Sunday 4684 by David McLean – solve, or solve not

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
36:27. I thought this was a really first-class puzzle. Rather like Dean Mayer this setter seems to have a mind that works a little bit differently to most, so that there are always lots of moments where I don’t have the faintest idea what is going on until I manage to see the clue in the right way. The resulting Eureka! moments are what solving is all about, aren’t they?

There were some rumblings on the club forum about some of the techniques used here, which perhaps stretch the usual crossword conventions at times. For my money though everything comes down firmly on the right side of the line where welcome creativity becomes taking liberties, and I enjoy the perhaps less rigidly Ximenean style of the Sunday puzzles.

My one query is with 6ac: I love the fact that this ‘word’ has been used as a solution but I’m not entirely sure I’ve cracked the wordplay. Any ideas gratefully received.

In the meantime, thanks very much to David McLean for a thoroughly enjoyable half-hour, and here’s how I think it all works…

Across
1 Puzzled over fish diets before?
THIS SIDE OF – (O, FISH DIETS)*.
6 British military leave river, it’s cold!
BRRR – B, RR, R. I think RR here must be ‘R & R’, which Collins described as a US Military abbreviation for ‘rest and recreation’. I suppose the idea is that two Rs can be represented as ‘R & R’, but I’m not entirely sure of this and I have a feeling I’m missing something obvious.
10 Swing due to leaders going like rabbits
ANGORAS – hANG, fOR, AS. A very cunning clue.
11 Left quickly to duck opening fines!
TOOK OFF – TO and then O contained in, or splitting (opening) OK (fine) and FF (another two fines). What a great clue this is. A very original and tricky construction, but nonetheless impeccable, and a smooth surface.
12 Writer run out of narrow-minded Iberia?
PENINSULA – PEN, INSULAr. Definition by example, indicated by the question mark.
13 One in descent prior to landing?
STAIR – CD. Flights and landings are often used in clues about stairs so I was on to this one pretty quick. Unlike pretty much all the other clues.
14 Cast series on foremost pair of thugs
THROW – THugs, ROW (series).
15 Enter new info about books on radio
SET FOOT IN – SET (radio), then (INFO)* containing OT (books).
17 Endlessly friendly bishop is without side
ALL BLACKS – pALLy, B (bishop), LACKS. Using ‘endlessly’ to indicate the removal of both ends of a word (as opposed to just one) is unusual, but it’s entirely logical.
20 Kind-hearted note he once wrote
RILKE – RE (note) containing ILK (kind). Rainer Maria of that, um ilk, a poet I thought was German but according to Wiki was ‘Bohemian-Austrian’. Another brilliant clue.
21 State cannot stand ecstasy in hearing
HAITI – sounds like ‘hate E’.
23 Expelled bad riders in need of correction
DISBARRED – (BAD RIDERS)*.
25 Extra in manly boxing movie
RAIN MAN – contained in ‘extra in manly’. A movie I have somehow managed never to see.
26 People hope to find old nun thus?
IN HABIT – or IN HABIT.
27 Green being a party with yen for revolution
YODA – reversal of A, DO, Y. My favourite clue for a long time this is, yesss.
28 Maybe actors on southern tours stiff in this run?
REHEARSERS – RE (on), S (southern) around (tours) HEARSE (stiff in this), R. This was my last in by some margin, and the three Es induced an attack of what Tony Sever calls ‘vocalophobia’. It just looked like a set of letters with a potentially infinite number of words that might fit.

Down
1 Derelict bunker? Millions buried in it
TRAMP – TRA(M)P. A bunker in golf is also known as a trap. ‘Derelict’ for TRAMP reminded me of Zoolander.
2 Out of dope, real vexed overall
IN GENERAL – IN (out of), GEN (dope), (REAL)*. Judging by the club forum only one out of ten solvers fully understood this clue, at least when they put in the answer from the obvious definition. To be fair the one in ten included me for a long time, and I would probably never have worked it out if I hadn’t been on blogging duty.
3 Fancy answer lies with mail server?
SERENA WILLIAMS – (ANSWER LIES, MAIL).
4 Talk about hell and damnation?
DISCUSS – DIS, CUSS.
5 Survive exile only with a change of heart
OUTLAST – OUTCAST with the C changed to L.
7 Drink port and chat (but not with wife)
RIOJA – RIO (the usual port), JAw. A great surface, reminiscent of the late, unlamented habit of ladies retiring to the drawing room so that the gentlemen could talk about politics and ask one another if they were acquainted with the Bishop of Norwich.
8 Source top cup of tea
REFERENCE – pREFERENCE. Yet another really clever clue.
9 It’s a question about pop for a youngster
HOW’S YOUR FATHER – a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.
14 They clear up in the style of masters
TEACHERLY – (THEY CLEAR)*.
16 Fair engineers set up on northern island
TOLERABLE – RE (engineers), LOT (set) reversed (up) on ELBA, also reversed, or turned to the north. ‘Northern’ to indicate a reversal in a down clue is unusual, and I’m not sure Ximenes would have approved, but it’s absolutely fine by me.
18 Drop of Coke, port and unlimited iced Lilt
CADENCE – C (drop of Coke), ADEN (port), iCEd.
19 Immobile ship one left in Ely?
SESSILE – SE(SS, I, L)E. ‘See’ for ‘Ely’ is an automatic response for the seasoned solver. Here it’s the other way round and therefore a definition by example.
22 Epic fail leaving 50% off current bill
ILIAD – faIL, I (electric current), AD (bill). I really like it when setters include modern usages like ‘epic fail’. It keeps these things fresh and reflects the delightful, endless mutability of language.
24 Fed up with banks switching meetings
DATES – SATED (fed up) with the edge letters (banks) swapped.

