Times Cryptic 29064 – Saturday, 2 November 2024. Don’t talk like that!

1ac was a write-in. 15ac on the other hand went in with trepidation! Is that really a plant? Otherwise, all quiet on this crossword front. How did you 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 How Donald talks about not roaming the hills (9)
QUANTOCKS – QUACKS (how Donald Duck talks) about NTO (NOT, roaming).
They are hills in Somerset – more here.
6 Tall building with many owners apart from English (5)
SHARD – SHAReDapart from E (English).
For any who don’t know, it’s this building.
9 Where big lad can store his clothes? (7)
TALLBOY – small joke. I imagine short boys can use them too?
10 Confused chapter about the ear holding answer (7)
CHAOTIC – CH (chapter) + OTIC (about the ear) holding A.
11 Priest takes delight in this book of his (10)
REVELATION – REVELATION.
Last book of the New Testament.
12 Limitless tax crushes son (4)
VAST – VAT crushes S.
14 Guide I needed through storyline (5)
PILOT – I needed through PLOT.
15 In great pain I left plant (9)
TORMENTIL – TORMENT +L.
NHO. An unlikely looking plant, I thought!
16 Put an end to villain’s parting urge (9)
PROROGUED – ROGUE parting PROD.
The answer is in the past tense.
18 Exhausted as horrid noise almost doubled (3,2)
DID IN – DINDIN. One N disappears, because it’s “almost doubled”.
Again, past tense.
20 For party it’s serious when leader is deposed (4)
RAVEGRAVE.
21 Get to sit down too long? (10)
UNDERSTAND – ho ho.
25 Stuck in the past with a different circle (7)
AGROUNDAGO, changing O to ROUND (a different circle!).
26 Very bad style worn by Ron (7)
CHRONICRON wears CHIC.
27 Manipulate requirement that’s voiced (5)
KNEADwhen voiced, sounds like NEED.
28 Crazy rations with AA health farms (9)
SANATORIA – anagram, crazy: (RATIONS AA)
Down
1 Land in Iraq, at Ar-Rutbah (5)
QATAR – hidden.
NHO Ar-Rutbah. It is indeed in Iraq.
2 Like even an exam (2-5)
AS-LEVELAS (like) + LEVEL (even).
New to me, but my schooling was long ago and in another country.
3 Listing of forbidden language about love (10)
TABULATIONTABU (forbidden) + LATIN about O.
4 In burial site, weep and part (5)
CRYPTCRY + PT (part).
5 Helped to be made a fool of on the radio (9)
SUCCOUREDon the radio, sounds like SUCKERED.
6 Over-sleeps allotted time (4)
SPANNAPS over.
7 Draw a sort of racing driver group together at the start (7)
ATTRACTA (in the clue) + T.T. (Tourist Trophy – a sort of racing) + RAC (driver group) + T (Together, at the start).
8 Irish town briefly supporting year-end event (9)
DECATHLONDEC (December; year end) + ATHLONe, briefly.
13 Stupid jeer ruined witticism (3,7)
JEU D’ESPRIT – (ruined) anagram: (STUPID JEER).
14 Where one may find today’s crossword, or a collection of previous ones? (9)
PAPERBACK – I saw this as a cryptic hint (where in the paper to find the crossword), plus a definition that assumes crossword collections are unlikely to be in hardback.
15 Wrongly understood cut as another cut (9)
TOURNEDOS – anagram, wrongly, of “understood” shortened: (UNDERSTOO).
17 The side of the head (7)
OBVERSE – cryptic definition: “tails” is on the REVERSE, but you knew that!
19 Feature of kitchen artist captured in café (7)
DRAINERRA captured in DINER.
22 Cross, once raves about potential reformer (2-3)
EX-CON – anagram, raves: (X + ONCE). The utopian dream is, the ex-con will come out out of prison reformed, determined to stay on the straight and narrow from there on.
23 The retreat from Moscow? (5)
DACHA – cryptic definition.
24 Kitty adjudged to have nothing missing (4)
FUNDFOUND.

16 comments on “Times Cryptic 29064 – Saturday, 2 November 2024. Don’t talk like that!”

  1. I thought they were A-Levels and O-Levels. Have they changed in the last 50 years? It made 2d my last in with fingers crossed.

    1. I found this: AS Levels, formally known as Advanced Subsidiary Levels, are typically taken during the first year of sixth form (Year 12). These qualifications offer students an opportunity to delve deeper into their subjects, acting as a bridge between the broader curriculum of GCSEs and the specialised study of A levels.

      So yes, apparently the world has changed.

      1. There were also the older Advanced Supplementary (AS) Levels. I took O levels, a couple of AO (additional ordinary) levels, an AS level and A levels.

        P.S. I should have said, the old advanced supplementary level was approximately half an A level, which I believe is much the same as the later advanced subsidiary level.

  2. 57.53 WOE, SANITORIA. Count the vowels!

    I used to live on the QUANTOCKS side of Taunton so I had a quick start and most of the rest followed. TORMENTIL (NHO), OBVERSE, PROROGUED, AGROUND and the dimly remembered TOURNEDOS more than doubled my time. Thanks branch.

  3. I also found this hard and drifted off a few times during my first session. I eventually gave up for the night with 57 minutes on the clock and 6 answers missing, all in the NE segment. The following morning I needed 15 minutes to polish them off.

    I didn’t know AS-LEVEL, nor TORMENTIL although I note it has come up on a couple of previous occasions. I seem to have been under a misapprehension all my life that the last book of the New Testament is called the Book of Revelations or Revelations for short.

  4. 30.09 with a couple of typos

    The TORMENTIL/TOURNEDOS crosser held me up for a bit as well as getting the ‘grist wrong for the witticism. Quite tricky but fair enough for a Saturday.

    Thanks Bruce and setter

  5. DNF, relieved to find I’m in the same company as chabuduo with ‘Sanitoria’.

    – Relied on wordplay for the unknown TORMENTIL
    – Didn’t know TOURNEDOS or JEU D’ESPRIT so they were my best guesses based on the checkers
    – Took a very long time to consider that 16d might be in the past tense to get PROROGUED
    – Less familiar with the tabu (rather than taboo) spelling for TABULATION
    – No problem with AS-LEVEL as I took them myself

    Thanks branch and setter.

    COD Tallboy

  6. 36:15. Like others, I constructed the Unknown TORMENTIL from the wordplay. My children did AS-levels, so no difficulty there.
    PROROGUED brought back memories of a certain rogue avoiding losing a vote in parliament by getting the Queen to prorogue it.

    Thanks branch and setter

  7. 13d Had to look up NHO JeuD’Esprit, so DNF. The enumeration in the Times is predictable, but in case others don’t obey the same rules I have put this in the Cheating Machine twice, (3,7) and (3,1,6). One of these days I might look through all 31,600 entries seeing if any more need duplication. Or I might not.

    1. Contractions have been enumerated as one word in every crossword I’ve ever seen that has them.

  8. I found this very easy, in 28 minutes, except of course for the correct spelling of SANITORIA , and the anagrist would have reminded me of it!. Never heard of the QUANTOCKS, but the wordplay helped, and everything else was no problem. My daughter, when she was living in London, had a view of the SHARD through her window, so no problem with that. COD to 3dn’s “forbidden language”.

  9. NHO Quantocks, foolishly biffed Quontacks as sounding vaguely American, so totally in the wrong hemisphere. Wouldn’t have got as level anyway.
    Tormentor sounded a faint bell, from Tolkien I wondered? No it’s in the (Harry) Potterverse.

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