Times Saturday 26388 April 16

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I’m filling in for Andy as per his request below. I found this one pretty straightforward for a Saturday and completed it in 36 minutes.

[I tried posting this several times on Saturday evening but was unable to do so because my “Post to …” button was greyed out. I assumed this was a general problem with LJ until I saw keriothe’s ST blog go up and so I  tried again but without success. I also rebooted everything. In the end I found that I could type in the Subject title and a couple of words in the body of the text and it allowed me to post that succesfully. Then I went into Edit and pasted in the blog as usual and it allowed me to save the edit. Very odd! If anyone has any explanations to offer I’d be most grateful.]

[Added Sunday later: I’ve now found that having pasted in pre-prepared text ready for posting, if I make any change, like deleting a single word or correcting a spelling error, the “Post to …” button changes from grey to “live” to allow posting. It’s just possible that in all the years I have been posting to LJ I have never tried to use the button before editing the text in some way, so perhaps there’s nothing different going on after all. It’s all very disconcerting though!]

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions} are in curly brackets and [indicators] in square ones.

Across
1 Favourite cold drinks turned up (7)
POPULAR – POLAR (cold) encloses [drinks] UP reversed [turned]
5 Problem swallowing dessert when lying back in bed (7)
STRATUM – SUM (problem) encloses [swallowing] TART (dessert) reversed [lying back]
9 Cooking method taking a day before patient consumes odd bits of stew (9)
FRICASSEE – FRI (day), CASE (patient) enclosing [taking] S{t}E{w} [odd bits]
10 Throw from field (5)
PITCH – Two definitions
11 One sadly about ninety, whose time is done (2-3)
EXCON – Anagram [sadly] of ONE encloses [about] XC (ninety)
12 Flying    down the touchline? (2,3,4)
ON THE WING – Two definitions
13 Mark sometimes faced   evidence of spillage from vessel? (4-4,5)
PORT-WINE STAIN – Two defintions, the first with reference to a type of birthmark that could be on one’s face.
17 Lost flier in the mail, a rare advertisement originally redirected (6,7)
AMELIA EARHART – Anagram [redirected] of THE MAIL A RARE A{dvertisement} [originally]. “Lost” because she disappeared on her last flight.
21 Very great ordinal, one of twelve written about evil ideology, primarily (9)
MILLIONTH – MONTH (one of twelve) encloses [written about] ILL (evil) + I{deology} [originally]
24 Trunk approximately on time (5)
TORSO – T (time), OR SO (approximately)
25 Dance that’s sweet, a degree short? (5)
RUMBA – RUM BA{ba} (sweet) [a degree short]
26 A meeting of tongues splashing fluid (9)
SPANGLISH – Anagram [fluid] of SPLASHING
27 Matter of chance, seeing animal close to colony beside lake (7)
LOTTERY – L (lake), OTTER (animal), {colon}Y [close to]
28 Touching line by chap written on bronze (7)
TANGENT – TAN (bronze), GENT (chap)

Down
1 Person smoking a fish (6)
PUFFER – Two definitions
2 Articulate first rule (9)
PRINCIPLE – Sounds like {articulate} “principal” first
3 Librettist welcoming a student (7)
LEARNER – LERNER (librettist) encloses [welcoming] A. Alan J Lerner wrote the lyrics for “My Fair Lady” amongst many other shows. One usually associates “librettist” with opera or oratorio but it can be applied more widely.
4 You must support second issue in argument for Herefordshire town (4-2-3)
ROSS-ON-WYE – S (second) + SON (issue) inside ROW (argument), YE (you)
5 Fish was well past its sell-by date? (5)
SMELT – Straight definition with a cryptic hint which assumes the fish has gone off
6 Bottle up higher, carafe ends on top of newspapers (7)
REPRESS – {highe}R + {caraf}E [ends], PRESS (newspapers)
7 African king is raised as a Rwandan (5)
TUTSI – TUT (African king), IS reversed [raised]
8 Wood stacks round a corner (8)
MAHOGANY – MANY (stacks) encloses [round] A + HOG (corner)
14 Direction taken by spacemen, or the astronauts (5-4)
NORTH-EAST – Hidden in [taken by] {spaceme)N OR THE AST{ronauts}
15 If later regenerating, the beginnings of further existence? (9)
AFTERLIFE – Anagram [regenerating] of IF LATER, F{urther} E{xistence} [beginnings]. The definition is &lit.
16 Party set up right in Scottish estate (8)
BALMORAL – LAB (party – Labour) reversed [set up], MORAL (right)
18 Parrot I breed to assimilate computer technology! (7)
IMITATE – I, MATE (breed) enclosing [assimilate] IT (computer technology)
19 Foreign agent in toxin, perhaps? (7)
ANTIGEN – Anagram [foreign] of AGENT IN
20 Female on top of sombrero, perhaps? Never mind! (2,4)
SO WHAT – SOW (female), HAT (sombrero, perhaps).
22 Ceiling clearly visible, 100cm obscured (5)
LIMIT – LIT (clearly visible) encloses [obscured] 1M (100cm)
23 Refusal to accept good man is bad (5)
NASTY – NAY (refusal) encloses [to accept] ST (good man – saint)

