Sunday Times 4695 by Dean Mayer

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
An absolute ripper from Dean this week: loved every minute of what turned into a very long grapple indeed. Some ingenious cluing (5a, 8d and 24a being prime examples for my money), great surfaces (6d and 19d stood out), and some amusing inventions (9a and 11a both excellent).

And then there was the barmaid at 20a, which was a beautifully smooth surface, a cleverly concealed anagram and an absolute hoot – one of the all time classics, I reckon.

Thanks to Dean for a wonderful puzzle.

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

Across
1 Vacant council has idiotic people (6)
CLOWNS – CounciL (vacant council) + OWNS (has)
5 Get behind report journalist initially mixed up (4,4)
HANG BACK – BANG (report) and HACK (journalist) with their first letters swapped (initially mixed up). A Spoonerism but not, as it were. Neat construction.
9 Geek wanting good English spoken? (10)
PROGRAMMER – Homophone of Pro Grammar (wanting good English spoken), with ‘spoken’ rather neatly doing double duty as the homophone indicator and also making the surface even smoother
10 This is square, also smooth (4)
SAND – S (abbrev. Square – as in PSI, for instance) + AND (also)
11 Make local people convert others (12)
ALTERNATIVES – Alter natives (make local people convert). Lovely.
13 Little girl tucked into fine pasta rings (6)
ANELLI – NELL (little girl) inside (tucked into) A1 (fine). Was not familiar with this particular pasta type, but fortunately it went in OK from wordplay and cross checkers.
14 Prepare to fire at dog, making snowball? (8)
COCKTAIL – COCK (prepare to fire) + TAIL (dog) giving us the drink made from lemonade and advocaat – the latter having been wonderfully described by the great Willie Rushton as “a drink made from the juices of Dutch lawyers”
16 Jersey soldier in anti-aircraft defence (8)
APOLOGIA – POLO (jersey) + GI (soldier) inside AA (anti-aircraft)
18 Have fun hosting a show (6)
REVEAL – REVEL (have fun) ‘hosting’ A
20 Employer of barmaid, one with large bust (8,4)
WATERING HOLE – *(ONE WITH LARGE) with “bust” as the anagrind. ‘Laconic’ is the word that springs to mind – as well as ‘brilliant’!
23 Long delay, but heading off (4)
ITCH – {H}itch (‘delay’) minus first letter (heading off)
24 It is downtown (4,6)
CITY CENTRE – Initially thought this was just a very gentle cryptic, but so unlike Dean I had to be missing something. Then the penny dropped – IT is, indeed, the centre of city. Very cunning cryptic (& lit, I guess)
25 Runs after subject, is held captive (8)
PRISONER – R (runs) follows PRONE (subject) holding IS
26 Evil, not men’s hatred (6)
ENMITY – EN{OR}MITY – OR (men) omitted from ENIORMITY (evil). One of those clues where the answer was clear enough, but took me a fair while to spot what was going on
Down
2 Instrument battery life will hold up (4)
LYRE – Reverse hidden (indicated by ‘will hold up’) in battERY Life
3 Lament about a great bird (7)
WAGTAIL – WAIL (lament) goes around A GT (a great)
4 Extraordinary bitter – drink bottles (9)
STARTLING – TART (bitter) ‘bottled’ by SLING (drink – as in Singapore Sling)
5 Before raging guilt, Archer in hysterics (7,8)
HOMERIC LAUGHTER – HOME (in) ‘before’ *(GUILT ARCHER) with “raging” as the anagrind
6 Sexy Marilyn‘s short routine (5)
NORMA – Norma Jean (Monroe) derived from NORMA{L} (short routine). Great surface, cracking clue
7 Musician first featured in Band Aid (7)
BASSIST – B (first letter of Band) + ASSIST (aid)
8 Absolute clot (describing idiot) (10)
CONGENITAL – CONGEAL (clot) going around (describing) NIT (idiot), with the elegance of the cluing being reinforced by the fact that ‘congenital’ is probably most frequently heard in the context of the phrase ‘congenital idiot’. Great stuff.
12 Old talk about mountain climbing is easy to take (2,1,7)
ON A PLATTER – O (old) + NATTER (talk) going around ALP reversed (mountain climbing)
15 Old title holder‘s concern over rival (9)
CARTOUCHE – CARE (concern) going around (over) TOUCH (rival), giving us the ancient Egyptian typographic characters used to “bookend” the name of a member of the royal family. Must admit the clever definition went right over my head, and only fell into place following post-solve research: fortunately the wordplay was reasonably generous!
17 In general, bottomless box drains resources (7)
LEECHES – LEE (General) + CHES{T} (bottomless box)
19 Country Life describes volcano (7)
VIETNAM – VIM (life) goes around (describes) ETNA (volcano)
21 Apparently a 25 of ancient people (5)
INCAN – IN CAN (apparently a prisoner – i.e. a 25 across)
22 Dry although cut by river (4)
BRUT – BUT (although) ‘cut’ by R (river)

16 comments on “Sunday Times 4695 by Dean Mayer”

  1. Done and dusted in 5 days. I couldn’t believe it when I finished, and I couldn’t believe it more when I saw the 600. DNK ANELLI, ‘snowball’ the cocktail, or the phrase ‘congenital idiot’ (and wondered a bit at congenital=absolute), and hadn’t thought of HOMERIC LAUGHTER as hysterical, but. I was sure that 7d included IST because of ‘first’, and I was right, for the wrong reason (a Gettier solve, knowledge not being justified true belief). I suppose the COD must go to WATERING HOLE, but what competition!

