Sunday Times 4896 by Robert Price – off the grid

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
8:38. Not a difficult puzzle but a fun solve, partly because of the unusual grid: apart from the long ones across and down the middle all the answers are eight-letter words, and if you can solve all of those then you will have thirteen of the fifteen letters of the long ones. Of course I didn’t do it like that: I got both the long ones quite quickly and constructed the rest of the puzzle around them. The result was effectively four mini-puzzles, of which I found the one in the NE the trickiest.

A high standard of clueing, as we’ve come to expect from Bob. He’s particularly good at a smooth surface reading, which I confess is something I don’t tend to notice most of the time because I have trained myself to ignore it. One of the nice things about doing these blogs is the opportunity (indeed obligation) to go back and appreciate these finer aspects properly, and this puzzle is a doozy from a surface-reading point of view. I mean just look at 5dn, to pick just one of many.

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

Across
1 Minister takes tea, no milk, no sugar
CHAPLAIN – CHA, PLAIN. I’m not sure I’d refer to unsugared black tea as ‘plain’ but it’s clear what’s intended.
9 Publication to pass on material
ORGANDIE – or ORGAN (publication) DIE. A cotton fabric that appears fairly regularly in crosswords.
10 Frequency with which everyone mocks easy victims
FALL GUYS – F, ALL, GUYS.
11 Nice game, not hard to get fifty in
PLEASANT – take a PHEASANT (game), remove the H and replace it with L (fifty). Continuing the theme after a PARTRIDGE in the previous day’s jumbo.
12 Sportsman with others regularly skipped algebra
WRESTLER – W, REST, aLgEbRa.
13 They ask for payment on board expresses
INVOICES – IN (on board a boat for example), VOICES.
14 Goons mixed up with gangster in funny business
STRANGE GOINGS-ON – (GOONS GANGSTER IN)*.
20 Stun somewhat like Bond’s DB5?
ASTONISH – Bond’s DB5 being an Aston (Martin) of course.
21 Hard plays periodically put on under canvas
INTENTLY – IN TENT (under canvas), pLaYs.
22 A tip circulated about the clubs being dismal
PATHETIC – (A TIP)* containing THE, C (clubs).
23 Exciting fish adds variety in the van
KINDLING – KIND (variety), LING (fish). ‘In the van’ means in front.
24 Rogue whose son makes footwear
SNOWSHOE – (WHOSE SON)*.
25 Couple visiting a French city’s finer points
NICETIES – NICE(TIE)’S

Down
2 The chair might include one toilet break
HEADREST – HEAD (the toilet on a boat), REST.
3 Old gym buddy with special rates
PALESTRA – PAL, (RATES)*. Collins has ‘in ancient Greece, a public place for exercise in wrestling and athletics.’ It marks this spelling as American, as opposed to the English PALAESTRA, but Lexico (the ODE) has it as just an alternative spelling.
4 A match with no start gun, bats or breathing gear (8)
AQUALUNG – A, eQUAL, (GUN)*.
5 Out of bounds? Birdie after getting past it
NO SPRING CHICKEN – NO SPRING (out of bounds, ho ho), CHICKEN.
6 Taco filling used in desert sweetmeat
MACAROON – M(tACo)AROON.
7 Proceeds from a social, around five shillings
ADVANCES – A, D(V)ANCE, S.
8 It’s plastic lining stone sides of open ditch
JETTISON – JET, (ITS)*, OpeN.
14 Quickly shut up about instruments one breaks
SHARPISH – S(HARP(I)S)H.
15 Run over by French comedian riding cycle
ROTATION – R, O, TATI, ON (riding). A reference to Jacques TATI.
16 Rhubarb is not to French taste, perhaps
NONSENSE – NON (not to French), SENSE (taste, perhaps). NON means ‘no’ in French but it translates as NOT in phrases like ‘tu viens ou non?’, and ‘sinon’ means ‘if not’.
17 Sort of drink from India, drunk chilled mostly
ISOTONIC – I, SOT, ON ICe.
18 Surmounting obstacle is skinny runner’s challenge
GAUNTLET – GAUNT (skinny), LET (obstacle). A reference to the phrase ‘to run the GAUNTLET.’
19 Plenty whine after going outside
OPULENCE – O(PULE)NCE.

