ST 4320 (Sun 15 Mar) – Backwards analysis

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 6:25

After last week things could only improve. I’m not really a fan of this setter’s rather loose style but the majority of the nitpicks below are quibbles rather than complaints. I suspect relative beginners would have found this accessible and bewildering in roughly equal measure.

If there are any scientists reading, please feel free to support or shoot down the definitions at 10ac (ACTINIC) and 26ac (EREPSIN), and if anyone can explain 13dn (BACKWARDS) I’d be grateful.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 CABINET (2 defs)
5 CRUMPLE; M.P. in (CRUEL)*
9 R(EL)IGHT – fair enough question mark as the definition is slightly whimsical.
10 ACTINIC – a poor ‘hidden answer’ clue, with no proper indication plus a superfluous word (‘crystals’); it looks like we’re expected to split ‘intact’ into ‘in tact’. I’m not sure about the definition either: ‘Effect of radiation’ seems to require a noun as the answer, which I don’t think ‘actinic’ can be, but as it’s the first time I’ve come across this word I’ll leave it to a scientist to adjudicate.
11 INTERNATIONALLY; (ONE TRAIN)* in (IN TALLY) – ‘in every country’ seems a slightly curious definition; why ‘every’ rather than (e.g.) ‘several’? The cryptic reading works if you accept ‘crash’ as a nounal anagram indicator; it doesn’t work as an intransitive verb here because the relevant anagram fodder (‘one train’) would then have to be the subject of the sentence, but it’s already acted on by ‘covering’ (in other words, while ‘X gets jumbled’ makes sense, ‘X covering Y gets jumbled’ doesn’t, unless it’s X that’s getting jumbled). Something like ‘…one train crashing…’ is needed instead. A grammarian could probably have put all that far better than I have!
12 ST + ROBE – why the question mark?
14 FEEBLEST; (BET FEELS)*
17 DELICATE; (TEA DELICIOUS – IOUS)* – is an ‘IOU’ a ‘request for payment’? Wouldn’t that be a ‘U-O-ME’? This is an example of an intransitive anagram indicator (‘brew’) used correctly (cf 11ac).
18 D,E + PICT – if I see the word ‘note’ or ‘notes’ in a clue I tend to ignore it until I’ve got some letters as there are just so many possibilities.
21 GONE WITH THE WIND – sort of two definitions, with the first (‘Blown off’) defining the literal meaning of the phrase, so I suppose it’s more of a charade than an actual definition. Anyway, I liked this one, despite some unease over the word ‘the’.
24 AT BIRTH (cryptic definition) – a play on ‘issue’ = ‘children’.
25 CHIC + AGO
26 E + REPS + IN – this is an enzyme, which doesn’t seem to fit the definition ‘biological group’. Could a biologist clarify?
27 STYRENE; (TRY) in S,E,N,E – as in polystyrene.

Down
1 CURRIES (2 defs) – I was unfamiliar with the first definition (‘beats’), which is apparently in the same sense as to curry (dress or treat) leather, to curry (rub down or groom) a horse (with a currycomb) and to curry favour.
2 BILATERAL; T in (A LIBERAL)* – decent clue.
3 NIGER; (REIGN)* – can ‘over’ really be an anagram indicator?
4 TETRAD (hidden) – a better clue for a hidden answer than 10ac, although still a superfluous word (‘scandal’) which always feels like a bit of a cop-out in this type of clue.
5 CLARINET; N in (ARTICLE)* – here ‘first noticed’ = N, and in the next clue ‘opening night’ = N; see last week’s blog for discussion of this (and thanks to the contributors). This sort of thing is standard for the Sunday Times but not allowed in daily puzzles in The Times.
6 UNTENABLE; (TUNE)* on N + ABLE – no no no! The word ‘can’ on its own does not equal ‘able’!
7 PANEL (2 defs)
8 E,N + CRYPT – ‘crypt’ and ‘encrypt’ are from the same Greek root kryptos (‘hidden’) / kryptein (‘to hide’), but there’s enough difference in English for this clue not to seem weak.
13 BACK WARDS – no idea what’s going on after ‘facilities’ here. The clue as given online is: Support hospital facilities in disarray after wicked lie (9). Perhaps there’s a printing error: maybe the original clue to the next answer had wordplay something like ‘…inmate in disarray after wicked lie’ and this somehow got tacked onto this clue in place of the definition?
15 ELIMINATE; (IN TIME ALE)*
16 STITCH ON (cryptic defn) – very strange answer phrase.
17 DEGRADE; “D GRADE” – not the best homophone, the stress is in the wrong place and ‘grade’ is used in the same sense as in the answer.
19 TAD (= ‘A little’) + POLE (= ‘rod’) – slightly naughty hyphenation of the definition (‘wriggler’) with part of the wordplay.
20 STICKS; ST (= ‘way’) + (SICK)*
22 NOBLE; rev. of BON (= ‘good Parisian’), + LE (= ‘the French’)
23 EDIFY (hidden) – a third hidden answer and again a superfluous word (‘like’).

