Sunday Times Cryptic No 5179 by Robert Price — pedant’s delight

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

This seemed harder than Bob’s usual at first, but that might have just been me. Enjoyable throughout with everything clear in the end, and I learned a new word, idiom and aquatic species.

I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and words flagging such rearrangements are italicized in the clues.

ACROSS
 1 Branch with detective lacking imagination (6)
VISION    DIVISION
 
 4 Nick’s bound for a takeaway (4,4)
CHIP SHOP    CHIP’S, “Nick’s” + HOP, “bound”
 
 9 Cell that’s vacant, nun packed with cash (6)
NEURON    N(EURO)N
 
10 Minor jail without a venue for assembly (8)
JUVENILE   ( JAIL, venue)*
 
12 Rare foreign articles put on tape at last (9)
UNDERDONE    UN and DER, “foreign articles” + DON, “put on” + TAPE
 
13 Unadulterated gossamer (5)
SHEER    DD
 
14 Venomous creature sign, “Northern Ferret” (8,4)
SCORPION FISH    SCORPIO, “sign” + N(orthern) + FISH, “Ferret” (as a verb)   …First I’ve heard of it!
 
18 Far from plain butter? (8,4)
MOUNTAIN GOAT    CD   …Hilarious!
 
21 Acting like a little ch{ap in g}lasses (5)
APING    Hidden   …Took a minute to see!
 
22 Hectic ICU hardly using piped fluids (9)
HYDRAULIC    (ICU hardly)*
 
24 A to Z of fashion covers by Spooner (4,4)
ROAD MAPS    “mode wraps”
 
25 Way to make a revolution constitutional (6)
STROLL    ST(reet), “Way” + ROLL, “make a revolution”
 
26 Personal escort guards a poet (8)
BROWNING    BR(OWN)ING   That could be either Robert or (his spouse) Elizabeth Barrett B.
 
27 Club baseball player (6)
BATTER    DD, verb and noun
 
DOWN
 1 Triumph over, Queen goes through exit abruptly (8)
VANQUISH    VAN(QU)ISH
 
 2 Sensible wood for part of a violin (8)
SOUNDBOX    SOUND, “Sensible” + BOX, “wood”
 
 3 Job centre forbidding perfume (5)
ODOUR    JOB + DOUR, “forbidding”
 
 5 Political thriller’s audience, all comedians (5,2,5)
HOUSE OF CARDS    HOUSE (“audience”) OF CARDS (“comedians”)   …I was always impressed by Kevin Spacey’s uncanny skill at playing a sleazebag…
 
 6 Proceeds from petitions working (7,2)
PRESSES ON    PRESSES, “petitions” (verb) + ON, “working”
 
 7 Lower energy provided this girl’s skirts (6)
HEIFER    H(E)(IF)ER
 
 8 Sonnet’s last line by a writer (6)
POETRY    POE, “a writer” + SONNET + RY, railway “line”   &lit!
 
11 Jockey hoped nag won’t fail (2,4,3,3)
GO DOWN THE PAN    (hoped nag won’t)*   …NHO this expression
 
15 Mere mortal under pressure to be a groundbreaker? (9)
PLOUGHMAN    P(ressure) + LOUGH, “mere” (lake or inlet of the sea), MAN, “mortal”
 
16 End position for one propping up the bar (8)
GOALPOST     GOAL, “End” + POST, “position”
GGG 
17 Pedant’s delight during summer on vacation (8)
STICKLER    S(TICKLE)R
 
19 Capital of Gabon’s first new zebra crossing (6)
ZAGREB    (zebra)* surrounding GABON   Capital of Croatia, actually
 
20 Novel about a complete emperor (6)
MIKADO    (Kipling’s) KIM<=“about” + A + DO, “complete”
 
23 Hollows in a road regularly filled by conservationists (5)
ANTRA    A ROAD around N(ational) T(rust)   Plural of “antrum,” “a natural cavity, hollow, or sinus, esp in a bone” (Collins)   …I don’t recall ever seeing this word before, but I had no doubt about it, from the wordplay though no clear etymological echo. It’s amusing to see Merriam-Webster offer among the (bot-gleaned) “Recent Examples on the Web” a citation from Fortune magazine that has nothing to do with the real word: “Tantrum, schm-antrum.”
 

 

31 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic No 5179 by Robert Price — pedant’s delight”

      1. It’s funny how one can get fixated on an answer and not see an alternative. I must’ve liked the rhyme.

    1. Indeed. Seems Bob’s started doing that. Among the Mephisto setters it was Paul McKenna, je crois bien, who got there first.

      1. Top row puns go back a long way in UK crosswords. The best-known example is the Daily Telegraph quick, as pointed out by the English master at my school, c. 1975, who once or twice gave out copies as a diversion on the last day of a term when few of his pupils would be listening to any proper teaching. (A different school to the one where Paul McKenna and I were pupils at the same time, a couple of years later.)

        Robert’s ones sometimes continue in some way in the bottom row – BROWNING BATTER in this case.

  3. DNK the thriller, NHO GO DOWN… LOI MIKADO of all things. I forgot that there’s KIM as well as SHE. I didn’t care for DO=complete. I liked CHIP SHOP, MOUNTAIN GOAT, PLOUGHMAN.

