I found this harder than recent weeks. Possibly that was because I tackled it in the brief breaks in an otherwise busy day. It will be interesting to know what others thought. 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 the wordplay:
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- where explanations are necessary, wordplay fodder – synonyms and the like – appear in [square brackets]
- wordplay instructions appear thus
- anagram fodder is (THUS)*, with the anagram indicator in italics
- a ^ symbol indicates where text is to be inserted.
| Across | |
| 1 | Grandeur that is recalled by one ancient city (7) |
| POMPEII – POMP [grandeur] + EI [IE, recalled] + I. The ancient city is usually UR, so I wasted time looking for a synonym of “grandeur” also ending in UR. |
|
| 5 | Bulk of money earned for each journal submission? (5) |
| PAPER – PA [bulk of PAy] + PER [for each]. | |
| 9 | God particle? A godsend, securing lead in sciences (5) |
| BOSON – BO^ON [a godsend] securing S [lead in Sciences]. The media like to call the Higgs boson the “God particle”, but the name has been criticised by physicists. In quantum mechanics, this is the particle that gives other particles their masses. Don’t ask me how that works! I suspect the particle is more commonly called “the Higgs” rather than just “a boson”. The wordplay showed which was the answer. |
|
| 10 | Music’s pulse — odd thing to drop it for a while (9) |
| TEMPORARY – TEMPO [music’s pulse] + RARitY [odd thing, dropping IT]. | |
| 11 | Times function in cathedral city? Absolutely (7) |
| EXACTLY – XACT [times + function] in E^LY. Another where I wasted time, here trying to use “TT” for “times”. |
|
| 12 | Back working with India — a little disagreeable? (7) |
| NOISOME – NO [ON, back] + I [India, in the phonetic alphabet] + SOME [a little]. | |
| 13 | Thames activity beginning to see a Parisian returning in Thames location (4-6) |
| SWAN UPPING – S [beginning to See] + NU [“un” = “a” in Paris, returning] in WA^PPING. [Once I knew the last letter was “G”, I thought the Thames location might be Ealing.] We’ve met swan upping before, most recently in Jan 2022, although it did get a passing reference in June 2025. |
|
| 15 | Boss never coming between king and bishop (4) |
| KNOB – NO! [never] coming between K+B. | |
| 18 | Botched component of later course? (4) |
| DUFF – the definition is “A DUFF/BOTCHED JOB”. As well as being a pudding, DUFF can mean “dough”, from which the pudding is made. | |
| 20 | One looking to plunder drink coming round to enter message on page’s bottom (10) |
| FREEBOOTER – REEB [BEER, coming round] to enter F^OOTER. | |
| 23 | Dispute diminished one pursued by the French revolutionary (7) |
| QUARREL – QUARRY [one pursued, diminished] + EL [revolutionary LE=”the” in French]. | |
| 24 | The writer, with method, is penning start of racy autobiography of a sort (7) |
| MEMOIRS – ME [the writer] + MO [method] + I^S penning R. | |
| 25 | After end of course, understood one’s habitual response praising oneself (9) |
| EGOTISTIC – E [end of coursE] + GOT [understood] + IS [one’s] + TIC [habitual response]. | |
| 26 | Poet to assess cutting 40 per cent, even cutting out middle section (5) |
| AUDEN – AUD [AUDit, cutting 40%] + EN [EveN, cutting out middle]. | |
| 27 | Fit cast on the radio (5) |
| THROE – sounds (on the radio) like THROW [cast]. I was slow to recognise “throe” as a word, especially since we usually see it in the plural! |
|
| 28 | Confused style limiting advanced books (7) |
| CHAOTIC – CH^IC [style] limiting A + OT. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Give a word of thanks for tomato sauce (7) |
| PASSATA – PASS + A + TA. | |
| 2 | Child transfixed by cross monster (8) |
| MINOTAUR – MINO^R transfixed by TAU. I appreciated the help with spelling the answer! |
|
| 3 | Privileged classes ignoring first item in list (5) |
| ENTRY – gENTRY, ignoring first. | |
| 4 | Pervasiveness from men working with cinema (9) |
| IMMANENCE – (MEN CINEMA)*, working. | |
| 5 | Verbose part cut in films (6) |
| PROLIX – ROLe cut, in P^IX. | |
| 6 | Group of soldiers also covered by proposal (7) |
| PLATOON – TOO covered by PLA^N. | |
| 7 | Translation of Homer omitting nothing, but including unknown verse (5) |
| RHYME – RH^ME [translation of (HoMER)*, omitting O], including Y. | |
| 8 | Obsolete dispersal of seeds? Unable to consider anything new, perhaps (8) |
| OBSESSED – OBS [obsolete] + (SEEDS)*, dispersed. I wouldn’t have recognised OBS as this abbreviation, but it’s in Chambers. (I seem to hear Guy saying, “it would be”?) |
|
| 14 | Drunk old man with clarity impaired (9) |
| PARALYTIC – PA + (CLARITY)*, impaired. | |
| 16 | Nature notes? Pen no good to capture sources of delightful sounds (8) |
| BIRDSONG – BIR^O + N.G. [no good], to capture DS [sources of Delightful Sounds]. This was hard. With the helpers, I guessed the answer and reverse engineered the wordplay. |
|
| 17 | Damage to lawn? Cut up about rook with company (8) |
| WORMCAST – WO^M [mow, up] about R + CAST [theatre company]. | |
| 19 | Quality line receiving approval? On the contrary (7) |
| FLAVOUR – F^AVOUR receiving L. “On the contrary” signals that “line” goes into “approval”, not the other way around. | |
| 21 | Court case finishing early with detectives turning up as small group (7) |
| TRIADIC – TRIAL finishing early + CID turning up. | |
| 22 | Evidence of assault? Bachelor is covered in regret (6) |
| BRUISE – B + IS covered in RU^E. | |
| 23 | Seek peace, abandoning island around South (5) |
| QUEST – QUiE^T abandoning I, around S. | |
| 24 | Second Charlie overturned a hot drink (5) |
| MOCHA – MO [second] + C [Charlie, in the phonetic alphabet] + HA [a hot, overturned]. | |
I gave up with several unsolved in the SE, and returned to it a few days later. My biggest problem was having biffed PIXILATED at 14d (drunk, with clarity impaired). I spent some time trying to account for ‘old man’, but did not, as I should have, erase it, until I saw CHAOTIC. That led to PARALYTIC, POI FREEBOOTER, & LOI WORMCAST. I remembered SWAN-something, finally looked it up.
