ST 4277 (Sun 18 May) – Coati Sunday

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: 4:21

Very little to say about this puzzle: the clues were generally accurate, if uninspired, while the statutory mistake came in 19ac.

I’m not sure a “pie chart” would be appropriate for the ST puzzle. From this, only the plant ‘gentian’ and the mammal ‘coati’ (both in the ‘Natural World’ category) would count; ‘Marseilles’, ‘Genoa’ and ‘hake’ are common knowledge while ‘adze’ and ‘tithe’ are very common crossword fillers (as, you could argue, is ‘coati’).

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 MEGA; rev. of A GEM
3 BRAN DISHES – see 5dn.
10 IGNORANCE; (NICE ORGAN)* – as in ‘ignorance is bliss’.
11 I(NAN)E
12 COAT + I – a mammal worth remembering, also known as the coati-mundi.
13 WELL + TO-DO
15 UN (= ‘One local’) + READY (= ‘cash’)
17 S(HAKE)UP
19 SACHETS; (S[n]ATCHES)* – oh dear. The definition here was ‘small bag’ when ‘small bags’ must have been intended. This was the paper version, too.
21 DIGESTS; (SET)* in DIGS
22 GENT(IAN)S – not a plant I’ve come across before, and it took me a while to think of ‘bog’ = GENTS (as in ‘toilets’).
27 [p]OVERT[y]
28 DIRT-CHEAP (cryptic definition)
29 M(ARSE)ILLES – ‘rump’ for ARSE is surprisingly risqué for the Sunday Times.
30 ADZE; “ADDS”

Down
1 MA + IN + COURSE
2 GEN + OA[p]
4 RUN(A)WAY
5 NEEDLES[s] – this can fight it out with 3ac for the title of ‘Most hackneyed clue of the day’.
6 I’D + [r]IOT
7 HE + ADDRESS
9 IR(R + I.T.)ATE
14 APOSTROPHE (cryptic definition)
16 RACKET + E’ER
18 ANGELICA; (A NICE GAL)*
20 SCANDAL; SCAN + rev. of LAD
21 DESERVE; (SEVERE D[on])* – ‘working’ is a hard but fair anagram indicator…
23 T(I.T.)HE
25 NO END; (DONNE)* – …whereas ‘fêted’ is fairly obvious but doesn’t make much sense.
26 DOOM; rev. of MOOD

5 comments on “ST 4277 (Sun 18 May) – Coati Sunday”


  1. I think I’ve cracked it.

    If you take the first letter of every ST clue with a mistake in it from the last year, transmogrify with a simple substitution from Latin to Early Aramaic (filtered with a basic Michelangelo one-time key, obviously) and rearrange the letters, you get the location of the one true Grail. Don’t know why I didn’t see it before.

  2. I didn’t appreciate the descent into Private Eye style clues. I enjoy them there but don’t expect them here.

    Looking forward to next week’s ST blog; the puzzle has one clue I completely fail to understand and another in which a 3-letter word manages to clue itself!

  3. I laughed my rear off after seeing 21 and 29 in the same crossword, and hope it is the beginning of a trend. I hope some people solved it in church.
  4. A bit of a boob at 19a with “bag” as the literal, instead of “bags” for sachet. Maybe this is the one statutory deliberate error in order to make the ST Cryptic a bit harder?

    Just the 2 “easies” not in the blog:

    24a Ship’s bin-bag? (5)
    LINER

    8d One seeking redress (sure)* is stupid (4)
    SUER

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