This went quickly except for my LOI, 12ac, which rather stumped me. How did you 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 | Conversationalist passes to and fro, skipping tour (10) |
COLLOCUTOR – COL (pass) + LOC (pass, backwards) + UTOR (anagram, skipping, of TOUR). | |
6 | Remain tender and close to wife (4) |
BIDE – BID (tender) + E (wifE). | |
8 | Drive four took after appropriate safety check (8) |
MOTIVATE – MOT (safety check, appropriate to driving) + IV (four) + ATE (took). | |
9 | Men have fun holding nothing back (6) |
TROOPS – SPORT (have fun) holding O, all back. | |
10 | Some land used for religious purposes out of bounds (4) |
ACRE – sACREd. | |
11 | Grazing animals on accessible land sounded appropriate (10) |
COMMANDEER – COMMAN (COMMON, sounded) + DEER. | |
12 | Where Muslims legislate, does Buddhist sin? (9) |
ISLAMABAD – Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan, so Muslims (plus non-Muslims, but mostly Muslims of course) are members of the legislature there. Wordplay is: IS LAMA (Buddhist) BAD? I just couldn’t see it. I didn’t really expect a definition by example, although I see there is a question mark on the clue. | |
14 | Leave sons to prepare for exams (5) |
SCRAM – S (sons) + CRAM. | |
17 | Charlie in optimism brought round big date (5) |
EPOCH – C in HOPE, brought round. | |
19 | Notice change coming across old queen’s foe (9) |
ADVERSARY – AD + VARY coming across ER’S. | |
22 | Unromantic place upsetting for denizen (6,4) |
FRIEND ZONE – anagram, upsetting: (FOR DENIZEN). | |
23 | Mould turned inside out functions (4) |
ACTS – CAST, “inside out“. | |
24 | Trainee never gripping tool (6) |
NOVICE – NO + VICE. | |
25 | Design the new hotel with the shape of an egg (8) |
INNOVATE – INN + OVATE. | |
26 | Go on for the finale (4) |
LAST – two definitions. | |
27 | Stage warm and later cold during test (10) |
THEATRICAL – HEAT + (separately) C, during TRIAL. |
Down | |
1 | Pisa bar is between two rivers — one tips there (9) |
CAMPANILE – CAM (a river) + PA (PisA, bar [excluding] “is”) + NILE (the other river). The Leaning Tower is, as the clue suggests, a campanile. Neat clue. |
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2 | In due course answer line on the side (7) |
LATERAL – LATER (in due course) + A + L. | |
3 | Cleaner company fully reduced wood burned for fuel (8) |
CHARCOAL – CHAR + CO + ALL (fully, reduced). | |
4 | Road movie all the same — duo in convertible (6,3,6) |
THELMA AND LOUISE – hardly necessary to check, it’s an anagram (convertible): (ALL THE SAME DUO IN). And of course, “duo in convertible” is exactly what you’ll see in the movie! |
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5 | Cheers after snitch finally given cane (6) |
RATTAN – RAT (snitch) + TA (cheers) + giveN. | |
6 | American sticks gift boxes in court (9) |
BOONDOCKS – BOON (gift) + DOCKS (boxes in criminal courts). | |
7 | Taxonomist’s flies come down, time after time (7) |
DIPTERA – DIP (come down) + T + ERA. | |
13 | Seeker of eternal life St Michael converted (9) |
ALCHEMIST – anagram, converted: (ST MICHAEL). Alchemists were seeking the elixir of life, as well as trying to turn base metals into gold. Ambitious! |
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15 | Old Americans get fatter — why not? (3,2,4) |
MAY AS WELL – MAYA + SWELL. | |
16 | Seed leaving red stain spoiled blue tent (5,3) |
BETEL NUT – anagram, spoiled: (BLUE TENT) | |
18 | Enter theatre from below a leafy canopy (7) |
PERGOLA – reverse, from below, LOG (enter) REP (theatre). Add A (from the clue). | |
20 | Now little-used part of foot has itch regularly (7) |
ARCHAIC – ARCH + hAs ItCh regularly. | |
21 | Mad, not opening outlet in the run up to Christmas (6) |
ADVENT – mAD + VENT. |
25:30
DNK COLLOCUTOR, FRIEND ZONE. I biffed CAMPANILE, only parsed it post-submission, but it gets my COD.
42 minutes but DNF because I was unable to work out BOONDOCKS which I see has come up 4 or 5 times over the years, most recently in 2020 clued as ‘sticks in America’.
NHO FRIEND ZONE but had no problem constructing it from anagrist.
I loved this one but mucked it up by putting in RATAAN (which is how I thought it was spelt) for 5d, despite the anagram fodder being clear. Lots of highlights including the IS LAMA BAD wordplay, the ‘American sticks’ def for BOONDOCKS, the misleading ‘Pisa bar is’ part of the wordplay for 1d and best of all the THELMA AND LOUISE surface. Learnt a few new words/terms in COLLOCUTOR and FRIEND ZONE along the way as a bonus.
Best of the week, despite the DNF.
Thanks to branch and setter
As has been mentioned before it is a pity we have to wait a week.
Midday and so far just three comments on the actual puzzle…
84 minutes WOE. This was mostly fine but the last few in the NE and NW corners more than doubled my time. I finished with an implausible parsing of 1d producing an unlikely word. When I saw the pink squares (it was Thursday) CAMPANILE became obvious and I belatedly understood “Pisa bar is”. It was a nice clue. Thanks branch.
Had to cheat for NHO Thelma & Louise, Collocutor. Biffed Islamabad, thanks for the parsing. NHO (or had forgotten) Friend Zone. Wiki said it came from Friends TV show. Oh well? Rattan not at the top of my list of canes. Otherwise reasonably accessible…. Or not.
But I did enjoy the Leaning Campanile of Pisa.
Nice range of topics covered in this puzzle.
Interesting to learn what else ALCHEMISTs were up to, and the effects of the BETEL NUT.
I’d wondered about s = sons (plural, rather than singular) in 14ac. But, I see this has come up here before (and frequently on fifteensquared). Collins only has s = son. But Chambers and ODE have both singular and plural:
(in genealogies) son(s):
‘m 1991; one s one d’
DNF, defeated by BETEL NUT. Clearly I didn’t spot that it was an anagram despite it being fairly clear, and I bunged in a hopeless REBEL NUT instead.
– Hadn’t come across COLLOCUTOR before but figured it out from wordplay
– Didn’t know that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is a CAMPANILE but the checkers got me there
– Had heard of BOONDOCKS without knowing that it means sticks as in ‘out in the sticks’
– Likewise couldn’t have told you what RATTAN is
Thanks branch and setter.
COD Thelma and Louise
Busy yesterday and so late, but this was a cracker, with some great PDMs. Loved CAMPANILE – so clever. A large number were worked out from the cryptic, being un- or barely known – COLLOCUTOR, DIPTERA, FRIEND ZONE (?!) – which fulfills the criteria of producing a successful solve while discovering new vocabulary. I failed to parse ADVERSARY, so thanks for the blog, Branch and a good challenge from the setter.
Many thanks for the blog which I checked copiously throughout. Would have struggled to get CAMPANILE and COLLOCUTOR although both are fairly clued. DIPTERA was also new to me, as was the never-to-be-forgotten BOONDOCKS. Liked COMMANDEER 😄 Another day of learning – how good is that!