33 comments on “Sunday Times 4896 by Robert Price – off the grid”

  1. Off to a slow start, with nothing forthcoming from an initial pass through the acrosses and downs, my FOI being 11ac the 2d time around. I had no idea what DB5 meant, but was able to infer it after biffing ASTONISH. I didn’t mark a COD, probably because there were so many good ones, all written with Anaxian economy, but maybe 5d was my favorite.
  2. was the Aston Martin Marque of David Brown who at one time made tractors and Lagondas. He lived for a while in Jamaica and later sold his land to Noël Coward, close to ‘Goldeneye’. Hence the Bond connection to the car. It had been Bentleys because of the Amherst Villiers’ connection.

    FOI 1ac CHAPLAIN

    LOI 9dn JETTISON

    COD 14ac STRANGE GOINGS-ON

    WOD 5dn NO SPRING CHICKEN

    About an hour.

  3. After a slow start, I whooshed through this, with total time 28 minutes. LOI INVOICES. As before, I’d thank Emily for ORGANDIE, whenever I can find her. As always with Robert, many beautiful clues, and COD to NO SPRING CHICKEN, an expression I can hear my Grannie and my mother using about themselves as they reached venerable old age. Why are MACAROONS so often missing an O nowadays? They taste the same to me. Thank you Robert and K.

    Edited at 2020-04-05 08:03 am (UTC)

    1. MACAROON is a term that covers a variety of different types of cake, whereas the French Macaron is a specific thing so I think the term is just used to indicate that that’s what you’re getting.
    2. I’m so ignorant I didn’t even know there was a difference until your comment prompted me to look it up. I’m not fussy, either – spelling or confection – will do me nicely.
      1. Anyone familiar with ‘Dead Ringers’ on R4 who’s heard their Alan Bennett impersonation will be in no doubt about the English spelling of MACAROON except perhaps to wonder if it contains three or more O’s (Macaroooon!)
  4. ….and a cup of tea” (Jethro Tull : “AQUALUNG”). This fortunately cured the earworm of “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” inflicted on me by a puzzle I’d done half an hour previously !

    I had never seen this usage of “head” in the singular, but it made immediate sense.

    The usual quality production by Bob, to whom much thanks, likewise K for the blog – note, however, that the puzzle number is wrong in the heading.

    FOI ORGANDIE
    LOI OPULENCE
    COD NO SPRING CHICKEN
    TIME 10:08

    Edited at 2020-04-05 07:09 am (UTC)

  5. 57 enjoyable minutes. My only query was ‘runner’s challenge’ at 18 as I had forgotten the expression ‘run the gauntlet’ if I ever knew it in the first place.

    According to Brewer’s the GAUNTLET here has nothing to do with the one that is thrown down or taken up, but is a misspelling of ‘gantlope’ from the Swedish ‘gantlopp’ meaning originally a passageway between two files of soldiers. ‘Running the gauntlet’ was a former punishment among soldiers and sailors. The company or crew, provided with rope ends, were drawn up in two rows facing each other, and the delinquent had to run between them while every man dealt him as severe a blow as he could.

    So a ‘challenge’ of sorts but the expression really means going through an unpleasant experience in which a lot of people criticise or attack you, and I wonder if there’s a little confusion going on in the clue with the other gauntlet that’s thrown down as a challenge to combat.

    Edited at 2020-04-05 07:25 am (UTC)

