I found this harder than the run of Saturdays recently. Not much that experienced solvers won’t have met before, but you’ll need to have thought about it! Thanks, setter. How did you all 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 | Concern over another pair of cardinals splitting to go separate ways (6,7) |
| PARENT COMPANY – E + N [two “cardinal points” on a compass] splitting PAR^T COMPANY [go separate ways]. Tricky definition, I thought. |
|
| 8 | Disapproving of page limit (4) |
| PRIM – P + RIM. | |
| 9 | Fans won’t go far for this weight-watcher’s cheese? (5,5) |
| LOCAL DERBY – LO-CAL [weight-watcher’s] DERBY [cheese]. | |
| 10 | Ripon excited about green cheese (8) |
| PECORINO – P^RINO [(RIPON)*, excited] about ECO [green]. I’m not familiar with this cheese. It’s made from sheep’s milk, apparently. |
|
| 11 | Jerk beginning to trouble charming woman (6) |
| TWITCH – Trouble + WITCH [“charming” woman]. | |
| 13 | Rough nature of cold bitter’s characteristic? (10) |
| CHOPPINESS – C + HOPPINESS [characteristic of beer]. | |
| 16 | First-class artist’s returning strain (4) |
| ARIA – AI + RA, all returning. | |
| 17 | Drill donkey endlessly (4) |
| BURR – BURRO, endlessly. | |
| 18 | Top arrangement of security devices following anxiety (10) |
| DREADLOCKS – DREAD [anxiety] + LOCKS [security devices]. Cue Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc: here. |
|
| 20 | Charge in bar reversed increase (4,2) |
| BEEF UP – FEE in PU^B, all reversed. | |
| 22 | Ruddy copper interrupting rugby tie (8) |
| RUBICUND – CU interrupting RU BI^ND. I was all set to put in RUBICOND (sic), but obviously this has nothing to do with “crossing the Rubicon”. |
|
| 24 | I left this out, cutting long material, characteristically? (10) |
| PHILISTINE – HILIST [ (I L THIS)*, out] cutting P^INE [long]. I didn’t know that a Philistine was just a materialist. I thought the word had more a derogatory sense. |
|
| 26 | Bird again on island (4) |
| IBIS – I [island] + BIS [again]. | |
| 27 | Wild black British Airedale dog not staying around? (13) |
| BIODEGRADABLE – (B B AIREDALE DOG)*, wild. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Cut accommodation for hotel employees? (11) |
| PORTERHOUSE – do those employees really live in a PORTER HOUSE? Let’s just call it a cryptic hint. | |
| 2 | One who loves Capital Ring (5) |
| ROMEO – ROME + O. | |
| 3 | Void I plug up in high dune (9) |
| NULLIFIED – LLIFI [I fill=plug, up] in NU^ED [ (DUNE)*, high]. | |
| 4 | Work’s left two duplicates low perhaps (7) |
| CYCLONE – COPY [first duplicate, with OP=work leaving] + CLONE. | |
| 5 | Compulsory payment initially made under lower court (5) |
| MULCT – MUL [initial letters] + CT [court]. | |
| 6 | Rocky Marciano imbibing energy drink (9) |
| AMERICANO – (MARCIANO)* imbibing E. | |
| 7 | Hooligan having my backing? (3) |
| YOB – BOY [my!], backing. | |
| 12 | What borders run with annoyance south of Orpington? (7,4) |
| CHICKEN WIRE – W + IRE below [south of] CHICKEN [Orpington, for example, as indicated by the question mark]. | |
| 14 | Perhaps shares part of spoil of trophies brought back (9) |
| PORTFOLIO – hidden, backwards. | |
| 15 | Thus expert studied baker’s product (4,5) |
| SODA BREAD – SO + DAB + READ. | |
| 19 | Former noble that is supported by king (7) |
| EARLIER – EARL + I.E. + R [king]. | |
| 21 | I’m avoiding insurmountable difficulty on the way out (5) |
| PASSE – IMPASSE. | |
| 23 | Go up first to Conservative member (5) |
| CLIMB – C + LIMB [member]. | |
| 25 | Goblin took a bite out of Frodo? (3) |
| HOB – Frodo is a HOBBIT. | |
Three sessions and not complete. Seemed that PHILISTINE was the only word that would fit 24ac but could not even stretch a meaning to fit.
