Sunday Times 4569 (22 Dec 2013) by Dean Mayer

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: None recorded.

On the rare occasions that I make the journey down south to visit my family, we like to spend some time gathered around a crossword, pooling our collective resources. I was down there between Christmas and New Year, so I saved this festive offering for just that occasion. As a result, I can’t give any meaningful solving time for it.

We took our time over it, but still managed to get one wrong. For 56a, our last one in, we put HEAT (’round’) , which I was never happy with as there didn’t seem to be any justification for ‘Don’t miss’.

All in all an enjoyable solve, both for the company and for Dean’s expert construction as always.

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

Across
1 IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME = (THIS MILESTONE FOR A Crossword)* – It took me quite a while to untangle the anagram because the title is so unfamiliar translated into English. Had it been ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’, then I’d probably have got it straightaway!
11 LEAR – hidden
13 NEW PENNY = (WYNNE)* about PEN – ‘cryptically’ is the anagrind, and ‘describing’ is the containment indicator.
14 REDOUND = REND about (DO + U) – I didn’t know the word, so I had to stop myself putting REBOUND. But the wordplay was clear.
15 R(EC)IPE
16 MONOTHEISTIC = (INTO THIS COME)*
18 CREATURE = gREAT in CURE (smoke) – ‘Being’ is the well-disguised definition
20 TRI(BUN)AL – ‘Having a bun in the oven’ is a euphemism for pregnant, so I guess a bun can be a baby.
21 CONSTITUTIONAL – dd – A constitutional being a word for a walk taken for the good of one’s health.
23 A + MB + AS SAD + OR
25 AND (with) + OR (men) + Rural + A (area)
27 HIDE = HE (25a, ambassador) about (I + Direction)
28 BURG + LA(R)Y
30 eMU (topless bird) + SIC (so it says here) + AL (adding to, Italian)
33 RELAID = RELAx + I’D
34 IS + A(I)AH
35 DECrEASE
37 SH(AD)OWED
38 SALT = L in SAT (Saturday is yesterday for a Sunday puzzle)
39 DISCO + ReturneD
42 ST + RATE + GIST
44 HIP REPLACEMENT = HINT about (PREP + L + ACE + ME)
46 EXTERIOR = dEXTER about RIO
48 WHISTLER = W + Snow in HITLER
50 CHRISTMAS EVE = (IT’S MARCH)* + SEVEr – 24 (or SMASHED) is the anagrind. A great piece of misdirection in the surface. My COD.
53 NO + G + GIN
54 EVOLVED = ViED after LOVE (prize) rev
55 S(QUAD)CAR
56 BEAT – dd – ‘One round’, as in a policeman’s beat, then ‘don’t miss’ as in hit, or possibly like ‘beat a record’. It seemed a little weak to me.
57 A PERSON FROM PORLOCK = (MARKS ON FLOOR COPPER)* – The rest of my family looked at me blankly when I came up with this one. When S.T. Coleridge awoke from a drug-induced dream with the poem Kubla Khan fully formed in his head, he started to write it down, but was interrupted by a knock on his door when he was only part way through. The person, identified only as ‘a person from Porlock’, detained him for an hour or more, and on his return he found the dream had vanished, and so the poem remains unfinished. It’s a good story, but it sounds like an invention by the author to cover a spot of writer’s block to me! I remember Douglas Adams gave the anecdote a new spin in one of his Dirk Gently books.
Down
2 NOEL = N + LEO rev
3 EUPHOR(B)IA – I’m not sure about BEE for B, does that not need a homophone indicator? I suppose it’s no different to using ZED or ZEE for the letter Z.
4 RUN-DOWN – dd
5 H + AY – ‘Hotel’ is H in the phonetic alphabet
6 FAR (a good way) + SIgn
7 OLD ETONIANS = (LED NATION SO)*
8 TRUNCATED = (AND CUTTER)*
9 IN + DICtATOR – a ‘shower’ being something that shows
10 EARNEST – dd – although it took me a while to see the first one ‘Art worthy of’ as in ‘Thou art worthy of’ something, therefore ‘Thou earnest it’
11 soLICIT
12 AS PURE AS DRIVEN SNOW – ‘filling bank form?’ because it’s driven snow that makes up snowbanks
17 HOLIDAYED = HOLD about (ID + AYE)
19 FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE = (HOURS SOVIET WAR FILM)* – Another clever use of 24d (SMASHED) as an anagrind.
21 CERAMIC – Initials of Celebrate Early Remembering Another Milestone In Crosswords
22 OT + HELLO
24 SMASHED = DAM’S rev about SHE
26 ABREAST = A BEAST about Road
29 biG + LITTER (issue)
31 CRESSET = SeEn in CREST
32 LASER BEAM = (MEASuRABLE)*
36 ANDRE PREVIN = AND + REP + RE(V)IN – A brilliant conductor who’s had a glittering career, but isn’t this what he’s most famous for? Especially at Christmas!
40 SEA BREEZE = SEIZE with the I replaced by A + (BEER)* – That’s vodka with cranberry & grapefruit juice.
41 ONE ACROSS = ONE (An) + A + CROSS (X) – Anax is an ancient Greek word for lord or king, but it is also, of course, Dean Mayer’s pseudonym in The Independent and The Guardian, I think. I always assumed that he derived the name from this cryptic treatment of ‘one across’ but I may be entirely wrong in that assumption. The reversal, Xana, is the name of his daughter.
43 GORE VIDAL = LOG (account) about A + DIVER all rev
45 POLENTA = PO (jerry, or chamber pot) + LENT (given) + A
47 T(E + STUD)O
49 SIGHT = aSkInG wHaT
51 SUDOR = SURe (Antiperspirant) about DO (gathering) – Unusual to find a brand name included like this
52 NARC = RAN rev + C
55 SUM = “SOME”

