Sunday Times 4603 by Tim Moorey

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
This took me 21:07 according to the club timer, but with one error, which turned out to be a really irritating one. I often find Tim Moorey’s puzzles a bit tricky for some reason, and this was no exception, but I enjoyed wrestling it into submission.

It seems to me that there are a few occasions in this puzzle where either the definition or the way the wordplay works is a little looser than you might find in the daily Times cryptics. Is this my imagination, or perhaps a conscious difference of editorial stance? Either way, it’s only an observation. I’m not a Ximenean stickler, and I don’t have a problem with any of the clues in this puzzle. Some of it’s really classy, even (or perhaps especially) when it’s a bit rude.

Across
1 Inexpensive company car that’s dilapidated inside
CHEAPO – HEAP (‘car that’s dilapidated’) inside CO.
4 Budge had fine one back in thirty-four
FOREHAND – tricky one this. You have to ‘budge’ (make an anagram of) HAD, F, ONE and R, where R is the ‘back in thirty-four’. The definition is the whole thing, so this is what’s known as an ‘&Lit’, for reasons I’ve never understood. This clue is particularly tricky if like me you’ve never heard of Don Budge. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of him because I now know that he is considered one the greatest tennis players of all time. He was the first to win all four Grand Slam titles in one year, and remains the youngest player ever to have won all four in his career. Budge turned pro in 1938, and was particularly noted for his backhand, but I’ve no doubt that he also had a fine FOREHAND in 1934. Brilliant clue.
10 What may be attached to door handle’s helping
NAMEPLATE – NAME (handle) has (‘s) PLATE (helping). ‘Has’ is used here to mean something like ‘has with it’. Shortening it in this way disguises it as ‘is’, which helps divert attention by making you think ‘helping’ must be the definition.
11 Hybrid rhino found around Indian state? Not quite!
TIGON – TIN (‘rhino’) around GOa. ‘Rhino’ is an old-fashioned term for money you will encounter often in crosswords, but never anywhere else. A TIGON is a cross between a tiger and a lion, not to be confused with a LIGER, which is a cross between a lion and a tiger. Or is it the other way round?
12 Long-standing worker’s irritation after parking withdrawn
ANTIQUE – ANT, pIQUE. Here the shortened ‘has’ is disguised as a possessive. ‘Worker’ is a definition by example (DBE), but if you know enough about crosswords to be irritated by DBEs then you know enough to know that ‘worker’ is always ANT. Except when it’s BEE. Or HAND. The insects in question can also be social workers.
14 Somehow glean nothing left? Right!
ALL GONE – anagram of GLEAN, O, L. The words ‘nothing left’ are doing double duty in a way, because they are part of the anagrist but ‘right!’ (which serves as the definition) also refers to them. I point this out just to point it out: it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
15 Could be gents clever with IATA after tons lost
TRAVEL AGENCIES – an anagram (‘could be’) of GENTS CLEVER, IATA minus T (tons), and another &Lit.
18 Will they always support region in tremors near farm enclosures?
SHAKESPEAREANS – SHAKES, PE(AREA)NS. This was my error: my fingers managed to type SHAKESPEARIANS. This is a valid spelling of the word, but not a valid interpretation of the wordplay. I’m particularly annoyed about this because I would never normally spell the word with an I. ‘Will they always support’ is a great definition.
22 Youngster getting about in holiday island
MINORCA – MINOR, CA. I’m sure I’ve seen a version of this before. You can do something similar with MAJORCA.
24 Make good journey in single attempt
AT ONE GO – ATONE, GO.
25 Viagra vendor has the answer where man’s lifeless down below.
GRAVE – contained in Viagra vendor. The words ‘the answer’ are superfluous to the wordplay, but they don’t do any harm and of course they’re needed for the rather naughty surface reading.Total rubbish: the containment indicator is ‘has the answer’ and there is nothing superfluous at all. Thanks to JollySwagman for setting me straight. This sort of slightly rude clue (see also Dean’s fart joke last week) seems to be more tolerated in these puzzles than the main Times version. These slight difference in style between the puzzles (like naming setters, or allowing living people) are welcome as far as I’m concerned, if only on grounds of variety.
26 Hideous tabloid’s gutless in pieces distributed
DISHED OUT – an anagram (‘in pieces’) of HIDEOUS and TabloiD (‘tabloid’s gutless’).
28 Deposit dispatched containing small coin
SEDIMENT – SE(DIME)NT.
29 What some roads can be very near Land’s End
CLOSE – CLOSE (very near), lanD. ‘What some roads can be’ is a rather loose definition.

