Sunday Times 4486 (20 May 2012) by Tim Moorey

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: 54:14

I’m not sure if these puzzles have gotten harder recently, or if I’ve just got stupider, but I seem to be struggling much more than I used to. Maybe I just need to get some more sleep.

On the whole, quite a number of good clues here. The semi-&lits at 1a, 13d & 19d were all good, plus the surface at 17 and the definition at 19. I think I’ll give my COD to 1a, just for starting me off with a smile.

My humblest apologies about the extreme lateness of this blog. I’ve been on holiday in Wales for a week. Last time I went, there was WiFi where we were, so I foolishly assumed there would be again. Alas no.

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

Across
1 SUMO TOURNAMENT = (ENORMOUS MUTANTS)* – An amusing semi-&lit to kick off
9 AIR + CREW
10 BIG(SH)OT
11 ErASE
12 HULL + A + BALOO
13 GRE(A + S)ED
15 RICH MAN = (IN MARCH)* – Dives is the rich man in the biblical parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man
17 SATANIC – An excellent surface, although the wordplay is a tad contrived. ‘Bit of fun’ = Fun, ‘barred’ = removed from, ‘cryptic’ = anagram, so it’s (fANATICS)*. Mephisto is a shortened form of Mephistopheles, a demon.
19 PESETAS = hidden in reciPE SET ASide – well disguised definition
20 REVELATORY = REVELRY about (A + TO)
22 STOP = POTS rev – a ‘period’ to Americans is a full stop to us English.
25 PA(IN)TER – This probably refers to Graham Sutherland, whose portrait of Winston Churchill was so disliked by the subject that his wife ordered it destroyed. It could also refer to David Sutherland, the comic book artist responsible for Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Kids, but he wasn’t really what you’d call a painter, I suppose. There was also David C Sutherland III whose name should be familiar to anyone who (like me) got caught up in the Dungeons & Dragons craze back in the 1980s, as he did a lot of the artwork for that.
26 NEU(T)RAL
27 BANANA REPUBLICS – cd
Down
1 SOAVE = SAVE (set aside) about O’ (of)
2 MARE’S NEST = (SEEN)* in MAR + ST
3 sTORE
4 UN + Wine + sOUND
5 NE(BULl)AR – I’m a little surprised to see BULL = ‘hot air’ in an ST puzzle, or is this shortened form not considered a swear word?
6 MEGABUCKS = BUCKS (county) after (GAME)*
7 NIHIL = (H + IN) rev + I + L – Nihil means nothing, so it’s love in that sense.
8 SET POINTS = (IN TEST SO + P)*
13 GASTROPUB = (TOP GRUB)* about AS (when) – semi-&lit
14 SINGLET ON
16 METATARSI = (AT TIMES + ARe)* – I hadn’t realised that the plural of metatarsal wasn’t just metatarsals
18 CATERER = (TERRACE)*
19 PARSNIP = PIN + Steak + RAP all rev – another semi-&lit
21 V-SIGN – dd
23 POLOS – dd – a polo (or polo shirt) and a jersey both being types of sweater. The car, of course, is the Volkswagen model
24 CURB = CUR (dog) + the lower case (small) part of Pb, the chemical symbol of lead

9 comments on “Sunday Times 4486 (20 May 2012) by Tim Moorey”

        1. Yeah, what Jack said. It comes underneath George’s Mephisto blog for 2699 and above my Saturday blog for 25167. What do you see?

          Edited at 2012-05-29 11:35 pm (UTC)

          1. Aha, I’ve just had another look and noticed that the blog entry for J979 has a little padlock icon next to it denoting a protected post. I’m sure Helen didn’t do it deliberately, but I’ve asked her to see if she can open it up for all to see, as I can’t do it myself.
  2. 47 minutes but found an error when I went back to check the wordplay. I’d had SPARE at 1dn based on definition alone.

    I don’t recall seeing the trick at 24dn before and am not sure that I appreciated chemical symbols are necessarily written in a mixture of upper and lower case when they extend beyond one letter.

    1. Chemical symbols must be written this way because compounds that contain multiple elements have the elemental symbols strung together such as NaCl or H₂SO₄, and otherwise it would be impossible to distinguish carbon monoxide (CO) from cobalt (Co) – you might want to paint something blue, and end up poisoning yourself!

      Edited at 2012-06-02 11:18 pm (UTC)

      1. Thanks, Dave. I’m sure I knew that at one time but chemical formulas and I parted company about 50 years ago and the only bits I remember are what come up in crossword puzzles. I don’t think I’ve ever met a clue before that relied on upper/lower case in a chemical symbol.

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