This was intertaining and doable unlike some of the dailies (eg. the Thursday in the week that followed).
The Saturdays seem to be more like traditional Times Cryptics. Only issue is Times subsription is a bit expensive to justify a once a week habit.
In this one, liked 26ac AUDEN for the slightly unusual direction, 6d PLATOON and 7d RHYME for simple direction, and 21d TRIADIC for completeness.
Honourable mentions to 23ac QUARREL and 24ac MEMOIRS.
Had to research 11ac SWAN UPPING and 20ac FREEBOOTER to get options to fit the clues. Also was unsure how damaging WORM CAST (one word?) 17d was.
But overall, enough challenge and rewarding.
Thank you setter and branch.
Re WORMCAST: the definition would be more appropriate with the answer in the plural. For a modest number, I believe the old school gardening advice was to disperse them with a besom.
I presume that was a broom. Considered more of a problem on golf courses, I’m told.
Nature is always seen as a problem, by golf course staff..
Where are you based, Mayfair? Overseas, or just insomniac? Overseas subscribers get it cheaper ..
I’m in Oz. Just woken up, so apology for delay in reply.
Well, the cost is only about 4 English pounds a month, so count me as a whinger ?
Definitely harder than the usual Saturday challenge.
Can we now add OBS for OBSOLETE as the latest example of a random abbreviation ? – we seem to have had a lot in recent days.
For what (little) it’s worth, my Engl./Japanese dictionary gives ‘obscure, observation, (astron.) observatory, obsolete, obstetrics, obstetrician’. Not in ODE, but it is in Collins, both American and British.
Kevin ..thanks for that. I assume every abbreviation used by the setters can be validated in one or another source. I’ve just got to the point of fearing that every clue word containing at least two syllables can potentially be abbreviated and that’s not helpful!
Obs is common in (eg) the OED or Collins .. quite often a word in the crossword turns out to be obs…
I’ve seen obvs for obviously and obs for (medical) observations, but never obs in this sense.
On checking, the list of abbreviations in the first edition of COED 1911 (reprinted in my third edition) does have it.
50 minutes. No real problems here, surprised it took that long – half the time spent on the final few. LOI THROE. COD BIRDSONG – delightful.
Extraordinary surface possibility for FREEBOOTER!!
Like Kevin I gave up on this one with 6 or 7 clues unsolved. Frankly I was bored with it
Too many wordy clues.
I did find this difficult also, with definitions that were tricky and resisted biffing. I spent some time trying to fit UR also into 1a and the I following E that I supposed was correct meant I didn’t consider a second one, making IMMANENCE impossible until it had to be. DUFF, FLAVOUR and WORMCAST I found very difficult and I had to use aids, even though I realised I needed L inside a word for approval. FREEBOOTER also didn’t come for ages, while I tried to fit PTO into it – in the end I had to post-parse to get footer instead. I did like SWAN-UPPING which was much aided by the U appearing early on.
I did persevere to the end but needed Mrs rv for the NHO FREEBOOTER so should have submitted off-leaderboard really. Not that it matters at nearly an hour and WOE in IMMeNaNCE, I always struggle with ENT/ANT endings even for well known words so needed a kinder wordplay.
NHO PROLIX, the derivation of Tau from a cross is very obscure and BOSON on its own is insufficient as a synonym before we even get to the ridiculous media name for the Higgs.
Despite all that I enjoyed quite a bit of it: SWAN-UPPING (not remotely similar to Cow-Tipping), POMPEII and COD BIRDSONG to name a few.
Thanks branch and setter.
Didn’t keep a record of this, but I think I completed it.
– Had vaguely heard of SWAN UPPING without knowing what it was
– Needed the checkers to get the unfamiliar WORMCAST
– Same for FREEBOOTER
Thanks branch and setter.
COD Birdsong
I didn’t find this too hard in comparison with some of the preceding and latest 15x15s, finishing in about 16 1/2 minutes. PROLIX was only vaguely remembered, but otherwise no difficulty. LOI DUFF and COD to BIRDSONG. Thanks branch and setter.
My thanks to branch and setter.
I got a bit stuck last week and just finished it off.
20a I had an unparseable Freeloader instead of Freebooter last week. That held up one or two others like 17d Wormcast.
26a Auden, he wouldn’t come to mind. Held me up.
16d COD Birdsong.
21d Triadic; I had a bit of doubt that it is a word even though we used dyadic for computers with 2 CPUs and triadic for 3.
IMO harder than of late.
Yes, tried freeloader first also, because of crossers – but it really didn’t fit any part of clue.
And agree on triadic and had to confirm, but the clue used familiar terms and was complete.