Sunday Times 4601 by Jeff Pearce

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
20:11. From the leaderboard it seems I was a bit off the pace with this one, which isn’t really surprising: I’ve been on holiday in Canada for the last couple of weeks so my brain has rather turned to mush*. And I had a hangover when I solved it after catching up with some old friends the night before. This happens a lot when we’re on holiday, so I’m going to need a rest when I get back. Jetlag will help, I’m sure.

There are a few things in here that not everyone will know, but everything seems fairly clued. Some of it’s a bit loose, and there are a couple of things that don’t quite work if you’re feeling picky, but it’s always clear what the answer is supposed to be and that’s the most important thing, eh?

* For the avoidance of doubt this is not intended as a statement about Canada.

Across
1 Plan to observe prisoners stealing
CONSPIRACY – CONS, PIRACY. I think ‘to observe’ is just padding here. ‘Plan’ is arguably a little loose as a definition.
6 Company not yielding to pressure
FIRM – DD.
9 I go outside for a picture
MOVIE – MOVE (go, as in ‘it’s your go’) outside I.
10 Old Italians finally lose support about prison
ETRUSCANS – LOSE, TRUS(CAN)S.
12 Dropping small fish in bistro is included in main complaint
LEAD POISONING – a bistro is a French eatery, so a ‘fish in bistro’ is a POISSON, which drops an S (small) to get POISON, and is then inserted into LEADING. ‘Complaint’ is perhaps a bit loose for LEAD POISONING, but if I had it I’m sure I’d complain.
14 Strap in store to go on back of large carriage
STANHOPE – ‘strap’ = beat with a strap = TAN. Put that in SHOP and add the back (last letter) of ‘store’. It’s useful to know the names of some of these old carriages for solving these puzzles. A good way to learn them is to solve these puzzles. I am given to understand that reading the novels of Georgette Heyer is another reliable method, although it’s not one that I am in a position to recommend from personal experience.
14 River‘s mostly stark and plain on right bank.
SEVERN – SEVERE, PLAIN. It seems ‘on right bank’ is supposed to indicate the last letter of ‘plain’. Does that quite work?
17 Head off for pleasant meal and refreshing drink
ICE TEA – NICE TEA. There was some discussion on the forum about this clue, but I’m not sure I understand what the problem is. It seems this stuff generally has a D on this side of the Atlantic, but not over there with you lot in Blighty, or indeed in much of the rest of the world. See here and here. However it’s spelled, tea in this form is much more popular over here than the hot stuff.
19 Allow spreads to be put about – 3s may dip into them
PALETTES – PATES (spreads) around LET. 3s in this puzzle are 3dns: artists who might have dipped into PALETTES before painting. This clue rather suggests there are still PRE-RAPHAELITES around. I suppose this might be the case but they haven’t featured heavily in the Turner Prize of late.
21 Main armed race possibly – and its 13?
AMERICAN DREAM – an anagram of ‘main armed race’, which is a rather strange thing to call our American friends.
24 Not knowing when bats might appear
IN THE DARK – DD.
25 Use net in search for information
TRAWL – this seems to be an &lit in which essentially the same definition is used three times!
26 Japanese drama about a zoo keeper
NOAH – NO(A)H. The words ‘Japanese drama’ induce a Pavlovian response in the seasoned crossword solver. ‘Zoo keeper’ is a bit loose for NOAH. His zoo wouldn’t have been much of a money spinner, what with all of his potential clientele being dead and all.
27 Try rings if cooking Chinese style?
STIR FRYING – (try rings if)*. In Ximenean terms, this clue doesn’t work, because either ‘cooking’ has to be doing double duty (as anagrind and part of the definition), or you have to accept ‘Chinese style’ as a definition of STIR FRYING, which doesn’t really work. If you’re not a slave to Ximenean correctitude, it’s rather neat, and if you are there’s a question mark in there to calm your nerves.

