Sunday Times 4687 by David McLean – Off With His Head!

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
A most enjoyable romp with an intriguing mix of some unusually (for “Harry”) straightforward stuff – 1d, 18d and 7d come to mind – and some tricky ones such as 5d, 15d and the excellent 22a.

Some roguish jocularity at the expense of both our monarch-in-waiting and a former leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, an opportunity to brush up on our text-speak, and a pangram for good measure – all in all, a fine package so grateful thanks to Harry.

Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by *(–)

Across
1 No end of stress amid awful earful (7)
REFUSAL – *(EARFUL) – with “awful” as the anagrind – and S (end of stresS) also thrown into the mix (‘amid’)
5 Very good values felons found in craft? (7)
PIRATES – PI (very good) + RATES (values)
9 Credit injected into troubled marbles plant (9)
SCRAMBLER – *(MARBLES) – with “troubled” as the anagrind – and CR (credit) also ‘injected’ into the mix
10 With cuts hurting, perhaps did this (5)
SWORE – W (with) ‘cuts’ across SORE (hurting)
11 Turns out royal’s not involved in failures (6)
EJECTS – [R]EJECTS (failures) loses its R (royal’s not involved)
12 State case for refugee community (8)
REPUBLIC – RE (case – i.e. surrounding letters – for RefugeE) + PUBLIC (community)
14 Fancy thinker and Milliband being in agreement! (4-6)
LIKE MINDED – LIKE (fancy) + MIND (thinker) + ED (Milliband). No hiding place for poor old Ed – even a year after his retreat from the limelight so as to be able to eat bacon sandwiches in peace, a crossword setter is still quietly taking the mickey…
16 Active ingredient in crisp Ryvitas (4)
SPRY – Hidden (ingredient) in criSP RYvitas
18 Pop‘s flipping repetitive nowadays! (4)
DADA – AD (nowadays – as opposed to BC) reversed (flipping) and repeated. I’m assuming Dada is being used here as a variation of “Daddy” (Pop), but I was not 100% sure about this as I would have thought it had two Ds – but then again I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word written down (when used in this sense) and Chambers does not help on this one as far as I could see
19 Say more than enough on foreign exchange (3,7)
FOR EXAMPLE – FOREX (commercial abbreviation of Foreign Exchange) + AMPLE (more than enough)
22 Fault that’s spoiled one’s time in Galway? (8)
FLAUTIST – *(FAULT) – with “that’s spoiled” as the anagrind – + I’S (one’s) + T (time) referencing James “Annie’s Song” Galway, the man with the golden flute. Quality clue – smooth surface giving cunning misdirection, and all very neat and elegant.
23 Claim posh girl backtracks in drink (6)
ALLEGE – GEL (posh girl) reversed (backtracks) in ALE (drink)
26 Top record-holding Norwegian band (5)
ALPHA – AHA (Norwegian band) are wrapped around LP (record-holding). I’m sure there are other splendid combos in Norway, but these chaps seem to be the only ones who ever make it into Crosswordland: this is probably a good thing.
27 Rotten dessert? A slice may put one thus (3,6)
OFF COURSE – DD – bad pudding or a dodgy 4 iron; not sure which is worse…
28 Labour leader blocking blue material (7)
EARTHLY – L (labour leader) gets inside (blocking) EARTHY (blue)
29 Public housing unlimited near gorge (7)
OVEREAT – OVERT (public) including (housing) EA (nEAr unlimited)
Down
1 Mostly rosy and in the pink in New Mexico city (7)
ROSWELL – ROSy (mostly rosy) + WELL (in the pink)
2 Comedy clubs putting on food (5)
FARCE – C (clubs) wrapped up by (putting on) FARE (food)
3 I seem to upset when ringing married ex (8)
SOMETIME – *(I SEEM TO) – with “upset” as the anagrind – with M (married) also in the mix
4 Hilarity initially left old Liberal zonked (4)
LOLZ – First letters (initially) of Left Old Liberal Zonked. Well, that’s where the clue seemed to be unerringly taking us but I, for one, remained baffled. Fortunately someone under the age of 30 was to hand and they rapidly filled me in on the basics of Text Speak. I now await with some trepidation a clue in a future puzzle which will take us to Roflmao.
5 Is determined to be a cut above others ultimately (10)
PERSEVERES – One of those where the required answer was reasonably clear once a checker or two were in place, but where the parsing proved somewhat trickier (at least to your humble blogger). The key is the innocuous looking “a” in the clue giving us PER (as in “tenner per head, guv…”), followed by SEVER (cut) + last letters (ultimately) of abovE and otherS. Hard work but cleverly constructed, I thought.
6 Spicy soup, bit of rocket for its topping (6)
RISQUE – BISQUE (soup) with R replacing B as its opening letter (bit of Rocket for its topping). I did wonder briefly about the lack of direction in the clue about removing the B (as opposed to adding the R) but concluded that was probably implicit in the introduction of R as the topping.
7 Piped tool about so long? (6-3)
TOODLE PIP – *(PIPED TOOL) with “about” as the anagrind
8 Rough tykes running around church (7)
SKETCHY – *(TYKES) – with “running” as the anagrind – going ‘around’ CH (church)
13 Perhaps the final part in a history period (3,2,5)
END OF STORY – DD – I think – with the first being pretty literal and the second as in “That’s it! Period!” Found this one a bit odd as the answer looked, well, too obvious at first glance: additionally, the echo of ‘story’ in ‘history’ seemed somewhat out of kilter with our illustrious setter’s usual style of clueing. But, unless I’ve made a ghastly mistake, I think that’s what we’ve got here (although I also have an alarming sense of an impending egg on face moment…)
15 One may take issue with rising fish stocks (9)
KIDNAPPER – KIPPER (fish) ‘stocks’ (i.e. keeps inside it) AND reversed (‘with rising’). Biffers may well have slammed this one in and moved on without torturing themselves regarding the parsing – particularly with ‘issue’ apparently pointing to ‘kid’ and ‘napper’ being perilously close to ‘snapper’: however, I suspect seekers after truth (and certainly your blogger) found that this one took a bit of unravelling.
17 Muse over bad rockets in Canaveral? (8)
CALLIOPE – O (over) + ILL (bad) reversed (rockets – I guess…) in CAPE (Canaveral), giving us the muse who reputedly triumphed in a singing match against the daughters of Pierus and then turned her vanquished foe into magpies to punish them for their presumption in having challenged her in the first place. Such stunts would add an intriguing new dimension to The Voice.
18 Let down lad with feet in need of treatment (7)
DEFLATE – *(LAD + FEET) with “in need of treatment” as the anagrind
20 He’s one to have English mild sans head (7)
ELEMENT – The wordplay is E (English) + [C]LEMENT (mild ‘sans head’), and the nicely disguised definition is HE (symbol for helium) being an example of an element. Quite why our esteemed setter breaks into French to announce the decapitation is one of life’s little mysteries as far as I am concerned – reminded me somewhat of Debbie Harry for no obvious reason suddenly belting out a verse in French halfway through Sunday Girl. Charming but totally inexplicable.
21 Join strike, save Grand Hotel! (6)
ATTACH – ATTAC[K] (strike) except for (save) the K (grand – as in K being symbol for 1,000) but with H (hotel in the phonetic alphabet) being added instead. Great surface, neat clue.
24 Strange way to describe Prince Charles, say! (5)
EERIE – A cheeky homophonic (say) reference to HRH’s substantial aural extremities. And if our setter is now languishing in the Tower, I wouldn’t be at all surprised…
25 Do in revolutionary dictator? Fantastic (4)
AFRO – The extravagant hairdo is reversed (revolutionary) ‘in’ dictatOR FAntastic

