In a hectic week, this crossword was very enjoyable. Some clues needed work disentangling the wordplay! I didn’t remember the chemical element at 26ac, but eventually remembered the drug. How did you all find it?
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 | “Scandalous!”, fumes Hal, distraught (8) |
| SHAMEFUL – anagram: (FUMES HAL), distraught. | |
| 9 | A mafioso touring capitals coming across large resort (8) |
| ACAPULCO – nested inclusions: A CAPO (mafioso) touring U.C. (upper case) across L. | |
| 10 | Foreigners, not at first following locals (4) |
| INNS – FINNS. | |
| 11 | Settled, lives and works OK (12) |
| SATISFACTORY – SAT + IS + FACTORY. | |
| 13 | Countries coming together in defeat become exhausted (3,3) |
| RUN OUT – U.N. in ROUT. | |
| 14 | Another so-called “man” in need of flipping energy drink! (8) |
| NAMESAKE – NAM (MAN, flipping) + E + SAKE (Japanese alcoholic drink, made from rice) The quotes round “man” are just for the surface reading of the clue. |
|
| 15 | Result of inaccurate approach (7) |
| OUTCOME – OUT (inaccurate) + COME (approach). | |
| 16 | Face down in trailer in protective garment (7) |
| APRONED – PRONE in AD. | |
| 20 | Anticipated quartet being unfamiliar to audience (8) |
| FOREKNEW – to audience, sounds like FOUR NEW. It’s not a word you see often, but if you had foreknowledge, it could presumably be said that you foreknew! |
|
| 22 | To the French, all the same Republican cause? (6) |
| AUTHOR – AU (“to the”, in French) + THO’ (all the same) + R. | |
| 23 | CPGB regret a mix-up with a candidate from outside (12) |
| CARPETBAGGER – anagram: (CPGB REGRET A A), mixed up. A term often associated with the American south – see here. |
|
| 25 | Piece dug out by club recalled timeless old poet (4) |
| OVID – DIVOT, timeless, “recalled”. | |
| 26 | At A&E having ingested drug (8) |
| ASTATINE – AE having ingested STATIN. “At” is the chemical symbol for this element. |
|
| 27 | Goes back on right to return fare (8) |
| RETREATS – RE (on) + TR (RT, to return) + EATS (fare). | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Port’s house nothing outstanding? (8) |
| HONOLULU – HO (house) + NO LULU (nothing outstanding). “Lulu” is “outstanding”, as in “it’s a lulu”. |
|
| 3 | Change in objectives, since promise has been broken (7,5) |
| MISSION CREEP – anagram: (SINCE PROMISE), broken. | |
| 4 | Versatile employee, in truth corporation receiving nothing (8) |
| FACTOTUM – FACT (truth) + TUM receiving O. | |
| 5 | Dropping round with Carol (7) |
| LAPSING – LAP (as in, “a round of the park”) + SING. | |
| 6 | Greeting son in the manner of mother upset (6) |
| SALAAM – S + À LA + MA upset. | |
| 7 | Too wrapped up in Apollo’s launch (4) |
| ALSO – backward hidden (up, in) | |
| 8 | Religious leader seen in Welsh town (8) |
| HOLYHEAD – HOLY + HEAD. | |
| 12 | First sample maybe that’s hooked to second steroid (12) |
| TESTOSTERONE – TESTER ONE (first sample) including (hooking) TO S It seems unusual to call a sample a “tester”, but I guess it works. |
|
| 15 | Refuse to accept company no longer sanctioned (8) |
| OFFICIAL – OFFAL (refuse) to accept I.C.I. Imperial Chemical Industries was aken over in 2008, and the name disappeared. |
|
| 17 | Mournful, mean fellow (8) |
| PLANGENT – PLAN + GENT. | |
| 18 | Spirit driver away from Escort, one damaged by cracks (8) |
| EXORCIST – anagram: (ESCORT I), damaged, and cracked by X (by, as in multiplication). | |
| 19 | Top of tree was shaking (7) |
| SWEATER – anagram: (TREE WAS), shaking. | |
| 21 | Idiot can put up with losing footing (6) |
| NITWIT – TIN put up + WITH, losing footing. | |
| 24 | The luxury of having court documents read out (4) |
| RITZ – when read out, sounds like WRITS. | |
At 26A, the literal is “At” (the chemical symbol for Astatine), and the rest is wordplay. It is not a drug, and in fact barely exists at all since it decays so fast.
