Sunday Times 4592 (1 Jun 2014) by Jeff Pearce

Posted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving Time: 37:47

I had this blog all written and ready to go several days ago and then completely forgot to post is yesterday, so apologies for that. I need a chance to get back in the swing of it, I suppose. Anyway, I’m back, having fully recovered from my stroke. Thankfully, it was a mild one, and I’ve been left with no residual weakness. Many thanks to all those who left messages of support at the time.

Anyway, enough about me. I found this a little unsatisfactory overall. There were certainly some good clues – 9a, 6d, and 20d was particularly devious, but there were others that I didn’t like at all – 12a, 18a, 23d and 26a was just unfair!

I liked the wordplay in both 9a and 8d, but I felt the surface let them down, so I’ll give my COD to 20d, although I didn’t understand it until post-solve!

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

Across
1 CRE(CH)E
5 MUS(CA)T
9 CAIRNGORM = CAR + M about (RINGO)* – ‘Rolling’ is the anagrind, ‘Stone’ the definition. Nice deception, not sure about the surface though.
10 AVERt
11 ATLAS + T (a symbol for troy, as in weight)
12 SENTENCE – I think this is just a dd, i.e. a grammatical sentence about a custodial sentence. It seems a bit weak though.
14 DEMOLISH = (MOLE)* in DISH
16 YARD = DRAY rev
18 SO(A)P – I’m not sure about SOP for fool. SAP, yes, but SOP? A sop is a weak or spineless person, but not really a fool.
19 LANCE + LOT
21 ATHENIAN = (A + IAN) about THEN
22 WAtch + PIgs + TIny – a type of deer, a particularly large one in fact.
24 PASS – dd
26 CAMARILLA = MARI in CALL + A – I’m always highly dubious about this use of unusual foreign names. It smacks of desperation on the part of the setter. Aren’t there enough common English christian names without allowing ones like this. I’ve never met or even heard of anyone called Mari. It’s particularly harsh when cluing such an obscure word.
27 DIADEM = DI + (MADE)*
28 POTTER – triple def – Waste time / wizard (Harry, of course) / snooker player
Down
2 ROCK THE BOAT – dd
3 CHIN + A
4 EIN STEIN – A beer glass in German – a reference to 7d: ALE
5 MOMENT – dd – that’s import as in importance
6 SPARE TYRE – dd – and quite a good one, I thought
7 mALE
8 HOUSEHOLD NAME = HO (Home Office, Govt dept) + USE (to employ) + H (Henry, SI unit of inductance) + OLD (aged) + MAN rev (chap to raise) + E (earl) – I put it in from the checkers and the definition, and only deciphered it later.
13 CAR-BOOT SALE – cd
15 OPPRESSED = PRESS ED after OP
17 SNOW (Jon, anchor for C4 News) + DROP
20 SITCOM – A bit devious, this one, it’s CT in MOIS all rev. Mars is an example of a French month (March), and mois is French for ‘month’ – the ? indicates the dbe.
23 PILOT – I think this is just I (international) in PLOT – but the wordplay doesn’t seem to quite work for me. There seem to be superfluous words.
25 ALI – rev hidden

10 comments on “Sunday Times 4592 (1 Jun 2014) by Jeff Pearce”

  1. I was wondering if it was just me at 26a, and devious (tortuex?) is the word for 20d. Good to have you back, Dave.
  2. Thanks Dave: I was a bit worried for a while that I’d got the blogging order mixed up. Not that there was anything I could have done about it yesterday.
    26ac is just dreadful as far as I’m concerned. An obscure word with a clue that leads to CAMARYLLA. Even if I had heard of the word I doubt I’d have been sure enough of the spelling to trust MARI over MARY.
  3. I had similar misgivings. Never heard of CAMARILLA nor of MARI so I consider 26 is a rubbish clue and the wordplay at 20dn is just as bad. 23 is feeble as is 12ac. Was the editor on holiday when this puzzle came up for review? The odd dodgy clue is one thing but three or four in the same puzzle stretches one’s tolerance almost to breaking point.

    Edited at 2014-06-09 09:19 am (UTC)

  4. This is only remotely connected to the grid in question but does anybody have any idea how to enter a competition crossword on iPad. I can see the grid which has an option marked “pencil” which I assume has some relevance but clicking it makes no difference.

    Robert

    1. Robert,

      You might consider putting your question into one of the daily blogs, as it is likely to get a larger audience. Solving by iPad is a known problem but suggestions do come periodically. I solve on iPad through the app and I know that keriothe does the same but I cannot get myself on to the leaderboard or submit solutions.

      1. Thanks for your helpful reply, although it does not seem very hopeful. Perhaps I’ll revert to snail mail although 30 years of submissions of the Saturday Crossword produced no return. I think
        I’ll just buy a pen
  5. Great to see you back, Dave.

    The M_R_ in 26A seemed a toss-up between MARY, MYRA, and MARA, and I was unamused to find it was none of them. In hindsight, the LLA at the end of the word should have maybe suggested to me that it was a Spanish diminutive, but even if I’d noticed that I think I would have baulked at MARI as the name.

    COD to the unfortunate mole in 14A.

  6. 15 minutes or so. I did like CAR BOOT SALE and loved the unfortunate mole, as mohn memorably puts it.

    I also had a grumble (to the cat) about Mari, but I’m not sure we can call it a “foreign” name, at least not without alienating our Welsh contingent (we must have one). I gather Mari is a legitimate Welsh name, and … Mari Lwyd (Grey Mare or “Gray Mary” in English), also Y Fari Lwyd, is a Welsh midwinter tradition, possibly to celebrate New Year, although it formerly took place over a period stretching from Christmas to late January. It is a form of visiting wassail, a luck-bringing ritual in which the participants accompany a person disguised as a horse from house to house (including pubs) and sing at each door in the hope of gaining admittance and being rewarded with food and drink. [Wikipedia]

    I think I once spent New Year disguised as a horse but it wasn’t in Wales and, to be honest, the details are a bit sketchy.

  7. Welcome back, Dave. I had pretty much the same reaction as others to e.g. 26ac; but a word-internal Y seemed pretty much out of the question. DNK POTTER in the snooker sense, but that didn’t matter much.
  8. As someone else whose brain problem eventually turned out to be less dramatic than first thought, another welcome back for Dave.

    jackkt: Holiday? No, and as I get the regular crosswords at least a month before time, I should never be able to use that excuse. There was an opposite problem when I checked this one – extra work on our four-week extra puzzles content in May. That’s about half an excuse for failing to look up Mari and confirm that its apparent plausibility was matched in reality. I think Dave’s “bit devious” is the right description for 20D, and the “feeble” two might be the clues that help a few beginners get started.

    rob_berks: the current iPad crossword solving interface doesn’t do automatic entries in the same way as the crossword club version. For the ST crossword (but not yet Times ones), you can email a screen grab of a completed crossword on the iPad – to puzzle[dot]entries[at]sunday-times.co.uk

    Edited at 2014-06-11 01:22 pm (UTC)

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