Sunday Times 4638 by Dean Mayer

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
42:59. Judging by times on the club site I seem to have struggled more than others with this, and I certainly found it a real stinker. It’s a sign of how off the wavelength I was that I couldn’t remember the answers for an embarrassing number of the clues as I wrote the blog just a couple of days later. I’m not sure why really: there are a number of things in here I didn’t know, and some of the definitions are arguably a bit loose, but looking at it now none of it seems that hard. It never does, of course. In any event, I had plenty of time last Sunday so I appreciated and enjoyed the challenge.

I spent ages at the end on my last in, 17dn: a town I had never heard of with borderline-unfair wordplay. In the end the right answer is much more likely than the alternative, but I was very hesitant over it. No doubt everyone else has heard of the town so had no problems with it.

I think my favourite clue is 15ac. Some people don’t like cryptic definitions, but this one is a doozy.

Across
1 Urban sprawl is about to change with parking introduced
SUBTOPIA – an anagram of IS ABOUT with P for parking inside. A word I’ve never heard to kick off with, which rather set the tone.
6 Sort of average community?
PARISH – PAR is to PARISH as ten is to the time Sean Connery goes to Wimbledon.
9 God’s a great teacher in this
ADONAI – A (a), AI (great) containing DON (teacher). Another term I didn’t know. The wordplay is clear enough but I needed all the checkers.
10 Four cuts of meat fair
CARNIVAL – CARN(IV)AL, where ‘of meat’ gives you CARNAL.
11 Greek god, for me and America
PROMETHEUS – PRO (for), ME, THE US.
12 Have survived being crazy
AMOK – are surviving and ‘being OK’ the same thing? Marcellus Wallace clearly didn’t think so, but it’s close enough.
13 Prioritised cash, should a hotel open
BROUGHT TO A HEAD – OUGHT TO (should), A, Hotel contained in BREAD. I had to get this without the definition, since ‘prioritised’ and BROUGHT TO A HEAD have very different meanings in my experience. The dictionaries I’ve consulted seem to agree with me. What am I missing?
15 Spits as a result of confinement
IDENTICAL TWINS – I twigged the required meaning of ‘confinement’ fairly quickly, but I had to reverse engineer ‘spits’ (as in ‘spitting image’) from the answer. Super clue.
20 Very good circles and spots
ACNE – ACE (very good) surrounding N. Think fish ‘n’ chips.
21 In God is sin
WRONGDOING – this is one of those reversal clues where the clue is the answer and the answer is the wordplay. So ‘in God’ is WRONG (an anagram of) DOING.
23 Wire on right secured by band
TELEGRAM – TEAM (band) containing LEG (on, think cricket), R.
24 Huge game bird
OSPREY – OS (huge), PREY (game). ‘Prey’ is to ‘game’ as ‘feed’ is to ‘food’. Not quite the same thing, but close enough.
25 Fish died. Curry did it
SKATED – SKATE, D. Presumably there is or was a skater called Curry. You want me to do everything for you?
26 Final drama school film
LA STRADA – LAST, RADA. I had never heard of this Fellini film, but the wordplay was clear.

Down
2 Plumber not so inferior?
SOUNDER – DD. See Collins: ‘Sound: to measure the depth of (a well, the sea, etc) by lowering a plumb line, by sonar, etc.’ Edit: or, as kevingregg points out, you can read the second half of the clue as telling you that without the SO you get UNDER (inferior). Either route will get you to the answer, and you don’t have to show your workings. Unless you’re the blogger. Well that’s a bit embarrassing. An extended discussion of an answer that isn’t actually the answer: see below for further details. Apologies and thanks to kevingregg.
3 Cast in a mould, a little bird
TINAMOU – contained in cast in a mould. This bird appeared in a jumbo recently, where it annoyed me because it was clued by an anagram. This clue is much fairer.
4 Put a bloody coat on and have a night out
PAINT THE TOWN RED – two definitions, the more figurative one the one that’s actually used.
5 Early development of canine tooth (just the tip)
ANCIENT – (CANINE, Tooth)*
6 They will be sold off eventually
PERISHABLE GOODS – CD. Not strictly true, of course: most such goods are thrown away when they reach their best before date, which is usually long before they could reasonably be described as ‘off’. But you get the idea.
7 Surrey town rejected English name — that is right
REIGATE – E, TAG, I.E., R, all reversed.
8 Groom doesn’t nag — his wife did that!
STAN OGDEN – (DOESN’T NAG)*. ‘Groom’ is the anagrind. I have never heard of this character from Coronation Street (something he has in common with all the other characters from Coronation Street) so I needed all the checkers here. If Mr Ogden has/had a nagging wife this is a neat clue!
11 Uranium found in lead free house?
PUB – a chemistry clue requiring the symbols for lead (Pb) and uranium (U).
14 Artist controlled future date?
RAINCHECK – in Crosswordland an artist is usually a Royal Acadamician, or RA. Here he’s followed by IN CHECK. I’m not sure about the definition here: a RAINCHECK is the ticket you get for a future date when a game is rained off, but I’m not sure that’s the same as the future date itself, even if the word is being used figuratively (which it usually is, rather like painting towns red).
16 It’s hard to get up the day before everyone else
EVE – EVE, REST. If I were being picky I would say that ‘everyone else’ is the rest, but I’m not, so I won’t.
17 Irish town’s empty chapel on my left
CLONMEL – I agonised over this one. The wordplay can give wither CLONMEL or CLONMYL, and although the former looks more likely it’s not exactly a slam dunk.
18 Who’s quiet? A giant
WHOPPER – WHO, P, PER. The s stand’s for ‘has’ here.
19 Fall, when wind comes from the south
SAG – I wondered about ‘wind’ for the reversed GAS here, but one of the definitions for the latter in Collins is ‘an informal name for flatus’.
22 How note becomes not very much
NO END – because NOTE with NO END is NOTe‘.

