Times Cryptic 29316 – Sat, 23 August 2025. Turning heads (and tails)

23 comments on “Times Cryptic 29316 – Sat, 23 August 2025. Turning heads (and tails)”

1. In spots, challenging and a little naughty X-wise.
   COD probably 15d IN THE SOUP – which is the polite phrase ‘for it’? Also liked the hidden ANTAGONIST 26ac, 12d INCISOR, and 4d IOWAN – although I would like to see Jock and Jimmy added to the lexicon.
   Not so fussed on the clue order in 13ac OATH, DeMON for ‘genius’ in 10ac. Also guessed answer from crossers for recently abused hound 16ac.
   Not so keen also on the practice of cross referencing clues. Suck it up?
   Had to look up to get grist for mill for 30ac PSEUDISH and 25d ISTLE.
   Checked KES after the fact for 17d KEEPSAKES – is it fair to expect that would be known for an international audience?
   Agree on 28ac RAKE (but obvious answer) and 8d EJECT was unparsed.
   Thank you setter and branch.

   1. This is probably what you meant, but I saw 15d as ‘for it?’ = in trouble = IN THE SOUP.

      1. Exactly.

      2. Precisely yes. Better than ‘in the s**t’ – but same meaning – that was my point.

         Sorry, should have been less cryptic 😁

2. 19d. I think “bread” is part of the definition. UPSTART meaning “nouveau riche” or parvenu. Someone who’s got “fresh bread” (new money).
   Then “tart” = “item from bakery”. Tart is pastry, rather than bread.

   1. Fair point. Thanks.

3. One error, too embarrassing to mention. NHO Jenga, but biffed like Bruce. No idea how WORDMONGER worked, or SALUKI, or EJECT. I parsed UPSTART as Peter did. (Dorothy Parker described them as the sort of people who buy their silver.) I liked IOWAN.

4. Over an hour. The puzzle blogged last Saturday wasn’t too hard but the one before was very tough and I found this one almost as difficult. I’d NHO JENGA either but the answer was possible with crossers in place. LAO as a ‘language’ was also new but had to be. I couldn’t parse SALUKI, failing to separate the ‘traditional part of Boxing Day’ from ‘party’. The parsing of WORDMONGER and PSEUDISH took some working out.

   Favourites were the sequential SKYDIVER (for def) and SKIS (for surface).

   Thanks to Bruce and setter

   1. Well Lao does not appear to be ‘international’ in the normal usage, either ?

      1. Apologies, I’ve probably misunderstood your comment but I had ‘international’ as part of the preceding ‘due, without international’ bit of the wordplay – OWING (‘due’) with the I deleted (‘without international’) as our blogger has indicated – and not referring to the ‘language’.

         1. OK, that makes sense, and I would have used that during the solve – but did not know the language either.
            And thank you for taking the time. I need to be more careful when later reading comments by others.

5. I forgot to make a note of my start time so I don’t know how long this took, but I have a vague memory of being stuck on a number of clues for quite a long time.

   I never parsed RAKE as ‘carefully examine’, and on reflection I’m not sure it works as in this context ‘rake’ needs to be followed by ‘through’ or ‘over’. I missed the parsing of KEEPSAKES too.

   I thought of WORDMASTER first at 10ac which took some shifting from the brain when I realised it wouldn’t parse.

6. Saturday puzzles seem to be swinging at the moment between straightforward and rather difficult with this one definitely in the latter category.
   I did not appreciate number 8 = H ( 13a) or sprouts = dish (30a).
   Also, the word KINDA is a bit too colloquial for me ( although on the positive side, it did remind me of an outrageous skit on ‘ Not the Nine O’ Clock news ‘-kinda lingers- check it out on You Tube.

   1. Yes, I remember that – some, if not all, of the cast singing the homonym at the end of it. I probably found it daring – outrageous, even – and groundbreaking at the time, and embarassing to watch with one’s parents, but it now seems just embarassingly puerile!

