Mostly straightforward. I did have to look twice at the parsing of the musical. 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 | Concerned with getting eaten by being whole (8) |
| ENTIRETY – RE getting eaten by ENTITY. | |
| 5 | Look embarrassed with worry on returning (6) |
| GANDER – RED + NAG returning. | |
| 10 | Hurry and start cooking seafood (3,4,6,2) |
| GET ONE’S SKATES ON – cryptic hint. | |
| 11 | One studying words of Mass dedicated to the Virgin (10) |
| GRAMMARIAN – GRAM [mass] + MARIAN. | |
| 13 | Be very sure political obsessive’s coming back (4) |
| KNOW – WONK coming back. | |
| 15 | Note returning ship’s officer put uniform on? (5,2) |
| DRESS UP – D [note] + PUSSER [ship’s officer] returning. I was reluctant to believe that “pusser” was a real word, but it’s in Chambers and the Shorter Oxford, though not in Collins. |
|
| 17 | Covering past song (7) |
| OVERLAY – OVER + LAY. | |
| 18 | Now here’s one that has it at whichever point in history? (7) |
| WHERESO – a hidden answer I was far from sure of the meaning of the word, but the definition tells you; “in history” indicates it’s archaic. |
|
| 19 | Like cockpit display, audiovisual one with moving icon (7) |
| AVIONIC – A.V. [audiovisual] + I + ONIC (anagram, moving: ICON) | |
| 21 | King brooded over duty (4) |
| TASK – SAT over + K. | |
| 22 | Great struggle with department put years on academic (10) |
| ARMAGEDDON – ARM + AGED (as a verb) + DON. | |
| 25 | Queen set down outside a pioneering TV location (9,6) |
| ALEXANDRA PALACE – ALEXANDRA [Queen Alexandra was the consort of Edward VII ] + PLACE outside A. Crossword 26100 in May 2015 defined Alexandra Palace as “a broadcasting centre once”. Long memory, anyone? |
|
| 27 | Leave desolate (6) |
| DESERT – two meanings: as a verb, and as an adjective. | |
| 28 | Recurrent theme allowed to return as they do in Star Trek? (8) |
| TELEPORT – TROPE [recurrent theme] + LET [allowed], to return. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Promised another way of writing Old English? (7) |
| ENGAGED – ENG. [English] + AGED [old]. | |
| 2 | Add up to two, with nothing subtracted (3) |
| TOT – TO Two; W [with] + O [nothing] subtracted. | |
| 3 | Alarm, say, about upright pole for head of circus tent (10) |
| RINGMASTER – RINGER [alarm, say] about MAST. | |
| 4 | Electric weapon’s problem with energy escaping (5) |
| TASER – TeASER, with E [energy] escaping. | |
| 6 | Pretentious Lib Dems possibly missing out on power (4) |
| ARTY – pARTY. | |
| 7 | Unenthusiastic comment on fourth letter in italics? (11) |
| DISINCLINED – what the commentator would say, looking at the letter printed in italics, might be: “D [fourth letter] IS INCLINED”. Cute. |
|
| 8 | Airstrip accepting a flight (7) |
| RUNAWAY – RUNWAY accepting A. | |
| 9 | Musical Dylan Thomas uncovered, good for its year (8) |
| OKLAHOMA – dYLAn tHOMAs uncovered, with OK [good] replacing Y [year]. | |
| 12 | Modification of lasses’ genes producing eternal youth (11) |
| AGELESSNESS – anagram, modification: (LASSES GENES). | |
| 14 | Planned to return to prison, perhaps? (10) |
| DELIBERATE – DE-LIBERATE them, I say! | |
| 16 | Schoolmarm possibly introducing rubbish project (8) |
| PROTRUDE – PRUDE introducing ROT. Are schoolmarms really prudes? Perhaps metaphorically? |
|
| 18 | Newt lad disturbed here? (7) |
| WETLAND – anagram, disturbed: (NEWT LAD). | |
| 20 | Invention of piano replacing clavier ultimately in performance (7) |
| CONCEPT – another replacement: CONCERT, with P for piano replacing R from clavieR. | |
| 23 | Alert and with a keen eye for starters (5) |
| AWAKE – first letters (starters). | |
| 24 | Pleasing foxtrot tune (4) |
| FAIR – F [foxtrot, in the phonetic alphabet] + AIR. | |
| 26 | Fuss after radioactive gas is released from container (3) |
| ADO – rADOn, released from container. | |
31m 28s but I put WHERETO for 18ac, thus missing its obvious insertion into the clue.