19 comments on “Sunday Times 4638 by Dean Mayer”

    1. Ah yes, thanks. I just read SOUNDER as ‘better’, therefore ‘not so inferior’, which works fine so I didn’t think further.

      Edited at 2015-04-26 08:11 am (UTC)

      1. Wait a second; the solution is UNDER, not SOUNDER.

        Edited at 2015-04-27 06:24 am (UTC)

        1. So it is! For some reason I wrote SOUNDER as the solution when writing the blog and then never thought to go back and check.
            1. Yes. In fact it means that everything in my original explanation of the clue and subsequent comments is completely wrong.
  2. I got 17d wrong, never having heard of the place. Also never heard of STAN OGDEN, but nothing else would fit. ADONAI, a Jewish term for God (‘Lord’; the real name is not to be spoken), rather surprised me; it struck me as perhaps a bit on the Mephisto end of the scale. PROMETHEUS was a Titan, so the Greek gods would have considered him not ‘one of us’; this actually slowed me down for a couple of seconds. I took a lot longer than Keriothe, but there were some lovely clues, as always with Dean. I especially liked 15ac, 25ac, 22d.
  3. It beats me why more difficult crosswords are called stinkers, and this one was quite fragrant to my nose. Among the definitions you query only BROUGHT TO A HEAD got any eyebrow action from me and even so I’m happy to accept it. CLONMEL is a beautiful and familiar word. Hadn’t heard of STAN OGDEN, so something in common there. Marked SUBTOPIA as COD.
  4. Had heard of Clonmel, though not sure why. It is where Bulmers/Magners cider comes from, but that wasn’t it…

    Titans, including Promethius, were definitely gods and definitely lived in Greece, which seems pretty conclusive to me. Wikipedia says “Giant deities of incredible strength, who ruled during the legendary Golden Age, and also composed the first pantheon of Greek deities.” Both of Zeus’ parents were Titans…

    1. He was always sensitive about that, and would get very angry if you brought it up.
  5. Always thoroughly enjoy Dean’s offerings and this was no exception. Pretty much the same unknowns as Keriothe, but managed to deduce them all from the wordplay / inspired guesses

    Thought NO END was very neat, and loved the terse “telegramese” style of 25ac (coincidence regarding the across clue directly above being TELEGRAM?)

    Must admit I still don’t quite get how 18dn works (the PER bit).

  6. I don’t race the clock on Sundays but this felt like a ‘mean Dean’ (which is around 30 minutes for me).

    I checked CLONMEL, although I think I had heard of the racecourse (despite having zero interest in racing).

    COD … agree entirely with our blogger. IDENTICAL TWINS is indeed a doozy. It was also my last one in, so a double-doozy, which makes it, like, awesome.

    Edited at 2015-04-26 08:51 am (UTC)

  7. The first third went directly in, then I ran into pretty much all the difficulties with unusual words or slightly tangential definitions that Keriothe mentions. Knowing it was Dean, with his penchant for tightly constructed wordplay, helped a little here and there. Well over the hour.
  8. Well it was certainly a good mix of clues. Some were easy to solve and understand immediately, some I biffed and didn’t spend time worrying “why”, but there were too many unknowns here for me to achieve any measure of success as far as solving time was concerned. ADONAI, CLONMEL, TINAMOU, PROMETHEUS as a god, LA STRADA. I knew STAN OGDEN but he was my LOI as I’d never have expected him to turn up in a Times puzzle.

    I agree with the comment in the blog about PERISHABLE GOODS, and far be it from me to try to improve on the work of such a distinguished setter, but it occurred to me that the more simple “They shouldn’t be sold off” might have been more succinct and accurate.

    Edited at 2015-04-26 05:25 pm (UTC)

    1. During the solving I had it more as a double definition: They will be sold / off eventually. Does that work?
      Otherwise lots of unknowns and very loose, and I couldn’t spare the requisite time so went for aids early.
      Rob in Oz
  9. Doesn’t it mean that they will be sold when they are “off” ie gone off (spoiled)?

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