I found this fun. Some of the clues had elusive definitions, others had elusive wordplay. But, one way or the other, everything was gettable. 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. Wordplay instructions copied from the clues are in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Tango to repeat incorporating new music genre (6) |
| TECHNO – T [Tango, in the phonetic alphabet] + ECHO [repeat] incorporating N. | |
| 5 | Feature of geometry exercise books: endless suffering! (8) |
| PENTAGON – P.E. + N.T. + AGONY (endless). | |
| 9 | Fuss I disapprove of that detains colleague hours (8) |
| BALLYHOO – BOO [I disapprove of that] detains ALLY + H. | |
| 10 | After change of tone doctor shut up finally (6) |
| ENTOMB – anagram (change of): (TONE) + MB. | |
| 11 | Help Bill to leave Cheltenham? (8) |
| RECOURSE – AC to leave RACECOURSE. | |
| 12 | Gives out tips on economical fuel (6) |
| DIESEL – DIES [gives out] + EL [tips on EconomicaL]. | |
| 13 | After reflecting hard, tweet some sudden revelation (8) |
| EPIPHANY – EPIPH [H + PIPE, reflecting] + ANY [some]. | |
| 15 | Blamed by the head, ultimately that’s not, naturally, fair? (4) |
| DYED – last letters (ultimately) of each word, as above. | |
| 17 | Influence for one needing to carry weight (4) |
| SWAY – SAY [for one] needing to carry W. | |
| 19 | Table again starts to inconvenience residents and must be moved (8) |
| RESUBMIT – anagram (moved): (I R MUST BE). The I and R are starts to Inconvenience Residents. “Table again” in the sense of “raise the motion again”. As we saw recently, “table a motion” has opposite meanings in the UK and the US. |
|
| 20 | Observe Yankee grabbing attention not far away (6) |
| NEARBY – N.B. [observe] + Y [Yankee, in the phonetic alphabet] grabbing EAR [attention: “friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your …”]. | |
| 21 | Musicians attempt to have one arrested for piracy? (8) |
| BANDITRY – BAND + TRY to have arrested I [one]. | |
| 22 | Pick out Olympic runners close to victory in stupid remark (6) |
| IDIOCY – ID [pick out] + I.O.C. [runners i.e. organising committee of the Olympics] + Y [close to victorY]. | |
| 23 | In court, rate film “superior” (8) |
| UPMARKET – UP [in court] + MARK [rate] + ET [film]. | |
| 24 | Man trap set in concrete by day (8) |
| REGINALD – GIN set in REAL + D. | |
| 25 | Get down from small trailer perhaps and retreat (6) |
| SADDEN – S + AD [trailer, perhaps] + DEN. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Bishop leaving after some delay in ecstasy (8) |
| ELATEDLY – B leaving BELATEDLY. | |
| 3 | Public building due to be consecrated (8) |
| HALLOWED – HALL + OWED. | |
| 4 | Woman with issue failing to start knowing differently (9) |
| OTHERWISE – MOTHER + WISE. | |
| 5 | Play in Greek concert and cut number headed for America (10,5) |
| PROMETHEUS BOUND – PROM [concert] + ETHER [number=anaesthetic, cut] + U.S. BOUND. It’s a Greek tragedy. See here. |
|
| 6 | Cry from the heart of ambitious worker, known to be social climber (7) |
| TANTIVY – T [the heart of ambiTious] + ANT [worker, known to be social] + IVY [climber]. NHO the word; it’s a hunting cry. |
|
| 7 | Method for supporting merchandise gets approving comment (4,4) |
| GOOD SHOW – HOW supporting GOODS. | |
| 8 | Counts maybe on rising talent, dispatching article (8) |
| NOBILITY – NO [ON, rising] + ABILITY dispatching A. | |
| 14 | Confounded, as men mean to do some shopping! (4,5) |
| NAME NAMES – anagram (confounded): (AS MEN MEAN). | |
| 15 | America’s brief: one in Italian outfit would be more fastidious (8) |
| DAINTIER – DA [brief=lawyer, in the U.S.] + I in INTER [the football club/outfit]. | |
| 16 | Making use of our language, not for good (8) |
| ENGAGING – ENG. + AGIN + G. | |
| 17 | Fixer on flight from Rio darts out to lunch (5,3) |
| STAIR ROD – anagram (out to lunch): (RIO DARTS). | |
| 18 | Consent to keep giving separately, and only half, to cause distress (8) |
| AGGRIEVE – separately scatter GIV [half of GIVing] in AGREE, to produce AGGRIEVE. | |
| 19 | Difficulty with image that can’t be gone back over (7) |
| RUBICON – RUB [difficulty. More Shakespeare: “ay, there’s the rub”] + ICON. | |
NHO TANTIVY but the wordplay suggested the answer but still looked it up to make sure. First thought at 9a for ‘fuss’ was ‘brouhaha’ before ELATEDLY put an end to it and saw BALLYHOO. Didn’t know the Greek play. Was thrown by REGINALD but it had to be. Had GOOD SHOW but not the parsing, thanks for that. Liked ENTOMB, IDIOCY and RUBICON. COD to STAIR ROD with the ‘out to lunch’ anagrind for crazy.
Thanks B and setter.
Did this over lunch, so no idea of the time. DNK TECHNO (POI). DNK Cheltenham, but inferred it was a racecourse. ‘In ecstasy’ (I’d underline the ‘in’, Bruce) struck me as a bit much for ELATEDLY. One thing that wasted a lot of time was my dividing 5d as 11,4; I finally noticed my error and almost immediately solved. I liked NEARBY.
Yes, thanks.
57 minutes, which is a long time for me, yet there’s little on my printout to indicate what delayed me. My only unparsed answer was IDIOCY where I didn’t understand the wordplay and doubt I would ever have thought of either part of it.
IDIOCY was also a head scratcher for me, Jack.
50m 24s
I hope there aren’t too many clues like 18d in future. The solution had to be AGGRIEVE but I found it hard to follow the parsing.
OTOH, I did like RUBICON.
The RH side went in fairly swiftly but almost the whole of the rest had to be wrangled clue by clue. I was sure TECHNO would be ditto something, woman with issue would start with W, disapprove would be a simple ‘no’, Cheltenham would involve ‘spa’. A sorry, sorry showing. I’d like to blame it on a houseful of grandchildren but I suspect I was just being dim. Took the whole day off and on, but a welcome distraction.
Thanks both
I made a note that 22ac was incomprehensible. Now I see the Olympic runners, very nice, but still can’t see why ID = pick out. Otherwise, as branch says, one way or another everything was gettable. Even IDIOCY.
If a witness attends an identity parade at a police station the idea is that they will be able to ID a suspect.
Thanks. Not a phrase with which I was familiar.
I don’t think I’d parsed IDIOCY – now I see it, it’s excellent, among many other excellent clues. Liked RUBICON, AGGRIEVED (very tricky), RECOURSE (clever). It took longer than usual, but was worth the extra effort. TECHNO was late in coming – I should have biffd this far earlier, but it went in once I had the H. FOI DIESEL, LOI REGINALD. Thanks, Branch and setter.
– Good to know I’m not the only one who couldn’t parse IDIOCY!
– Needed all the checkers before I got PROMETHEUS BOUND
– Relied on the wordplay for the unknown TANTIVY
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Sway
LOI Prometheus Bound
COD
63 minutes but I needed several visits for the last few: TANTIVY (NHO), ELATEDLY, BALLYHOO, PROMETHEUS BOUND and RECOURSE. Thanks branch.
DNF after 35
Didn’t lift and separate so left with a letter short for TANTIVY.