ST 4297 (Sun 5 Oct)

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: Gave up after 10 mins with 2 missing (4dn and 11ac)

A late blog tonight as I’ve only just got back from Cheltenham. Congratulations to Mark on his victory, to Peter on his 5th place and to any other successful competitors reading this.

There were a couple of dodgy clues in this but also several that wouldn’t have been out of place in a daily puzzle. A promising trend, given that last week’s was also very good, but this would not be the first false dawn. I couldn’t finish this, giving up on 11ac and 4dn, which I’ll blame on a long day at the Championships and an even longer drive home into the wilderness.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 B(RE)ATHER
6/6dn BATTLE BUS; BAT + (SUBLET)*
9 SON + G – the old chestnut of ‘lied’ (pronounced ‘leed’), a German song.
10 LASTS + UPPER
11 NONE GO
12 TUBE + ROSE
14 FINGER BOWL; (BE[e]R FLOWING)*
16 WACK (hidden)
18 FEE[l]S
19 (ARTY + D)RESS
21 CHE(M1)STS
23 O + RALLY
25 ROUTE (= “ROOT”) + MARCH – I found the first word here tricky to get.
27 DOVE[r] – the online version has ‘birds’, which seems to be wrong.
28 P + AIRED – good definition (“Were mates”) but the question mark unfortunately does not really fit the cryptic reading.
29 DE(MITT)ED

Down
2 RHODOLITE; (HIRED TOOL)* – a garnet.
3 ALGA[rv]E
4 HELIOTROPES; ELIOT in (POSHER)*
5 RISOTTO; rev. of SIR, + TT (= ‘teetotal’ = ‘dry’) in OO (= ‘eggs’)
6 see 6 ac
7 TOP-DRAWER; rev. of REWARD POT – another old chestnut.
8 LO(E)SS – difficult word, but with these crossing letters the wordplay couldn’t really give anything else.
13 BULLY + FOR(HI)M – Flashman was a literary bully, and requires something like a ‘for example’ to give BULLY.
15 GASOMETER; (MEGASTORE)*
17 C’EST LA VIE; (A VILE SECT)*
20 RO(SERE)D
22 HO + OH + A
24 AU + D + IT
26 M(A)D

5 comments on “ST 4297 (Sun 5 Oct)”

  1. The online solution for 13D appears as Bullyeorhim. Whoever does the inputting of the solutions for the ST persists in doing so in lower case for which i can’t think of an explanation beyond they are doing it on purpose to be annoying.
  2. I thought 4d was one of the stronger word, but it’s a word I’ve encountered a few times. I wonder if the paper version contains a less clunky version of the split answers.
  3. Congratulations to Neil for his second appearance in the final. I’m sure he’ll be disappointed to have finished 10th rather than last year’s 5th, but that’s not something to worry about. Back in 1992 I made my first final (of this year’s finalists, Neil McHale and Brenda Widger were there too, which shows how far back some of us go). It then took me four goes to make my second, so he’s avoided first final hubris. ’nuff said – you can probably guess where this is leading …
    1. Thanks Peter. I’m trying not to be too disappointed: I had a pretty good semi-final and to be honest the puzzles in the final just didn’t suit me, and even if the final had gone well I don’t think I’d have threatened the top positions. Hopefully next year I’ll scrape through the semi and save some luck for the final!

      Neil

  4. An enjoyable Sunday offering. Interesting to see the multiple answer method used at 6a and 6d for BATTLE BUS. This sort of thing does not appear to be used in TIMES daily cryptics? I think the answer has been in one though it was clued as one 9 letter word – BATTLEBUS.

    My FOI was the Portuguese seaweed at 3d and my LOI was the intersecting SONG at 9a where I keep forgetting about these darned German LIEDER. Too busy thinking about German Cycle Manufacturers probably.

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