Times Cryptic 29298 – Sat, 2 August 2025. Musicians and musicals.

Author   branchPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

One clue stretched my general knowledge. Otherwise a typical Saturday. 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 thus. Anagram material (THUS)*

Across
1 Occasion to eat small part of shoe (6)
SUPPER – S + UPPER.
4 Build audible pop that frightens me (8)
PHYSIQUE – sounds like (audibly) FIZZ + EEK.
10 Produce better harvest than bare rock (7)
OUTCROP – cryptic hint.
11 Sixth wife finally turned to different monarch for deposition (7)
PARKING – Catherine PARR turns R [king] to KING [literally].
Deposition can mean depositing, so “where did you park/deposit the car”? is odd but plausible.
12 Loud noise of bull run (4)
FLOW – F + LOW.
13 Composer Olive abandons orphan in rancour (10)
BIRTWISTLE – RTWIST [OLIVER TWIST, the orphan] in BILE.
Tricky, not knowing the composer.
15 Unnatural material, caustic stuff included by blogger? (9)
POLYESTER – LYE included by POSTER.
16 Positive vote returned with more than one bishop in religious building (5)
ABBEY – YEA returned, with BB [more than one B=bishop]
18 No big fish failed to move, holding pair (5)
SPRAT – SAT holding PR.
19 Worked until due day at full strength (9)
UNDILUTED – anagram, worked: (UNTIL DUE D)*
21 Promising answer, not trusting to surrender lead (10)
AUSPICIOUS – A [answer] + SUSPICIOUS [not trusting, to surrender lead].
23 Secretly take hold of oil producer (4)
PALM – two meanings.
26 Showman’s brief time recalled in papers (7)
HOUDINI – HOUR [time, brief] + IN ID recalled.
27 Try to ditch a chick (7)
GOSLING – GO + SLING.
28 Site of growing fury in Circle Line (8)
ORANGERY – ANGER in O [circle] + RY.
29 Northern island holds onto otherwise Scottish council area (6)
ORKNEY – KEY [island] holds N, all onto (following) OR [otherwise].
I didn’t know Orkney is a council area, but didn’t need to.
Down
1 Use dismissive words, specifically inappropriate (5)
SCOFF – SC [sc., short for  scilicet, meaning specifically] + OFF.
2 Shoot British tanker as mercenary work? (9)
POTBOILER – POT + B + OILER.
A book following a money-making formula.
3 Prophet latterly seen in the Ritz or Astoria (4)
EZRA – last letters (latterly in) thE ritZ oR astoriA.
At first glance, this looked like a hidden answer. Could ZORA be another name for Zoroaster? (Spoiler: no!)
5 Trendy joint forbidding closing early (7)
HIPSTER – HIP [joint] + STERN, closing early.
6 Soldier in RUC somehow stops raid with military precision (10)
SURGICALLY – GI in  URC (anagram: RUC, somehow), all stopping SALLY.
7 Still using linen primarily for fourth duvet (5)
QUILT – QUIET using L [Linen, primarily] for E [the fourth letter].
8 Seeing all of each delight — once you would (5-4)
EAGLE-EYED – EA [each] + GLEE + YE’D [you would, once].
9 Steadying frame needed for dais/plinth (6)
SPLINT – hidden.
14 Both of us doing big walks in Yorkshire area (4,6)
WEST RIDING – WE, STRIDING.
15 One Topic has nuts, but not this one (9)
PISTACHIO – anagram, nuts: (I TOPIC HAS).
It’s not clear what the definition is, I think. Obviously the answer is a nut. “But not” just seems to be there as a connector.On edit: thanks to shikasta for saying a Topic is a snack bar with nuts. That explains it!
17 Fighters lay stick across ankle bones (9)
BATTALION – BATON across TALI.
The talus is the large bone in the ankle. Latin plural: tali.
19 Condition that is to fill cracked urn? I’ll make us one (7)
UNIFIER – IF + I.E. to fill UNR (anagram: URN, cracked).
20 Whoever does the work coats for doctor upped game (6)
DRUDGE – outside letters (coats) of each word.
22 Thus Russia’s banning odd parts for march music provider (5)
SOUSA – SO + USA (ban odd letters of rUsSiA). Oom pah pah.
24 Kind of wet, like a sap? (5)
MUGGY – cryptic hint.
25 Someone exploiting escort, skipping hotel (4)
USER – USHER, skipping H.

