Sunday Times 4546 (14 Jul 2013) by Tim Moorey

Solving time: 21:41

I did this one online for a change, and recorded one of my fastest times in recent memory. I don’t know if this one was particularly easy, or if I just found myself on Tim’s wavelength (for a change!).

The parsing of 13d left me a little bemused, so I’d be interested to hear other peoples’ take on it.

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

Across
1 ADVERTISEMENT = (MEN TEST DRIVE A)*
9 TILED = TIED about L
10 SECTIONAL = (COASTLINE)*
11 PLATOONS = PLANS about TOO (very) – ‘small bodies of soldiers’ in the definition
12 BI(SEC)T
14 SANTA MONICA = SANTA + “MONIKER”
16 YAH = HARRY (prince) rev with RR (Rolls Royce, posh car) removed. I noticed a few comments on the forum about ‘leaving’ here being used the wrong way round, and that the car is leaving the prince rather than the prince leaving the car. But I read it as ‘leaving’ meaning ‘not taking’ as in ‘I ate my dinner but I left my peas’ which seemed to work OK as far as I was concerned.
18 lOAF
20 TO THE LETTER – dd – a ‘letter’ is someone who lets, like a landlord
22 PER PRO = PROPER (fitting) with the second half written first. ‘For’ is the definition. It’s an abbreviation of per procurationem, meaning ‘by the agency of’, more commonly abbreviated to just pp, and used when signing a letter on behalf of someone else.
23 FRANKEST = RANK (row) in FEST (party)
26 P + LATITUDE
27 CHASM = AS in (CH + Matter)
28 MASTERSTROKES = (MARKS + ROSETTES)* – ‘High’ is the anagrind, although I’m not sure in what sense that would work.
Down
1 ANTIPASTO = PA in (STATION)*
2 VILLA + IN – Aston Villa are the Birmingham-based soccer club
3 RADIO = DIOr (Christian perhaps) after (R + A)
4 INS AND OUTS – dd
5 skETCH
6 ELIMINATE = (MILAN TIE)* + dirE
7 T(ANNE)RY
8 F(L)IT
13 SIDE ORDERS – I wasn’t quite sure how to parse this one. An eleven often refers to a football (soccer) team, which would be a side. But it could also be a reference to 11a: PLATOON, and a platoon would certainly want orders. Whichever one it is, where does the other word come from? Could it even be both at once? But then it would be doing double duty which would be bad. Perhaps ‘Eleven gets what eleven wants with dinner’ might have been better.
15 ASTEROIDS = Objects in (DISASTER)* – an &lit – a few complaints about this one on the forum, but while it’s not the greatest &lit in the world, I think it just about works, and I’m prepared to allow a certain amount of extra flexibility with &lits.
17 HARD TIMES – The outskirts of HalifaX are H (hard) and X (times) – Quite neat and My COD
19 FIREARM = IRE in FARM – I was a bit confused by this one as I didn’t know a rod could be a firearm, but it’s a slang term for a gangster’s pistol apparently.
21 THE SACK = HE’S in TACK – I’m not sure about ‘shoddy work’ as a definition for ‘tack’. A tack can be a large temporary stitch, so I assume this is what’s being referred to, but I’m not sure it’s what you’d call shoddy work.
22 PAPA – dd – comes after Oscar in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet
24 NICE + Resort
25 F + USE

13 comments on “Sunday Times 4546 (14 Jul 2013) by Tim Moorey”

  1. 16:26 at the point when I gave up on 22ac; I suppose I can take some comfort from the fact that I didn’t know the term. I read SIDE ORDERS as Dave suggests, with ORDERS doing double duty; I didn’t much like it, but couldn’t think of any other interpretation. I didn’t know that meaning of ‘tack’, but on the other hand ‘shoddy’ is (was?) a noun referring to cheap fabric from recycled wool thread, as in ‘The Gondoliers’:
    When you have nothing else to wear
    But cloth of gold and satins rare
    For cloth of gold you cease to care–
    Up goes the price of shoddy.
    I agree with Dave in giving the COD to HARD TIMES.
  2. 23 minutes but tossed coin wrongly at 16 for ‘yeh’. What I now think Tim was intending was a reversal not just of Harry but also of the order of the elements in the phrase, so that SVO (subject verb object) becomes OVS. I took 13 as requiring no cross-reference to 11 – as being merely an &lit. Again no problem here with ‘shoddy work’ for tack, as ‘tack’ is a shoddy object and ‘work’ something made.

    An easier puzzle much appreciated after the last two Saturday prize ones; per pro was the pick for me, as one runs across it seldom in crosswords these days.

  3. I completed most of this in 23 minutes using my new and more relaxed approach to solving but I was then left with four outstanding in the SE corner and they took my time a little over 30 minutes. LOI was FRANKEST where FEST for ‘party’ would not come to mind.

    Fortunately none of the queries raised here or in the Club forum even entered my mind.

    Edited at 2013-07-21 04:54 am (UTC)

  4. Didn’t know ROD=firearm or that PER PRO was the expansion of pp. 13D caused me no end of trouble, as I flirted with PLATES, SALADS, and DISHES before finally getting the right answer – I read it the same way as ulaca. I’ve always thought of shoddy as meaning badly made and tacky as meaning vulgar, but Chambers has both meanings for both.
  5. 33:54 … another of those mixed difficulty puzzles which I find somewhat frustrating, like finding a few bits of advanced calculus thrown into your maths O’level. I’m not very good at mental gear changes.

    YAH was my favourite clue – can’t see any problem with it.

    SIDE ORDERS … I’m clueless.

    1. I can see a huge problem with YAH, not being English, where apparently posh people say it instead of yes. Or so Chambers claims, never seen it written in proper English novels… not in my personal lexicon (ie it’s not a real word).
      GRR.
      Beaten by PER PRO, a Latin abbreviation written in full then abbreviated again but differently. Eh? So YAH didn’t matter.

  6. 25:47. Most trouble with 13dn, which I eventually bunged in as the only thing that fitted the checkers and seemed to have some vague relationship with the clue. I didn’t understand it at the time, and still don’t.
  7. Rod might be an Americanism – it fits right in with my gat/piece/heat/heater vocabulary. Otherwise, I was a compendium of everyone else’s difficulties: like jackkt I couldn’t think of fest, and without the checker couldn’t get my mind off a non-understandable side dishes; I think of ‘yah’ as a (non-vulgar) expletive expressing modest wonder, so like ulaca I stuck in ‘yeh’. Ooops.
  8. No problem with ‘high’ as anagrind at 28, in sense of ‘drug-induced mental confusion’.
    Was stuck on DISHES at 13: I suppose a side might be given orders by the captain, but clue is rather unsatisfactory.
    At 21, I read ‘tack’ as just meaning ‘something tacky’.
  9. Aston Villa-“the” Birmingham team?? Surely merely “a” Birmingham team!!!
  10. 13D I interpreted as a cricket side awaiting their order – the order in which they would bat.
    Jill M – forgot my login and password
  11. An excellent puzzle from Tim Moorey, I thought. Lots of good, traditional clues. I raced through most of it before getting stuck at 22 in both directions. Fortunately my wife then took a look and came up with per pro immediately, which left papa as the only possibility heading south, without understanding why at the time.

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