Sunday Times 4474 (26 Feb 2012)

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: 45:41

I forgot to write the blog at the time, so I’m afraid I’m having to write it a week after I solved it, and I can’t remember much about how I found it. I do remember enjoying it quite a bit more than I normally enjoy Tim’s work. Other than 4, there were no unknown words, and 4 was quite easy to deduce from the wordplay. There were two or three really excellent anagrams – 16 & 26 stand out, and 16 in particular would have to be my COD.

Lots of clever wordplay, as you would expect from this setter, so a challenge, but a good one.

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

Across
1 ARCH – dd – My chambers lists ‘arch’ as ‘cunning, shrewd’ which just about passes for ‘knowing’, and it is also an abbreviation for archaic as seen in dictionaries. A meaning most solvers will have encountered all too often!
4 COURTESANS = (TROUNCE ASS)*
9 SLIP-UP = PUPILS rev
10 CONFETTI – cd – a pretty good one, too, as all the main words need to be re-interpreted from the obvious surface.
11 VICTORIA – dd – Lancastrian comedienne and African Lake spanning three countries
12 CO + BR + AS
13 DANISH PASTRIES = (PATISSERIe HANDS)* with the removed E from benevolencE – semi-&lit
16 CUTTING CORNERS – &lit – (RECONSTRUCTING)* – marvellous anagram
20 SCENTS = “SENSE” – maybe not in the strictest pronunciation, but conversationally I think it’s fair enough.
22 A + L(PIN)IST
24 DI’S ORDER
25 AMBLER – dd – Eric Ambler was the 20th century English writer of spy novels
26 ENTERS INTO = (RETENTIONS)* – another excellent anagram
27 EATS = FEATS without the Friar – ‘Tuck’ is the definition, as they can both mean ‘nice things to eat’.
Down
2 R + ALLIED
3 H(OP)IT
4 C(A + PARIS)ON – not a word I knew, a decorative covering for horses, but Paris was the obvious capital to be used. So that’s shires, as in shire horses.
5 UNCLASP = U + (PLAN + CS)* – neat separation required on ‘Open University’
6 TONIC = I in between TON and C
7 SHERBORNE = (NOBS HERE)* about R. The anagrind here is simply the question mark, which some may feel a little naughty, but I have no problem with it.
8 NUTCASE = NUT + ChASE
14 NET INCOME – cd
15 STRAPPADO = PARTS rev + Police + ADO – I wasn’t initially sure about PARTS (plural) being synonymous for ‘region’ (singular), but I suppose various parts of a country can go together to form a single region, so I guess it’s OK. I’m still not entirely comfortable with it though. Strappado, and its friend bastinado, seems to crop up quite often in these grids.
17 fUNCTION
18 CHA + GRIN
19 SUSPECT = C in (SET-UPS)* – a particularly elegant clue
21 SIDES – dd
23 NOtaBLE

6 comments on “Sunday Times 4474 (26 Feb 2012)”

  1. I found this hard and took 69 minutes to crack it. At this distance I’m not sure what my problem was as I knew all the words and meanings required. CONFETTI was my last in which suggests that my brain must have been running on empty; it’s just so obvious an answer.
  2. 42:09; I seem to have printed it, solved it, and then submitted. Like jackkt, my LOI was CONFETTI, which I got only after finally remembering ‘ton’ from a recent cryptic, to get TONIC. COD to 3d for its elegant simplicity. On the other hand, I’d hardly equate NUTCASE with ‘eccentric’. Thanks, Dave, for explaining 23d; I knew TA was involved somehow, just never saw where.
  3. I wondered why I didn’t score 600 on this one. I mistakenly entered ‘alpinism’..this after a typo in each of the previous week’s efforts. Again, rats!
  4. I’m accustomed to Tim as a Mephisto setter and a puzzle that appears in a weekly magazine that my wife reads. So no problems with this.

    At 14D NET INCOME does not equate with “bottom line”. The former is usually gross income less cost of sales but before deduction of other costs whilst the latter is trading profit or loss.

    1. According to Wikipedia: “Net income is informally called the bottom line because it is typically found on the last line of a company’s income statement (a related term is top line, meaning revenue, which forms the first line of the account statement).” david_ch
  5. the online Oxford Dictionary gives this definition:

    (parts) informal a region, especially one not clearly specified or delimited:

    those of you who jet off to foreign parts for your holidays

    perhaps it is more commonly used in America, particularly in the southern US as ‘these here parts’

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