7. 70 very enjoyable minutes, all done and fully parsed. Superb puzzle with ingenious and d(e)vilish clues! Favourites – because of their excellent surfaces – are 13 & 14 ac and 6 & 12 dn. COD to 13 ac for inventive wordplay.

8. As David Hudson says, I found this difficult and unnecessarily convoluted. It’s very rare to get an answer and be unable to parse it subsequently, but in this one I was left with no less than 5! A couple of those I should have got – AS for like, for instance – but SALUKI and WORDMONGER were completely beyond me, though I had no doubt of the answers. However, my LOI was a fail, as for 13a I had OCTO. Had I thought of the definition being ‘Court may require this’, I would probably have got there, but as it was, putting CT in OO appeared to be just another unparseable mystery. One of those that was not completed with the usual feeling of pleasure and satisfaction.

   1. At last a comment I can wholeheartedly agree with, as well as Peter W’s that tart is not bread. (David Hudson, yes, but ‘rather difficult’ doesn’t cut it!). I actually had six, not five unparsed results, and had to give up entirely on the bottom left corner. OK, there may have been a few nice clues, but I thought the level of dodgy semantics and incomprehensible directives (is that the word?) was unacceptable.

   2. I too had OCTO ( must be the female brain!)

9. My thanks to branch and setter.
   Several things held me up, so moderately hard I would say. A few NHOs.
   9a Bloc. NHO Jenga, but have played a close relative with either no name or a different one.
   10a NHO Wordmonger but guessable.
   16a Saluki, took a while to see what I needed to do here. Are sales an essential feature of Boxing Day? I wouldn’t know as I will be getting up late and staying in. UKIp isn’t the first party to spring to mind either.
   24a NHO Earwitness,but logical for it to exist.
   26a Antagonist; I am always slow on hiddens. Quite an achievement to hide this.
   6d Camera shy. HHO Camra, have been member of that and the older Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood, SPBW. Unfortunately they chose an unusual font for the badge and it seemed to spell SPEW….
   7d Own Goal. Lao is not the first language to spring to mind.
   17d Keepsakes. Took a while here, then did remember Kes. Set near Rotherham I think.
   25d Istle. I think I misparsed this as islander minus quite a lot; no I could not understand it. I think the Celt came to me after the event.

10. DNF, back in OWL club with a guessed SALUKE rather than SALUKI (the wordplay completely defeated me).

    – Had never come across EARWITNESS before, though of course it’s completely logical
    – Couldn’t parse OWN GOAL (didn’t know Lao is a language) or EJECT
    – Biffed ISTLE

    Thanks branch and setter.

    COD Keepsakes

11. DNF since I did not get WORDMONGER. And when I gave up and used Chambers as an aid, it showed no words matched the crossers. So then I assumed it must be the proper name of an actual author. Not surprisingly, I couldn’t think of one of those either.

    Just realized the reason nothing would fit the crossers is that I’d put EVICT instead of EJECT and never went back to reconsider.

12. Way too hard for me! I ended up looking up quite a few, but given crossers then I still couldn’t fathom the answers. My worst effort in some time. I’ve no idea what the Snitch rating was, but surely quite high. I was happy to get the half of the grid that I did. CODs to ISLE OF MAN and SKYDIVER.

13. Thanks setter and branch
    This is one of the reasons that I will never be up to date with these puzzles – taking five sittings across three days to get it out – a total of two and a half hours . I persist until I can finish !
    Found it difficult for a couple of reasons – some unknown or not blatantly familiar terms – CAMRA, UKIP and CELT in relation to IoM – along with some complex charades and well-disguised definitions. Had to remediate a couple of initial wrong entries – an unparseable INCAN at 4d and CEREMONIAL at 10a. Counted it as a win to just correctly fill the grid in the end and only those three unparsed clues. Finished in the NE corner with that SALUKI, the very clever OATH and EJECT the last one in.

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