Sunday Times 4504 (23 Sep 2012) by Tim Moorey

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: 57:46

I found this one really quite a struggle, although I was quite tired so it may well just be me. Some of the clues seemed very easy, while others seemed a lot more complicated, and indeed at time of writing, there’s still one I can’t parse.

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

Across
1 PUSH OFF = PUFF (publicity) about SHOt – I’m probably not the only solver who looked at P*S* OFF and raised their eyebrows.
5 TWELFTH – cd. The twelfth man in cricket is the reserve, and cover is a fielding position. So ‘cover for cover’ is backup for a fielder.
9 TRADE NAME = (RED MEAT)* about NA – a definition by example indicated by the question mark
10 CIRCA = A + CR + I + C all rev
11 DOE’S + IN – I rather liked this one
12 LOVE + LIES
14 M(INN)E + SO + TAN
16 PUNT – dd – The currency of the Irish Republic before they adopted the Euro
18 MARY – about as obvious a dd as I’ve seen, providing you know the author Mary Wesley, of course.
19 TEN WICKETS – cd – more cricket terminology, although nothing particularly cryptic about this one.
22 RYE BREAD – cd – Rye is a Sussex coastal town, and a member of the historic Cinque Ports Confederation.
23 MO + USER
26 L + EARN
27 AWE-STRUCK = WEST in A RUCK – Timothy West is a British character actor best known for playing the lead in the 80s comedy series Brass (by me, anyway)
28 ODD + MEN + T
29 SLEEPER – I got this from the definition, but I can’t for the life of me work out the wordplay. In fact this was my LOI and I was torn between this and SWEEPER because it contained WEEP. I wasn’t helped by the added confusion of two possible spellings for 17d. It’s a dd – an express train tears over sleepers on a railway line. Thanks to McText for pointing this out.
Down
1 POTSDAM = MAD + STOP all rev
2 S(O)AVE – I’ve never studied Italian, so I didn’t know that the Italian for ‘of’ was O, but it was such a small mental leap that this was my FOI.
3 ONE + LINER
4 F + LAW
5 THE ROYAL WE – The Royal “WEE” – fnarr fnarr
6 EXCEED = EX + “SEED”
7 FURNITURE = FURoRE about (UNIT)* and another dbe indicated by a question mark
8 HEADSET = (SHED TEA)* – ‘Do’ is the anagrind, ‘cans’ is an informal word for headphones
13 POLES APART = (A LAPSE)* in PORT
15 NURSEMAID = (SURINAME)* + D
17 ACCOUTRE = (CARTEr + COUp)* – There is an alternate spelling of ACCOUTER, which most dictionaries seem to list as US, or at least mainly-US, and the only way to identify the correct one was through the final checker. Unfortunately, I found this checker particularly hard to come by.
18 MORE + L + LO
20 STRIKER – dd – a forward in soccer
21 O + RANGE – a communications network provider
24 SLUM + P
25 LESSon

10 comments on “Sunday Times 4504 (23 Sep 2012) by Tim Moorey”

  1. I suspect this is a double def. An express (train) tears (runs rapidly) over a sleeper (US: a railroad tie), usw.
  2. 39′, with a number of questions, all answered by Dave: 5ac (should have known it was cricket-related), 27ac (DNK), 8d, 21d (DNK). I agree with Jack (and Tony Sever, I believe, inter alia) about 18ac: I, too, waited to put it in until forced to believe it was the right answer. 5d:Didn’t we have something similarly cheeky some time ago? 29ac has a lovely surface, but my COD goes to 6d. And I doubt the O of SOAVE comes from Italian; ‘of’ being ‘di’ or ‘da’ or whatever. I assumed it’s English ‘of’ reduced to o’, as in chock full o’ nuts.

    Edited at 2012-09-30 08:33 am (UTC)

  3. I wasn’t very taken with this one with its cricket references and 18ac was one of the feeblest clues I’ve seen in a long time, so that despite having thought of the right answer I couldn’t believe it was correct until I’d spent ages looking for other options.

    I agree with mct’s take on 29ac as a double definition.

  4. I also think O in 2dn is just of, as in Tam o’ Shanter, John o’ Groats etc.
    The “royal we” is an example, I discovered yesterday, of nosism, as opposed to illeism and tuism…
  5. o’ = of: as Kevin says, but why are the examples always about food? Oxford D of English uses “cup o’ coffee” and Collins swaps tea for coffee. Maybe they’re all just thinking ” it’s like fish ‘n’ chips.”

    18A: our collective judgment was that Mary W was better known than a DJ called Mark, by a wide enough margin.

    19A: crypticness depends on whether you guess the right “game”, I guess.

    17D: I hope that if there are US/UK alernatives both fitting the clue, we’d give you an indication if the US one was needed.

    Peter Biddlecombe, Sunday Times Crossword Editor

    2. 18A: our collective judgment was that Mary W was better known than a DJ called Mark, by a wide enough margin.

      On this side of the pond, they are equally known (which is to say, not known).

      Edited at 2012-10-06 11:14 pm (UTC)

  6. 90 minutes, with mark for MARY. Mmm. Never heard of Mary W only John and Charles. Loved 11ac – I blame Julie Andrews for making me think a doe is always a deer…
  7. I perhaps didn’t enjoy this one as much as it may have deserved, possibly because I had other things on my mind at the time. The strange mixture of very easy clues with quite outlandish ones made it hard to find Tim Moorey’s wavelength.

    I expect there was a time (at around 10 years old, perhaps) when I’d have found 5dn a hoot, but it’s such an old gag that all I could do was yawn.

    And I’m with Jack and Kevin in finding 18ac very weak. This isn’t quite the classic DBE that Ximenes describes (and inveighs against), but it surely comes under the same heading. It could so easily have been improved by recasting it as “A religious icon: Wesley, perhaps (4)”, though even then I don’t think it would win any prizes.

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