ST 4310 (Sun 4 Jan) – Vexing

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 12 mins, most of which on 3dn.

I found this mostly straightforward and rattled through until I was left with C_N_E_L_ for 3dn. The only sensible word I could see that fit was CONVEXLY, but although this fit the definition I couldn’t make anything of ‘Big in transport’, so had a quick trawl through the alphabet and unearthed the even less likely ‘conceals’ and ‘congeals’ (I missed ‘cancelli’, which I hope you’ll forgive). Finally I went for ‘convexly’ and stopped the clock, and only now, while blogging, do I see how incredibly obtuse I was being.

Elsewhere, some of the clues were so batty that this was rather fun, though I think there’s a clueing mistake in 18dn, which certainly isn’t be the first in this notoriously error-ridden crossword but is at least the first this year. [Edit: actually 18dn is ok (see comments), but there must be a word missing in the clue to 1dn.]

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 ARMY CAMP; (MARY)* + CAMP (= ‘affected’)
5 REHANG; rev. of HER, + (NAG)*
10 BA + KING + TIN – not very keen on ‘wrecks sound’ => ‘rex’ = ‘king’.
11 TRACE (2 defs)
12 LARGE; (LAGER)*
13 HEADLIGHT (cryptic defn) – I didn’t understand this while solving but it had to be right. I now realise it’s just all just a cryptic definition with puns on ‘Worn’ (i.e. you wear it) and ‘beam’ (of light).
14 NETTLELIKE – surprisingly (to me) this isn’t hyphenated in Chambers. I don’t see how ‘XXX device’ can mean ‘anagram of XXX’, and although it does give a good surface reading (i.e. what it would mean if it were not a cryptic clue) that doesn’t seem any justification to me.
17 EMIR (hidden backwards) – a curious clue, in which ‘Look in the mirror’ does double duty by telling you to look in the letters of ‘the mirror’ for the answer, and by hinting that the letters need to be reversed. I suppose the exclamation mark is a nudge that something is a bit wacky here. [Edit: see comments.]
19 EARL (initial letters)
20 LORD + NELSON – ‘entitled’ here implying an entitled man, i.e. a lord. A nelson is a wrestling hold.
22 REIMPOSED; I’M in REPOSED
24 STOIC; TO in SIC – someone pointed out to me recently that ‘sic’ could stand for ‘spelling is correct’, which is a pretty good way of remembering what it means.
26 VALID; V + (LAID)*
27,28 ALPINE SKI RESORT; (LIKE PRISONERS AT)* – nice anagram, perhaps with a ring of truth this year given the pound’s performance against the euro?
29 CREDITED; C, + (TIED)* in RED – ‘in debt’ really needs a question mark, because although ‘in debt’ = ‘in the red’ I don’t think ‘debt’ by itself can really give ‘red’.

Down
1 AMBULANCE DRIVER; (RIVERDANCE ALBUM)* – absolutely marvellous anagram, absolutely bonkers definition (‘patient’), unless I have missed something.
2 MAKER; M + (RAKE)*
3 CONVEXLY; XL in CONVEY – sigh. Why on earth couldn’t I see that? I suppose the letter combination ‘XL’ is so rare that ‘big’ = XL is unusual, which is not much of an excuse as it’s clearly not obscure.
4 MATCH (2 defs)
6 EXTOLS; EX + (LOTS)*
7 AWAY GAMES – just a pun on ‘on the road’, I think.
8 GREAT-GRANDCHILD – another loony clue. I think the idea is that ‘offspring’, ‘issue’ and ‘product’ can all indicate ‘child’, so the three words in a row might indicate a fourth-generation child.
9 UNMASKED; (MUD SNAKE)*
15 TORTILLAS; (IT’S A TROLL)*
16 LION’S PAW; (PAIN SLOW)* – good clue.
18 REASONED – maybe this is supposed to be ‘as one’ in ‘read’ (= ‘lecture’), which clues the A twice. Any better suggestions welcome. [Edit: it’s actually a hidden answer (see comments).]
21 SPIDER; (RIDES)* around P[ublisher]
23 DUPER; “DUE” + PER
25 ON SET – where a cast of actors would deliver lines, and nothing to do with fishing.

9 comments on “ST 4310 (Sun 4 Jan) – Vexing”

  1. Isn’t the explanation in the: lectuRE AS ONE Discovers?

    Agree that there were some odd clues in this one.

    1. 18dn: yes, thanks! I think I must have missed this on account of the superfluous ‘the’ – should really have tried harder to justify it but I guess I’ve become complacent because of the high number of errors that do get through. My apologies to the setting team on this occasion.
  2. I was far too clever on this and thought that there was another error since a web “spider” isn’t a web designer, it’s a program run by people like google to find out what’s on all those web pages. Then I realized it was just the plain simple everyday spider.
  3. 27 minutes for all but 3d which occupied me for a further 10. I couldn’t explain 10a on the day but looked at it again just before reading the blog and worked it out immediately. 1d is extraordinary. I wondered for a moment if “ordered” might be doing double duty as an anagram indicator and as part of the definition, but even then it would only work if a patient ordered an ambulance driver as one might order a taxi driver, which is not within my experience.
    1. could the word “driver” in this sense mean the motivation for wanting an ambulance? i.e. the patient needs an ambulance, and is therefore the “driver”. Bit thin i know…….
  4. 17:07 for me, well over half of which was spent trying to find the answer to 3D.

    Perhaps 1D is predicting that future cuts in NHS funding (in the light of the current economic situation) will lead to patients having to drive the ambulances themselves!?

    Surely EMIR is hidden forwards rather than backwards in 17A.

    1. I’m pleased I wasn’t the only person to struggle on 3dn!

      17ac: What on earth had I taken before I blogged this puzzle?! Thanks for pointing this out – evidently the fact that ‘rime’ is also a word was too much for me.

  6. I have to admit that I still had 3d empty by the time I came to these pages. A perfectly good clue – especially as I usually wear XL size clothes – but I am afraid it beat me on the day.

    A very good anagram at 1d but not a good clue. I did toy with the same as suggested above – that “ordered” was doing double duty – but I don’t think that is allowed for one and, secondly, it is usually NOT the patient that calls the ambwlans (in Wales – one of my favourite spells).

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