It’s fair to say that I ground through this. That’s not to say it was hard, but there were no leaps of inspiration for me. How about you?
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 | Match day kit? (7,5) |
| WEDDING DRESS – cryptic definition. See “match”, think “marriage”. | |
| 9 | Steel scratching face of John Hurt (5) |
| INURE – INjURE, scratching J. | |
| 10 | Penetrating entrance at the back of empty tower (9) |
| TRENCHANT – TR (empty ToweR) + ENCHANT (to entrance). | |
| 11 | Is a tusk regularly filled with strange bulges at the front? (8) |
| SALIENTS – STS (iS a TuSk, regularly) filled with ALIEN. DNK “salient” as an architectural term. It can also be a defensive projection in a military fortification. |
|
| 12 | Wham! wholly absorbed by western piece of music (6) |
| WALLOP – ALL (wholly) absorbed by W + OP. | |
| 13 | Chill current drink quickly (4,4) |
| WIND DOWN – WIND (current) + DOWN. The definition is a verb. | |
| 15 | Event with medium coverage vacuously introduced by Mr Bean on TV (6) |
| SEANCE – CE (CoveragE, vacuously), introduced by SEAN. (Sean Bean is an English actor. Nothing to do with the Rowan Atkinson character.) | |
| 17 | Logical businessman needing a break? (6) |
| COGENT – CO + GENT. The break is the space between “business” and “man”. | |
| 18 | Irrational guards love standing in front of banks in French town (8) |
| POITIERS – PI (an irrational number) guards O (love) + TIERS (banks). Rene Descartes went to Poitiers University! |
|
| 20 | Remark’s caught you shouldn’t have to write down (6) |
| NOTATE – TA (thanks, you shouldn’t have!) caught by NOTE. | |
| 21 | Deeply unhappy with minute quantity of ashes? (8) |
| MOURNFUL – MO (minute – “I’ll be there in a mo”) + URNFUL (ho ho). | |
| 24 | Taking up arms — gun before it recoils in long shot (9) |
| REVOLTING – REV (gun – an engine) + TI (IT, recoils) in OLNG (anagram, shot, of LONG). | |
| 25 | Report of East End gangsters in Vogue (5) |
| CRAZE – sounds like (report of) KRAYS – see here. | |
| 26 | My fault about hotel with dirty room limiting yearly turnover (7,5) |
| CORNISH PASTY – COR (my!) + NIS (SIN=fault, about) + H + STY (dirty room), limiting P.A. (yearly). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Happening to stop wife saying something cutting (7) |
| WHIPSAW – W (wife) + HIP (“happening”, as the hippies might have said) + SAW (adage). | |
| 2 | Spitting Image, say, boring local, possibly not unexpectedly (6,8) |
| DOUBLE NEGATIVE – DOUBLE (spitting image) + E.G. boring NATIVE (local). A definition by example. |
|
| 3 | One parched runner near Grenoble (5) |
| ISERE – I (one) + SERE (parched; often spelled “sear”). I had no idea of this river (definitely not my part of the world!), and rather than waiting for the helpers to make a guess, I looked it up. |
|
| 4 | Dress-wearing friend of Dorothy is to behave extravagantly (2,2,4) |
| GO TO TOWN – TOTO (we’re not in Kansas any more!) wearing GOWN. | |
| 5 | Drug swallowed by official in bar, in the main (4) |
| REEF – E swallowed by REF. | |
| 6 | Confirmation perhaps dispatched, packaging ace stuff (9) |
| SACRAMENT – SENT (dispatched), packaging A + CRAM. | |
| 7 | Concerns after dodgy lad and a felon get no hearing (4,2,4,4) |
| FALL ON DEAF EARS – FEARS after FALL ON DEA (anagram, dodgy, of LAD+A+FELON). | |
| 8 | Basic, poorly spelt article intrudes (6) |
| STAPLE – A intrudes on STPLE (anagram, poorly, of SPELT). | |
| 14 | Renaissance man’s gift — spinning toy, but not top (9) |
| DONATELLO – DONATE (to gift) + LLO (topless DOLL, spinning). | |
| 16 | Remark when leaving base with no cover provided (2,4,2) |
| SO LONG AS – SO LONG (remark when leaving) + AS (BASE, with no cover). | |
| 17 | In Washington, dismiss publicity about Republican’s fake news item (6) |
| CANARD – CAN (dismiss, in America) + AD about R. | |
| 19 | A lot of lustrous fabric, so shiny (7) |
| SILVERY – SILK (a lot of a lustrous fabric)+ VERY (so). | |
| 22 | Poor grade omitted from MP’s résumé (5) |
| RECAP – REDCAP, with the D grade omitted. It took a while to remember that Military Police are Redcaps. |
|
| 23 | Bearing north-east? This person’s heading north (4) |
| MIEN – N-E + I’M, all backwards (north, in this down clue). | |
I finished this over lunch, so don’t have a time, but it probably took a while. I never parsed RECAP–forgot totally the other MP–and DOUBLE NEGATIVE. A SALIENT is also, as the definition suggests, a bulge in a front line, as in the Ypres salient in WWI.
64 minutes but with two look-ups of words I never heard of: ISERE and SALIENTS. The RH side had been dead easy but having completed that I struggled with much of the rest of it before deciding enough was enough.
