If I could explain 27across, this puzzle would be par for a Saturday. Thanks to the setter. 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. With the luxury of a week to do the blog, I can expand on how the wordplay works, so instructions copied from the clues to show how to get the answer appear thus. Anagram material is (THUS)*. A ^ symbol indicates where text is to be inserted.
| Across | ||
| 1 | Delaying a second can stop argument in favour of boxing (15) | |
| PROCRASTINATING – A S TIN [a / second / can] inside (stops) PRO CR^ATING [in favour of / boxing]. | ||
| 9 | Soccer fans around goal get louder (9) | |
| CRESCENDO – CRESC^O [anagram, fans: SOCCER] outside (around) END [goal]. | ||
| 10 | Old capital city of Japan moving to east (5) | |
| KYOTO – TOKYO moving TO east. The same answer, clued similarly, arose in the previous Tuesday’s quick cryptic. Synchronicity! |
||
| 11 | What observant individuals count on? (6) | |
| ROSARY – a cryptic definition. | ||
| 12 | Debtors are at the mercy of this contemptible judge (4,4) | |
| BASE RATE – [contemptible / judge]. The interest on a loan may be set as “base rate + %”. |
||
| 13 | Did gas leak spread, breaching threshold’s limits? (6) | |
| TALKED – ALKE [LEAK, spread] breaching T^E [ThresholD’s limits]. | ||
| 15 | Suitable individual takes company minutes (8) | |
| BECOMING – BE^ING takes CO+M. | ||
| 18 | Flight by capital from America into flourishing banks (8) | |
| AVIATION – A^TION [A=capital from America + TION=INTO, flourishing] contains (banks) VIA [by]. | ||
| 19 | Point of view evident in earliest ancestors (6) | |
| STANCE – hidden. | ||
| 21 | Popular song’s repetitive beat (5,3) | |
| SMASH HIT – SMASH [beat] + HIT [beat, again; repetitive]. | ||
| 23 | Buzzer: a device demanding attention (6) | |
| BEEPER – BEE [buzzer] + PER [a, as in “a penny per ride”]. I’ve included the first two words as part of the definition, but it still works if you don’t. |
||
| 26 | First to admit storyteller’s needing right nom de plume? (5) | |
| ALIAS – A [first to Admit] + LIAR‘S [storyteller’s, needing R] | ||
| 27 | Have space in this travel plan to suggest English rarity? (9) | |
| ITINERARY – I’m not sure what to make of this! I think the idea is that it’s a reverse cryptic, saying that we need to move the “IT” to the front of “IN E{nglish} RARITY” to produce the answer. If so, it’s not obvious to me why I should do that! | ||
| 28 | On and off, any moment? (5,3,3,4) | |
| EVERY NOW AND THEN – just a cryptic definition, unless I’ve missed something clever! | ||
| Down | |
| 1 | Agreement to impound rescue vessel returning undesirable? (4,3) |
| PACK RAT – PAC^T to impound KRA [ARK, returning]. | |
| 2 | Starts trading with no restrictions on movements of stock? (5) |
| OPENS – O PENS = no pens = no restrictions. | |
| 3 | I must support religious education coming back periodically (9) |
| RECURRENT – CURRENT [i, in electrical engineering] supports R.E. I was slow to see this! |
|
| 4 | Drill down (4) |
| SINK – two meanings: sink a well, sink a pint. | |
| 5 | Worshipper’s incantation of the temporising kind? (8) |
| IDOLATER – Is procrastination a theme here? The idler’s creed: I DO LATER. | |
| 6 | Joint leader of Reform abandoning cause continuing resentment (5) |
| ANKLE – R abandoning RANKLE. | |
| 7 | Rogue AI tool is beginning to negotiate separate state (9) |
| ISOLATION – anagram, rogue: (AI TOOL IS N)* The N is beginning to Negotiate. |
|
| 8 | Decent chap is pleasant surprise to curate? (4,3) |
| GOOD EGG – cryptic hint, referring to the old joke about the Curate’s egg: “good in parts”. | |
| 14 | Rejected call to overturn cycling schemes (4,5) |
| LAID ASIDE – LAID [DIAL, overturned] + ASIDE [IDEAS, with the last two letters cycled to the front]. | |
| 16 | Stop behind because of those people getting better (2,3,4) |
| ON THE MEND – END [stop] behind ON THEM [because of those people]. | |
| 17 | Riot police uncovered corrupt activist? (8) |
| POLITICO – uncover RIOT POLICE and use the remaining letters for the anagram (corrupt): (IOT POLIC)* | |
| 18 | Reduce the amount idiot is paid on the radio? (7) |
| ASSUAGE – sounds like (on the radio): ASS WAGE. | |
| 20 | Peer over there at the outset (5,2) |
| EARLY ON – EARL [Peer of the realm] + YON [over there]. | |
| 22 | Hurried experiences benefit nobody in the end (5) |
| HASTY – HAS [experiences] + T + Y [last letters of benefiT nobodY]. | |
| 24 | Penny apiece? Unusually cheap fruit (5) |
| PEACH – P [penny] EACH [apiece]. Or, anagram (unusually): (CHEAP)*. Or, just a fruit! | |
| 25 | Help to tackle verse with backing singer (4) |
| DIVA – V in A^ID, all backing. | |
I didn’t understand the wordplay of 27a either. By the way this is puzzle 29412 not 29406.
