Sunday Times 4650 by Dean Mayer

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
21.05. I found this relatively tough, but not excessively so, which is exactly what I want on a Sunday morning. Judging by comments on the club site and a time that is well within two Magoos, I must have been on the right wavelength. As ever with Dean’s puzzles there is some creative and original stuff in here, and I for one enjoyed solving it a lot.

Across
1 Secret boozer in East Morecambe
ESOTERIC – E (East), ERIC (Morecambe) containing SOT (boozer).
6, 8 What Breaking Bad doctor ordered that didn’t work
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD – (WHAT BREAKING BAD DOCTOR)*. Neat anagram!
9 Navy in bay, retreating temporarily
FOR NOW – RN (Royal Navy) in a reversal of WOOF (bay).
10 No union member will carry wood that’s dirty
UNWASHED – UNW(ASH)ED, where ‘no union member’ is the cunning definition of UNWED.
11 Bond character filling out note during conference?
PADDINGTON BEAR – ADDING TO (filling out), NB (nota bene = note) contained in PEAR (conference?). From the books by Michael Bond, recently made into a lovely film.
13 Live TV or not, a bust is convincing, but false
BEN TROVATO – BE (live), (TV OR NOT A)*. This expression appeared in another of Dean’s puzzles in October last year. I didn’t know it then, and the clue defeated me (as did a number of others in that puzzle). This time I remembered it.
15 Shout a greeting, having left
HOWL – HOW (greeting), L.
16 It may be smooth and hard
PATH – PAT (smooth), H. A semi-&Lit. I initially bunged in IRON with great confidence. Fortunately something (I can’t now remember what) made me reconsider.
17 One trusted to get “creative” with books?
ART STUDENT – A (one), (TRUSTED)*, NT (books). This is a full-fat &Lit where the clue is both all wordplay and all definition.
18 Lost easy matches in Lincoln, possibly?
AS THE CASE MAY BE – (EASY MATCHES) contained in ABE (Lincoln). ‘Possibly’ is such a common word in crossword clues (usually to indicate a definition by example) that it’s hard to spot when it’s the definition.
21 Lovely lady hosts English party in Ireland
FINE GAEL – FINE GA(E)L. I knew what the answer to this was going to be immediately, but I waited for some checkers to be sure of the spelling.
22 “Man” versus a backward “woman”
VASSAL – V, A, then a reversal of LASS. I was a bit surprised by the definition here. I assume ‘man’ is being used in the sense of a gentleman’s personal gentlemean, or valet, but if that’s the case then VASSAL seems a bit strong. Perhaps I’ve got the wrong end of the stick.
24 So long without work, man ultimately forgotten
BYGONE – BY(GO, maN)E.
25 Without question, squaddies could be put off
DISSUADE – (SqUADDIES)*. I wasted time trying to find something that ended with -ED. But the tense in the surface reading doesn’t have to match the tense in the cryptic. When it doesn’t it makes for neat misdirection.

Down
2 Open space, pens for badger — an urban space?
STORAGE CAPACITY – this was one of my last in. I figured out the answer from checkers, and deduced the definition from the answer. I confess I didn’t unravel the wordplay at the time, and it’s pretty fiendish. An anagram of SPACE contains TO (for) and RAG (badger). Then you have A (an) and CITY (urban). TO as a definition of ‘for’ puzzled me initially, but it’s in Chambers and I suppose it’s in the sense that a letter ‘to’ someone is ‘for’ them. ‘Badger’ for RAG also puzzled me a bit because I think of ‘ragging’ as making fun of someone, but again Chambers has this definition.
3 Those starting to invest need money
TIN – first letters of (those starting) ‘to invest need’.
4 Wife will cut a bay tree
ROWAN – RO(W)AN. Is a roan the same as a bay? I don’t know anything about horses but the definition of ROAN in ODO at least suggests that a ROAN might be a bay with patches of white hair.
5 Tried by officers, potentially it could alert guards to damage
COURT MARTIALLED – another easy answer once you’ve spotted the definition, and another where I didn’t work out the wordplay while solving. It’s an anagram of IT COULD ALERT containing MAR (damage). ‘Potentially’ is the anagrind.
6 Due to enter contest, not doing so
BOWING OUT – OWING (due) inside BOUT (contest). One of those clues where the definition needs the rest of the clue to make sense of it.
7 Husband ejected from modest social group
CASTE – ChASTE.
12 Day’s long? Ha-ha
DITCH – D (day), ITCH (long).
14 Mostly unavailable — parts too old
ON AVERAGE – NA (not available) in OVERAGE. Arguably a bit of a loose definition, but ON AVERAGE is often used to mean something akin to ‘by and large’ or ‘typically’. My advice to any mathematicians out there who might object is to get over it.
15 Some fishy, dragon-like monster
HYDRA – contained in fishy, dragon-like.
19 Apparently, attack over exercise
TAE-BO – in a down clue, TAEB is ‘beat’ up, so in the way it appears it is synonymous with ‘attack’. Then O for over. I’m not sure this clue is fair: did anyone who hadn’t heard of TAE BO get it from wordplay?
20 Golfer conceals sex for the King
ELVIS – EL(VI)S. The ‘sex’ for six trick caught me out the first time I came across it and I’ve been alert to it ever since. A bit like BEN TROVATO.
23 Something of little worth is very acceptable
SOU – SO (very), U (acceptable to Nancy Mitford).