Down
1 Communicates with diplomacy amongst Tories
CONTACTS – CON(TACT)S.
2 Wood seen in reversing Daimler
ELM – hidden reversed in Daimler.
3 Nobody spots a conclusion to deadlock around flipping EU question
PIPSQUEAK – PIPS, A, deadlocK around a reversal of EU, Q. I learned from this that a PIP is a ‘spot on dice, cards or dominoes’. A topical surface that could have been paired with 1dn. Actually can something still be regarded as ‘topical’ when people have been banging on about it for over twenty years?
5 Function for each one in sorties regularly
OPERATE – PER (for each), A inside the odd letters of ‘sorties’.
6 Former Liberal coming round to praise
EXTOL – EX(TO)L
7 Mass of things coming from Malta George Cross
AGGLOMERATE – anagram (‘cross’) of MALTA GEORGE. Thanks to anon for spotting my – ahem – deliberate omission.
8 What I’d refuse to acknowledge is some yarn?
DENIER – I’m not quite sure how to parse this. DENIER is ‘a unit of weight used to measure the fineness of silk and man-made fibres’, and a DENIER is someone who refuses to acknowledge something, but I’m not sure how they fit together. Wouldn’t it work better without the words ‘what’ and ‘is’? In any event, it’s perfectly clear what the answer’s supposed to be, which is the important thing.
9 Small number abroad primarily supporting C&A chain
CATENA – A CATENA is a ‘chain or connected series, as in catena patrum, a chronological series of extracts from the Fathers on any doctrine of theology’. Sometimes you can read the definition for a word and still not have the foggiest idea what it means. I understand the wordplay though, which is TEN, Abroad under CA. If you’re not sure about ‘small number’, wait until the next time you’re really tired and see how much good ten winks does you.
13 Char I’d brought round longing for a whiteboard?
TEACHING AID – TEA (char), ID around ACHING. Another DBE, signalled this time by the question mark.
16 NCO conserving last of explosive material
CORPOREAL – CORPOR(explosivE)AL.
17 Excitable star does like some chocolates
ASSORTED – anagram of STAR DOES. Another rather loose definition. I ain’t bovvered.
19 Deputy who evidently doesn’t stand out
STAND-IN – no explanation needed.
20 Do please pass
ELAPSE – anagram of PLEASE. ‘Do’ is the anagram indicator. I’m not sure exactly which sense it’s being used in, but I can think of a couple that will do.
21 A masterpiece written up in outsize letters
OMEGAS – A GEM reversed inside OS.
23 Ambassador stopping odd drips from the nose
RHEUM – R(HE)UM. An ambassador in a crossword is almost always a HE. This is also still true in the real world.
27 Police officers caught dropping procedures
OPS – cOPS.

27 comments on “Sunday Times 4603 by Tim Moorey”

  1. Managed to get this one out as well as the Saturday, so feeling well chuffed! (Time taken another matter…)

    Could not parse FOREHAND, but slapped it in because I knew (vaguely) of Budge as a tennis player and the cross checkers fitted. Thanks to keriothe for explaining the excellent intricacies of this one.

    Struggled with TEN as a “small number” in CATENA. Of course it is, relative to millions, but spent ages looking for one, two etc.

    Re. our blogger’s observation about the “looseness” of the Sunday offering, my observation (very much as a new kid on the block) is that I can generally get the Sunday puzzle out OK, whereas many of the weekday ones leave me totally perplexed. For me, the Sunday is somewhat easier than the standard weekday: possibly this is just me being intellectually drained after a day at work when approaching the weekdays, or maybe there is a difference in style that somehow matches my wavelength.

    Either way, great fun. Thanks to setter and blogger.

    1. My sense (without any hard evidence) is that the Sunday puzzles are a little easier on average, although from time to time we do get a stinker, usually from Dean!
  2. I found this one quite hard for a Tim Moorey, not helped by convincing myself that 18A began with QUAKES (highly unlikely, I know). Catena is the same catena as in concatenate. Was a bit surprised at the appearance of stand in both clue and answer in 19D and wondered if it was a double bluff.

    For me, the ST Cryptics provide a welcome dose of humour and irreverence after the somewhat staid offerings that we get in the Times during the week, and any looseness doesn’t get in the way of my being entertained (though the definition in 29A here is a bit odd) – I’m less keen on looseness where it exists simply to make a puzzle hard.

  3. Having found this from checkers, Google revealed that Budge played tennis in the thirties, so the clue seemed to be really unfair for anyone with no interest in the history of the game.
    So thanks for the explanation !
    1. As someone whose interest in the history of the game certainly didn’t extend to actually having heard of the chap, I thought it entirely fair. I got it from the anagram fodder and checkers, and put it in with a shrug, thinking ‘I guess there must have been a tennis player called Budge’.
      1. The clue seemed unfair to me as I failed to see the anagram fodder, so it just looked like an obscure reference.
        1. Ah, sorry, I see what you mean. Well at least you managed to get it from the checkers!
  4. Can just remember hearing about Budge Patty, who won Wimbledon somewhere in the 50’s, so thought it might refer to him
    1. A correct answer arrived at for incorrect reasons is still a correct answer. Fortunately we are not required to show our workings!

