For those who missed it, the Editor had an interesting post recently explaining the philosophy behind the range of puzzles through each week. I understand that some, not all, find Fridays too testing. In contrast, this was another soothing Saturday, nicely to my taste. 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)* with the anagram indicator in italics. A ^ symbol indicates where text is to be inserted.
| Across | |
| 1 | Friends? Yes it completely showcases the six characters (6) |
| SITCOM – hidden (showcased). The question mark indicates a definition by example | |
| 5 | Bottom is supporting fish (8) |
| BACKSIDE – BACKS [is supporting] + IDE. | |
| 9 | Soldier married mother in New York apartment (8) |
| COMMANDO – M + MA in CO^NDO [American term for an apartment]. | |
| 10 | Enthusiastic follower’s reorder includes books (6) |
| VOTARY – VARY includes OT. | |
| 11 | Left alien tumbling in unbroken descent (6) |
| LINEAL – (L ALIEN)* tumbling. | |
| 12 | Serving boy returning regularly readies one’s horse (8) |
| GANYMEDE – EDE [rEaDiEs, regularly] + MY [one’s] + NAG [horse], all returning. | |
| 14 | Sound weary walking along and playing straight off (5-7) |
| SIGHT-READING – SIGH [sound weary] + TREADING [walking along]. | |
| 17 | Head waiter had title more involved (6,6) |
| MAITRE D’HOTEL – (HAD TITLE MORE)* involved. | |
| 20 | One expecting payment from Times office after first pair of crosswords (8) |
| CREDITOR – CRosswords + EDITOR. | |
| 22 | Sign of extension for president (6) |
| MACRON – two meanings. The French President you know. The other, I for one didn’t know. It’s a written or printed mark ( ¯ ) used to indicate a long vowel in some languages, or a stressed vowel in verse. | |
| 23 | Concern recalled about a perennial growth (6) |
| YARROW – WORRY recalled, about A. | |
| 25 | Moth caught flying in a barn (8) |
| CINNABAR – C + (IN A BARN)*, flying. | |
| 26 | Politician’s protest about informer (8) |
| DEMOCRAT – DEMO + C [about] + RAT. | |
| 27 | Class brooded over preferences (6) |
| TASTES – SET [class] + SAT [brooded, as hens do], all over. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Symbolically significant style of architecture including Corinth’s capital (6) |
| ICONIC – I^ONIC includes C. | |
| 3 | Made amends for hoax filled with funny pet names (11) |
| COMPENSATED – CO^D filled with (PET NAMES)*, funny. | |
| 4 | Solo second number on spoken record (9) |
| MONOLOGUE – MO + NO + LOGUE [sounds like, when spoken: LOG=record]. | |
| 5 | Carried right into branch on top of tree (7) |
| BROUGHT – R into B^OUGH + Tree. | |
| 6 | Chap with name for charming women (5) |
| COVEN – COVE + N. | |
| 7 | Exclusive group write puzzles like this (3) |
| SET – cryptic hint. {Kudos to you, setter, as always!} | |
| 8 | Laughing at key part of Yorkshire? (8) |
| DERIDING – D [musical note] + East RIDING. | |
| 13 | Note girl is bourgeois (6-5) |
| MIDDLE-CLASS – MIDDLE C [another musical note] + LASS. | |
| 15 | What may serve up anisette with starter of moules? (9) |
| ESTAMINET – (ANISETTE M)*, served up. | |
| 16 | Large gold crown is awarded to such a poet (8) |
| LAUREATE – L [large] + AUREATE [gold]. I’m not sure what to do with the word “crown” here! Is an aureate a gold crown? More likely, a poet laureate is crowned. | |
| 18 | Postponing 100 in fast vehicle one may end up in a stew (7) |
| HARICOT – the fast vehicle, relative to its time, was a CHARIOT. Then C [Roman 100] is “postponed”. | |
| 19 | Food for livestock during season (6) |
| FORAGE – FOR [during] + AGE [season]. | |
| 21 | Perhaps keep in drawer (5) |
| TOWER – a definition by example of the type of fortification, plus another definition – or perhaps a cryptic hint. | |
| 24 | Space reduced for indigenous Australian (3) |
| ROO – ROOM reduced. | |
Found it a little hard to get on this setter’s wavelength. Got there eventually but took a while. In retrospect, took a small shine to 14ac SIGHT READING for clever word split, as well as 13d MIDDLE CLASS for unusual citing of ‘note’. Also, 7d SET for just plain brazenness in using the apparently obvious to challenge.
12ac GANYMEDE when pieced together from crossers and clue elements, was looked up as a Trojan youth exchanged for horses (‘serving boy’)?
Not sure why 17ac MAITRE DHOTEL is kosher, but no doubt more experienced players will tell me to just suck up the punctuation.
Had no idea about 22ac but MACRON fitted crossers and meaning. Also could only see part of reason behind 16d LAUREATE.
Charlton Heston would have approved of the use of ‘chariot’: 18d HARICOT.
Thank you branch and setter (I guess).
Probably just personal variability of response, but every other Saturday seems a bit challenging. Might have to try some midweeks again.
Ganymede was a beautiful boy kidnapped by Zeus, who made him his cup-bearer (hence ‘serving boy’). ‘Catamite’ derives from the name; he also served in that capacity (Zeus presumably didn’t come across G and think, “Ooh, a cup-bearer!”). I didn’t know the Trojan story.
That makes sense. Should have read further to see the role Zeus had applied.