15 comments on “Sunday Times 4687 by David McLean – Off With His Head!”

  1. 3 minutes under the hour but with several unparsed at the time that I never got round to revisiting. Sometimes we bloggers need a day off worrying about every last detail of every clue and Sundays at the moment seem best suited to fulfil that need.

    I know “rambler” as a plant, but “scrambler” was new to me. SOED has DADA but not “dadda” as a nursery version of “daddy”, however “mama” and “mamma” are both listed for “mummy”.

  2. Heaps and gobs of time consumed in solving this one, but I loved every agonizing minute. I was especially impressed by those unassuming little words that turned out to be the definition, like ‘No’ in 1ac and ‘He’s one’ in 20d. DNK 9ac, and never figured 12ac out, so thanks, Nick, for that. I did know LOL, but am pleased to say I’d never come across LOLZ. CODs abounding, but I think I’d choose 10ac.
  3. Wished I’d seen the pangram. Then I’d not have biffed EVERTS at 11ac. This setter (why Harry?) gets better and better by the puzzle.
  4. 21m, with a narrow escape at 11ac where like mctext I biffed EVERTS, but fortunately thought twice about it.
    Nice puzzle. I particularly enjoyed 4dn.
    Also like mctext I wonder why people refer to DM as ‘Harry’. I feel like I missed a memo…
    1. As he has said before, everyone calls him Harry except his mother and Crossword Editors. I have no direct dealings with Crossword Editors but my mother is the only person in the world who calls me Anthony.

      Edited at 2016-04-03 09:47 am (UTC)

  5. I found this the easiest so far of the setter’s Sunday crosswords. Getting used to the style, perhaps. A couple of great clues at 5ac and 25dn but COD to EERIE, for the giggle.
  6. Thanks, for that, Nick. I had been thinking two Das – childish for Dad – and a critical comment on R Mutt’s urinal. Thinking, but clearly not thinking well. But all is good as today is Opening Day for the baseball season.
  7. Greetings
    I am not new to cryptics, and have been attempting the ST with mixed success for a number of years (with a number of tears). Also, being in OZ and struggling with the UK-centric references doesn’t help of course. I’ve got used to abbrevs over time, but I have a query about today’s clues, I was wondering if someone could help me out.

    5ac – how is PI ‘very good’?

    As an aside, 18ac DADA to me has another (doubtless unintended) link that at first I though related, but now not so much. The art movement Dada(ism) is considered to be the ‘father’ of Pop (Art). haha

    Thanks.

        1. No, not kidding. Pi is slang for pious in Collins dictionary.1983 edition.(I think maybe English public school slang)

          As for pious meaning very good, that’s a crossword thing. I’ve also seen “good man” to indicate ST (Saint)

  8. ………pangram, a sentence using all the letters of the alphabet at least once. Don’t see it here.

    Jan & Tom. Toronto.

    1. All the letters of the alphabet are in the solution. the only J is in 11ac
      What puzzles me is why would anybody notice or be looking for this?
      Maybe there’s something in the British publications that doesn’t get through to Canada two weeks later

      Dave in Dartmouth NS

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