I enjoyed this one. Lots of answers were “biffable”, so that helped. One clue I still don’t get as I start the blog. Let’s hope it becomes clear! 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 | Gift of prophesy in age of superstition? (10) |
| PRESCIENCE – since post-science isn’t a word (yet), we’ll have to say the age of superstition was PRE-SCIENCE. | |
| 6 | Witches wanting cold place to put Hansel and Gretel? (4) |
| OVEN – COVEN, wanting C [cold]. | |
| 9 | Times and equals on either side of sum, of course (2,3,5) |
| BY ALL MEANS – BY [times] + MEANS [equals] on either side of ALL [(the) sum (of)]. This is the clue I didn’t get. This parsing seems like a stretch, but it’s the best I’ve got! |
|
| 10 | Flipping onion perhaps makes you cry (4) |
| BLUB – an onion for example (“perhaps”) is a BULB. Flip it. | |
| 12 | It’s useless to speak of something Orion’s belt might go round? (5,2,5) |
| WASTE OF SPACE – Orion, the constellation, is in SPACE. Orion’s Belt, the asterism, is seen to go round its WAIST, so to speak. | |
| 15 | A specialist in close encounters, I got fouls dubiously (9) |
| UFOLOGIST – (I GOT FOULS)*, dubiously. | |
| 17 | Composition featuring rearrangement of Da Do Ron Ron’s middle parts (5) |
| RONDO – which are the middle 5 letters of a 10 letter phrase? Stop being pedantic! Obviously, (DO RON)*, rearranged. | |
| 18 | A strand to slurp, as tagliatelle? (5) |
| PASTA – hidden (a strand of …). The whole clue can be used as definition. | |
| 19 | Contract bridge beyond fashionable (9) |
| INDENTURE – IN [fashionable] + DENTURE [a dental bridge, for example]. | |
| 20 | Scream more excitedly about 1980s band singer (12) |
| YELLOWHAMMER – YELL [scream] + O⁁MER [(MORE)*, excitedly] about WHAM. | |
| 24 | Praise God for speakers of RP (4) |
| LAUD – sounds like LORD, for users of Received Pronunciation. | |
| 25 | Cunning, with concealed weapon, making loud demands (10) |
| STRIDENTLY – S⁁LY with concealed TRIDENT. | |
| 26 | Art going to fade? (4) |
| WILT – I took the archaic form “WILT THOU” [art thou going to] as a hint rather than a definition. | |
| 27 | Chocoholic’s weakness also seen in the West’s degeneracy (5,5) |
| SWEET TOOTH – TOO [also] seen in SWEET⁁TH [(THE WEST)*, degenerately]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Watering holes where motherless cougar meets “discontented” bears (4) |
| PUBS – PUMA, motherless + BEARS, discontented. | |
| 2 | Feller boosted by mark in test (4) |
| EXAM – AXE boosted (in this down clue) + M [mark]. | |
| 3 | Kazakh journalist under arrest abandoning resistance or partner (12) |
| COLLABORATOR – BORAT under COLLAR abandoning R + OR. | |
| 4 | Build sports field in middle of hometown (5) |
| ERECT – REC in E⁁T [middle of HOMETOWN]. | |
| 5 | Right-wing type and media boss were hanging out (9) |
| CONSORTED – CON + SORT + ED. | |
| 7 | Big house in America sheltering character that’s rotund and evil (10) |
| VILLAINOUS – VILLA + IN⁁US sheltering O [character that’s rotund]. | |
| 8 | Blew money endlessly on loose ladies (10) |
| NOBLEWOMEN – (BLEW MONEY ON)*, loose. | |
| 11 | Eccentric chaps abducted by alien being removed (12) |
| ESTRANGEMENT – STRANGE MEN [eccentric chaps] abducted by E⁁T. | |
| 13 | Explanation for inevitable failure of potato salad (7,3) |
| MURPHY’S LAW – MURPHY [potato] + SLAW [salad]. | |
| 14 | Power source conserving energy, like Natural History Museum? (6,4) |
| FOSSIL FUEL – FOSSILFU⁁L [like Natural History museum, whimsically] conserving E. | |
| 16 | Sunak’s back to lead moderate Tories, turning up for meal (5,4) |
| IRISH STEW – RISHI with the I moved from the back to the front + WETS turning up, in this down clue. | |
| 21 | Massachusetts, one New England state nearby (5) |
| MAINE – MA + I + NE. | |
| 22 | Name of four Holy Roman Emperors and eight from Italy (4) |
| OTTO – two definitions. | |
| 23 | Unfounded belief in enemy threat (4) |
| MYTH – hidden. | |
6ac. I’d forgotten the plot of Hansel and Gretel – only remembered the pebbles and breadcrumbs, not the oven.
17ac. I think the idea is that “parts” means words rather than letters.
Da Do Ron Ron is four words.
Therefore a rearrangement of the middle parts is [3rd word][2nd word] = [Ron][Do].
Not rearranging individual letters within the words.
The correct spelling of the famous song is 11 letters long: Da Doo Ron Ron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Doo_Ron_Ron
Thanks for the blog, and introducing me to the word “asterism” in your explanation of 12ac.
22:39
I parsed BY ALL MEANS as you did, Bruce. I never did parse YELLOWHAMMER; DNK Wham.
Quite easy and very enjoyable apart from RONDO which is ill thought through for wordplay and so obviously biffable anyway that it rather let’s down the rest of the puzzle.