Times 27162

This is a Saturday and therefore a prize puzzle. The daily puzzles are blogged here; but this one won’t be until next Saturday. I’m betting this was compiled by John Halpern, who sets as ‘Paul’ for the Guardian - because of the style, difficulty, and slight naughtiness (in that he knows we're going to look at the answer to 5 down).

ACROSS

1. STET (‘let it stand’ in editing parlance) is the last letters of thiS greaT livE evenT; very nice start.

2. ROCK SALMON (fish) charade of rocks (surprises) and almon(d) a ‘fruit’ which has lost its last letter - it’s been chopped

9. MAPLE SYRUP (sweetener) anagram of (rumpole pays)* without the O, signalled by ‘scrapping over’ - where O stands for over; I use an asterisk to indicate an anagram

10. STIR (excited reaction) - the IRish come (are drawn) to ST (saint)

11. BENGAL (historic subcontinental region) ben is a mountain, gal a girl

12. EVERMORE (always) this has rev (minister) inside E Rome - all backwards (travelling west)

14. VISA (pass) S, the first letter of Slovakia inside via (through in Latin)

15. RIBBONFISH (swimmer) charade of rib (support) B(ritish) ON fish (search)

17. ENTHUSIASM (relish) (has minutes)* ‘cook’ is the anag(r)ind - the anagram indicator

20. RAGE (tempest - a bit loose) rag is ‘mock’ and E is the last letter of the Bard’s name

21. LEARNING (letters) - ling means heather - it’s also a fish! - around earn - ‘to bring in’

23. THEBAN (old Greek) AB - able seaman - is reversed inside THEN - as a consequence

24. GRID (box - I didn’t think of that straightaway!) G(ood) + RID - to deliver (from - so a bit loose)

25. FIANNA FAIL (party - in Ireland) Anna, the girl, follows FI - Formula 1, and then FAIL - 'founder, in the (verbal) sense of ’not succeed’

26. PEEPING TOM (one who looks for excitement) 'peeping' is mimicking a bird, and the cat is a tom

27. LINK (connection) this is what I call an inclusive; it’s more usually called a ‘hidden word’ - but it’s not hidden! as the letters are set out in the clue - in schooL IN Karachi. There is usually one - but only one! in the daily Times - other papers don’t have such a rule

DOWN

2. TRAGEDIENNE - this is what is known as an ‘and lit’ - where the whole clue is the ‘definition’ - but it’s also an anagram of (generated in)* - one of the most sophisticated of clue types

3. TELEGRAPH - dd - double definition

4. RUSTLER (lawbreaker) ruler - sovereign - holds ST - saint = good man (a common ploy)

5. CERNE ABBAS GIANT (figure) (Caribbean agents may)* a simple clue to explain, but a bastard to solve; see Wikipedia for the naughty picture >

6. SUPREMO (boss) sup is drink, re is on, mo is tick = minute/second/mo(ment)

7. MOTTO (slogan) a herd of cows goes MOO; the TT is the Tourist Trophy, a race still run on the Isle of Man; look it up in youtube - it is really dangerous.

8. NERVE - dd - double definition

13. RESIGNATION (notice - as in ‘gave in his notice') (eating irons)* - where ‘wrongly placed' is the anagind

16. FORGETFUL (remiss) charade of FORGE + LUFT (German for ‘air’) backwards (soaring); Luft is fairly familiar to an older generation from Luftwaffe, the German air force

19. METONYM (reductive substitution - a figure of speech - ‘the container for the thing contained’ - as Crown refers to the monarch inside it) - E TONY inside M M for Mass and Medium

21. LEG UP (advantage) LEG is GEL backward, hence ‘up’, hence ‘cryptically'; special type of clue - without a name?

22. my LOI (last one in) because I found LEG UP hard, and because I was expecting a B to be dropped when it turned out to be an M. It’s ALICE (young heroine) which is Malice without the first letter (initially denied)

KEY

to abbreviations which may have been used

(raga man)* = anagram of 'anagram'
cd = cryptic definition
dd = double definition
incl. = inclusive (hidden word) - a simple inclusive has the letters next to one another, tho perhaps rev.; a 'complex inclusive' has the letters are in plain view but not adjacent
def. = definition (synonym, literal)
rev. = reversed
anagind = anagram indicator
homophind = homophone indicator
surface - the apparent meaning of the clue, disguising what's really going on
&lit. - a clue in which the whole clue is the 'definition'
COD = clue of the day (imo); FOI, LOI, first/last one written in

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Garry Gillard | New: 6 October, 2018 | Now: 7 October, 2018