ST 4364 (Sun 17 Jan) – Smike analysis

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: Lost, but about 6 or 7 minutes, I think, with the last few on STRETCHER, CONCRETE, RETRENCH and finally KISMET. No howlers that I spotted, but a few strange ones.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 SKIS + LOPE
8 GENTOO; GENT + O,O (= ‘two eggs’) – a marvellous word which fortunately I knew.
9 IMPUGNED; IMP, + (DUNG)* around [fi]E[ld]
10 FIRE OPAL; (O + PAL) after FIRE
11 SERVED (cryptic definition) – well-worded, referring to tennis.
12 CONCRETE; (N + CRETE) after CO[mpany] (= ‘firm’)
13 DUELLIST; DUE (= ‘expected’) + L[eft] + LIST (= ‘tip [over]’)
16 RETRENCH; TRENCH (= ‘ditch’) after [enti]RE[play] – a strange clue, and no good reason for the exclamation mark.
19 EVENSONG; EVEN SO (= ‘nevertheless’) + NG (= ‘no good’)
21 KISMET; (SMIKE)* + [los]T – I eventually got this from the definition (‘Fate’), but the explanation is stretched, to say the least. Ralph Nickleby is the uncle of Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, and has a son called Smike. So to get this you not only need to have a good knowledge of the book but then need to perform an indirect anagram (i.e. an anagram of a word not actually in the clue).
23 EVENTUAL; (NET VALUE)*
24 TRACHOMA; (CHART)*, + rev. of (A M.O.) – a form of conjunctivitis.
25 PADDED; A + DD (= ‘designated driver’) + ED[itor], all after P[arking] – a dictionary tells me that ‘pad’ can mean ‘to trudge along’.
26 EMPHASIS; (SPASM HE)* around I

Down
1 LEG-IRON; (ONE GIRL)*
2 STRETCHER (cryptic definition) – nice enough. With most of the checking letters in place I hazarded a biazrre ‘streetcar’ here which held me up on 12ac.
3 CORPSE; R[emains] in COPSE
4 SPILLED THE BEANS; (AS HE BENT)* = THE BEANS – wordplay in the answer, but this clue needs at least a question mark or something.
5 I’M POSTER – curiously worded but it just about works.
6 LAGER; rev. of REGAL – this could have worked either way, and in fact arguably ‘boost for beer’ is a better reversal indicator than ‘Royal boost’. Some solvers object to ambiguities like this, although they don’t really bother me as long as the checking letters resolve the doubt.
7 PEERESS; EE (= ‘errors excepted’) in PRESS – the last time ‘errors excepted’ was used in the Sunday Times it appeared as ‘errors expected’ (ironically), so we’re making progress. For an explanation of ‘the fourth estate’ see here.
14 LASSITUDE; (US DETAILS)* – very poorly worded and without an anagram indicator.
15 UNCTUOUS; U[niversity] + (COUNT US)*
17 EPIGRAM; [jok]E + PIG,RAM
18 ENGAGED (2 defs)
20 EXEMPT; EX-MP + T[ime], all around E[xpenses]
22 MICA + H – the biblical prophet.

8 comments on “ST 4364 (Sun 17 Jan) – Smike analysis”

  1. Re 8ac: a Gentoo, like all penguins, is a resident of the Antarctic, not the Arctic.

    Re 14dn, I think “slackness” is meant to be doing double duty as def. and as anagram indicator. It would be nice to think the slackness of the clue construction was part of the joke. But probably not.

    2. Actually, it would seem that your average gentoo isn’t Antarctic: a quick Wikipedia check indicates that they breed in e.g. the Falklands and other non-Antarctic places. (And I believe there’s some penguin species that’s exclusively South African.) I wrote to the bulletin board about the ‘Arctic’ howler last week, with the all-too-usual result.
  2. 7:04 for me. I was very slow to get 21ac. It must be around 50 years since I read Nicholas Nickleby and I’d literally lost the plot, though it came back to me as soon as I realised that the answer was going to be KISMET. This is the sort of clue that would have been regarded as fair game in the days when I first started doing the (daily) Times crossword, when “Ralph Nickleby’s son” would have been regarded as such a strong indication of SMIKE that it would barely count as a hidden anagram!

    All in all, rather an odd puzzle, with 8ac and its “Arctic penguin” the oddest clue of all. Why bother to put in either “Arctic” (a howler) or “Antartic” (unnecessary)?

  3. I have never read Nicholas Nickleby so this was bit of pointless clue. I either wait for enough checking letters to have a stab at it or I google Ralph Nickleby son. I thought it was then a bit much to have add another letter and then anagram the whole lot.
  4. Typical ST cock-up. A GENTOO (8 ac) is an ANTarctic species. (Can we look forward to ELBOWnic as a poisonous element?) Otherwise not a bad puzzle.
  5. I wrote in KISMET straight away at 21 without any checking letters just on the strength of the first word of the clue (Fate). I would never have been able to explain the rest of it having completely forgotten (if I ever knew) that Smike was Ralph Nickleby’s son. I also didn’t understand 16 apart from the Trench/Ditch connection.

    At 25ac I’m somewhat surprised at DD = Dedicated Driver and even more that Chambers sanctions it.

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