I found this very hard for a Saturday. It took me several sessions. The “Lincolnshire” town was clever, and the Satanic writer was, um, satanic. Writing it up, there seem to be more than the usual number of long charades in the wordplay.
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 | Pay comedian less, essentially (5) |
| WAGES – WAG + ES [LESS, essentially]. | |
| 4 | First-class meal and accommodation comprises good starting point (9) |
| LAUNCHPAD – A [first-class] in L⁁UNCH + PAD. Comprises can mean includes or is made up of. This time, it’s includes. |
|
| 9 | Enclose fashionable society magazine article missing introduction (9) |
| INSHEATHE – IN [fashionable] + S [society] + HEAT [a British magazine, NHO] + HE [THE, missing introduction]. Clever juxtaposition of magazine and article. |
|
| 10 | Nil by mouth for one in bed? (5) |
| OXLIP – O [nil] + X [by] + LIP. | |
| 11 | With regular instances of unrest, he and Islam tangled (6,7) |
| SALMAN RUSHDIE – (U-R-S- HE AND ISLAM)*, tangled. Only use the odd letters of UNREST. |
|
| 14 | Charitable donations from key Liberal Welsh politician (4) |
| ALMS – A [musical key] + L [Liberal] + MS [Welsh Politician: Member of the Senedd]. Learn something new in every crossword! |
|
| 15 | Someone criticising lively drag parties heartlessly (10) |
| DISPARAGER – (DRAG PAR-IES)*, lively. Ignore the middle letter of PARTIES (heartlessly). |
|
| 18 | Instil some reforms very slowly (10) |
| LENTISSIMO – (INSTIL SOME)*, reforms. | |
| 19 | Periodically print the important part (4) |
| PITH – Only use the odd letters (periodically) of PrInT tHe. | |
| 21 | Eventually, King, Queen and others turned on very old emperor (6,2,5) |
| SOONER OR LATER – SO [very] + O [old] + NERO + R [king] + LATER [R (queen) + ET AL (and others), turned]. Phew – a lot going on there! |
|
| 24 | Section of church elated Hindu disciple (5) |
| CHELA – hidden. DNK the word, but it seemed plausible. | |
| 25 | Those leaving the country record label before awards (9) |
| EMIGRANTS – EMI [rcord label] + GRANTS [awards]. | |
| 27 | Couple briefly trying swimming for pregnant women (9) |
| MATERNITY – MATE [couple] + (TRYIN-)*, swimming. Ignore the last letter of TRYING (briefly). |
|
| 28 | Perhaps Mr Levy has left for hotel (5) |
| TITLE – TITHE [levy] with L for H. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | With success, go over border of Lincolnshire town (10) |
| WHITSTABLE – W [with] + HIT [success] + STAB [go] + LE [border of LincolnshirE]. If you’ve been doing these for a while, you would automatically assume the town isn’t in Lincolnshire. Indeed – it’s in Kent. |
|
| 2 | Chat cut short (3) |
| GAS – GASH [cut, short]. | |
| 3 | Alternate pronunciation of maritime proverb (6) |
| SEESAW – SEE [sounds like SEA] + SAW [proverb]. The definition is “to alternate”, as a verb. |
|
| 4 | Services computers etc controlled by viruses? (9) |
| LITURGIES – IT controlled by LURGIES. | |
| 5 | Doorkeepers ignoring heroin addicts (5) |
| USERS – USHERS, ignoring H. | |
| 6 | Those in debt supporting children, eating the last of tinned soups (8) |
| CHOWDERS – CH [children] + OW⁁ERS eating D [the last of TINNED]. | |
| 7 | Pilots managed to arrest flyer over disruptive presence (11) |
| POLTERGEIST – POL⁁IST [(PILOTS)*, managed] to arrest TERGE [EGRET, over]. | |
| 8 | Party drug hoax (4) |
| DUPE – DUP [Democratic Unionist Party] + E. | |
| 12 | South of large uranium extraction facility, detect glowing (11) |
| LUMINESCENT – L + U followed by (south of, in this down clue) MINE + SCENT. | |
| 13 | You are in a right mess with European Court icon (6,4) |
| ARTHUR ASHE – (U + R) in A + RT [right] + H⁁ASH + E [European]. | |
| 16 | Withdrawing work put forward, puncturing the writer’s self-importance (9) |
| POMPOSITY – PO [OP, withdrawing] + POSIT [put forward] punctuing M⁁Y. | |
| 17 | Deviant is around person with outdated views (8) |
| DINOSAUR – (IS AROUND)*, deviant. | |
| 20 | Part of Ireland beginning to tax alcohol (6) |
| CLARET – CLARE [the Irish county] + Tax. | |
| 22 | Resin from tree, one packed with energy (5) |
| ELEMI – EL⁁M + I, packed with E. | |
| 23 | Fleece coats sent north (4) |
| SCAM – MACS sent north, in this down clue. | |
| 26 | Clear of all charges, X is on the rise (3) |
| NET – TEN [X] on the rise. Again, a down clue. | |
Also found it tricky, also noticed more than a few long charades, and I noticed lots of plurals, which strikes me as unusual in The Times. Enjoyed nevertheless, all parsed including inferring 3 NHOs: Whitstable, MS and Chela. Like the word lurgy so Liturgies gets COD.
This took me ages. Same DNKs and inferences as isla3. I don’t see what ‘good’ is doing in 4ac. I liked ARTHUR ASHE.
