Sunday Times 4588 by Tim Moorey

Posted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I’m standing in for Dave Perry today, so I’d like to take this opportunity to wish him all the best for a speedy recovery.

This is my first ever attempt at blogging, whether here or anywhere else, so please bear with me. My IT skills are not exactly first class so I’m grateful to Andy for sending me a template, and I take no credit for the appearance of what follows*.

I clocked in at 11:27. I often find Tim Moorey’s puzzles difficult, so it was a relief to get something gentle. My relief turned quickly to trepidation, though, because straightforward as this puzzle is, there was one clue I couldn’t explain. And try as I might, I still can’t. So on my first ever attempt at blogging I appear to have failed to fulfil the basic requirements of the job. Ah well.

I enjoyed this puzzle: it has a light-hearted feel.

Across
1 RAM RAID – cryptic definition. Geddit?
5 HACK SAW – HACK (journalist), SAW (spotted). ‘What’s used in cutting’.
9 RURAL – R (run), URAL (Russian river), ‘in the country’ is the definition. As far as I’m concerned ‘Russian river’ is primarily a viticultural area in California.
10 WHOLESALE – HOLE (dump) inside an anagram of WALES. ‘Neglected’ signals the anagram, ‘sweeping’ is the definition. Chambers defines ‘sweeping’ as ‘of wide scope, wholesale, indiscriminate’.
11 BLUENOSE – NOSE, a homophone (‘reportedly’) of ‘knows’ (is aware of) after BLUE (conservative). Not a term I knew. According to Chambers, a BLUENOSE is a ‘straitlaced and puritanical person’, and it’s also a nickname for a Nova Scotian: in the latter case presumably a reference to the weather.
12 TOILET – TO LET (available for hire) around I (one). An old chestnut and graffiti favourite. See also T.S. Eliot.
14 TWIG – DD. As this is a family blog I’ll say no more about the surface reading of this clue.
15 BRIDGEHEAD – BRIDGE (game), HEAD (nut). ‘A fortification covering the end of a bridge nearest the enemy’s position’.
18 HULLABALOO – HULL (skin, see also ‘husk’), A, BALOO (bear). Cf. The Jungle Book.
19 HIND – contained in ‘teach in deer’.
22 BRAISE – B (second class), RAISE (upgrade).
24 DOGTROTS – DOG (follow) TROTS (reds, of the variety found under the bed).
26 TOSCANINI – an anagram of IN ACTION around S (back of bus). A conductor in Crosswordland is often TOSCANINI. I guess he’s a bit easier to fit into the grid than Furtwängler.
27 ALIKE – AL (Gore), IKE (former president, Dwight D. Eisenhower). A rock’n’roll version of this clue is also available.
28 TANGENT – TAN (lay into), GENT (fellow). The definition is ‘touching’. A TANGENT also doesn’t intersect.
29 THE ALPS – T (time), HEAL (get better), P (parking), S (southern).

.

Down
1 RAREBIT – an underdone snack is a RARE BITE, so if it’s unfinished it’s a RAREBIT. I’m not sure about ‘underdone’ for RARE, though: as far as I’m concerned there’s no other way to eat some bits of some animals. In contrast there seem to be a thousand different ways of making Welsh RAREBIT.
2 MARSUPIAL – This is the one I don’t understand. Is the definition ‘jumper’? I can’t see anything else that would serve, although if I were a possum I’d be writing in. I can see an anagram of AU PAIR, and an M for ‘married’, but I can’t see where the L comes from, what’s got lost, or what ‘foreign’ is doing in the clue. With my self-kicking leg at the ready, I appeal to the floor for help. Edit: The L comes from ‘lost’ (see discussion below). ‘Foreign’ remains a mystery at the time of writing.
3 AILING – take an M (male) from MAILING (posting)
4 DOWNSTREAM – an anagram of TERMS AD around OWN (personal). There was a debate recently about whether OWN can mean ‘private’: I expect ‘personal’ will be less controversial.
5 HOOP – POOH (bear) up.
6 CHEW OVER – HEW (cut) in COVER (insurance).
7 SHAWL – L (line) under SHAW (playwright). An Afghan is a shawl that multitasks as a coat and a dog.
8 WRESTED – WED (married) containing (housing) REST (remains).
13 IDEOLOGIST – an anagram of OLDIES GO inside IT. I’m not sure what ‘grandly’ adds, either to the surface or the definition.
16 EDITORIAL – an anagram of TAILORED around I (one). ‘Worsted’ is the anagrind, in the sense ‘defeated’, I guess.
17 LAYS BARE – an anagram (‘organised’) of REASONABLY without ON (‘on leaving’)
18 HABITAT – A BIT (to some extent) inside HAT (Panama, with a question mark signalling the DBE) gives us the British retailer founded by Terence Conran in 1964.
20 DOSSERS – DOSSIERS (briefs) without the I.
21 AT EASE – A (adult), TEASE (kid).
23 ARSON – PARSON (clergyman) without his first letter (‘overlooking original’).
25 HINT – HIT (buffet) which contains (‘sandwiches’) N (last in reception).

*OK, I’m secretly quite pleased with myself for figuring out the colour thing in 19ac.