9 comments on “ST 4320 (Sun 15 Mar) – Backwards analysis”

  1. The clue reads…
    Shows notes to northerner
    The answer is DEPICT
    Shouldn’t the clue have had “Show” and not “Shows”

    Mike, Skiathos

    1. My version (downloaded from the website) correctly reads ‘Show notes..’. Maybe this was a mistake in the paper version, or perhaps they corrected an online mistake before I downloaded it?
  2. I found this explanation on another forum.

    “Support(back)hospital facilities (wards)in disarray suggests an anagram of “backwards” but it’s a wicked lie, so backwards is correct”

    I must say it doesn’t really convince me.

    1. This explanation would also suggest The Sunday Times allows indirect anagrams. They don’t, do they?

      Another explanation could be wards=hospital facilities in disarray (they are often argued to be so in Australia), which comes after “Support” so the definition is “wicked lie”. I thought this could be some reference to sinners (particularly suicides) being buried not “straight” i.e. in east-west orientation, but it wouldn’t quite be backwards, unless they were buried deliberately with heads to the East, for which I can find no reference. Witches were apparently buried face downwards. Maybe it’s a well known literary quote about how the wicked lie in their beds? I’m not convincing myself, am I?

      As for EREPSIN, it appears it is an “enzyme complex”, i.e. a mixture of “aminopeptidases and dipeptidases” which may just make it a group.

  3. Every week I wonder why I bother with this shambles of a crossword at all. Poor structure, poor grids, wild variations in clue difficulty, typos, grammar, is there any cruciverbal sin that it doesn’t regularly commit?

    So far as I am concerned, its only virtue is to remind me how good the daily cryptic, and its editing, are by comparison.

  4. Actinium was, i think, readily available and radioactive for study by the likes of the Curies and actinic was thus synonymous with radioactive or of radiation if you like. So the clue would read Effect ie make ‘of radiation’ found in etc. One would think the setter could interweave something with 1D there.
    The ST cryptic was the first xword, back in the 60’s, that where i would say to myself ‘i’m going to finish this if it takes me till Wednesday and even if i have to go the library’. Not so long ago words like Erepsin and Actinic wouldn’t have appeared so something has changed.
  5. Backwards: I must confess that I obtained the answer from letters from other answers, and then noticing that ‘support’ = ‘back’ & ‘hospital facilities’ = ‘wards’. I didn’t see how the rest of the clue applied until I recalled something from my golf-playing days: ‘a wicked lie’, which would usually put the desired order of strokes into ‘disarray’ by requiring a reversal of direction (if the lie were wicked enough), or ‘backwards’ (not forward) movement. I know that this is not a perfect explanation. Perhaps someone with a better grasp of the many meanings of ‘array’, ‘disarray’, and ‘backwards’ can come up with a smoother clarification.

    Actinic: I know that my attempted apologia for this answer will not be well-received. ‘… found intact in ice crystals’ = found in (tact in ice crystals). If ‘indeed’ = ‘in deed’, indeed, why not ‘intact’ = ‘in tact’? The superfluous ‘crystals’ was probably added to disguise to hidden answer to a greater degree, since ‘tact in ice’ was a bit too obvious. I believe this is done occasionally in ST cryptics (e.g., Mount from Vietnam lacking vigour (4) [ETNA]). Since ‘actinic’ is an adjective, I don’t see how it can be equated to ‘effect of radiation’.

    Erepsin: Just as water may be referred to as H2O, I believe that ‘erepsin’ may be represented by a similsr molecular formula, indicating a ‘group’ of atoms, in this case a group in biology.

    1. 10ac: The clue for ETNA that you cite is slightly different. This isn’t a hidden answer as such, because it’s VIETNAM with VIM (= ‘vigour’) removed, leaving ETNA. But you’re quite right that the ST often pads out hidden answers with superfluous words; whether this is unfair, inelegant or adds to the fun is a matter of taste, I suppose. Likewise ‘intact’ = ‘in tact’, which as mentioned in the blog is probably the intention here.
  6. I have to admit that I write WTF? next to answers where it is a really obscure word and/or I cannot understand how it is derived from the clue. This one scored 5 WTFs:
    7d Wall mounting team selected? = PANEL?
    10a Effect of radiation = ACTINIC?
    18a DEPICT = notes to northerner? Yeah, Picts & Scots I know.
    26a Biological group = EREPSIN?
    13d BACKWARDS = in disarray after wicked lie?

    I did manage to get the apparently correct answers but did not know why. Usually the good people here put me right but this blog & comments are not blessed with very convincing arguments. The fault of the puzzle and not the blogger or commenters I might add.

    I liked TADPOLE = a little rod-wriggler at 19d though.

    WTF = What the Flippin’ ‘Eck by the way – honest.

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