Sunday Times 4656 by Dean Mayer – The Sun Always Shines On Bill Withers

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
18:47. Another very enjoyable puzzle from Dean. I thought this was a relatively gentle offering by his standards, but others seem to have found it a bit harder. Perhaps it helps that I’m of the generation for whom ‘Norwegian band’ triggers the required response instantaneously.

There are a few terms in here I hadn’t come across before, but the wordplay is all clear. There were also a couple that I found a bit strange, perhaps because I’ve misunderstood them. Any help from the floor welcome.

Across
1 Can it crack? Pardon?
SHRIFT – SH (can it, i.e. shut up), RIFT. I made life a bit difficult for myself by confidently entering SHRIVE here.
4 Heart of traffic cop also disturbed by something near A4
FOOLSCAP – (traFfic, COP ALSO)*. A paper size similar to A4, but about an inch longer.
10 Dominant Norwegian band penning album
ALPHA – as in ‘ALPHA male’. A-HA (Norwegian band of Take On Me fame) surrounding LP. Morten Harket appeared in an Armstrong and Miller sketch a while back in which his sole function was to provide a rhyme for ‘farmer’s market’, so he must be a good sport.
11 Severe punishment’s no answer — execute
IMPLEMENT – IMPaLEMENT.
12 US flag draping a party bound for US Air Force base.
COLORADO SPRINGS – the flag here is COLORS, the lack of a U signalled by US. It surrounds A DO (a party) and SPRING (bound) to give a city in Colorado that is home to two Air Force bases and one Air Force Academy, none of which is actually called COLORADO SPRINGS, as far as I can tell.
14 I’ll be charged for early delivery
MILK FLOAT – CD.
16 Religious person’s desire to be heard
SIKH – sounds like ‘seek’.
18 Nothing to promote? That’s not hard work
OPUS – O, PUSh (PUSH without H).
19 One needs something to write about, mind
SENTIENCE – SENTENCE (something to write) around I.
21 Policeman’s baton knocked out horse
STABLE COMPANION – (POLICEMANS BATON)*. Not an expression I knew (unlike ‘stablemate’) so I needed quite a few checkers.
23 Top removed from grating, so about to swing
OSCILLATE – REVERSAL OF mETALLIC (grating, as in a metallic/grating sound), SO.
25 Pindar work about Greek venue
ODEON – ODE (Pindar work), ON.
26 Salesman’s a fool to return roofing material
TARPAPER – reversal of REP (salesman), A PRAT. Another unknown term derived from wordplay.
27 Attempt to cut tree back to find shrub
MYRTLE – reversal of EL(TRY)M.

Down
1 Brown ring left by one I don’t know
SEARCH ME – SEAR (brown), CHiME.
2 Parry using short sword in both hands
REPEL – R and L (both hands) surrounding EPEe.
3 No uniform?
FLAT REFUSAL – hmm. FLAT is uniform, and ‘no’ is a REFUSAL… but I can’t quite see how this works. Maybe I’m overthinking it. It was my last in and I spent a couple of minutes overthinking it before I could convince myself to put it in, which I did with my fingers crossed. It’s hard to type with your fingers crossed.
5 Counterpart bit me on purpose … accidentally
OPPOSITE NUMBER – (BIT ME ON PURPOSE)*. Neat anagram.
6 Fully expected to drink caustic liquid
LYE – contained in ‘fully expected’.
7 No criminal family’s harbouring European family
CLEANSKIN – CL(E)AN’S, KIN. Another unfamiliar (if not totally unheard of) term constructed from wordplay and checkers.
8 Fancy bottles that regularly feed in bed?
POTASH – POSH (fancy) containing ThAt. POTASH is a fertilizer, apparently.
9 So each goes the wrong way, presumably?
WILD GOOSE CHASE – one of those where the answer is the clue: WILD GOOSE CHASE (with WILD the anagrind) gives SO EACH GOES. But this is another where I’m not quite sure of the construction.
13 One in desperate prayer, sort of breathing
RESPIRATORY – (PRAYER SORT)* containing I.
15 American cops are excited about extremely neurotic stripper
LAP DANCER – LAPD (American cops), then (ARE)* containing NeurotiC.
17 70s song in meagre old music publication
LEAN ON ME – LEAN (meagre), O, NME.
20 Best head off without my guide
ESCORT – bEST containing COR (my!).
22 Clumsy writer’s put back into it
INEPT – reversal of PEN (writer) contained in IT.
24 Grassland first, not last
LEA – LEAd.

