Sunday Times 4870 by Dean Mayer

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
17:15. A corker of a puzzle from Dean this week. One of those that seem quite hard at the time, but look entirely simple and obvious when you go back and look at the clues a few days later. This is invariably a sign of quality. Or perhaps I was just being a bit dim and you all found it super-easy.

I raised an eyebrow slightly at 2dn. After you’ve been solving these things for a long time you start to think that words like ‘tar’ for sailor, or TARN for lake are entirely commonplace, but I’m not sure they are. Not so much a double-obscurity at as a double-crossword-word.

Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (TIHS)*, anagram indicators are in italics.

Across
1 Casual greeting leads to words or casual chat
WOTCHA – first letters of ‘words or’, (CHAT)*.
4 Half gripped by Great Plague
EPIDEMIC – EPI(DEMI)C.
10 Walk across area with parking, sounding casual?
STRAW POLL – STR(A, W, P)OLL. ‘Sounding casual’ here has to be read like ‘knight errant’ or ‘court martial’. A nice bit of misdirection.
11 Store giving money to auditor
CACHE – sounds like ‘cash’.
12 Bound to become more skilful
APPRENTICED – CD. Apprentices used to be ‘bound’ in the sense that they committed to work for their employer for a fixed period of time, a bit like an indentured servant.
14 Excellent “reading” voice?
AIR – AI (excellent), R (reading, the only one of the three Rs that actually starts with an R). To air an opinion is to voice it. The question mark (even though it is not next to it) signals that ‘reading’ is a definition by example.
15 Reluctant to see husband after shower
LOTH – LOT, H. ‘Shower’ here in the Terry Thomas sense.
16 A boyfriend in bits? For me?
PERSONALLY – PER (a), SON (boy), ALLY (friend). ‘In bits’ indicates that you have to separate the boy from the friend.
18 The enemy spotted in middle distance
CENTIMETRE – CEN(TIME)TRE. ‘The enemy’ suggested ‘time’ immediately for me, which is probably a sign that I’ve been doing these things for too long.
19 Work of genius? No
GOOF -GO (work), OF.
22 That felt by people without love?
WOE – W(O)E. I’m not sure how ‘we’ is supposed to equate to ‘people’ here. I suppose you could read it as a reference to the US Constitution.
23 Turn male into amusing fantasist
WALTER MITTY – W(ALTER, M)ITTY. From the short story by James Thurber.
24 Dog’s heading off bird of prey
EAGLE – bEAGLE.
25 Gnome one likes to keep at home
FINANCIER – F(IN)ANCIER. Also the name for little cakes made with lots of ground almonds that are a good use for excess egg whites when you can’t be bothered to make a meringue.
27 See circles over illuminated crystal
DATOLITE – DAT(O, LIT)E. New to me, but the wordplay was clear.
28 Beer or punch
WALLOP – DD, something of a chestnut.

Down
1 Carol’s whiskey trouble
WASSAIL – W, ASSAIL. ‘Assail’ for trouble seems a bit OTT, but close enough for government work I guess.
2 Small lake with no place for new sailor
TAR – TARn. This clue requires you to know two rather crosswordy things.
3 Bird caught by the woman, 19
HOWLER – H(OWL)ER. 19 (the definition) being GOOF, of course.
5 Cop 24, Inspector 26?
POLICE SERGEANT – (INSPECTOR EAGLE)*. This took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out. Another cross-reference clue where the answer to one clue provides part of the anagrist and another provides an anagrind.
6 Very bad plug with nice wrapping
DECADENT – DEC(AD)ENT. This definition seems a bit loose, but the wordplay is very clear.
7 Old MP’s claim he reformed pay
MICHAEL FOOT – (CLAIM HE)*, FOOT (pay, as in the bill).
8 150 — very old, without doubt
CLEARLY – CL, EARLY. Very old in the sense that early man (not the movie) is.
9 In fun, Spain welcome to stop away match
FOR THE HELL OF IT – FORTH (away) (E, HELLO), FIT (match).
13 Somehow got up when it got bigger
PUT ON WEIGHT – (GOT UP WHEN IT)*.
17 One very important feature of fairground
BIG WHEEL – DD.
18 Tender beef has steaming chowder
COWHERD – (CHOWDER)*. Brilliant!
20 Plant flourished, side turned up
FLYTRAP – FL, reversal of PARTY. FL is short for floruit, which is French for ‘went to a posh school’.
21 An artist describes me as a supreme being
AMEN-RA – A(ME)N, RA.
26 Avril Lavigne’s secret pain
ILL – contained in ‘Avril Lavigne’. A slightly oblique containment indicator but with I_L you don’t even need the clue so stop complaining.

20 comments on “Sunday Times 4870 by Dean Mayer”

  1. Dean comes through with another winner. DNK DATOLITE, of course, and wondered what ‘Spain’ was doing. I had no problem with ‘people’ at 22ac: we/people often speak of ‘dumb animals’, say. No problem with TAR/N either; definitely crossword words, but then we’re crossword solvers. I’ve got ‘COD’ written in the margins at several clues, but 5d, which I biffed and worked out post-submission, is the winner; I normally don’t like cross-referencing clues, but this was brilliant.
    1. Hmm. In the phrase ‘people often speak of’ the people don’t necessarily (or even usually) include the speaker.
  2. Thanks for parsing personally, keriothe, I need to file the ‘in bits’ trick. I had the same pause over “we”. Hard to tell which of the surfaces and wordplays I liked best, but probably Put on Weight, but Cowherd chowder is close. thx setter.