Chela did ring a bell – it’s the sort of word you’d find in a Mephisto clue, either as the answer or part of the wordplay. Elemi, on the other hand, is an old friend. It took a while for the penny to drop on Salman Rushdie, but I did see poltergeist and luminescent right away.
Time: 37:42
54 minutes. Yes, pretty hard but all worth it for my LOI, the excellent SALMAN RUSHDIE &lit. I didn’t parse LAUNCHPAD properly until coming here. I now see it’s a Yoda-speak clue, with ‘good’ as part of the definition. To answer Kevin’s query, Collins gives “an effective starting point for a career, enterprise, or campaign” as sense 2 for LAUNCHPAD and Chambers has something similar.
I’ve been doing these for a while but was still done good and proper by the ‘Lincolnshire town’ trick. I’d actually considered WHITSTABLE earlier but thought “Nah, can’t be that, it’s in Kent, not Lincolnshire”. One up to setter.
Aha. Thanks. I’ve marked “good” as part of the definition in 4ac.
I didn’t bother to look it up but I justified ‘good’ along the same lines by thinking of Julie Andrews and the Do Re Mi song: Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start…
I figured ‘good’ was part of the definition, although it didn’t seem to me to be, only knowing LAUNCHPAD in the rocket sense.
Since I nho WHITSTABLE and had no idea what’s in Lincolnshire (or Kent, by and large), I avoided your temptation and went right to LE. Ignorance, if not bliss, can at least be of use sometimes.
50 minutes, so not easy, but I worked away steadily and got through it without any major hold-ups. NHO CHELA but a hidden answer is not a bad way to clue a potentially difficult word.
55 minutes. Found some of this rather hard, therefore pleased to be under an hour. Like BletchleyR above, didn’t parse LAUNCHPAD properly and not overimpressed with the Yoda-speak putting the inclusion indicator at such distance. NHO CHELA – that and ELEMI belong in Mephistoland imo.
Thought OXLIP clever (although more likely to be found in the wild), and TITLE. Also liked MATERNITY, POLTERGEIST and LUMINESCENT.
COD ARTHUR ASHE (has Stan Smith ever been clued?).
For some of us, like Vinyl and me, ELEMI is an old friend–or chestnut–from the NYT. I saw ‘Resin’ and immediately thought ELEMI, as I suspect Vinyl did, too. CHELA, on the other hand, …
Yes, ELEMI is my old friend too (from years of doing Spectator crosswords) – but it’s still a Mephistoword imo.
WOE but overall toughish at 38 mins.
My error was in DIsOnAUR having toyed with various combis earlier and not revisiting. Pretty sure I’ve made exactly the same error on the same word before. I would have spotted it in an Across clue or scribbling in the margin on paper.
I had exactly the same WHITSTABLE experience as BletchleyReject but remembered ELEMI so some things do stick.
Lots to enjoy: both of the people, POLTERGEIST and LAUNCHPAD.
Thanks all round.
25:50, so, yes on the hard side. LOI the tennis player. DNK that meaning of CHELA, although I knew of it as a crab’s claw (from another crossword, no doubt). I liked LITURGIES and SOONER OR LATER. Thanks branch and setter.
I too found this difficult, and now see that I have an error at 8d. Initially, I had DOES for 8d, missing that it was the wrong part of speech for ‘hoax’. This made OXLIP impossible. Finally, I revisited it and put DOPE, thinking a double definition of ‘party drug’ and ‘hoax’. Of course, I’d initially assumed E was the ubiquitous drug, but missed the other type of party. A dope is, anyway, a hoaxee rather than a hoax, so a little more thought might have saved the error. I didn’t understand how ‘A’ was incorporated into LAUNCH, so thanks for the explanation, Branch. 21a was bifd and post-parsed. Did anyone actually work that out, though I guessed ‘et al’ came into it somewhere? INSHEATHE was NHO – I would have used un-. Also CHELA NHO, so as well it was a hidden…
40 minutes or so.
– Don’t think I’ve ever come across INSHEATHE before
– Needed all the checkers to get the clever SALMAN RUSHDIE
– Like others, relied on the wordplay for CHELA
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Wages
LOI Whitstable
COD Salman Rushdie
Late to the party here today – other priorities. But got this one last week over three sessions. Had to come here for some parsing.
Particularly liked 11ac SALMAN RUSHDIE, 10ac OXLIP and on reflection 16d POMPOSITY.
Quite a few issues with other offerings. Did not know much about 9ac INSHEATHE, thinking the magazine might be ‘She’. Had twigged to the ‘a’ in ‘lunch’ for 4ac LAUNCHPAD but not a fan. Could see ‘Nero’ in 21ac SOONER OR LATER, but needed the blogger, and thought it a bit much.
Had to research the hidden 24ac CHELA, but two nice hiddens really.
(Have a) ‘go’ – ‘stab’ and ‘hit’ for success made 1 down a tough research for a non UK person. Ch for children makes another appearance in 6d CHOWDERS. Had no idea about DUP in DUPE 8d, but it fit better than ‘dope’. Finally saw 13d ARTHUR ASHE but parsing – hmm? Had to research 22d ELEMI.
Tough, but on balance, thank you setter. Definite thank you again, branch.
20.49
Crikey, bucking the trend as I found this average difficulty. Strange thing, that wavelength. ELEMI was the first “crossword” word I came across, so never forgotten. Otherwise some trickiesh w/p so maybe I was just in good biffing mode.
Thanks Bruce/setter