30 comments on “Sunday Times 4656 by Dean Mayer – The Sun Always Shines On Bill Withers”

  1. Just could not quite get on the wavelength here – just as well this one fell on your watch Keriothe! Things started going awry when I carelessly put in SENTIMENT at 19ac (no, I don’t know why either…), convinced myself that 12ac had to include STRIPES, and dismissed FLAT REFUSAL as I couldn’t see how it worked. My first Sunday DNF for a fair while. And to cap it all I then went out and played my worst round of golf in years! Hey ho…

    And then, to add insult to injury, I can’t even unravel the Bill Withers reference in your blog!! Is it somehow linked to the (somewhat disturbing) joke my son recently told me, “How do you turn a duck into a musician?” “Put it in the microwave until its…”? No, I didn’t think so…

    Edited at 2015-08-30 02:23 am (UTC)

  2. A number of DNKs, including CLEANSKIN, NME, and my LOI, MILK FLOAT, which I just now got around to looking up. At the time I didn’t think anything of 12ac, other than that ‘US flag’ was nice; but the bases are presumably Fort Things, which leaves us missing a definiendum. I didn’t see anything wrong with 3d, either, but I still don’t. Would you have preferred ‘Uniform no’? which is how I took it. I surprised myself by remembering A-Ha; did they ever make another song? CODs to the 1s.
    1. Thanks Kevin, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Trumpet voluntary, courts martial, light fantastic, no uniform.
      A-Ha were of course a two-hit wonder, which is actually a very rare achievement.

      Edited at 2015-08-30 09:07 am (UTC)

    2. An a-ha fan writes – though they weren’t big in the US, a-ha had over a dozen Top 20 hits in the UK and made 9 albums (with another due shortly). I would have to admit that their most recent albums have had a roughly 1:10 ratio of good songs to filler, though.
  3. Somewhere between a K and a NtN with an all-correct, eeventualee, as Manuel might say.

    I’m with KG on the CODs, with 1 across just edging out his stable companion in a photo-finish.

    As for 3d, there was a moment post-solve when I though I’d almost got it , and, reading Kevin’s explanation, I think it might have to do with the fact that ‘uniform no?’ would indeed give FLAT REFUSAL, and the question mark serves a kind of instruction to reverse the words in the clue to get the solution. The clue wouldn’t be very cryptic without such a device.

    1. I was trying, and failing, to think of examples where noun-adjective order is used, usually facetiously (the reply ironic, that sort of thing). They’re out there somewhere, and I think I’ve seen such among cryptic clues. And on reading my comment above, I realize that there’s a typo: I had intended to write “Would you have preferred ‘Uniform no’ ?” but forgot to close the quotation.
  4. I’m going to whisper it very quietly but I appear to be on Dean’s wavelength at the moment (I’m sure once he reads this, he’ll be busy plotting how to return me to my previous befuddled state)

    15 mins for me, hoping that someone would be able to explain the No uniform? bit.

    1. I hate to tell you this but whispering quietly is less effective if you do it on a social networking site available to anyone on the planet with an internet connection… 😉
      I was happy with Kevin’s explanation of 3dn. Seems totally obvious now.

      Edited at 2015-08-30 09:44 am (UTC)

  5. I didn’t see anything wrong with 3dn but it took ages to get the FLAT part. After that, SHRIFT went quietly and was last in and COD. Agree this was a little easier than many of Dean Mayer’s. Still good fun, though.
  6. Thanks for unraveling many that I didn’t get this week, keriothe. Thanks, in a more quavering tone of voice, to Dean for the challenge.
    k – you might have a typo (age vs are)at 15d
  7. “No uniform?
    FLAT REFUSAL – hmm. FLAT is uniform, and ‘no’ is a REFUSAL… but I can’t quite see how this works. Maybe I’m overthinking it. It was my last in and I spent a couple of minutes overthinking it before I could convince myself to put it in, which I did with my fingers crossed. It’s hard to type with your fingers crossed.”

    Not sure it works all that well: with this sort of clue you expect one of the readings to be a convincing definition of the answer, but “FLAT” here doesn’t mean “UNIFORM”, rather “FIRM so – in my humble opinion – the clue doesn’t really have a definition at all.

