Sunday Times 4678 by David McLean – do you think you can tell?

24:12. The second outing for our new setter, and I for one found it a stiff challenge. I had a sense of engaging with a new and unfamiliar setting mind, and struggling to find the wavelength. Of course I probably imagined this just because it was a bit of a tough puzzle and I knew we had a new setter, but in any event I enjoyed the experience a lot.

There are one or two things in here I don’t entirely like (a bit of looseness here, a questionable abbreviation there) but nothing too egregious, and if they’re part of the package that also includes this sort of inventiveness then I’m a buyer. There’s some really neat stuff in here, but my favourite clue is 15ac: I enjoy the idea of The Traveling Wilburys being supported by One Direction.

Across
1 Some editors may long to be this advanced
AHEAD OF THE TIMES – if you were editor of the The Bridgnorth, Shifnal and Albrighton Argus (with which is incorporated The Wheat-Growers’ Intelligencer and Stock-breeders’ Gazetteer) you might long to be head of the Times. It’s only ‘some editors’ though, because the idea would of course fill any self-respecting editor of the Guardian with horror. Edit: this is nonsense. See below for a much more sensible suggestion from vinyl1
9 Career MP out with son, lively little lad?
SCAMPERER – (CAREER MP, S)*. The definition here is by example, and a little bit loose, but the question mark is there to put you on your guard for that sort of thing.
10 A unit of old soldiers boarding vessel
AORTA – A(OR)TA. Here ‘unit of old’ is the TA, now the Army Reserve. The soldiers are, as so often, the other ranks or OR.
11 Such as a superior that’s left for the front
LETTER – L replacing the first letter of BETTER (superior). Another DBE, cunningly concealed.
12 Vampire book or The Remains of the Day?
TWILIGHT – a sort of DD, the second moderately cryptic. Being the father of a 12-year-old girl helped a lot here. I am more familiar with the films starring RPatz (aka Cedric Diggory) and KStew, but I also know there are books and that by common consent the books are much better than the films, whereas with Maze Runner it’s the films that are much better than the books. Or possibly the other way round.
13 Make beloved finish off peeled pears
ENDEAR – END, pEARs.
15 Singer taking large boy band on tour
BOB DYLAN – (L, BOY BAND)*. Great clue!
18 Legal woe that’s affected high-flyer
EAGLE OWL – (LEGAL WOE)*.
19 Series of houses upgrading drains
USES UP – contained in ‘houses upgrading’.
21 Sport Gucci’s latest in English clothing outlet
EVENTING – a bit of a matryoshka clue: ENG contains I (Gucci’s latest), and then the resulting EING contains VENT (outlet).
23 See Liberals about fuss over nothing
SOD ALL – I think this is a reversal of LL(ADO)S, where LLS denotes ‘Liberals’. I suppose if LS can denote ‘Liberals’, then if you add another L to it you still have ‘Liberals’, just one more of them. If this is the right reading, there’s something about it that seems not quite cricket to me, but I can’t quite put my finger on what. Edit: more nonsense I’m afraid. I’m really not doing very well this week, am I? See Peter’s helpful comment below.
26 Hear blooming riveting woman in 40s?
ROSIE – sounds like ‘rosy’ (blooming). I didn’t know about Rosie the Riveter, so I got this from the wordplay.
27 Plant container of grass on fellow junior
FLOWERPOT – F, LOWER, POT.
28 A holiday message Pink Floyd release
WISH YOU WERE HERE – DD, referring to the 1975 Pink Floyd album with the distinctive cover depicting two men in suits shaking hands, only one of whom is on fire.

