Introduction
I found today's puzzle to be a bit more of a challenge than usual. But maybe my mind has just been thrown out of whack by the change to daylight savings time. By the way, in today's puzzle, it may be useful to note that the Down clues outnumber the Across clues by 16 to 14.
Today's Glossary
Some possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzle
bouncy castle -
tit -
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree - English actor
Links to Solutions
A review of today's puzzle by talbinho can be found at Times for the Times [ST 4367].
Commentary on Today's Puzzle
28a 14 of these clues are a sign of the times! (6)
Although I recognized that the number 14 refers to the number of ACROSS clues, I was left feeling that I must be missing some nuance in the wordplay. Several potential connections came to mind: a cross could be a sign (symbol), Catholics make the sign of the Cross, a cross looks like a letter "t" which is the first letter in the word "times", the puzzle originally appeared in the Sunday London Times (although "times" is not capitalized in the clue). However, I was not able to conclusively make a connection to any of these and talbinho's review does not provide any indication of what - if anything - I may be missing.
19d Prometheus met this underworld character, possibly (7)
I initially found the solution to this clue by matching words to the checking letters and then attempted to decipher the wordplay. I even recognized that if one deleted the letters MET from PROMETHEUS and constructed an anagram of the remaining letters, it would produce ORPHEUS - although I could not figure out how one would be expected to get that from the clue.
But how would one classify this clue. Since the definition "this underworld character" appears in the middle of the clue, I am assuming that this cannot be a standard cryptic clue. I am guessing that this might be an &lit clue where one reading of the clue provides a description of ORPHEUS (someone who Prometheus possibly met). The second reading of the clue would then involve the wordplay that talbinho explains. A second possibility that I considered is that it might be considered to be a cryptic definition.
Signing off for this week - Falcon
28A: talbinho didn't mention this, but my guess is that the clue is referring to the multiplication symbol in maths, which is a St Andrew's cross. (At least in the UK, "two times three" means 2x3, so "a sign of the Times" is the def.)
ReplyDelete19D: talbinho's got the classification right - it's a compound anagram, and the clue does a reasonable job of telling you that "Prometheus" is an anagram of MET plus the word you need. UK cryptics simply don't have the rule used in most American ones, which says that all definitions MUST be at one end of the clue. My knowledge of Greek myth is poor, but I don't think the Prometheus and Orpheus meeting is a serious mythical prospect.
Hi Peter,
ReplyDeleteRe 28A, what you say is true not only in the UK, and now that you point it out, it is so blindingly obvious that I am kicking myself for not seeing it.
Re 19D, your comment is very enlightening. It would seem that I have long been labouring under this misconception (i.e., "that all definitions MUST be at one end of the clue").
Falcon