Times Cryptic No 28080 – Saturday, 11 September 2021. The fun of the familiar!

What a change from the previous week! The consensus on that puzzle was, too many obscurities, too little fun.

I was very in tune with Phil J’s view of what makes a good puzzle: Why do people do the Times Crossword? My personal expectation is to find cleverness, trickery, misdirection, and humour — all of these factors being produced in a manner that provides enjoyment. Exactly.

This week was fun. It had nothing beyond our ken, although the diamond facet at 11ac was a new thing to me. FOI was 1ac, leading quickly to 1dn, 2dn and 3dn – a gentle start! The pad at 15ac eluded me for a while. My clue of the day was the delightful 16dn.

Thanks, setter – a very enjoyable puzzle. How did you all get on?

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.

[Read more …]Clues are blue, with definitions underlined. Deletions and commentary are in (brackets).

Across
1 Lowest point of dinar suffering a run (5)
NADIR – anagram of DINAR (suffering a run).
4 Increasingly grey wolves will get some protection (9)
PACKAGING – PACK=wolves, AGING=increasingly grey.
9 Place for rest of hams uncured by chance (9)
GREENROOM – GREEN = uncured. I dithered over ROOM=chance, as in chance of/room for error. Not a perfect match perhaps. Certainly actors, however talented, may rest in the greenroom.
10 Assume for argument one is needed in support (5)
POSIT – I=one, in POST.
11 A facet of diamond surplus which is looming in South Africa? (5,8)
TABLE MOUNTAIN – learn something new every day: the large, flat facet on top of a well cut diamond is the TABLE facet. The surplus is a MOUNTAIN.
14 Government backed shutting up Liberal video journal (4)
VLOG – L in GOV, backed.
15 Pad appropriate to house us at home without Oscar (10)
PINCUSHION – PINCH housing US, IN outside/without O=Oscar.
18 Asks in gent with moving and charming quality (10)
TAKINGNESS – anagram of ASKS IN GENT (moving). An awkward word, I thought.
19 Formerly working with chief engineer (4)
ONCE – ON=working, C.E.=chief engineer.
21 Go nicely and dance without me, my mischievous child (6,7)
EXCUSE ONESELF – EXCUSE (ME) is the dance, ONE’S=my, ELF=mischievous child.
24 Foreign Office abandoning overseas rule (5)
REIGN – FOREIGN=overseas. Take out F.O.=Foreign Office. Odd to see ‘overseas’ turn into ‘foreign’, when that target word already appears elsewhere in the clue!
25 One who might have fought with pride? (9)
GLADIATOR – cryptic definition. I thought they fought one lion at a time, not the entire pride at once, but I am no expert.
27 What’s splendid to ripen in a kitchen cupboard (9)
PAGEANTRY – AGE in PANTRY.
28 Create bridge to carry weight (5)
SPAWN – W in SPAN.

Down
1 Pessimism, for example, during Christmas scene (10)
NEGATIVITY – E.G. in NATIVITY.
2 Some fondues can be outstanding (3)
DUE – hidden.
3 Shoot the organiser? (6)
RUNNER – double definition.
4 Support for proposal to meeting (9)
PROMOTION – PRO=for, MOTION=proposal to meeting. Support of the marketing kind, perhaps.
5 Spice put in after cold rum? Not right (5)
CUMIN – C=cold, (r)UM, IN.
6 Judge a piano flatter? (8)
APPRAISE – A, P=piano, PRAISE.
7 Inability to feel popular, with one imprisoned by court decision (11)
INSENTIENCE – IN=popular. I=one, imprisoned by SENTENCE=court decision.
8 Rock music hit number two in chart (4)
GOTH – GOT=hit, as in hit the target. H=number two (letter) in cHart.
12 Delay in appointment for accountant’s job (11)
BOOKKEEPING – KEEP in BOOKING.
13 Bury referee brought up using protein (10)
INTERFERON – INTER=bury, REF backward, ON.
16 Conventional occurs regularly to Shelley, perhaps (9)
CUSTOMARY – CUS from oCcUrS (regularly), TO MARY.
17 Reptile growing large in area with nothing around opposing? (8)
ANACONDA – A=area + NADA=nothing, around CON=opposing.
20 Careless about failure (6)
REMISS – RE=about, MISS=failure.
22 Little, not large spot (5)
SIGHT – S(L=large)IGHT.
23 Lean forward (4)
PROP – double definition. Prop against the wall; prop forward in rugby.
26 Time over Western Australia? It’s two in Perth (3)
TWA – T=time, W.A. No, no – that Perth is in Scotland, not Australia, since that’s the dialect for the answer.

