Sunday Times 4652 by Jeff Pearce

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Greetings from Canada. I am writing this blog sitting by a lake listening to the call of the loons and sipping a glass of Rioja. Things could be worse.

Solving conditions were rather less ideal, as an unexpected phone call meant I had to take over making breakfast for the family from my mother-in-law. Such is my ridiculous obsession with the clock that I tended to the cooking with my laptop perched on the worktop beside me, and in the end I don’t think the interruption slowed me down much at all. For all I know it may even have helped. This is not a difficult puzzle but it is an enjoyable one, and there are a few clues that require a bit of thought of the kind that can be helped by the distraction of frying eggs.

Anyway, I mustn’t dally too much: I have promised my boys that we will be up at 5 to see if we can’t catch a rock bass or two. I know next to nothing about fishing so this is probably unlikely, but the fun’s in the trying, right?

Across
1 Prickly type, frantically tense, seen in a party
SPINY ANTEATER – an anagram of T for tense and SEEN IN A PARTY. I bunged this in from definition and checkers, and a general sense that an anagram of PARTY and some other stuff was involved. A lot of my solving is like this.
10 Girls with blades sometimes catching crabs?
OARSWOMEN – a barely cryptic definition with a rather unpleasant cryptic reading. Or perhaps it’s about young ladies spearing crustacea for their tea with steak knives and I should wash out my mind with soap.
11 Tiny amount of water falling at end of Spring
GRAIN – sprinG, RAIN (water falling). I hope I wasn’t alone in thinking the definition was going to be ‘tiny amount of water’.
12 Girls help in famous retailers?
MAIDS – AID contained in M and S, or Marks and Sparks. How famous is M&S outside the UK? I think there used to be at least one here in Canadia years ago.
13 Looking sad and holding nothing, we leave!
WOEBEGONE – WE BE GONE (we leave) containing O (nothing).
14 Out of date magazine with gold necklace on the front
TIMEWORN – TIME (magazine), W (with), OR (gold), Necklace.
16 26s gallery in ship
STATES – S(TATE)S. The definition is CONDITIONs as in ‘look at the state of you’.
19 Very nearly sick, with fast pulse
LENTIL – LENT (fast), ILl. I thought of LENTILs immediately but it took me a while to parse it and be sure. I don’t know why really because ‘fast’ = LENT – a noun disguised as an adjective – is a common trick.
20 Reading about a shrub
GARDENIA – (READING)* surrounding A. I always panic a bit when I see that the definition is a plant, but I knew this one. I think we might even have one in our garden, but they’re all just plants to me. Apart from the acer. I know which one is the acer. And I can also identify the apple tree.
22 Dope with revolver protecting former plant
GOLDENROD – GEN (information, dope) containing (protecting) OLD (former), then ROD (revolver). Another panic-inducing plant, this time one I remember from past crosswords.
24 Pitt without a vowel is not quite this!
BREAD – bit of an odd clue this: I think the idea is that ‘Pitt’ is missing a vowel, so is not quite ‘pitta’. Perhaps I’m missing something more subtle.
25 Ice behind small craft
SKILL – I wasted a bit of time trying to find the name of a boat for this one. It’s S (small) followed by KILL (ice).
26 Treat a malady
CONDITION – DD, with ‘treat’ in the sense of what you might do to your hair, among other things.
27 Measuring device in back of freezing mountain bar
GEIGER COUNTER – this was a pure biff for me, once I had a few checkers. The wordplay is freezinG, EIGER (mountain), COUNTER (bar). I met someone a few years ago who went off to climb the north face of the Eiger without telling his wife what he was doing because, he said, she wouldn’t have let him.

Down
2 Miner mops up fruit
PERSIMMON – (MINER MOPS)*. ‘Up’ is the anagram indicator, I suppose in the sense ‘excited’, or possibly ‘in revolt’.
3 Green and extremely treacherous creatures
NEWTS – NEW, TreacherouS. Creatures forever associated with Ken Livingston in my mind.
4 Pest ruined my marrow
ARMY WORM – (MY MARROW)*. I nearly put in MARY WORM on my first look at this clue but hesitated, fortunately. The larva of either or a fly or a moth that moves from field to field in large armies, destroying the crops.
5 Romantic proposal
TENDER – DD.
6 Enhanced group of academics entertain agents near central Sweden
AUGMENTED – AUT is the Association of University Teachers, now the Union of College Teachers, according to Chambers. I didn’t know of this no doubt august body under either name, but with G-MEN (FBI agents) to go inside it and central Sweden to go on the end, I didn’t need to. Central Sweden here is swEDen, and nothing to do with Östersund.
7 Muse and Queen at close of Glasto
ERATO – ER, AT, glastO. The muse of lyric poetry often seen in crosswords.
8 Gloomiest Scot working for one in Boots?
COSMETOLOGIST – (GLOOMIEST SCOT)*. I had no idea this was a thing, but it appears it is, and presumably you might find one in Boots selling make-up.
9 Gathering beneath station
UNDERSTANDING – UNDER (beneath) STANDING (station).
15 If weary after wrestling with English wave this!
WHITE FLAG (WITH, E)*, FLAG (weary). A semi-&lit (I suppose) where the whole clue is the definition but part of it is also the wordplay.
17 Bug in can heading for exotic fruit
TANGERINE – ANGER (bug) contained in TIN, Exotic.
18 Cool expert in martial arts has to leave dance
FANDANGO – FAN (cool), DAN (expert in martial arts), GO (leave).
21 British shrub producing tonic
BRACER – BR, ACER. Like I said, I know what an acer is. They appear a lot in these puzzles.
23 Learning about one flower abroad
LOIRE – LO(I)RE. It seems a while since we’ve seen our old friend ‘flower’ as a definition of ‘river’.
24 Jock’s child I found in stable
BAIRN – BA(I)RN.

