Sunday Times 4630 by Tim Moorey

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I’ve cobbled this together quickly at late notice, so forgive brevity and errors. As you’ll have read above, Dave Perry is no longer able to fulfil his fortnightly blogging duty, so you’ve got me today.

I did this in 14:27 and I think I rather enjoyed it. There are a few very neat clues in here.

Across
1 Working area this month gets encouraging stimulus
A SHOT IN THE ARM – (AREA THIS MONTH)*
10 Laurel, for example is enduringly popular
EVERGREEN – DD.
11 Horse number? Haven’t a clue!
DUNNO – DUN is the horse, then NO for number.
12 New part of hospital coming over as stressed
DRAWN – N, WARD reversed.
13 Irons spotted where journalists meet
PRESS CLUB – to PRESS is to iron, and an iron is a type of club, so we have two irons, the second a DBE. Neat clue.
14 Open vessel in reverse
OVERTURN – or OVERT URN.
16 Hart perhaps from Indian state at rest
GOALIE – Joe Hart is a goalkeeper of some description for Manchester City, according to my son, our in-house expert. GOA is the Indian state, next to (at) LIE.
19 Credit given in issue for long piece of writing
SCREED – S(CR)EED.
20 Crack and Ecstasy with time can bring serious disorder
DEMENTIA – (AND E TIME)*.
22 Speed back on cycle to get to infant schools
NURSERIES – reversal of RUN, then SERIES (cycle).
24 Fire screens mobile in fishing vessel
SMACK – this went in on a bit of a wing and a prayer because I didn’t know the fishing vessel (although I suspect it must have come up before) and I wasn’t sure about M for ‘mobile’.
25 Five seen for a short time in bottom parts of church
NAVES – replace T (time) with V (five) in NATES (buttocks).
26 One gent involved with RADA?
TRAGEDIAN – (I GENT RADA)*. &Lit.
27 Boots could profit from this service maintenance
SPIT AND POLISH – cryptic definition.

Down
2 Cut outside engagement and cry
SHED A TEAR – SHE(DATE)AR.
3 British sports car failing to start daily?
ORGAN – mORGAN. ‘Daily’ as in newspaper, the question mark indicating a DBE.
4 Clumsy theatrical experiment? See me leaving
INEXPERT – (EXPERImeNT)*. ‘Theatrical’ is the anagram indicator.
5 Offer dinghy that’s easily damaged
TENDER – triple definition.
6 Penetrating instrument in finale top for operatic range
ENDOSCOPE – END, Operatic, SCOPE.
7 Kidney’s eaten by children? A little
RENAL – contained in ‘children a little.’
8 No op is planned to probe first toxic complaint
LEAD POISONING – (NO OP IS)* contained in LEADING.
9 It may be seen briefly in entrances to popular pubs
DOUBLE PARKING – P is short for parking, and you see it twice in the first letters (entrances) of ‘popular pubs’. And of course the surface serves as another definition, so this is an &Lit. Brilliant clue.
15 Black high fliers?
THE JET SET – CD.
17 Rakes hair out with tools
LOTHARIOS – (HAIR TOOLS)*.
18 In Paris I worked initially with off-pitch instrument
JEWS HARP – JE (‘in Paris I’), Worked, SHARP.
21 Could be carpet sag in an advanced state
WILTON – WILT (sag), ON.
23 Minister on high in drive to go faster
REV UP – REV (minister), UP (high).
24 What’s explosive for a multinational?
SHELL – DD.

17 comments on “Sunday Times 4630 by Tim Moorey”

  1. “for Manchester City” is an improvement, but you could add “and England” (48 caps, and the current first choice).
  2. 22:01 .. I found this quite tricky, but my main problem was with the excellent DOUBLE-PARKING clue. I eventually twigged it from the checkers, and only then did the light dawn.

    LEAD-POISONING took a bit of working out, too. Good stuff.

  3. Never heard of Mr Hart either, but I accept that football is a popular “sport” and have no complaint (and solved the clue OK). Just don’t get me started on their salaries…
    1. To be fair, at the end of the day, they have a lot of expenses: Bentley convertibles, the house in Sandbanks, daily visits to the stylist, and the tattoos … body art isn’t free, you know.
      1. “body art isn’t free, you know..”

        Indeed, I agree there is a price to be paid 🙂

        This is one of several indicators that humans have not evolved as far as we might think we have

        Bentleys, another matter altogether… but even they are just jumped-up Volkswagens nowadays, Hitler’s “Peoples Car”. A fine irony there, right enough

        1. Just to be clear, I have nothing in principle against the idea of (being given) a Bentley, even if they are German (honestly, makes you wonder who won the war etc blah etc). I’m just not sure a Bentley should be banana yellow or Barbie pink (for the missus).

          As for human evolution … I don’t see any reason to doubt that it’s happening, I’m just not sure of the direction of travel.

  4. Keriothe – Thanks so much for the quick response to my RFC!

    Nick – thanks for taking on the extra challenge, but I’m sure you’re ready for it! Go Nick!

    1. No problem. I happened to have a couple of hours this morning that I was supposed to be spending reading boring legal documents.

      Edited at 2015-03-01 09:11 pm (UTC)

    2. Thanks Andy. I’ll send you a separate email re. couple of quick questions….
  5. I completed 2/3 of this in 11 minutes (that’s really going some for me!) but then I thought this is too easy and put myself off so that I needed another 42 minutes for the remainder.

    I was also puzzled by m for mobile at 24ac but having looked it up I see it’s used with reference to mobile communications such as m-banking and m-ticketing, so like e for electronic before it we must expect to see a lot of more this in the future.

    I’m another who had no idea about the soccer player. Stanley Matthews and Billy Wright are more my mark so I’m not too keen on this ‘ere new policy of including people who aren’t long dead.

    Can a church have more than one nave?

Comments are closed.