Sunday Times 5168 by David McLean – here’s one I made earlier

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

17:56. A tricky and enjoyable puzzle from Harry this week, and one that often required you to make less-than-obvious connections. Good stuff.

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

Across
1 With second being moved on, afraid for cushy job
SINECURE – INSECURE with S (second) being ‘moved on’. I would naturally assume that a letter ‘moved on’ would move in the other direction, but I’ve kind of got used to the fact that ‘forwards’ and ‘backwards’ can have opposite meanings in the context of a crossword clue.
5 Bloody revolutionary times with resistance at the gates?
RARE – R, reversal of ERA. The equivalence between a singular and a plural is a bit odd. The words convey the same meaning but are not normally substitutable: Elizabethan times = the Elizabethan ERA. It didn’t bother me when solving though.
8 Music producer when on the spot goes red
CLARET – CLARinET. Again, ‘on the spot’ strikes me as a little loose for IN. Again it didn’t really bother me though.
9 Supplement giving coverage to broadcasting unions
PAIRINGS – P(AIRING)S.
10 Clip from gun-fest Yellowstone gets complaint
STYE – contained in ‘gun-fest yellowstone’.
11 Give too much dope to extra popular with cast
OVERINFORM – OVER, IN, FORM. Great clue.
12 On going through the change, be a rugged old character
DOUBLE DAGGER – (BE A RUGGED OLD)*. A term I wasn’t familiar with for this: ‡, AKA a diesis or double obelisk.
16 Hacker messing with Nestlé’s US servers
LEATHERNECKS – (HACKER NESTLE)*. Another term I didn’t know, slang for US Marines.
18 Wise men panic about Republican official
MAGISTRATE – MAGI, ST(R)ATE. As in ‘he was in a right state’.
20 Head of Corps first to authorize exercises
CAPE – C, Authorise, PE. It looks like ‘head’ is doing double duty as a first-letter indicator but C is just an abbreviation for ‘Corps’.
21 Sweet fit to be served after a party with king
ADORABLE – A, DO, R, ABLE.
22 Merry mirth steals heart of Valerie Singleton
HERMIT – (MIRTH)* containing valErie. Good one!
23 My love gets intense on regular occasions
ONES – O, iNtEnSe.
24 Saving time for left in making cuts
STASHING – SLASHING (making cuts) with L (left) replaced by T (time).
Down
1 What we’d like you to find in mobile loo units
SOLUTION – (LOO UNITS)*. Doesn’t always feel like it!
2 Tend to blaspheme if Catholic turns pagan ultimately
NURSE – CURSE with C (Catholic) turned to pagaN.
3 A cute yob riddled with hatred for some of the old set?
CATHODE-RAY TUBE – (A CUTE YOB HATRED)*.
4 Regret touring quiet European capital abroad
RUPEE – RU(P, E)E.
5 Emphasize restraint in the task of engineer
REINFORCE – REIN, FOR, CE. I was puzzled by ‘in the task of’ here, but one of the Collins definitions of FOR is ‘in the duty or task of’, and it gives the example ‘that’s for him to say’. So it means something akin to ‘part of his job’.
6 Way to bottle up rising anger for judge
REGARD – RD containing a reversal of RAGE.
7 What some wear up in bed is rich green pants
RIDING BREECHES – (BED IS RICH GREEN)*.
13 Trouble with one punching linesmen in game
BILLIARDS – B(ILL, I)ARDS.
14 One branching out from party after Brexit
ASH – bASH. I don’t remember seeing this device before. Neat.
15 Avoiding drinking a little having gained kilo
SKIPPING – S(K)IPPING.
17 Third-class paper written about study in outer space?
GARDEN – reversal of RAG, DEN.
19 Get more lines with National Theatre or rep?
AGENT – AGE, NT. Another really good clue.
20 Men with soldier under cavalry leader Cardigan?
CORGI – Cavalry, OR, GI. I didn’t know or had forgotten that a Cardigan is a variety of Corgi.

17 comments on “Sunday Times 5168 by David McLean – here’s one I made earlier”

  1. 50:58
    times/era didn’t bother me, but I had a ? at plural ‘gates’. CORGI seemed inevitable, but I had no idea why; looked it up afterwards. COD to AGENT.

  2. The “Whew” on my copy indicates that this was a bit of a struggle.
    LOI ‡, which rang a bell in Ye Olde Typographer’s Shoppe.
    “Gates” is indeed odd, and I wasn’t quite sold on “on the spot” for “in.”
    I don’t understand your title, but here’s one I did earlier: Sunday Times Cryptic 5129, September 22, 2024, by David McLean, blogged by me, had…
    22 Further trouble following Brexit! (5)
    OTHER bOTHER B(ritain) leaves!

    1. As I was writing my comment I thought ‘I bet it has appeared before and I’ve just forgotten it’.

  3. Exactly an hour but with no queries as it just required patience to work it all out.

    I had no problems with LEATHERNECKS as I lost count of how many times the BBC showed the John Wayne film The Flying Leathernecks (1951) back in the days when there was only one TV channel. It seemed to alternate with The Sands of Iwo Jima.

  4. Just couldn’t get any momentum going for this one – my worst Sunday performance for ages. ‘ on the spot ‘ for ‘in’ and ‘ in the task of’ for ‘for’ we’re just to much of a stretch and don’t get me started on ‘double daggers’.

  5. My comments for this are almost exactly summed up by what Keriothe says in his blog, although done in several multiples of his time! I particularly liked RIDING BREECHES and AGENT. 12a was LOI as never heard of DOUBLE DAGGER. My notes for this, however, are illegible, as they were written in erasable pen and got left out in the sun on Friday!

  6. Why does Brexit indicate B? (I.e I couldn’t find a reference to that as an abbreviation)
    I had similar misgivings as others about in = on the spot.
    I did wonder whether I’d missed something with the prolix anagrind for 12a.
    The wordplay for 5d also puzzled me.
    Found this week’s more difficult than recent puzzles.

    1. I’m glad you asked that. I sort of see it, but next time I think about it it’s gone again. Something to do with both Br and B being abbreviations of Britain? Then I wonder if it’s a bit Guardianesque. Perhaps someone will clarify.

      1. B is an abbreviation for Britain, albeit one that only features in Chambers. So Brexit = departure of Britain = removal of B.

    2. This only occurred to me (long) after I submitted. If BRASH meant ‘party’, it would have worked, but.

  7. Two goes needed.

    – NHO LEATHERNECKS but it was all that fitted and sounded plausible
    – Needed all the checkers before I worked out which kind of set was meant for CATHODE-RAY TUBE
    – Agree that the Brexit device in the clue for ASH is quite Guardian-esque, not that I object to that

    Thanks keriothe and David.

    FOI Rupee
    LOI Ash
    COD Agent

  8. 30.28

    A few minutes at the end pondering _A_DEN. GARDEN fits but how does that mean “outer space”? Nice. (Was trying to make third rate indicate a C which was rather overcomplicating things).

    Otherwise, excellent fare – a bit tricksy but doable. Quite a few fine clues but everyone likes a smile so SOLUTION gets it for me.

    Thanks Mr M and nice blog as always

  9. Thoroughly enjoyed, despite being flummoxed by the DOUBLE DAGGER and the RIDING BREECHES – this last because I had the numeration as 7/5 and not 12 (don’t ask!). SOLUTION was easy and cute, as was most of the top half, but halted at the two longer acrosses and the longer 7d. ( Despite being a ‘horsey’ person all my life I always fail to notice “up” to indicate riding! D’oh). COD to AGENT for its clever “get more lines” for AGE.

Comments are closed.