ST 4349 (Sun 4 Oct) – Status report

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 4:28

A distinct improvement this week, with no mistakes that I noticed and some very good clues. This, plus some speculative schedule analysis, suggests that this may have been written by Tim Moorey. It’s a good job the last letter of 18ac (STATUS) was checked, or I might carelessly have dropped a mark.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 OPTIMAL; TIM[e] in OPAL
5 PRIESTS; PRIES around ST – I suppose the case (outside letters) of ‘single malt’ is ST.
9 DIORAMA; (AM RADIO)* – excellent anagram.
10 ROSTRUM; (SORT)* in RUM
11 RUSSIAN ROULETTE; (SEE OUT TRIAL RUNS)* – another good anagram, but lacking an indicator, unless you are happy for a question mark to suffice.
12 YONDER; rev. of (RED + NO + Y) – I couldn’t see the wordplay here, having assumed that the definition was ‘over there’; in fact it’s just ‘there’, with ‘over’ being a reversal indicator
14 TAPESTRY; TRY around (A PEST)*
17 DISASTER; (ASTER[o]IDS)* – an ‘all-in-one’ clue.
18 STATUS; U in STATS – my first entry here was ‘statue’.
21 SHOTGUN MARRIAGE (cryptic definition) – I liked ‘match report’, punning on ‘match’ = ‘marriage’ and ‘report’ as in the bang of a gun.
24 G + RATING
25 SCREECH; (CRECHES)*
26 SWINGER; W in SINGER – a lark as in a songbird, hence ‘singer’.
27 MULL + EIN – one of these.

Down
1 ORDERLY (2 defs)
2 THOUSANDS; (AND SHOUT)* + S[ucceeded] – good clue.
3 MIAMA MIAMI; rev. of IMAM around I
4 LEARNT; LEAR + N[o]T
5 PERSONAL; P + (ORLEANS)*
6 INSOLVENT; (VIN STOLEN)*
7 S + PRAT – ‘is, in short’ gives S, as in ‘it’s’ or ‘he’s’; Chambers defines ‘prat’ as being slang for ‘the buttocks’.
8 SUMMERY; “SUMMARY”
13 EASY + GOING – ‘Midshipman’ for EASY is worth remembering, like ‘Jolly’ for R.M. (Royal Marine).
15 TETE-A-TETE; A in (TETE x 2) (= ‘heads’ in French, for example in Nice).
16 TEENAGER; TEE + (RANGE)*
17 DESIGNS; DES around (IN + G + S)*
19 STEPHEN; (PET HENS)*
20 HANSOM; “HANDSOME”
22 OMANI; rev. of (IN A MO) – I went through ‘Iraqi’ and ‘Irani’ before seeing this.
23 R + URAL

8 comments on “ST 4349 (Sun 4 Oct) – Status report”

  1. A little typo note – 3d is MIAMI.

    Is it cruel of me that I’m already anticipating the blog for this week’s ST?

  2. 22 minutes which I’m sure is a PB on any Times cryptic. Didn’t understand the wordplay at 12ac or 7dn, surely both a bit too smart for their own good.

    Not sure what you are referring to, George, but I certainly have a couple of queries about today’s ST puzzle.

    1. The 12ac / 7dn complexity is obviously a multiple attempt at a communist sprat — aka red herring!
      Lots to like here though: especially the Anax-ish 26ac.
    2. I too have this week’s crossword stuck on my pinboard, ready to hand, for when comments become permissible 🙂
  3. Oh and while on matters Russian: is it possible that “impossible” is the anagind in 11ac? (See blog.)
  5. I see what George means about 11ac, but it seems churlish to criticise since the existence of the anagram seems pretty clear to me even if it is not technically precisely correct. Could the word “impossible” be construed as an indicator, I wonder? In a ST cryptic, anyway 🙂
  6. This was very easy and, for once, appeared to contain no errors. The one rare plant Mullein was clearly indicated by the wordplay, which is often not the case in the ST. At 15, I thought disaster did not have a definition but I suppose it scrapes through as a semi &Lit. At 21, I did not know the phrase Shotgun Marriage existed but when I googled it I found that it outnumbered Shotgun Wedding by 2:1. The other thing I did not know was Prat for buttocks but that was readily derivable from the word pratfall

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