    Edited at 2016-05-29 02:58 am (UTC)

  2. Best from Dean in a while — and the standard is pretty high. Absolutely failed to spot the WATERING HOLE anagram. Enjoyed the setter’s self-reference at 7dn.
  3. A real highlight for me as well. As of writing, my second tussle with Dean Mayer this weekend, and this was by far the harder. After a few quick write-ins, I sat staring at the clues and grid for ages, before the answers eventually went in bit by bit. BIFD ENMITY but the rest of the parsing was (after a struggle) clear enough. I liked WATERING HOLE (a memorable anagram!), CARTOUCHE, PROGRAMMER and my favourite HANG BACK for its “initially mixed” wordplay.

    I approach puzzles from this setter with some trepidation but they’re always enjoyable and this was no exception. I look forward to many more.

    Thanks to setter and to blogger.

  4. This took me about an hour, but I dozed off half-way through. Superb puzzle, lovely nap: the perfect Sunday afternoon.
    I had never heard of HOMERIC LAUGHTER, but it was perfectly derivable. I wonder if I was alone in thinking TOUCH for ‘rival’ was a bit loose until I thought of MC Hammer.
    Great stuff, thanks Dean and Nick.
  5. Thanks, Nick. Very entertaining bog, which the puzzle fully deserved. I”m in total agreement with you about the busty barmaid — a classic clue. Thanks, DM.
  6. I rarely do the ST cryptic as I am an IPad solver and the different interface really annoys me. However the boredom of a wet day in France forced me to try. I was probably under the hour for this excellent puzzle with my LOI being the workplace of the large-lunged barmaid which I must admit I biffed after completely missing the anagram. Since I can probably only get as far north as Orleans on a full tank of petrol I may be in France for some time!
  7. Unfortunately I threw my print-out away and saved Jeff’s puzzle from the previous Sunday in error, so I can’t remember my experience of this one in any detail. I know I went over the hour and think that eventually I cheated to get ANELLI which was completely unknown to me (unless anyone digs up evidence to the contrary by searching previous blogs). CARTOUCHE and HOMERIC LAUGHTER also gave me problems but I think I worked them out eventually.

    Edited at 2016-05-29 01:12 pm (UTC)

    1. A new word to both of us I think, Jack. Unless we did Mephisto 2585 blogged on 21 March 2010 🙂
  9. Joyful from start to finish…20a is just superb.

    Many thanks to Dean for a fantastic puzzle and to Nick for blogging

  10. Many thanks for the great blog Nick, and to all for your comments, particularly regarding 20a. Have to confess it isn’t a new idea as I used something similar (maybe with a different def) in an online puzzle yonks ago, but a couple of checkers as I filled the grid invited its re-use here. A classic? Hell yeah, but really I take no credit. The anagram was always there to be found and as a setter you just hope to make the discovery – finding it delighted me as much as it would any solver.
    1. Thanks very much for your kind comments Dean. The idea of great anagrams lying around out there just waiting to be discovered is very appealing.

      However, I suspect it’s no coincidence that certain setters seem to stumble across them more often than others!

  11. I’m glad I managed to get through this one; I think it only took me four or five days, on and off! I like a hard puzzle but with not too many unknowns (especially with some, like ANELLI, where you can think, “oh, that’s probably it, because ‘anulus’, and so on…”)

    Thanks for revealing the workings behind the few I couldn’t parse — in particular I didn’t know that meaning of “enormity”, and hadn’t twigged “prone” for “subject”. Happy that my many misspent hours watching Stargate: SG1 came in handy for CARTOUCHE yet again 😀

  12. … saw this mentioned so tried it (rarely do the Sunday crosswords). Well worth the effort, great fun.
    How is PRONE = SUBJECT in 25 across? I can’t see it, the dictionaries don’t help, and you’ve all just glossed over it as if it’s obvious (which no doubt it is 😉
    Cheers
    1. Hi there,

      Just picked up your question. I took it as “the area is prone to flooding” / “the area can be subject to flooding”.

      Agree with you it’s a bit of a curly line linking the words, but I think within the bounds of elasticity that apply in crosswordland! (At least, that’s my take on it…) Hope that helps.

      Regards
      Nick

      1. Elastic indeed. I see what you’re saying, but it doesn’t really work for me.
        Thanks.

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