22 comments on “Times Cryptic No 28080 – Saturday, 11 September 2021. The fun of the familiar!”

  1. I didn’t know about diamonds, but sort of guessed a table might be a facet; anyway, there was no doubt about the solution. Put GLADIATOR without hesitation, but Bruce has a point; at least if Androcles was typical. I liked EXCUSE ONSELF.
  2. FOI 1ac NADIR

    LOI 26ac TWA

    COD 15ac PINCUSHION

    WOD 18ac TAKINGNESS!

    Where’s the Caeserian entertainment in fighting one lion at a time!?

  3. Yes, much better than the previous week’s offering!
    Thanks for explaining TABLE MOUNTAIN, Bruce. I just biffed it.
    My notes say “mostly gettable”. I’m not sure what I meant by that.
    LOI: GOTH
    COD: PACKAGING but I did like GLADIATOR.
  4. I just worked this one, start to finish! After two Friday puzzles tonight—and I’ve still got two Wednesdays and Thursdays (four 15x15s) to finish (busy couple weeks).

    Guessed TABLE MOUNTAIN, which looks generic (“mesa”?) so looked it up and found its much more striking other name, Mcclear’s Beacon (!).

    PROP was a lonnnng time in coming, and y’all can guess why.

    LOI was GOTH—that “number two in chart” is damned clever.

    I, too, wondered about the wordplay for ROOM.

    Maybe if the GLADIATOR kills one lion they just send in another… and another…

    Edited at 2021-09-18 04:19 am (UTC)

      1. Ah, yes. The layout of the Google page was momentarily misleading.
        A triangulation station. And a national monument.

        Edited at 2021-09-18 05:12 am (UTC)

  5. What makes a good puzzle? I think it’s the penny-drop moments. Perhaps there’s a dopamine release associated with these, to which we may become addicted. Doing the cryptic crossword has certainly become habit forming. I need my daily hit. A poor puzzle would be one not providing enough of the required neurotransmitter.
    This one was most satisfactory. The pdm hit for EXCUSE ONESELF was best. I didn’t manage to parse ANACONDA, so didn’t extract maximum benefit from it until reading Brnchn’s explanation.
    21:14
  6. ….a change from the previous week — and very much one for the better. This puzzle very much met my checklist from last week — thanks for the quote Bruce.

    I found TAKINGNESS somewhat cumbersome (automatic text doesn’t like it either !), and “table = facet” was new to me, but obvious enough.

    I thoroughly enjoyed the increasingly grey wolves, fighting with pride, and the appearance of the “other” Shelley, but my COD was just clever and pithy.

    FOI NADIR
    LOI APPRAISE
    COD SIGHT
    TIME 11:47

  7. High on a hill they smile at me. 27 minutes, the last couple spent parsing LOI and COD EXCUSE ONESELF. I’d biffed liontamer for GLADIATOR untiI I saw it wasn’t Percy Bysshe and got CUSTOMARY. Is TAKINGNESS the charm shown by a thief? TWA was a clever three letter job. TABLE MOUNTAIN is the only geographical feature I know in South Africa, but that’s one one more thing than I know about diamond facets. A pleasant puzzle. Thank you Bruce and setter.
  8. 28 minutes. My only half-query was ‘facet of diamond’ = TABLE but it rang a very faint bell so I’ve probably met it before.
  9. 50 minutes. Some of this was exceptionally easy – FOI 1 ac NADIR – but the majority wasn’t, with several biffs which I still failed to parse even post-solve, eg 9, 15ac. NHO TAKINGNESS at 18ac. LOI 3D RUNNER. More tedious than enjoyable, tbh.
  10. Easier than last Saturday. FOI was TWA. LOI ONCE because I had biffed INSENSITIVE at 7d.
    Was not sure about GOTH; and TAKINGNESS was a new word to me although made up of old parts.
    Enjoyable and no need for aids. Favourite was PACKAGING.
    David
  11. 50 minutes for a DNF — I simply had no patience to think 4ac and 8dn through. But once I saw the pink squares I saw that my PACKAGIER should have been PACKAGING, and of course 8dn would be GOTH and not RUTH. What RUT could possibly have to do with a hit wasn’t clear to me anyway.
  12. All correct for me. But I don’t remember much about it. I was a bit unsure about INTERFERON since “protein” could describe a zillion other things too. Loved EXCUSE ONESELF,
  13. I had a query against ROOM for “chance”. I still think it’s a feeble definition. I bunged PROP in immediately (I’m Welsh!) but couldn’t see it as meaning “lean” until I read this blog. No other major problems. Much more enjoyable than last week’s offering. 23 minutes. Ann

    Edited at 2021-09-18 04:42 pm (UTC)

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