Sunday Times Cryptic No 5193 by Dean Mayer — Anyone for charades?

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

There’s a good number of that kind of clue here, along with similar ones where the parts just aren’t presented in consecutive order. A charade is usually the last thing I look for, seeing them often only after the answer starts to dawn from the definition. Anyway, charades the game is a party thing, and last night was The Nation’s holiday party (there were no charades). It was also the site last week of a surprise birthday party (a couple weeks early) for yours truly, and the surprise unveiling of a crossword puzzle, the first in a long time in our pages. It goes live online on Tuesday, and I’ll provide the link here then.

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

ACROSS
 1 Risk for one in general exercise? (3,4)
WAR GAME    DD
 
 5 Photo behind old painting (7)
PICASSO    PIC, “photo” + ASS, “behind” + O(ld)   A painting as in “a Picasso”
 
 9 Russian article placed on belt (5)
SASHA    SASH, “belt” + A, “article”   A Russian name at least, Саша in Cyrillic, gender-neutral diminutive of Alexander or Alexandra, meaning “defender of mankind”   …Passing thought when I first read this clue: “Russian article?! But Russian has no articles!”
 
10 Woman chasing men only finds lethargy (9)
STAGNANCY    STAG, “men only” + NANCY, “Woman”
 
11 All there is after remark about unfinished job (6,6)
COMPOS MENTIS    COM(POST)MENT + IS
 
14 One life wasted in ancient, boring place (8)
OILFIELD    OLD with I (“one”) + (life)* inserted
 
15 House of stone in Italy (6)
GEMINI    GEM, “stone” + IN + I(taly)
 
17 Clean or polish stone (6)
HONEST    HONE, “polish” + ST(one)
 
18 A case for one relocating art master?  (3,5)
TEA CHEST    With a jocular reinterpretation of the phrase as the archaic form of “teaches”    Collins adds to the obvious definition, “a large wooden box in which tea is packed when it is exported,” this helpful information: “People also use tea chests for putting things in when they move from one house to another” (neither Chambers nor Merriam-Webster note this… and Dictionary.com asks if you don’t mean SEA CHEST instead).    …My first thought was that “relocating” might indicate an anagram, but no… There are only three of those here (I’ll live).
 
20 … showing me the result of it? (4-8)
SELF-PORTRAIT    CD
 
23 Page one is about agent’s work (9)
ESPIONAGE    (Page one is)*
 
24 Resort island with a housing business (5)
IBIZA    I(sland) + BIZ, “business” + A
 
25 Notice parts trimmed and shown (7)
PARADED    PAR(AD)ED
 
26 Returns and thanks college (7)
TAKINGS    TA, “thanks” + KINGS, “college”
 
DOWN
 1 Fabric cleaners used to be hard — hard, in lumps (10)
WASHCLOTHS    WAS, “used to be” + H(ard) + CLOT(H)S
 
 2 Like men, gerbils will stray (10)
RESEMBLiNG    (men, gerbils)*
 
 3 Body builder’s sweaty smell (mostly wet) hidden by a heavenly body (8,7)
ANABOLIC STEROID    AN A(BO)(LICK)STEROID
 
 4 Musicians’ union? (8)
ENSEMBLE    CD
 
 5 Beef I found in factory (6)
PLAINT    PLA(I)NT
 
 6 Secret round one’s had in this? (10,5)
CONFIDENCE TRICK    CONFIDENCE, “secret” + TRICK ,“round”
 
 7 Wrong note to vocalise (4)
SING    SIN, “Wrong” + G, “note”
 
 8 Stone applied to axes (4)
ONYX    ON, “applied to” + Y and X, “axes”
 
12 Drink-offering to secure Queen’s freedom (10)
LIBERATION    LIB(ER)ATION
 
13 After exit, artist’s seeing health experts (10)
DIETITIANS    DIE, “exit” + TITIANS, “artist’s”
 
16 Show mercy over act that’s suggestive (8)
REDOLENT    RE(DO)LENT
 
19 Couple opening and filling sack with butterflies (6)
AFRAID    AND + FILLING + RAID, “sack”
 
21 Keen to go quietly (4)
WEEP    WEE, “to go” (piss) + P, “quietly”
 
22 Bottom removed from unused box (4)
SPAR    SPARE
 

 

31 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic No 5193 by Dean Mayer — Anyone for charades?”