13 comments on “Sunday Times 4650 by Dean Mayer”

  1. Actually, I’m pretty sure I HAD heard of TAE BO, but could only come up with ‘tae do’, and couldn’t–of course–come up with a justification for it. I got ELVIS *faute de mieux* and only remembered the sex/6 thing the next day. I had no idea who wrote the Paddington Bear books, but managed to remember conference pears. I also managed to retrieve BEN TROVATO, a term that had sat unnoticed in my memory since God knows when, unaccompanied by any knowledge of its meaning.I’d always thought of a HA-HA as a (ditched) fence, rather than a (fenced) ditch, but wotthehell. So a poor performance here, but still enjoyed it, as always with Dean’s.
    1. The only HA-HAs I have seen in the real world have just been ditches, so I don’t think a fence is a requirement at all.
      1. I think a ha-ha is quite likely to feature a retaining wall and don’t believe fences are usually involved.
        1. Yes, I think that’s right, although I have seen them without. According to Wikipedia they’re also known as ‘ha-ha walls’, so on that basis they’re neither fences nor ditches!
  2. Hard work and ended up requiring aids for 13ac and 19dn. Never did figure out how 2dn worked and was too tired by then to care. I note you have no hyphen at 19dn and it was one of my queries that the on-line puzzle has one whereas Chambers and Collins list it without. I never heard of it anyway and hope never to meet it again. I doubt anyone solved 16ac without both checkers in place which leads me to doubt its effectiveness as a clue.
    1. The absence of a hyphen is just a mistake on my part (now corrected). I had heard of it but wouldn’t have been able to tell you if it normally has a hyphen or not. I doubt this prevented anyone from solving it.
      I agree on 16ac (I’d have stuck with IRON) but there are almost always clues in any given puzzle that I wouldn’t be able to solve without checkers.
  3. Picked it as an Anax from the clue style, so got on the wavelength reasonably quickly, but too many unknown or barely remembered foreign words for real enjoyment: FINE GAEL, SOU, BEN TROVATO, TAE-BO. DNF on TAE-BO, even with a trawl through the alphabet it seemed unlikely when I passed it.
    A few other unknowns – Bond, to=for & rag=badger, vassal = man, art students using books.
    A ROAN isn’t a BAY, but some great clues in there nevertheless.

    Clues’ tenses must match the answers’ tenses, and 25 does: DISSUADE = PUT OFF.
    Rob

    1. Hi Rob.
      I picked it as an Anax from the fact that it had his name at the top! 😉
      I did wonder if the clue for TAE-BO was gettable for someone who didn’t know the term. From the comments I’d say it’s a bit unfair.
      My point about tenses is that the surface reading doesn’t have to match the cryptic. So in the apparent meaning of ‘squaddies could be put off’, ‘put off’ is in the past tense. But in the cryptic construction ‘put off’ is a present tense definition.
      1. ……………..I picked it as an Anax from the fact that it had his name at the top! ;)……….

        It’s different for those of us who live in the Dominions/Colonies, keriothe.

        Neither the Toronto nor Ottawa papers give the setters names.

        We were doing “The Prize” in the Toronto Saturday Star for years before we found out it was a two week old ST.

        Might never have found out if Googling an unknown word hadn’t given us the times-xwd-times link.

        Thanks for all the blogs.

        Jan and Tom

        1. Ah… well in that case apologies to Rob for my facetiousness. I should have thought of it really.
  4. Guys I’m a complete hacker at these but I think the Tae-Bo is explained as “O” being apparently, like “oh”, and then it and “beat” are all reversed.
    Derek
    1. Hi Derek, thanks for your comment. We were all ‘complete hackers’ once, and in my case not that long ago. I’d quite like it if people at an earlier point on the learning curve would comment more often.
      I’m not sure how O – or even ‘oh’ can mean ‘apparently’, though. It’s certainly not something I’ve seen before in a cryptic crossword. I’m pretty sure that the setter was trying to use the fact that, in a down clue, TAEB is ‘beat up’.

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