… and all of that in just one clue! I loved 18ac – my COD once I found out what the key word meant! The rest was regular Saturday fare 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 | Italians disguised origins (7) |
SIGNORI – anagram, disguised: (ORIGINS). | |
5 | Cross feline with clipped claw (7) |
CATTALO – CAT+ TALON, clipped. I knew BEEFALO but NHO CATTALO. One source says: cattalo = colloquial name for any cross between cows and buffalo; beefalo = exactly 3/8 buffalo and 5/8 cattle. |
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9 | Half of planet remains in this (3) |
URN – half [the letters] of URANUS. Unusual to keep random letters! On edit: oops! Peter W’s suggestion below is much better – |
|
10 | One with artificial tongue is at present struggling (11) |
ESPERANTIST – anagram, struggling: (IS AT PRESENT). One who speaks Esperanto. |
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11 | Brutal pair of boozers in charge (8) |
BARBARIC – BAR + BAR + I/C. | |
12 | Fled, circled by spooks and skulls (6) |
CRANIA – RAN circled by CIA. | |
15 | Cycling, saddle causes worry (4) |
EATS – SEAT, with the S cycling from front to back. | |
16 | Concealment of a mountain sheep, bouncing about in enclosure (10) |
CAMOUFLAGE – MOUFLON, bouncing ON=about, in CAGE. I biffed the answer. A mouflon, I learned, is a wild sheep native to the Caspian region. |
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18 | Song that’s “Jaggery”? (5,5) |
BROWN SUGAR – looking at the crossing letters, I biffed this answer too. It’s the title of a song (by the Rolling Stones, with Mick Jagger as lead singer and main writer). So, I took “song” as the definition.
Depending whether you’re prepared to accept “Jaggery” as an adjective describing Mick, you might take the whole clue as definition too, or just a cryptic hint. But, I didn’t realise how clever the clue was, until I discovered jaggery is literally a brown sugar! JAGGERY: a traditional non-centrifugal cane sugar consumed in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, North America, Central America, Brazil and Africa. It is a concentrated product of cane juice and often date or palm sap, and can vary from golden brown to dark brown in colour. Anyway, far and away my clue of the day. |
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19 | Benefits of public transport initially overlooked (4) |
USES – BUSES, initially overlooked. | |
22 | It starts to trouble every task group (6) |
SEXTET – SEX (“it”, in the vocab of Times crosswords) + Trouble + Every + Task. | |
23 | Bloodthirsty guards suspended fast (2,6) |
GO HUNGRY – GORY guards HUNG. | |
25 | Bigwigs exploited a rising tide (11) |
DIGNITARIES – anagram, exploited: (A RISING TIDE). | |
27 | Tiny slug (3) |
TOT – double definition. Tinies meaning small children is in Chambers, rather to my surprise. | |
28 | Blub, spew endlessly, and sleep it off? (5,2) |
SOBER UP – SOB + ERUPT, endlessly. | |
29 | Male, rather old ultimately for a swordsman (7) |
MATADOR – M + A TAD + O + FOR, ultimately. |
Down | |
1 | Disorder led by leader of school trip (7) |
STUMBLE – S (leader of SCHOOL) + TUMBLE (disorder, verb). | |
2 | Exonerating unruly peer group (10,1) |
GENERATION X – anagram, unruly: (EXONERATING). | |
3 | I reportedly consider being single (3-3) |
ONE-WAY – ONE (I) + WAY (sounds like “weigh”). | |
4 | Naughty child on edge with limitless adult approval (10) |
IMPRIMATUR – IMP + RIM + MATURE, limitless. A word I know but would never use. |
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5 | Bad egg with English kipper? (4) |
CURE – CUR (he’s a bad egg!) + E. I knew of kippers as food, but didn’t realise you make them by “kippering” (also called “curing”)! |
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6 | Youngster dropping an E on teeming Spanish island (8) |
TENERIFE – TENE (TEEN, dropping one of the Es to the end) + RIFE. | |
7 | Boxer appearing in tabloid periodically (3) |
ALI – even letters of TABLOID. | |
8 | Oxford University fails to escape disasters and scandal (7) |
OUTRAGE – obviously O.U. (Oxford University). Much less obviously, add TRAGE (TRAGEDIES = disasters, with DIES to escape). | |
13 | Spooner’s prophet dubbed “purblind” (4-7) |
NEAR-SIGHTED – do the Spooner thing to the leading sounds of SEER KNIGHTED. | |
14 | Stay silent about speaker and writer (10) |
MORATORIUM – MUM about ORATOR + I. | |
17 | Provoked near riot at the front (8) |
ANTERIOR – anagram, provoked: (NEAR RIOT). | |
18 | What’s more or less popular music, full of energy (7) |
BESIDES – B-SIDES (the sides of single records expected to be less popular than the A-SIDES), full of E. | |
20 | Some dismiss hysterical pettifogger (7) |
SHYSTER – hiddden (some) in dismisS HYSTERical. | |
21 | Evening star located (6) |
SUNSET – SUN + SET. | |
24 | Sharp intake of breath when pinched by doctor (4) |
GASP – AS pinched by GP. | |
26 | Rock is large, seen from below (3) |
GIB – BIG backwards (seen from below, in this down clue). |
I swear I didn’t see your blog title before coming up with mine!
