Sunday Times 4282

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

A rather good ST puzzle.  I didn’t note my solving time as I wasn’t expecting to blog it but I doubt it took me much more than 30 minutes

Across
1 MA,RITA,L
5 SEA LANE – Tramp being a cargo vessel
9 NEMOPHILA – (Help I moan)* A plant not known to me or the COED, but Collins and Chambers have it
10 CACHE – Hidden word
11 ROTATE – OR(rev),TATE
12 MEDIC,IN,E(ast) – East= Asia here.
14 LONGFELLOW – This guy keeps turning up. He was in a puzzle I blogged a couple of weeks ago and he’s been in the Times again this very week.
16 S,ECT – Electroconvulsive therapy
18 LIST – Double meaning
19 OVER THE TOP – I never heard this expression used to mean “too old”, that’s “over the hill” surely? “Over the top” can refer to trench warfare and OTT means something quite different.
22 ALLIANCE – Double meaning
23 APPEAR – “‘A PEER”
26 DUN,CE – To dun is to demand payment, apparently
27 OVERTHROW – I suppose the second part of the clue is a reference to bowling technique in cricket
28 RE(SIDE)D – I like Flushing = red
29 MO,RALLY
Down
1 MONGREL – Hidden word
2 REMIT – TIMER(rev) –  Double defintion, one reversed
3 TIP,STAFF
4 LA(1)IC – Lac, also spelt lakh, is the number 100,000 often specifically referring to rupees, and can also mean any very large number.
5 SKATE,BOARD
6 ARCTIC – (CAR)*,TIC
7 ARCHITECT – (CHAIR ETC)* + (cen)T(ury)
8 EVE,REST – Adam’s mate + REST
13 CLAVICHORD – (Old ch vicar)*
15 NESTLINGS – (Sent + sling)* Two anagrinds here!
17 CHAP(1)TER – A chapiter is another name for the capital of a column in architecture. Not sure why “formerly” unless the term has fallen into disuse in favour of “capital” but I can’t find anything to confirm this.
18 LEAN,DER – Apparently Leander is the name of a  rowing club based at Henley-on-Thames. Why anyone would name a rowing club after character in Greek mythology who drowned is beyond me.
20 P(roducing),ARK,WAY – “Noah’s Transporter” doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?
21 HARE(L)D – Yet another type of duck to remember. It’s not known to me, the COED or Collins but Chambers has it.
24 ENROL – LONER*
25 TERM – Double definition

6 comments on “Sunday Times 4282”

  1. Actually “lakh” is the more common spelling. The spelling “lac” is rarely used, if at all.

    “Lakh” appears in newspaper articles and everywhere else invariably.

    In a land deal some fifteen years ago I received a cheque for a few lakhs of rupees and I was at that time surprised to find that the writer had used the spelling ‘lacs’.

  2. Pretty good fare. I enjoyed 1 MONGREL – a hidden word with a particularly good surface.

    Thanks for confirming HARELD. None of my dictionaries gave it. The ST often seems to throw in a couple of particularly obscure words.

    Shame about that “Too old” in 19 which appears to be plain wrong. It rather spoils the crossword. Could it conceivably have been a misprinted “Too bold..”?

    1. That’s a good suggestion and it sounds right to me. I wonder if it’s possible to get confirmation, perhaps from somebody who saw the printed edition?
  3. I have the print edition. It also has “Too old…” in 19. I was also worried that this didn’t quite seem right.
  4. Just getting round to clearing the back catalogue of Sunday Times puzzles I’ve missed recently! 6:20 for this – NEMOPHILA was a lucky guess and so was HARELD: I spent a minute or so looking for synonyms of ‘race’ to fit ?A?E (probably the worst possible letter combination!); ‘cane’, giving ‘caneld’, looked less plausible.

    A couple of other things:

    18ac (LIST): is this really two meanings? Or just two variants of the same meaning? I suppose ‘list’ = ‘roll’ as in ‘nominal roll’, but then the ‘to’ in the clue is rather unfair. Or is there a boat called a ‘list’?

    1ac: Using ‘marriage’ to define MARITAL was a bit weak.

    27ac: I’m not sure there’s a cricket reference here, OVERTHROW is nothing to do with ‘underarm’; an overthrow is a run scored when a fielder throws the ball to the wicket-keeper, or shies at the stumps (etc), but the ball is missed and the batsmen can take another run. I think it’s just a weak clue with nothing more than a pun on over/under.

    18dn: LEANDER is the top rowing club in the country, where most of our Olympians row, but I can’t shed any light on the name choice which is a little bizarre (not to mention their fetching pink kit, sported here by Sir Steve Redgrave, or their logo, a pink hippo).

    But to end on a positive note, I thought ‘Call time?’ for TERM was excellent. Thanks to jackkt for the blog.

  5. The ST does seem to dig up some obscure words.
    My LOI was HARELD at 21d – a name for a duck that I have never heard before. I used the Collins online dictionary to find it and it suggests that Hareld is the commonly used one and Long Tailed Duck is an alternative. However, my 1976 edition of Heinzel, Fitter & Parslow “The Birds of Britain and Europe (with North Africa and the Middle East)” just has “Long-Tailed Duck” on the Sea Ducks page and never a mention of the Hareld. It is the same species (Clangula Hyemalis) that Collins online lists for the Hareld. Clearly a difference of opinion between the ornithologists and the lexicographers. I will try to remember it.

    No omissions from this blog – perhaps a good reflection on the quality of this offering?

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