Sunday Times 4430 (24 Apr 2011)

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: About 40 minutes, with the last 10 minutes spent on three clues – 7/11/12.

One unknown word for me today – NAIRA, but a few others were unfamiliar – TATAMI, PLENIPOTENTIARY and PO as a chamber pot. I also didn’t know GRENADINE was a material as well as a drink.

There were lots of comments on the Club Forum against this one, although most of them seemed to be about censored comments. Of the actual clues, the word ‘Polish’ in 6d seemed to cause the most consternation.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 TREe + A + SON – I first parsed this as ‘cherry’ = TREAT in a ‘with a cherry on top’ sort of way, until I realised that it was ‘a boy’ not just ‘boy’.
5 ARSENIC – cd – A chemist would see ‘As’ as the chemical symbol for arsenic.
9 UTE + N/S + I + L – ‘van’ = UTE crops up quite often – it’s a mainly Australian colloquialism for a utility vehicle.
10 P(ERR)IER – I was a little surprised to see a trademarked name appearing as a solution
11 P(L)ENI(PO)TENTIARY – I was only vaguely aware of this word, and I hadn’t come across PO as a (mainly Australian again) colloquialism for a chamber pot, so despite all the checking letters, this was my last one in.
12 TATe + AMI – A type of Japanese matting that I dimly recall from a previous crossword. French china is quite devious for AMI – that’s from the cockney rhyming slang ‘china plate’ = mate, and ami is french for friend.
14 MICHIGAN = (I’M ACHING)*
17 TELETHON – cd – ‘Set’ as in television set
18 UR + GENT – Everyone’s favourite old city
21 PERSONA NON GRATA – ‘After new performance’ is an anagrind, so it’s (NAG OPERA STAR)* about NO + queeN – a no is a Japanese drama that crops up quite often
24 TAP + IOC + Armagnac – ‘Pudding’ is the definition, ‘milk’ = TAP as in to try to get money out of someone, and the IOC is the International Olympic Committee.
25 SEABIRD = (BRAISED)*
26 RUS(S)E + LL
27 DIOCESE = (SEE COD I)* – ‘See’ is doing double duty here as the definition and part of the anagrist, but it’s clearly indicated so that’s fine.
Down
1 sTRUMPET – I’m sure I saw this clued in a very similar way quite recently.
2 ELEMENT + AL
3 Some Uncooked Salmon Here In – A semi-&lit clue which is quite neat, but a little obvious
4 NELSON – dd – the Admiral and the wrestling hold
5 APPLE-PIE – If something is in apple-pie order, then it is perfectly organised
6 STRETCHER – cd – a stretcher in its most basic form is a piece of canvas slung between two poles. Because it is made with poles then it is ‘polish’. This is polish used in a made-up sense, but the question mark at the end of the clue makes this permissible.
7 NAIRA = (I RAN)* + A – I didn’t know the word, but it was the only plausible arrangement of the letters.
8 CAR + RaYON
13 METRONOME – cd
15 GRENADINE = (ENDEARING)* – I’ve not come across grenadine as a material before, only as a drink
16 NO TAT + mALL
17 TA(Pub)STER
19 T + WADDLE – I wasn’t sure about T as a standard abbreviation for ‘tense’, but I found it listed in the grammatical sense, so I guess it’s fine.
20 Scotland Office + USED
22 ROPES – dd – an adept would ‘know the ropes’ – I liked this one a lot. My COD.
23 GUANO – dd (or maybe a cd) – bird droppings used as fertiliser.

15 comments on “Sunday Times 4430 (24 Apr 2011)”

  1. May as well say it here since my comments were deleted from the Club forum last week. Peter has commented today that “counter” for “metronome” was thought to be “a bit cheeky” but after consultation with someone who owns one it was left alone. I maintain that a metronome does not and cannot count anything. That’s not its purpose.

    Incidentally I am 100% certain that I had this discussion here some years ago but can’t find any trace of it using the archive searches.

    65 minutes with liberal use of aids towards the end. I tend to give up after an hour when I feel the setter has not always played fair in some of the answers to the ones I have solved.

    1. Collins recognises that “count” can mean – “to keep time by counting beats”. The consultation was just to confirm that “count” could be understood this way if applied to a metronome.
      1. Sorry, Peter, but the musician keeps time by counting the beats. The metronome provides the beats for the musician to count.
        1. If the metronome provides beats that are counted then it is a machine used for counting. To say anything else, and moreover to give up because of it seems.. well, I won’t say what it seems. But personally I had no difficulty solving the clue.
  2. Thanks, Dave. I think you intimated in The Times Forum last week that you would be blogging this so I thought the least I could do is show some support! Regarding 6d and stretcher, I think the use of “polish” is stretching things a tad (sorry!) Peter Biddlecombe did suggest a trip to Wikipedia but even that didn’t help join up the brain cells. Yes, I was one who was carted off in a tumbril to The Times Forum guillotine at Wapping. As a non-scientist I now appreciate As = Arsenic.
    PS…Every time I try to post a comment these days I’m told my password is incorrect.
  3. Didn’t understand “Polish” and would have been a bit miffed if I had. Fortunately, the answer was obvious from the definition. I put METRONOME in immediately I had the first letter. It’s only on coming here that I realise there’s room for quibbles. My metronome sits on my piano and marks the beats as I play. I think we’re both counting, me and the machine. Anyway, the answer was pretty clear from the crossing letters. I wouldn’t have thought of “earnest” as a definition for URGENT, but I’m sure I’ve seen the Ur gentleman somewhere before. Completed this morning in bed with first cup of tea. An enjoyable 25 minutes. Password rejected as usual.
    1. URGENT = earnest: this surprised me too, but look up “urgent” in Collins or COED and there it is.
  4. Falooker speaks for me, too, about METRONOME and URGENT and STRETCHER. I was surprised to hear PO referred to as mainly Australian; the only time I’ve seen it was in Anthony Powell, although I’ve seen ‘po-faced’ often enough, in British writing. And I’m a bit surprised that we haven’t seen more of ‘plenipotentiary’, since ‘Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary’ (EE & MP) would seem to be something a setter might want to make use of. 22 minutes.
  5. Like Kevin, I’ve not heard of the Australian usage of the word Po. I know Aussies like to reduce any multi-syllabic word to 1 syllable and 1-syllable words to 2 or more, but this is a new one on me. Back in the late 1980s, when he couldn’t get into the Test team, it was said that Mark Waugh’s nickname was Afghanistan: The forgotten Waugh!
    I doubted that on the basis of their inability to cope with more than 2 or 3 syllables in a row.
  6. po = chamberpot = “mainly Australian”: I think this is a mistake on Dave’s part or possibly in the reference he’s using. None of the usual dictionaries beginning with C or O agree – see the one in ODE for example.
    1. dictionary.com seems to be a collection of information from various dictionaries. The more orthodox def for po is in there if you look hard enough. I’d suggest the online ODE as a very good source – it’s the best free UK-based online dictionary I’ve seen.
  8. In Ireland in the 1950’s the po under the bed was a common item. It died out with the arrival of indoor plumping.

    We had great difficulty restraining our laughter in school when we heard of the River Po in Italy.

    What’s the difference between a rich Scotsman, a poor Scotsman and a dead Scotsman.

    A rich Scotsman has a canopy over his bed, a poor Scotsman has a can o’ pee under his bed and a dead Scotsman canna’ pee at all.

  9. I came to stretcher from the stretch (the truth)/embellish/polish angle.
  10. of bnsp fdgv clt vitc lkuf vpg jhuf yk po xsd dngs ttpi wkd cnda dfvj pnw xyll hc

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