Sunday Times 4589 by Jeff Pearce

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
This is my first Sunday Times blog standing in for Dave, and as I have had a week to prepare it I have experimented with including clues which I hope will be helpful to those who don’t have them readily to hand. Definitions are underlined. This took me 43 minutes, which was a bit disappointing as I had started by writing in all the answers in the NW immediately on first reading, and the SW similarly apart from the unknown sheep. The remaining quarters presented more difficulty and I crawled home eventually after some quite extensive delays.

Across
1 Indian state’s leader is ambitious (2-5)
GO-AHEAD – GOA (Indian state), HEAD (leader)
5 At first boat has inexperienced sailor after source of oil (7)
BLUBBER – Boat, LUBBER (inexperienced sailor)
9 Discover a small safe (9)
ASCERTAIN – A, S (small), CERTAIN (safe)
10 Powerful financier tipsy behind boozer (5)
BARON – BAR (boozer), ON (tipsy?). I can’t quite justify the second part assuming that’s what’s intended. On edit: Thanks to mohn2 for pointing out that Chambers has a slang definition of ‘on’ as ‘on the way to being drunk’
11 Agricultural chemical from tea tree (6)
POTASH – POT (tea, slang for marijuana), ASH (tree)
12 Private place for a film? (2,6)
IN CAMERA – Double definition, one literal, one slightly cryptic.
14 Worse for wear after Saturday night? Quite the opposite! (6,4)
SUNDAY BEST – It’s hard to know how best to explain this one but it refers to the tradition of wearing one’s best clothes on a Sunday.
16 Scoff cod (4)
MOCK – Double definition
18 Bum note coming out of hard thing to play (4)
HOBO – H (hard), OBOe (thing to play). E is the ‘note coming out’.
19 Pay for the vicar? (6,4)
LIVING WAGE – A vicar’s position including pay and property is known as a ‘living’.
22 Rearrange a primate’s membrane (3,5)
PIA MATER – Anagram of A PRIMATE
23 Sheep having heart of large boxer (6)
ARGALI – lARGe (heart of ‘large’), ALI (boxer). I didn’t know this sheep but the wordplay led me to the unlikely looking answer.
26 Service in French is for the painter (5)
ERNST – RN (service – Royal Navy) inside EST (French ‘is’) gives us Max ERNST the German artist. Misdirected by ‘French’ in the clue, I wasted time considering Manet and Monet before the first checker fell into place and led me to the correct answer.
27 Angry gorilla ate short reptile (9)
ALLIGATOR – Anagram of GORILLA ATe
28 Different way to approach mountains (7)
STRANGE – ST (way), RANGE (mountains)
29 Perhaps NATO Member after American ally (7)
ACRONYM – A (American), CRONY (ally), M (Member)

Down
1 Skilful swimmer‘s weight – with special effort – reduced (7)
GRAMPUS – GRAM (weight), PUSh (special effort)
2 Caught a drunk outside racecourse (5)
ASCOT – A + SOT (drunk) outside C (caught)
3 Right nutcase misdirected Italian (8)
ETRUSCAN – Anagram of R (right) NUTCASE
4 Overpriced honey (4)
DEAR – Double definition. I don’t think something is necessarily overpriced because it’s dear but that’s probably a bit picky.
5 Mad family might be something to cause embarrassment (6,4)
BANANA SKIN – BANANAS (mad), KIN (family)
6 Get out of bed and attend bright and cheery (6)
UPBEAT – UP (get out of bed!!!), BE AT (attend)
7 Fan alone after grumble about City (9)
BARCELONA – CRAB (grumble) reversed, then anagram of ALONE. ‘Fan’ appears to be the anagrind here.
8 Harry was in charge of axe (7)
RANSACK – RAN (was in charge of), SACK (axe, as in giving someone the chop)
13 Bear toilet that’s nasty? No, do this to it (10)
OBLITERATE – Anagram of BEAR TOILET. I thought they simply used the woods!
15 Is the jellyfish such a simple thing? (2-7)
NO-BRAINER – Sort of double definition, one of them cryptic. A ‘jellyfish’ can be a weak or indecisive person who I suppose might uncharitably be said to have no brain. On edit: apparently the marine creatures actually have no brain so the first bit of the clue is more literal than I had read it. Thanks again to mohn2 for the info.
17 Jelly from a fish right round an oven (4-4)
AGAR-AGAR – A, GAR (fish), AGA (oven), R (right). There’s too much jelly around here!
18 Who buys headless insects? (7)
HOPPERS – sHOPPERS (who buys)
20 Nasty magpie bites head of red gnome (7)
EPIGRAM – Anagram of MAGPIE and Red
21 Soldiers with skill captured animal (6)
MARTEN – ART (skill) inside MEN (soldiers)
24 One leaves Battle for part of London on the tube (5)
ACTON – ACTiON (battle). This area of West London is served by 5 tube stations: North Acton, South Acton, West Acton, Acton Central and Acton Town.
25 A goblin held up tiny jumper (4)
FLEA – A+ELF (goblin) reversed

