Sunday Times 4850 by David McLean

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
8m. A gentle one this week. No unknowns for me, although the answer at 22ac is one of those (many) things I think I only know from crosswords.

Not much more to say on this and I’ve left it late in the week so I’ll just get on with it.

Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (THIS)*, anagram indicators like this.

Across
1 Dodgy hip concerns king, being this?
NO SPRING CHICKEN – (HIP CONCERNS KING)*.
9 Up-for-lease houses close to clear stream
TORRENT – TO R(cleaR)ENT.
10 Grip fiddled with lens cap
ENCLASP – (LENS CAP)*.
11 Unhappy private duke sent to the front
DOWN – OWN (private) with D (duke) ‘sent the front’. Nice clue.
12 Can pupils cross by end of street, one asks
SUPPLICANT – (CAN PUPILS)*, streeT. Slightly odd this one as the CAN part of the anagrist isn’t mixed up.
13 Big change for small headline in Fish Monthly?
SHAKE-UP – S for small, and then an imagined headline in a fish-related newspaper: HAKE UP. An unlikely headline, sadly, since hake is overfished.
15 River policemen powerless to net anglers?
REELERS – R, pEELERS. The original English policemen named after Sir Robert Peel, of course.
17 Turning more pasty, starts to sicken experiencing this
RELAPSE – reversal of PALER, Sicken, Experiencing. Semi-&Lit.
19 Small store ultimately cuts prices for Pampers
COSSETS – COS(S, storE)TS. This clue relies on the convention that you can capitalise a common noun (because you do so at the beginning of a sentence) but you can’t uncapitalise a proper one.
20 A line crossed by nudist in Darwin?
NATURALIST – NATUR(A, L)IST. Definition by example, as signalled by the question mark.
22 Some big bonnie people abroad
IGBO – contained in ‘big bonnie’. A people of Eastern Nigeria and their language.
25 Limits restricting republican artist’s commissions
ERRANDS – E(R, RA)NDS.
26 Men network at party in southeastern city
ORLANDO – OR (other ranks, men), LAN (local area network), DO (party).
27 Shabby drunk
THE WORSE FOR WEAR – DD.

Down
1 Well-known as a composer’s work
NOTED – two definitions, one very slightly cryptic.
2 Crazy party for prison officers?
SCREWBALL – or SCREW BALL.
3 Head of espionage to probe commie grass
REED – RE(Espionage)D or R(Espionage)ED. Take your pick.
4 The kind of contract that many left-wing Americans desire?
NO-TRUMP – a bridge term. It’s not just Americans.
5 Climber and soldiers look cold on ascent
CREEPER – reversal (ascent) of RE, PEER, C.
6 Feeling of irritation in chest is awful
ITCHINESS – (IN CHEST IS)*.
7 Tree-hugger fine about hugging a laurel finally
KOALA – AOK (fine) containing A, laureL.
8 Those from whom relative may receive post?
NEPOTISTS – barely cryptic definition.
13 Uncompromising series on hospital department
STRINGENT – STRING (series), ENT (ear nose and throat).
14 Neat prose could be translated into this
ESPERANTO – (NEAT PROSE)*. &Lit.
16 Coming endless crisis? Not the last for EU
EMERGENCE – EMERGENCy, Eu.
18 Heel finally heals after nurse gets involved
ENLISTS – EN (enrolled nurse), LIST (heel), healS.
19 Bag up aristocrat’s discarded garment
CASTOFF – reversal (up) of SAC, TOFF.
21 Sweet energy drink brought round to take on run (5)
TORTE – reversal (brought round) of E, TOT containing R.
23 Sullen following of leader creates a stink
ODOUR – Of, DOUR.
24 Slight sirens luring transports
SLUR – contained in ‘sirens luring’. In the dailies two straight containment clues aren’t allowed in the same puzzle but this is Sunday and the rules are less rigid.

18 comments on “Sunday Times 4850 by David McLean”

  1. Like Keriothe I only know IGBO from these crosswords. I also found this a gentle offering, taking 23:01 to complete. Nevertheless, an enjoyable puzzle. I liked NO SPRING CHICKEN and SCREWBALL. ESPERANTO took a while, as did THE WORSE FOR WEAR. Thanks Harry and K.

    Edited at 2019-05-19 12:12 am (UTC)

  2. I think a good chunk of that time was taken worrying over LOI 18d. I finally flung it in, but without remembering heel/list. I also took time remembering SCREW. I wondered about TORTE (2d to LOI), because I took the wordplay to indicate E+TROT reversed, and couldn’t see ‘drink’. The GB in IGBO is actually one sound, the G and B being articulated at the same time; a number of West African languages have such sounds. I suppose it could as well be spelled Ibgo. Nothing particularly stood out in this puzzle, except perhaps for 8d, for the wrong reason.

