ST 4318 (Sun 1 Mar) – Jota joy

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 13:55

Some difficult words in this (I didn’t know CARGOOSE, JOTA or BREECHES BUOY and there are other tricky ones too), and a very mixed bag of clues.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 C + RE + SCENT
5 SCAR + A.B. – unusual to see ‘tar’ indicating a sailor (AB = able seaman) in the clue, rather than being itself part of the wordplay for the answer.
9 UNHINGED (2 defs) – this just about works as two definitions if you insert a mental comma into the second and read it as ‘doors have been, [if] taken off’.
10 PHENOL; (PHONE)* + L
12 BR + ETON
13 MIC(ROB)E + S – at first I thought ‘mices’ must be a wacky double plural along the line of ‘peoples’ but eventually I realised that ‘bearing’ gave ‘S’ (for ‘south’).
15 BREECHES BUOY; “BREACHES BOY” – a piece of life-saving apparatus (hyphenated according to Chambers).
18 BLADDERWRACK; (ADDER + W,R) in BLACK – very good clue. Although I knew this word I thought ‘seaweed’ just gave ‘wrack’ leaving ‘snake’ as the definition, so couldn’t understand the wordplay when solving.
23 INGESTED; (GETS + DINE)* – very poor clue, the ‘to’ between ‘Gets’ and ‘dine’ ruins the wording of the anagram.
24 D + ROVER – unless I have misunderstood it, this is a dreadful clue: ‘d’ stands for density but not, as far as I know for ‘relative density’ (which is given as ‘rel. d.’ in Chambers), while ‘of’ and ‘with’ are both superfluous and wreck the grammar of the cryptic reading.
26 TOO + LED – apparently to ‘tool’ means ‘to ornament or imprint designs on (a book cover)’.
27 MOTORWAY; OR (= ‘An alternative’) + WAY (= ‘route’), after rev. of TOM – I think this is intended as an “&lit” (where the whole clue is both the definition and the wordplay) but it’s pretty weak, especially as the suffix ‘way’ is already defined as ‘route’ in the wordplay.
28 EVEN + T + S
29 PASTILLE; (SPAT)* + ILL + E – the question mark here is not justified.

Down
1 CHUBBY; CHUB (= ‘fish’) + BY (= ‘close at hand’)
2 ECHOES; E + (CHOSE)*
3 CAN + DOUR
4 NEED (2 defs)
6 COHERES; HERE in COS
7 RUN + A BOUT
8 BULL’S-EYE (2 defs)
11 WITHERS (2 defs) – my last entry. The withers of a horse form the ridge between the shoulder blades.
14 TERRIER; ERR in TIER
16 ABSINTHE; (THIS BEAN)*
17 CAR + GOOSE – this was a 50/50 guess for me between this and ‘vangoose’ (‘racgoose’ and ‘navgoose’, though possible, looked unlikely, although the latter might have been a reference to Top Gun).
19 DESSERT; rev. of TRESSED – the ‘of’ here isn’t really fair.
20 CARPORT; “CARP OUGHT”
21 A + VOW + AL[l] – another weak “&lit” with ‘vow’ used as part of the wordplay.
22 GROYNE; (ORGY)* + N + E? – like the commenters below, I can’t explain ‘everyone’ = E. If it is intended as meaning ‘letter one of every’, words fail me.
25 JOT + A – another guess for me which I was delighted to get right, and not just so I could make another appalling pun for the title of this blog. A jota is apparently a Spanish dance in triple time.

9 comments on “ST 4318 (Sun 1 Mar) – Jota joy”

  2. Jackkt: I was wondering about the ‘e’ also.
    It must be intended as an abbreviation for ‘everyone’, since that word isn’t essential to the clue.
    Barbara
  3. I interpreted ‘everyone’ as the number ‘one’ letter of ‘every’, i.e., ‘e’.
  4. I have encountered ‘everyone’ = ‘e’ (the number ‘one’ letter of ‘everyone’) in a few ST Cryptics in the past.

    15 Nov. 2003: 14 Lulu warbles tremulously – not everyone’s a macho animal! (4,6) [BULL WALRUS]

    31 May 2003: 08 Charge everyone having an overdraft, yet profiting by it (8) [REWARDED]

    31 May 2003: 14 Everyone goes after fish in a pitching vessel – this smooths the waves! (12) [BRILLIANTINE]

    08 Jul. 2000: 24 Publication is bizarre, amazing everyone (8) [MAGAZINE]

    I would be interested in knowing how to solve these clues to obtain the bracketed answers without assuming ‘everyone’ = first letter of ‘every’. Is there some obscure source that uses ‘e’ as an abbreviation for ‘everyone’? What put me on the track were situations like ‘egghead’ = ‘e’ and ‘thunderhead’ = ‘t’.

    1. Although I can find no dictionary justification for it, the abbreviation explanation seems more likely. If it was “every 1” = E, I’d expect to see things like Number One = N, or Mahler Two = A (slightly different to the old cliché “Beethoven’s Fifth” = H). Although I’m not a regular ST solver, I don’t think these are used.
  5. The dates for the clues given in ‘Everone Again’ are the dates that the corresponding ST Cryptic appeared in the Saturday Toronto Star (Canada). 15 Nov. 2003 corresponds to 28 Sep. 2003 for the Sunday Times, and 31 May 2003 to 13 April 2003. I couldn’t track down the date for the Sunday Times puzzle corresponding to 08 July 2000. Sorry if this caused any problems!
    1. Thanks very much for the research! This certainly seems to confirm that the clue was published as intended. I guess we’ll just have to accept ‘everyone’ = E as a quirk of the ST puzzles.
  6. It looks like everyone = E = “letter one of every” is what is meant in 22d. I don’t mind this. It is not the main problem with the clue in my view. The literal “jetty” is simply incorrect as a groyne is a structure to reduce longshore drift of sediment and not for mooring and boarding of boats. A bit surprising in a puzzle containing other littoral lore with Breeches Buoy at 15a and Bladderwrack at 18a.

    I liked the range of vocab in the puzzle though.

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