  1. Thanks Guy. I couldn’t figure out the parsing for TEA CHEST for the life of me. I now understand that ‘teachest’ is the archaic form of ‘teaches’, which I had an inkling was the meaning but wasn’t sure. But, where does ‘art’ fit in? Is it in the sense of ‘Thou art’?

    I agree, some very shifty clueing in this, but enjoyable. Liked the use of PICASSO as the artwork itself rather than ‘oil’ or ‘artist’. WASHCLOTHS came late as I couldn’t get some kind of detergent out of my head. Wasn’t quite COMPOS MENTOS myself until it dawned on me. Liked OILFIELD for ‘boring place’. Is there supposed to be a link between the aforementioned ‘tea chest’ and SELF PORTRAIT? I have always assumed that when a clue ends with an ellipsis and the following clue starts with one, then there’s link between the two. Thought DIETICIANS neat. ANABOLIC STEROID is a bit of a chestnut as soon as you see body builder but the crossers came in handy. Couldn’t see ‘trick/round’ until I thought of card games. Liked WEEP for go quietly.

    2. If you think of the surface meaning of “art master” to be the original of a work of art…

    3. Late addition on ellipsis “linking”: Normally, the link is only apparent, on the surface. I think I’ve seen only one such somewhere (and not here) when it had something to do with the solving. I don’t think it should, really.

  2. Tea chests in house moves – probably less likely now (I think they’ve been superseded for tea transportation), but likely to be remembered by Brits who moved house 40-50 years ago.

    1. I remember we had them we we returned from South Africa to the NE of England when I was a boy in the late 1960s.

      1. I remember them being used in 1953 but I don’t remember them in the 1960 move, nor the 1967 move. Could be just bad memory though.

        1. Tea chests were used for my books when I moved house in Britain in the 1970s and ’80s. The moving company never brought along enough of them. To move my books now they’d need all the tea chests in China. Alas, in the puzzle I tried the wrong answer: SEA CHESTS.

  3. 35:21 WOE
    Put in PEEP –correct parsing, but clearly not right. (WEEP isn’t quite right; keening is wailing not shedding tears.) I had no idea how TEA CHEST worked, although I got ‘art master’; would never have guessed. ASS=behind surprised me. I liked COMPOS MENTIS.

    1. CHAMBERS:
      weep /wēp/
      intransitive verb (pat and pap wept)
      To express grief by shedding tears
      To wail or lament
      To drip, rain
      To ooze
      To leak
      To exude
      To droop or be pendent

  4. 45 minutes. Unfortunately I missed the ‘art master?’ wordplay for TEA CHEST which was v. good; a variation on the ES for ‘art in French’ which we’ve had a few times before. I didn’t know, though probably should have, that ‘Risk’ was a WAR GAME which went in with a shrug from the second def.

    I liked (not quite the right word!) ANABOLIC STEROID and the SELF-PORTRAIT cryptic def.

    Thanks to Dean and Guy

  7. 22:54. Not so easy. Anyone else for DASHA for 9A (where dash = belt as in hurry)? That held me up for while with 1D. And how about TONE for 7D (which needed PICASSO for me to fix)? LOI TEA CHEST (nice clue) but COD to RESEMBLING for the fun surface. Thanks Dean and Guy.

  8. My thanks to Dean Mayer and Guy du Sable.
    This one lay around for a week mainly unfinished, but today I got most of the missing ones but still DNF.
    POI 1a War games, I vividly remember playing RISK as a lad.
    15a Gemini, fooled me as I was obsessed by Medici, and thought that “I” wasn’t enough for “Italy”. Grr.
    18a Tea Chest biffed. I sort-of thought the art master might account for TEACHE(r), but couldn’t find either the S or T. Bother!
    3d Anabolic S, biffed, saw the asteroid and shrugged.
    19d Afraid biffed. Is raid=sack?
    21d Weep, COD. Keen as a verb not that common in general usage IMHO.

