ST 4334 (Sun 21 Jun) – Hail Mary

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I was interrupted when solving this so didn’t record a time but I think it would have been fairly quick as most of the puzzle was on the easy side. This was partly due to the whopping number of anagrams: no fewer than seven in the across clues and three more in the downs, a total which I think is twice the maximum number of straight anagrams allowed in a daily Times puzzle.

There was a bit of added difficulty, though, from the grid (with the four interlocking 7-letter words in the middle each having just three checked letters) and some vague definitions and difficult vocabulary, plus a reference to a nursery rhyme at 25ac which perhaps may not be known to overseas solvers.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 CORAL SEA; (ORC + A SEAL)*
5 APPEAR (2 defs)
9 ODALISKS; (KIDS ALSO)* – a difficult answer derived from the useful word ‘oda’, meaning a room in a Turkish harem.
10 RAN C.I.D. – this breakdown is quite common, but if you haven’t seen it before the past tense ‘Took charge of’ deviously suggests an -ED ending.
12 H + OLDER
13 MAGNOLIA; (A LONG AIM)*
15 PERUSAL; (UP LASER)*
16 OTIC; O[ff] + TIC
20 AL(O)E
21 CHEAPER; CHEER around rev. of PA
25 CONTRARY – as in Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, though I don’t know how well this is known abroad.
26 FITTER (2 defs)
28 USANCE; (CAN USE)* – this is defined as ‘time allowed for payment of foreign bills and exchanges’.
29 PARADIGM; (A MAP + GRID)*
30 TUTORS; (TO RUST)*
31 INTENTLY; IN TENT + L[a]Y

Down
1 C(LOTH)E – the establishment is the Church of England
2 RE-ALLY – nice clue which I can’t recall seeing before.
3 LOITERED; (I LED + TORE)*
4 EKKA (hidden) – a one-horse carriage, and the Hindi word for ‘one’.
6 PRAWNS; P[latter] + RAW + N,S
7 ESCALATE; (LACES TEA)*
8 R + ID + DANCE
11 RAMADAN; rev. of ADAM inside RAN (= ‘sped’)
14 AUTHORS; THOR in AUS[tralia]
17 LAWCOURT; (CRAWL OUT)* – I was surprised to find that this was one word.
18 DOWN + CAST
19 LEVI + TATE – ‘man’ = LEVI is asking a lot! The gallery is the Tate, which I guess is well-known overseas?
22 T + RACER – not convinced by the definition here (‘On the track’, suggesting someone who is on the track of, or tracing, something, hence ‘tracer’).
23 S + [elec]TRIC[ity] + T – ‘junction’ for T is questionable; ‘some electricity’ for TRIC is bonkers.
24 PRIMLY; RIM (= ‘border’) in PLY (= ‘Work steadily’)
27 LAWN (2 defs) – I didn’t know the first definition here (‘a sort of fine linen or cambric’) and this was my last, hesitant, entry.

6 comments on “ST 4334 (Sun 21 Jun) – Hail Mary”

  1. 28 minutes for this one. 14dn AUTHORS the last to go in. I agree with the comment on LEVI in 19dn as it’s not even in Chambers’ list of first names. The presence of “required” made me wonder whether we are missing something as it seems completely redundant to the substance of the clue and to its surface reading. Why not simply “Lift man heading for gallery”? I didn’t have any problem with “T” for “junction” though, as I have met it many times before.
  2. The nursery rhyme is well known in the US; “Tate” is well known here as that gallery that keeps showing up in UK puzzles!

    dr b

  3. R + ID + DANCE.

    Can someone explain Id = fish?

    Ide is a fish but I can find no Id fish in any dictionary.

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