28 comments on “Times Cryptic 29298 – Sat, 2 August 2025. Musicians and musicals.”

  1. Another Saturday as indicated. Mostly regulation with some divergent interest. Last Sundays was a little more challenging (job for later).
    Rather liked 13ac BIRTWISTLE, even though it was the dickens to find a suitable composer to fit the modified character. Particularly admired 2d POTBOILER as being reasonably devious in every respect. The clear and concise cluing of 14d WEST RIDING was sufficient – even for the non-UK centric. Also admired the 22d SOUSA merely for the clever ref to USA.
    15d PISTACHIO clue may be somehow making reference to not being a ‘true nut’ – a bit like peanuts being a ‘ground nut’. (Have not researched and no doubt someone here will provide a more definitive answer).
    Not sure about ‘deposition’ for PARKING in 11ac, or the Yoda speak in 26ac HOUDINI. In 8d, YE with a ‘D (or D) for ‘would’ is a stretch. A reasonably detailed discussion of the historical use of the apostrophe can be found in David Crystal’s entertaining book: ‘By Hook or By Crook’.
    Thank you setter and branch.

  2. Surely for pistachio, “not this one” refers back to “Topic” – a chocolate bar with nuts but not including pistachio.

    1. I think nuts is the anagrind and the definition refers to the non-nut status of pistachios. Sort of &lit clue.

      1. Agreed nuts is the anagrind but your explanation doesn’t really work since “this one” as the definition is treating pistachio as a nut – there is nothing to suggest it is saying it isn’t one. It’s not really &littish since the whole of the clue isn’t really close to being both both wordplay & definition. The definition does refer back to the rest of the clue – A Topic bar’s main selling point is it contains nuts (famous ad slogan “What has a hazlenut in every bite? Topic!”) but pistachio isn’t one of them. That makes the wordplay & the surface of the clue really quite elegant – surely what the setter must have had in mind.

        1. Agreed: ‘this one’ clearly refers to a nut, and both Chambers and Collins refer to nuts in their definitions of ‘pistachio’ – good enough for Xwds. ‘Topic’ references the chocolate bar (other sugar-infested products are available). Unless there is another variety of Topic bar which does include pistachios, the elegance of the clue is spoilt for me by needing ‘One’ at the start: if only there was a variant spelling ‘pistacho’ – that would make for a really elegant clue.

  3. Liked Birtwhistle, thought that was rather neat and for once a piece of musical general knowledge that was within my sphere of interest.

  4. Thought this was more difficult than usual for a Saturday. ‘Deposition’ for parking is one hell of a stretch ; pr for pair and ye’d also defeated me.

  5. Despite enjoying this for the most part I didn’t find this easy at all and retired for the night after nearly an hour with two answers missing. The next morning they quickly fell into place. As is so often the case, the missing words intersected: SURGICALLY and BIRTWISTLE. I knew of the composer and considered him early as a possibility, but I was convinced he was spelt BIRTWHISTLE which wouldn’t fit, so I discarded the idea for far to long. The eventual arrival of SURGICALLY provided a checker that handed me the alternative spelling.

  6. About half an hour

    – Like Jack above, I thought BIRTWISTLE’s name had an H in it, but it was all that would fit and I eventually figured out the parsing
    – Hesitated over PALM for a long time as I wasn’t familiar with the ‘secretly take hold of’ meaning
    – Didn’t parse HOUDINI, even though it’s not that hard
    – Saw that PISTACHIO was an anagram but didn’t quite see what the setter intended – shikasta’s explanation has to be right
    – Have heard of a sousaphone but not a SOUSA

    Thanks branch and setter.

