Sunday Times 4516 (16 Dec 2012) by Tim Moorey

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: About an hour

I did about half of this in a dentist’s waiting room, and then on the bus on the way back to work. I finished it the following day over another half-hour or so, concluding in the SE Corner.

There were a few clues here I wasn’t keen on, but on the whole I thought it was a pretty good puzzle.

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

Across
1 ABLE = ALE about Bother – I liked the devious use of ‘beer cans’ as part of an excellent surface
4 IN THAT CASE = (ANAESTHeTIC)* – another well hidden definition ‘Since the situation is so’, with ‘bad’ being the anagrind. Removing the Ether from ANAESTHETIC is spolit slightly by the fact that it has two Es, but it is only slightly.
9 MADCAP = ADC (aide de camp) in MAP (plan)
10 ENTRANCE – dd
11 SCANSION = IS rev in (S + CANON)
13 OCEANS = (CANOES)* – &lit
14 GROUND-HOGS = GO (try) + H (hard) all rev in GROUNDS (base) – I have to agree with the unanimous consensus on the forum that this is a one word answer. I have not been able to find a dictionary that lists it as hyphenated.
16 ALTOgether – clever!
17 BYRD = DRY + B all rev – although I couldn’t justify why cold and dry were synonymous.
18 ART DEALERS = (TRADERS)* about (A + LEly)
20 TAURUS = THESAURUS with (HE’S) removed
21 decEMBer’s + OLDEN
23 COLOR + ADO – ‘it’s way of’ implies the American spelling of COLOUR
24 SAG BAG = GAB / GAS both rev, both words for lengthy talk. Not sure what benefit ‘to the end’ brings to the clue. I suppose ‘flexible to the end’ refers to the way beanbags mould themselves to the sitter’s backside.
26 PRESENT-DAY – dd
27 THEA = THE AA (competitor of the RAC) with last letter removed – another clever one
Down
2 B + nOAh
3 EX-CON – Lord Archer being both an ex-convict and an ex-Conservative
4 I + MP + LIvED – the setter managed to avoid the more obvious breakdown!
5 THE END OF THE ROAD – dd
6 ATTACKS = “A TAX”
7 CHAIN + MAIL
8 SACHERTORTE = (ORCHESTRATEd)* – I like the good use of Ravel as an anagrind.
12 CURRY FlAVOUR
15 UNDERDOGS – dd – the cryptic def is suggesting that DOGE is found beneath DOG in the OED. I’m not convinced it works in the plural, or at least it doesn’t work as well. There some on the forum who loved this one, but I wasn’t keen.
18 A + B + STAIN
19 EMBASSY = S/S in (MAYBE)*
22 LEGIT / LEG IT!
25 peAceTimE

8 comments on “Sunday Times 4516 (16 Dec 2012) by Tim Moorey”

  1. I don’t have a finishing time noted for this one. I think I was doing okay but then got completely stuck in the SE with 24 and 27 unsolved and nodded off. However I know that I eventually resorted to aids at 24 so technically this was a DNF.

    I had your interpretation of “flexible to the end”, Dave. I also can’t work out how “dry” = “cold” and, according to onelook.com,the hyphen at 14ac only appears in somewhat dubious on-line resources.

    I don’t understand the thinking behind 15 at all as the word “doges” doesn’t appear anywhere in any of my Oxford dictionaries.

  2. Not one of Tim’s best offerings – are all our setters tired and needing a holiday? The Mephistos of late have been very ordinary with today’s (23rd Dec) a very tame affair.

    DRY means “frigid” which equates to “cold”. Agree on GROUNDHOG but punctuation should always be ignored.

    15D is very odd. Surely “doge” was the title of the magistrate in Venice, being dialect for “Duce” so not completley sure it exists as “doges” but it certainly doesn’t appear in Chambers. Is this some Oxford University slang that I’m not aware of?

    2. Regular plurals like “doges” don’t appear in Chambers (or other dictionaries) unless they have meanings different to the singular. As it happens, “dogs” is an example. I wasn’t bothered by this in the clue, as any dictionary exists in multiple copies. There’s no obscure Oxford slang involved as far as this LSE graduate knows.
  3. And Chambers has dry = “frigid, precise, formal.”
    I confess I didn’t much like this crossword. It had too many queries and jarring clues. Some of Tim’s crosswords are excellent but often they seem a bit mechanical to me.
  4. Anyone who thinks that canoes are not normally found in oceans should talk to Pacific islanders.

    Judy in Vancouver

    1. My interpretation is that “what’s” indicates that we need to find a synonym for “put away”. Since “put” can be either present tense or past tense, “put away” could mean either “eat” or “ate”.

      Falcon in Ottawa

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