Sunday Times 4620 (14 Dec 2014) by Dean Mayer

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Solving time: 52:00

Another excellent offering from Dean. A soupcon of seasonal cheer to boot. 13d had me laugh out loud and was easily my COD, but there were lots of other clues that deserve a mention – 4a, 17a, 2d & 6d among others.

I think this is my last blog before Christmas, so Season’s Greetings to all.

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

Across
1 PART + Yet – I wasn’t quite sure about the definition here, but I guess you can talk about ‘a party atmosphere’ which is close enough.
4 EXHAUSTED = EH about X + (DATE)* about US (used for ‘me’ up north) – lovely surface. My FOI
9 SMALL BEER – dd
10 DR(E)AM
11 D(AI)S – The Nintendo DS is the handheld games console
12 CAMEO ROLES = CAME (were supplied) + R in (LOOSE)*
14 NO GREAT SHAKES = (SEA STRONG)* about HAKE – although I tried to convince myself of NO STAGE SHAKER as a mediocre actor for a while until the penny dropped.
17 WITHIN EARSHOT = (I WON’T HEAR THIS)* – a beautifully apt anagrist for this semi-&lit
19 ST NICHOLAS = SAINTS rev about (CH + LO rev)
21 HOARd
23 BRILL – dd
24 A LAB ASTER
25 oRdErS + URGENT
26 S + PECK
Down
1 PASADENA = ASAP rev about ADEN
2 ROARING TWENTIES = (WINTER IS + NO GREAT)* – sneakily stealing part of the anagrist and the anagrind from 14a
3 YULE = “YOU’LL”
4 EDEMA – hidden – although the ‘over there’ seems somewhat superfluous, a not a little misleading, to me.
5 HORSESHOE = (SO HE OR SHE)*
6 UNDERSKIRT = (DRUNK TRIES)*
7 THE OLD SCHOOL TIE – dd – a kipper being an old-fashioned, very wide necktie.
8 DAM + ASK
13 TESTICULAR = LUCk + ITS all rev in TEAR (drop) – ‘of ball’ is the marvellous definition. Typically Anax, and my COD.
15 TRILOBATE = TRITE (worn) about LOB + A – Not a word I knew, so I had to work it out from the wordplay. I had TRILOBITE at first, but 24a fixed the mistake.
16 STAR TREK = START + “WRECK”
18 I + SO(B)AR
20 A + VAST
22 MASS – hidden &lit

8 comments on “Sunday Times 4620 (14 Dec 2014) by Dean Mayer”

  1. Close but not quite there! With the first R & Y in 1 ac I plumped for MERRY (without being able to parse it, not surprisingly…) which then meant I could not see Pasadena. And I also missed DAIS having no idea about game consoles.

    Other than that, all present and correct and a most enjoyable puzzle. Particularly liked 7dn (loved the surface), and 13 was a hoot.

    Thanks for the explanations Dave.

  2. Excellent by most standards but probably only very good by Dean Mayer standards. 13dn was clever and funny, and it needed to be to make up for the clunker at 8dn. WITHIN EARSHOT, although beautifully clued, is not to my mind a standard phrase in the way that NO GREAT SHAKES is. Them’s the bad bits. The good bit is I liked it a lot.
    Happy holidays to setter and blogger.
  3. Not quite able to finish without aids nor to parse every last clue before coming here. Still I felt quite pleased with my efforts given that I had limited time to spend on it.

    US for ‘me’ isn’t only northern as demonstrated in the expression ‘give us a kiss’ which might be said anywhere in the UK (I don’t know about abroad).

    Unlike the blogger I was grateful for ‘over there’ at 4dn to indicate the American spelling of ‘oedema’. At least I assume that’s what’s going on as it sprang to mind immediately, but on reflection the song title ‘Over There’ by George M Cohan that popularised the expression during the Great War actually referred to this side of the pond, i.e. where ‘the Yanks are coming’ to, and ‘won’t come back till it’s over over there’. Or maybe the clue is being less specific and simply indicating that the answer is not the English spelling.

    DS at 11ac is an example of one of the concerns I have about modern popular culture creeping into puzzles. An abbreviation (or whatever it is) that’s not in any of the usual sources is a bit unfair in my book. Still, at least the answer was obvious so it only held me up in the parsing.

    Edited at 2014-12-21 09:06 am (UTC)

    1. The last one to say to me ‘give us a kiss’ was in fact a broad.
      I didn’t know DS either but I can’t share your concerns about popular culture creeping in. The language evolves and solvers and dictionaries have to try to keep up.
    2. At 4D ” over there” was our indication of the US spelling. Apart from “here” in the Sunday Times surely being London rather than NY, you could also base it on the WWII saying about US troops being “overpaid, oversexed and over here”.

      Popular culture: can’t see why this is any more unfair than expecting people to know characters in Shakespeare, or other less up-to-date things we can do without any comment.In both cases, some people will know it and some won’t.

      Edited at 2014-12-21 11:26 am (UTC)

      1. Yes I had made that point in an earlier edit of my comment when I was starting to argue against my original idea, but it got lost in favour of the more general thought at the end of my 3rd para. Just thinking aloud really.

        I take your point about popular culture but the difference as I see it is that Shakespeare and other less up-to-date things are almost always available in standard reference books whereas the only place I could find out about the DS thing was by Googling it – something I prefer not to do re crosswords except as a final resort. Again it’s no big deal on the odd occasion but if a puzzle was found to be full of such stuff regularly I’d not bother trying to solve it.

        Edited at 2014-12-21 01:24 pm (UTC)

  4. Thanks as ever for a great blog, Dave.
    Just a note about the clunker at 8d – yes it is, but not accidentally. This was a clue we edited slightly to tighten up one of its defs and I briefly considered looking for a different wordplay approach until I checked the clues for the three crossing answers. All of these had enough trickery to cause potential problems so I thought it better to make 8d straightforward, hopefully a write-in.
    A very Happy Christmas and New Year to you all.
  5. Thanks for a good puzzle Anax, and thanks for explaining some of the parsings, Dave. I kind of agree with Jack about words not yet in the sources. I’d be wholly there if it was in the middle of a long and difficult word; in a case like this where everything else is perfectly clear It doesn’t bother me much. And, I got to thinking that, if the rules and vocabulary didn’t evolve, we’d still, be in the proverbial Victorian drawing room and would probably have been deprived of the amusing13d.

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