Sunday Times 4619 by Jeff Pearce

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
13:16. A solid effort from Jeff Pearce this week. Most of it is fairly standard stuff, but there are one or two very neat clues. Not a desperately hard puzzle, but there’s nothing wrong with that of course. There were a couple of things I didn’t know, but the wordplay is all perfectly clear.

Across
1 Turner and I apply new colour
TYRIAN PURPLE – (TURNER, I APPLY)*. Not a colour I’ve come across before so I needed the checkers to get the TYRIAN part. Nice clue.
7 Little dog nibbles maiden’s shoe
PUMP – PU(M)P.
9 Book contracted prisoner and current engineer
MARCONI – MARk, CON, I. This chap. ‘Current’ for I is a crossword staple. I’ve never encountered it anywhere else, but then I’m not an electrician.
10 Declare bishop head of diocese in loudly, say
ADVERB – A(Diocese)VER, B. Slightly odd clue this: the surface doesn’t make any sense as far as I can tell.
12 Use peeler round hard meat
CHOP – COP (policeman, peeler, after Robert Peel) around H (hard).
14 Inspired by 20?
UPLIFTED – DD, where one of the definitions is the answer to 20ac.
15 Himalayan idol endlessly visiting resort
SHERPA – S(HERo)PA.
16 European guy had issue
EMANATE – E (European), MAN, ATE (had).
18 Lettuce in sticky stuff is something tasting sweet
GLUCOSE – GLU(COS)E. I don’t like the sound of this recipe.
20 Brought up wine outside top-notch school
RAISED – R(A1, School)ED.
21 How nice to be home by six with can finally opening
INVITING – IN (home), VI (six), TIN (can),openinG. Not sure what ‘how’ is doing in the clue, other than helping the surface.
23 Transport getting poles past museum
VANS – VA, NS (poles). I’m not sure I’ve see the V&A called the VA before.
25 International graduate noticed Western condiment? Japanese actually.
WASABI – ‘western’ indicates the letters are heading west, i.e. to the left, i.e. it’s a reversal of I, BA, SAW, giving us the Japanese horseradish that makes your eyes run when you’re eating sushi and isn’t actually horseradish.
27 Capuchin could be such a senior clergyman
PRIMATE – DD, one referring to a monkey.
28 Provided silver to go in pudding
SAGO – S(AG)O. SO for ‘provided’ is in the dictionaries, but I’m not sure it’s much used.
29 Sailor has a collection of spices and volunteers tasty spread
TARAMASALATA – TAR, A MASALA, TA.

Down
1 Love fickle voters in cherished gatherings
TREASURE TROVES – TREASURE, (VOTERS)*.
2 Out of work? That’s extremely dull at heart.
IDLE – IE (id est, that’s) with DulL inside it (‘at heart’).
3 Sedate a tense Australian native
NUMBAT – I wanted this to be WOMBAT. I think I have probably come across this creature before but I wasn’t sure enough to put it in until I had all the checkers. Unfortunately I wasn’t sure enough to put 1ac in until I had all the checkers either, which caused me a little bit of a problem.
4 Ignorant and unknown – just like a poor scout!
UNREADY – UNREAD (ignorant), Y. The motto of the Scouts is ‘be prepared’.
5 Expert on China holding sailor’s offer
PROPOSAL – PRO, P(OS)AL, where OS is Ordinary Seaman and ‘China’ is Cockney rhyming slang, as usual.
6 The picture is featuring “The Ten Commandments”?
EPIC – contained hidden in the picture. The question mark signals a definition by example, referring to a film that I expect has Charlton Heston in it.
8 Dad finds shiny coin outside uni in the country
PAPUA NEW GUINEA – PAPA, NEW GUINEA (shiny coin) surrounding U.
11 Drunk rival with a gun is an unpleasant sort
VULGARIAN – (RIVAL, A GUN)*.
13 Esso’s last chairman sacked? Blow me!
HARMONICA – (essO, CHAIRMAN)*.
17 One theologian left row without looking smaller
TIDDLIER – T(I, DD, L)IER. DD stands for Divinitatus Doctor, which is Latin for ‘Doctor of Divinity’. In crosswords ‘theologian’ is usually DD, ‘one’ is usually I, ‘left’ is usually L, and ‘row’ is usually TIER. The definition is a bit odd, but makes the surface work, gramatically at least.
19 It’s hard to carry shell-like weapon
FIREARM – FIR(EAR)M.
22 As are the Spanish when entering oaths?
VOWELS – VOW(EL)S. Neat definition.
24 Notice of old toys doing their stuff?
SPOT – spinning TOPS (old toys), spinning. Another neat clue.
26 Start to supply petroleum: it’s needed for growth!
SOIL – Supply, OIL.