Down
1 Conservative politician without a party
CAMP – You don’t need me for this one.
2 After 30 days girl produces a short book
NOVELLA – November has thirty days, Ella is a girl.
3 One into leather and paper production is an artist.
PRE-RAPHAELITE – an anagram of LEATHER and PAPER around I gives Dante Gabriel Rosetti and co.
4 Beast turned up with cask of wine on tube to make noise
REED PIPE – DEER reversed, then PIPE. I know vaguely that a PIPE of port is a lot of port, so the ‘cask of wine’ part of this clue wasn’t too hard for me. The wordplay construction ‘with cask of wine on’ might raise the odd eyebrow with ‘grammar’ sticklers. Such people should heed the tale of the the southern lad arriving at Harvard, who asked a pair of white-shoe East-coast preppie boys, ‘where’s the library at?’. On being informed archly that Harvard men didn’t end their sentences with prepositions, he thought for a moment and said, ‘where’s the library at, a**hole?’.
5 Tail of scampi under fish bones
CARPI – CARP, SCAMPI.
7 Fancy a strong drink with trimmed fruit in it? Quite the opposite!
IMAGINE – A GIN in LIME, and not the other way round.
8 I’m so stingy, horrible, and a bigot
MISOGYNIST – (IMSOSTINGY)*. I initially typed MYSOGINIST in here. Checking your answers before submitting is a good idea.
11 Dockers meet to sabotage safety device
SMOKE DETECTOR – (DOCKERSMEETTO)*. This took me far to long to see: I looked for all the wrong sorts of safety device first.
13 Craving for jelly but not cold part
ASPIRATION – ASPIC, RATION.
16 Cook entertains journo and head of Europa publishing company
BAEDEKER – ED (journo), EUROPA inside BAKER (cook) for the publisher of travel guides. Europa is also a publisher, which is quite neat.
18 Upset cunning VIP contracted to appear in play
ELECTRA – a reversal of ART, CELEB gives you Sophocles’ tragedy.
20 Brown monkey carried one set of instruments
TIMPANI – IMP (monkey) inside TAN, I.
22 Tailor‘s likely to have short hairstyle
ADAPT – A(DA)PT. The DA – short for ‘duck’s posterior’ – is a hairstyle you will only have heard of if 1) you are old enough to remember it, 2) you do these puzzles enough or 3) you are old enough to have a father who used to sport one so you have heard it mentioned from time to time, usually by your mother in a tone of amused ridicule. I fall into categories 2 and 3.
23 Jam on introduction to cookery journal
CLOG – COOKERY, LOG.

8 comments on “Sunday Times 4601 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. A very pleasant 33 minute solve with only PIPE for ‘cask of wine’ not known. Didn’t notice any of the alleged loose definitions or other minor quibbles. Thought ‘fish in bistro’ rather neat.

    Edited at 2014-08-10 05:19 am (UTC)

  2. Seem to remember 20 minutes for this one, a pleasant Sunday morning coffee time and not too taxing, I didn’t parse IMAGINE otherwise all straightforward enough. In UK / Europe Lipton call their brand ICE TEA so I think it’s correct here.
    1. Obviously I take linguistic objection to your use of the word ‘correct’, but yes, that was the point of the links I put in the post. It seems to be ‘ice tea’ everywhere other than North America. The other big brand of this stuff is Nestea, which is of no help in this context and doesn’t appear to be sold in the UK anyway.
  3. The bottom went in quickly but some of the top, which I put aside for later, never were finished. Thanks for the blog, keriothe – I always learn something useful for future solves from your discussion.
  4. I think the ‘use net’ might be referring to a fishing net rather than the internet.
    1. I think there are three definitions in this clue;
      1. ‘use net’, which is referring to a fishing net
      2. ‘search for information’, which is referring to a trawl for information, not necessarily using the internet
      3. ‘use net in search for information’, which is specifically a reference to the internet. This is the &Lit part.
      The point of my comment is that this is essentially the same meaning three times, but used either literally or figuratively and in different contexts.
  5. River’s mostly stark and plain on right bank.
    SEVERN – SEVER(E), (PLAI)N

    Not being an expert on European rivers, I arrived at a different flower: SEREIN.

    SERE = stark + (PLA)IN

    Doesn’t account for “mostly”, I suppose.

Comments are closed.