Sunday Times 4595 by Jeff Pearce

Posted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
No real time for this: I spent 35 minutes on it, but I dozed off half way through, and then got fed up and cheated to get the last two or three obstinate answers.

This puzzle wasn’t really to my taste I’m afraid. There are a couple of clues that are hard purely by dint of using obscure meanings of relatively familiar words, some cryptic definitions that I didn’t enjoy, and some wordplay that to my eye at least is awkward. I’ve nothing against CDs in general but these just didn’t float my boat. There’s nothing really wrong with any of it so this is purely a matter of taste, and perhaps mild grumpiness.

Across
1 Before start of fight heavyweight backed Prince a lot
NOT HALF – TON (heavyweight) backwards, then Prince HAL, all before F(ight).
5 Crushes relative
STEPSON – or STEPS ON.
9 Diamond is an American singer
SOLITAIRE – DD. A SOLITAIRE is ‘an American or West Indian fly-catching thrush’. But you knew that already of course.
10 Host runs out in skimpy underwear
THONG – take an R out of THRONG.
11 Unorthodox priest’s wittiness
ESPRIT – an anagram of PRIEST.
12 Uncovered runner disturbing course of events
STREAKER – cryptic definition.
14 A natural player might be using it
TUNING FORK – another cryptic definition.
16 Copper with degree on an island
CUBA – or Cu, B.A.
18 Hood caught wolf endlessly in disguise
COWL – C (caught), then an anagram of WOLF.
19 China backed educational reformist going round about quickly!
GET A MOVE ON – a reversal of MATE inside Michael GOVE , then ON (about). The current Secretary of State for Education has been much in the news recently, although more for falling out with the Home Secretary than for his reforms. He is a reformer though, in the sense that he has taken an old Labour party policy and changed its name.
22 Scaremonger gets top celebs to carry weapon
ALARMIST – A-LIST containing ARM.
23 Warning doctor about onset of hepatitis
THREAT – H in TREAT. ‘Doctor’ is a verb here, of course.
26 Completely avoid an unpleasant thing
SHEER – DD. According to Chambers SHEER can mean ‘to take onself off, esp to avoid something disagreeable’. I didn’t know that, so this is one of the answers I checked before putting it in. I was tempted by CLEAR, which sort of fits. Hurdles are unpleasant things if you fail to avoid them at full speed…
27 Play it like Hendrix – no strings attached!
AIR GUITAR – I was looking for something to do with teeth, or the back of the head, or perhaps brilliance, but it’s just a cryptic definition. I suppose an AIR GUITAR doesn’t have any strings, but this seems a minor detail when set against the fact that it doesn’t have any guitar. There are air guitar championships, you know.
28 Excessive silver in church dwelling
COTTAGE – a collection of crossword standards: OTT, Ag in CE.
29 Bucket clergyman put in Triumph
PREVAIL – REV inside PAIL. The wordplay here strongly suggests a word for ‘clergyman’ inside a word for ‘triumph’. Technically the word order works this way round but I find it a little bit awkward.

