23589 – SLEEPY and SLIPSHOD

Author   growfPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 39’54”

Typical – my first post and one of my slowest solves for quite some time. Having BLEARY as a poor homonym at 19D didn’t help either.

Across
1 PEP,PERMI(N)T
11 CIRCUS – spent too long thinking of Oxford clueing a shoe
13 DOCK,YARD – Chambers lists spar as a general term for masts, yards, booms, gaffs, etc
17 FOREVER AMBER – initially expected an anagram of traffic light, nice clue though
21 SA(L)VER – again, took far too long
22 YE,MEN,I – you people clueing ye men
25 E,YOT(toy rev) – variant of AIT, an old favourite
 
Down
2 EXA(axe rev),MINE,R – got MINER quite quickly but was stuck for miners that produced paper
5 I,NS,ID ES(t)
6 TOWN CRIER(tricorn we*) – nice surface
16 WERE,WOLF – lots of composers named WOLF according to Google
18 VER(y),IS,MO
19 SLEEPY(Y=why,Peel’s rev) – BLEAR is not a homonym for Blair…
21 SW1,SH – along with city for EC1, how many postcodes does one need to know?

18 comments on “23589 – SLEEPY and SLIPSHOD”

  1. May. 1st, 2007 01:13 pm (local)
    Quite a tricky puzzle. I was stumped by the Shakespeare character, not knowing All’s Well that Ends Well, and somehow not seeing PAROLLES as a plausibe anagram, so went for a made-up name that doesn’t belong to anyone in Shakespeare. Also had a blind spot on REPERCUSSION, so took about 13 mins to be one short.
  2. A dreadful day for me after a very confident start filling in most of the RH side and bottom LH corner, but I didn’t know VERISMO (I should probably be ashamed to admit this as I have a degree in music) and I still can’t see the reason for SAW, if indeed that is the correct solution to 24D (why “appeal”?).

    But real disaster awaited at top LH where I couldn’t get a single answer until after severallengthy sessions I kick-started it with a solver.

    Buzzword

    1. From Chambers:

      SA abbrev sex appeal

      w abbrev wicket

      SA caught me out once before so I spotted it straight away.

      1. Oh, of course. Thanks. I have met SA before but it hasn’t stuck in my brain. In the old days SA used to be IT and that turned up regularly in puzzles. I wonder if it’s still used.
        1. IT is making a bit of a comeback – with Tara P-K and others apparently known as “IT girls” – just as Clara Bow was, amny years ago. SA seems the more antiquated of the two, but both, and IT = SA, are still standard xwd fare.
    2. That top LH corner is as hard as they come, with highly tricky clues for PEPPERMINT, PRO and RULES, and an obscure Shakespearian character. Unlikely as I deemed PAROLLES to be, it seemed more plausible than RAPOLLES. Luckily I never considered PALORLES or LAPORLES, which on reflection seem more likely than the answer!
  3. I agree this was a tricky one. It took me 19:32.

    Fortunately I read all of Shakespeare’s plays a couple of years ago, and although some of them are a bit blurry in my mind, because I read them in alphabetical order, All’s Well that Ends Well is reasonably clear still.

    Last one I solved was 19D (SLEEPY). Has the Times always allowed the definition to be hyphenated onto part of the wordplay?

    I think the &lit clue for 26A (Forty? Phew! I need to change her (6,4)) is brilliant.

    1. I don’t think I’ve seen a definition hyphenated onto the wordplay in the Times before, and didn’t much like it. I’m also not convinced by the following:

      1ac: ‘let out of N’ for ‘PERMI(N)T’

      10ac: ‘Officer in battle returns covered in blood’ for WARDER (how can ‘returns’ act on ‘covered in blood’?)

      14ac: ‘of giving’ as a link phrase

      21ac: ‘Investor deposits pound’ for SA(L)VER

      8dn: ‘by’ as a link word

      But there were some very good clues as well, and anyway I guessed LAPORLES at 9ac so none of this really mattered. 15:29 in total.

  4. Strictly, “City” usually indicates the old “EC” (now split into 4 parts) which pretty much equates to the “square mile”. I can’t remember seeing anything other than EC or SW1, though I suppose N1, NW1, W1 and SE1 could be used.
  5. Repercussion was the first I got, but struggled after that. Some took longer than they should have, but there were quite a few tricky clues today – and I’ve not come across Parolles, spar=yard, Forever Amber, Verismo or wherry.
  6. I also didn’t like 21A. A saver is not an investor, I think.

    Can’t understand 4D, which seems to be RULES. What’s this got to do with “not born to money”?

    In the blog for 19D there is a reference to Blair. It seems to me that Blair has nothing to do with it: isn’t it simply (Y + Peel’s) rev., with the defn rather naughtily, since it is tacked on by a hyphen, “tired”?

