ST 4399 (Sun 19 Sep) – Francly, Mr Shankly

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 7:41

This was a forced late-night solve and the result was what felt a poor time for a not particularly difficult puzzle. This was mostly accurate and there were some very good clues with the anagram at 11ac perhaps my favourite, despite a formatting error (in the online version), with obsolete French coins apparently this week’s specialist subject.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 PECULATES; ECU in PLATES – not the European Currency Unit but an historical silver coin, apparently derived from the Latin scutum meaning ‘shield’.
6 NOTES; rev. of SET ON
9 RIATA; I in RAT, + A – I spent a long time thinking about ‘raita’ here before moving on, which pretty much sums up my efforts on this puzzle.
10 LAMBRUSCO; (CAROL’S BUM)* – one of those clues where I might have seen the answer long before I did if I’d known I knew the answer word instead of assuming I wouldn’t.
11 ACCIDENT-PRONE; (CONNECTED PAIR)* – an excellent anagram. (A ‘connected pair’ is a poker term for two cards which are at most four numbers apart and so have the potential to make a five-card straight.)
14 [f]EARLESS – an unusual wording but it just about works if you accept the dubious use of ‘at’.
16 P(REV)AIL
17 TORN + A + DO
19 CATCH ON; CATCH (= ‘bag’) + ON (= ‘over’)
21 SHORT-TEMPERED; (STEPMOTHER)* + RED (= ‘florid’) – decent semi-&lit (or something along those lines).
24 EIDERDOWN; (OR ALTERED)*
26 IDIOT; ID (= ‘carp’), + O (= ‘duck’) in IT
27 S + PEED
28 EURIPEDES; (PRIDE I SUE)*

Down
1 PORTAMENTO; PORT (= ‘At sea, left’) + A[viation] + MEN + TO – curiously I can’t remember seeing this word before and consequently this was my last solve, after brief consideration of possible alternatives. Perhaps I play the wrong instrument.
2 CHANCER[y]
3 L(I)ARD – another old French coin.
4 TALENT SCOUT – ‘Able’ in the nounal adjective sense of ‘The able’. I’m sure there’s a term for such usage but I can’t remember it.
5 SUM[o]
6 N(ARROW)EST
7 TESSERA; (RESETS A)*
8 SHOP – sort of two definitions but with some tenuous overlap.
12 PIPE CLEANER; PI (= ‘good’) + P.E. (= ‘gym’) + C[lubs] + LEANER – very good idea for the wordplay, if a little verbose. This was a somewhat lucky solve for me in that I went from ‘thinner’ to ‘cleaner’ in the sense of a ‘paint thinner’, which was serendipitous.
13 BLIND DATES (cryptic definition)
15 ENAMOURED; (DEMEANOUR)* – nice anagram.
18 RUSH + DIE
20 HURRIED; HUR, + I.E. in R[oa]D – Hur as in Ben-Hur, although the name seems to be hyphentated.
22 PRIMP; IMP after PR[iest] – I read ‘groom’ here as ‘gloom’ which didn’t help.
23 [f]EELS
25 O + DE

3 comments on “ST 4399 (Sun 19 Sep) – Francly, Mr Shankly”

  1. 32 minutes with a couple of cheats at 1ac and 9ac. Didn’t understand EARLESS. Why is 26ac allowed to be the same answer in 4399 and 4400? And yet again we seem to be one letter short of an anagram.

    I may give up on ST puzzles because if I can’t get an answer I start to suspect there’s something wrong with the clue so I give up and cheat just to get rid of the puzzle from my Sunday morning agenda.

  2. 8:59 for me. As usual I felt I should have been faster – I made particularly heavy weather of the easy LAMBRUSCO and RUSHDIE.

    Not a bad puzzle, but I didn’t like PREVAIL (without ON or UPON) = “persuade” at 16A.

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