Down
1 New American perfume being developed
NASCENT – N, A, SCENT.
2 I left upset ram without something it would eat?
TULIP – I, L upside down (upset) inside TUP (ram). Would a ram eat a TULIP? I suppose it would probably eat anything.
3 Are big cats unable to head off insects?
ANTLIONS – take the first letter off CAN’T LIONS (are big cats unable to) to get ‘a neuropterous insect similar to a damselfly, whose larvae trap ants in a funnel-shaped sand-hole’. I’m pretty sure I’ve come across these before: it can only have been in a crossword.
4 Repulse thin metal sword
FOIL – double definition. ‘Repulse’ seems just a little bit loose to me.
5 Loud senator going around with tin
STENTORIAN – anagram of SENATOR and TIN. I probably wasn’t alone in trying to get an F and Sn in here somewhere.
6 Hospital department about to finally serve main course
ENTREE – ENT, RE (about) SERVE. To me an ENTREE is a starter, and ‘main course’ is distinctly North American usage. Perfectly familiar though and of course neither is correct.
7 Chef’s aid holding 8?
STOCK CUBE – STOCK (holding), CUBE. 2 x 2 x 2 = 8. I’m sure we all tried to fit NIGERIA into this somehow. Not sure about the definition: no self-respecting chef would use one.
8 Country song, say, in reverse
NIGERIA – reversal of AIR, EG, IN.
13 Fragrance puddings possess?
AFTERSHAVE – or AFTERS, HAVE.
15 Shop with mint and herb books
NEWSAGENT – or NEW, SAGE, NT.
17 Shout about garden around conservatory
HOTHOUSE – an anagram of SHOUT inside HOE.
18 Indian drink in Cricket Club – Derby, say
CLASSIC – LASSI inside CC. The Derby Stakes at Epsom is one of the five Classics, the others being the 2,000 and 1,000 Guinea Stakes at Newmarket, the Oaks (also at Epsom) and the St Leger Stakes at Doncaster.
20 Ordinary person regarded as certain to qualify
NATURAL – double definition: one an adjective (‘ordinary’), one a noun. I’m not entirely sure about the second but the answer was obvious.
21 Shadow one going in part of Italy
UMBRIA – I inside UMBRA.
24 Minor player added
EXTRA – straightforward double definition.
25 Part of Noddy’s haircut
CROP – double definition. A noddy is a bird, so it has a CROP.

26 comments on “Sunday Times 4595 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. ‘Main course distinctly American usage’? Well, I’m British, have visited the US just once, exercise a strict dietary regime in terms of watching American television, and I’ve used ‘main course’ – and heard it used – for 50 years!

    Apart from that quibble, I have to agree with K about this puzzle, which took me52 minutes and against which I wrote ‘not especially enjoyable’.

    1. Sorry, I see I wasn’t very clear. I meant that ENTREE for main course (as opposed to a starter) is American usage.

      Edited at 2014-06-29 10:07 am (UTC)

      1. Of course, much depends on how many courses you are having and if you want to categorise them (all). Even with your clarification, I have to say that, though I’ve been long aware of the French use of entree, as a Brit I’ve typically used it and heard it used as a main course. A chav before my time, perhaps?

        On a related note, reading 18th and 19th century novels is fun, as ‘dinner’ can be used by the same author – sometimes if I recall correctly in the same book – to mean lunch and a meal taken in the evening.

        Edited at 2014-06-29 01:47 pm (UTC)

        1. Funny: I’m not sure I’ve ever come across ENTREE meaning ‘main course’ in the UK. Mind you most of the restaurants I go to are French, or at least French-inspired. Or Italian, but then you get a whole different set of terminology.

          Interesting, I’ve never noticed that about 18th and 19th century novels, and I’ve read an awful lot of them: I’ll look out for it if I ever read another. These days the correct term is ‘kitchen supper’.

          Edited at 2014-06-29 02:25 pm (UTC)

            1. Makes sense: calling the midday meal lunch or dinner is one of those classic markers of class, like saying ‘toilet’ or holding your knife like a pen. Bloody Nancy Mitford.
        2. Incidentally most of the dictionaries seem to agree with me about ‘main course’ being American usage. However both Chambers and ODO define it as an intermediate course between the ‘first and main courses’ (ODO) or ‘chief courses’ (Chambers) of a dinner, which isn’t a usage I’m familiar with. The Collins definition chimes exactly with my own understanding, so is obviously correct:
          1. (Cookery) a dish served before a main course
          2. (Cookery) US the main course of a meal

          Edited at 2014-06-29 02:13 pm (UTC)

          1. I can understand the need to include the intermediate aspect in the definition, since, as I alluded to before, one would need to account for the soup and fish courses in a full French repast.

            Phrases like ‘kitchen supper’, and the attitudes that lie behind them, is one reason I am pleased to live outside England!

            I will check out Tom Jones and the book I am currently reading, David Elginbrod by George MacDonald (bet you’ve never read one of his novels – very popular in the last third of the 19th century) to see if my claim can be substantiated.

