Sunday Times Cryptic No 4925 by Dean Mayer — Boffo socko performance!

Author   guy_du_sablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I hardly ever start with the first clue on these but rather approach them strategically. My virtual FOI (though I happened to see ANI first) was the one long one right down the middle. After that (and the little birdie), I got seven others without any crossers, and the only answer that didn’t have at least one letter in the grid was 4, which I filled in next. So my impression is that this couldn’t have been very hard for y’all.

Thoroughly enjoyable, though. I knew the Britishisms SPROG, SNOG (nice pair) and the quite cute LOO ROLL… all except for 7, which I got anyway before I had more than three letters in. I looked up what the “blessing” business was all about after.

I indicate (a nag’s arm)* like this, and italicize anagrinds in the clues.

ACROSS
 1 Long Island is shelter for grass house (8)
MARATHON — MA(RAT)(HO)N, MAN being the isle, with RAT, “grass” in the sense of betraying co-conspirators, and HO(use) inside
 6 Dry peak area (6)
SECTOR — SEC, “dry” + TOR, “peak”
 9 MP on trial, so worried (10)
LEGISLATOR — LEG, “on” + (trial so)*
10 Performance unfinished? (2-2)
TO-DO — DD
11 Old silver and lead regularly used (4)
AGED — AG, “silver” + alternate letters in lEaD
13 OK, train rides are here (10)
FAIRGROUND — FAIR, “OK” + GROUND, “train” My LOI, because this definition for “train” was elusive.
14 Before play, check sporting kit (5,9)
DRESS REHEARSAL — CD
16 Waste taps to turn on and off? (4,3,3,4)
BLOW HOT AND COLD — BLOW, “Waste” + H and C faucets or “taps”
18 Ice for this lolly (5,5)
BLOOD MONEY — Nasty CD
20 Son confused by girl’s first kiss (4)
SNOG — About time to have that little talk, eh? (son)* + G
21 Jelly derived from a fish (4)
AGAR — A + GAR
22 Misleading people leads to social detachment (10)
ALIENATION — A LIE NATION—like if all anybody watched here was Fox News.
24 To west of railway, river also stopped flowing (3,3)
RAN DRY — Left, or “west,” of RY, “railway,” we have R(iver) + AND, “also”
25 US city, described by Great Britain, like empty French city (8)
GRENOBLE — G(RENO)B(L[-ik]E)

DOWN
 2 Lying in state, English seeker of justice (7)
AVENGER — AV(ENG)ER (the longer abbreviation for “English” this time)
 3 Tropical bird, a new one (3)
ANI — A + N(ew) + I, or 1, “one”
 4 Take centre stage in talk show (4,5)
HOLD FORTH — DD
 5 Even if smart, also into stupid things (15)
NOTWITHSTANDING — NO TWIT, “smart” and (things)* around AND, “also”
 6 Baby—super-tough, oddly (5)
SPROG — SuPeRtOuGh
 7 They can accommodate little piggies, bless them! (6,5)
COTTON SOCKS — CD… and thereby hangs a tale. This is probably something all the Brits here already know, but I was charmed: The various “(little) cotton socks” expressions (“Bless my…,” “Bless his…,” “Bless your…,” etc.), whose inflections run the gamut from sincere doting to sarcastic takedown, all started with the tragic history of an Anglican bishop of Calcutta, George Edward Lynch Cotton, who regularly supplied crates of socks to be worn by Eurasian children during classes in the schools he established. According to a letter to The Guardian by one (Mrs) Jane M Glossop, of Pwllheli, Gwynedd (you can’t make this stuff up), “It was the rule of the Bishop to bless all goods which arrived at the schools. A zealous member of staff one day distributed socks before the blessing, so thereafter every time a shipment arrived a note was placed on them to the effect: ‘Cotton’s socks for blessing’. [‘]Cotton’s socks[’] soon became corrupted to [‘]cotton socks[’]. When the Bishop was drowned in the Ganges [he fell in] on October 6, 1866, a despatch [sic] was sent to the Archbishop to ask: ‘Who will bless his cotton socks?’”
 8 Service book from Ford in a library (7)
ORDINAL — Hidden
12 He did our son wrong, refused to pay (11)
DISHONOURED — (He did our son)* MER at the definition, as I didn’t know this word could legitimately mean “failed to honor” in this sense.
15 Pest spray can, anyone? (9)
ANNOYANCE — (can, anyone)*, and anagrind of the week!
16 An attempt to throw up sausage (7)
BOLOGNA — AN + GO, “attempt” + LOB, “to throw” <=“up”
17 Toilet paper alternative over in lounge (3,4)
LOO ROLL — LO(OR, “alternative”)(O, “over”)LL
19 Substantial to consume, my sandwiches (5)
MEATY — M(EAT)Y
23 Wife enters before couple (3)
TWO — T(W)O, TO being “before” as in “quarter to 3”

47 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic No 4925 by Dean Mayer — Boffo socko performance!”

