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.
Yes, “middle parts”! Now I understand.
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.
Enjoyable challenge but foiled by 26a. Totally misled by ‘ art’ and never for a second thought of the archaism. Drat..
40 minutes.
I too parsed BY ALL MEANS as you did, Bruce. I think the surface could be read mathematically as something like A x B = C, the whole thing being (loosely) a ‘sum’ with ‘times’ on one ‘side’ and ‘equals’ on the other.
Much to enjoy elsewhere. Liked WASTE OF SPACE (the humour of it), MURPHY’S LAW (ditto, despite the absence of apostrophe indication – and hadn’t twigged the ‘salad’ = SLAW bit), VILLAINOUS (topical!) and YELLOWHAMMER (sadly becoming scarcer). But COD to WILT.
We were doing very well through this one and thought we would crack the 1hr barrier. But ended up two short sessions and 1hr 45 mins. (Yes, I know, pathetic compared with the hard nuts).
Found this enjoyable Saturday, fair and not too easy – but not as challenging as today’s.
Some nice clues, particularly 11d ESTRANGEMENT and in retrospect 1d PUBS. Had to come here for parsing of 3d with the famous Kazakh (?) and research the YELLOWHAMMER 20ac to fit the clue.
Not really entranced by 26ac WILT, although do follow bloggers reasoning.
Also REC for ‘sports field’ in 4d ERECT a bit stretchy.
Strangely, 9ac BY ALL MEANS looked OK to me, as did 17ac RONDO (albeit a bit easy as per jackkt).
Thank you setter (very enjoyable) and branch (for light touch humour).
I forgot to make notes on this, but going through the blog recalled the delight of such gems as PUBS, COLLABORATOR (I admit I panicked initially over Kazakh journo), MURPHY’S LAW and YELLOWHAMMER (Wham!, brilliant). I see I only wrote out the anagrist for one clue, so I must have been pretty much on form, with no unknowns and all parsed.
29 mins. Made heavy weather of this gentle one, failure to separate “band singer” for ages typifying my slow-wittedness. Nice puzzle though.
Don’t understand what there is to not understand about BY ALL MEANS, that is how I parsed it.
COD PRESCIENCE. Thanks to setter and branch.
In 1ac it should be “Gift of prophecy” not prophesy .. as the setter himself confesses in today’s puzzles email.
Gentle, otherwise ..