Sunday Times 4512 (18 Nov 2012) by Dean Mayer

Solving time: 43:36

This one sparked a lot of discussion on the forum. There were plenty that liked it, and a fair few that didn’t. But the one thing that nobody accused it of was being dull. Personally, I thought it quite brilliant – one of Anax’s better submissions, and he has a pretty high standard.

Someone on the forum accused it of being too tricksy, probably, as Dean himself pointed out, because of two clues in particular – 4d & 12d. It’s unusual to get two clues this inventive in the same grid. There was also quite a lot of inter-clue referencing going on – five references across 3 clues which may have added to the overall feeling of craftiness.

There were two words I didn’t know – DIAZO and MONOCRAT, although the latter is a unusual word made up of a common prefix and suffix so the meaning is clear. There are many contenders for COD, but I think 19a just edges it for me.

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

Across
1 RECTIFIED = FIT (suit) in DE-ICER (salt) all rev. I’ve seen ‘salt’ used for many things – AB, TAR, NACL, but this has to be a first. Technically, I suppose, it’s a DBE, but it’s a good one.
6 CO(L)D
8 HO + RACE – A Roman poet from the first century BC
9 biT + RAINING
10 TERRA INCOGNITA = (ORGANIC NITRATE)*
11 PRO + Military + PT – ‘Supply lines’ was the well-disguised definition
13 CONTRACT – dd – ‘Get’ as in catch a disease, and ‘bargain’ as in strike a bargain with someone
15 BOY RACER = ObviouslY in BRACER
17 REMAND = MAN in the RED
19 UNDER THE HAMMER = (REMAND + HE HURT ME)* – 7 (LUNATIC) is the anagrind, and 17 (REMAND) is part of the anagrist. ‘A lot’ is the definition in the sense of ‘an item in an auction’.
22 MONOCRAT = froM + (CARTOON)*
23 IN + B + RED
24 FLUE = “FLEW”
25 WEDNESDAY = WED + (YES AND)*
Down
1 RO(O)STER
2 C + HAIR
3 INELASTIC = (LINE IT’S A)* + Cage
4 I STAND CORRECTED – dd – Groans all round here. Istand can be read as a mis-spelling of Island and as such it would need to be corrected. Devious!
5 DIAZO = OZ-AID rev – Not a word I knew. It’s a chemical photocopying technique otherwise known as Whiteprint
6 CONUNDRUM = C/O NUN + DRUM – It took me a while to work out the CO at the start, but I assume it’s c/o as in ‘care of’. Drum is a slang term for house used predominantly by Cockneys, although it isn’t rhyming in origin.
7 LUNATIC = L + (IN A CUT)*
12 MORSE CODE – One of those rare clues where the punctuation is important. The end of ‘it’ is T, and T in Morse Code is a single dash.
14 NARRATIVE = (R + RAT) in NAÏVE (simple) – I’m not completely convinced about ‘mole’ for RAT. Clearly they are different animals, but in the sense of a mole being an undercover agent, and a rat being someone who betrays confidence I think it can just about work.
16 OWN + GOAL
18 NURSERY = N (November) + (SURREY)* – 9 (TRAINING) is the cross-referenced definition. Is N a standard abbreviation for November? I’m not entirely sure it is. Thanks to Andy for pointing out that November is N in the NATO phonetic alphabet which makes it perfectly Ok. I really should have twigged that.
20 THROW – dd
21 MY BAD = BY rev in MAD. Two cross-referenced definitions here – 7 (lunatic) for MAD, and 4 (I STAND CORRECTED) for the overall definition. It’s young person’s slang for Mea culpa.

11 comments on “Sunday Times 4512 (18 Nov 2012) by Dean Mayer”

  1. I fell asleep mid-solve–no reflection on the puzzle, believe me, just me doing a dry run of my upcoming dotage–so I don’t know how much time this took me, but it was a bunch. I actually wrote ‘DBE?’ re 1ac, not that I object to them in general, and certainly not here.DNK DRUM, so I just went with the checkers. DNK 15ac either. Somehow I had a vague recollection of DIAZO, although I couldn’t have told you what it meant. Anyway, although I’m against self-referential clues in principle, and although I had doubts like Dave about mole/rat, I thought this was a terrific puzzle; COD to 4d or 12d or 21d or 19ac, thanks to Anax.
  2. Great puzzle from Anax. I enjoy the self-referential puzzles, but then I also do the Guardian every day so maybe I’m more used to them.

    N for November is in the NATO phonetic alphabet, no problem there. That was another of the unjustified complaints on the forum too.

    I’d come across DIAZO before somewhere; the only thing I didn’t know was DRUM for house. Oh, and the Morse code for T, but it was obvious what was going on.

  3. Absolutely top class stuff from Anax. If there is a better compiler active at present, who is it, I wonder?
    Actually I am not terribly keen on self-referentialism but for a grid this good I am willing to grin and bear it.
  4. Not far off 90 minutes and with occasional resort to aids. DK the TERRA thing or DIAZO. Wasn’t sure about NURSERY for training until I thought of ski-slopes. Not totally convinced about RAT for mole as it’s possible to spy as mole without necessarily being a rat, but I think that would be splitting hairs.Please no more self-referencing puzzles.

    Edited at 2012-11-25 10:25 am (UTC)

  5. I was certainly over the hour mark but I gave up on timing after a demand for breakfast from a very small grandson who was on dawn patrol with me.

    I thought some of the comments on “my bad” on the Forum were rather OTT (to coin a phrase). The cross-pollination of slang and other words is a wonder of the English-speaking world.

    As a footnote, my younger daughter and some of her friends went to see “Skyfall” and were absolutely bemused when Bond addressed M as “Mom” (as they thought) so I had to explain.

    I’m another in the “no self references please” column.

  6. Totally agree with jerrywh. Not a fan of self-referential puzzles in general but this was yet another excellent offering from Mr Mayer.
  7. 25:08 … and very much enjoyed.

    For those who liked this one, there’s an Anax (free access) in yesterday’s Independent which should appeal.

  8. Tackled this am so it’s fresh in the memory. I was prepared for a long slog when I clocked the compiler but this took even longer than usual. I spent the first 15 minutes staring at an empty grid. But I did manage to finish in a plodding 69 minutes – albeit with a couple of interruptions for phonecalls and doorbells. There was lots to enjoy. My main hold up was with 1a and 6d. I just couldn’t parse 1a so, although I was fairly sure of the answer, having spotted the TIF in the middle I didn’t see DEICER as a real word (I was reading EI as a dipthong!) so gave it the go-by. As for 6d: I knew there was a NUN somewhere in it but, again, the parsing defeated me. Now it’s been explained in the blog I do have a vague recollection of DRUM meaning a gaff. Whew! Ann
  9. WICKET (door) on LEG BEFORE (stage = leg, e.g. leg of a race, previously). The thought of cricket got you onto the wrong track.
  10. I get turned off by self-referencing clues and usually throw the crossword away in disgust. It spoils the pleasure of a cryptic, where a good clue means a correct answer leaves no doubt that you have it right.
    1. I agree, though I did manage to get 4d, 7d and 17ac. But 19ac was just too tortuous for me, and I’d never heard of the phrase “my bad”. And since my knowledge of the morse code is zero, my commitment to “bray” for 24ac was persistent, preventing me from seeing 15ac and 16d. Perhaps I shot myself in the foot there, but without the self-referencing clue at 19ac I like to think I would have got to the finishing line.

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