    Edited at 2019-10-06 12:41 am (UTC)

  3. España, right?
    Didn’t know DATOLITE either, but as you say, what else could it be?
    Likewise WOTCHA.

    Edited at 2019-10-06 02:32 am (UTC)

    1. I’sooth; it’s the international vehicle code for Spain. I can never remember those few I’ve come across here, and sure enough I didn’t.
  4. ….as I had all but DATOLITE after 13 minutes, but alpha-trawling failed to resolve the problem because I didn’t spot “see = date”. After 18 minutes I resorted to aids.

    I biffed PERSONALLY, GOOF, WOE, and DECADENT. All were successfully parsed afterwards.

    FOI APPRENTICED
    LOI DATOLITE
    COD STRAW POLL

  5. I found this towards the harder end of Dean’s spectrum .. much enjoyed it.
    I would not personally see a tarn as crosswordy .. I was at Malham Tarn only last week. Lovely place it is, too.
  6. About 50 minutes with LOI GOOF. I needed HOWLER before seeing it. I’m with Jerry on TARN. Malham with one of those, and its cove, limestone pavement, Janet’s Foss and Gordale Scar was our favourite family walk when I was a kid ( with our dog Rex) and when my kids were young (our dog Timmy) fifty years apart. DNK DATOLITE but the clue was fair. COD to STRAW POLL. POLICE SERGEANT was biffed long before the anagram was realised. Goodpuzzle. Thank you K and Dean.
  7. A few I couldn’t get -E.G. DATOLITE, GOOF,AMEN RA -but I enjoyed the challenge.
    David
  8. This was one of the puzzles I had to catch up on and I was obviously a bit careless, as I biffed HAWKER at 3d without considering what the 19 in the clue was for. 48:51 for the rest of it with POLICE SERGEANT totally biffed with no idea of the parsing. Also NHO DATOLITE, but the wordplay was clear. AMEN RA sprang from the depths somehow. A challenging puzzle. Thanks Dean and K.
  9. I didn’t record a time for this painful solve: after an hour over breakfast I abandoned it and came back to finish late in the evening. The 5d clue was horrible, I thought — particularly since I harrumphed at ‘ill’ as an anagrind. “Steaming” was another anagrind I didn’t enjoy. I didn’t get the question mark device on AIR, either: surely the def (voice=air) is absolutely straight and the quote-marks around “reading” signal the slightly oblique use of the three Rs? My COD went to “Work of genius? No.” Lovely. NHO ‘floruit’. But there was a lot of good stuff in here, too, to make it a strenuous workout.
    An excellent blog to make all clear. Thanks, keriothe.

  10. A surprisingly quick 44m for me, despite never having heard of a few bits and pieces. (In particular, does “floruit” (or “fl”) come up anywhere I might actually see it, these days? NHO either it or its abbreviation, and it’s not in my Chambers or ODE, though it is in my Collins…)

    FOI 1d WASSAIL LOI the unknown AMEN-RA, who didn’t appear in any of the Stargate TV series, my usual source for Ninja Turtling Egyptology references… Enjoyed “sounding casual” and 4a EPIDEMIC.

    1. Fl. and floruit are both in my Chambers app. I suspect crosswords and dictionaries are the only places you’re likely to see it!

      Edited at 2019-10-06 10:38 am (UTC)

      1. Ah, yes, I must’ve been mis-reading my Chambers index earlier. I’m still slightly baffled that this was once a common enough word somewhere that it needed a recognised abbreviation!
        1. PS: Bizarrely, if I open up my Chambers app, type “fl” and hit “return” the left-hand word list shows “fl.” highlighted but the right-hand definition is the one for “FL”, i.e. Florida, etc. I think I may have found a bug in the dictionary!
        2. I’ve only seen it in references to historical figures for whom exact dates aren’t known, to show when he was active.
  11. 35 mins but one error. Boff for Goof. If I’d used 3 down I would probably have got there.

    Pretty tough I thought.

    COD: Walter Mitty. Nice surface.

  12. DNF. Three quarters of an hour but one goof, doof for goof at 19ac.
  13. Thanks Dean and keriothe
    Did this one across the last weekend that I was up in Queensland (before it started to burn ! 🙁 ). Only got around to checking it off today after getting back into work mode and catch up domestic work.
    Funny, when I looked at 5d today … I saw it as a cryptic definition where it ranked POLICE SERGEANT at 24 just under INSPECTOR at 26 (as it really is), then I saw the note where I had spotted the referred anagram for it.
    Thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle, as I always do with Dean, with it taking over the hour across 3 sittings to work it out. Missed the parsing of FLY TRAP (was working with ‘side’= PART which took me nowhere – never heard of floruit). It was my last one in.

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