Sunday Times 4425 (20 Mar 2011)

Solving time: About 40 minutes. I had three left after my alloted 30 minutes (5/12/17) and these took another 10 minutes to crack.

A better challenge than last week. No new words, but a few to a while to dredge up from the back of my brain.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 A CROSS + THE BOARD – I’m assuming ‘an ordeal’ = A CROSS, as in crucifixion.
10 oNE + A TEST
11 MAN + ILL + A
12 REINS + TALL – ‘unlikely’ = TALL as in a tall story
13 L + ARGO – The Argo was Jason’s famous ship on his quest for the golden fleece.
14 WAR + SAW – Has been the capital of Poland since it achieved independence from Russia in 1918.
15 GOATHERD – cd – nanny being the name for a female goat
18 ON THE DOT = (TOT HONED)*
20 CUR + ATE – A reference to a curate’s egg which is something that has both good and bad parts, but the bad parts render the whole useless. It derives from an 1895 Punch cartoon in which a humble curate is taking tea with a bishop. The bishop says “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr Jones” and the curate replies: “Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!”
23 AL + OFT – The ‘gangster’ in 6d being AL
25 ENTANGLED = ANGLED after (NET)*
26 LO + B + ELIA – Elia is the name Charles Lamb originally used when contributing to the London Magazine.
27 PURITAN = (TRAIN UP)*
28 WORCESTERSHIRE = (CHERRIES SORT WE)* – unusual to see ‘sort’ as part of the anagrist rather than the anagrind. It threw me for a bit.
Down
2 CLAVIER = REAL + Concert all rev about (V + I)
3 O + VERS(TAT)E
4 SATRAP = PARTS rev about A – A SATRAP is (was) a Persian governer
5 HAMILTON = HAS with S (Socialising primarily) replaced by MILTON (poet) – Lady Hamilton was the mistress of Lord Nelson
6 BAN + AL – Gangster = AL (Capone) is an old chestnut
7 A (T) LARGE – So Time is locked up inside A LARGE (grand)
8 DIAMOND WEDDING – cd – although DIAMOND JUBILEE was my first thought, and it was only as I was just about to put it in that WEDDING occurred to me as a possible alternative.
9 ANDREW BONAR LAW = (AND A BRAWLER NOW)* – And this is why The Times doesn’t refer to living people, so they can suggest the most outrageously slanderous things and get away with it. The Rt Hon Bonar Law was the shortest serving PM of the 20th century, holding the office for just 211 days in 1922-1923. He resigned when throat cancer prevented him from speaking in the Commons, and died five months later.
16 TRUE + NORTH – From one ex-PM to another. Lord North was PM from 1770-1782, making him Prime Minister at the time of the American Revolution (1775-1776), so the Americans might actually be more familiar with him than us Brits.
17 FORE(MA)ST – It was a long time before I managed to associate ‘Nottingham area’ with FOREST. I assume it’s Sherwood Forest being referred to, but it’s not really that near Nottingham. It’s in the county of Nottinghamshire, but it’s quite a long thin county with the forest at one end and Nottingham at the other. I blame that Hood bloke.
19 TOOLBAR = LOOT rev + BAR – As an IT professional you would’ve thought that this would go straight in. It was my last one in before my final 3, and boy did I kick myself when I saw it!
21 ALL-STAR – hidden
22 STUPOR = (PROUST)*
24 TIL(D)E – one of these ~

9 comments on “Sunday Times 4425 (20 Mar 2011)”

  1. A straightforward 28 minute solve apart from 5dn on which I drew a complete blank and had to cheat. Today’s puzzle 4426 was a much more formidable challenge.

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  2. 18’30”, one of my fastest. Somehow Bonar Law’s name was floating around in my memory, can’t think why. As Dave suggests, Lord North should be (comparatively) familiar to Americans. ‘Elia’ is yet another NY Times crossword chestnut, so seeing ‘British essayist’ was enough to produce a Pavlovian reaction. COD to 5d; for once I spotted the ‘for’ in the clue for what it was.
    1. Elia is an ancient chestnut in UK puzzles too. I first met it about 40 years ago in the DT and it has come up regularly since in all the various cryptics I have solved.
  3. Not difficult, but would have taken me a shorter time had the definition in 5 down been mathematician instead of mistress; an interesting clue, though. REINSTALL had a very neat clue, I thought.
  4. thanks for a nice blog. i put lobelia in without understanding who elia was – even a google search did not throw anything up. i must say it is a bit obscure to put in the pen name of a tertiary literary character, but i suppose it must a times/ST specialty.
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