Sunday Times 4444 – ST meets the Listener

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Once again posting this on Dave Perry’s behalf, as he’s still sunning himself on that beach.

Solving time: About an hour and a half, including the time I spent trying to get my head around what I was supposed to be doing.

I have to say that I wasn’t keen on this format. I would have preferred to be able to solve online, which presumably would have been possible if not for the rather unnecessary ‘shading’ of two clues. I’d hate to see this sort of thing become a regular occurrence, but I understand that the whole thing was inspired by the rather unusual puzzle number, so it’s reasonable that Peter should commemorate it in some way.

Having said that, this is not as difficult as it first appears. The level of clues is pretty standard for the ST, although there are a couple of unusual words, and a couple that have defied my attempts to decipher the wordplay so far, and indeed one of those looks suspiciously like a mistake. But then, this is also pretty standard for the ST.

For those who were puzzled by the whole concept, this is what you were required to do. First you had to solve the clues you were given, which should leave you with four gaps for which no clues were given. You then needed to find a ‘theme’ word which can be placed either before or after each of these unclued words, as well as two of the words which were clued, to give six new words/phrases which match the straight definitions listed in the preamble.

Unsurprisingly for a puzzle whose number consists of four fours, the theme word was FOURS, giving rise to the following solutions:

menswear – PLUS FOURS (23d – PLUS)

type of fuel – FOUR STAR (5d – TAR)

delicacies – PETIT FOURS (22d – PETIT)

advanced age – FOUR SCORE (8d – CORE)

a card game – ALL FOURS (25d – ALL)

firm and resolute – FOURSQUARE (3d – QUARE)

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

Across
1 ON(R)E + QUEST
6 SUMAC = CAMUS rev – I didn’t know Albert, the French writer, and was only vaguely aware of the shrub, so I struggled with this one.
9 POLKA – dd
10 GERMAN(D)E + R – that’s D for ‘day’, I was trying to get MON, SAT etc. in there somewhere for a while.
11 STATES-GENERAL – I hadn’t heard of the term, but it couldn’t really be anything else
14 TANTRUM = T + (TRUMAN)* – I liked the well-disguised anagrind/anagrist here.
16 SEE + PAGE
17 ON AND ON – dd
19 PO(LICE)D
21 TRANSCRIPTION – &lit – this looks like an anagram of PART, but with the Alto replaced by TOSCANINI, but that all seems rather convoluted, and, more importantly, leaves an unclued R left over. Is this a mistake by the setter, or am I missing something? Also, I couldn’t really see where the definition was. I’m assuming it’s an &lit, but if so, it doesn’t really define the solution very well.
24 LIQUIDATE = (QUIET LAD + Institute)*
26 T + HERM
27 S + K + EIN
28 LAST TRAIN – although the wordplay has me beaten.
Down
1 OP + POSITION – ‘those out of power’ within government are in opposition. ‘Split’ is an instruction to separate ‘workplace’ into two separate words.
2 RELEARN = (N + ER) rev about LEAR
4 ENG + AG(EM)ENTS
5 TAR – dd
6 STAIRWELL = R in (WAITS)* + EL aL – El Al is the national airline of Israel
7 MEDULLA – hidden. Not an organ in its own right, but the middle part of one, hence ‘Inner organ part’ as the definition
12 NOSY PARKERS = (S + KOREANS PRY)*
13 LEADING MAN – dd, the second of which is cryptic – the capital O in Oman leads the reamining ‘man’.
15 RADIcATION – I know C was the speed of ligh, but not the word RADICATION which is the process of a plant taking root.
18 ANTI + QUE – is QUE a recognised abbreviation for question? I can’t say that I’ve seen it before.
20 CHIMERA = HIM in (RACE)*, a CHIMERA being a fancy.
25 ALL – hidden, a monopolist strives to control everything.

11 comments on “Sunday Times 4444 – ST meets the Listener”

  1. 6: Slightly surprised about Albert Camus being new to you – I’m sure I’ve seen this reversal a few times in daily paper puzzles.
    21: There was an error. Annoyingly, I spotted it in test-solving and agreed a fix (“With right part …”).
    28: Just a cryptic def – American trains (e.g. in Boston) have “conductors”.
    18: I read “short question” as QUE(ry) (or QUE(stion))

    If we do something with a theme again, it will be within the capabilities of our online solving interfaces at the time. For the moment, that precludes preambles as well as shading.

    1. I may be wrong, but isn’t there a convention that ‘short’ (or similar references in such a clue) implies the omission of a single letter and if two or more are to be omitted then those letters should be clued separately?

      I don’t care much for expressions such as ‘Luddite mob’. I welcomed the innovation in my original posting on this site but I still have misgivings about the presentation and that it could not be processed in the usual way within the limitations of the software available.

      A lot of contributors have expressed legitimate concerns about this, albeit it on occasion in somewhat excessive terms, and I don’t think it is fair to dismiss their complaints out of hand however convenient it may be to do so.

      1. “short”: There is, but for me logic is more important than convention. With {against = ANTI} and a checked Q next, the answer seems clear.
  2. I don’t usually do this puzzle but given the fuss it generated I felt I had to have a go so that I could legitimately comment

    The theme was so obvious that I guessed all the missing words before answering a single clue

    The puzzle was very easy and took me perhaps 15 minutes, if that

    The fuss was so far as I’m concerned completely misplaced. I encourage Peter to continue to try new things and not to be put off by the Luddite mob

  3. Please could someone explain what ‘shading’ means in relation to crosswords.
    1. Just shading white squares in the grid as well as writing letters in them, to indicate that you’ve identified particular answers – usually ones relating to a theme. Any clear indication of the right two answers will be accepted when checking solutions in the prize draws.
  4. I get the puzzle from the Vancouver Sun. It was printed on September 3. I didn’t have the foggiest idea what you were talking about because in our version, all of the clues had definitions. Were the other Canadian papers the same?
    1. Sorry, I don’t know. Was it listed as puzzle no. 4444 in your paper? If not, the thematic material would be meaningless. I’ll ask Pete Biddlecombe if he knows of any changes to syndicated versions and get back to you.
      1. The syndicated version was amended after the people who pass it on to the Canadian papers said that the version with unclued entries wouldn’t be acceptable. One reason was that in some Canadian papers the puzzle number is either not shown at all, or is different to the one in the ST.

        Peter Biddlecombe, Sunday Times Puzzles Editor

Comments are closed.