I struggled with the grape-treading clue. Otherwise, a very enjoyable Saturday outing. 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:
-
- 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 | Group returning after spring floods (6) |
| SPATES – SPA + TES [SET, returning]. | |
| 5 | Having something oily manufactured in self-contained unit (7) |
| POMADED – MADE in PO^D. | |
| 9 | Speed up what grape-treaders do (4,2,3,5) |
| STEP ON THE JUICE – strange clue, for two reasons. I know the expression “step on the gas”, but I don’t recognise this version. And, if I may quibble, grape-treaders step on grapes, not juice. But, I got there eventually! | |
| 11 | Footballers in Europe struggle with selection process maybe (9) |
| INTERVIEW – INTER [Italian football club] + VIE + W [with]. | |
| 12 | Sailor comes in drunk — one on foot? (5) |
| SABOT – AB in S^OT. It’s a French clog. |
|
| 13 | A youngster suffering setback in stage of biological development (4) |
| PUPA – A PUP, suffering setback. | |
| 14 | Grace appears to hide wrinkles? (10) |
| SEEMLINESS – SEEM^S [appears] to hide LINES. | |
| 18 | Not working to hold line, causing deviation (10) |
| DEFLECTIVE – DEF^ECTIVE to hold L. | |
| 20 | My cathedral city with saint forgotten (4) |
| WELL – WELLS, with S forgotten. | |
| 22 | Office worker in US thus assumes control of X (5) |
| STENO – S^O assumes TEN [X, the Roman numeral]. | |
| 23 | Blood beginning to pour with a frenzy around hospital department (9) |
| PARENTAGE – P [beginning to Pour] + A R^AGE around ENT. | |
| 25 | Have chap insert pipe wrongly — what you get with learning on the job? (14) |
| APPRENTICESHIP – (CHAP INSERT PIPE)*, wrongly. | |
| 26 | Hesitant approach of amateur painter, maybe covering that place inadequately (7) |
| DITHERY – DI^Y [approach of amateur painter, maybe] covering THERe, inadequately. | |
| 27 | Famous biochemist first to sequence nettle (6) |
| SANGER – S [first to Sequence] + ANGER. So famous, but I’d never heard of him. He won the Nobel Prize twice! |
|
| Down | |
| 2 | Vessels lean, capsizing in period where progress is halted (3,4) |
| PIT STOP – POTS + TIP, capsizing. | |
| 3 | Exercises embraced by seaman to become thinner (5) |
| TAPER – PE embraced by TA^R. | |
| 4 | Aware male’s dividing opinion (9) |
| SENTIMENT – M dividing SENTI^ENT. | |
| 5 | Nameless dupe must keep quiet? Bah! (5) |
| PSHAW – P^AW [nameless PAWn] must keep SH. | |
| 6 | Splendid Scot has joke, one being taken in (8) |
| MAJESTIC – MA^C has JEST+I taken in. | |
| 7 | Minimal flow ending in dead river in northern England (7) |
| DRIBBLE – D [ending in deaD] + RIBBLE. I took on trust that the Ribble was a river, and checked later. It seems to be famous for the size of its tides, with tides that run at 4 knots (5 mph; 7 km/h) and a tidal range at the mouth of the river of 30 feet (9 m) during spring tides! |
|
| 8 | Dirty revolutionary, over time, was domiciled (5) |
| DWELT – LEWD revolutionary + T. | |
| 10 | Plain hat worn by troublemaker (6) |
| LIMPID – L^ID worn by IMP. | |
| 15 | Make vicars agitated excluding American Nonconformists (9) |
| MAVERICKS – (M-KE VICARS)*, agitated, excluding (one) A. | |
| 16 | One preserves church book with page missing (6) |
| SALTER – PSALTER, with P missing. | |
| 17 | Italian seaport’s migratory birds gathering around mid-autumn (8) |
| GENOVESE – GE^ESE, gathering NOV [around mid-autumn]. The seaport is Genoa. The ’S in the clue is part of the definition, since the required answer is an adjective. |
|
| 19 | Cinema left abandoned, shelter for a Greek character (7) |
| FLEAPIT – FLE^T [(LEFT)*, abandoned] shelters A+PI. | |
| 21 | Avoiding temptress, like one against being ensnared (7) |
| EVASIVE – EV^E [temptress] ensnares AS+I+V. | |
| 22 | Southern district of city, green area (5) |
| SWARD – S + WARD. | |
| 23 | Foolish requirement for infant’s bedroom? (5) |
| POTTY – cryptic hint. Does the potty actually need to be in baby’s bedroom? | |
| 24 | Car manufacturer losing sales ultimately in first month (5) |
| NISAN – NISSAN, losing an S. I remembered that Nisan was a month in the Hebrew calendar. I didn’t know it was New Year. | |
I had not heard of SANGER either, which was my LOI although not too hard to get from the wrodplay especially with all the checkers.
My mother was from Lancashire, and my grandparents continued to live there, so no problem with the River Ribble. Nearby Southport beach is so flat that the 30 foot of tide at the mouth of the Ribble translates into the water going out 2.5 miles (you can’t really see it from the promenade) and then coming all the way up to the sea wall.
My time seems to be 5 hours which I think means I must have got stuck and then come back to it later, although I don’t remember any particular difficulties.