Sunday Times 4565 (25 Nov 2013) by Jeff Pearce

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: About 35 minutes, but without full parsing.

There were several answers that were obvious from the definitions & checkers, but the wordplay took a while to untangle. I’m thinking of the long ones at 8 & 12, and 23 which I’m still not convinced I’ve got right. Otherwise, I didn’t find this one too hard. Apologies for the lateness of the blog, by the way, I’ve been Christmasifying the house all day (yes of course it’s a word) and it slipped my mind.

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

Across
1 LA(burgeR)D
4 COPPER + HEAD
9 GO + ANNA – I didn’t know the lizard, but I worked it out from the wordplay and checkers
10 ON CAMERA = (CAMERON + A)* – this must rank as about the weakest anagram I’ve ever seen in the ST. The words were both essentially there, but in the wrong order!
11 SABOTEUR = (BEATS OUR)*
13 TALENT = AL in TENT
14 NONPLUSSED = (UNSOLD PENS)*
16 AXE (guitar) + recitaL
17 STYE – cd
18 SWINE FEVER = SEVER (cut) about WINE + Forestall
20 FLEECE – dd
21 ACCURATE = CURATE after (A + C)
23 PASTRAMI – I’m not 100% on the wordplay here, but I think it’s PAST (put on) + RAM (butter, i.e. something that butts) + I (prime bit, i.e. 1, the basic prime number, or perhaps I is the prime bit of IS). I’m not entirely sure about ‘put on’ for PAST though.
24 AMBUSH = M in (A BUSH)
26 MOLYBDENUM = (NUMB MELODY)* – I get the Pink Floyd reference, but I’m not convinced by ‘Comfortably’ as an anagrind. Plus, of course, Floyd are certainly not metal, although I shouldn’t let that put me off the clue. Maybe there was a cover version by Five Finger Death Punch.
27 SUE + Toxic
Down
2 cAlDrOn
3 Drag + INGOt
4 CHATEAU = CHAT (gas, talk) + EAU (water required to live)
5 PROCRASTINATION = (IN A STRIP CARTOON)*
6 EX(C)ITED
7 HUMILIATE = (HAITI MULE)*
8 ARRANGEMENT = GEM (perfect example) + E (note) all in ARRANT (thorough)
12 AMONTILLADO = AMONg (in, short) + TILL (work) + A + DO (cook)
15 P(RESENT)LY
18 STEWARD = TE (note) in S + WARD (room with patients)
19 EXCLAIM = I in EXAM all about (C + L)
22 RE + BUS
25 S + HE – H. Rider Haggard’s novel, and crossword compiler’s favourite.

21 comments on “Sunday Times 4565 (25 Nov 2013) by Jeff Pearce”

  1. A similar tale here @ 40 minutes solving time and all the same queries on parsing. I think your explanation of 8dn leaves an N unaccounted for, Dave, but I can’t offer a better solution as it foxed me too. I can’t buy 23 either, I’m afraid, and don’t like the cryptic definition at 17. Not the best of puzzles in my view.
  2. Equally baffled here. Definitely a spare EN or NE floating about in 8d. And as for “stye” and “pastrami” – I didn’t and don’t get (thanks for trying Dave). I see from the club Forum re this puzzle that PB may have been on holiday at the time, which could be a partial explanation.
    1. I think the clue for STYE is saying that a stye makes blinking tough (does it though? Painful, maybe), with the surface intended to deceive you into thinking about a cause (political, etc) that’s difficult (blinking being used as a slang intensifier). Not my favourite clue of the bunch either.
  3. I thought this a poor crossword.. sorry. I had four clues I couldn’t properly understand and I see others don’t either
  4. I have exactly the same problems already recounted. How does “past” mean “put on” (alt. sp. of “passed”?). Since when does “note” mean “en”? Huh? What? Come again?
  5. Similar parsing problems here. A convoluted way of looking at PASTRAMI is that “put on butter is prime” could mean “prime is put on butter”, with RAM as in the blog and the final I being a bit (computing, 1 or 0). Which then means trying to find a way to equate PAST with prime (in one’s prime?) No, I’m not convinced either …

    People on TTCC seemed to have parsed ARRANGEMENT to their satisfaction – maybe one of them might chip in here.

  6. One more puzzled solver re 8d, 12d, and 23ac. And I join Dave in raising an eyebrow over ‘comfortably’ as anagrind. Not to mention I’d never heard of ‘Comfortably Numb’. Not a satisfying puzzle.
  7. I was no more impressed by this than others. I also disliked the double obscurity in GOANNA. Why?
    I seem to be the only person who found “cycle” for the C in 21ac dodgy though, so perhaps I’m missing something there.
      1. Sorry but 1 is not a prime number. The full technical definition of a prime number is “A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself.’. So not 1
  9. Damn, you’re right!
    “Prime,” meaning “first,” “bit” of “is,” then?
    I wish the setter would drop by.
    1. Editor here – yes, or at least that was my reading, which seemed fine so wasn’t discussed with the setter.
  10. Thanks to Olivia for the holiday excuse, but it doesn’t apply – as with other papers, our crosswords are written well ahead of time, so this puzzle had as much attention from me as any other.

    10A Very easy anagram? – yes, but one that fits into a good surface story.
    21A C = cycle – an abbreviation that’s included in Collins – no.3 in second batch at http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/c
    23A past => ON – see no. 11 at http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/past
    26A “comfortably” permitted as novel anag indicator, in the cause of something about the work of Pink Floyd for a change rather than someone like Bellini
    8D The apparently missing/strange note is accounted for if the inside of ARRAN/T is (AN = a, GEM, E = note).

    1. That doesn’t work. Or how?
      The letters that need to be accounted for are either
      GEMEN
      or
      NGEME.
          1. That’s the first real mistake I’ve found in a Times puzzle, I’m pretty sure.
            Commiserations!
            At The Nation a few weeks ago, we misnumbered the answer “SPIDER WEB” as (3,6). D’oh! And it should actually have been (9), but in the correction I had to explain that it would have been better as (6,3), to alleviate the confusion we caused.
  11. “Past” for “on” is out of character for Jeff Pearce, I would have thought. He doesn’t usually come up with such obscure synonyms. As always in cases like this, there is a feeling of dissatisfaction in getting the right answer without understanding why.

    Didn’t like 8d, 9a, 12d and 17a either.

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