This felt relatively straightforward, tho with a few unknowns, which could all be overcome. Much use of first or last letters of words, or both. I liked 3dn because it seemed so obvious the clue was referring to an Irish church! Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.
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}.
| Across | |
| 1 | Beautiful youth ultimately serving some old lawmaker (8) |
| GANYMEDE – G (servinG, ultimately), ANY (some), MEDE (old lawmaker, referring to ‘the laws of the Medes and Persians’). G. was a beautiful Trojan lad … mistreated by the Greek gods, almost inevitably. | |
| 6 | Feeble dog on lead in former times (6) |
| FLABBY – F (lead in Former), LAB (dog), BY (times). | |
| 9 | Indian city besieged by extremely threatening rabble once (6) |
| TAGRAG – AGRA in TG (ThreateninG, extremely). I was familiar with RAGTAG, but not this version. | |
| 10 | Teacher expresses disapproval about minerals (8) |
| TUTORESS – TUTS around ORES. | |
| 11 | Stick around lake, being down in the dumps (4) |
| GLUM – GUM around L. | |
| 12 | Charlie’s new earnings docked before work on river (10) |
| NINCOMPOOP – N (new), INCOM (income, docked), PO (a river in Italy), OP (work). | |
| 14 | Hanger-on in farm building, one left inside (8) |
| BARNACLE – BARN, ACE (one) with L inside. | |
| 16 | Underdone cheese dish with bit missing (4) |
| RARE – RAREBIT minus the BIT. | |
| 18 | Time to go back and make improvements (4) |
| EDIT – TIDE backwards. Time and tide wait for no man. Perhaps no exactly the same thing! | |
| 19 | Ancient history chum distorted excessively (8) |
| OVERMUCH – OVER (ancient history), anagram of CHUM. | |
| 21 | Go to Paris, carrying cycle for versatile sportsperson (3-7) |
| ALL-ROUNDER – ALLER (‘go’ in French), ‘carrying’ ROUND. | |
| 22 | Dark blue Bible displayed in major city (4) |
| NAVY – A.V. in N.Y. | |
| 24 | Female murder victim to be buried in Scottish island shortly (8) |
| ISABELLA – ABEL ‘buried in’ ISLA{y} ‘shortly. | |
| 26 | It’s like a carapace maybe, the poet said (6) |
| SHELLY – sounds like SHELLEY. | |
| 27 | Seabird identified by woman in luxury car (6) |
| GANNET – ANNE in G.T. “GT” is a car designation that seems to have largely disappeared. | |
| 28 | Assess English girl worried about university (8) |
| EVALUATE – E (English), VAL (girl), U (university), ATE (worried). | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Use of a covering for the ears? (5) |
| AVAIL – sounds like A VEIL. | |
| 3 | Big church in Kerry most affected by change (4,7) |
| YORK MINSTER – anagram (affected by change) of (IN KERRY MOST). | |
| 4 | With O’Neill briefly in charge, start to study selective breeding (8) |
| EUGENICS – EUGEN{e} O’Neill, I/C, S{tudy}. | |
| 5 | Friendly understanding altered niece, not surprisingly (7,8) |
| ENTENTE CORDIALE – anagram (surprisingly) of (ALTERED NIECE NOT). | |
| 6 | Understand family’s first party finishing early (6) |
| FATHOM – F{amily}, AT HOM{e}. | |
| 7 | Bearing of one who will succeed on radio? (3) |
| AIR – sounds like HEIR. | |
| 8 | See island store coated in baked clay, mostly (9) |
| BISHOPRIC – I (island), SHOP (store), all in BRIC{k}. | |
| 13 | Case left by chap having meal with union leader (11) |
| PORTMANTEAU – PORT, MAN, TEA, U. | |
| 15 | Asian lad travelling around posh part of Spain (9) |
| ANDALUSIA – anagram (travelling) of (ASIAN LAD) around U. | |
| 17 | State of mountain-climbing artist entertaining request (8) |
| NEBRASKA – NEB=BEN ‘climbing’, then RA ‘entertaining’ ASK. | |
| 20 | Illuminated sign colonel finally installed in clubs, perhaps (6) |
| SUNLIT – last letters of sigN and coloneL ‘installed’ in SUIT. | |
| 23 | Southern African grassland sometimes considered in speech (5) |
| VELDT – sounds like FELT, when pronounced with an Afrikaans accent. On edit: I think Keriothe’s comment is right. “Sometimes” flags that the V in VELDT could be pronounced as an F or a V. | |
| 25 | Disallow fruit? Not half! (3) |
| BAN – have half a BANana! | |
FOI TUTORESS
LOI FATHOM
COD NINCOMPOOP
TIME 9:38
Thanks for decoding FLABBY. That was my only query although, as with others, I have never heard of TAGRAG.
My only objection is to VELDT as a homophone of FELT. No Afrikaans please, we’re British!
No, make that two objections: I think TUTORESS is an ugly word.
There is a breeding colony of GANNETs on White Island, offshore from where I live. It was the island that erupted last December while parties of visitors were on it.
I liked BARNACLE as “hanger-on” in 14ac but my COD goes to NEBRASKA for “mountain-climbing”.
15 clues in my first session indicates good progress.
I was down to my last two by 2pm and LOI was GANYMEDE, a clue for which I lacked the GK.
But 9a was a problem as it turns out.
The answer to the question -What else could it be?-is as follows: I thought the definition was Indian. The go-to crossword city is UR.Rabble once is the first letter of Rabble. Add TG. Think of the Volkswagen car -Touareg ( a tribe somewhere?); there must other spellings in Collins. Disregard the odd E and you get TAUREG -simple!
David
In 23dn I think ‘sometimes’ is part of the wordplay, indicating that VELDT is sometimes pronounced like ‘felt’. Collins and Chambers both give two possible pronunciations, one with an F sound at the beginning and one with a V.
Edited at 2020-08-15 10:47 am (UTC)
Tutoress is not only ugly but also completely unnecessary .. who says a tutor need be male? Any more than a teacher is? It should be expunged from the language forthwith.
Liked 26ac
Edited at 2020-08-15 03:48 pm (UTC)