I was going to link to a YouTube performance of that iconic song. Sad how scratchy the soundtracks seem now, so never mind that! Otherwise, 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 | Outside pub indifferent setter’s uttering oaths (9) |
| BLASPHEMY – BLASÉ [indifferent] + MY [setter’s] outside PH [pub]. | |
| 6 | Black eye for malevolent sprite (5) |
| BOGLE – B + OGLE. Wordplay vocabulary familiar, answer vaguely heard of at best. |
|
| 9 | Soldiers refuse to allow leader in Europe (5) |
| ORBÁN – OR [soldiers] + BAN [refuse to allow]. Viktor Orbán. |
|
| 10 | Unchecked imports initially fresh and raw (9) |
| UNREFINED – UNREINED imports F. | |
| 11 | Dido involved with male — eg Aeneas? (7) |
| DEMIGOD – anagram (involved): (DIDO M EG). | |
| 12 | Small stone cask around some trees (7) |
| NUTMEGS – S + GEM + TUN all backwards (around). | |
| 13 | Unknown individual on a starship improving area (10,4) |
| ENTERPRISE ZONE – ENTERPRISE [from Star Trek] + Z [algebraic unknown] + ONE. | |
| 17 | College official retains drunk artisan who delays jobs? (14) |
| PROCRASTINATOR – PROCTOR retains an anagram (drunk) of (ARTISAN) | |
| 21 | Ungovernable route northwest from Ipanema? (7) |
| RIOTOUS – the route is RIO TO U.S. It always surprises me how far more easterly South America is than North America. Ipanema is of course a beach in Rio. The song is an earworm! |
|
| 23 | Subtle variations one’s not seen among pests (7) |
| NUANCES – I’S not seen among NUISANCES. | |
| 25 | Rule judge reversed protects Liberal in holy city (9) |
| JERUSALEM – J + MEASURE [rule] reversed, protecting L [Liberal]. | |
| 26 | Try to avoid vehicle involved in many collisions leaving motorway (5) |
| DODGE – DODGEM leaving M [motorway]. | |
| 27 | Where baby goes to sleep, possibly exhausted (5) |
| NAPPY – NAP + PY [PossiblY, exhausted]. Cheeky definition. |
|
| 28 | Net at sea keeping cows mostly buoyant (9) |
| EBULLIENT – ENT [anagram, at sea, of NET] keeping BULLIE [BULLIES mostly]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Claret-stained bachelor cashed in chips after game (8) |
| BLOODIED – B + LOO [card game] + DIED. | |
| 2 | American cartel ultimately behind recording (5) |
| ALBUM – A [American] + L [carteL] + BUM. | |
| 3 | Praise God for one song missing line (9) |
| PANEGYRIC – PAN + EG + LYRIC. | |
| 4 | Land English scoundrel in trouble? On the contrary! (7) |
| ECUADOR – ADO [trouble] in E + CUR. That is: trouble in scoundrel, not scoundrel in trouble! |
|
| 5 | Undergarment father wearing that way up (1-6) |
| Y-FRONTS – FR wearing YON [that] + TS [ST=way, up]. | |
| 6 | Boring thing to hold iron over suit (5) |
| BEFIT – BIT [boring thing i.e. a drill bit] to hold EF [FE=iron, over]. | |
| 7 | Biscuit from German in hotel filling belly (6,3) |
| GINGER NUT – doubly nested: GER in INN filling GUT. | |
| 8 | Most senior earl with lord is in Versailles (6) |
| ELDEST – E [earl] + LD [lord] + EST [“is”, in French]. | |
| 14 | Engine right in clumsy boat round shore (9) |
| TURBOPROP – R in TUB + O [round] + PROP [shore up]. | |
| 15 | Find ale brewed with New Zealand wine grape (9) |
| ZINFANDEL – anagram (brewed): (FIND ALE NZ). | |
| 16 | Curved screen deployed in court (8) |
| CRESCENT – anagram (deployed) of (SCREEN) in CT. | |
| 18 | Pardon a second-rate answer? (7) |
| ABSOLVE – A + B [second-rate] + SOLVE. | |
| 19 | Meat in a mouse more than enough for bird (7) |
| TINAMOU – hidden, as highlighted. | |
| 20 | Slogger’s run out; Jack Brown’s caught (6) |
| TROJAN – R.O [run out, in cricket] + J [jack] caught by TAN [brown]. | |
| 22 | Old Cordelier’s end perhaps in French commune (5) |
| ORSAY – O + R [end of cordelieR] + SAY [perhaps]. | |
| 24 | Activists in church guarding a medic (5) |
| CADRE – CE guarding A DR. | |
25:06
DNK BOGLE, TINAMOU, ORSAY as a commune. I liked RIOTOUS.
