Sunday Times 5170 by Robert Price

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

11:05. Not too difficult from Robert this week, but the usual high quality collection of elegant clues. I don’t know if the apparent phrase in the bottom row is a comment on technique in the activity mentioned in the top one. I’ve done a bit of paddle boarding and the main thing I’ve learned is that if you start off going downwind you may learn to regret it on the way back.

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

Across
1 Become confused by puzzle’s first row
PADDLE – Puzzle, ADDLE. My kids – who are experienced canoers – would object to the equivalence here but it’s close enough for our purposes.
4 Getting in gin ordered by directors
BOARDING – BOARD, (GIN)*.
9 Books on fabrication expertise
TALENT – TALE, NT.
10 Stands for food processors
STOMACHS – DD.
12 Patent dispute one challenges in court
PLAINTIFF – PLAIN, TIFF.
13 Port drinking at five to six?
RATIO – R(AT)IO. Definition by example indicated by the question mark.
14 Being of limited skill, I take in £25
ONE-TRICK PONY – I (one), TRICK (take in), PONY (£25). A PONY being one twentieth of a monkey, of course.
18 Trap gutless spies outside air bases
CORNERSTONES – CORNER (trap), SpieS containing TONE (air).
21 Volunteer work leads to it never ending
OPINE – OP, It Never Ending.
22 Who makes dresses abroad more attractive?
OUTFITTER – OUT, FITTER.
24 Urgent knocking
CRITICAL – DD.
25 Retire from November in an Italian city
TURN IN – TUR(N)IN.
26 Good pub embraced by ale novice
BEGINNER – BE(G, INN)ER.
27 Cattle drives
STEERS – DD.
Down
1 Taken in by one patient’s deception
PUT-UP JOB – PUT UP (taken in), JOB (one patient).
2 Food evenly rolled, cooked in hollow leaves
DOLMADES – reversal (rolled) of fOoD, LeaveS containing MADE (cooked). &Lit. Neat!
3 Revolutionary material, regularly reordered
LENIN – LINEN ‘regularly reordered’, i.e. letters standing at regular intervals in the word being put somewhere else. In this case just the I and the E.
5 Ill-equipped to make cocktails blue
OUT OF SPIRITS – a definition and a cryptic hint. You could make a Buck’s Fizz, but why would you want to?
6 On end of film make time for an artist
REMBRANDT – RE, filM, BRAND, T.
7 Prompt noticeable when overheard
INCITE – sounds like ‘in sight’.
8 Soldiers’ ways of operating gadgets
GISMOS – GIS, MOS. Government Issue and Modus Operandi, respectively.
11 Sad Scot no ladies fancy
DISCONSOLATE – (SCOT NO LADIES)*.
15 Former African island in a novel
RHODESIAN – RHODES, (IN A)*.
16 Cool attitude for example
INSTANCE – IN, STANCE.
17 Artisan’s plastic rulers
TSARINAS – (ARTISANS)*.
19 Puzzle trainee’s kit
FOX CUB – FOX (puzzle), CUB (trainee).
20 Start off at sea, perhaps unwell
AILING – sAILING. ‘Perhaps’ because you could be on a lake.
23 Race one part of the 24 hours at Le Mans
INUIT – I, NUIT. ‘At Le Mans’ just indicating a French word.

19 comments on “Sunday Times 5170 by Robert Price”

  1. 1A: One Collins meaning of “paddle”, which I’m pretty sure I’ve heard in Boat Race commentary, is:
    to row (a boat) steadily, esp (of a racing crew) to row firmly but not at full pressure

    1. Ooh this will wind them up when I tell them. Paddling technique, and indeed speed paddling, are things. Mind you my daughter also did rowing at school so she’s probably aware of this usage.

  2. I do remember spending quite a few minutes after solving to figure out the parsing for DOLMADES, but wasn’t going to be beaten.

    Bit of a mer at ‘getting in’ for BOARDING, thinking ‘getting on’ would be more common for boarding an aircraft/ship.

