Times Cryptic No 27780 – Saturday, 26 September 2020. Lazing on a weekend afternoon.

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Ah Saturday. Another accessible puzzle. Every answer was from the known universe of discourse, and no clue was trivial. Just how I like it! My favourite was 5ac, with its delightful self-referential qualities. Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle. Let’s take a look.

Notes for newcomers: The Times offers prizes for Saturday Cryptic Crosswords. This blog is posted a week later, after the competition closes. So, please don’t comment here on the current Saturday Cryptic.

Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. Deletions are in {curly brackets}.Add your introduction here

Across
1 Funny character securing lids, I forget the name (7)
WHATSIT – WIT ‘securing’ HATS.
5 Singular, small flower pots for flower (7)
BLOSSOM – the first flower is a BLOOM, which holds S for singular, and S again for small, all producing BLOSSOM.
9 Checked out bottles all the same, such as whisky? (9)
DISTILLED – STILL = all the same, bottled by DIED = checked out.
10 General entitlement (5)
GRANT – double definition. General, later President, Ulysses S. Grant.
11 Insect in river adjoining lake (5)
LOUSE – L for lake, OUSE is the river.
12 Game not applicable: is English dance? (9)
POLONAISE – assemble as instructed: POLO is the game, N/A, IS, E for English.
14 Battle ground (8,6)
STAMFORD BRIDGE – double definition. The battle was in 1066 and all that, the football ground is still in use. For non-British readers, it’s the home ground of Chelsea Football Club.
17 Insincere old eccentric packaging up a book token (14)
INCONSIDERABLE – ‘eccentric’ (anagram of) INSINCERE OLD + A B{ook}.
21 Second cracking title surprisingly providing theme (9)
LEITMOTIF – MO (second) ‘cracking’ (inside) an anagram (‘surprisingly’) of TITLE, all followed by IF = providing.
23 Straying inside Cairo guesthouse (5)
ROGUE – hidden inside CaiRO GUEsthouse.
24 After heart transplant, females returned to conscious state (5)
WOKEN – WOMEN become WOKEN after a ‘heart transplant’, ho ho.
25 Turn of the prince to be very agitated, once (9)
PHRENETIC – ‘turn’ (anagram) of THE PRINCE.
26 Waste time in oubliette (7)
DUNGEON – DUNG is waste, EON is a (long) time.
27 Yours truly repelled by the golden rule (7)
THEOREM – THE (literally in the clue) OR (gold), EM is ME (yours truly) reversed.

Down
1 Buffalo (as American might say) following with clumsy gait (6)
WADDLE – Chambers says “buffalo” is a North American expression for “bewilder”. So, W for ‘with’, followed by ADDLE.
2 A matelot, reportedly offensive (7)
ASSAULT – ‘reportedly’ sounds like A SALT (sailor, or matelot)
3 Character whose skin breaks to make silk (6-3)
SPIDER-MAN – DERMA or skin, breaking SPIN or make silk. Aficionados will know, that’s not how he makes silk! He has a technological solution.
4 “Stop! The line’s busy”, might one say? (11)
TELEPHONIST – ‘busy’ anagram of STOP THE LINE.
5 Malicious smear turning up (3)
BAD – DAB ‘turned up’.
6 Official publication that’s stopped (5)
ORGAN – double definition: a State newspaper, for example, or a church organ.
7 Pull up towels, bandaging a black cormorant, say? (7)
SEABIRD – DRIES (towels) ‘pulled up’, ‘bandaging’ A B (black).
8 Welcomed into government department, comforting word appeared caring? (8)
MOTHERED – THERE (a comforting word, especially when repeated: there, there), ‘welcomed into’ MOD (the Ministry Of Defence).
13 If sister wrongly following boy — what should he have said? (6,5)
LADIES FIRST – IF SISTER ‘wrongly’ (an anagram), following LAD.
15 Switch back on cooker (9)
REARRANGE – REAR (back), RANGE (cooker).
16 Dollar maybe, outstanding, surged (8)
BILLOWED – a dollar BILL, is OWED if outstanding.
18 Well-dressed boy in yellow (7)
CHICKEN – CHIC (wel-dressed), KEN.
19 Boat now free of freight? (7)
LIGHTER – double definition.
20 After uprising, imperial award stuck in throat for online observer (6)
WEBCAM – CBE in MAW, all ‘uprising’.
22 Meat that’s new devoured by rodents (5)
MINCE – N for new, devoured by MICE.
25 Fastener that’s long made slightly shorter (3)
PIN – PIN{e}, shortened.

25 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27780 – Saturday, 26 September 2020. Lazing on a weekend afternoon.”

