | |
| 19 | Agony aunt periodically has outburst about paper (7) |
| ANGUISH – AN (AUNT, periodically) + GUSH about I (the newspaper). | |
ORDNANCE: you need to drop one D from NERD CAN DO (daughter going).
Thanks.
I couldn’t make sense of NECKCLOTH, partly because I didn’t know NECK, but also, I now see, because my printout has “…to get hot drink at first”, no “cold”. I liked LOI HEELED (repaired at last).
My printout too! That was a mystery.
Yes, the version of 14dn that we had was:
Accessory for man reluctant to get hot drink at first
and that’s how it was published in the newspaper and online last Saturday. So three changes were apparently made subsequently:
‘get’ to ‘have’
‘hot’ to ‘cold’
and the order of words, ‘hot drink at first’ to ‘drink cold at first’ as the original simply didn’t work.
After getting a few in the NW, I biffed a wrong answer for bit by bit, having nothing to do with drills, which messed up a whole section of the puzzle. I also had trouble remembering the UK meaning of cobblers, although it was on the tip of my brain. I ended up struggling with ordnance, a word that has never looked correct to me – shouldn’t that be ordinance?
Time: 41 minutes
It looks like ordinance served for both legal and military meanings until the i was dropped for the latter in the 15th century.
29 minutes, so quite easy for a Saturday despite being baffled at the time over the parsing of NECKCLOTH.
14.13
Quick one for me. Only one I was bamboozled by was HEELED as I wanted “repaired at last” to be D preceded by LE as the frame. I never mind a biff and with H_ELED there werent a lot of options
Thanks setter and Bruce
44m 13s
Thanks to all for sorting out NECKCLOTH.
I did like SCAMPI but my favourite was 25ac HEELED “repaired at last”.
I took a bit longer, 43 minutes, which is on the hard side for a Saturday I would say.
As Martin above, I liked the HEELED clue.
17a I wasn’t sure that Eros=love, but I put it in anyway as far as I can remember.
5d CRT, I’m not sure I could parse this.
14a NHO Neckcloth AFAIK. Must have biffed it as I was working from the newspaper.
Just 20 minutes for this. Worthy of my Monday slot.
No major problems with this, though I confess that 6d had me barking up the wrong tree for a while – I thought ‘huge bra’ was giving DD at the end, or, once I got NETTLING, even GG… ahem. Eventually I remembered that ‘tight’ can be an anagram indicator and figured out BEAR HUG. The only other issue was with COBBLERS, as I’m not familiar with them as sweets, and with the parsing for CAPITAL GAINS TAX.
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Starship
LOI Cobblers
COD Heeled (love the ‘repaired at last’ trick)
Thank you for the comment about spelling changes in Spoonerisms (2d). I often doubt myself on that point. But of course I now see that these occur in the earliest examples:
“You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a whole worm.”