ST 4370 (Sun 28 Feb) – 8dn to the 4dn

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: can’t remember, but I think I had to have a sanity break halfway through.

Dreadful, again. There was a definite mistake in the clue to ATHENS at 22dn (in the online version, at least) and I think 2dn (ORNATE) is also wrong unless I have the wrong answer. I also can’t fathom 1ac (PROVINCE?) or 10ac (DEBRIS?), though in fairness the amount of time I’m prepared to spend trying to decipher this rubbish is rather less than it used to be. Explanations would be welcome, as would the pointing out of any errors I may have missed.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 PROVINCE – baffled by this.
5 STOWED; S + T + OWED
9 MANAGERS; A in MANGERS – the definition here is awful (‘coping’), especially when ‘Those coping’ would have fit the surface reading.
10 DEBRIS – when solving I thought that ‘débris’ must mean ‘disbursement’ in French, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
12 OUTLAW; (LOUT)* + A + W[arning]
13 HERBARIA; HERB + ARIA – a ‘simple’ is a medicinal plant.
15 UNMANAGEABLE; (LEAGUE BAN MAN)* – very inelegant to see this in the same grid as ‘managers’ at 9ac.
18 PYROTECHNICS; (SCYTHE CROP IN)*
23 RAVE + NOUS
24 MAHOUT; MA + H + OUT – I wrote this in with no confidence, but apparently it means ‘the driver and keeper of an elephant’.
26 DERAIL; rev. of (ARE in LID)
27 COMPLETE; COMPLETE around [hurd]L[e]
28 CREOLE; RE in COLE – because Old King Cole was a merry old soul.
29 STATUES; T (as in the Ford Model T) in STATUES – there was a rogue full stop in the online version of this clue.

Down
1 POMPOM; rev. of MOP MOP
2 ORNATE? – I can only assume that an anagram of ‘Near to’ was intended here, but the clue read ‘Near disaster? Elaborate!’.
3 INGRAIN; (RAINING)* – nice anagram.
4 CORE (cryptic definition)
6 TREMBLE; (ELM BERT)*
7 WARDROBE; WARD (= ‘Charge’) + ROBE (= ‘garment’)
8 DISEASED; DIED (= ‘declined’) around SEA (= ‘main’) + S[uspect]
11 DETAINS; (AND TIES)* – good clue. I’m prepared to be gullible and believe that ‘knots’ was intended as an intransitive (rather than nounal) anagram indicator.
14 BACCHUS; “BACK US” – difficult, but I got there once I realised this was a homophone.
16 SPORADIC; (SAID CROP)*
17 TRAVERSE; (RATS VEER)*
19 TENNIEL; rev. of LINNET around E – my knowledge of illustrators is limited to about two and Quentin Blake didn’t fit, so this went straight in. I’m not keen on ‘in flight’ meaning ‘upwards’ but that’s a minor nitpick.
20 CLAY POT; LAY + P, all in COT (= ‘sailor’s bed’)
21 COVERT (2 defs) – a shelter for game. I was only sure of this answer when I realised that I recognised the word from little places on maps (e.g. ‘Fox Covert’).
22 ATHENS; A + THE + N,S – a definite mistake (‘article’ instead of ‘articles’).
25 FOOT (2 defs)

14 comments on “ST 4370 (Sun 28 Feb) – 8dn to the 4dn”

  1. Thought it was just me, but NFI about PROVINCE. Guess the clue for ORNATE is a typo; ditto ATHENS. I suspect DEBRIS is just something you chuck out: so “disbursement abroad” => double/cryptic def. Also worried about HERBARIA which is plural. It would seem that the managers are unmanageable once again.
    1. As of now, the online clue for ATHENS does indeed read “articles.” (I don’t remember if I tackled this last week or not.) Ditto ORNATE now reads “Near to…” as you guessed it should.

      British slang – at least in some parts of the country – “That’s your pigeon” meaning it’s your responsibilty, your province. I use this phrase myself, though I freely admit I don’t hear it from many other people. I imagine a vast number of overseas solvers will have been utterly baffled by it.

      1. I wonder if it is a back-formation from “pigeonhole” as in a set of filing boxes: if it is to go into your pigeonhole, then it’s your pigeon!
        1. ODE gives this meaning of “pigeon” as an archaic spelling of “pidgin” which in turn comes from an oriental rendering of “business”.
  2. I had all the same queries as raised here except I did eventually work out the province/pigeon connection in 1ac. This week’s effort (4371) seems only a little better with one clue having no definition and the setter apparently thinking the chemical symbol for tungsten is TN.
  3. 12:00 for me.

    What a load of junk! I see they’ve now corrected the clues for ORNATE and ATHENS, but they haven’t changed 9A to “Those coping …” so that still looks like a misclue. I also question OWED = “in debt” in 5A: surely “in debt” = OWING!? To add further annoyance, the answer to 25D is given as ROOT rather than FOOT.

    Regarding 10A, the clue for DEBRIS looks suspiciously like a cast-off clue for 12A, where the answer OUTLAY would fit nicely (OUTLAY = disbursement; OUT (= abroad) + LAY (= deposit)!

  4. Great idea on 10A!

    I guess those who soldier on with solving and blogging this don’t bother to worry about nonsense like 12’s “first warning” or 27’s “fifth hurdle”, both of which need at least an “of” to make logical sense, or the surplus words like “reason for having” in 8, “tend to be” in 16, “for” in 7, or “to” in 28 – I can forgive the occasional one-word extra, but not three-word ones. Finally, I can’t see that “dig a ditch?”, even with “?”, is a fair definition for “ingrain”. Not completely sure that “clay pot” is a recognisable phrase at 20D, but that’s being picky.

    The official solution to 25D is currently ROOT!

  5. Along with all the oddities already mentioned, I found 8d odd; declining is what one does before dying. ‘He declined in his sleep on Tuesday the 12th’? My argument with 1ac was only that ‘In Britain’ struck me as otiose; why not just ‘Pigeon territory’?
    I wrote the Times bulletin board about 22d, and to their credit, they posted the message; but why couldn’t they acknowledge the error?
  6. I think this has to rank with the worst ST clue ever.

    Ingrain is a v.t. “to implant or fix deeply and firmly, as in the nature or mind” or n. “yarn, wool, etc., dyed before manufacture”.

    What’s that got to do with ditch digging?

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