Sunday Times 4689 by Dean Mayer

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Found this one particularly tricky, even by Dean’s standards – but very rewarding as I slowly worked my way through it. Solved in bits and pieces in sub-optimal circumstances – flying to San Francisco sitting hunched up next to a couple of screaming young ‘uns. And the blog was written up just after stepping off the return flight and feeling not quite connected with the universe, so apologies in advance for any slips or typos.

Many clues to savour and some great surfaces. 23a was very cute, I thought, and 20a and 5d well worth singling out for a tip of the hat. A couple of unknowns (which is probably just a poor reflection on the state of my GK) at 15d and 19d, but both were able to be derived with a reasonable level of certainty from wordplay and cross checkers. From a parsing perspective, as is often the case it was the three letter answers that presented me the greatest challenge.

Thanks as usual to Dean for a fine puzzle.

Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by *(–)

Across
1 Fish in box turned stiff (8)
PILCHARD – CLIP (box – as in around the ears) ‘turned’ + HARD (stiff)
6 Bob‘s insult on the cricket pitch (6)
SLEDGE – DD. Cue memories of legendary sledges: personal favourite was the utterly surreal supposed barb hurled at Mike Atherton by Steve Kirby of Yorkshire – “I’ve seen better players in my fridge”
9 Good way to cut use of fertiliser? It gets my vote! (7,7)
POLLING STATION – Nice cryptic definition, with the wordplay being G (good) + ST inside (cut) POLLINATION (fertiliser)
10 Now here‘s instant food (6)
MODISH – MO (instant) + DISH (food)
12 Shape integral to bust (8)
TRIANGLE – *(INTEGRAL) with “bust” as the anagrind
13 New parts have an effect on signal (4)
HINT – N (new) ‘parts’ HIT (have an effect on). One of those where it’s obvious once you see it, but the path to truth was cunningly disguised.
14 Commitment for one in marriage (14)
ALLEGIANCE – EG (for one) ‘in’ ALLIANCE (marriage)
16 Muscle, dodgy one, suffering with zip slip (10)
PECCADILLO – PEC (muscle) + CAD (dodgy one) + ILL (suffering) + O (zip). Spent an age on this having convinced myself we were looking for a muscle from other components of the clue.
19 The best place to turn (4)
TOPS – SPOT (place) reversed (to turn)
20 Christmas over, roast flipping pig (8)
NAPOLEON – NOEL (Christmas) + O (over) + PAN (roast – as in criticise) all reversed (flipping) to reveal the porcine insurgent in Animal Farm. Good clue all round, I thought – neatly constructed, nice surface and required a penny-drop moment.
22 German city, one framed by artist (6)
MUNICH – I (one) ‘framed’ by MUNCH (artist)
23 Central point of crossword? (5-5-4)
SOUTH SOUTH WEST – A wee gem, this one. At the centre of croSSWord we have the ‘point’. Lovely.
25 A scholar is a lovely man (6)
ADONIS – A DON (scholar) IS
26 Retreat’s a little bit rubbish (8)
DENOUNCE – DEN (retreat) + OUNCE (a little bit)
Down
2 One’s found in better jam (9)
IMPROVISE – IS (one is) ‘found’ inside IMPROVE (better)
3 Where convict is beginning to train musician (7)
CELLIST – CELL (where convict is) + IS + T (first letter – beginning – of Train)
4 Tropical bird featured in a stamp? (3)
ANI – The answer has to be the South American cuckoo, and I think what is going on here is A + NI (reference to the old National Insurance “stamp”). Bit obscure for me I’m afraid.
5 Like everything, mostly computerised? (7)
DIGITAL – DIG IT AL[L] (most of ‘like everything’). Very nice.
6 This is small and it can clean lounge (7,4)
SITTING ROOM – S (small) + IT + TIN (can) + GROOM (clean). Another of today’s heavy duty word sums.
7 Migrant is not welcomed by each country (7)
ESTONIA – *(IS NOT) – with “migrant” as the anagrind – inside (welcomed by) EA (each)
8 Turn left perhaps to warn of attack (5)
GROWL – GROW (turn – as in turn into) + L (left)
11 Ambassador refers to ceremonial attire (11)
HEADDRESSES – HE (His Excellency – Ambassador) + ADDRESSES (refers to)
15 Catch a cold etc – catching one is great (9)
COPACETIC – COP (catch) + A + C (cold) + ETC with I inside (catching one) giving a word that totally baffled me. US colloquialism apparently – well, there you go…
17 Prisoner gets hammer inside piece of bread (7)
CROUTON – ROUT (hammer) ‘inside’ CON (prisoner)
18 Slow PC network with short lead (7)
LANGUID – LAN (abbrev. in IT for Local Area Network – “PC network”) + GUIDe truncated (short lead)
19 Oiled nut, one securing a vintage car part (7)
TONNEAU – *(NUT ONE) – with “oiled” as the anagrind and A also thrown into the mix (secured), giving us a word that appears to have a variety of automotive meanings, most of which are concerned with the area occupied by the rear seats. I’d vaguely heard of the word but hadn’t a clue what it meant, so this was another that went in blindly on wordplay and cross checkers.
21 Crazy bridges over bypass (5)
AVOID – AVID (crazy) ‘bridging’ O (over).
24 Not cock of the north (3)
HEN – Must confess I went round the houses trying to parse this one with any level of certainty, and by this stage I just needed a good lie down… A couple of my theories were that it was drawing on “not cock” pointing us to Hen whilst also alluding to the Scots’ (northerners) penchant for using “hen” as a term of endearment. Or maybe it’s HE (cock) + N (north) – but not, as it were. Or maybe I’ve missed something obvious… I look forward to enlightenment from the assembled company. [On edit: predictably enough, I’d missed the obvious – it’s a hidden (indicated by ‘of’) in tHE North). Thanks to all who pointed this out, and to PB for his gracious observation].