I knew, as it sounds like you did also, that there is a Quai d’Orsay in Paris. Easy then to believe that it might be named after the Commune. But Wikipedia says, not quite so: the Quai is named after Charles Boucher d’Orsay, seigneur of Orsay in the 18th century.
Liked this. Didn’t know BOGLE but the wordplay gave the answer. Thought RIOTOUS was very clever when I finally figured out where NW came in to the clue. ENTERPRISE ZONE came quickly after the generous clueing of ‘starship’. Nearly bunged in ‘Bethlehem’ with a single checker ‘M’ at the end before getting the measure of the clue for JERUSALEM. Would never have got PANEGYRIC were it not for the wordplay but still checked before putting it in. Would never have worked out ZINFANDEL. Took a while to see the meaning of ‘where baby goes’ for NAPPY, very good.
Thanks B and setter.
I didn’t note my solving time. There were a few unknowns here but I avoided aids and felt confident with my answers derived from wordplay. ORSAY and TINAMOU were two of them. I lost time at 5dn before checkers arrived, trying to make G-STRING work.
G-STRING was the first thing I thought of as well.
Excellent challenge..held up by 1D – is there really a game called ‘loo’?
It’s an old card game. See here: https://www.britannica.com/topic/loo-card-game
48m 55s
Thanks, Bruce particularly for BLOODIED, TURBOPROP and Y FRONTS. With the last one, I was all hot to trot to put in G STRING but could not make it fit the clue.
No problem with TINAMOU. I seem to remember it popping up in an old cryptic.
26.34
“Clumsy boat”was completely new to me so I couldn’t accurately parse TURBOPROP which itself only rang a vague bell. Otherwise another high quality Saturday offering – puzzle and blog. NAPPY was amusing.
Lots to like in a do-able crossword. Dnks PANEGYRIC and TINAMOU were clearly clued. Favourites were RIOTOUS and NAPPY.
45.42 I enjoyed that. It was challenging but I didn’t get properly stuck. TINAMOU was new. ORSAY was dimly remembered. I knew bogey but not BOGLE, except as a dance. I should have been doing something else so PROCRASTINATOR raised a smile. ECUADOR LOI. Thanks branch.
DNF, in OWL Club again with a silly TARBOPROP rather than TURBOPROP. I thought ‘clumsy boat’ was telling us to make an anagram of ‘boat’, going around R, and didn’t notice that it left ’round’ in the clue unaccounted for.
– NHO BOGLE the malevolent sprite, but the wordplay was kind
– Didn’t know that Ipanema is a beach in Rio… I thought it was in Hawaii
– Not familiar with ‘cashed in chips’ meaning ‘died’ for BLOODIED
Thanks branch and setter.
COD Unrefined
Shot myself in the foot assuming 1d had to begin with RUB, so limped to a finish time of 65 mins.
How is it that Y-FRONTS (plural) can refer to a single garment? The one I’m wearing has one front and one Y-shaped seam. I’m also wearing a T-shirt, but I wouldn’t say “I’m wearing T-shirts” unless for some bizarre reason I was wearing more than one. Perhaps the clue could have been worded to begin ‘Undergarments father wears …’ with ‘wears’ to be interpreted as ‘day-to-day’ (rather than wearing more than one at a time).
Recognised the bird in 19d from decades of doing barred grid puzzles.
COD to 27a, though I might have used ‘probably’ rather than ‘possibly’.
I think you have to follow the trail from y-fronts to y-front pants to pantaloons then how St. Panteleone gave rise to Pantaloon the commedy character and the item of dress that eventually became pants. See Pantaloon in Chambers.
Thanks for that. I appreciate the plural for pants/trousers if only because I have (fortunately) two legs. But once you get down to seam detail for a trunk garment, I feel the logic shifts towards the singular.
Suppliers of Y-fronts invariably market them in multipacks, one advantage perhaps being to avoid having to decide whether to label the packaging of a single garment in the singular or potentially litigious plural – the latter might be worthy of one of A P Herbert’s “Misleading Cases” (starring, on TV, Alastair Sim and Roy Dotrice) for those of my vintage!
8:46 but with BOGIE. It was the only word I could think of that fitted and I thought it might be a double definition.
Damn, one pink square. PROCRASTINATER, (and PROCTER).
What is the answer to the clue “Outside pub indifferent setter’s uttering oaths (9)” and how is it formed?
Very enjoyable weekender.
There were many nice clues here, but 11A I thought especially good: hard for me to see how that could be any tighter.
Lazy Saturday, so didn’t time myself.
Thanks B and compiler.