Sunday Times 4950 by Robert Price

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
12:48. I didn’t find this particularly hard but I did find it particularly delightful. A really super puzzle full of wit and lovely penny-drop moments. Thank you very much Bob for a quarter-hour of great enjoyment.

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

Across
1 Killer’s dossier, one detectives fill in
FILICIDE – FIL(I, CID)E.
5 Jokes about cutting prices
FARCES – FAR(C)ES.
9 Old lady managed to swallow fly in a layer of cake
MARZIPAN – MA, R(ZIP)AN. In this case we do know why she swallowed the fly, because the clue tells us.
10 Old head saw parent after work
TREPAN – (PARENT)*.
12 Church group’s crime not even reported
SYNOD – sounds like ‘sin odd’.
13 Pineapple rings in syrup
GRENADINE – GRENAD(IN)E. ‘Pineapple’ is a (very logical) slang term for a hand grenade. Brilliant!
14 Champion, one with a prize fruit
VICTORIA PLUM – VICTOR (champion), I, A PLUM (prize, as an adjective I think).
18 Eventually got from home to Marathon?
IN THE LONG RUN – IN (home), THE LONG RUN (marathon). The question mark indicates a definition by example since other long runs are available.
21 One scoring away from home?
ADULTERER – CD.
23 Start off haughty meeting a cleaner
LOOFA – aLOOF, A.
24 Cut that’s bound to include page five hundred
LOPPED – LOP(P)E, D.
25 Metal cask to hold gent’s rum
TUNGSTEN – TUN containing (GENTS)*.
26 Operated on ram with anaesthetic
WETHER – W, ETHER. Great definition!
27 Social worker carrying record player to a church next-door
ADJACENT – A(DJ, A, CE)NT.
Down
1 Frequency with which sect members go hungry
FAMISH – F, AMISH.
2 Cat that’s trapped a rook’s airway
LARYNX – L(A, R)YNX.
3 Naïve Democrat taken in by cool president
CHILDLIKE – CHIL(D)L, IKE.
4 It’s in black and white, you can check on it
DRAUGHTBOARD – CD, I think based on the fact that chess is played on one of these: I don’t believe there’s such thing as ‘check’ in draughts even though it’s also known as checkers.
6 Argonaut dropping gun parts off vessel
AORTA – (ARgOnAuT)*. Oh that kind of vessel! A superbly clever clue.
7 Top part covering Aintree’s second horse jump
CAPRIOLE – CAP, R(aIntree)OLE. Something horses do in dressage.
8 Strips of light paper with black plastic seam
SUNBEAMS – SUN, B, (SEAM)*.
11 Ride or cycle in tight skirt
MERRY-GO-ROUND – MERRY (drunk, tight), GO ROUND (skirt). I think there are two definitions here, one literal and one figurative.
15 Plant from India I set up in water
AQUILEGIA – I (India) then a reversal of I GEL contained in AQUA. I didn’t know the plant (this applies to most of them) but the assembly instructions were very clear.
16 Bar starts to deep-fry its pasty
DISALLOW – Deepfry, Its, SALLOW (pasty).
17 Tart shop’s beginning to advertise
STRUMPET – Shop, TRUMPET.
19 Some feel too pumped up to travel leisurely
POOTLE – contained reversed in ‘feel too pumped’.
20 Grand artist frames something attractive
MAGNET – MA(G)NET.
22 Keynote article made less commercial
THEME – THE, MadE. A keynote is ‘a central or determining principle in a speech, literary work, etc’.

20 comments on “Sunday Times 4950 by Robert Price”

  1. Well, I sure as hell found this difficult — submitted off leaderboard, having lost track of the time — but definitely delightful. I was particularly slowed down in the NE and SW. I’ve got ‘COD’ in the margins by TREPAN, GRENADINE, ADULTERER, & WETHER; if I had to choose one, it would be WETHER. Terrific puzzle.
  2. Some neat clues, and its a panagram. I liked Aorta, and the crossing Adulterer Strumpet. Thanks, Robt.
  3. TREPAN last of all. Had to me creuser les méninges !
    I found (find) “Strips“ quite odd for BEAMS, and of course didn’t know the plant, but no real problems.
    Fine puzzle. Merci, Robert.

