Sunday Times 4456 (23 Oct 2011)

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: About 62 minutes in total, but about half of that spent on one clue!

I though I was heading for what felt like a good time of about half an hour, but I fell foul of 2d. It took me literally the same length of time again to come up with the answer. Irritating.

That aside, it was a good puzzle. Up to Tim Moorey’s usual high standards. I actually felt on his wavelength for once, whereas I usually make heavy weather of them. There were a couple of cheeky clues that made me smile – 4 & 13.

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

Across
1 DAILY PAPER = (READILY)* about PAP – &lit (or does the ‘it may be’ at the start make it only semi-&lit?)
7 BUT + T
9 BA + LANCING
10 gAUNT + pIE
11 FALLEN = Woody after Field
13 A + B + SIN + THE
14 PARTING SHOTS = (SHOP STARTING)*
17 STRINGS ALONG = STRING + (GALlONS)* – although I’m not quite sure why ‘train’ = STRING
20 CROSS + OUT
21 OTTAWA = OTT + WA about A
22 IN + SOLE
23 SKINCARE = (ACNE RISK)* – neat
25 TYPE – dd, Courier being a very common typeface
26 THEME + N + DIPS
Down
2 AGA SAGAS = (A GAS) x2 – I’d never heard of them, and it took me an age to work out the wordplay, although looking at it now I can’t think why, as it probably should have been obvious from all those crossing As
3 pLEA
4 PECAN = “PEE CAN”, a colloquial term the setter has invented for a chamber pot
5 PE(DeaL)ARS
6 ROAD SHOWS = (WHO’S)* after R + O’ + ADS
7 BANANA SPLIT = BANANAS + IT about PL
8 T(HIGH)S – I used to get caught out by ‘van’ = vanguard = first letter of, but I’ve seen it so often now that I it jumps into my head immediately. The capital letters in this clue made it even harder to miss.
12 LATEST SCORE = (SELECTORS AT)*
15 N(ARROW)EST
16 SNOWDROP = NOW in S + DROP
18 NO TASTE = (ON A TEST)*
19 B + RANDY
21 ON ICE = ONE about I + C
24 COD – rev hidden

11 comments on “Sunday Times 4456 (23 Oct 2011)”

  2. 23 minutes here, and a lot of time at the end on 2dn. I very nearly gave up.
    Otherwise a fairly steady if quite chewy solve, spoiled in my case by writing OTTOWA. Embarrasing enough but my wife is Canadian, which makes it downright disgraceful.
  3. Maybe 2d is a bit Anglocentric. I hadn’t realised the term was unknown in the colonies. I’ve read a couple of these. They seem to be about family life and adultery in the Home Counties. At one time an Aga stove was a status symbol in the kitchens of the upwardly mobile. My last in was BUTT – I just couldn’t see it. The Sunday Times is noticeably more risque than the daily version. PECAN was a delight, on a par with the ROYAL FLUSH we had a while back. 48 minutes
    1. Agas still are a status symbol: perhaps more than ever. They are astonishingly expensive, and seem hopelessly impractical to me. However I’m told that once you get used to them you would never have anything else. The people who tell me this tend to produce very good food so I’m not going to argue.
      1. I have no qualms looking up some answers. This one I’ll likely not forget.
        I have a friend who installed something similar in his geodesic dome cottage
        in Northern Ontario (Huntsville area)…he had to open windows in the dead of winter as the place got too hot.
        Canadian,eh?
        1. Can you really call Huntsville “Northern Ontario”? It goes all the way up!
          I haven’t been quite that far north but we had our summer holiday near Wilberforce this year, an experience we intend to repeat. However it creates some linguistic difficulties because “cottaging” means something very different in the UK…
          1. Point taken. Being in Toronto we’re only a three-hours drive. That should put it into perspective for those over ‘ome. However, it gets plenty cold at night in the winter.
            1. Ah, Canada, where the words “only” and “three-hours drive” can appear in the same sentence!
  4. 22ac seems a bit odd too. Presumably the plural has to include the singular for the definition to work.
  5. 9ac: BALANCED, no?
    I didn’t finish, thanks to 2d; now that I know the answer, I’m not much bothered by not finishing. I also had no idea, until I read some of the comments in the Club forum, why 4d was PECAN; rather a far-fetched play on the word, at least in my dialect (p’ KANN).

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