Not so tricky. It took a while to see 9, and 11 had a term I didn’t know, but it all worked!
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:
-
- 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 | Fruit spread and fruit jam (9,6) |
| BUTTERNUT SQUASH – BUTTER [spread] + NUT [fruit] + SQUASH [jam]. | |
| 9 | Communication system originally mixing ogham, runes and minute lines (5,4) |
| MORSE CODE – Mixing + Ogham + Runes + SEC [minute] + ODE [lines]. | |
| 10 | One of two parents shedding clothes (5) |
| OTHER – mOTHERs, shedding clothes. | |
| 11 | Guy with racing tip in Shanghai? (6) |
| KIDNAP – KID [guy] + NAP. I didn’t know this meaning of “nap”. Apparently it’s a racing tip purporting to be a sure thing. |
|
| 12 | Obscure English boozer west of Clapton? (8) |
| ESOTERIC – E [English] + SOT [boozer] + ERIC. | |
| 13 | Author beginning to talk playwright round (6) |
| NESBIT – Talk + IBSEN [playwright], all backwards (round). | |
| 15 | Lack of moisture in canned sardines (8) |
| ARIDNESS – (SARDINES)*, canned. | |
| 18 | Like a fool, Nemo perhaps loses faith at first (8) |
| CLOWNISH – CLOWN FISH loses F [faith]. | |
| 19 | Lying around in bedsit, arguing for nothing (6) |
| GRATIS – backwards hidden answer (lying, around). | |
| 21 | Writer probing another badly flawed protagonist (8) |
| ANTIHERO – I [the writer] probing ANT⁁HERO [(ANOTHER), badly]. | |
| 23 | Tremble after one becomes a slave (6) |
| THRALL – THRILL, after I becomes A. | |
| 26 | Praise tax cut on back of The Times (5) |
| EXTOL – E [back of thE] + X [times] + TOLL, cut. | |
| 27 | Vanguard at this point moved fast, according to Spooner (9) |
| SPEARHEAD – HERE SPED, according to Spooner. | |
| 28 | Non-European club playing? Impossible to say (15) |
| UNPRONOUNCEABLE – (NON EUROPEAN CLUB)*, playing. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Rustic family under awful pressure (7) |
| BUMPKIN – BUM [awful] + P [pressure] + KIN [family]. | |
| 2 | Weary and embarrassed after sex on the rebound (5) |
| TIRED – TI [IT (sex), on the rebound] + RED. | |
| 3 | Height of joy, taking possession of electric vehicle (9) |
| ELEVATION – EL⁁ATION taking possession of EV. | |
| 4 | Not one satisfactory corner (4) |
| NOOK – NO [not one, as in “no taker”] + OK. | |
| 5 | Regularly target a certain prize (8) |
| TREASURE – TRE [TaRgEt, regularly] + A + SURE [certain]. | |
| 6 | Ring you and cry after Question Time (5) |
| QUOIT – Q [question] + U [you] + OI [cry, for attention] + T [time]. | |
| 7 | Loathsome earthborn mutant (9) |
| ABHORRENT – (EARTHBORN)*, mutant. | |
| 8 | Vacuous hippy breeds furry animals (7) |
| HYRACES – HY [hippy, vacuous] + RACES [breeds]. | |
| 14 | Drinks with leading baseball player (9) |
| SHORTSTOP – SHORTS [drinks] + TOP [leading]. | |
| 16 | Unknown quantity of concealed heroin (4,5) |
| DARK HORSE – DARK [concealed] + HORSE [heroin]. | |
| 17 | Coffee sample from cafe’s press officer (8) |
| ESPRESSO – hidden (sample from). | |
| 18 | Each university fellow introduces something going over one’s head (7) |
| CHAPEAU – CHAP [fellow] + EA [each] + U. | |
| 20 | Spot policemen cycling on Greece’s borders (7) |
| SPLODGE – SPLOD [PLODS, with the S cycling to the front] + GE [the borders of GreecE] | |
| 22 | How do you do Shakespeare play without leading pair? (5) |
| HELLO – OTHELLO. | |
| 24 | Fighter pilot knocked back British bitter (5) |
| ACERB – ACE + RB [BR, knocked back]. | |
| 25 | Reportedly shot seabird (4) |
| TERN – sounds (reportedly) like TURN. | |
17:55
DNK nap, but didn’t need to. I biffed a bunch, parsing post-submission. I knew of Nemo the fish; my GK did not include knowing his species.
The web seems to suggest the term ‘nap’ originally derived from a card game.
Actually I can recall the old English comedian Billy Russell in ‘On Behalf of The Working Classes’ talking about ‘going nap’.
PS. Some very clever lines in that recording BTW, but definitely not PC today.