And explains why Ganymede is one of the moons of Jupiter which is where I remember it from.
I used the phrase “Bigger than Ben Hur” at work a few months ago, and my colleagues all stood around slack-jawed saying “What’s Ben Hur?”
Yes, re MAITRE DHOTEL : I’ve always wondered why, at the end of clues, a hyphen is included in the letter count (as here in SIGHT-READING) but an apostrophe never is. What’s so difficult about (6,1’5)?
OK, so that’s normal behaviour.
Thank U for that advice.
Contractions are regarded as one word, regardless of whether they originated in English or are borrowed words. You’ll get used to it, I’d wager.
The presence of a hyphen can be determinative of the part of speech the answer belongs to: “tear gas” is a noun but “tear-gas” a verb (or adjective). (I know why that word is top of mind this morning.)
In contrast to Mayfair I found this at the easier end of Saturday offerings. Must be a wavelength thing.
18:50
DNK the moth, ‘knew’ YARROW, couldn’t have told you what it was. I took ‘crown’ to be part of the definition; presumably the crown was of laurel leaves.
Very nice, 1ac was a brilliant opening. Slow to finish though, with a few unknowns/forgottens holding me up: Cinnabar, forage being for stock, macron, the story of Ganymede, the meaning of votary. Guessed REATE might be a crown – no, a buttercup. So next guess is the poet gets a symbolic laurel crown to wear; crown as part of the definition?
I took ‘gold’ to be AU at first, and wondered about REATE.
I had some yarrow in my garden, but it died out after three seasons – it’s supposed to grow like a weed, but perennials never grow for me. I had heard of haricot, but didn’t know what it was; fortunately, the cryptic was kind. I did have a MER at the NY apartment – most of them are coops, not condos, at least in the older buildings.
Yes, a very gentle Saturday puzzle.
Time: 35:11
I did have a feeling that condos are in Florida, not NY. I wasn’t confident enough to comment. What’s the difference?
We have condos in NYC. There must be condos in every state of the union. It’s an American thing, though, apparently.
In a condo(minium) the apartment is owned not rented (typically) by the resident. (When I lived in Honolulu, I rented an apartment owned by a friend, who later sold it. I seem to recall in San Francisco it being a problem that apartments were being turned into condos by the building’s owner, making rental apt’s harder to find.)
39 minutes. Enjoyable and quite challenging in parts. One or two, eg ESTAMINET, had to be dredged from the silt of memory. COD between SITCOM and TOWER.
Suggest the Friday and Saturday puzzles are swapped around so that solvers have more time to complete at the weekend. Would be interested to know how many people submit solutions for the Saturday puzzles to win a prize when it is so easy these days to check answers online.
There definitely have been times in the past when the Saturday crossword was the most challenging, for that reason..
23.52 with various pink squares
The typos have stopped since I deactivated the “skip squares” option. Now I just cant spell.
Lovely puzzle; liked FRIENDS and MAITRE DHOTEL but most of all the HARICOT to CHARIOT.
Thanks Bruce and setter
No undue problems with this, though the diacritic was new to me.
Didn;t know th erequired meanings of LINEAL and MACRON but otherwise this was a very welcome relief after the trials of the preceding 3 days. 30 minutes, bang on my target time.
Liked this a lot. NHO ESTAMINET, at least I didn’t recall having seen it.
Particularly liked SIGHT READING, DERIDING, MACRON, MIDDLE CLASS.
Nice to see CINNABAR and YARROW make an appearance.
Far from soothing, at 48 mins this was my toughest Saturday for a while and in keeping with the preceding week.
As I remember most of the time was added in the SE with FORAGE and MACRON delaying the final guesswork on ESTAMINET.
I repeat my dislike of absent apostrophes but enjoyed the hidden SITCOM.
CINNABARs and their caterpillars are beautiful and well worth growing some ragwort for whatever any horsey types say.
Thanks branch and setter.
25 minutes.
– Didn’t know that VOTARY means an enthusiastic follower
– Always forget what GANYMEDE was in Greek mythology, but the checkers made it obvious
– MACRON went in with a shrug as I didn’t know its linguistic meaning
– Hadn’t heard of the CINNABAR moth but it was the only thing that would realistically fit
– Eventually dredged up ESTAMINET, which I’ve only ever seen in these puzzles
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Roo
LOI Cinnabar
COD Middle-class
As someone has said, a wavelength thing – unfortunately not mine! I couldn’t get the pretty straightforward BACKSIDE, as I’d put in SIREN, failing to see ‘women’ rather than ‘woman’. This also made VOTARY ungettable. Then I didn’t know the diacritic, so failed to get MACRON and the associated crossers, although I did get ESTAMINET when looking again prior to reading the blog in full. I also would have got FORAGE, as it appeared again during the week, when I had no problem with it! Oh, well, exams being over for this month, I’ll have a bit more relaxation to devote to doing the crossword on the day, rather than a couple of days late.
I also had SIREN for rather too long, thinking both that ‘women’ was actually a typo and that SIRE was a bit droll for ‘Chap’!
Yes, we tried ‘siren’ at first, but the plural looked deliberate and then my friend suggested COVEN and ‘cove’ was better.
30 minutes. I haven’t done one of these in a while. ESTAMINET is the first obscure word I learned here and I know MACRON from pinyin. The repetition of “for” in LOI FORAGE was a bit inelegant and made me think it was possibly wrong. Thanks branch.