ST 4346 (Sun 13 Sep) – Oil disaster

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 9:15, plenty of which on the erroneous clue.

An abysmal error at 22ac (‘about oil’ intended as an anagram of ABUTILON) was the nadir of this pretty awful puzzle.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 SANCTUM; (CAN + MUST)* – nice anagram, not convinced by the indicator (a post-fodder ‘arrange’, which cannot act reflexively, according to my dictionaries anyway).
5 SECRETE (2 defs) – why ‘this’? Why ‘it’?
9 TIGER MOTH; (TIGHT MORE)*
10 RUCHE; rev. of CUR, + HE
11 LORDLY; ([i]DYLL OR)*
12 FORMAL + IN – I wavered here between this and ‘normalin’.
14 SUNBATHERS; (AS BURNS THE)* – a kind of semi-&lit, but another awkward anagram indicator (‘outcome’)…
16 O + PAL
18 TICK (2 defs)
19 MONOTHEISM; (HIM NOT SOME)* – …and another one (‘other’).
22 ABUTILON; (ABOUT OIL)* [sic] – of the scores of errors I’ve seen in this puzzle over the last couple of years, this erroneous anagram is among the worst. It couldn’t (as far as I can see) be a typo – ‘nil’ for ‘oil’ wouldn’t give a sensible surface reading – so my guess is that this puzzle was set by the editor and then published unchecked, because it’s inconceivable that a test solver would fail to pick up on this, especially as the answer is a fairly obscure word.
23 PRIMED (2 defs)
26 PANIC; P + (I CAN)* – ‘activate’ can only be a transitive verb so once again the anagram indication here is unsatisfactory.
27 IN CREASES
28 RELIEVE; (E’ER VILE)*
29 RETINUE (cryptic definition)

Down
1 SETTLES (2 defs) – a settle can be a ‘long high-backed bench’ (Chambers).
2 NIGER; rev. of (RE + GIN)
3 TYROLEAN; (LEARN TOY)*
4 MOO + N – I didn’t immediately see through ‘skylight’ here.
5 SCHOOLROOM; SCHOOL (= ‘porpoises’) + ROOM (= ‘space’) – ‘school’ in the aquatic sense is cognate with ‘shoal’, so that’s ok, but using ‘space’ to define ‘room’ when that’s what it means in the answer word is weak.
6 CH + ROME – ‘CH’ stands for ‘Companion of Honour’.
7 EUCALYPTI; EU + (TYPICAL)*
8 ETERNAL – perhaps the ‘other’ reading of this was of someone waffling on and never getting to the point, but this barely counts as a cryptic clue.
13 THEODOLITE; (HOTEL TO DIE)* – a theodolite is a piece of distance-measuring equipment and a ‘transit theodolite’ is one whose telescope can be reversed, hence ‘transit’ in the clue; I can’t explain ‘in America’, but perhaps some dictionary gives this as an Americanism. There are some thoughts on the etymology of this curious word here.
15 NOCTURNAL; (COUNT RAN)* + L
17 SHARPEST; (RASH STEP)* – the should really say ‘most knife-edged’, not ‘more knife-edged’, but in the context of the rest of this puzzle that’s a minor nitpick.
18 TRAPPER; rev. of (REP + PART)* – ‘Role reversal’ is a bit jarring as a reversal indicator.
20 MODISTE; M.O. + (DIETS)* – why ‘to suit’?
21 FIACRE; F + I + (CARE)* – let’s not get started on ‘carefree’ = (CARE)*.
24 MASON; SO in MAN
25 A + C.E. + R

10 comments on “ST 4346 (Sun 13 Sep) – Oil disaster”

  1. This is a bad puzzle and I agree with all your criticisms. I had all but 4 solutions within 18 minutes (very good for me) but took another 16 to polish off 5ac, 6dn, 12ac and 22ac. I think most of this extra time was spent on the false anagram so I claim about 10 minutes back.

    Collins has THEODOLITE as “transit” in the US and Canada.

  2. Agreed, one of the worst in a long time. But nowhere near as bad as the soi-disant Sunday Times in the Oz. The US OED has this entry under “transit”:
    “informal (in full transit theodolite): a tool used by surveyors to measure horizontal angles”.
  3. Heavens, this was a shocker, wasn’t it? Dreadful, especially after a run of several that I had no complaint with.
    Both the setter and the editor should hang their heads in shame.
  4. The late report is my fault – Neil sent me his report for posting on Sunday and I forgot to mention that I’d be away for most of the day. And worse, forgot to do anything on Sunday evening.

    transit & theodolite: My 1991 Collins says, in the entry for theodolite: “Also called (in the US and Canada): transit”. But a Google search for “surveyor transit” finds pages explaining the subtle difference between the two. Chambers has “transit” defined as a “transit theodolite”. The first excuses its use in a clue, even if Collins is a bit off-beam.

    No salvation with the botched anag though!

  5. It’s a shame that so many of these errors are creeping in. I don’t believe it’s a case of the setter(s) not being up to the job – we’re all human and we all screw up – but the combination of setter and editor should be enough to eliminate basic mistakes. Yeah, OK, if it’s a case of slightly loose def or wordplay syntax, fair enough – you get that daily in all the newspapers.

    I get the sense that these Sunday puzzles are being rattled off as a sideline – perhaps they pay very little? But it is of some concern when you consider that some may think of The Times and Sunday Times as pretty much the same thing; are there solvers out there who assume the crosswords in these two newspapers come from the same stable?

    Funny thing really. I very rarely buy the Sunday papers – in fact I only do so if I didn’t get round to buying Saturday’s and I want something to read. For some reason Saturday seems to be the day for really good puzzles and lots of them, but Sunday tends to be a bit flat despite the fact that more people have that day available for R&R than Saturday.

    1. I’m sure you’re right that plenty of solvers think that The Times and The Sunday Times come from the same setting team, which is sad for the former.

      Your ‘sideline’ view is understandable, but I’d be surprised if the pay was much different to other outlets (though that’s just a guess on my part). Perhaps the real reason is that the editing is so awful that other setters know they don’t have to worry, because the editor isn’t going to complain if the puzzles aren’t up to much?

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