And it’s almost Christmas too!
I’d thought the planet in 9ac was satURN (the second “half”: keeping the letters together).
Thanks for the blog: I’d missed the meaning of jaggery – very good!
Took me ages to find the mountain sheep.
Used to hearing tinies in plural : “entertainment for (the) tinies” etc – not the singular.
26d: Gib, short for “Gibraltar”: “The Rock”.
39 minutes. I didn’t know what jaggery was but Mick and the checkers got me there. I now find I’ve eaten it but the vendor called it something different. NHO CATTALO. ONE-WAY took five minutes at the end. GIB baffled me until I read Peter’s comment. Thanks branch.
20:08
NHO jaggery, NHO mouflon, so those clues were wasted on me. NHO CATTALO. I liked OUTRAGE and BESIDES.
I thought this was a very well-clued puzzle, and I solved it in a reasonable time. I did suspect jaggery was some sort of brown sugar, but was too lazy to check. I had to biff camouflage, but mouflon is likely to come up in Mephisto – doesn’t look like it has yet.
Time: 33:30
I gave up at 60 minutes and revealed CAMOUFLAGE. I needed help from wordplay for that one, but none was forthcoming as I didn’t know the sheep.
I had no idea how BROWN SUGAR worked as I NHO the song nor the sugar, but it fitted the checkers so in it went with reluctance.
I also didn’t get the parsing of OUTRAGE although it had been easy enough to biff.
27:20
I thought Jaggery was one of the best clues I have ever seen.
I have heard of Mouflons, but NHO CATELLO.
Thanks branch and setter
– CATTALO went in with fingers crossed
– Had no idea how CAMOUFLAGE worked – ‘bounce’ meaning to remove is worth remembering
– Didn’t know jaggery as a type of BROWN SUGAR
– Not familiar with kipper as a verb for CURE
– Couldn’t parse OUTRAGE
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Ali
LOI Sunset
COD Moratorium
Slightly tricky one with NHO CATTALO. NHO jaggery either, but a quick check of the word after the clue was solved confirmed it an excellent one! Also liked MATADOR and BESIDES. I was a bit foxed by 14d, where I couldn’t justify the I, until realising it was ‘writer’. I also failed to parse OUTRAGE, so thanks, Branch, for that explanation.
I got Brown Sugar simply by it being a Stones song, had no idea jaggery was a kind of sugar. Very good!
Finished in 31 minutes
19.12
Excellent crossword though the jaggery thing was wasted on me
9a Urn; I was a URaNus as well!
10a Esperantist; doesn’t look like a word, but….
16a Camouflage, NHO Mouflon. HHO Mouton, so it seemed possible. Apparently endemic to Sardinia & Corsica. Why don’t those two have a common name like say the Balearics?
18a Brown S. I’m glad I cheated on this as NHO jaggery, so the brilliance would have been lost on me.
8d Outrage. I was a bit worried about this, but the improbable parsing is right it would seem.
Off to a flying start with this one: SIGNORI FOI, followed by a gamble on CATTALO (had to be). Top half went in quite smoothly, despite weird words like ESPERANTIST, missed the full genius of the jaggery clue (surely a Mephisto candidate ?), but my big stumbling-block was the simple ONE WAY, for which I had ONE MAN , for no apparent reason. Didn’t understand GIB, really liked MORATORIUM and CAMOUFLAGE ( tho’ NHO mouflons). Good workout for me, and a satisfying result.
DNK cattalo, neither does the spellchecker, but it had to be.
Esperantist is a clumsy word, and for some reason matador took a while.
So much to like in this puzzle, but COD 18ac, for the double meaning of jaggery.
Thank you setter and blogger.