20 comments on “Sunday Times 4588 by Tim Moorey”

  1. Welcome to the blogging world! Re MARSUPIAL, I think the L is as jackkt says, as I’ve seen this used in other non-Times daily puzzles (e.g. Guardian 26186). I don’t know if there’s any dictionary support for this, though, and I’d always thought W/L/D stood for wins/losses/draws – in US sports, people refer to “getting the W” or “getting the L” . Can’t help with the foreign, as the clue reads fine without it – no doubt Peter will pop in to explain.

    I hadn’t heard of BLUENOSE or DOGTROT and I was sorely tempted to put in foxtrot for the latter until I realised it didn’t parse properly. Enjoyable puzzle.

    1. I hadn’t checked when I commented earlier but I’ve now confirmed that the COD has w/l/d as won/lost/drawn (in tables of sports results).
      1. I must be looking at the wrong Collins – it’s not collinsdictionary . com?
  2. I think the ‘L’ comes from ‘lost’ as in ‘Won/Lost/Drawn – W/L/D’ in league tables etc but ‘foreign’ is a mystery to me too.

    Congrats on your first blog, k. I don’t have a note of my solving time (nodded off again part way though) but it was a lot longer than your 11:27 and I really struggled with 2dn as my LOI. I got an easyish puzzle too for my first ST blog due next Sunday, but I’m completely bamboozled by one clue in today’s Everyman – not the answer, the wordplay.

    Edited at 2014-05-11 01:03 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks Jack. I thought ‘lost’ might be an L but I don’t remember seeing it before and couldn’t find it in a dictionary (I don’t have COD).

      Edited at 2014-05-11 06:43 am (UTC)

    2. The effective double anagram indication in 2D is a mistake which I failed to spot – too busy confirming to Tim that L=lost was OK despite not being in Collins or ODE. The use in league tables makes it one of the few I’m prepared to allow because (IMHO) they darn well ought to be in the dictionary. Apart from W and D, the only other case I can think of is Y and N for Yes and No.

      And I’ll try to remember that not quite all marsupials are noted for their jumping abilities.

      1. Thanks Peter. I don’t follow sport but if it’s used in league tables L strikes me as entirely fair game and it’s a bit odd that it isn’t in more dictionaries. Particularly Chambers, given the huge number of abbreviations it does have.

        As for marsupials, don’t forget koalas, wombats, Tasmanian Devils and opossums. 😉

      2. Way too late, but maybe it reaches your inbox not just the blog:

        I’d always thought the L in W-L-D was loss not lost. Your win-loss record might be 5-3.

        Cheers,
        Rob

        1. It turns out that even very late comments do reach the blogger’s inbox!
          See below: COD has the L as ‘lost’. I suppose it could be any of lost, loss or lose, but if COD chooses ‘lost’ then the setter is off the hook.
          1. The context where you can see W/L/D very often in a British newspaper is a league table, which is a summary of past results. In that context, “won, drawn, lost” makes sense as well as matching the dictionaries that have these abbreviations. Win-loss records are normally used in the US sports where draws are not allowed.
  3. I believe the correct answer is foxtrots. It does indeed parse properly. Fox is australian for “to pursue stealthly” (follow)
    Barbara
    1. Peter (ST Crossword Editor) would have to rule on the possibility of an alternative solution, but the published answer is DOGTROTS.

      Edited at 2014-05-11 02:27 am (UTC)

    2. In addition to jackkt’s comment, “gentle” doesn’t really fit the definition of foxtrot whereas it’s part of Chambers’ definition of dogtrot.
    3. As that Aussie meaning is in Collins, which is one of our references for this puzzle, and “gentle” can’t be called wrong as a description for the dance, I’ll tell the folk who run the draws that FOXTROT is acceptable.
  4. The best I could make of M at 2dn was M as in Monsieur, but he needn’t be married. 27 minutes with an unconvinced ‘foxtrots’ also, which might just scrape through on a stewards’ enquiry, I now note. (Post-solve I found ‘dogtrots’ – which I’d hardly heard of – after also considering ‘jogtrots’ – which I had, but wouldn’t fit.)

    Welcome to the new kid on the block!

  5. ……..in Toronto.

    Translated Veda ends “Bastard shaft etc”. (3,4,4,4)

  6. ‘jumper’ is colloquial Australian for a kangaroo. Hence foreign and marsupial
    1. Thanks anon.
      The issue with ‘jumper’ for MARSUPIAL is that it’s a definition by example (DBE), which is considered by some to be a no-no. I think sometimes DBEs are OK, and sometimes they aren’t. So ‘Old MacDonald’ as a clue for ‘farmer’ seems entirely reasonable, where ‘France’ as a clue for ‘country’ does not. It comes down to how archetypal of the broader group the example is.
      A roo is arguably an archetypal MARSUPIAL, but arguably it isn’t, because there are lots of others (wombats, koalas, Tasmanian devils, possums, opossums). I’m pretty sure though that if asked to name a MARSUPIAL most people would say ‘kangaroo’.
      As for the word ‘foreign’, it doesn’t apply to the jumper in the clue. As Peter explains above, it’s one of two anagram indicators in the clue and superfluous.

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