Sunday Times 4666 by Tim Moorey – elementary my dear

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
15:37. I remember finding this mostly easy, but then getting quite seriously held up by a few at the end. However I can’t now remember which ones! The unknown 13dn was one of them.

I thought there might be a bit of a theme here: the words GRANDSTANDING PRIVATE MEMBER and OBSCENE HEARSAY reminded me of the recent activities of a particular British politician, but perhaps that’s just me.

Across
1 Hard for bishop in party to get dope
HASH – H (hard) replacing B (bishop) in BASH (party).
4 Not satisfying in the Civil Service: little power and total change
CLEAN SWEEP – C(LEAN)S, WEE, P.
9 Showing off excellent upright?
GRANDSTANDING – GRAND, STANDING. What attention-seeking politicians on select committees do in a desperate and transparent attempt to get on the telly.
10 Small tree cultivated in Bosnia
BONSAI – (BOSNIA)*.
11 Element in some degree outflanking Athenian
ANTIMONY – TIMON of Athens inside ANY.
12 Extra games not available in Toys
PLAY-OFFS – PLAY(OFF)S. I’m not sure what PLAY-OFFS are, but from my time in Canada I have picked up that in the context of the Stanley Cup they are a thing, and that they are quite important in some way that remains unclear to me. The Leafs always seem to be doing badly in them, if they’re in them, which sometimes they aren’t.
14 Both parents carrying a new hat
PANAMA – P(A, N)A, MA.
15 See about opening back shed regularly
EVENLY – E(VENt)LY. ELY for ‘see’ is a crossword staple. Very useful for adverbs.
17 Views over wings
OPINIONS – O, PINIONS. I am more familiar with PINION as a verb.
19 Gunners wearing some ties for colourful displays
RAINBOWS – RA (Royal Artillery, gunners) IN BOWS.
21 Loose top on teenager? Right, this
T-SHIRT – (Teenager, R, THIS)*. &Lit.
23 Backbencher’s organ not normally on display
PRIVATE MEMBER – fnarr fnarr.
24 Great Danes barking in eateries outside
TEA GARDENS – (GREAT DANES)*.
25 Weight of ladder reported
TARE – sounds like ‘tear’. I think I knew this unit of weight, but only vaguely. Edit: the vagueness may be explained by the fact that it’s not a unit of weight at all: see comment from Anon below.

Down
2 Trouble since taking in former King
AGGRO – AG(GR)O.
3 Talk, for example supporting shooting hare
HEARSAY – (HARE)*, SAY.
4 Insect is fine left in kitchen container
CADDIS FLY – CADD(IS, F, L)Y.
5 After dropping a ball, Paterson bowled over in nets
ENTRAPS – (PATERSoN)*.
6 Given a turn, ten having taken the stage? One too many!
NONET – reversal of TEN, ON. I’m not really sure where the definition is here, or if there is one, but the idea is that ten would be one too many for a NONET.
7 American writer in western hired gun
WHITMAN – W, HITMAN.
8 Call a number up about Golf driver
ENGINEMAN – reversal of NAME, NI(G)NE. Not a term I knew, but perfectly guessable.
13 Old tomato and duck on cooker?
LOVE APPLE – LOVE (nil, duck) on APPLE, of which cooker is an example. An unknown term that caused me some trouble.
14 Short of a close catcher, to be blunt
POINTLESS – POINT is a fielding position near the batsman, so if you’re short of one you’re POINTLESS.
16 Lots of relatives close to bustling Chinese city
NANKING – NAN, KIN (lots of relatives), bustlinG.
17 Old boy’s view is disgusting
OBSCENE – OB, SCENE.
18 Occupy fashionable, prime part of Hampstead? Rather!
INHABIT – IN, Hampstead, A BIT.
20 Live in Ohio next to the pits, out of centre
ON AIR – O, NAdIR.
22 Stranger in large car touring region briefly
RARER – RR (Rolls Royce) containing AREa.

17 comments on “Sunday Times 4666 by Tim Moorey – elementary my dear”

  1. so definitely an easy one. Don’t they have play-offs in, say rugby or soccer? ON AIR took me a bit of time, since I hadn’t expected O for ‘Ohio’, the standard postal abbreviation being OH; but my dictionary sv ‘Ohio’ gives O as an abbrevation. TARE is yet one more word that the NY Times puzzles feature more than the real world does.
  3. A slow but steady solve for me, finishing in 50 minutes. Nothing was unknown but it took a while to dredge some of it up from memory.
  4. 12:18 … PRIVATE MEMBER was my last one in (ooh, Matron!) and I was quite shocked when that penny dropped. Shocked, I tell you. More, please.
  5. Enjoyable solve, with NONET my LOI – odd feeling staring blankly at a five letter word with three known checkers and still not getting it for an awfully long time! I also failed to parse ON AIR at the time.

    COD definitely to the backbencher’s organ – classic Sunday Times fare. Thanks to Tim and Keriothe.

  8. Football gets the most sports coverage in the UK, and the only vaguely high-profile play-offs in football are to decide the final promotion place from the Championship to the Premier League. At the end of the season, the top 2 teams in the Championship are promoted automatically but the teams finishing 3-6 are involved in play-offs – the team finishing 3rd plays the team finishing 6th over two legs, the teams finishing 4th and 5th do likewise, and then the (one-legged) play-off final between the two winners determines who gets the 3rd promotion place to the Premier League. The Premier League itself functions as a straight league.

    By contrast, play-offs exist in the four main American sports and are the most important part of the season – the champion is the winner of the play-offs, not the team with the best record during the normal season. For example, there are 30 basketball teams in the NBA, and the play-offs at the end of the season involve more than half of them. The play-off teams are involved in an elimination tournament, with each round best-of-7 games. The teams’ regular season records count only towards seeding, a higher seeding giving home court advantage. Depending on potential match-ups, it may be advantageous for a team to do worse in the regular season so that their path through the play-offs will be easier.

  9. Tare is not strictly a “unit of weight”, but represents the unladen weight, say of a truck or vessel, etc. Here in Australia, all trucks are (or least were) required to show both “Gross” (i.e. maximum loaded weight) and “Tare” on their side.

    1. Thanks Anon, you’re quite right. I think I knew this once, but had forgotten it. It only rang a vague bell so I should have looked it up.
  10. I just don’t get how the g comes from bustling to be used as an appendage to Nan and Kin. Does a clue using ‘close to’ mean take the last letter of the next word?
  11. I just don’t get how the g comes from bustling to be used as an appendage to Nan and Kin. Does a clue using ‘close to’ mean take the last letter of the next word?

Comments are closed.