Thanks, Bruce for DRESS UP (Never heard of PUSSER) and for OKLAHOMA.
A propos of nothing, a harbinger of the northern summer came late last evening when my mobile phone sent me pings to let me know that the cricket season has started in England. I got 3 pings in quick succession to tell me that my county, Sussex, had lost 3 quick wickets. But on waking up here in NZ, all was well. At close of play they were 386-5!
Point of Order, M’lud. The musical Oklahoma has an exclamation mark after the title. Don’t see that here. 😉🤔😁
Ditto for WHERETO. Also NHO PUSSER and had no idea where DRESS UP came from.
I saw PURSER as the ship’s officer and thought it might be anagramised somehow with a deleted R in DRESS UP . What the heck, in it goes, as nothing else seems to fit! Never heard of a pusser , and neither has my spell checker which seems keen on ‘ passer ‘. Thanks to our blogger for the enlightenment .
I particularly liked DISINCLINED and DELIBERATE.
23mins
My 23 minutes suggests this was easy for a Saturday but I missed some parsings.
MARIAN was one and PUSSER was another as I never heard of it. I see now that it’s in Chambers and Collins (despite the comment in the blog). The Oxfords don’t have it until you get up to the two-volume Shorter version. I also missed a couple of others that I’m sure would have come to me if I spent more time on them but I’d been delighted with an easy Saturday solve and decided to move on to something else.
Pusser’s Rum is a very famous (and old) brand of rum.
This felt fairly straightforward until the final 4 clues. I came here for the parsing of PROTRUDE. Im not sure prude would be my first or even last way to describe a schoolmarm. Took a while to register planned as an adjective. ARMAGEDDON was clever. I was able to guess the answer but did not know that version of PUSSER. Wondered for a minute if it were the ship’s cat.
I seem to recollect the adjective “schoolmarmish” being used to describe purse-lipped prudishness, though in an American rather than a British context.
Probably perfectly simple, but in 22ac I can’t see why arm = with department. (My guess is that no Times setter would use ‘with’ as a link-word, so presumably it’s not just arm = department.)
Business organisations consist of various arms or departments. POD has: arm – a branch or division of a company or organization e.g. the political arm of the separatist group.
Like most others, it seems, I hadn’t heard of pusser so DRESS UP went in with a shrug. No problems otherwise.
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Entirety
LOI Gander
COD Grammarian
18.29 with a typo
I assumed PUSSER was an alternative spelling of PURSER. Enough to only put it in and take it out once…
Managed to put in TASAR despite “checking” the answer. Cripes, to think I used to be a lawyer!
Nice puzzle and blog as always
Pusser is in Collins;
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/pusser
.. and a fine rum, as mentioned above
16a Dress Up. Pusser added to Cheating Machine (a bit reluctantly as I don’t think it’s a real word either but Wiktionary has it as naval slang so OK then.)
18a Whereso. I carelessly entered whereto as I know it is a word, and therefore OWL club for me. Whereso added to CM, but I’m inclined to think it is archaic as does Wiktionary so again a bit reluctant.
25a Ally Pally, I was vividly aware it was once a broadcasting centre. I was in CAMRA which held several Gt British Beer Festivals there, then it burnt down (again!) so we went elsewhere. Now rebuilt.
9d Oklahama, COD for involving the Welsh poet.
I am not a great fan of this week’s Saturday 29196.