  4. This was not too bad really with just a little strange. Liked 18ac MOUNTAIN GOAT for being economical, crafty and amusing, 24ac as an acceptable Spoonerism once twigged to what an A-Z is in UK, and 7d HEIFER once our blogger explained the clever parsing.
    Was pleased to see mention of HOUSE OF CARDS TV series (and movie ?) and the blogger’s discretion. The definitive quote from the TV series (by another actor) might be: ‘You might well think that, I couldn’t possibly say’.
    MER at both 14ac SCORPION FISH and 20d MIKADO – only because the defined field was so wide for ‘venomous creature’ and ‘novel’ respectively. Mere to equal LOUGH in 15d?
    Apologies for any crossings – will read.
    Thank you setter and Guy.

    1. Re ‘mere’ and LOUGH: as Guy says, ‘mere’ = “lake” (eg Windermere) for which the Irish word is LOUGH.

      1. Thank U for taking the time to advise.
        Not sure why one would opt for an Irish synonym though – even if, like me, one had some Irish forebears!

    2. The actual quote is “You might say that; I couldn’t possibly comment” spoken by Francis Urquhart played by Ian Richardson in the 1990 TV series, superior in every regard to the later American version, although that too was enjoyable in its way.

      As for the puzzle, I found it hard and gave up after an hour with two missing. On balance I should have got POETRY, but there was very little in 20dn to point me in the direction of MIKADO although of course I know the word.

      1. Well, bonus points to you.
        Which is exactly why even good observers are sometimes not good witnesses.

        1. Actually, I think both U and I were half correct on the relevant quote.
          Google suggests it is something like: ‘You might very well think that, I couldn’t possibly comment’.

          Take heart though, there are still some people who think the line in Casablanca is: ‘Play it again Sam’.

  5. Over an hour. Quite hard but didn’t feel like a slog. There were some like VISION which I should have solved earlier. I liked the MOUNTAIN GOAT and previously unheard of SCORPION FISH – a mean looking critter. MIKADO was satisfying to get as my LOI.

    Spotted the pangram which helped me to be more confident about VANQUISH.

    Thanks to Guy and Robert

    1. I did, for once, notice a pangram in a puzzle not long ago, but I think it’s one I didn’t comment on.

  6. Is it me or are Robert’s crosswords getting a bit tougher these days?
    Annoyed with myself for not getting Scorpion Fish , even though I’d never heard of it and Mikado escaped me even with all the crossers- just didn’t know Kim.

    1. Like She, Kim is a pretty old novel, but one sometimes worth remembering,for xwd purposes, and judging from influence points in its wiki article, one that’s still read. You can never quite guarantee the death of tricks like this, but it’s much less important these days to remember that Little by Little was the subtitle for Eric, a book about a schoolboy’s moral decline.

      1. I’ve always thought of “Eric, or little by Little” as being all main title, no subtitle involved. It’s an extremely dull book, whatever.
        (Have a good holiday, Peter!)

  7. 35 minutes, though I missed that this was a pangram.

    – Constructed the unknown SCORPION FISH from wordplay
    – Had a slight MER over ROAD MAPS in the plural when solving, but I guess an A to Z has multiple maps
    – Tried to justify OUTBURST for 1d for a long time before getting VANQUISH
    – Trusted the wordplay for ANTRA

    Thanks Guy and Robert.

    FOI Hydraulic
    LOI Browning
    CODs Mountain goat / Zagreb

  8. I made no notes, but I don’t think there were any MERS either, as the only marks are multiple anagram letter circles, indicating at least that I found the anagrams not obvious. Liked HEIFER, FOI, and ROAD MAPS. I believe my LOI was VANQUISH, but it may have been MIKADO. COD SCORPION FISH, for its amusing surface.

  9. I liked this one, not least the appalling top and bottom row puns. And the goat. Fish = ferret took me a bit of time but it is OK, one does fish/ferret about for something from time to time.
    Robert really is a top-class setter, imo.

  10. Thanks to Robert Price and Guy du Sable.
    Jolly puzzle, which I finished.
    14a Scorpion fish, DNK it could be 2 words. In Wiktionary it can’t.
    It took, me at least 5 minutes to “get” the dreadful pun across the top.
    As always, missed the pangram.
    More 500 errors. Glad I compose my comments on notepad.

  11. 13:37 but with CHOP SHOP, somehow. I understood the clue perfectly well when solving, but had forgotten it when I came to check my answers so didn’t spot the error since a CHOP SHOP is a thing.

    1. Ha! Thanks, K! So I do not feel so all alone… But a CHOP SHOP is a term in America for a garage where stolen cars are dismantled so that their parts can be sold separately, and it doesn’t seem to have another, UK definition.

    1. What does “pandemic” mean? What does “panacea” mean? What does “panorama” mean?
      “Pan” means “all” and so a pangram includes every letter in the alphabet.
      And the word can be found in the Glossary listed on this page under Useful Links.
      https://timesforthetimes.co.uk/glossary

  14. Thanks Robert and Guy
    Back to my regular Saturday morning cafe solve today … and managed to get all bar 1a there. Eventually figured out that my unparsed CONQUEST at 1d was the culprit and when that was converted to VANQUISH, the tricky [DI]VISION was illuminated.
    Missed the puns on the top and bottom and didn’t even think of a pangram.
    Enjoyed it a lot and nice to finish under the hour for a change.

  15. Loved this, as I thought at first I was going nowhere, then I bothered to slowly work out Un/der/d/one, and I was away! Loved CHIP SHOP, HEIFER, GO DOWN THE PAN, and best of all MOUNTAIN GOAT…which is one I’ll be presenting to my class next week. Thanks both.

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