While there was sufficient challenge, did not find this one particularly entertaining. But nevertheless, not unfair and eminently doable.
For some reason took a shine to 7d ABHORRANT – perhaps for directness of clue and 17d ESPRESSO as nice hidden. Also 22d HELLO.
As blogger Kevin (and no doubt others), DNK ‘nap’ but 11ac KIDNAP had to be. Not fussed on ‘sec’ for ‘minute’ in 9ac MORSE CODE (but no doubt standard crossword fare), ‘turn’ for ‘shot’ in 25d TERN.
Thought 2d was sexually TIRED for the obvious reason. Nice to see Eric get a mention.
Had to confirm 8d HYRACES and look up 13ac NESBIT to fit the clue.
Should not have needed to come here for explanation of 26ac EXTOL.
Thank you setter and branch.
I got through this in 35 minutes, which is not too bad for me on a Saturday. An enjoyable solve and I was amazed to find the NHO HYRACES correct as derived from wordplay. NHO ‘Hyrax’ either, come to that.
I once saw a hyrax in the flesh, or fur anyway, in Kenya; I probably still have the photo I took.I would have thought they were rodents, but apparently they’re more closely related to elephants and manatees. I’m glad to see that Wikipedia refers to them as hyraxes, not hyraces.
Saturday always a bit of a relief after Friday’s horror. As usual, this was challenging but doable.
Didn’t know the furry animal and amused to see BUTTERNUT SQUASH appear twice in 6 days.
I look forward to your comment next week.
45 minutes. All parsed, I think – had to assume Nemo is a clownfish, and find it hard to accept sec = minute in MORSE CODE.
COD? Hello, HELLO.
‘Wait, I won’t be a sec/minute.’?
Yes, indeed – what I should have said is that I find it hard to accept (and don”t much like) the imprecision generally. A minute is 60 seconds – and, for everyday informal speech, ‘mo’ will do for either (as in ‘Wait, I won’t be a mo’).
Not too hard, and no unknowns apart from the plural of hyrax. That plural, anyway.
And you wait ages for a butternut squash, and then..
Did this on holiday, hence online, but I remember it as being quite straightforward, with many of the usual suspects – the seabird, heroin fixation, the baseball terminology (thanks to TfTT I’m now quite familiar with diamonds and shortstops). The hyrax plural was unknown, since we never see one in the UK, let alone several, but it was fairly easy to drag out. A nice and not-too-taxing puzzle…
15 minutes.
– Didn’t know that meaning of nap for KIDNAP
– NHO HYRACES, but the cluing was kind, the checkers helped and it sounded plausible
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Tern
LOI Thrall
COD Othello
Here’s “Rob Wright’s Saturday racing tips” in today’s Times:
Ascot
1.10 Cuban Heels
1.45 Zgharta
2.20 Mudbir (nap)
2.55 Valedictory (nb)
3.30 Sassicaia
4.05 Naga
4.40 Azure Zain
“nb” means “next best”. So by 2.30 we’ll know whether Mudbir turned out to be a sure thing or not.
not quite a sure thing…came in 22nd (out of a field of 28)!!
According to the “Naps Table”, on the Racing Post website, we should be reading the Ipswich Star. Matt Polley chose “The Wizard Of Eye” as his nap (tip of the day), and in it came at 20/1.
7:25: no problems with this. I did actually know ‘nap’, from past crosswords of course. I also knew of the hyrax but not this spelling of the plural.
18:28. Saturdays really are variable.
HO the Hyrax. THRALL as a noun was tricky combined with the unusual usage of tremble = thrill.
Enjoyed BUMPKIN, Nemo, the vacuous hippy and the excellent ABHORRENT and UNPRONOUNCABLE anagrams.
Thanks to branch and setter.
Crosswords ARE variable, aren’t they?! This whole idea that you can tell the difficulty by the day of the week is quite new.
My thanks to branch and setter.
I don’t seem to have struggled much with this.
12a Esoteric. Eric wasn’t my first thought for Clapton.
18a Clownish, Nemo wasn’t the first character I thought of for Nemo. In the 50s I had a Disney book of 20,000 leagues under the sea with its Captain Nemo. I wonder if the Disney/Pixar person who came up with Finding Nemo had it too?
1d Bumpkin, COD, I enjoy a bum now and then.
12.40
I also knew NAP but from more dubious pursuits than crosswords. Rather a pleasant puzzle. QUOIT was bunged in after being kippered by the w/p. TIRED was very good.
Thanks Setter/branch
Enjoyed. Three new words today: HYRACES, nap, Shanghai meaning kidnap. Everything else went in slowly but fairly smoothly. Liked ESOTERIC and BUMPKIN. Many thanks for blog.