    But all this pales into insignificance when you look at the magnificent 26A. The best &lit. I’ve seen for a while.

    2. 4dn: This is RU(B)LES, though I’m not sure how ‘not B to RUBLES’ can mean ‘take the B out of RUBLES’.

      21ac: I was happy enough with ‘investor’ = ‘saver’, I just didn’t like ‘X deposits Y’ for ‘put Y inside X’. If you deposit something, you probably don’t keep hold of it.

    3. The Blair reference is there because of the initial comment that I inadvertantly had BLEARY instead of SLEEPY as 19D for some time.
  7. I took a long time to get going and made heavy weather of several easy clues (e.g. TOWN CRIER, REPERCUSSION), finishing in a dreary 12:57. No real excuse apart from feeling tired. (Sigh!)

    However, looking at other people’s times, it seems that I was actually faster than some of the speed-merchants. And I got it all right! Cave testudinem!

  8. Aren’t we all different? I got Forever Amber first, and the v was a help for verismo. Being a boaty type, at least vicariously, I had spar handy and wherry dimly so. I was stuck on 9a for a long time, because — not allowing myself to put “pro” in because I didn’t get the cryptic part (I still don’t) I was assuming the braggart fella had to end in “o” like so many Shakespearean men. Once I had o in its place, about when I thought the name might end in “-es” (mistakenly thinking he might be Greek) there was good old Parolles. I didn’t remember him as a character, but did remember the name.

    And I still don’t know what 25a is, something apparently everybody else finds too easy to mention!

  9. Aren’t we all different? I got Forever Amber first, and the v was a help for verismo. Being a boaty type, at least vicariously, I had spar handy and wherry dimly so. I was stuck on 9a for a long time, because — not allowing myself to put “pro” in because I didn’t get the cryptic part (I still don’t) I was assuming the braggart fella had to end in “o” like so many Shakespearean men. Once I had o in its place, about when I thought the name might end in “-es” (mistakenly thinking he might be Greek) there was good old Parolles. I didn’t remember him as a character, but did remember the name.

    And I still don’t know what 25a is, something apparently everybody else finds too easy to mention!

  10. 17a’s novel “Forever Amber” was unknown to me but gettable from the wordplay and crossers. As usual with unknown stuff from the Times X-word – well worth a Google and perusal of the Wiki page on both book and film.

    Plenty of discussion and controversy on the omitted “easies” here. Rather than having to pick through the assorted comments above – here they are in full:

    7a Wife breaks utensil, one used by another (4)
    PA W N

    9a Shakespearean braggart whose parts may be (all prose)* (8)
    PAROLLES. A character from All’s Well that Ends Well apparently – see above. There have been previous discussions about using anagrams to clue obscure names of things and people but – as it’s in The Bard – that’s OK then. Not so many characters to choose from?

    10a Officer in battle returns covered in blood (6)
    WARDER. Originally I had WARDEN which I could not parse because it was wrong. O senhor Talbinho – above – gives us WARDER which is simply Red Raw (covered in blood) backwards.

    14a Consequence of giving drums to soldiers (12)
    RE PERCUSSION. No mention of “the kitchen” (slang for the percussion section in an orchestra) for a change.

    20a Signal that’s no longer misunderstood (3-5)
    ALL-CLEAR. The “that’s no longer” does double duty here as part of the literal – signal that no longer exists as it was in The Blitz – and as part of the wordplay – no longer misunderstood = all clear.

    23a Inattentive fielder given the boot (8)
    SLIP SHOD

    26 (Forty? Phew! I)* need to change her (6,4)
    TROPHY WIFE. Nice anagram – a bit non-PC I s’pose?

    3d With qualifications, he is in favour (3)
    PRO (fessional).

    4d Is king not born to money (5)
    RU (B) LES. Most of us would spell the Moscow loot ROUBLES but some – probably those darned Yanks – would lose the O.

    7d Person, one less than human, who enjoys meetings? (5,6)
    PARTY ANIMAL. Party = person probably in legal parlance? Animal’s less than human? If you say so.

    8d Barge by mistake into question (6)
    WH ERR Y. I thought ERR is to make a mistake rather than to BE one? Once a boat now a brand of home brewed beer.

    12d Firm with good productivity, a factor in expansion? (11)
    CO EFFICIENT. The difference between the coefficients of expansion of quartz and feldspar explains why granites form holes in the ground in deserts.

    15d (Caterer is)* moving – he wants to get on (9)
    CAREERIST

    24d Cut – appeal – wicket! (3)
    SA W. A combination of IT-girls and cricket. The abovementioned (nearly correctly)”IT-girl” Tara Palmer-Tomkinson – has just passed away after suffering from a brain tumour. I’m reporting from the future and am sad to bring you that news.

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