            Edited at 2014-06-29 03:39 pm (UTC)

  2. Didn’t know either definition for SOLITAIRE but fortunately the checkers were helpful. Also didn’t know the “avoid an unpleasant thing” definition of SHEER and the adverbial usage didn’t spring to mind either.

    COD to the fragrant puddings, though AFTERSHAVE turned up in March of last year with the slightly less appetising clue “Pudding to eat that’s smelly?”

  3. Quote from Marco Pierre White: “I buy into simplicity. Knorr is the best f***ing ingredient in the world, let’s not kid ourselves. Knorr chicken cubes? Genius product. Every kitchen should have a packet.”

    Oh, I see what you mean…

  4. Thanks for the detailed parsing, keriothe. Clear as always, and in some cases necessary too, I’m afraid. A bit on the easier side, perhaps. I’m still enough of a rookie that I get excited when I finish a Saturday or Sunday in good time, in which case I completely forget if there were clues I found iffy. (Unless there is a made-up word, which I don’t forget).

    I was going to mention Michael Ruhlman’s late ’90s book The Making of a Chef – he’s a writer who went through a CIA course – in which the students who had professional experience before coming to formal study know to conceal stock cubes and packets of gelatin in their tunics on the days of exams, just in case. But your referencing Marco White does say it all.

  5. Well, I knew a reputable chef in Hong Kong (a Brit) and he was quite the fan of Marco. De gustibus non est disputandum?

    Going through a CIA course raises interesting images. African delicacies of toasted bugs…?

    Edited at 2014-06-29 03:44 pm (UTC)

    1. There’s no doubt that he was a great chef in his day, and of course he trained Gordon Ramsay, among others. All of which makes it all the sadder that he is representing Knorr, in my opinion. He must really need the cash.
      1. Not sure about Knorr, but Bisto, that’s the business, added to the roue made from the juices of the Sunday roast after the stock from the greens has been added!
          1. A Chinese friend bugged me for weeks to make sure that my daughter brought back 10 boxes of OXO cubes when she finished her A-levels in the UK.
            1. Someone should tell your friend that you can buy monosodium glutamate in China.
  6. I agree with the mild’y negative tone of the blog and some comments to date and I also resorted to aids eventually through sheer boredom. When I feel a setter is not playing entirely fair I lose interest and just want an end to it.

    I still don’t really understand 26ac. I never heard of either of the obscure birds (9 and 25) and a SOLITAIRE in jewellery doesn’t have to be a diamond though it may be, so a question mark or ‘perhaps’ might have been in order.

    Edited at 2014-06-29 05:17 pm (UTC)

    1. I’m no expert on jewellery but most of the dictionaries seem to suggest that the default gem for a SOLITAIRE is a diamond. Chambers and Collins say ‘esp a diamond’, and ODO says ‘a diamond or other gem’.
      1. I agree with Jack about the ? – solitaire may usually imply a diamond, but it always does so by reference to the style of setting. So, in my book, either DBE without a question mark or a “possibly” without a question mark.
    2. The two definitions are “Completely” and “avoid an unpleasant thing”. An example of the former (which ODO says is archaic though neither Chambers nor Collins do) is “She went sheer forward when the door was open”.
      1. Thanks. I seem to have lived a long life without meeting either of these meanings before! Sheer as an adjective meaning ‘complete, utter’ I would have known, however.
        1. I confess I didn’t know the adverbial usage of SHEER either, but it struck me as logical by extension with the adjective, and it was in the dictionaries so I didn’t think any more about it. Now that I do it does seem rather arcane, and the example quoted by mohn2 isn’t particularly helpful!
  7. A self respecting chef might make his/her own stock and freeze it in ice cube trays! Just a suggestion!
    1. Thanks, anon, you are an anon after my own heart, although an ice cube seems a very small unit. I freeze it in 500ml containers.

      Edited at 2014-07-08 11:45 pm (UTC)

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