Sunday Times 4485 (13 May 2012) by Anax

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: 41:53

I had all but 7d, 11a & 13a done in 30 minutes, then all but 13a in about 33 or 34 minutes. But 13 continued to elude me for another five minutes before I resorted to browsing for likely candidates in my dictionary.

That clue aside, this was a good fun puzzle, with plenty to enjoy. My COD has to go to 21a for the way it takes a common technique and reverses it to make something far more unusual.

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

Across
1 C(A)LIP + H
4 AGONISED = (SAN DIEGO)*
9 AN + GO + RA(CA)T
11 UNITS = “EWE KNITS”
12 MO + TO + sloweR
13 SHE(BEEN)ER – A shebeen is an Irish drinking den. Not a word I knew, and I had to browse my dictionary to find it.
14 TERR(IT)OR + I + ALARM + Yes – Volunteers = TA is something of a crossword cliche, although I’m not sure I’ve ever come across it in full like this.
15 UNSOPHISTICATED = ThosE in (CUSTODIANSHIP)* – I actually got this one from the definition alone, and then used the answer to help me get 10d.
18 SAUVIGNON = (USING VAN)* about O
19 IDIOM = IOM (Man – Isle of) after I’D (author had)
21 EIGHT = WEIGHT (power) with the W removed (With failing) – the definition is ‘destroyed here’, a clever reverse of the technique used in 15a. Instead of using a clue number to refer to a solution elsewhere in the grid, it uses the solution (DESTROYED) to refer to the clue number.
22 HEEDINESS = (SHE DENIES)* – I had to verify this with checkers before I wrote it in, as it sounded like a made-up word.
23 M(ANT + RAP)S = MS for manuscript (writing)
24 HEN + DRY – Full marks to the setter for getting snooker’s man-of-the-moment into the grid. Especially since this was presumably compiled before he announced his retirement.
Down
1 CH + AS + M – I’m not convinced about AS for ‘in part of’. The closest I can get to a direct substitution that works is ‘with Mel Gibson in the part of Hamlet / with Mel Gibson as Hamlet’, but there’s an extra ‘the’ which it doesn’t really work without. I’m probably missing something.
2 LIGHTER = (THE GIRL)*
3 POR(TRAIT + PAIN)TER
5 GOT + HE’D + I + STANCE
6 NOUVELLE CUISINE = (OVEN IN USE I’LL CUE)*
7 S(P)INNER – I’m not sure that P can be used as an abbreviation for priest directly, but I did find it listed as an abbreviation for Pastor which comes to the same thing.
8 DE(S + TROY)ED
10 CUSTODIANSHIP = (STUDIO)* in CANS + HIP
14 TRUSS BEAM = TEAM about (R + (SUBS)*)
16 STUNG ‘UN
17 T(AIL)END
20 MISTY – hidden in tiM IS TYpically

7 comments on “Sunday Times 4485 (13 May 2012) by Anax”

  1. Dean’s crosswords always make me want to purr, and this one is no exception. I also liked 21ac, a rare example of a clue that fully deserves the ! it awards itself. I got 10dn from solving 15ac first, which is presumably the wrong way round.

    P = priest is in Chambers.
    I wasn’t very keen on “heediness,” but this word is in the tricky SE of the grid and crosses with three very long words, so I guess it might have been difficult to alter. It is in the full OED, marked obs., but not in the ODO.
    I think you have 1dn right Dave.. Ch in part of mass = as M, not too elegant perhaps, but it more or less works, in crosswordland anyway.

  2. 33 minutes for all but 21 and 13, and like the blogger I resorted to aids to come up with SHEBEENER to complete the grid.

    I had similar doubts about 1dn and wasn’t 100% sure about 9ac but plumped for the CA being ‘something like’ as in the abbreviation ‘ca’ = ‘about/in the region of’ with the definition as ‘feline pet’.

    Great puzzle.

    Edited at 2012-05-20 12:17 pm (UTC)

  3. Not difficult by Anax standards but always a delight to solve

    Knew SHEBEENER from times drinking poteen with my Irish uncle, now sadly gone to the big bar in the sky

  4. Completed this am. I’m grateful to Dave for explaining 21a which had gone in as the only word to fit the checkers. I knew SHEBEEN but not SHEBEENER – though I thought it probably existed. I thought of HEEDINESS but dismissed it at first as an ugly word I’d never heard of (and hope I don’t again) I had the initial C of 1d and wasted time trying to justify CREDO as part of the Mass – a nice piece of misdirection. 30 minutes

  5. Whizzed through this in 92 minutes. I knew SHEBEEN, so figured why not SHEBEENER, although I know of no pubber, barrer, inner, or localer. Like falooker, I toyed with CREDO for a while, and resisted HEEDINESS, wondering if it was a neologism like ‘truthiness’.Never heard of HENDRY, so I had to play with the alphabet and check in the dictionary, having never heard of HEN either in the required sense.
  6. from:- alongimckinnon@googlemail.com

    I could not believe that you had never heard the word ‘shebeen’

    Irish–‘O.K.’ Try most of the southern U.S. states, the West Indies, Hong Kong, Singapore, Macao etc. etc. etc. They tend to be a trifle prolific.

    Yours aye
    D. Blyth

    1. Well, I’ve never been to the Far East, and although I’ve been to Florida a few times, I didn’t visit any disreputable drinking dens! There will always be many many English words which are in everyday use in some parts of the world, while being almost unknown in others. It seems amazing to me that there are people out there who have never heard of the 7 times World Snooker Champion, Stephen Hendry, or even of hen parties, but we are all different, and nobody can know everything.

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