Sunday Times 4676 by Jeff Pearce – no bawl

10 minutes on the nose, but with one ‘error’. I whizzed through most of this, but was slowed down a little by a couple of clues.

The first was 9ac, where I could see what was required but it took me a while to sort the anagram fodder into the right places. Obscure words clued by anagrams are a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but it seemed reasonably clear where the letters were supposed to go in this case.

My second problem was 16ac, where I saw immediately that the clue was ambiguous and spent a few minutes agonising over which might be the required answer. The last time this happened I managed it by picking the definition that was at the end of the clue, but that wasn’t possible here, since both possible definitions are at the end. On reflection I decided that “bouncer, say, heard” was a marginally more natural reading for a homophone than “heard to cry”, and put in BAWL. In reality though this a coin toss: either answer is perfectly valid so a discussion about which is marginally more valid is pointless.

If this puzzle was test-solved (which I assume it was) I confess I’m rather surprised that this got through, since the ambiguity is so glaring. But we’re all human, including crossword setters and editors, so no matter. Whichever answer you put in, I suggest you award yourself a successful completion and stop worrying about it. You have a Dean Mayer puzzle waiting for you and it’s not going to solve itself.

Across
1 Linen flower on short American entertainer
CAMBRIC – CAM (river = flower), BRICe. I put this in from the definition and CAM with absolutely no idea who the entertainer might be. A bit of googling suggests that it’s Fanny BRICE, who was the subject of the film Funny Girl. I expect there will be a marked age divide between those who have heard of her and those who haven’t.
5 Summon gang during drink
SCREW UP – S(CREW)UP. Chambers defines this as ‘to summon up (courage, etc)’: I can’t think of an etc.
9 Drunk ape drinks aromatic liquid
SPIKENARD – (APE DRINKS)*. An essential oil, apparently.
10 One cuts a device that supports front of rusty pipe
BRIAR – BR(I)A, Rusty. I know that a BRIAR is a pipe from previous crosswords, I think. That’s definitely how I know that a churchwarden is also a pipe.
11 Greek Island imports American produce
CREATE – CRE(A)TE.
12 With no idea how this puzzle started
CLUELESS – conjuring up an image of the setter contemplating a blank grid.
14 Drive to tour?
WANDERLUST – a CD cunningly disguised as a DD.
16 Bouncer, say, heard to cry
BALL – sounds like ‘bawl’, or…
16 Bouncer, say, heard to cry
BAWL – sounds like ‘ball’. Harrumph.
18 Kit — second for Manchester City
RIGA – RIG, mAnchester.
19 Expressionist movie plot is more complicated
METROPOLIS – (PLOT IS MORE)*. I’m not sure I’d have been able to tell you that this was an expressionist movie, but I knew it was a (very early) movie, and that was enough.
22 New statue I’d located
SITUATED – (STATUE I’D)*.
23 Perhaps Rip Van Winkle’s cure?
KIPPER – what you do to a herring to produce, er, a KIPPER. I like them a lot but I have never understood why anyone would want to eat them for breakfast.
26 Follow first of tourists to bar
TRAIL – Tourists, RAIL (bar).
27 Game nobleman has drink
COUNTDOWN – COUNT (nobleman), DOWN (drink, usually in the context of a pint). A game played on the telly that I have never watched and still associate with Carol Whatsername.
28 On the whole it protects clothes
OVERALL – DD. I’m more used to seeing the clothing version in the plural, but the singular is also in use and seems to denote something slightly different: a protective coat rather than a boiler suit. In the plural it’s also what North Americans call dungarees.
29 Shorten a spanner
ABRIDGE – because to span is to BRIDGE.