15 comments on “Sunday Times 4589 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. I do like this blog format, Jack. Didn’t know ARGALI nor PIA MATER, but I’d seen some other brain-related MATER in recent months so that helped.

    Re 10A, Chambers has one meaning of on as “on the way to being drunk (slang)”. Re 15D, I think it’s a reference to jellyfish (of the marine kind) not having a brain.

  2. Nice blog, Jack. I got through this pretty quickly for me, with the most trouble in the NE – it took a long time for the banana skin penny to drop (cute, that), and I wasn’t sure enough of the baron = financier read to rely on the crossers at first. Nice that the wordplay on the likely-to-be-unknown words was clear.
  3. Thanks for a really clear blog Jack. GK let me down with a couple (Pia Mater and the special meaning of “Living”), but managed to work out a couple of other obscure ones (at least to me!) from the wordplay – notably ARGALI and AGAR-AGAR.

    Got about three quarters of the puzzle out, but struggled in the North East. Having read your explanations now I understand and am kicking myself – should have got Blubber, Banana Skin and Barcelona.

    Good puzzle, great blog.

    Edited at 2014-05-18 01:20 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks, Nick. I only knew PIA MATER because it came up here once before (not that long ago) when I agonised over it for hours. Similarly AGAR AGAR, although that was several years ago for the first time and it has returned several times since. Perhaps this will be the first of many encounters with ARGALI for us both!

      Edited at 2014-05-18 05:11 pm (UTC)

  4. As all too often, I took forever, but –as not often enough–I finished it successfully. I was irritatingly slow in coming up with MOCK (needed the checkers) and ACRONYM (I knew the solution, just couldn’t for the life of me extract the word from memory). DNK ARGALI, but it seemed to be required, although I waited until the last to put it in. I spent unnecessary time on ACTON because of the (unnecessary, it seems to me) ‘on the tube’. On SUNDAY BEST: the reason Monday is traditionally washing day in the US is because Sunday was the day one changed clothes and bathed.
    Thanks to mohn2 for the ‘on’ explanation, and thanks, Jack, for the blog; and I definitely like the format.
  5. … much of a fan of JP puzzles. And 19ac was an example of why. What is there to go on? And 23ac is just obscure as. Rarely require aids — though I allow myself the luxury on the weekends. Coffee, toast and a boiled egg are more satisfying.
    1. I can’t say I don’t see what you’re getting at, but still, neither of these clues struck me as particularly beyond the pale. The -ing of LIVING was easy to get, and the rest followed, for me anyway; maybe because of all those 19th-century novels where the living of Thingworth is in the gift of Lord Whosis, but still. And ARGALI is only one of a number of mephistophelean words that seem to find their way into the daily cryptics from time to time; and the solution, given a checker or two, seemed unavoidable.
  6. No idea of tea meaning marijuana among other predictable unknowns. Fast/slow on this one – especially liked Barcelona. I also thought Living Wage was excellent.

    Edited at 2014-05-18 09:41 am (UTC)

  8. 16:55 .. Only just got round to doing this one. Can’t remember where I was last Sunday, so it must have been a good Saturday night.

    Several nice, pithy clues, of which I thought HOBO was the pick.

    Thank you, JP and jackkt.

  9. 18:37, unlike today
    No real issues although the clueing of 29ac is so standard as to be a write-in.
    1. Thanks, Peter, but I don’t quite understand. That definition in no.18 in my printed edition of Collins and I had seen it before I wrote the blog. Where’s the element of drunkenness required to match ‘tipsy’? One can be ‘on the beer’ i.e. drinking it, without necessarily being tipsy.
      1. Well you could say the same about the Chambers def as you don’t necessarily have to continue on that route, but it’s accepted as a justification for “on” as an anag indicator in barred-grid crosswords which are generally supposed to represent the strict end of clue-writing standards. I’ll have a think about whether to allow it again in the ST crossword.

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