ST 4409 (Sun 28 Nov) – Brief encounter

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 5:29

One faulty clue (19ac), as ever, plus an incorrect enumeration (1ac), but otherwise a very good puzzle.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 UPPERCUT; [s]UPPER + CUT[e] – good clue but the given enumeration (5,3) is wrong.
6 RECIPE; RE (= ‘about’), + C.E. (= ‘church’) around rev. of PI (= pious = ‘holy’)
9 SNOB; S[ociety] + NOB (= ‘bigwig’)
10 ATROCITIES; rev. of (O[ther] R[anks] + T[erritorial] A[rmy]), + CITIES (= ‘big communities’)
11 LAPDOG; rev. of GOD (= ‘Being above all’) + PAL (= ‘friend’)
12 FEMININE; EMIN (= ‘modern artist’) in FINE (= ‘impressive’)
14 APHRODISIA; (PARISH ADO)* around I
16 EACH (hidden) – as in ‘a fiver a head’.
18 EELS; rev. of SLEE[p]
19 ENCOUNTERS; COUNTER in E,N,S (= ‘three card [i.e. bridge] players’) – but the definition should have been ‘Comes across’.
21 AIRBORNE; (ARE ROBIN[s])*
23 [t]EARFUL
25 MICROMETRE; (METRO CRIME)*
27 BACH; BAH around C[oncerto]
28 STAYER; ST + AYER – the philosopher is Alfred Jules Ayer.
29 RETAINER; rev. of ER (= ‘Hesitiation’), + T.A. (= ‘volunteers’), + INER[t]

Down
2 PINEAPPLE; PINE (= ‘Long’), + ALE around PP (= ‘very soft’)
3 EMBED; rev. of DEB (= ‘girl’) + ME (= ‘this person’) – I wasn’t sure about the definition here (‘Put down’).
4 CHANGED GEAR; (RAGE)* – wordplay in the answer.
5 TARIFFS; AR[e] in TIFFS (= ‘quarrels’)
6 ROC (hidden)
7 COTANGENT; (CANNOT GET)* – lovely anagram.
8 PAEAN; PEN with A,A (= ‘notes’) inserted
13 MEASUREMENT (cryptic definition)
15 RASPBERRY (2 defs)
17 CARBUNCLE; CAR + B[ought] + UNCLE
20 CHE(ST)ER
22 IDIOT; IDI [Amin] + O[ccupational] T[herapy]
24 RABBI[t]
26 MAR; MARCH (= ‘walk’) minus C.H. (= Companion of Honour)

5 comments on “ST 4409 (Sun 28 Nov) – Brief encounter”

  1. Had a bad day with this one as it was one of those that I could not finish, however, having now checked the answers in the ST and now seeing your explanation, I still do not understand what the second part of the clue means i.e. “the sort I like mixing with?”

    Help please, thank you!

    JS

  2. 8:18 for me. I can’t remember why I was so slow, as in retrospect all the clues look straightforward and some of them were rather good, making for a pretty decent puzzle. A pity about 19A (why on earth do they keep making these silly slips?), but I was less worried about the enumeration at 1A, since the conventional form has gradually changed from (5,3) to (5-3) to (8) over time.
  3. 19 minutes, probably my fastest for ST. 19ac of course slowed me down a bit; but then again, it would have slowed me further if it hadn’t been a Sunday puzzle: here, I just assumed it was the statutory typo.
    I, too, was dubious about EMBED; at the time I guessed it was put down=bury=embed.

Comments are closed.