A tricky crossword, at least for me. However, I did surmise that the runner near Grenoble might relate to the Isere of Val d’Isere.
87 minutes. This was all fair with no unknowns but I found it hard. SALIENTS, ISERE, SILVERY and POITIERS held me up at the end. Thanks branch.
I don’t take note of my solving time for the Saturday Cryptic, but I remember enjoying the puzzle.
30.27
Thinking cap needed for SALIENTS and ISERE but I did know the military meaning of the former and the latter rang a bell – probably from the ski resort as Mr M comments.
Good crossword
Thanks setter and Bruce for the excellent blog as always
DNF, defeated by ISERE where I’d never heard of sere=parched.
– Didn’t know about the architectural meaning of SALIENTS, and the definition points towards the military meaning
– Had no idea what was going on with RECAP at all – MP=military police, is something I need to remember, along with the fact that they’re known as Redcaps
– Nearly biffed ‘as long as’ before getting the wordplay for SO LONG AS
Thanks branch and setter.
COD Fall on deaf ears
My FOI was 13A, where I gaily filled in COOL DOWN – ‘cool’ being a synonym for ‘current’ as in ‘trendy’ or ‘in’, and the whole fitting the definition, ‘chill’. It then took me a very long time to work out why I was so stuck on the top left corner, until it dawned on me that 1D had to end in ‘w’. Very annoying.
I agree with the general opinion that this was a bit of a slog – I just wasn’t on the setter’s wavelength. It took me three separate, increasingly grumpy, sessions to complete, with 19D my LOI.
17d Canard, DNK that meaning. Looked it up, so cheated and DNF.
22d Re(D)cap. I thought the Military Police were white caps, snowdrops, but realise those are American ones.
I agree, a bit of a slog, but I’ll forgive it for the 7d “deaf ears” rigmarole.
Been a while since I’d seen the Krays, of whom I learned only thru these puzzles, so was happy to remember that. Was locked into this setter’s frequency.
DNF, obviously, but enjoyed what I could do. Thanks for doing all the hard work branch – much appreciated. Needed help with several answers (INURE, SALIENTS, WHIPSAW) and the parsing of CORNISH PASTY. I did know redcaps. Liked MOURNFUL very much.
Way above my current level but I’ll keep practicing! Thanks all.
I enjoyed this one.
I didn’t know about SALIENTS, but Wikipedia has a comprehensive article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salient_(military)
that gives examples from the American Civil War to the Bangladesh War of Independence, including several maps showing “bulges at the front”.
The carnage at Ypres clearly made such a big impression that in a 1932 novel, Dorothy L Sayers could have Lord Peter Wimsey saying:
“There were no sons to carry on — the only young Endicott was killed in the Salient, poor chap.”
…and know that her readers would understand.
Also, I’d hadn’t appreciated that the “Ardennes Salient” in the line at the end of 1944, was the “bulge” in the Battle of the Bulge.
I knew about REDCAP from TV dramas. In the mid-1960s, John Thaw had his first leading role in the ITV series “Redcap”, solving crimes that took place in the army. In the early 2000s, BBC 1 had “Red Cap” (now two words), as a vehicle for the ex-EastEnders actress Tamzin Outhwaite, that covered similar ground.
This was, like Branch says, a bit of a slog, but worth it in the end for a successful finish. There were no unknowns except WHIPSAW, which came to us in the end through parsing – HIP – ‘happening’, really? A bit 1960s… I liked CORNISH PASTY for its delightfully misleading surface and 7d’s partial anagram. Also 2d, the definition of which held me up for ages and made me think of Private Eye’s ‘Diary of John Major, aged 47 1/2’, which was stuffed with double negatives, and hilarious.
Didn’t finish. Didn’t know canard or can meaning dismiss. Thought notate but couldn’t workout why and clue for inure. also stumped me. Liked Cornish pasty when I finally worked it out. Thanks for the blog
I haven’t commented for quite some time as after a fairly decent run, I’ve generally failed to finish the Saturday and Sunday puzzles over the last several months. Is it just me or have they become harder? It tends to be the same few successful finishers who comment each week, and I’m curious about the silent majority. Are we all toiling away, often quite bewildered, not quite making the pieces fit? Or do most folk finish but just prefer to keep it to themselves?
Prize crosswords always have much lower blog activity. You have to remember to come back one or two weeks later, and then have forgotten all about it. Online solvers, like me, can even be presented with a blank grid, the app doesn’t always save them for that long.
Beaten by ISERE which I would never have got. Not sure the clue is particularly fair- sere for parched- really?
Not posted here before as I only just found this site. I enjoyed this one but found it harder than usual. I’m still getting my head around the recent change by the Times that people mentioned no longer have to be dead, hence Sean Bean didn’t come to me for a while. I didn’t know “canard” or “salient” (in this context) but was able to figure out from wordplay. That’s why I like cryptic crosswords.
Welcome,Andy!
I found this enjoyably challenging. Had to cheat to get SALIENTS. Then I had a penny-drop moment with ISERE, which completed the puzzle. The “friend of Dorothy” clue is brilliant!
Re 3D (ISERE): “sere” is an adjective; “sear” is a verb.