Took a little shine to 12d CHICKEN WIRE, and thought LO CAL in 9ac was cute. Overall, not enjoyable with PDMs too routine and often strained to balance other issues.
Not sure a ‘witch’ is a ‘charming woman’ in 11ac TWITCH. Although obvious, a BURR 11ac is not really a drill, and ‘boy’ for (exclamation) ‘my’ in 7d YOB a bit much.
Thank you branch, sorry setter.
Enjoyed this offering, especially the clever NULLIFIED and CYCLONE. No problem with the charming witch. Expelliarmus Mayfair! PHILISTINE parsed but wouldn’t have thought of a philistine as a materialist. Good to see BIS again.
21 mins
Not sure one has to be a potter to appreciate good craft (whatever that means).
42 minutes. I don’t remember meeting PECORINO of MULCT before but archive searches suggest they have appeared several times each.
There was some clever wordplay here. I was amused by charming women. I don’t have a problem with the definition of philistine. I’ve only ever heard it used in a biblical context or to describe someone with a materialistic outlook. Chambers (meaning 2) adds usually indifferent or hostile to culture.
A bit of a slog (82 minutes!!) – some tricky definitions. Couldn’t parse the wordplay for CYCLONE, though it’s obvious now.
Always like long hiddens, even better reversed, so COD to PORTFOLIO. Also liked LOCAL DERBY. And thinking of cheese, PECORINO is better than Parmesan imo.
Could you drill a hole with a BURR? Would you?
Half an hour or so.
– Had to trust that cardinals can be points on a compass to get PARENT COMPANY
– Can’t recall seeing RUBICUND before, but it parsed and sounded plausible
– Didn’t know there’s such a thing as a PORTERHOUSE cut (steak, now I’ve looked it up)
– Had to assume that there’s an Orpington breed of chicken for CHICKEN WIRE
– Familiar with hobgoblins, but not that a a goblin can simply be called a HOB
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Climb
LOI Porterhouse
COD Parent company
35.44
No problem with PECARINO and most of the rest but just had a brain fade with 1ac even though I had PARENT. Needed to tease out the tough MULCT and CYCLONE before the penny dropped.
Thanks Setter/Bruce
I had given up, so I decided to give it another go. I spotted a problem with bad handwriting almost immediately – the A of Americano looked like an R. With that corrected, I biffed parted company even though that didn’t seem write, and saw porterhouse at once. That seemed to confirm parted company, but I didn’t like the E starting 3 down. Yes, there is an E in dune, but the E is more like to be in the -ED ending. Erasing parted company, I got nullified almost at once, giving me parent company as well. Does 4 down begin CYCY-? Nothing fits, and I saw you had to have two words meaning duplicate, but only remove op from one of them. That left me with the cheese. Pecorino seemed to most likely, although it could have been Recopino as well.
But I did finish, and all-correct.
Just over an hour, but very enjoyable. One of those puzzles where the answers must be pried with great force out of some dusty corner of one’s mind and then are discovered, to one’s great surprise, to actually fit the wordplay. Among the clues where this happened were CYCLONE, CHICKEN WIRE and PHILISTINE, perhaps even RUBICUND, which I am sure I have never seen before but which seemed reasonable enough. For 9ac I had LIGHT DERBY at first, but once I corrected the first word I was able to fill in MULCT and my COD, CYCLONE (two duplicates, indeed). I thought TWITCH was rather cute.
All correct. I knew MULCT was a word but not what it means. I don’t think I’ve come across RUBICUND before, and I always thought a philistine was a person with no appreciation for art etc (is that the same as material?). I also had to make several assumptions (such as Orpington being a chicken and not just a parliamentary seat) for everything to work.
9:44. No problems with this.
To charm is ‘to cast a magic spell on’ (Collins). I can’t think of a more clear and direct definition of ‘witch’.
Less keen on the definition for PHILISTINE – only supported by the sometimes-eccentric Chambers – but the wordplay is clear.
We had a similar discussion about PECORINO the last time it came up. To be fair this was over 5 years ago so I’m not surprised people have forgotten it again! It’s a staple of Roman cuisine and the cheese you’re supposed to use in carbonara if you want it to be ‘authentic’.
I flung in RUBICOND (the French word) and didn’t think twice about ignoring the copper.
(Fatal mistake.)