Down
1 Carbon residue on Jersey, perhaps, is a money-spinner
CASH COW – C (Carbon), ASH (residue), COW (Jersey, perhaps). Not the most precise of definitions for those of us familiar with the BCG matrix, but close enough.
2 Tall grass labyrinth I entered
MAIZE – MA(I)ZE.
3 Opening information about old physicist
ROENTGEN – R(O)ENT, GEN. Willem Röntgen, discoverer of X-rays and winner of the first Nobel Prize in Physics.
4 Gas a bird
CHAT – DD.
5 The gall of the rider!
SADDLE SORE – CD. One of the meanings of ‘gall’ is a ‘sore due to chafing’ (Chambers). It can also be a ‘painful swelling’ in a horse, coincidentally.
6 Material part of 29 tournament?
RUBBER – I don’t know what RUBBER is in the context of bridge, but I know it’s a thing.
7 Halt while changing admin staff here
WHITEHALL – (HALT WHILE)*. I’m not sure all the denizens of WHITEHALL would appreciate being called ‘admin staff’, but you get the idea.
8 Fighters look around for shade
PARASOL – PARAS, then LO reversed (around).
13 Censor? Presumably Picasso had one for a period!
BLUE PENCIL – because Picasso famously had a blue period.
15 Punk German hit is an awful experience
NIGHTMARE – (GERMAN HIT)*.
17 Bolt, say, front of stapler to machine in an office
SPRINTER – Stapler, PRINTER.
18 Is Roman Emperor following right Italian course?
RISOTTO – R, IS, OTTO.
20 One leaves Tangiers resort for rum
STRANGE – (TANGiERS)*.
21 Girl after dad is a dish
PAELLA – PA, ELLA. Our tour of the rice dishes of Southern Europe continues.
24 Boastful United in bar at conclusion of championship
PROUDchampionshiP, RO(U)D.
25 Bath with a bit of brass
TUBA – TUB, A.

26 comments on “Sunday Times 4676 by Jeff Pearce – no bawl”

  1. I put in BRIER; I thought that was how the pipe was spelled, and I had ‘bier’ in mind for the thing that supports (yes, I know it doesn’t work, but it’s better than yet another bra, innit?). I also put in BAWL, and had finally convinced myself that it has to be BALL when Peter announced on the forum that it is indeed hopelessly ambiguous; so everybody has won, and all must have prizes. I guessed (rightly, I see from the blog) that COUNTDOWN was a TV or radio program. 9ac was a bit slow in coming, as I only knew SPIKENARD as a plant. I assumed, being on the wrong side of the generation gap keriothe alludes to, that Fanny Brice, aka Bric, was the intended entertainer, and was surprised at her appearance here. I imagine that SCREW is from ‘Macbeth’, where Lady M tells him to ‘screw your courage to the sticking-place’. COD to 14ac.
    1. My wife knew who Fanny Brice was, but she is generally known to be useful on a quiz team for this sort of stuff.
      You could be right about Macbeth: you can find sources that will tell you that Lady M’s expression, ‘screwing up’ and ‘plucking up’ courage all derive from the tuning of a stringed instrument. Of course you can also find sources telling you that each of them derives from something completely different.
  2. 26 minutes with SPIKENARD completely unknown in any context but it was clear what the answer had to be.

    One might argue that the punctuation in 16ac makes it clear that the answer has to be BALL, but for the fact that punctuation in clues is often deliberately misleading and one of first tips worth learning about solving cryptics is to ignore it completely. Thankfully on this occasion I didn’t follow that advice and I got to the intended answer without even considering the alternative.

    Edited at 2016-01-17 07:17 am (UTC)

    1. One might argue that the punctuation in 16ac makes it clear that the answer has to be BAWL! But as you say, punctuation can be misleading.
  3. Now I can’t remember which one I opted for – whichever it was was the “wrong” one, in company with Magoo, Jason et al.
  4. I did go for ball, fairly confidently, but now I see how naive I was! But before I get too pleased with myself, had all the letters for spikenard, knew it was an anagram, and still didn’t know it. Was delighted with Roentgen, having discovered him in a previous crossword, though obviously he has better claims to fame!
  5. 23 minutes but with the ball ‘error’, about which there can’t be anything left to say.