  9. I take it the lack of comment today is due to the extreme difficulty. I managed just3 in the SW and the straightforward PLAINT. Thereafter I couldn’t get any further help from the crossers and decided I’d spent enough time on it. Even working out the parsing from the blog was convoluted!

  11. Very late to this. DNF, with SEA CHEST rather than TEA CHEST (not familiar with it, and never saw the ‘art’ trick even though we’ve had it before). Managed to parse the rest.

    Thanks Guy and Dean.

    COD Compos mentis

  12. Quality crossword, this.
    I had Medici for a while for 15ac, until the penny dropped..
    I remember tea chests .. though they are a thing of the past nowadays, I think

    1. MEDICI for me too, which I knew was unlikely, and I never did spot GEMINI. Too preoccupied with the tea chests, perhaps, of which I’ve seen quite enough in my life…

  13. I know I’m really late with this but the Internet has been down for the last 36 hours.
    Could I ask you to spell a couple of things out?
    How does “Risk for one” equal WAR GAME?
    How does TRICK equal “round”?
    How does “sack” equal RAID?
    And I’m sure I must be missing something with “your’s truly”.
    Much obliged.

    1. Guess one person’s General Knowledge is another person’s “WTF?”

      “Risk[,] for one” is saying “Risk” is an example of a war game. A board game, and now there’s an online version, I see.
      AI Overview:
      Risk is a classic strategy board game of global conquest where 2-6 players command armies to capture territories, form alliances, and eliminate opponents, aiming to control the entire world map using dice rolls for battles, army reinforcements, and strategic fortification, with variations including secret missions and themed editions

      Trick, def. 7 in Collins: “a turn or round of duty or work”
      (I was actually thinking when solving of a trick in a game of cards as a round, but that’s not listed there…)

      In Collins, sack, as a verb, is “to plunder and partially destroy (a place)” and to RAID is to make “a sudden surprise attack.” One could argue that a raid need not sack (though sacking would likely involve taking by surprise, i.e., a raid). Thesaurus.com gives “sack” as a “Strong” match (second tier of synonyms) for RAID in the sense of “attack, pillage.” If you “raid the icebox,” you certainly do some damage.

      “Yours truly” (I’ve removed the apostrophe) is one way of saying “me.” It was my early surprise birthday party!

      1. Thank you so much for the elucidation – and so speedily!
        I was after the (to me) hidden significance of the apostrophe.

        1. I actually thought about asking you if that was what you meant, but thought that my mistake was common enough to be overlooked by most people. Not here, maybe… (though backward apostrophes added by the system are seemingly not noticed).

  14. Really enjoyed this! Didn’t look twice for WASHCLOTHS (FOI), but had IMPASTO at first for 5a, which held me up with PLAINT and CONFIDENCE TRICK. Some lovely original clues here (“Keen to go quietly”, “boring place”, etc.). SING and ONYX straight in too ( which fooled me into thinking IMPASTO must be right!), but I struggled and finally gave up and cheated for COMPOS MENTIS. NHO Risk the WAR GAME, but it was gettable. Loved the combo of the archaic TEACHEST, and the ensuing SELF PORTRAIT. I feel sure I’ve seen DIETITIAN somewhere before, but it still eluded me. Great crossword: thank you Dean.

  15. Thanks Dean and Guy
    Did this in a single session whilst procrastinating about the 2-hour drive to country for Christmas. Pretty tough going and was pleased to get the grid filled in just over the hour and a half – still missed the parsing of WAR GAME (didn’t know the ‘Risk’ board game) and TEA CHEST (didn’t go down the archaic language path). Everything else was confidently entered and parsed.
    Enjoyed the challenge, finishing in the SE corner with LIBERATION, REDOLENT and that TEA CHEST the last one in.

  16. Belated Happy Bertie, young Sandy. And thanks for all your blogs.

    Thanks too to all your fellow bloggers. We very seldom fail to finish a puzzle but sometimes we might as well be looking into a bush when it comes to parsing the odd clue.

    We really enjoyed your Bertie puzzle, it took us a while to spot the SY connection. Is there a blog explaining the parsing. We had no idea about some of them.

    Tom and Jan. Toronto.

    1. Thank you very much!
      The link to the page with the solutions is on the puzzle page.
      I tried to make it obvious!

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