30 comments on “Sunday Times 4689 by Dean Mayer”

  2. I’m not sure what I’d have done if I didn’t know COPACETIC (not only US, but on the dated side, although I have heard it) and TONNEAU (which I knew from ‘tonneau cover’), but fortunately I wasn’t tested. As I think was noted in the club forum ‘is’ is doing double duty in 3d: CELL is ‘where convict is’, but ‘is’ also provides IS. Do you want to extend your underline to ‘here’, Nick? I had thought the definition was just ‘now’, and ‘here’ was there to smooth the surface. Smooth surfaces was something there were a lot of, by the way. COD 9ac, but there were lots of lovelies: 13ac and 23ac, especially, inter alia.
    1. Couldn’t really see the problem. [A] cell is where [a] convict is. Very like Pynchon’s US English syntax: He’s in a cell is where he is, usw.
    2. Thanks Kevin. I did note “is” apparently doing double duty, but for some reason omitted it from the write up (as opposed to consciously embracing mctext’s Pynchonesque justification below!)

      I pondered the extent of the definition at 10a and consciously plumped for including “here’ on the basis that if it was now here, it was a la mode. But I bow to your and keriothe’s guidance on this.

  3. Dean seems to have acquired a couple of serial detractors on the club website forum, but I love his crosswords even though I know it is likely to take me longer than usual to solve them..

    No problems with 24dn, a hidden clue as aphis says. But I confess I wasn’t keen on 4dn. “province” might have served better than “stamp.”


  4. …as always from our occasional commenter. (But you get that with left-handed bass players eh?)

    Nicely confused by the adjectival “Migrant” at 7dn. A lesser compiler would have perhaps used “Migrating”. Something similar — in terms of confusion — for the meaning of “Turn” at 8dn.

    It might have been better, and I’m sure Dean would agree, if SSW were actually central in some sense (23ac).

    Clue of the Week to the “pollination”/POLLING STATION device where, BTW to Nick, the clue must surely use “USE OF fertiliser” as the outside intercalation material.

    Edited at 2016-04-17 07:44 am (UTC)

    1. Not sure I understand your point on SSW. It is central to ‘crossword’.

      Edited at 2016-04-17 08:48 am (UTC)

      1. I mean … if only SSW (say England) were central geographically to something … somewhere. A question for Jimbo perhaps. Or that other cockney upgrader, Billy Bragg. Then the clue would be a definite &lit.

        Of course SSW WA is central to Australian wine/olive growing, inter alia.

        1. Don’t understand the point here either. SSW is central to croSSWord and there’s no suggestion of an &slit

          FGBP

  5. Made heavy weather of this but got there eventually. DK COPACETIC but the wordplay was helpful. Only knew ANI because it came up in #4685 (also blogged by Nick) when there was a discussion about whether it was singular or plural or both.
  6. No real time for this: it took me 36 minutes but I fell asleep in the middle. A rather pleasant way of solving, and a very enjoyable puzzle that would have been completely ruined for me by 4dn if I hadn’t happened to have known the bird. It’s obscure enough to warrant a clear alternative indication in my view, but the wordplay indication is even more obscure.
    Not sure what happened with 3dn, but it doesn’t seem to work. I didn’t even notice while I was solving, though.
    I knew COPACETIC. It always strikes me as a word that must have originated from a Simpsons episode.
    P.S. Nick you’re missing an underline at 11dn.

    Edited at 2016-04-17 09:18 am (UTC)

    2. As Olivia would have told you were she here, ANI is yet one more of the NY Times’s hoard of chestnuts.
  7. 3D: Apologies for failing to spot the double duty.

    23A: if mctext’s idea was that it would have been nice for the answer to be central in the grid, that’s strictly speaking logically impossible for a 14-letter answer in a 15×15 grid.

    Nick’s hidden word embarrassment: I think we’ve all been there.

    1. A hidden word answer you can’t spot is the most opaque clue of all, totally unsolvable … though highly satisfying to the setter, no doubt!
      1. Thanks to both Peter and Jerry for your consoling words. But, as a blogger the experience is closely akin to having done a presentation to a roomful of senior execs, only for your boss to come up afterwards and say “good job Nick, but next time check your flies before you stand up to talk…” (and yes, I am of course speaking from experience)
        1. As PB says we have all been there .. well, not with the flies perhaps, but still.. as anyone in television will tell you, it’s not entertainment until something goes pear shaped. If only you were hosting Pointless or something, you would have a pay rise 🙂
    2. I think, Peter, the comment is because we’re used to finding the definition at the front or back of the clue. SSW is not “central”, and it really isn’t a “central point” either. So it only gets close to &lit status, leaving it as a clever cryptic, I guess.
      1. Er, SSW is “central” in the word “croSSWord”, and it’s a point = compass point. So I’d say it really is a “central point”, and the definition is the whole clue. The definition being at one end of the clue is a common result of the def and wordplay structure of clues, but not a standard to rely on all the time.

        Edited at 2016-04-19 08:51 am (UTC)

  8. For what it’s worth, I saw this as an anagram of “in a” with stamp as the anagrind. I knew ani from some crosswords ago, as mentioned in the comments. Thanks for the explanation of 23a -I entered it with the definition “point”, but it was a biff,
    Thanks setter and blogger.

    Ken S.

  9. Loved it, did it all at leisure, have to admit I put in HEN without seeing the hidden word so Nick You Are Not Alone the Novice.
  11. Surely the clue to 3 Dn just doesn’t work? How can “where convict is” define “CELL IS” ??
  12. I was all set to moan about the double duty and then I saw Peter’s apology for the mistake. Pity that not every crossword editor behaves the same way.

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