    FOI Quilt
    LOI Palm
    COD Undiluted

    1. The Sousaphone was invented by Sousa, a famous march composer. If you don’t know him, you will certainly be familiar with his music – think the ‘Monty Python’ theme…

  7. I did this Sunday evening after listening to the cricket all day on TMS, so wasn’t exactly at my sharpest. Took an hour to do all but three: 1dn, 12ac and 23ac. The first two of those came fairly soon after – do bulls low as well as bellow? – but it was Monday afternoon (after more nail-biting cricket in the morning) before dim memories of trying to be a junior conjuror suggested PALM for ‘Secretly take hold of’. It didn’t help that I’d got 24dn as SOGGY despite wondering why ‘Kind of’ was in the clue – more obvious when MUGGY was correct.
    Some strange surfaces, eg 1ac!
    A pedantic point re 4ac (loved the homophones!) – it would be the gizmo that made the frightening ‘pop’ that one would build?

  8. Quite a challenge, but I liked this one – some great clues, favourites amongst which were BIRTWISTLE (although I don’t like his music) and EAGLE-EYED. I was really puzzled over the parsing of ORANGERY, since I couldn’t account for the N in RAGE, until I realised the word was ANGER, which amused me!

  9. Getting on for two hours, a large chunk of which was spent on 1d and 12a. The former seemed like it must be SCOFF and BOOM works for the latter. It had never occurred to me that bulls might low but I got there eventually. Thanks branch.

  10. Thank you branch and setter. Either I didn’t find this typical or I ran out of time or my brain ran out of sight. DNF big time. Easier to list how many I did solve than didn’t. LHS was much better than RHS.
    For instance 11a Parking. I knew Catherine Parr was wife 6 (survived), and had P_____G but still couldn’t solve. Brain fade I think.
    Mnemonic for the 6 wives:
    Divorced, beheaded, died
    Divorced, beheaded, survived.
    13a DNK Birtwistle.
    COD 14d We Striding.
    15d Pistachio. DNK there were any nuts in a Topic Bar, but biffed it.
    Oh well, this week’s I have done (I assume) so perhaps it was a wavelength thing.

    1. Alternative mnemonic for the 6 wives: died, died, died, died, died, died. 😉

  11. Failure. The fatal flaw was putting SCOUT instead of SCOFF; this gave me T*O* for 12ac for which I could only think of TOOT; and I completely missed BIRTWISTLE. Thanks B and setter.

  12. Some of this took thinking about. The construction of ORKNEY was not obvious but I was being dim. That meaning of PALM (to take) was only vaguely familiar. SCOFF was cleverly obtuse. I fell into the Zora trap for a while. Could not parse either DRUDGE or BIRTWISTLE although both seemed to fit the definition. So once again you come to my rescue branch.
    It was PHYSIQUE that finally did for me. I even knew I was looking for a homophone of a drink and eek! I blame post-Sunday-lunch-dip. When I finally looked PHYSIQUE up I saw the order of the SURGICALLY elements and the deceptively simple QUILT. I would have been more confident without 4a but I wasn’t convinced of PARKING. I saw Parr straight away but wasn’t sure what ‘different’ was doing for the monarch. All fun and games.

    Thanks as ever.

  13. Thanks for these explanations, branch. One quibble: 7D explanation should end “[fourth letter of QUIET]”, not DUVET, as the L of LINEN is replacing the E of QUIET to give QUILT.

  14. Well yes it was hard, and I didn’t do all that well, but I felt as I solved those I did that I was doing reasonably well, maybe because they finally yielded to a struggle. NHO BIRTWISTLE and had SOGGY in for 24d, thereby rendering PALM impossible ( wouldn’t have thought of that meaning of “secretly take hold of” anyway). My other problems arose through impatience: I wouldn’t have got POLYESTER in a million years ( I was blindsided by the ‘caustic stuff’ which turned out to not be a material at all). And to cap it all I couldn’t spell PISTACHIO – ended it with CCIO in the Italian manner, for no accountable reason. But an engrossing hour (or two) and a lesson in patience.

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