ST 4389 (Sun 11 Jul) – Scarlet fever

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: lost…

…but I don’t think it was very good. If I remember correctly I got nothing much in the top half, having wasted a lot of time at 1dn trying to remember what sort of hat a cardinal wears. Eventually I worked my way up from the bottom and wondered why I’d been so slow at the beginning. 8dn (BYES) and an initial error at 13dn (WEST INDIAN) also cost me some time. The clues were very accurate this week.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 S(POT)LIGHT – ‘pot’ = ‘shot’ as in snooker, I think, and ‘bears’ as a verb.
6 ACERB; “A SERB”
9 ADEPT; A DEP[artmen]T
10 REPUTABLE; (P + TUBA + REEL)*
11 LEADING ASTRAY; LEAD-IN + GAS (= ‘say, propane’) + TRAY (= ‘container’) – ‘Instruction’ must give ‘lead-in’, which doesn’t seem quite right; perhaps I have misunderstood this clue.
14 TARGETS; TAR (= ‘Jack’) + GE[n]TS (= toilet = ‘John’)
16 OVERSEE; VERSE (= ‘lines’) in O.E.[d.]
17 AIRMAIL (cryptic definition)
19 JUST OUT; JUS + TOUT (= ‘sauce, fully’ in Nice, i.e. in French)
21 GOOD SAMARITAN; (ANAGRAM TO DO IS)* – nice anagram.
24 PROPAGATE; “PROPER GATE”
26 TARSI (hidden)
27 TILDE – Sao Paulo is actually spelt ‘São Paulo’, with a tilde over the ‘a’. ‘Style’ here is intended to mean ‘font’, I think. [Edit: Wrong – see jackkt’s explanation below.]
28 MISSHAPEN; MISS + PEN around rev. of (A H[orse]) – I wasn’t convinced by this definition: anything that isn’t meant to be round doesn’t look round, but isn’t necessarily misshapen. This clue reminded me of Willy Wonka’s square sweets that look round.

Down
1 SCARLET HAT; SCALE around R, + THAT
2 OPEN AIR; (OPERA IN)* – clever anagram indicator (‘Ravel…’).
3 LATHI (hidden) – an Indian club, so this is a semi-&lit.
4 GARAGE SALES; (G-GARAGE SALES)*
5 TOP; [s]TOP – ‘Remove head’ acts as both the definition (as in ‘to top’ = ‘to behead’) and part of the wordplay, where STOP (= ‘block’) loses its head.
6 ATTORNEYS; (NEAT STORY)* – an apt anagram.
7 EMBRYOS; rev. of SOME around (B + RY)
8 BYES; B (= ‘What follows a’) + YES (= ‘word of approval’)
12 SHOW-JUMPERS (1 def, 1 literal interpretation) – I liked this.
13 WEST INDIAN; (IS WANTED IN)* – excellent clue, although I originally wrote in ‘West Indies’ which held me up. (Actually I think I originally wrote in ‘East Indies’ which was less explicable still.)
15 ELABORATE; E + LABOR (= ‘American work’) + ATE (= ‘devoured’)
18 RAG DOLL – The Sun being a ‘rag’. I haven’t yet seen ‘currant bun’ to indicate The Sun in a crossword, but live in hope.
20 OUTCROP; OUT (= ‘published’) + CROP (= ‘cut short’)
22 RETCH; RE (= ‘about’) + T[it]CH
23 SPAT[e]
25 AIM (2 defs, ‘mean’ and ‘end’)

9 comments on “ST 4389 (Sun 11 Jul) – Scarlet fever”

  1. For 11a, I had:

    11A: Instruction (LEAD) on (IN) say, propane (GAS) container (TRAY).

    The OED gives “on” as a definition of IN, as in this quotation from ca. 1000 AD: “Ne hafu ic in heafde hwite loccas,” which certainly clarified things for me.

    bb

    1. I had the container as ‘in-tray’ but I’m not sure if either version quite adds up.
  2. It’s an anagram of ‘detail’ with the A removed. ‘Style’ is the anagram indicator.
    2. Meant to add: 42 minutes for this one. I didn’t know SCARLET HAT but got it from the wordplay. Everything else was reasonably straightforward and there was little or nothing to quibble about (only 11ac possibly leaving room for doubt), so a really good ST puzzle. 4390 is also very good but contained several unfamiliar words to slow me down.
  3. 11:31 for me. Part of the reason for my sluggish times with the ST puzzle is that when I feel like knocking off a crossword at the end of the day but want an easy one because I’m feeling tired, the ST is the one I pick.

    I had 11A (LEADING ASTRAY) down as a query as well. I hadn’t spotted IN-TRAY (thanks, jackkt). LEAD = “direction” = “instruction” seems OK, but surely the setter still needs to get the GAS into the IN-TRAY. The best I can come up with is that the whole phrase “on, say, propane container” = IN GAS TRAY, but it would have been more convincing the other way round, with “in, say, propane container” = ON GAS TRAY.

    I had 28A (MISSHAPEN) down as iffy too.

    1. On further thought I think ‘on’ merely means ‘next to’ rather than having further significance. The container is then IN-TRAY containing GAS.
  4. When I had enough letters for assuming ‘lead-in’, and knowing that errors do occur in the ST cryptics, I also assumed that ‘instruction’ should have been ‘introduction’ = ‘lead-in’, after which everything seemed to fall into place, with ‘on’ = +. I admit that this is not completely satisfactory, but right or wrong, it led me to the correct result.
  5. …about a half hour albeit while watching baseball and not being fooled
    this time by an answer requiring the dropping of a hard ‘r’…lots of fun as
    was today’s though I can’t post it nor get Mondays’ due to “maintenance”
    on the puzzle club site. Hope they get it fixed in time for the morning commute.

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