Sunday Times 4607 by Jeff Pearce: roll the dice

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Oh dear. My personal crosswording bugbear is when an obscure word is clued in a way that makes it impossible to get the answer with certainty if you don’t know said obscure word, and in this week’s puzzle we have an absolute doozy. How’s your knowledge of East Asian palms? If it’s no better than mine, successful completion of this puzzle is a game of chance.

If you have the requisite horticultural knowledge, this is a straightforward puzzle.

Across
1 Pull out passage from a longer work
EXTRACT – double definition.
5 Try and support young bird
GOSLING – or GO, SLING.
9 Tory tours a city in rich gear
CAPARISON – C(A, PARIS)ON. An ornamental covering for a horse.
10 Run over someone acting in a crowd
EXTRA – triple definition.
11 A loud attack makes one scared
AFRAID – A, F (for forte), RAID.
12 Beefy blokes required to box new chief’s heavies
HENCHMEN – HE-MEN around N, CHief.
14 Stick around and see WI batsman in America making fresh start
TABULA RASA – reversal of BAT (stick), then Brian LARA inside USA.
16 Athenian character seen on lake with others
ET AL – ETA, Lake.
18 Put angler’s gear around unknown fish
DORY – reversal of ROD, then Y (unknown).
19 Two girls talked about amphibious creature
SALAMANDER – sounds like “Sal, Amanda”.
22 Briefly follow cat on a horse
STALLION – STALk, LION. The words ‘on a’ are there for the surface, but they make the wordplay a bit awkward. If you imagine an implied ‘with’ before the word ‘cat’ is works though
23 Journalists scrap outside flat
BEDSIT – B(EDS)IT.
26 Silver and gold at a marketplace
AGORA – AG, OR, A. If you haven’t come across this ancient marketplace before, remember it, because you will again.
27 Con left one boat inside as a replica
DUPLICATE – DUP(L, I, CAT)E. Cat is short for catamaran.
28 Magazine halted production a year later
THE LADY – (HALTED)*, Y. The magazine ‘for elegant women with elegant minds’ of which Rachel Johnson (sister of Boris) was the editor for a while.
29 Top and tail ugly palm
T_L_P_T – (TOP, TAIL)*. You have three vowels, and three gaps, so six possible answers. Only one of them is in the dictionary. Good luck!

Down
1 Hypnotise detective in hospital department
ENCHANT – ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat, the standard crossword hospital department) contains Charlie CHAN.
2 Spill milk on rising
TAPER – TAP (milk) then a reversal of RE (on).
3 Make public search for weapon
AIR RIFLE – or, er, AIR, RIFLE.
4 Get termination of employment and beg for work
TASK – employmenT, ASK.
5 Doctor eats grannie’s nutty biscuit
GINGERSNAP – anagram of GRANNIES inside GP. I’d have written this as two words, but Chambers at least has it as one.
6 Small swimmer creates pong
STENCH – S, TENCH.
7 Suggested private discussion, initially.
INTIMATED – INTIMATE, Discussion.
8 Curious angler goes round ship’s rear anchor
GRAPNEL – (ANGLER)* around shiP.
13 Dawn has a freak body that moves all over the place.
BREAK OF DAY – (A FREAK BODY)*.
15 Girl in pub beginning to enjoy song
BARCAROLE – BAR(CAROL)Enjoy.
17 Relevant stuff
MATERIAL – DD.
18 Notes minimal in this accompaniment
DESCANT – D, E, SCANT.
20 Climb down and negotiate again
RETREAT – DD.
21 Oscar winner – not in love with a wool producer
ALPACA – AL PACino, A.
24 Being keen, start to strum string instrument
SHARP – Sstrum, HARP.
25 Endlessly annoy hawk
SPIT – SPITe

10 comments on “Sunday Times 4607 by Jeff Pearce: roll the dice”

  1. 43 minutes with one look-up at TALIPOT which as I type is underlined in red so the LJ spell check doesn’t know it either. TABULA RASA was another unknown but at least the wordplay helped. Rather surprised to see Charlie Chan crop up as I doubt anyone under 50 would have heard of him.

    Edited at 2014-09-21 07:51 am (UTC)

    1. Well I am, and I have! In any event with ENC_A_T and the definition there’s enough to go on.
      I did know the phrase in 14ac, although I wouldn’t have defined it as a ‘fresh start’. I’ve encountered it quite a lot in linguistics, where a TABULA RASA is what we’re generally reckoned not to be when we’re born.

      Edited at 2014-09-21 08:49 am (UTC)

  2. Looking through my notes, my experience of Jeff Pearce’s puzzles is that they’re fun and not too difficult, but there’s often one word of which I’ve never heard (invariably clued via an anagram.) TALIPOT was this week’s, though from the anagram fodder and the checkers it looked the likeliest answer, which perhaps means I’ve seen it before.

    Didn’t help myself on this one by confidently bunging in EXCERPT at 1A. COD to 13D.

    1. I suspect you may have come across it before, because to me almost any combination of the vowels looked as likely as any other. I think I’d have plumped for TOLIPAT or TALOPIT if forced, but to be honest once I’d realised it was a lottery I just looked it up.
  3. Managed to get this one out, albeit TALIPOT was a guess based on checkers / anagram fodder available, and CAPARISON was unknown but was gettable from clue and cross checkers.

    Enjoyed ALPACA, rest of it all seemed pretty routine. Now, today’s offering from the Dean is a very different story… Struggling big time at the moment!

    1. Keep at it, Nick. I got through it eventually and it was worth the extra effort. Parsing it all was even trickier and I still have one that’s a complete mystery how it works other than the definition.

      Edited at 2014-09-21 12:33 pm (UTC)

  4. I suppose it serves me right for looking it up, but I wrote in TALIPOT with such a sloppy O that when I submitted, I typed it as a U. I bet I’ll never make that mistake again. I suppose 1ac is strictly speaking a dd, but I’d prefer a word pair with different etymologies; an extract is extracted=pulled out from a longer work. Meh. I wonder if Keriothe and us old farts know that Charlie Chan was based on a real Honolulu policeman.
    1. It’s certainly not the best clue I’ve ever seen. ‘Meh’ about covers it.
      I didn’t know that about Charlie Chan, no. But now I do, so thanks.
    1. Er… yes. What did you suppose I meant when I said ‘how’s your knowledge of East Asian palms?’ at the beginning of the blog?

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