D’oh. Thanks. Updated.
27:22, but I used aids to get DNK HOLYHEAD. Never figured out how TESTOSTERONE & EXORCIST worked. DNK ASTATINE. At, He, As; are there others? I liked NAMESAKE.
I’m afraid to say after looking at the 119 known chemical elements there are quite a few more setters could use: Am, Be, Bi, Fi, Ho, In, Mo, Ne, No, Pa, Po, Ra, Re,Si, and Ta.
One shudders to think [shudder].
I knew Holyhead as the place where you catch the ferry to Dublin.
And you would want to. Anglesey is far from the most welcoming place in the world.
Or even in North Wales.
107 minutes. I found this very hard. I didn’t think I’d finish it but I came back to it on Wednesday evening and last three AUTHOR, EXORCIST and RETREATS went straight in. I didn’t know what was going on with any of them or ACAPULCO, and I’d NHO ASTATINE. Thanks branch for many explanations.
Fortunately, I’d seen the astatine trick before – along with as and he. For an American, carpetbagger should be practically a write-in, and most of the other long ones were not too difficult either. I was left with testosterone at the end, but fortunately consonant crossers can be very suggestive.
Time: 31:24
They’d have to be As and He. CARPETBAGGER was indeed a write-in, although our meaning is different from the clue (UK) meaning.
70 minutes of mostly hard slog but I got there albeit with several unparsed e.g. TESTOSTERONE. Not helped by having biffed FORECST 20ac which slowed up solving NITWIT and SWEATER.
Approx 51mins but I was unable to access the puzzle through the Crossword Club site. This seems to have been a problem encountered by other people this past week.
Also I didn’t particularly care for ‘fare’ = EATS in RETREATS, nor TESTER ONE in TESTOSTERONE; also I have never ever come across the sense of LULU needed in HONOLULU.
On the other hand I was reminded by 4d that Charles Aznavour was once general FACTOTUM for Edith Piaf. And it gave me the excuse to play my favourite and utterly delightful flash mob video on YouTube, the Largo al Factotum aria from ‘The Barber of Seville’.
Thanks, Bruce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB_pZmmyTiE
Surprised you didn’t recognize LULU, Martin; you’re old enough, but maybe it was confined to North America. Mind you, it was already square enough that I would never have used it.
Sorry, Kevin. That one passed me by!
I read somewhere that this was a Richard Rogan puzzle, brought out for the occasion of the Championship, which in retrospect makes sense. It was very tricky – each clue had to be teased out – there were hardly any ‘givens’. FOI was 1a, last was 8d, after the E went in, giving me _HEAD and I realised that of course I knew of the town (though a MER at religious = HOLY – history indicates quite the reverse!). I failed to parse TESTOSTERONE, one of my few ‘bifs’, or RETREATS. However, all those I did parse were really excellent clues and well worth the time spent on solving them. Too many to mention, but my COD goes to ACAPULCO.
Small point in an otherwise excellent blog: in 22dn ‘au’ is French for ‘to the’, not just ‘to’.
Voila! Merci.
DNF. 26a Astatine; didn’t recognise the symbol At and DNK the element. Feel rather foolish as I was cheating by then and didn’t spot it nor Statin inside. An unusual element!
2d Honolulu NHO Lulu in that sense AFAIK, but not hard to get.
I seem to be getting panicked lately by my LOIs. Beaten by ACAPULCO. I had the other famous resort AMARILLO. It doesn’t parse (although I was encouraged by the thought that MARIO might be a Mafioso) but it fits superbly. Still a good crossword
DNF, defeated by NAMESAKE (failed to separate ‘energy’ and ‘drink), TESTOSTERONE and possibly RETREATS (can’t remember now and didn’t keep a record). Also didn’t understand the ‘lulu’ part of HONOLULU and didn’t know that meaning of CARPETBAGGER – though come to think of it, I’m not sure I could have told you any other meaning of it.
Thanks branch and setter.
COD Astatine
Started off at a canter, with the NW filled in straight off: SHAMEFUL, HONOLULU, FACTOTUM, INNS , RUN OUT and SATISFACTORY ; but then alas my luck ran out and I had to slog my way through much of the rest, with RETREAT, ASTARTINE (NHO) and APRONED still outstanding. No problem with TESTOSTERONE (except in real life!) and I particularly liked NAMESAKE, SALAAM and MISSION CREEP, which despite NHO, made sense.