ST 4269 (Sun 23 Mar) – Score draw

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 7:33

I enjoyed this more than usual – some good clues and no major quibbles. Should probably have been faster but I was slow to spot a few fairly standard devices, especially ‘score’ = TWENTY at 25ac.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
4 REGICIDE (cryptic definition) – I was looking for wordplay here and needed most of the letters.
8 CHA(I)SE
9 SPAN + KING
10 INFER (= ‘wrongly imply’) + NOS (= ‘numbers’) – because ‘infer’ is often wrongly used to mean ‘imply’.
12 HYSTERIA; (HAIRSTYLE)*
13 NAGASAKI; (ASK AGAIN)*
16 IMPETIGO; (TEMPI)* + I + GO
19 [s]UPPER + CUT – ‘no starter with X’ fits the surface but doesn’t really mean ‘remove the first letter of’.
21 SCRAP + E
23 EX(ER)CISE – usual treatment.
24 LAY + A + BOUT
25 TWENTY – my last entry. ‘”Take five” here?’ refers to the clue number.
26 PORT + ABLE
Down
1 P + HONEYS
2 MIL[d]EST + ONE
3 TENNER; “TENOR”
4 RUSSIAN ROULETTE; (NOT USUAL + RETRIES)* – good clue, with a bit of &lit-ness going on.
5 GLAD + RAGS
6 COKES; “COAX” – excellent homophone which took me ages to see, even though I thought of Coke very early on.
7 DEN (= ‘lions’) + MARK
14 SKY + ROCKET
15 TIME BOMB; (MET BIMBO)*
17 MECCA + NO
18 PULS(A + T)E – this and 25ac took me a while at the end. I was looking for a 6-letter bean to put a ‘T’ inside, so the setter got me here. That said, the second ‘a’ in the clue is a bit unfair as it implies that the answer is a noun.
20 PRES[s] TO[p]
22 APART; rev. of A TRAP – ‘gin’ = TRAP is worth remembering.

3 comments on “ST 4269 (Sun 23 Mar) – Score draw”

  1. Hi, I’m new to the comments/forum but was tempted to air my views on “infer” as “wrongly imply”. I got the answer – but thought the setter had (incorrectly) assumed that “infer” means “wrongly imply” (which got my goat…) Having seen your more sensible working, I can exonerate the setter of ignorance but lay the (admittedly lesser) charge of setting a ridiculous clue. Is it really reasonable to base a clue on the fact that some people wrongly think “infer” and “imply” are synonyms?
    Rant over – many thanks
    Joel
    1. Welcome to the blog, Joel, and thanks for making me chuckle with your first contribution!

      The Sunday Times puzzle has rather different (some might say laxer) morals from the daily Times. This may be a slightly strange clue, but it’s fairly standard fare – in fact this was a rare week without a clue that was unarguably wrong, as usually there’s at least one with a faulty anagram or missing word or similar.

      I actually didn’t mind this bit of whimsy – and if you asked 100 people to give a synonym for ‘infer’, I suspect ‘imply’ would probably come out on top!

  2. I don’t believe it – just the ONE answer omitted from the blog. Here it is:

    11a Some favouR A SCALlywag such as this one (6)
    RASCAL

    As for whether INFER is to imply or wrongly imply I would not know.

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