16 comments on “Sunday Times 4619 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. A very enjoyable and satisfying puzzle and most of my points have already been covered, however…

    My two unknowns were TYRIAN PURPLE and NUMBAT.

    I also wondered about SO = “provided” but I vaguely remember querying it once before and looking it up, so I let it pass.

    I also wondered about VA for V&A but concluded when you write VA you are effectively writing V and A, the name of the museum, and that makes it okay.

    I thought SPOT and VOWELS were clued superbly.

    Edited at 2014-12-14 10:59 am (UTC)

  2. Gentle for a Sunday, though I didn’t know the colour and was glad none of the other anagram alternatives looked likely. Am I having a memory lapse or do we not often see s for school (20A)? It’s in Collins but I couldn’t recall it making (m)any appearances before. Was also surprised by 10A, as the Sunday puzzles are generally good for surfaces.
  3. A gentle 25 minutes with the same unknowns as Jack, and an unconscionable amount of time spent trying to work out PNG. Was assuming ‘and’ for the 3-letter word.

    Edited at 2014-12-14 02:40 pm (UTC)

  4. There was some discussion on the Club Forum about the spelling of this and I know I get it muddled. Except that I wasn’t completely addled because our local Greek restaurant does indeed spell it “taramOsalata” which I gather from the OED is the modern Greek version. Luckily the clue was crystal clear so I wondered if the solver who questioned it might have been confusing “masala” the spice-mix with “marsala” the wine.

    Another Forum comment took exception to “unready” in 4d and seemed to think it should only be used in conjunction with the eponymous Ethelred….

    1. I’ve always spelled it with and A so the problem never even occurred to me. Confusing masala and Marsala would be a bad thing to do if you’re making a curry, and a terrible thing to do if you’re making tiramisu.
  5. I knew TYRIAN from a short story by Saki.
    Faced with a bluff old major’s boring safari anecdotes, Reginald retaliates: “I used to listen to him with a rapt attention that I thought rather suited me, and then one day I quite modestly gave the dimensions of an okapi I had shot in the Lincolnshire fens. The Major turned a beautiful Tyrian scarlet (I remember thinking at the time that I should like my bathroom hung in that colour).”
  6. Thanks for the informative blog, keriothe. But if I wake up with the cold sweats having dreamt of masala-flavoured tiramisu, you’re for it.
    1. Hi Anon.
      No, ‘loudly, say’ is the definition. The ‘surface’ is how the clue as a whole reads. So in 13 down (to pick a random example) the surface is a statement about the firing of Esso’s chairman. In 10 across it’s something about bishops, but it doesn’t make any sense.
      1. I now think I understand what surface means. If I am correct isn’t the surface of the clue “declare bishop head of diocese”. This is a coherent statement and seems to make sense.
        1. The ‘surface’ reading is just a literal meaning of the words in the clue, as opposed to the ‘cryptic’ meaning that gives you the answer. In a good clue there is a coherent surface that is not related to the cryptic reading. In good clues the surface meaning disguises the cryptic: in 29ac for instance ‘volunteers’ is a verb in the surface meaning, but a noun in the cryptic, which helps to misdirect you.
          In 10ac the surface is not coherent because you can’t just ignore the words ‘in loudly, say’. The fact that they don’t fit also makes the definition much easier to spot.
          1. Hi Keriothe
            I think that I am gradually getting there – if the word “in” was taken out of the clue would that resolve it as the clue would then have a literal meaning, which it does not with the word “in” in it?
            Many thanks.
            1. Removing the word ‘in’ would make sense of the surface, but would muck up the wordplay, because ‘in’ is the instruction to put D inside AVERB.
  8. ………..in 25 years of doing ST and various other cryptics (about two/three a week) this is the first time we have ever encountered clues that were solvable just by getting all the cross letters.
    1. I have certainly encountered it before, but I’m not sure if I’ve seen it in the Times or ST. As I understand it there is a defined set of grids allowed for the Times puzzles, but I don’t know if this policy is adopted for the ST puzzles. I’ll see if I can find out.
      This grid is also a bit odd in having a square block of black squares in the top left and bottom left corners.
    2. Peter Biddlecombe has given an interesting answer to this question here if you’re interested (and still reading!).

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