    1. That’s interesting. I didn’t think twice about it when solving (and blogging) but I suspect you may be right.
      1. The definition has to be the military version, otherwise “runner’s” would be doing nothing in the cryptic reading. And as challenge = “demanding situation”, I think it’s fair in combination with “challenge”. If it possibly hints at the other meaning, I think that’s just what happens with words with multiple meanings, whether the setter intended it to do so or not.
        1. Indeed, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the clue. I just think there may have been a bit of leakage between two meanings that are quite separate in a way that I at least didn’t appreciate.
        2. I agree there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the clue but I thought it an interesting point worth considering and I suspect the separate meanings may have ‘leaked’ a bit (as keroithe puts it) in general usage which of course the setter is fully entitled to reflect.
          1. I belatedly–i.e. after Jack’s original comment–remembered that in olden days I distinguished between gauntlet (what one throws down) and gantlet (what one runs). Those days are so olden that I now have no idea how I did it, but.
  6. Much enjoyed this, although I thought the unusual grid made it a little easier than it should have been.
    K is absolutely right, Roberts surface readings are second to none and I always appreciate good surfaces .. a sign of a good setter, for me.
    As BW says, this is ST cryptic 4896 not 4806
    1. Interesting the grid made it easier for you whereas it really gave me problems. I usually rely on shorter words to get me started, and multiple-word answers of which there were only three, none of which answers jumped out at me. Also the four quarters are unlinked apart from the answers forming the central cross, which was a bit like starting all over again as each quarter was completed. In normal grids the quarters merge into each other.

      I just spotted a note in the margin not noticed when I posted above, querying whether STRANGE GOINGS-ON is actually an expression in its own right?

      Edited at 2020-04-05 08:44 am (UTC)

      1. Grid: (topic of the day – see Mephisto): it’s an old Times stock grid which I liked, and put into a set of unusual grids in the current ST stock set, some of which have yet to appear. I played around with it and also added variants to mix the 8s with 7s, but all have the “four corners” aspect.

        “Strange goings on” is not a phrase recorded in our standard dictionaries, but seems to me a recognisable and understandable phrase – far more so than “usual goings-on” or similar. I’m happy to include such phrases occasionally, and I think there are many of them. The phrase “occasional rain” for example, is/was in weather forecasts on both sides of the Atlantic and song titles and lyrics, but some crossword editors would disallow it. I would currently allow it. I’m not intending to go this far, but as one comparison, yesterday’s NY Times crossword had LASH AT, ON SAFARI, I DARESAY and GAPING MAW among its answers.

        1. Thanks, Peter. I’d never have queried ON SAFARI but I couldn’t explain why*. I’d be happy with LASH OUT AT, but I’ve never heard LASH AT.

          * Edit: I could now, as it’s in SOED!

          Edited at 2020-04-05 11:08 am (UTC)

          1. I think there’s plenty of other material in SOED that would be far from appropriate for a “daily” cryptic. We use the dictionaries because they’re an easily available way to decide, really. That doesn’t mean they’re perfect, and my own instinct is to use some phrases and phrasal verbs which they omit, as well as proper nouns. All prefaced by “reasonable”, which in the end means whatever the xwd ed thinks it means.

            Edited at 2020-04-05 11:52 am (UTC)

  7. A 57 minute solve with ISOTONIC holding out the longest. I vaguely remembered PALESTRA, but it wasn’t too difficult with helpful wordplay.

    I liked the surface for NONSENSE and my favourite, AQUALUNG. Scuba diving equipment always reminds me of Lloyd Bridges in “Sea Hunt”, a program I spent many a post-primary school afternoon watching on the goggle box.

    1. My reference came from The Aquanauts, about 1961, with Ron Ely, Keith Larsen, Jeremy Slate. Funny how memory lets you down. I’d have bet my life that Larry Lahr was the actor who played Jeremy Slate. It was the other way round.

      Tom

      Toronto.

  8. I eventually gave up on this one, suffering from complete word-blindness at 6d MACAROON. It probably didn’t help that I didn’t, as it turned out, know what “sweetmeat” meant, and was getting it confused with “sweetbread”… Neither word—MACAROON nor sweetmeat—seems particularly common these days.

    One of those where if I’d given it an hour’s break and come back to it I probably would’ve kicked myself and written the answer in in ten seconds, but it seems I wasn’t in the mood last weekend!

    Edited at 2020-04-05 09:57 am (UTC)

    1. Because of the popularity of les macarons in Paris, Shanghai has witnessed the rise and rise of little macaroon shops all over the city. They sell nothing else! Macaroons are all the rage especially in gaudy colours.

