This week had a mix of quite easy clues and quite hard ones, but happily no obscurity. I loved the thought of harlotry flourishing in a place like 28ac! My LOI was 20dn, where I imagined an answer of the type ‘Model describes his work as impressive’ = I’M POSING. Not close!
Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle. I hope you all enjoyed it.
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 underlined. (ABC)* means anagram of ABC. Anagram indicators are in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | People’s champions rushed past to get prize (3,5,5,2) |
| LAY GREAT STORE BY – LAY GREATS = people’s champions. TORE=rushed. BY=past. I know the expression as ‘set great store by’, but the wordplay got me through. | |
| 9 | Fine stuff from bomb engulfing home (9) |
| GRENADINE – IN=home, in GRENADE=bomb. Grenadine’s a drink, but can also mean a dress fabric of loosely woven silk or silk and wool. | |
| 10 | Dry in excellent cold storage area? (5) |
| ATTIC – TT=dry, in AI=excellent + C=cold. | |
| 11 | Wannabe boyfriend’s ambition so far? (2,4) |
| TO DATE – cryptic hint. | |
| 12 | Material clothing Virginia with ease (8) |
| RELEVANT – RELENT=to ease, ‘clothing’ VA. | |
| 13 | Get through ten exercises in goal (6) |
| EXPEND – X=10 + PE=exercises, in END=goal. | |
| 15 | South American song about limitless wars waged (8) |
| SALARIED – S.A.=South American + LIED=song ‘about’ (w)AR(s). There may be subtle differences between salary and wages, beyond the colour of one’s collar, but never mind! | |
| 18 | Lady who’s breaking rule (4,4) |
| HOLD SWAY – (LADY WHOS)*. Need to separate breaking and rule. Nice, setter! | |
| 19 | Kick retreating dog the speaker’s brought in (4,2) |
| GIVE UP – reverse PUG. Insert I’VE = the speaker has. | |
| 21 | Copper perhaps with police heading for England match (8) |
| COINCIDE – COIN=copper, perhaps + CID=police + E. I spent too long looking for CU=copper. | |
| 23 | Moan in turn when card player goes for opponent (6) |
| SNIVEL – SWIVEL=turn. Change W=west to their bridge playing opponent, N=north. | |
| 26 | Subsequent change, with delayed start (5) |
| LATER – ALTER, with A ‘delayed’. | |
| 27 | Complex routine first couple of doctors settled (6,3) |
| IRONED OUT – (ROUTINE + DO)*. | |
| 28 | Harlotry able to flourish exclusively in London venue (5,6,4) |
| ROYAL ALBERT HALL – (HARLOTRY ABLE)* + ALL=exclusively. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | He comes into shelter to collect match receipts (7) |
| LEGATEE – LEE ‘collects’ GATE. Easy once you see it, but I was trying to fit HE in somewhere. | |
| 2 | Surrender profit (5) |
| YIELD – two meanings. | |
| 3 | Like dons sorting out lectures (9) |
| ROASTINGS – AS=like, inside (‘dons’) (SORTING)*. | |
| 4 | Not wanting a drink (4) |
| AGIN – A + GIN, of course. | |
| 5 | Model sleek and tall, almost gaunt (8) |
| SKELETAL – (SLEEK)* + TAL(L). | |
| 6 | Old judge’s discourse (5) |
| ORATE – O=old + RATE=to judge. | |
| 7 | Exile to leave East, accepting career setback (9) |
| EXTRADITE – EXIT=leave. DART=career; set it back, to produce TRAD. Then assemble: EX(TRAD)IT + E=east. I’m not sure extradite and exile are the same thing. In one, your government kicks you out. In the other, another government drags you out. | |
| 8 | Onset of trauma during long days after Yankee sailed (7) |
| YACHTED – Y=yankee + T(rauma) in ACHE=long + D=days. | |
| 14 | Raised card, stopping woeful reading of lines (9) |
| PALMISTRY – MIS=SIM (card), ‘raised’, in PALTRY. | |
| 16 | Male shunned by hostile workers ultimately left organisation (9) |
| ALIGNMENT – (m)ALIGN + MEN + (lef)T. | |
| 17 | Light charge for rubbish disposal (8) |
| LANDFILL – LAND=to (a)light + FILL=charge. (Charge your glasses, for example.) | |
| 18 | Learner among US draughtsmen with no tips disruptive individual (7) |
| HECKLER – L = learner in (c)HECKER(s). Refering to the game of draughts/checkers. | |
| 20 | I’ll miss grandiose phonetist’s pronouncement (7) |
| PALATAL – PALAT(I)AL=grandiose. PALATAL is apparently a manner of pronouncing sounds with the tongue near the palate. | |
| 22 | I’m awed by a large marine growth (5) |
| CORAL – COR + A + L. | |
| 24 | Cross-dressing Shakespearean music maker (5) |
| VIOLA – two meanings: the character in Twelfth Night, and an instrument. | |
| 25 | Sea wall spot for sleeper (4) |
| MOLE – three(!) meanings: sea wall, skin spot, spy. | |
I had ‘def?’ next to 15ac; ‘wage’ is customarily in contrast with ‘salary’. I had a bit of a MER at 20d, both at ‘phonetist’ (not ‘phonetician’) and ‘pronouncement’. (English doesn’t have palatals other than [j], the ‘y’ in ‘you’. Spanish and French [ñ] (señor, agneau) is a palatal.) I liked 12ac RELEVANT, 18ac HOLD SWAY, 16d ALIGNMENT.