15 comments on “Sunday 4684 by David McLean – solve, or solve not”

  1. Yes, I liked this too – not quite as good as the previous week but pretty close. Favourites were the ‘Kind-hearted note…’ wordplay for RILKE, SERENA WILLIAMS, TOLERABLE and BRRR which was my COD. Yes, I think your parsing of this is correct. I can remember the days when US soldiers serving in Vietnam used to go on “R&R” to the fleshpots of Sydney – now many moons ago. I can’t recall ever having heard TEACHERLY used before, but it is in Chambers. It was reassuring that you found ANGORAS ‘cunning’ as it was my LOI. I’m no cinematic connoisseur but RAIN MAN is well worth a look.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  2. My usual tussle with this setter whose wavelength I have yet to find – and when I do, no doubt he will change it – however it was mostly enjoyable. References to popular culture such as characters in Star Wars (which I have never seen) are always going to give me grief, nor have I ever seen Rain Man for that matter, but in both cases the wordplay was clear enough to compensate for my ignorance and with the aid of checkers I wasn’t bothered by either. Candidate for the best clue was 9dn with its 2-word definition and 14-letter answer, so it’s a shame that an even better version (three words fewer, i.e. minus ‘for a youngster’) had appeared only two days previously in the Friday puzzle.

    Edited at 2016-03-13 05:54 am (UTC)

  3. I didn’t understand 2 down and I’m still struggling to see how “out of” equates to “in”. The only thing can think of is in the context of “one out of three people” which could be phrased as “one in three people”. Is that right?

    Edited at 2016-03-13 08:57 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, that’s what I thought, as you will see if you read my comment on the clue again… 😉
  4. 34:26 … like jackkt, I’m still trying to work out what Harry’s game is. I’ve struggled with all his puzzles but I do enjoy the challenge. Nice to see playful words like TEACHERLY and BRRR in a Sunday puzzle.

    My last in by a distance was ANGORAS — I don’t think I ever parsed the -AS bit. But now I see it it’s very clever. In fact, that’s gone from a question mark clue to Clue Of the Day for me.

    Edited at 2016-03-13 09:03 am (UTC)

  5. Like Sotira, I really like the mix of vocabulary (except, probably, for the otherwise fair and quite clever Brrr – I’m not fond of those words with no standard spelling, Brrrrr, Kerchoo). I have to admit that I wouldn’t have got Hows Your Father if we hadn’t had it last week, and I definitely needed K’s blog for parsing in=out of, and all of Angoras. But unlike other commentators I do feel on the wavelength. I don’t mean it’s easy or even straightforward, just that I have a pretty good sense of ‘where are we going here’ which I usually don’t with our other challenging setters.
  6. I like Mr McLean’s crosswords but in this one he seems a little too keen on one of my least favourite ways of clueing, where letters are deleted from unseen words eg ANGORAS, THROW, ALL BLACKS etc. Otherwise a quality offering with REHEARSERS one of several really good clues.
  7. Really struggled to get going with this one for some reason – having found our setter’s previous offerings reasonably attainable. So, seems I’m not on DM’s wavelength yet after all – which is somewhat unnerving for my future blogging obligations…!)

    Excellent stuff, with COTD to ANGORAS. Thanks for the blog keriothe.

  8. As I said in the weekday blog on the Monday after, this took a fair proportion of my Sunday and was done in conjunction with Mrs Rotter. All correct and parsed though, and very satisfying if time consuming.
  9. 40 minutes and always felt on the wavelength, which is pleasant if unusual. Had the bit of ANGORAS Sotira didn’t have and was completely stumped by the IN/OUT OF clue, so thanks to K for that.

    A splendid puzzle, with ticks against 1, 11, 15, 27 and 28 across.

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