    1. Yeah, the damn cricket reference totally slipped my mind on annotating.

      You’ll get your usual check.

  2. I had HOLD FORTH all right–not much else possible with all the checkers in–but couldn’t make sense of ‘talk show’; duh. And COTTON SOCKS seemed inevitable, but I had no idea about the blessing, and without the blessing it’s just like ‘green toothbrush’. Liked MARATHON & LEGISLATOR. Surprised to see ANI, an ancient NYT chestnut.
  3. Knew the ‘bless your cotton socks’ expression, but not the origin of it, so thank you Guy for the explanation.
    25 O’s in this grid. That’s a lot of love. Is this a record?
    15:37
  4. Thanks for the bit on COTTON SOCKS; as you say, so odd it just has to be true.

    Yes, gentle for a Dean Mayer puzzle. ANI goes into the list of previously unknown 3-letter words, but wasn’t hard to guess. The clue for BLOOD MONEY likewise goes into a list, this one for top-notch cryptic defs.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  5. Pleasantly straightforward for Dean.
    Thank Guy for FAIRGROUND, BLOOD MONEY and NOTWITHSTANDING; and thank you for the derivation of COTTON SOCKS.
    COD to LEGISLATOR.
  6. An interesting story; do you think it’s true? The Wikipedia entry for Cotton gives no authority for the account, and more importantly “World Wide Words” doesn’t mention it; which suggests apocryphality to me.
    1. Yes, I found alternative suggestions on-line at links I neglected to save. Normally I would rely on Brewers for definitive or at least alternative explanations of such sayings, but rather oddly the expression is not listed at all.

      33 minutes. Easy puzzle (for a Dean).

      Edited at 2020-10-25 08:22 am (UTC)

    2. I found no alternative explanations purporting to be more than speculative, only a few citations of cartoons and the like that post-dated by many years the demise of Bishop Cotton, in articles that didn’t mention the story at all. But I will also note that the Wikipedia article does have one footnote to back up that paragraph: a link to (Mrs.) Jane Glossop’s letter to The Guardian.

      Edited at 2020-10-25 07:17 am (UTC)

      1. So we definitely know that someone told the story to a newspaper; not what I’d call documentation. The story sounds more to me like something a panelist on ISIHAC might come up with.
        1. Yes, was it not clear enough that this is what I was implying in the message you are responding to?
          I don’t know the acronym.

          Edited at 2020-10-25 12:04 pm (UTC)

          1. Clear enough, and I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. I don’t think it’s an acronym–it isn’t for me, anyway–“I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue”, look it up, buy a CD or two.
            1. It’s been mentioned on here before, I now dimly recall. I am going back to bed.
                1. No, I got up for another reason, which shall go unspoken, but checked my mail.
                  The story also sounds like a Fred Armisen improv bit.
    3. No mention of the bishop in the OED, which has entries for “(God) bless my cotton socks “, and “bless another’s cotton socks”. There was a bishop Cotton of Calcutta, and searches on Google Books found a “Memoir of George Edward Lynch Cotton, D.D., Bishop of Calcutta”, edited by a Mrs Cotton, presumably his wife or daughter. The book is found in searches for “bishop cotton Calcutta”, but not in ones for “bishop cotton Calcutta socks”. So pretty certain to be fiction.