    I parsed GISMOS as GIs’ MOs using ‘Ground Infantry’ for GI rather than ‘Government Issue’.

    Enjoyed this puzzle, liked ONE-TRICK PONY. Didn’t know KIT for the fox cub but got from the wordplay. COD to STOMACHS for the very witty food processor clue.

    Thanks K and setter.

      1. Serves me right for believing Wikipedia! I’d always assumed that was what GI meant in US soldiers. Interestingly, I also found this from the same source, but with so many interpretations I’m not sure of its validity:

        GI or G.I. is a term used to describe “ground infantry” soldiers during WWII. It has also been loosely used as slang for enlisted soldiers of the United States armed forces. The term is often thought to be an initialism of “Government Issue” but the origin of the term is in fact galvanized iron after the letters “GI” that were used for equipment such as metal trash cans made from it in U.S.
        (Army inventories and supply records.)

        1. The dictionaries are unanimous on this. The OED has this citation from 1940: ‘the boys are equipped with Government Issue materials—abbreviated to G.I. These include G.I. shoes and clothes, G.I. trucks and, if necessary, G.I. pills’.

    1. It’s just “become confused” that indicates ADDLE. The extra word “by” is needed as an indicator that ADDLE goes next to P, leading to either ADDLEP or PADDLE, and the choice is of course the one that’s a real word matching “r0w”. [Without it, the clue would only lead to ADDLEP.] It also just happens to contribute to a good surface reading.

  4. Enjoyable puzzle but defeated in the end by dolmades . Also never heard of kit in the context of a fox cub so that got my head scratching for quite a while.

  5. 35 minutes counts as easy in my book as Robert’s puzzles often take in the region of twice that.

    DOLMADES gave me pause for thought as my LOI as I recognised the dish I was looking for but couldn’t recall its exact name.

    Fortunately KIT as a fox cub was something learnt very early in my cryptic solving days and I’m always ready for it.

  6. Lots of very nice clues this week. Too many to single out any one of them. NW corner held me up at the end.

  7. Very enjoyable and not too taxing. Dolmades was a gem alongside some great surface – ‘become confused by puzzle’s first row’ (on the first row) and ‘good pub embraced by ale novice’ being my favourites.

  9. 25 minutes

    – How does CRITICAL mean knocking?
    – Relied on wordplay for the unknown DOLMADES
    – Can’t recall seeing OUT OF SPIRITS before – dispirited, yes, but not that (not quibbling!)
    – Was glad the first S in GISMOS was a checker, otherwise I might have spelled it GIZMOS

    Thanks keriothe and Robert.

    FOI Disconsolate
    LOI + COD Dolmades

    1. To knock is to criticise, so if you are knocking someone’s work, for example, you are critical of it.
      Same here on GIS/ZMOS.

  10. DNF defeated by 1a, 1d, 2d, which now I’ve seen the answers are excellent. Bother!
    NHO 5d Out Of Spirits, but added to Cheating Machine.
    COD 14a One Trick Pony.
    Thanks keriothe and Robert Price.

  11. Terrific crossword as usual from Robert Price, especially DOLMADES, BEGINNER and STOMACHS. Unfortunately I was unable to see BOARDING for “Getting in”, had forgotten the expression ONE-TRICK PONY and was tricked by the “patient” in 1d. But otherwise a fun solve with some great clues.

  12. Thanks Robert and keriothe
    Been a bit off all week with some sort of flu bug which may be why it took twice as long as normal to finish this ‘easier’ puzzle. The longer solve gave more time to appreciate some of the cracking clues, as the one for DOLMADES, and the trickier ones such as my last three in – 1d, 2d and 3d.
    I liked ONE-TRICK PONY straight up when I could work it out from just the PONY bit, but was more impressed when I saw how the ONE (I) and TRICK (take in) finished it out. Thought that the three double definitions were all very good as well, especially the ‘food processors’ for STOMACHS.

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