Sunday Times 4487 (27 May 2012) by Jeff Pearce

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: About 45 minutes

I was holidaying in North Wales this week, so I completed the paper copy for a change. I had no dictionary available so CACHINNATE went in on a wing and a prayer, and I’ve never heard of William Holman Hunt, so 21 took a bit of deciphering, too.

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

Across
1 CACHINNATE = (THE CANCAN I)* – One of my last in, just because I didn’t know the word. The wordplay was immediately obvious.
6 PE + RU
9 TOP + IC
10 TWITCHERS = (TWISTER)* about CH
12 CENTRE FORWARD = (CON REF + geT + REWARD)* – semi-&lit
14 RETAINER – dd
15 METH + ODd
17 ECCLES – dd – Eccles was one of Spike Milligan’s characters in the anarchic Goon Show. Here’s a classic exchange between him and Bluebottle (Peter Sellars)
19 CROSS + BOW
21 PRE-RAPHAELITE = (A HARE + REPTILE + Parsley)* – William Holman Hunt was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
24 AT ONE TIME – ‘Together’, I believe, is the definition, TIME is ‘the enemy’, after ATONE. I’m not sure where the quotation about time being the enemy comes from. Eva Peron said that time was her greatest enemy, but she may not have been the first.
25 POKE + R
26 hEATS
27 ITINERANTS = (IN TRAIN SET)*
Down
1 CUT + heavE – ‘Fly’ as slang for cute has been around for quite a while – The Offspring got to Number 1 in the UK back in 1998 with Pretty Fly (for a White Guy) (earplugs at the ready!)
2 COPY + CA + T – I liked ‘Young ape’ as a definition
3 IN + CON + SIDE + RATE
4 NOTARIES = TON rev + ARIES
5 TH(I)E + F – A. J. Raffles was a gentleman thief in several stories by E. W. Hornung
7 E + YEW/ASH
8 UPSIDE-DOWN = U + Play + DOWN after SIDE
11 CARPET + SLIPPER
13 GREEN(P)E + ACE – Graham Greene is the author
16 TREE-FERN = (RENT-FREE)*
18 CHE + ROOT
20 BREAK + IN
22 HO(IS)T
23 hARMS

10 comments on “Sunday Times 4487 (27 May 2012) by Jeff Pearce”

  1. 25 minutes. I also didn’t know CACHINNATE and I’m still not clear what ‘young’ is doing at 2dn. My parsing of 24 was the same as yours.
  2. On a day when Mephisto was too easy we could have done with this being a bit harder but it was in the same league and presented very little real challenge.

    As for Dave and Jack the unknown CACHINNATE had to wait for checkers and I also don’t understand “young” in 2D. Chambers just says “immitate”, nothing about “young”

    1. I just checked again and found that Collins has COPYCAT: A person, esp. a child, who imitates or copies another.
  3. 56 minutes with COPYCAT last in and one wrong: ‘at one fire’ for AT ONE TIME, inventing a new idiom for ‘being together with the enemy’.
  4. Given the ephemeral nature of general knowledge, I have every sympathy for setters of crosswords: what is well known in one generation often fades completely for the next.

    In my grandfather’s day, a print of Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World would have hung in almost every other house throughout the country; I’m told that Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware was similarly popular in the USA.

    When I was a young man, it was J.H. Lynch’s Tina that you would have found next to every inglenook fireplace; and these days, it’s probably Jack Vettriano’s Singing Butler.

  5. 20:20. Glad to find I’m not alone wondering what ‘young’ was doing there. I suspect that time being the enemy is ancient, although I’m not going to look it up. Was ‘for a crime’ necessary?
  6. Earliest reference in OED is:
    839 Dickens Nicholas Nickleby xix. 179 How goes the enemy, Snobb?
    – meaning ‘What is the time’ – but no entry for more general use.
  7. In Ireland cute can mean “clever in a sly way”. Fly can also have this meaning when coupled with boy as in “He’s a fly boy”. Always derogatory.

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