22 comments on “Sunday Times 4652 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. Not to worry; ‘to catch a crab’ is, to quote Wikipedia, ‘A rowing error where the rower is unable to timely remove or release the oar blade from the water and the oar blade acts as a brake on the boat until it is removed from the water. This results in slowing the boat down.’ Alice finds herself rowing with an ill-tempered sheep who tells her to feather, lest she catch a crab. Remembering that scene is how I solved this clue.
    1. I’m familiar with that meaning, but that’s what I mean when I say the meaning is barely cryptic. In fact on reflection it isn’t cryptic at all. As this is a cryptic puzzle I went in search of an alternative meaning, and then wished I hadn’t.
      1. It occurred to me rather post hoc that ‘blades’ could be ‘young men’ (as in ‘gay blades’), although I imagine that’s pretty much passé.
  2. This was my LOI,and I didn’t care for it when I (thought I) twigged. I finally read it (after thinking of the PM) as BRAD Pitt without the E is not quite BREAD; but I would have thought that BREAD without a vowel would be Pitt. Pitt without a vowel is Ptt. Oh, well, I got it right, anyway.
    1. Thanks Kevin. I guess it works (or doesn’t work) either way: BRAD is not quite BREAD and PITT is not quite PITTA. But BRAD without a vowel is BRD and PITT without a vowel is PTT. Ah well, as you say, we know what the answer is.
      1. Although Brad without a vowel could be BREAD, if you take “without” to mean outside. Which nearly gets us there I think.
  3. Can’t remember much about this one; didn’t leave much of an impression, although I was pleased to finish so fast. I, too, thought 10ac was barely cryptic, although keriothe’s interpretation fortunately did not arise in my innocent mind. DNK AUT; I have a question mark by 6d on my printed copy. The 24s were my LOI; first I finally came up with BAIRN, and then I finally gave up on the Brit Pitts and remembered that this is a ST puzzle. I thought I had it worked out, but as I indicated above, now I’m not sure. Today’s one by Dean is causing me all kinds of difficulty to make up for this one.
  4. Quite hard work with several unexplained. I’d probably have got there eventually but to be honest I was rather bored with it all by the time I had completed the grid.
  5. I’ll stick my head above the parapet and declare myself a fan of the BREAD clue. When Harold Massingham (Mass) was asked by a novice setter to describe the process of clue-writing he said “Realisation of ideas, lad”. Jeff has latched onto a very good idea here and exploited it well.
    Is the clue 100% perfect? Possibly not, but you could argue that few clues are. We scour the dictionaries for synonyms but, if we’re really picky, we can find nuances that mean few synonym pairings are 100% accurate, but we go for what we hope can be reasonably understood. Given an extra couple of hours maybe a better wording could be found, but multiply that couple of hours by 28-30 clues and it becomes unfeasible.
    The correlation between BR(e)AD and PITT(a) is an excellent spot and, for me, Jeff has done a fine job in expressing it, certainly to the extent that, with a bit of effort, solvers should see what’s going on.

    Edited at 2015-08-02 12:05 pm (UTC)

    1. Hi Dean,
      I agree that it’s a neat idea, even though I was too dim to see the BRAD half or it. It’s so good in fact that it seems like a bit of a missed opportunity. Not that I can come up with anything better, I hasten to add!
      Now please excuse me I have a crossword to solve…

      Edited at 2015-08-02 02:39 pm (UTC)

  6. I didn’t take much notice of the BREAD clue at the time but the Brad Pitt/pitta bread thing is pretty cute, and although the clue for OARSWOMEN might be in poor taste I think it’s a rather good cryptic definition. My problem is the derogatory “Jock’s child” in the BAIRN clue. Otherwise a pleasant 20 minute stroll.
  7. 38 minutes but with ‘gullexrod’ for GOLDENROD, which sounds like an X-rated version of James Bond. Not mad keen about the bread…

    Edited at 2015-08-03 02:22 am (UTC)

  8. Well under the half hour for me. It sounds like you’re just north of us, say Muskoka or Haliburton. Wherever, please enjoy it as much as we do.

    Bob in Toronto

    1. Hi Bob.
      About 20 minutes from Parry Sound. I’m currently sitting in the Muskoka room listening to the thunder storm. My wife is Canadian, and we’ve been doing cottage holidays here for the last five years. We all love it, especially the kids.
      1. Hi K
        Fabulous thunder storms over Georgian Bay as always. Were it some years ago (50) I would have taken you to Bala Bay Inn (which my uncle owned) for a pint. Then to Dunn’s Pavilion (now Kee to Bala) to be entertained by Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington or a host of other famous musicians. The following day we could take a short walk to Moon River to fish with my uncle and the local First Nations people.
        Many happy days were spent just to the north of where you are at Pointe au Baril at the very end of the peninsula. No road access…boat only.
        I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday and add to your fond memories of this lovely place.
        My best to you all

        Bob Church

        p.s. This Sunday’s cryptic took about an hour…a toughie. How did you fare?

        1. Thanks Bob. The weather has a gone a bit grey on us but it’s still lovely to be here. We’ve just bought a place in the Kawarthas so this will be our last year in this particular corner of cottage country.
          I struggled mightily with Dean’s puzzle: it took me an hour too.
          James

          1. Congratulations, James.
            The Kawarthas also a favourite stomping ground. My wife and I are considering retiring to Bobcaygeon or Buckhorn, the artists community.

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