    FGBP

      1. ‘No’ is a perfect definition but it’s the ‘uniform’ that I was querying
        1. ‘Flat’ can mean ‘uniform’ in certain circumstances. It doesn’t mean this when paired with ‘refusal’, of course, but that’s what makes the clue a little bit cryptic.

          Edited at 2015-08-30 11:39 pm (UTC)

          1. It depends whether you think a clue either should either (a)contain a definition and a wordplay, (b) be an &lit or (c) a Cryptic definition There is no law of the universe that says it must, of course, but if “no” is the definition then it leaves “uniform” stuck on its own as not really doing anything very much. Dean is an accomplished compiler who wouldn’t just bung it in to make it a bit cryptic: I just think that the desire for a clever CD has perhaps taken it slightly off course. And hence the head scratching from some
            1. If you want to categorise it, I suppose this is a kind of &Lit, with ‘uniform no’ a slightly offbeat definition, hence the question mark. The only thing that threw me a bit was the (perfectly legitimate) reversal of the noun/adjective word order.
              1. I had no trouble seeing it as a cryptic definition: A flat refusal is a uniform no. Reverse the order if you want.
                Except I didn’t see it till I got here – had SHRIVE at 1 ac, didn’t know SHRIFT.

                Norwegian band I was trying to lift and separate. Didn’t know A-Ha were Nogwegian, know only… Smokey. Because a local musician covered their one-hit, recasting it about squatting in the rich suburbs next to billionaires*: Living Next Door to Alan.

                *Alan Bond was a billionaire, stole that much easily. But probably only had millions left when he died.
                ROB, 30 min to DNF

  8. Just about got there in an hour but with one wrong since popular music of the 1970s completely passed me by and the wordplay to 17dn would work just as well for a song called “Mean On Me”, had one existed. I realise now I was actually thinking of the 1929 song “Mean To Me” which is more within my area of knowledge than 1970s stuff. Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Ella are just three famous artistes amongst many others who recorded it over a period of some 60 years.

    DK LYE, the required meaning of SHRIFT, TARPAPER or CLEANSKIN but in those cases the wordplay was unambiguous. FOOLSCAP is 7mm narrower than A4 and 33mm longer which I’m not sure legitimately qualifies as “near” – it certainly wouldn’t if we were discussing engineering!

    Edited at 2015-08-30 05:44 pm (UTC)

    1. You remind me of the old joke involving an engineer and a mathematician where the punchline is ‘I know, but I’ll get close enough that it’ll make no difference.’ You can probably fill in the rest.
      As for LEAN ON ME, it’s a classic that I would definitely consider within the normal expected range of knowledge. You missed some very good music in the 70s!
      1. Yes, there were too many to mention so I just picked the biggest names that surely everyone would have heard of. I think Ruth’s may have been the original recording but although she was huge in her time and remains so to aficionados she’s no longer a household name. Sadly!

        Edited at 2015-08-31 04:59 am (UTC)

    1. I wasn’t going to mention this but since you’ve led me there, I have never heard of Bill Withers or knowingly listened to any of his recordings. And whilst about it, I’d never heard of Freddie Mercury until the day after he died and the news was unavoidable.

      Edited at 2015-08-31 09:57 am (UTC)

      1. I guessed as much, since you hadn’t heard of LEAN ON ME, probably his most famous song. And I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that I’ve never heard of Ruth Etting. No doubt Bill Withers will also fade from collective memory in due course: I’m sure there are already many people who know his songs but don’t know that he wrote them. But as Nick showed with the first comment, his name is at least still sufficiently well-known to provide the punchline for a silly joke!
        1. I just listened to a minute of it on You Tube and did recognise it though I had no idea what it was called or who sang it. The opening riff (if that’s the correct expression) sounds remarkably like something else, perhaps more famous – or at least known to me – that I can’t place at the moment.
          1. I can’t help you there. You might recognise some of his other songs too: Ain’t No Sunshine and Lovely Day are also very famous and still get played quite a lot.
  10. Regarding” OSCILLATE” (and others like it), l’m becoming increasingly annoyed by the practice of defining a word, then lopping bits off it to make it fit into the answer – cutting an end off here, and taking a limb off there, and sometimes disembowelling it, until it no longer resembles the original word. It’s like trying to make a movie from the sweepings of a cutting room floor, or completing a jigsaw puzzle by carving the pieces to fit. lt can be done, but the end result is not really satisfying.

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