  1. No problems that I recall, other than not knowing what ‘ground’ was doing in 14ac. Since Buffalo is a city, and ‘buffalo’ a transitive verb (in the US, anyway), one can, as I don’t know who pointed out, a perfectly grammatical sentence, “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”
    1. Sorry Kevin … you may need to translate for those of us who don’t speak ‘Murican!
      1. Nothing particularly Murcan about the sentence other than the verb ‘buffalo’.Buffalo buffalo [i.e. buffalo from Buffalo] [that Buffalo buffalo [ditto, presumably different buffalo] bewilder [themselves also] bewilder Buffalo buffalo. Same structure as, say, ‘Rich people poor people envy envy richer people’.
  2. The only queries I had were with WADDLE and PHRENETIC and you’ve explained those well, Bruce, so thank you.
    Many enjoyable clues such as STAMFORD BRIDGE, INCONSIDERABLE, ORGAN and WEBCAM but my COD to DISTILLED. I loved ‘checked out’ = ‘died’.
  3. 27 minute on this excellent puzzle, apart from 1d that is. COD to ORGAN. I have to admit though to waddling to Buffalo by a circuitous route. From crossers I thought that it had to be WADDLE. I then thought that’s how a Yank would say Wattle, which must be another name for a buffalo. Post solve, I checked it out. There is a plant called a Buffalo Wattle, an Acer, would you believe? I think there was more chance of me knowing that than that buffalo meant addle, but I had no clue of either. Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2020-10-03 08:36 am (UTC)

  4. Yes, a quite easy Saturday puzzle for a change. My only queries were ‘Buffalo’ easily resolved after the event, and ‘once’ in 25ac later explained by PHRENETIC being a variation on ‘frenetic’ described as ‘rare’ or ‘obsolete’ depending on which dictionary one consults.
  5. Take your buffalo and flush it down the bison !

    I biffed WADDLE, and was thus left with 25A/20D after 9 minutes. I spotted PHRENETIC pretty quickly, but WEBCAM had to be alpha-trawled.

    FOI POLONAISE
    LOI WEBCAM
    COD TELEPHONIST
    TIME 11:37

  6. 45 mins for this nice offering. Like others, baffled by Buffalo so thank you B for the explanation. FOI WHATSIT, LOI WADDLE. I liked WEBCAM and DISTILLED mostly. Being originally from London, had no probs with SB. Thanks setter and B.
  8. FOI PIN. The unknown spelling of PHRENETIC was easy to guess with the checkers.Stamford Bridge a gimme for me which gave lots to work with. I finished with a tentative WADDLE and was buffaloed by the unknown Americanism.
    An enjoyable puzzle overall. COD to WEBCAM. David
  9. Still waiting for blogs from the last three jumbo cryptic crossword – 1459, 1460, 1461
    1. It’s too soon for 1461. 1460 is due today and it’s still early. I don’t know what’s happened to 1459.

      Edited at 2020-10-03 08:26 am (UTC)

  10. Only WADDLE gave me pause, as I didn’t know the required meaning of ADDLE, like most of us I see. The rest of the puzzle fell into place nicely and I was all done in 23:42. Thanks setter and Bruce.
    1. Actually, I wouldn’t have thought of ‘buffalo’ for ‘addle’ myself; for me, ‘buffalo’ means ‘intimidate’. I had no idea that it was a N. Americanism.
      1. I don’t use it to mean intimidate, kevin, as much as to baffle or perplex.
    2. I was OK with addle. It was the required meaning of buffalo that I couldn’t fathom!
  11. 24:23. An enjoyable and diverting puzzle. I was of course buffaloed by buffalo but not so much so that it prevented me from entering waddle with a shrug and a “well it must have another meaning that I’ve not come across before” muttered under my breath.
  12. As our blogger says, no drama this week. With a US background, 1d was no problem, and with a UK background 14d was a gimme. Otherwise, no “brilliant” checkmarks, and no “what the ???” ticks in my margins this week. thank, brnchn
  13. 14:26. I enjoyed this too, and a well-sub-average time for me. I’m another whi didn’t know that other meaning of “buffalo”. I bet no-one else got the initial answer I had for 27A… ME (yours truly) [repelled] -> EM, PER (by) OR (the golden) -> EMPEROR (rule). Ta Da! But then I got LADIES FIRST for 13 (which I liked)… FOI LOUSE, LOI DUNGEON (which I also liked). But COD to TELEPHONIST. Thanks Bruce and setter.
  14. And what of 14ac Paul?

    FOI 1ac WHATSIT

    LOI 10ac GRANT

    COD 4dn TELEPHONIST

    WOD 14ac STAMFORD BRIDGE home to the dreaded CHELSKI

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