    Didn’t really warm to this puzzle, but did get some entertainment thinking about opening a Times for the Times restaurant, serving only dishes featured in the crossword. Risotto and paella would certainly be menu stalwarts. The wine list would be great, if a bit heavy on the asti.

    Not so sure about today’s special: kippers on a bed of maize with a jus of spikenard.

    1. We had quenelles once. And someone here put up a very funny reference to Frank Muir and the dish.
    2. No-one would ever order the tent or sack, but the house gin & it would be a popular aperitif.

  6. 5dn could equally well be SADDLE-RASH. That’s one of the reasons why I so hate CDs: they often lead to multiple possibilities and there is no way of telling from the clue which is the correct one.
    1. You have the checkers, of course. Personally I have no objection to clues where checking letters are required to resolve ambiguity. It would have helped with 16ac!
    2. It could be, if you know about “saddle-rash” as a thing. But aside from not knowing about it, I can’t find it in dictionaries, including OED and Websters 3rd New International. And as far as I can tell from a search in one dictionary app, there’s no other saddleXXXX answer listed. So I don’t think many people will have gone for an alternative to the expected answer, regardless of checking letters.
    1. I’m not sure what your point is here but the wordplay for BRA is ‘device that supports’.

      Edited at 2016-01-23 04:48 pm (UTC)

  7. Regarding Saddle Sore, i cannot find this expression as a noun being hyphenated The answer above does not have a hyphen, but the clue letters were (6-4). The adjective (being saddle-sore) is hyphenated.
    Sorry, but did anyone else have trouble with this?
    1. The omission of the hyphen is a mistake, sorry. I will leave it as a permanent monument to my carelessness. 😉
      ODO has SADDLE-SORE as a hyphenated noun.
      I’m not an expert on riding and horses but can the noun form apply to a person? I would have said that this is something that only applies to horses. You might say that you are saddle-sore from riding, but you wouldn’t say you have a saddle-sore. ODO seems to agree with me, but Collins doesn’t. Chambers is unclear on the matter.
      1. So, if i understand correctly…
        Nouns for the following ailments are:
        Saddle-sore (hyphenated)
        Cold sore (not hyphenated)
        Bedsore (all one word).
        English language. Nothing if not wildly inconsistent.

        Thank you.

        1. Personally I regard the number of words and hyphens one uses in this sort of situation as entirely a matter of taste. To state categorically that ‘cold-sore’ is wrong or right because you do or don’t find it in one dictionary or another is to misunderstand how language works, and what dictionaries are for.
  8. Here in Australia we have only just received this crossword. It seems to me that the answer can only be ball, as the clue suggests that bouncer is an example of a ball, and a homophone of cry.
    1. ‘Bouncer, say, heard’ is a perfectly acceptable way of indicating a homophone of ‘ball’, so the clue can be read either way.
      1. Yes, but “heard to cry” can only be a homophone, and as “bouncer, say”, could also mean “an example of” it must be the definition, rather than a homophone.
        1. ‘Bouncer, say’ is a definition by example of ‘ball’.
          ‘Bouncer, say, heard’ indicates a homophone of this.
          Then ‘to cry’ is the definition.
          There is no valid reading of the clue in which ‘say’ is a homophone indicator.
  9. ……….and if you see two people dancing in the street in Toronto, it’s us. First time in 20 years we finished a ST in one sitting. About 90 mins.

    Thanks to all the bloggers for helping us learn the way of thinking of the setters.

    Jan and Tom.

  10. KIPPER – what you do to a herring to produce, er, a KIPPER. I like them a lot but I have never understood why anyone would want to eat them for breakfast.

    keriothe: In the dear dead days beyond recall, I found a kipper with scrambled eggs and a gin and tonic a master cure for a hangover. But it’s all a matte of taste as the woman said when she kissed the cow.

    Tom.

    1. Hmm. I’m not sure that the kipper is the active ingredient in that particular treatment, Tom.
      Shortly after writing that comment I did have a kipper for breakfast, with a poached egg, and very enjoyable it was too. But it was about 10.30am, which is brunch really.

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