      Edited at 2014-08-24 12:17 pm (UTC)

  5. This took almost 2 days with a gritty determination to parse the obvious 4ac. Got there in the end. CATENA came to me from catenary, which is the mathematical shape adopted by a heavy chain fixed at both ends. If the two ends are level, the catenary can be inverted to give the ideal shape of the underside of a bridge. The things one learns!
  6. 8 down – does not make sense, as Tim Moorey points out.
    9 down -why is ten a small number?
    4 across – never heard of him. If you don’t google Budge you haven’t a hope with this one.
    1. 8dn: the crossword is by Tim Moorey. The blog is by me. Be thankful it is this way round.
      9dn: why isn’t it? It’s all a matter of context, as I tried to point out in the blog. Would you accept four as a small number? Before you answer that you should know that you are talking to a man with four children. 😉
      4ac: I am living proof that this is not the case, because I hadn’t heard of Budge and I solved the clue unaided. The checkers _O_E_A_D are reasonably kind and the anagram fodder is all there… if you look hard enough.

      Edited at 2014-08-24 03:32 pm (UTC)

    2. Everything is relative. If I had had 10 heart-attacks, it would be a huge number. If as a result I had 10 days to live it would seem tiny. I guess though that in the scheme of cardinal numbers, 10 is very much at the low/small end
  7. It was a relief to come here and find that I didn’t know CATENA, less comforting to think that I ought to have been able to work it out from the wordplay. Also glad to see Keriothe articulating my worries about DENIER. COD to SHAKESPEAREANS.
  8. Took forever but got there in the end. Undoubtedly there’s clever stuff here but some of it seems a bit forced and trying a bit too hard. On the other hand there’s the utterly feeble 19dn.

    As a tennis fan, for me 4ac would have been more satisfying a) if “thirty-four” had some historical significance in Budge’s career, and b) if he’d been famed for his forehand whereas it was actually his backhand that was legendary.

    Edited at 2014-08-25 04:58 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, Budge’s backhand was better than his forehand, but the clue used in the clue was not “legendary”, but “fine”, which covers a range of meanings. And according to Wikipedia he left university in 1933 to play tennis. So the &lit definition is accurate. And as a crossword fan, “back in thirty-four” was a change from the “initially/at heart/ultimately” method of providing the last letter of the anagram fodder.
      1. Budge left Berkeley because he was picked for the Davis Cup auxiliary team (whatever that is) for the 1934 tournament. So it does seem to have been a significant year for him.
  9. Thanks, Keriothe – much needed explanations. I never got the NE, due to incorrect guesses at 4 and 14 both of which crossed 5 and 7. The rest I enjoyed for almost two hours.
  10. JollySwagman here – usually from the Guardian threads.

    Late here because I get them from The Australian a few weeks behind the UK.

    25a I would treat “has the answer” as the hidden word indication – so there are no “spare” words. Myself I am just as happy for needles to be hidden in haystacks as in needlecases but we don’t see that much any more but this one’s not one of those.

    8d I think is trickier – &littish but you have to read “I” as the key to the def – a bit like “this” etc in comp anag clues from the dark side.

    Great blog for a witty and enjoyable puzzle. Many thanks to S&B

    1. Hello JollySwagman, and thank you. You’re quite right on 25ac: it seems so obvious now!
      I’m not sure I understand your point on 8dn: I think the clue would be clearer written as “I’d refuse to acknowledge some yarn”. To me the words “what I’d refuse to acknowledge” suggest something that the DENIER would deny, rather than the DENIER herself. Perhaps I’m missing your point.
      1. From JollySwagman

        I’m wondering myself now. I think the main def “some yarn” is correct and I would have the same problem as you do taking the rest of the surface to give a secondary indication. But what if you take the whole surface instead? It doesn’t of itself point clearly to anything in particular so you are left asking the question “Who am I?” – and that keys the answer.

        So construction-wise that would be semi or partial &lit (depending on choice of terminology) but with the side normally occupied by wordplay (ie usually of the letter-fiddling type) taken by something a bit more curly and allusive.

        Unusual for this series I must admit.

        I’ll kick myself if there’s another explanation that we’re all

  12. I think Don Budge is notable enough. I am no tennis buff, but I’ve seen his name come up several times in popular media though the years. The first time I remember seeing him was as a McGuffin in some movie thriller … a mysterious package that appears in the protagonist’s suitcase turns out to contain a portrait of Don Budge. Can’t remember which movie, though.

    The clue for Shakespeareans was brilliant. One of the best I’ve seen.

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