      Edited at 2020-04-05 03:47 pm (UTC)

      1. That craze rather swept the UK’s “foodie” community a while back, and they’re still popular in artisan bakery places. They’d never spell it as “macaroon” rather than “macaron”, mind. (I suppose it does do some good to differentiate them from what I’ve always thought of as macaroons, as I think someone else mentioned…)

        All very academic as I sadly didn’t think of either word. I’m not sure I’ve ever managed to come up with “maroon” for “desert”, come to think of it, though I’ve worked backwards to it from a biff a few times—maybe I was suffering from triple word-blindness on this one!

  9. Just an excellent crossword which I enjoyed solving with a glass of wine; perfect Sunday fare.
  10. My memory has failed me with regards to my order of solving this puzzle. I did enjoy it however. I remember that PALESTRA was unknown and I had to construct it from the wordplay and crossing letters. I think it was my LOI. I liked NO SPRING CHICKEN. Just scraped in under the half hour at 29:51. Thanks Bob and K.
  11. DNF. Bah! I needed just over half an hour for this but made a very silly error. Even though those John Barnes adverts for isotonic lucozade sport are ingrained in my memory (it gets to your thirst, fast) I biffed icetonic at haste and am now repenting at my leisure. No excuses but I may or may not’ve had a large G n T on the go while solving.
  12. The usual excellent fare from Bob. LOI OPULENCE as PULE was not a word I knew. I liked CHAPLAIN, WRESTLER and ISOTONIC best. 21:17.
  13. The grid and the clues made this a game of four quarters for me:NW,SW,NE and finally SE ending in OPULENCE (pule unknown but guessed -it looked likely).
    FOI CHAPLAIN, a friendly start I thought. PALESTRA unknown but derived.Delays included ORGANDIE -thanks to BW for his previous reminder about Emily. MACAROON was hard I thought. KINDLING late in. COD to ASTONISH but other candidates in this excellent puzzle.
    The first half took me about 50 minutes then I took a break for lunch. No overall time but I never lost heart on this one. David
  14. Like jack I usually get started on the shorter words, so getting toehold took me a while – but I found that given one word in any of the quarters led to the others clearing up quickly. Of course knowing to look for a clever definition and clear cluing helped.
    My error today was not thinking of Maroon – and so assuming that Caracorn was the UK equivalent of what Americans call Candy Corn. The fact that it was impossible to parse only made it a more appealing answer.
    Nice blog, keriothe, nice puzzle, Robt, and nice editing, PB
  15. I realise I’m behind the times – I print the weekend crosswords and peruse when I have time, I though I’d comment on 9ac which caused me to dnf. I thought, wrongly as it turned out, that OBITUARY was a perfectly good answer to the clue – publication to pass on material. Never having heard of organdie makes this perhaps a little easier to understand. Lesson learned – if absolutely nothing fits then something else must be wrong. Also – thanks for the blogs – I always go to them even when I do finish – there are always one or two parsing wrinkles which you help sort out.
    1. Thank you, it’s nice to hear that these blogs are helpful!
      Whenever you get really stuck it’s a good idea to go back and reconsider the crossing answers you’ve already put in. It’s easy to waste ages banging your head against a wall when you’re never going to get the answer because of a wrong checking letter. In fact I did it only this morning in today’s cryptic!
      I don’t think OBITUARY really works as an answer to be honest. An OBITUARY isn’t really a publication in itself, and ‘to pass on material’ is too loose as a reference (even if you could see the words ‘pass on’ as a kind of nod towards the answer).
      ORGANDIE is a rather obscure word but it’s worth remembering because it does pop up in these puzzles from time to time.
  16. Thanks Bob and keriothe
    Kicking myself for not working harder on my SNAPPISH at 14d – really couldn’t make sense of it … but too silly to go back and look for another option.
    The grid scared me too at first with my first ten minute sitting revealing nothing. Came back later and was able to spot AQUALUNG to get the puzzle off and running with words falling quite constantly after that – corner by corner.
    Initially wrote in an unknown PALASTER at 3d until STRANGE GOINGS-ON showed that the RATES anagram had to be revisited. Had no favourites because I thought that the entire puzzle was made of classy well-constructed clues !
    Finished in the NE corner with ORGANDIE, PLEASANT (where I went looking for an obscure French game rather than the more obvious definitions) and JETTISON as the tricky last one in.

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