Times 26623 - William Bradford needed one!

Solving time: 32 minutes

Music: Bach, Cello Suite #3, Harnoncourt




At first I thought this was going to be easy, as my first few answers were write-ins. Then I got stuck for a while, and it started to look like trouble. Another burst brought me nearly to the finish, only to again run into a wall. The last few answers were biffed, and I really couldn't see how the cryptics worked unless you used very loose or obscure meanings of the constructing words. In the end, I had to type in my paper copy just to make sure that I had indeed solved the puzzle correctly.

I was hoping to get going quicker at the end of a long day, not helped when I decided to watch the end of the golf tournament while eating dinner instead of starting the puzzle immediately. At least there was no playoff - far from it, indeed.

So I will now attempt the blog, and see if I can untangle the parsing of the clues that got solved through instinct and feel.

Across
1	SOMETIME, sounds like SUM + TIME, where 'porridge' is criminal slang for a prison sentence. My FOI, all good so far.
5	ENTRAP, E,N + PART backwards.
9	OURSELVES, anagram of USE LOVERS.
11	VICAR, VIC + A R. Head of a church, not the church.
12	CHEVRON, CHEVR[e], ON[e], where 'left unfinished applies to both components.
13	MELANGE, anagram of GLEEMAN.
14	COMPACT CAMERA, COMPACT (as a verb) + CAME + RA.
16	THIMBLERIGGER, anagram of BEER GIRL MIGHT.
20	FREESIA, FREE + S(I)A, where 'had' is part of the construction instructions rather than an indicator for I'D, a subtlety that held me up for a long time.
21	GROWN-UP, G[i]R[l] + OWN UP.
23	OLIVE, O + LIVE, where the terminals are live, neutral, and ground.
24	EASY GOING, a reverse cryptic, where 'EASY GOING' turns UNEASY into UN. One I just biffed, of course.
25	DANGLE, [fan]DANGLE. I could only vaguely recall 'fandangle', which see, but that had to be it.
26	APPARENT, APP + A RENT.
Down
1	SCONCE, SCON(C)E.
2	MERGE, MER([workin]G)E.
3	THEOREM, anagram of THE[m] + MORE. A bit &litish, as a theorem is not the proof, but what is proven.
4	MOVING AVERAGE, MO + VIN GAVE RAGE, another one I just biffed.
6	NOVELLA, NO + V + ELLA.
7	RACONTEUR, RA(CON)T + EUR. Another biff.
8	PARMESAN, P(ARM[i]ES)AN, where I had to use the cryptic to check the spelling.
10	SOMETHING IS UP, SOMETHING I SUP.
14	CRITERION, C + anagram of INTERIOR. I spent the longest time looking for a banner or flag of some kind.
15	STAFFORD, STAFF + O + RD.
17	BOSWELL, BO[ok] + SWELL. I was thinking 'excellent' = 'well', and couldn't parse the cryptic, but it is actually quite simple if you take a slangier approach.
18	GEORGIA, GEORG[e] + I + A.
19	SPIGOT, SPI(GO)T, a very tough cryptic to see, and I certainly didn't see it.
22	NOISE, [l]ESION upside-down.