Down
1 What you may do under a bishop? Pardon!
ABSOLVE – A, B, SOLVE. I did, eventually.
2 Call for Congress to give leader the elbow
EXACTsEX ACT. Cheeky!
3 Condemn drop in value on one’s release
DEPRECATE – DEPRECiATE. A meaning of the word DEPRECATE that seems less in use these days than the ‘belittle’ sense, perhaps because ‘self-deprecating’ has become so common.
4 Alert to danger of Balls going to Greens?
FORE – CD. I’m no golf expert, but if the ball is heading towards the green, you shouldn’t need to shout FORE, should you? Unless it’s the wrong green, I suppose…
5 A way to gate-crash hotel club in Aspen?
HARDWOOD – H(A, RD), WOOD. Another DBE, indicated by the question mark.
6 One following others around royal route
TRAIL – T(R)AIL. I’m not very keen on R for ‘royal’: I’m generally in favour of limiting the number of ‘permitted’ abbreviations. I was going to comment that we don’t want to allow every blinking abbreviation in Chambers in these puzzles, or where will it end for Pete’s sake? But it turns out this one isn’t even in Chambers! It’s in Collins, but with a capital R in ‘Royal’.
7 Spooner’s said Oldman models bloomers
MARIGOLDS – sounds like a Spoonerism of ‘Gary moulds’. Some people don’t like Spoonerisms, but I do, even if they are a bit obvious.
8 Austere hospital screening section
SPARTAN – S(PART)AN. SAN, short for ‘sanatorium’ is a word for a hospital that I know from crosswords.
14 Note female cats leaving town — strays?
DIGRESSES – D, tIGRESSES. Another slightly questionable abbreviation in T for ‘town’. This one isn’t in Chambers either, or Collins, but it is in ODO.
16 Break apart lettering advertising club?
DISCOHERE – or DISCO HERE. Not a word you see every day.
17 Bug or second sickness caused by drink?
SWINE FLU – S, WINE FLU. This clue has coined a term that as a regular sufferer I am definitely going to use.
18 One may be plucked by intellectual in Bow, say
EYEBROW – sounds like “’ighbrow”, don’ it, cor blimey Mary Poppins?
20 Grant-holding head for board of artists
PALETTE – PA(LET)TE. ‘Grant-holding head’ is a neat construction.
22 Support getting topless any minute
TEENY – TEE, aNY.
24 Very quiet beer outside The Empire?
APPLE – A(PP)LE. When I solved this I thought it was a reference to New York being the Big Apple and the Empire State. But when I thought about it a bit afterwards I realised that this doesn’t really work, if only because one is the city and the other is the state, so I reconsidered. Empire turns out to be a variety of APPLE.
25 Extra capital on switching banks to Rotterdam
MORE – ROME with R and M (the ‘banks to Rotterdam’) swapped.

28 comments on “Sunday Times 4678 by David McLean – do you think you can tell?”

  1. At 6dn I took the ‘R’ to stand for King or Queen (as it so often does in Crosswordland) and therefore “royal” (as a noun) by extension.

    I’m afraid I’m none the wiser about anything in 12ac after reading the explanation. I simply don’t get it though I assume it’s referring to something beyond my ken.

    I agree LLS for Liberals is dodgy. LL yes, LS no, LLS absolutely not.

    I also don’t like ‘T’ for ‘town’ at 14dn. The guidance on abbreviations written by the current ST crossword editor some years before taking up that position was “The Times puzzle does not let setters use all the abbreviations in any dictionary. For one-letter abbrev’s in particular, there is believed to be a fairly short list of acceptable ones”. I know this is the Sunday Times and things have probably moved on, but I really don’t welcome this and it seems like lazy cluing, reaching for an easy option instead of coming up with something better.

    I had no idea what Pink Floyd had to do with 28 but the answer was obvious by other means.

    DISCOHERE is not in any of the usual sources (Chambers, COED or Collins) and in fact is not even found in a OneLook search. I did however track it down in SOED and OED.

    Edited at 2016-01-31 06:08 am (UTC)

    1. Who’d be a setter? The only specific suggestions we ever seem to make to them are to not use this device or not use that one. They have a hard enough job as it is without being straitjacketed like that.

      R = Royal as in (for example) Royal Air Force does not seem a stretch to me at all. I might agree that A for Air might be a step too far, but RAC, RCMP, RSPCA, RA, RE… spot the connection, anyone?
      Cohere is in all dictionaries and so is dis- “Meaning not, or a reversal (Chambers).” So not a stretch either.
      Being instructed that it’s apparently OK to use LL but not LS or LLS is plain daft.