And thanks for unraveling 1a. I missed the significance of boxing.
Thanks.
23:10
I couldn’t figure out ITINERARY; still can’t. I also didn’t get 4d, not seeing how sink=down. 10ac was something of a gimme: ‘old capital city of Japan’ (6). (The clue wouldn’t work in Japanese; the to’s are different.) Are pack rats undesirable? I liked GOOD EGG & EARLY ON.
Collins, for SINK (as “down”):
17. (transitive) British informal
to drink, esp quickly
he sank three pints in half an hour
ITINERARY doesn’t have to be “travel plan”. It can simply be “plan”. This gives you “travel” to move the IT in ITINERARY to produce IN E{nglish} RARITY
I took 27ac to be a reverse cryptic. If you “have space in” (ie put spaces or gaps into) this 9 letter word meaning “travel plan”, then it will “suggest” (ie give wordplay instructions that lead to) E RARITY.
So, putting appropriate spaces into ITINERARY, gives IT IN E RARY which can be read as
> >put “IT” inside “E RARY”<<
giving "E rarity".
I felt relatively happy with all that. Except whether "have space in", can mean more than one separate spaces/gaps.
Thought 24d was interesting. Two separate wordplay instructions, and definition.
By George, I think he’s got it!
Perfect! Except, is ‘this’ really needed?
I found this something of a nightmare but noted that it contained a number of excellent clues. Having read that it was considered easy I don’t feel disposed to re-examine and relate the problems I encountered.
48 minutes. Took a while to get on the setter’s wavelength – an absorbing puzzle full of good clues and neat surfaces. COD TALKED, but also like CRESCENDO, ROSARY, RECURRENT and, after Peter W’s dissection, ITINERARY.
We did not really warm to this one. Completed all but 10d ASSUAGE, could see the ASS for idiot and thought homophone, but no cigar. 24d justifies a positive comment for giving two paths – which were probably needed.
10ac KYOTO was a strange clue. BECOMING as ‘suitable’ in 15ac? Despite the yoda speak in 18ac AVIATION (which is regarded as all fine and dandy here), thought VIA for ‘by’ in the way presented a little tough. Also PER for ‘a’ in 23ac BEEPER. Could see the BEE and guessed the answer.
Maybe this setter is trying hard to be different, but some elements hard to get the head around.
Thank you branch.
BECOMING (Collins, 2nd defn)
adjective
2 = appropriate, right, seemly, fitting, fit, correct, suitable, decent, proper, worthy, in keeping, compatible, befitting, decorous, comme il faut (French), congruous, meet (archaic)
• This behaviour is not becoming among our politicians.
opposites: inappropriate, unfit, unsuitable
Yes branch, somewhat expected.
25 minutes
– Don’t think I fully parsed PROCRASTINATING
– Took ages to get AVIATION, as somehow that word is one of the meanings of ‘flight’ that doesn’t readily spring to mind
– Still not sure I fully get ITINERARY, even with the explanations above
– Not familiar with PACK RAT but the wordplay was kind and the checkers helped
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Kyoto
LOI Aviation
COD Base rate
Another enjoyable Saturday if slightly tougher than the last few at 31 mins.
I could see that all the bits of ITINERARY were present if not necessarily in the right order.
ROSARY and KYOTO were neat but COD to EVERY NOW AND THEN which I thought was both cryptic and something clever.
Thanks to branch and setter.
Yes. A tough one. All green, but my thanks to branch and Peter W for the much-needed explanation. I am still with the blogger, thinking I must have missed something with EVERY NOW AND THEN to know what to do with “any moment”
That part is just a jocular reinterpretation of the idiom. It means “occasionally,” of course; it doesn’t really mean what it says literally: every “now” and every “then,” i.e., the present and every other time, which together would include any moment you might single out (even some hypothetical future one).
Having read Peter W’s explanation twice (!), I begin to see how ITINERARY works. Far too clever for me to work out – I bifd it. Actually, I defy anyone to get the wordplay without biffing first. LOI was LAID ASIDE – I dislike cycling clues. I liked BECOMING, IDOLATER and also CRESCENDO, the more so for it being nothing to do with sport! I was much helped in solving by getting the two 15-letter clues early on.
My thanks to branch and setter.
Some tricky bits. I have a big ? next to the clue for 27a Itinerary.
4d Sink, very clever, another ?
18d Assuage, big groan for a deliciously bad homophone.
25d Diva, I got lost and biffed Aida (well it is sung) so DNF. Bother.
Is the parsing of 27 ac anything to do with an “n” space (as opposed to an “m” space) in printers’ jargon?
Peter W’s comment above explains what the setter was trying to say. The idea was to split ITINERARY into four words by inserting spaces, giving IT / IN / E / RARY, giving wordplay which could produce E(nglish) RARITY.
To me, I don’t think the clue quite succeeds! But then, setting is too hard for me. Kudos to them all.