6 comments on “Sunday Times 4569 (22 Dec 2013) by Dean Mayer”

  1. Enjoyed this one a lot, in particular CHRISTMAS EVE and OLD ETONIANS, though there were plenty of others that were very smooth.

    For 56A, I think the “don’t miss!” is BE AT. Also, like you say in 3D, bee is just the longer spelling of B – I remember getting confused once by WYE showing up in a puzzle (maybe one of Dean’s also) as the spelling for Y.

    Dean, unfortunately, doesn’t set for the Guardian – more’s the pity.

    1. Forgot to add – the name Anax derives from the reversal of his daughter’s name, according to what he said in the Guardian’s Meet The Setter series.
  2. I got through this eventually in about 2 hours but I have an aversion to Jumbos and only undertook to solve this one because there was no alternative on offer at the time. I have question marks all over my sheet, but having checked that my answers are correct I really cannot be bothered to dredge through it all again to check the wordplay two weeks after the event. Simply too much of a good thing as far as I was concerned.

    Edited at 2014-01-05 01:56 pm (UTC)

  3. I spent a total of about 45 minutes on this, but spread it out, and enjoyed it a lot. I don’t have an aversion to Jumbos as such, but I often find them too much for one sitting.
    I also got 56ac wrong, but went with BELT. A belt goes round the waist, and to hit – or belt – someone means not missing them, right? No, I suppose not.
  4. Further on that fellow from Porlock,Eric Linklater wrote a humorous short story about this incident.
  5. Thoughts about the Person from Porlock
    BY STEVIE SMITH
    Coleridge received the Person from Porlock
    And ever after called him a curse,
    Then why did he hurry to let him in?
    He could have hid in the house.

    It was not right of Coleridge in fact it was wrong
    (But often we all do wrong)
    As the truth is I think he was already stuck
    With Kubla Khan.

    He was weeping and wailing: I am finished, finished,
    I shall never write another word of it,
    When along comes the Person from Porlock
    And takes the blame for it.

    It was not right, it was wrong,
    But often we all do wrong.

    *

    May we inquire the name of the Person from Porlock?
    Why, Porson, didn’t you know?
    He lived at the bottom of Porlock Hill
    So had a long way to go,

    He wasn’t much in the social sense
    Though his grandmother was a Warlock,
    One of the Rutlandshire ones I fancy
    And nothing to do with Porlock,

    And he lived at the bottom of the hill as I said
    And had a cat named Flo,
    And had a cat named Flo.

    I long for the Person from Porlock
    To bring my thoughts to an end,
    I am becoming impatient to see him
    I think of him as a friend,

    Often I look out of the window
    Often I run to the gate
    I think, He will come this evening,
    I think it is rather late.

    I am hungry to be interrupted
    For ever and ever amen
    O Person from Porlock come quickly
    And bring my thoughts to an end.

    *

    I felicitate the people who have a Person from Porlock
    To break up everything and throw it away
    Because then there will be nothing to keep them
    And they need not stay.

    *

    Why do they grumble so much?
    He comes like a benison
    They should be glad he has not forgotten them
    They might have had to go on.

    *

    These thoughts are depressing I know. They are depressing,
    I wish I was more cheerful, it is more pleasant,
    Also it is a duty, we should smile as well as submitting
    To the purpose of One Above who is experimenting
    With various mixtures of human character which goes best,
    All is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us.
    There I go again. Smile, smile, and get some work to do
    Then you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.

    Stevie Smith, “Thoughts about the Person from Porlock” from New Selected Poems. Copyright © 1972 by Stevie Smith. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

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