      Anyway, don’t listen to them David (or PB)! I for one am enjoying the fresh air

      1. Overall I agree with you, as I hope I made clear in the blog. However I do think there’s a legitimate question as to whether every possible abbreviation should be ‘permissible’, if only because there are so many in Chambers. Having said that you’re right that ‘royal’ is a pretty natural one, and the mere act of writing that such and such an abbreviation should be graciously ‘permitted’ by us solvers highlights to me at least that the idea is a little bit daft.

        Edited at 2016-01-31 10:14 am (UTC)

        1. I don’t think solvers graciously permitting certain abbreviations (or not) is the issue here, but more generally there is a house style to Times crosswords which distinguish them from what’s published elsewhere and I think it’s perfectly reasonable to comment one way or the other when it’s perceived that a clue is breaking new ground. Of course nothing is set in stone, nor should it be.

          The current esteemed ST editor presumably recognises this as he refers below to Chambers not normally being used as a source of words, and in his previous role as founder of this forum he originated a list of “rules” that, whilst not in any way being definitive, were intended to give some guidance as to what solvers might expect. They are still available here for those who may be interested: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/174088.html

          On specifics, I am relieved to find that there is an alternative explanation for LLS in 23ac. It involves a single-letter abbreviation that I have never come across before but it’s far better than relying on LLS to stand for ‘Liberals’ as seemed to be accepted as valid until PB’s intervention.

          As for DISCOHERE, as mentioned in my previous contribution, it doesn’t appear in my fairly recent printed editions of Chambers, COED or Collins, nor is it accepted in Chambers on-line as a valid word, nor is it to be found by OneLook which searches dozens of on-line dictionaries, so despite its appearance in the two-volume SOED and even larger OED I’d say it’s perfectly reasonable to query its place in a regular Times or ST cryptic puzzle.

          Edited at 2016-01-31 07:12 pm (UTC)

          1. Yes, I take your point: these puzzles do after all rely on conventions, so it’s quite important to have some sense of what those conventions are. However I also think it’s easy to get too hung up on them, and being too restrictive risks hampering the creativity we all enjoy in a puzzle like this. R for ‘royal’ makes intuitive sense, so why not use it? S for ‘see’ is a bit more unusual, but it won’t cause me a problem again.
            I don’t have any problem at all with DISCOHERE, personally. It may not be in some of the usual dictionaries, but from a solving point of view this makes no difference (compared to an unknown word that is in Collins, say), so as long as the wordplay is clear I’m happy.

            Edited at 2016-01-31 07:37 pm (UTC)

            1. Thanks for that. Just for the record, I had no problem with R for ‘royal’ when solving as I reasoned it as explained in my original posting above, and S for ‘see’ never occurred to me as I had assumed (as you did in your blog) that it formed a plural with LL and I wasn’t over-enamoured with that. The single-letter abbreviation I didn’t like but hadn’t mentioned specifically though I had it in mind when commenting, was T for ‘town’ which I have now found (but only in COED of the usual sources) is used in sporting circles following the name of a club. I suppose it’s one to bear in mind for the future.
          2. The guidelines were for Times crosswords, as the title of the posting should confirm. I don’t think I have ever said that the Sunday Times followed the same rules, before or after getting my current job.

            Chambers on-line ( http://www.chambers.co.uk/search.php ) uses Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, which is a fair bit shorter than Chambers Dictionary, and not one of our references. In the case of “discohere”, I can’t see that you need a dictionary to understand it unless the meanings of “cohere” or “dis-” are new to you.

            1. I did acknowledge in my original posting that the notes for guidance related specifically to the Times rather than the Sunday Times, nevertheless the house styles are more similar than not (or at least have been in the past) so it’s inevitable that comparisons will be drawn when something unusual comes up.

              As for DISCOHERE, it’s not a question of needing a dictionary to understand what it means, but if one arrives at an unfamiliar word through wordplay and checkers it’s not unreasonable for the intelligent solver to wonder if the word actually exists and to use a dictionary to confirm it.

              In this case none of the more usual sources, by which I mean Collins, COED and Chambers (the printed editions), list it, nor is it found by OneLook which searches most if not all of the on-line dictionaries. I discovered it eventually in the two-volume SOED and in OED so after that I never questioned its validity as a word but I did wonder whether its apparent rarity made it suitable for inclusion in a regular cryptic puzzle (as opposed to Mephisto or other more specialist puzzle).