    Edited at 2021-04-18 04:13 am (UTC)

  4. 45 minutes. I really liked MARZIPAN, ADULTERER, TREPAN and LOI MAGNET but there were so many good clues that it’s hard to pick the (VICTORIA) PLUM. I’ll go for WETHER. Terrific. Thank you Robert and K.
  5. ….in 9 minutes, despite a hesitant start, but the SW corner was slow to reveal its secrets. I eventually cheated on my SLOI DISALLOW which I just couldn’t see for some reason.

    FOI IN THE LONG RUN
    LOI WETHER (DUH !)
    COD MERRY-GO-ROUND
    TIME Around 15 minutes, but with a cheat

  6. Loved this with COD to either TREPAN or WETHER. I’m sure that 19d will be along later.
  7. I found this difficult and, in the end, got stuck on the obscurities (things I didn’t know).
    I started well with 10 clues solved in 12 minutes. FOI was THEME. Another session got me to a final few which I looked at during the ad breaks of The Masters.
    The best I could do for 5a was CAPERS. CAPRIOLE a complete unknown to me; PINNACLE was my best guess for 7d.
    26a a mystery although I had ETHER noted; simply did not know WETHER. And I couldn’t get DISALLOW.
    So one of Robert’s harder tests for me. My favourite was VICTORIA PLUM.
    David
  8. This took me a long time and I had to wordsearch several: CAPRIOLE (totally unknown) and others, including DISALLOW, that just wouldn’t reveal themselves. WETHER rang a bell, and the wordplay clearly gave it, but I still looked it up to confirm. I liked the MARZIPAN clue with its double meanings of ZIP and FLY. COD to GRENADINE, such an amazing clue in just four words
  9. A lovely puzzle with lots of candidates for COD. I think I’ll go with WETHER too. My LOI, FARCES, took up a big chunk of my 41:31. Thanks Bob and Keriothe.
  10. The Grenadine clue is a re-run of an old classic – some time 50+ years ago, this clue (sent by at least two different people) was given first prize in the Ximenes clue writing contest. Bob thought it was OK to use for the benefit of people who haven’t seen it before, and I agreed.
    1. I was thinking we had had a similar clue recently, so I looked, and a year ago — 27632 on April 6 2020 — we had the reverse:

      25a. Pomegranate syrup’s missing in pineapples (8) giving GRENADES

      We also seem to have had
      14. Something syrupy to drop in explosive device (7) GRENADE in Quickie 1553 in February 2020

      Edited at 2021-04-18 11:39 pm (UTC)

  11. 51.46 a fun puzzle which I dragged out for longer than I should have. There were a few, particularly my LOI draughtboard which I really struggled to see. Big ticks for me at trepan and grenadine.
  12. Agree this was superb with WHETHER outstanding

    Unfortunately couldnt untangle 3 in the NE after 35 minutes. I knew how the def and w/p was working for FARCES and CAPRIOLE but just couldn’t bring to mind the right synonym for prices (wanted it to be rates, and also wasn’t sure whether the about was re or c or ca) nor (less excusably) for top and part. TREPAN did have me kippered though as I didnt think of “after work” being the anagrind. I do know about trepanning though having read the Aubrey/Maturin Series several times so some self kickage

    Quality puzzle — thanks Bob and Keriothe

    1. This is almost certainly a LiveJournal glitch: it has happened a few times before, I don’t know why. Sometimes people say they have had a message saying they are banned but are still able to post.
    2. I get the same message (here in Toronto) but I can still post. It’s only stated in the last couple of months. Must be COVID related. ;>)
  14. Thanks Robert and keriothe
    Unashamedly had to use aids to get this one out … but it certainly didn’t take anything away from the brilliantly disguised definitions and the clever misdirection with word play. Suspected a pangram was in the making after the XYZ appeared close together in the NW corner, but forgot to check at the end.
    Don’t think that I’ve come across FILICIDE before and definitely hadn’t seen AQUILEGIA. WETHER was a hoot – not sure that too many of them would’ve had the anaesthetic for the operation that transferred them to eunuch status, though !
    Finished in the SW corner with the clever ADULTERER, DISALLOW (that unfortunately required a word-finder) and that WETHER the last one in.
    1. In Ireland in the 70s they just used a tight elastic band which cut off the blood supply and the “jewels” just fell off. Horrific.
      1. Yep … that’s what my dad used to do on our farm back in the 60’s here – using a thing called an elastrator if memory serves me correctly. Scary practice for sure !

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