      Edited at 2020-10-25 09:22 am (UTC)

        1. Er, my point was actually that there appears to be no mention of socks in the memoir.
          1. Of course. Supposedly little old ladies across England were kept busy knitting them for him.
  7. This is all came easily in 16 minutes, but with the usual great moments of wit from Dean. I loved COTTON SOCKS, whose derivation I didn’t know but it was a great favourite of my Mum’s. Mrs Glossop’ s explanation transcends the boundaries between fact and fiction, and should be treated as legend. Thank you Guy and Dean
  8. FOI was TWO; then ANI which was unknown to me until recently. I am learning which showed as this was not the usual titanic struggle with a Dean puzzle. Struggled to parse Hold Forth. A lot to like. COD to GRENOBLE; I enjoyed working that out.
    LOI was also FAIRGROUND after a shade under 40 minutes -which is quick for me.
    David
  9. ….this was an atypically gentle offering from Dean, and the previous comments back this up. Still delighted with what’s almost certainly a PB on one of his puzzles. Thanks for the usual excellent blog Guy !

    FOI TO-DO
    LOI LEGISLATOR
    COD COTTON SOCKS
    TIME 7:25

  10. 10:04. That cotton socks story is obviously made up. These elaborate etymological explanations always are. Always.

    Edited at 2020-10-25 09:29 am (UTC)

    1. I was about to refer to the ‘posh’ story (Port Out Starboard Home) as an example, but I see you were there first. But bless Mrs. Glossop’s socks nonetheless.
          1. Someone in the comments dismissed BONK as an answer because of this supposed etymology.
  11. An unusually gentle offering from Dean, though still with those lovely and elegant surface readings, bless his little cotton socks… the etymology of which phrase I find unconvincing. I notice that the earliest use the OED can find of the expression is in 1935, surprising given that the good bishop drowned in 1866.
    1. Not to mention how it’s tailored to fit the name. (Do Anglican bishops bless stuff, by the way? I know RC priests are always blessing this and that, but.) And why on earth would anyone think it necessary to mark all incoming packages to remind people that the bishop wanted to bless the contents? And how would they know that the contents were socks?
      1. Good morning!

        I assumed the subject of the queen who wrote the letter would know more of the arcana of her faith than I. Her letter offers an explanation of why such a note was attached to the packages, if you will recall (the socks had once been distributed before blessing, quite the faux pas, supposedly). The contents of the crates would have been indicated by the bill of lading and I would guess a comparable document on the receiving end.

        I can’t imagine, though, how—, especially in the age before the Internet and viral memes—such a minor incident in a far-flung outpost of the empire would havebeen bruited far and wide and become enshrined in everyday speech.

        Edited at 2020-10-25 03:04 pm (UTC)

    2. I am not taking the story seriously, mind you, but there are citations online now that predate 1935. Eric Partridge dates it to 1905.
      1. As far as I can tell, Partridge dates the expression to 1905, not the story of the bishop. And that still leaves a gap of about 40 years after his death.
        1. I was referring to the expression, replying to jerrywh’s citation of the OED (which doesn’t, of course, include the story).

          I found other references to the expression that predated the OED citation.

          But as I told Kevin, I can imagine a mere colonial “despatch” becoming “viral” today, but hardly in the mid-nineteenth century (when Cotton drowned in the toxic “holy” river).

          1. I have seen no evidence that the story about the bishop was “viral” (or even recorded) before the letter to the Guardian. Sometimes people make things up or pass on stuff that other people told them.
            1. That was my point.
              I find it hard to believe that was the origin of the phrase for that reason.
              You seem to be under the impression that we’re arguing about something.
  12. That was me, serendipitously. Now that I look, I can’t find any back slang explanation.
    1. Thanks, I was going to check but couldn’t remember when you made the comment. Extreme scepticism is invariably the right approach with these things.

      Edited at 2020-10-25 11:14 am (UTC)

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  14. 24:20. Less demanding than usual from this setter but still a high quality puzzle with lots to enjoy. I liked the lift and separate required for Long island, my favourite was probably lying in state though.
  15. FOI 3dn ANI

    LOI 2dn AVENGER

    COD 7dn COTTON SOCKS more on that tomorrow (see above)

    WOD 17dn LOO ROLL (bronco!)

    Time 25 mins.

  17. Thanks Dean and guy
    Agree that this one was at the easier end of this setter’s difficulty spectrum, but still as enjoyable as ever.
    Started off with a SNOG, quickly followed by LOO PAPER … hmm. Clues steadily were solved until arriving at the SW corner and finishing with the clever BOLOGNA and BLOOD MONEY the last couple in.
    Particularly liked the construction of GRENOBLE and the discussion above re the COTTON SOCKS.

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