              As editor that’s your final decision and of course I acknowledge and respect that but once again it’s almost inevitable that comments will be made if new ground is being broken.

              Edited at 2016-02-03 12:12 am (UTC)

    2. Twilight is a book about vampires. It and its sequels were made into a phenomenally successful series of films. Both are aimed at a demographic that is unlikely to be reading this blog.

      Edited at 2016-01-31 10:34 am (UTC)

  2. I took the S of SOD ALL to be the abbreviation of See, as in Holy See, but my usual sources don’t support the idea. However, it can be found at Abbreviations.com. A bit like R for ‘royal’ and T for ‘town’, though, like it or not.
    1. I considered that but rejected the possibility that S could be an abbreviation of ‘see’. But it works either way, and we aren’t required to show our workings. I also considered COD ALL!

      Edited at 2016-01-31 10:36 am (UTC)

  3. I agree with jerry, this was both fresh and a pleasure. And Mr McLean is a PF fan as well! 35 minutes of relaxation.
    1. I hope my blog doesn’t give the impression that I don’t! I’m with you on Pink Floyd too, particularly this album. I was prompted by the puzzle to listen to again for the first time in ages it and I’m glad to report that it hasn’t got any worse.
      1. And I hope my comment didn’t give you the impression that I thought you did, Keriothe!
        Not to be taken personally
  4. Snap Sidcuppa on the S in SOD ALL. And ditto Keriothe on New York, Empire and the APPLE – didn’t know the fruit. Nice one. 21.20
    1. S = see is in Collins, which was new to me but certainly made more sense than LLS = Liberals, so for me had to be the reason why the clue worked, before confirmation.

      Chambers isn’t permitted as a source of words unless I think it has something the others should have included (rare), or it’s the dictionary that specifically mentions something like “discohere” while the others leave you to work it out. So you will never see “take” indicating R in the ST crossword, only in Mephisto. ST xwd abbreviations are required to be in Collins or ODE, like the words (apart from proper nouns, song titles and the like).

      1. So it is. And I even checked.
        And thanks for the helpful clarification.

        Edited at 2016-01-31 01:03 pm (UTC)

  5. Another really enjoyable puzzle from our new chum – great stuff. Started at a gallop, raising false hopes that I’d got onto the new setter’s wavelength, but then ground to a halt and had to work pretty hard to get the rest of it out eventually.

    Thought 2dn was an ST classic (and very neat misdirection), 11a was clever, and 5d took a bit of unravelling. Thanks for the entertaining blog Keriothe: your dry observation re. WYWH was worth the price of admission on its own! And thanks to “Harry” for a fine puzzle.

  6. I decided on s could well be See, but I took a while to decide that Sod All would be proper in the proverbial Times drawing room, so it sat in pencil until the crossers left no alternatives. I couldn’t parse Exact, so I wasn’t equally scandalized there. Now that I know my full vocabulary might well appear in the puzzle it will be much more enjoyable. And, as Keriothe points out, it has even been expanded with wine flu. Thanks, K, thanks to DMcL, and thank you Peter for the note on sources and abbreviations.
    1. I thought and did the same (although I was solving online so mine was a pencil of the mind), but the Sunday Times drawing room is a rather more louche place than its Times equivalent.
  7. I had FIRE for 4d on the basis that “alert to danger” was Fire! with E (Balls, Labour polly) added to Fir (Greens). Oh, well. I agree with keriothe that in normal circumstances you wouldn’t need to shout ‘Fore’ when hitting a shot to a green, unless it’s heading for the wrong green, as K says. Deliberately hitting a shot to a green with people on it is, I would say, a hanging offence! No idea of my time but I know it was in the aeons.
  8. Surely in golf any shot is “going to greens” or at least, as a non-golfer, I always thought that was the idea.
    1. Yes but if the shot is going towards the correct green there shouldn’t be any need to shout ‘fore’, because you shouldn’t take the shot if there are people on it. Oh, and if you think any shot is ‘going to greens’ you haven’t seen me play!

      Edited at 2016-02-07 10:11 am (UTC)

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