ST 4325 (Sun 19 Apr) – Three cheers

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 9 mins

Actually just a couple, at 10ac, but if only the Sunday Times crossword were like this every week: some outstanding clues here, especially the anagrams at 28ac, 5dn, 8dn and 13dn, and lots of long words and phrases in a well-designed grid. If this crossword wasn’t by Tim Moorey I’ll eat my 11ac, in the absence of any hats.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 BEAUTY SLEEP – clever pun on ‘kipper’ = ‘someone kipping’.
9 GO(Y)A
10 FRENCH TOAST – because toast can be food (= ‘cheer’) but ‘cheers’ is a toast.
11 SHOE; “SHOO”
14 D,O + WAGER
16 PONIES; (IS OPEN)* – ‘Camp’ in the sense of ‘affected’.
17 REGRET (hidden)
18 COLLISION COURSE; rev. of (O[scar] IS ILL) in CONCOURSE – I couldn’t make anything of the wordplay when solving but eventually spotted the answer from the checking letters.
19 CO-STAR; (ACTOR’S)* – a well-known apposite anagram.
21 MEDIC + I
22 HEAVIES (2 defs?) – not sure about the second definition here. Is ‘heavy’ a word for a big newspaper with lots of supplements, or slang for a broadsheet newspaper?
23 DART; rev. of TRAD[e]
26 LAUNDRESSES; LA[d] + UNDRESSES – very nice.
27 TOSH (2 defs)
28 SET IN MOTION; (ITEM IS NOT ON)* – excellent anagram.

Down
2 EARL[y] – as in the Earl of Sandwich.
3 URNS; “EARNS”
4 YAHOO’S
5 LEONARDO DA VINCI; (VINDALOO AND RICE)* – stunning.
6 EASTER (2 defs)
7 MOTHER’S RUIN – I think the idea here is calling gin ‘mother’s ruin’ might help ‘keep mum about’, i.e. prevent said mum from drinking herself to an early grave.
8 PARENTHESIS; (PHRASE SET IT)* – another brilliant clue. At first I wondered about the singular, given the definition, but ‘in parenthesis’ and ‘in parentheses’ are both supported for referring to round brackets, plus the former could refer to the grammatical construction rather than the brackets themselves.
12 SPACE CADETS; (ESCAPED CATS)*
13 ENGLISH ROSE; (SHE’S ONE GIRL)* – yet another fantastic anagram.
14 DELI + LAH
15 REMOVES (2 defs) – I spent a couple of minutes at the end looking for an alternative here, but after solving I looked this up and discovered that a remove is ‘in some schools, an intermediate class’, hence ‘forms’.
20 [p]REFACE – I initially split this clue between ‘Repair’ and ‘wall front’, but in fact the definition is ‘Repair wall’ and the wordplay is ‘front’ (= PREFACE) with the top removed. An extremely devious, well-worded clue.
21 ME + GRIM
24 PSST (hidden)
25 DEMO[b]

8 comments on “ST 4325 (Sun 19 Apr) – Three cheers”

  1. I got down to four unfilled cells in 12:32, and never did fill those in. REMOVES and REFACE defeated me. Both clever clues – too clever for me, on the day.

    Lots of good stuff in here, and no quibbles to speak of.

    1. I guessed right then the other day! I had the same four left after about 9 minutes, but took another 4 to finish. I eventually got REFACE, but only put REMOVES in as a guess, just to fill the damn thing.
  2. I know of the Remove, from Billy Bunter, “Fat Owl of the Remove” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bunter

    I saw “Mother’s Ruin” just as something one would generally want to keep quiet about, being embarrassing.

    The only trouble I had with this good crossword is the usual one that I always have with the ST cryptic these days: if I have any difficulty solving a clue I automatically assume there is a fault with the clue, rather than with me!

  3. Didn’t record a time, but it was not a small number. Came away very satisfied, and thinking that the ST had really raised their game. This would have been a cracker, even in the Times. Particularly inpressed with the number of quality anagrams. Favourite: Vindaloo and rice. Magic!
  4. As far as I’m concerned, the quality of the anagrams doesn’t make up for the weakness of this clue.

    Because of the placement of the signal, one can’t know whether it’s “shoe” or “shoo” until one has the ans. to 8 down.

    I find this sort of looseness; the misspellings (Yameni for Yemeni a few years ago being the worst,the letters missing from anagrams and the likes more annoying than the “headmaster” type clues.

    1. The clue here was

      11. Loafer perhaps — shouted go away! (4)

      You’re right that a case can be made for either SHOE or SHOO being the solution but I think it’s pretty clear that SHOE is the better answer, with the dash separating the definition from the wordplay. The same clue without the dash would certainly be ambiguous.

      There is a school of thought that such ambiguity is fair provided that crossing answers leave only one possibility, as here. I think I’m probably in that camp, although your viewpoint that all clues should have only one possible answer independently of checking letters is shared by many.

      1. Thanks.

        Hadn’t heard of the “dash” rule before.

        The rule in my first “How To Do Cryptics” was that the signal always had to be separated from the definition by the homonym.

        A day older a day wiser…………

  5. Today is Monday so you see, it is the Dynamo for me.
    No other word can I yet find.
    No better choice leaps quick to mind.

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