Yeah, I’m “salaried,” which also means I’m “exempt” (that’s the technical term!) from actually counting my hours but still have to electronically report 7 hours 5 days every (non-holiday) week (just 35. This is The Nation, after all). Which also means that I have to do my job (mainly copy-editing the whole damn website) in however much time it takes, which is of course regularly more than 35 hours (though I’m fast enough! Ha), but I can’t claim any overtime pay or comp time. And which means that I’m fairly well paid for 35 hours, but not so grandly when one considers the time I’ve actually put in (some of that is my own stupid fault, simply due to the fact that I’m obsessed with making things correct, whether I’m paid sufficiently for it or not!).
Lest there be any misconception: I love my job! And the part-time workers (wage-earners: They daily clock in and out) where I work would be worse off in just about any other place too (they, too, are in the News Guild!). Still… Capitalism, y’know?
My scribbled time is 55 minutes, so at least I was able to do it in one sitting. It was snivel that really stumped me, such a simple and elegant clue. Working from the cryptics, I didn’t even notice the problem with extradite, but the literal is pretty bad.
“Fine stuff” gave me pause for GRENADINE (my LOI… if memory serves—risky proposition these days, ha!), though I did find the fabric definition too.
56 minutes. Like our blogger, I had heard of ‘set…store by’ but not LAY…STORE BY. A quick google on the former brings up 105,000 hits but on the latter there are only 3,280. No doubt someone will point out that these figures are untrustworthy for various reasons but they would seem to indicate something about usage. Collins has ‘lay’ as British English with ‘put’ as an alternative. It has ‘set’ as American.
I agree with the misgivings about EXTRADITE and ‘exile’.
I found this quite tough and took 45 minutes, finishing with EXTRADITE. COD to LAY GREAT STORE BY. I seem to recall on What’s my Line in the fifties that the distinction was drawn between wage-earning and salaried. Modern job titles wouldn’t work too well for that show. Thank you B and setter.
94m 19s of hard graft, especially in the S.E. corner. MOLE and PALATAL were my two LOIs. I also had to work my way through a list of Shakespearian characters for VIOLA. Me, I like Bill VIOLA’s video art.
Like Jack, I’m more used to SET GREAT STORE BY and not ‘LAY’…. Still that was my COD.
And like Bruce, I query EXTRADITE as a synonym for ‘exile’.
In 28ac what function does ‘exclusively’ perform?
Anyone else find YACHTED a bad word that needs a smack on the rump and bed with no supper?
As set out in the blog ‘exclusively’ is cluing ALL, but at this moment I’m having difficulty seeing them as synonyms.
Got it now, I think, “The cake is all/exclusively for me”.
Horryd’s “Lionesses” are exclusively/all women.
Thanks, Bruce, I misread your blog and thought that HARLOTRY ABLE* provided all the letters for the RAH. Silly me!
Thanks, Jack. I misread the blog and mistakenly thought HARLOTRY ABLE* provided all the letters for the RAH. Duh!
Completed in around 60 minutes, but for several – 19, 23, 27ac, 7, 16, 20d – I’ve got the words and can see they’re right and answer the clue, but not precisely how. That’s where this blog comes in! Lesson approx 972 on how to do a Times crossword…Thank you!
Quite liked this one. Some neat clues eg 23ac snivel.
I certainly see extradition as different from exile but in point of fact both acts are carried out by the same government. It is just that one of them is done at the request of another country. Someone extradited is sent back so “exiled” seems to work, technically at least.
I always set, not lay..
Does one set or lay the table for a meal?
Just on the hour; starting at midday and ending bang on lunch.
FOI 13ac EXPEND
LOI 7dn EXTRADITE
COD 28ac ROYAL ALBERT HALL
WOD 23ac SNIVEL
Can someone please explain why “He comes into” is a def for Legatee?
The LEGATEE comes into or inherits what is left to him say in a relative’s will.
I see, thanks @curryowen
65 minutes, a bit tired after a long walk and ensuing large meal. I took a while to get started, but then things fell into place one by one. LOI were GIVE UP (for a while, I thought “dog” could be “tail” and was wondering how LIME AT might mean “kick” in some vernacular, but when I returned after a break GIVE UP just popped into my mind) and then PALATAL. Enjoyable puzzle on the whole.
Having set myself a time restriction for completion of theses puzzles (if I don’t I wouldn’t get dressed and ready for the day by lunchtime!), I found myself giving up on several clues and heading for the blogs. Would never have gone too far in the SW, having hurriedly entered HOODLUM at 18d, being faced with H…L..! without any idea of the “ US Draughtsmen”. Which made the excellent 28a impossible of course. Ho hum, etc. Liked reintroduction to the word SNIVEL – very Uriah Heep!