18 comments on “Times Saturday 26388 April 16”

  1. A couple of DNKs–4d and ‘touchline’ in 12ac–but with enough checkers, they weren’t a real problem. I only parsed 1ac post hoc, biffing from checkers, but now it’s my COD, just edging out 17ac. I thought ‘drinks’ was nicely misleading. Then I noticed post-solve that the next clue has ‘swallowing’, and the next ‘consumes’, and I was wondering if the setter was up to something, but no; still, I count eleven inclusion clues (11ac, 21ac, 3d, 4d, 8d, 18d, 22d, 23d), which struck me as a lot, not that I’ve ever counted them before. Jack, a nit-picking point, but I took 5d as a dd with ‘was well past…’ as the cryptic def, which assumes that it is (something like) the fish that is past its sell-by date (rather than, say, cake mix).
    1. I always find it hard to classify this sort of clue so I hedged my bets and thought I had all angles covered in what I wrote, but I suppose it comes down to ‘where do you draw the line(s)?’ if one is indicating the definitions in that manner.

      I’d also noticed the number of inclusions when blogging and had intended to expand my introduction to mention them but I got distracted by the problems I had posting to LJ and forgot to do so, so thanks for bringing it up.

      Edited at 2016-04-24 05:41 am (UTC)

      1. For what it’s worth (very little!) I would have classified it as you did, since for my money ‘was well past…’ is a (very slightly) cryptic indication rather than a straight definition.
        1. I posted a response having misunderstood what you were saying in your 12:40 message and have now deleted it.

          Edited at 2016-04-24 01:21 pm (UTC)

  2. This was straightforward as you say but a special mention to 14dn, the best hidden clue for some time. Agree with kevingregg that 5dn is more like a double definition.
  3. Dedication above and beyond last night, John! Thanks so much for doing this. It seems to me that the system must have logged you out somehow while you were typing – I’ve never come across that problem myself before though.

    As for the puzzle, I found it a bit harder than the last few, getting there in about 18 mins. Probably just because it was the third puzzle of my morning commute last Monday and I was running out of steam by then!

    1. You’re welcome, Andy. I now think I may have found the answer to my tech problem and have added a note to the blog introduction. I’d already logged a support query with LJ and have kept them updated with the various developments. If they come back with anything useful I’ll pass it on.
    2. Corner (vb) Appropriate greedily or selfishly; take an unduly large share of for oneself, monopolize. colloq

      compare with “hog the market”

  5. I found this tough: it took me about half an hour. Of course looking at it now I’ve no idea what I found difficult.
    I always write my blog in Word, copy and paste it into LJ and then set it to be posted automatically early on Sunday morning, but I have never experienced the sort of problems you describe. I always have to add the title but I don’t normally edit the main text at that point.

    Edited at 2016-04-24 09:55 am (UTC)

    1. Interesting. I save the text and html code as a Notepad.html file which I open in a web browser and then copy and paste into LJ. Usually at that point I’d do a final read-through and edit a few bits before posting to TftT but yesterday, because it was a last-minute job, I decided to try to post the blog and was then going to edit afterwards. That was my mistake, doing something out of sequence from my usual process.
      1. I do something similar but I always post first and edit afterwards. It’s easier to see errors in the final version (rather than the html) and while it’s a scheduled entry it isn’t visible to others.
        1. Many thanks for the insight. I’ve never got round to understanding the process for posting in advance and scheduling so if you’d care to let me know how it’s done I’d really appreciate it. Best send by clicking my user-ID rather than discussing further here.

          Regards

          J

  6. Pretty straightforward apart from 13a, an expression I’d never heard of and had to cheat on, “purewine stain” not cutting the mustard.
  7. I managed to get most of this without aids although it took me a while. The problems for me were Smelt and Antigen and the unknown Spanglish. But overall it was an enjoyable test for the aspiring QCer. David

Comments are closed.