Sunday Times 4501 (2 Sep 2012) by Tim Moorey

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

I didn’t like this one. There were one or two clues that I liked, but they got rather lost amongst all the ones I didn’t. I won’t dwell on them here, as all my quibbles are mentioned below. Others may have enjoyed it, but it was not to my taste.

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

Across
1 BEEF – dd, although since both definitions are essentially the same, it’s really just a single def. The wordplay was obvious, but the answer could equally have been any 4-letter word with this meaning like MOAN. Very weak clue. It needed something to imply that the answer was another foodstuff.
4 BROWN + STUDY – Gordon Brown being the PM. Not a phrase I knew, but I got STUDY fairly quickly, and BROWN always looked the most likely first word, but I needed a checker before I felt confident enough to put it in over say MAJOR STUDY.
9 RESIGN = (SINGER)*
10 EVEN(SOU)T – A sou is a small former French coin, popular among setters.
11 KING LEAR – hidden, one of the best hidden word clues I’ve seen for a while.
13 LE(AN)LY – I’ve never been keen on these obscure ISO country codes, but Peter Lely crops up often enough to make this fairly straightforward.
14 CASSOULETS = (SAUCES LOTS)* – something else I’m not keen on is relatively obscure words clued by anagrams, especially quite long words like this as the solver is left trying to work the most likely permutation of the letters for their best guess. Unless, of coourse, it’s not obscure at all, and it’s just me that doesn’t know it.
16 EDDY = “EDDIE” – although ‘sounds like’ is rather superfluous as Eddy is a perfectly acceptable spelling of the Christian name, as in Eddy Grant or Eddy Merckx
17 BIER = “BEER” – I’m not convinced that this is quite the same as a litter, but it’s probably close enough.
18 SUBSTITUTE = (TUBE + TUTSIS)* – An obvious anagrist, particularly with both words capitalized, although I had assumed that the definition would be ‘Stand’ rather than ‘Stand in’ so that caught me by surprise a little.
20 BAGNIO = (BOAstING)* – another obscure word clued by an anagram.
21 NOT RIGHT = “KNOT” + “RITE”
23 LITERATI = (TILER)* + AT + I
24 HE + ARSE – That’s two arses on the trot for Mr Moorey. It cropped up as part of ARSENAL in 4498.
26 ANTI + THESIS
27 rEd GuArD
Down
2 EWE – three cardinal compass points. Another type of clue I don’t like – answers made up of musical notes or compass points, when there’s nothing else to go on.
3 FLING – dd
4 B(AND)EAU – I didn’t know the word, and it took me a while to work out that AND was the only likely insertion.
5 ONE-ARMED BANDITS = (cONNEcTED + BAR + I’M SAD)* – as convoluted an anagrist as I’ve ever seen
6 NEEDLESs
7 TEST (big game) + AMEN (give agreement) + T (time)
8 DOUBLED + hUTCH
12 I + MAGI + NATION
15 SERENGETI = (GREENEST)* + I – I was a little worried when I realised that the definition must be ‘region in Tanzania’, but I shouldn’t have been.
18 STOMACH – dd
19 TITCHES = (SET + IT) rev about CH – appeal being IT or SA is something of a chestnut.
22 pIRATE
25 SEA – hidden

6 comments on “Sunday Times 4501 (2 Sep 2012) by Tim Moorey”

  1. 29′; it would have been a good deal faster if I hadn’t flung in ‘casseroles’ for CASSOULETS, making it impossible to do 4d and 5d for a while. As for cassoulets, I figure that if it’s a culinary term that I know, it’s not obscure. I rather liked ONE-ARMED BANDITS once I figured it out.
  2. 40 minutes but I struggled a lot on 13ac having forgotten LELY and not knowing about the ISO code that makes AN out of Netherlands Antilles.

    I agree 1ac is poor and 2dn is a bit feeble too where it occurred to me that the answer “comes from” 2 directions in the way in which the setter intended, not 3. I also wondered if he could have made some reference to the palindromic nature of this Down answer which in addition to coming from East and West also reads from North and South.

    DNK BAGNIO.

    No problems with CASSOULET which is a classic French cooking method that has been exported around the world including the US.

    KING LEAR was a great hidden answer.

    ‘Bier’/LITTER is in SOED. And HEARSE in the same puzzle. All a bit gloomy!

    Never did quite figure out how 5dn worked, so thanks for that, Dave.

    Edited at 2012-09-09 06:31 am (UTC)

  3. Picking up a couple of the points:

    The issue with 1A is a danger in double definition clues. If we had multiple clues like this crossing each other in the same corner of the grid, we’d have an unsolvable puzzle, but 3D (another double def as it happens) makes 1A definitely ???F if 2D hasn’t helped already.

    At 2D, you do have something else to go on – the definition! If another 3-letter word made from N/E/W/S matched “Source of milk”, the clue would be awful. I don’t understand how the challenge here is different from a (synonym of A) + (synonym of B) wordplay structure, where you have nothing except the definition (and possibly checking letters) to help you decide which synonyms you need.

    Peter Biddlecombe, Sunday Times Crossword Editor

    Edited at 2012-09-09 11:15 am (UTC)

  4. 21:36 on the club timer.
    I’m with you on these obscure anagrams, Dave. I think they’re fair as long as you can confidently work out which letters are supposed to go where, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them. In this case I knew CASSOULET but not BAGNIO. I had no trouble putting the B, G and I in the right places so the clue seems fair but it wasn’t much fun.
    CASSOULET is one of those dishes that generate ridiculous arguments about authenticity. Depending on who you ask, putting lamb in it (for instance) is either a) absolutely indispensable: anything without lamb is simply not a Cassoulet or b) absolutely inadmissible: anyone putting lamb in Cassoulet deserves to be taken out and shot.
  5. 79 minutes on the club timer but I’m putting that down to jetlag and interruptions from the wife – sacrilege! – as I can’t remember much about this. I didn’t know any of the tricky words – F&B, sexy women’s clothing and brothels not being specialist subjects (said wife will be pleased) – but enjoyed the pub game and the DOUBLE DUTCH.

    I hesitated on 23ac because I wanted to spell it with a double ‘t’, following the Italians, albeit with a different vowel and the Romans before them.

    Edited at 2012-09-11 02:55 pm (UTC)

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