Sunday Times 4467 (8 Jan 2012) – Phew!

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: 1:01:00 – struggling all the way.

I approached this with some trepidation having seen the comments made against last week’s blog about it. I think I had about 5 or 6 in after the first pass, and they were all short ones that didn’t give much help. It was a hard slog from there on, with several being put in without full understanding.

Plenty of excellent clues contained herein, though. It’s hard to single any out, but 3 & 27 deserve a special mention, and 19 for its accidental topicality.

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

Across
1 FOOTLIGHTS = LOOT + FIGHTS with initial letters switched – The amateur company run by the students of Cambridge University that nurtured the careers of a vast number of British comedians.
6 I + DrEaM – not a word I’d come across before. I’m sure I’ve seen the abbreviation id. before, but always assumed it was a shortening of ibid. The cryptic left little room for doubt, though.
9 CAMINO REAL = (LACE)* about MINOR – a generic Spanish term for a main road. It translates literally as ‘royal road’.
10 A + GIN
12 cONSIDEr
13 AS(TON + IS)H – ‘floor’ is the well-disguised definition
15 AIRSICKNESS – cd – using ‘up’ to imply ‘in flight’, probably about the weakest of today’s clues.
18 LAME + N(T)ATION
21 BA(THURS)T – The Bathurst 1000 is an annual Australian touring car race, ‘digger’ being a slang term for Australian. I had to work this out from the cryptic with all the checkers in place. My last one in.
22 SPROUT = PROUST with the S moved to the start
24 ARCH = MONARCH with the MON removed
25 DEALERSHIP = (SPIEL HEARD)* – I write software for car dealerships for a living, so this was an easy win for me as I use the word scores of times a day.
26 DONE – hidden in iD ON Entry
27 STICKY TAPE = ITS rev + (PACKET)* about Y – a very neat &lit
Down
1 F(ACT)OR
2 OS + M(OS)E – I’ve not seen osmose as a word before, but I remember learning about osmosis at school, so the logical leap was a small one.
3 LONG-DRAWN-OUT – one of those awkward reverse-engineered clues where the wordplay is in the solution. In this case, ‘wrong land’ = (LONG-DRAWN)* and OUT is the anagrind.
4 GURU = U + RUG all rev
5 TEAM-SPIRIT = (IS PART-TIME)*
7 DOG-TIRED – cd – a setter being a breed of dog
8 MINE HOST = (ON + H + TIMES)* – an archaic term for a pub landlord
11 WORKING PARTY – ‘Committee’ is the definition, but I don’t get the rest of it. Can anyone else offer an explanation? Sotira picked up on it (see comments below). Everything in LONDON is ONDO, i.e. ON = WORKING + DO = PARTY. I knew there had to be something clever going on!
14 B(ROAD + SHE)ET
16 CLUe + BLAND
17 EMOTICON = TIC in E + MOON J
19 JOSH + U + A – He brought down the walls of Jericho. A particularly apt clue on a day when Manchester City and Manchester United played each other in the FA Cup. Entirely coincidental, of course.
20 STA(P)LE
23 BLOC = C + O + LB all rev. Although I didn’t twig about the LB part until post-solve. It’s the abbreviation for leg-bye, an extra in cricket.

21 comments on “Sunday Times 4467 (8 Jan 2012) – Phew!”

  1. I found this one tough..
    It is perfectly sound technically and what is more the surface readings are beautiful, absolutely second to none – concise and plausible. But the clues are demanding (and surely Bathurst is a step too far!?)
  2. 35:06 .. Loved this puzzle.

    FOOTLIGHTS and ASTONISH are just outstanding, among many neat clues. I find I’m slowing down when doing Dean Mayer’s Sunday puzzles, and not just because they’re hard!

    BATHURST was vaguely familiar to me, despite knowing almost nothing about motor racing.

  3. I agree that this was tough – took me all day on and off – and generally an excellent puzzle with some outstandingly good surface readings. Two minor quibbles: FOOTLIGHTS at 1ac is a single word, with only one opening letter, so “openings” seem technically dubious; “fallen” – the only candidate for anagrind at 7dn (MINE HOST) that I can see – is also a bit of a stretch.
  4. Postscript to my comment above: I am with Dave P in being unable to explain WORKING PARTY beyond the definition. Vinyl’s brave attempt at explanation doesn’t convince me – at any rate if that is what the setter intended, it seems to me weak. Anyone got any better suggestions? What am I missing?
  5. I’d forgotten about this clue, which I spent a whole day thinking about after ‘solving’. Knowing who the setter was, I was sure there had to be more to it than ‘place that works and parties’. There is:

    Look inside LONDON…

    ON=working
    DO=party

    1. Sotira, you go to top of the class. I’d begun to worry that no-one was going to see this one – please accept my fondling of your big fluffy ears.
      Huge thanks to Dave for blogging this one; it was a bit more challenging than the norm but I hope no less fun for that.
      1. I’d have settled for a gold star, but ear fondling… it’s more than I dared hope for.

        Great puzzle, anax. Thanks.

        Edit: I should also mention that thanks to this clue and my determination to understand it, I learned more than I ever knew, or realised I wanted to know, about Jack London, Julie London (among other Londons), not to mention, so help me, an all-London Mayoral Working Party on Aggregates Recycling. So thanks for that.

        Edited at 2012-01-15 09:31 pm (UTC)

  6. First, the definition isn’t the Cambridge Club – if so, it would strictly be wrong, as Footlights is the name of the club, and their theatre is called something else. One definition of “footlights” is “the acting profession, the stage”. That said, I also solved it by seeing the wrong definition.

    melrosemike: The openings are those of LOOT and FIGHTS

    Peter Biddlecombe
    Sunday Times Puzzles Editor

    Edited at 2012-01-15 07:56 pm (UTC)

  7. Cheated like crazy to finish at all. Anax has been softening us up, toying with us for a while, then WHAM, out of the blue, a knockout. The whole thing was brilliant, but BATHURST had me sniggering – so much in fact that I entered it wrongly (and last) for my mandatory keying cock-up. Who cares. Digger drivers! Wait till I get into the abundant mouthy Ford v Holden “experts” down at the Club.
    1. Can’t remember what the original clue was for BATHURST but it was tweaked slightly before publication – and it was PB who suggested ‘digger drivers’ and thereby turned an OK clue into a really good one.
      He’s more than a great editor and friend; he’s something of a clue-writer as well.
  8. 34 minutes in two goes, but with a typo. I can’t now see on the club site what I typed where GURU crosses CAMINO REAL, but clearly it wasn’t an R.
    Never heard of BATHURST, and didn’t have a clue about WORKING PARTY, so thanks to Sotira to that one. And thanks again to Anax for another great puzzle. And to PB: “digger drivers” is evil!
    1. “I can’t now see on the club site what I typed where GURU crosses CAMINO REAL, but clearly it wasn’t an R.”

      You can find out by clicking ‘Print progress’.

  9. Strictly speaking, should the clue not refer to performance (i.e. ACT) rather than performer?
    1. It’s not the obvious meaning, but “act” can mean the person or people performing, as well as the performance. I think this is the meaning implied if you describe someone as a “class act”.
      1. That’s true. Mostly though, when used in this way “act” will refer to a performing group rather than a single performer, don’t you think? Anyway the answer could be worked from the clue alright, but when the setter uses an uncommon meaning it fails to give me that “Ah-Ah” moment.

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