ST 4373 (Sun 21 Mar) – Trouble garage

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 6 mins

The schedule suggested we were due a good one and sure enough this was excellent. I don’t understand 18dn (WAYSIDE), though.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
4 SUP + PRESS – this clue confused me: it was obviously easy, but I looked at the grid for the word length and mistakenly aassociated the clue with 8dn instead of 4ac, so thought the answer was six letters long and couldn’t see it. Not a good start.
8 BREEZE (2 defs)
9 CONFOUND; C + FOUND around ON
10 STILETTO; (TILTS TOE)* – lovely ‘double-whammy’/’&lit’.
11 EXTORT; EX + “TAUGHT”
12 F + LOWERED – the online clue had a rogue capital N in the word ‘down’ in this clue, which didn’t affect solving but does reflect the general standards of the Times’s crossword website.
13 IRISHMAN; I’M around SH, all in IRAN – superb clue.
16 PATHETIC; PATH, + ETC around I
19 OUTBREAK; [l]OUT + BREAK (= ‘crack’) – another excellent surface reading, and especially good because ‘rash’ is an adjective in the surface reading and a noun as the definition.
21 FOR AGE
23 MORALIST; MOR[e] + A[dult] + LIST
24 SEMOLINA; (IS A LEMON)* – a very nice anagram but I’m not totally convinced by the wording here.
25 DO-SI-DO; ‘I DO’ after DOS – a brilliant semi-&lit (by which I mean that the definition is ‘dancing’, but the whole clue provides a kind of expanded definition).
26 COMBINED; (INCOME BOND – ON)*

Down
1 P + RATTLE – Sir Simon Rattle is the English conductor.
2 YELLOWISH; YELL + O + WISH
3 BELTER; (TREBLE)*
4 SECOND-IN-COMMAND – because the second letter of ‘command’ is O, i.e., ‘nothing’.
5 PANDEMIC; rev. of MED in PANIC
6 ROOST; ROO’S + [fron]T
7 SANGRIA; ([b]ARGAINS)*
14 HEARTLESS – because ‘thesis’ with no heart (i.e. central letters) is ‘this’.
15 ATHENIAN; A,THE,AN around N.I.
17 AT ONE GO; ATONE (= ‘Make good’) + GO (= ‘journey’)
18 WAYSIDE – I think this must be the answer but I don’t get the clue. ‘Rock I’d say’ might indicate an anagram of ‘I’d say’, giving ‘AYSID’, and ‘case of “garage”‘ might indicate the outer letters of ‘garage’, but that leads to ‘gayside’, not ‘wayside’. Any ideas, anyone?
20 TIRADE; I in TRADE
22 A-BOMB; rev. of MOB in B.A.

13 comments on “ST 4373 (Sun 21 Mar) – Trouble garage”

  1. The wordplay definitely indicates the answer should be gayside.
    I suspect this is a neologism meaning the gay community, which is certainly not “middle of the road”.
    Barbara
    1. That’s not what the on-line solution says! So it shall forever remain a mystery I fear.
  2. 11:01 for me – so getting ever slower. (Sigh!)

    I wonder if the clue to 18D started out as:

    Rock I’d say, in case of “warehouse” is not middle of the road (7)

    (I should perhaps add that I found “warehouse” in Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary, so if the surface reading of the revised clue doesn’t make much sense to rock aficionados, then don’t blame me – at least not too much. Anyway perhaps it didn’t make much sense to the editor, who was then moved to change it.)

  3. Garage rock is a type of unsophisticated rock music (according to Chambers). On the Internet there is Wayside Music, an outfit that deals with rock music, etc. I don’t feel that this is quite satisfactory, but it did make me opt for ‘Wayside’ over ‘Gayside.’
  4. Does anyone know if the “rule” about references to living people is supposed to apply in the ST puzzle?
  5. Google has several references to ‘gayside’ in connection with the gay community and some of the customs of gay people.
  6. Perhaps this time, at least, the setter might clue us in?
    I’m not terribly happy with 2d and 3d, for that matter: In my idiolect, at least, I can’t make any sense of ‘pale shout’; and treble doesn’t sing, forcefully or otherwise. ‘One who sings forcefully treble in medley’ would have done the job, no?
    1. It’s possible to use “pale” figuratively to mean “feeble, weak, faint; lacking intensity, vigour, or robustness” (to quote the online OED), though its use to qualify “shout” is perhaps a little unusual.

      On the other hand, trebles certainly do sing, and can be found doing so in most cathedral choirs.

      1. I have no problem whatever with the OED–and if I did, it would indeed be MY problem!*–but what I do object to is a clue that doesn’t on the surface make much sense. Juxtaposing word X and word Y in misleading ways is, of course, one of the things that make these puzzles such an amusing challenge. But surely the juxtaposed XY should itself be interpretable in a way to mislead the would-be solver; whereas I can make nothing of ‘pale shout’ other than ‘pale [with its various meanings]’ followed, for no good reason, by ‘shout [with its]’.

        Trebles singing; who knew? Clearly, I didn’t, and I’m glad to be informed. I continue to learn from this blog, and not only about how to solve Times puzzles.

        *Who was the Transcendental lady who said, ‘I accept the Universe’? to which Carlyle replied, ‘By Gad, she’d better!’

  7. I put “wayside,” because it is not the middle of the road, and being unable to find any support for “gayside” (as opposed to gay side) online. I’m inclined to support Tony in thinking that “garage” is replacing another word such as warehouse.
    I didn’t think this a particularly good puzzle, but I am sensitive to surface readings and most of these make poor sense.. compare, for example, with today’s (Mon) cryptic.
    It would be nice to hear from the setter but I don’t remember ever hearing from a ST setter.
  8. The use of GARAGE in the clue to 16 down has baffled me too – and I set the puzzle, dammit!
    Only weak defence for impaired memory is that it was done 5 or 6 months months ago.
    Perhaps I intended to use WINEHOUSE (Amy of that name, which does make a half-decent clue I think) and confused my storage places. Anyway sorry to all who were held up unnecessarily and thanks for all the feedback. It really does help to read of your likes and dislikes

    Tim Moorey

    1. Thanks for putting us out of our misery, setter. Like most others I eventually went for WAYSIDE on the grounds that it was the only solution that seemed to make any sense. GAYSIDE fitted the apparent wordplay much better but seemed too much of a nonce-word even for the wacky world of crosswords.

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