    Edited at 2019-05-19 12:23 am (UTC)

    1. Donald has been a real blessing to setters. Imagine the difficulty they would have working in snide comments about CLINTON into their clues.
  4. Always nice to start off with an easy-to-spot anagram in 1ac

    Edited at 2019-05-19 02:32 am (UTC)

  5. 38 minutes, and little else scrawled across my torn-out solution. COD was THE WORSE FOR WEAR, a good double definition. Because the only nurse girl friend I had (1962 to 1965 intermittently) was an SRN, EN for nurse never seems right, so 18 down was the only clue to cause a very mild eyebrow raise. A perfectly decent puzzle. Thank you K and David.

    Edited at 2019-05-19 05:55 am (UTC)

    1. The only nurse girl friend I’ve had (1973 to date) was an SEN, so no problem with 18 down. Or anything else really, but I enjoyed it. BTW, just finished this week’s which I thought was brilliant throughout.
  6. ….having DOWN as an across clue without putting in “across” as a down clue.

    Tried to justify “spancel” at 10A while I still had an empty grid, but moved quickly on.

    I scratched my head over “EN = nurse” as I only knew SEN or SRN in that context.

    FOI DOWN
    LOI SUPPLICANT
    COD NO-TRUMP
    TIME 13:58

  7. Rather easy this one, but no complaints..
    Amongst many things I have learnt only from crosswords is my entire knowledge of Shakespeare, never having studied him at school and only ever sat through one play (at the Globe, a truly dreadful experience). Also Hardy, Dickens & Trollope, come to think of it..

    Edited at 2019-05-19 07:35 am (UTC)

  8. At an hour, I made very heavy weather of this. I really didn’t help myself by somehow managing to enter STRIDEENT at 13d and not noticing until I was truly stuck in the SW. Once I’d started doubting my sanity I finally saw my error, popped in STRINGENT and the rest came along quite quickly.

    Perhaps I slept particularly badly on Saturday night!

  9. All pretty straightforward. I don’t recall seeing or knowing IGBO before.

    I’m happy to be added to those desiring No Trump.


  10. FOI 1dn NOTED (Heath?)

    LOI 13dn STRINGENT

    COD 4dn NO TRUMP gedoutahere!

    WOD 2d SCREWBALL

    Does 1ac apply to the Democratic front runner?

    Edited at 2019-05-19 10:19 am (UTC)

  11. I’ve just done this today after missing it last week. Not too difficult and I finished in 40 minutes. The ENCLASP anagram held out longer than it should have, I couldn’t parse both A’s in KOALA and I’d never heard of IGBO, inside or outside crossword-land. I liked the ‘commie grass’ and reminder of ‘Ten Days That Shook The World’.

    I happened to hear someone on the radio a few days ago warning that KOALA(s) have now become “functionally extinct” due to habitat destruction. If you’re interested, you can find out more by searching on ‘Australian Koala Foundation’, and going to ‘Deborah’s diary’ on their site. Very upsetting and I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more publicity about the population decline and the real threats koalas face. It’s unthinkable they could completely disappear.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  12. 26:11. An enjoyable solve. I was slow to see the anagrind in 12ac and slow to see the correct river and policeman in 15ac but otherwise fairly steady going. COD 27ac.
  14. I enjoyed this and managed to finish it eventually. Assumed IGBO was one of the many peoples of the crossword world. Was troubled BY REELERS even though I had the parsing. LOI was ENLISTS. David

    Edited at 2019-05-19 04:02 pm (UTC)

  15. I got held up a long time with the obvious, but not quite parsable, seiners instead of Reelers. Sadly for me it crosses everywhere except the S/R.

    I also liked that John Reed – a famous American journalist and apologist for communism – added complexity to 3d. I haven’t read his Ten Days That Shook The World (he was in Moscow for the October Revolution, and wrote about it), but he was the subject of a Warren Beaty film called Reds.

    Edited at 2019-05-19 02:17 pm (UTC)

  16. Thanks David and keriothe
    Nice steady solve which unravelled in an enjoyable 3/4 of an hour.
    Was familiar with IGBO from reading Chinua Achebe’s book “There Was a Country” on the tragic part of history when Biafra tried to separate from Nigeria in the late 1960’s.
    Smiled at NO TRUMP and liked the construction of EMERGENCE.
    Finished at the bottom of the puzzle with THE WORSE FOR WEAR (which took longer than it ought), CASTOFF and TORTE (where the word play was quite tough).

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