Sunday Times 4697 by Jeff Pearce

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
A good solid puzzle this week from Jeff which took me somewhat longer than it should have done with the benefit of hindsight. No real obscurities or particularly tricky stuff to negotiate, but not a “gimme” either – by any stretch of the imagination.

4d ruffled a few feathers, so to speak, in the Forum but personally I thought it was fine (indeed, rather good) – see comment below. COD to 21d for its elegance and misdirection.

As ever, thanks to Jeff.

Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by *(–): letters removed indicated by {-}

Across
1 Bars to limit stock (6-4)
CATTLE GRID – A gentle cryptic to kick us off
7 Drop a heroic tale (4)
SAGA – SAG (drop) + A
9 Brilliant Spanish tennis ace cut off pass (8)
SPLENDID – SP (Spanish) + LEND{L} (tennis ace cut off – Ivan with his last letter missing) + ID (pass – as in ID papers / card)
10 Flower a maiden attached to a short belt (6)
AMAZON – A M (a maiden) ‘attached’ to A ZON{E} (a short belt)
11 A shrew damaged heavy rope (6)
HAWSER – *(A SHREW) with “damaged” as the anagrind
13 Extends gold toilets outside front of mansion (8)
AUGMENTS – AU (gold) + GENTS (toilets) going around (outside) M (front of Mansion)
14 Rudely infers assembly instructions from IKEA may not be this (4-8)
USER FRIENDLY – *(RUDELY INFERS) with “assembly” as the anagrind. Personally I’ve generally found Ikea instructions to be pretty good (although being a cryptic aficionado is probably advantageous): manuals for Toshiba electronic gadgets are, however, deeply impenetrable in my experience.
17 Rebuild oblong cage in old part of Africa (7,5)
BELGIAN CONGO – *(OBLONG CAGE IN) with “rebuild” as the anagrind
20 What Persians use to view jewels? (4-4)
CATS EYES – DD, with the first definition somewhat cryptic referring to the felines of that ilk, and the second referring to the gem chrysoberyl
21 Pig runs in front (6)
BREAST – Whilst the answer was clear enough, I found the detailed parsing a bit fiddly here (how the R is introduced). I think what we have is BEAST (pig) with R (runs) ‘in’ it – with the definition simply being “front”, as opposed to “in front”. Not something I’d have paid too much attention to had I not been on blogging duty…
22 Italian city museum enthralling English chap (6)
VERONA – VA (museum) wrapping around (enthralling) E RON (English chap)
23 Academic takes solitary type out to see city dweller
LONDONER – LONER (solitary type) outside DON (academic)
25 Stick may break in the middle (4)
CANE – CAN (may) + middle letter of brEak
26 Bloomer ruined tree? I’ll say! (6,4)
EASTER LILY – *(TREE ILL SAY) with “ruined” as the anagrind
Down
2 Judge gets a lift carrying pages (8)
APPRAISE – A RAISE (a lift) ‘carrying’ PP (pages)
3 Regularly get into western garb (3)
TIE – Every other letter (regularly) of gEt InTo reversed (indicated by ‘western’). Not sure the ‘western’ indicator works too well in a down clue, but I’m probably being a bit picky – I guess it works fine when you read the clue across the page…
4 Does it grow down as it grows up? (5)
EIDER – Nice cryptic clue based on Eider Down. This one generated a bit of comment in the Forum, with several claiming ELDER as an equally viable answer. Must admit this seems a bit of a stretch to me (certainly relative to the elegance of Eider) as, whilst I suppose an Elder does grow down in the sense of putting down roots, the downward growth doesn’t seem quintessentially ‘elderish’ compared with the down on an eider.
5 The German overturning binding European regulations (3,4)
RED TAPE – DER reversed (‘the’ in German ‘overturning’) + TAPE (binding). Not sure ‘European’ adds much to the clue, other than possibly eliciting nods of approval from the Brexit brigade…
6 Daughter, scruffy and boozing, continued tediously (7,2)
DRAGGED ON – D (daughter) + RAGGED (scruffy) + ON (boozing)
7 Toy helmets scattered round a big house (7,4)
STATELY HOME – *(TOY HELMETS) – with “scattered” as the anagrind – plus A also thrown into the mix (round a)
8 Rubbish in front of cave (6)
GROTTO – GROT (rubbish) + TO – which might be clued through “in front of” (seems a bit odd) or conceivably it is indeed found ‘in’ fronT Of. Maybe I have missed something here…
12 Way cyborg crime fighter arrests small Egyptian flasher? (11)
STROBOSCOPE – ST (way – as in abbrev. street) + ROBO COP (cyborg crime fighter) taking in S (arresting small) + E (abbrev. Egyptian). The surface conjures up an intriguing image.
15 Broadcast about to contain a cycle event (5,4)
RELAY RACE – RELAY (broadcast) + RE (about) containing A C (C being abbrev, of cycle – as in CPS = cycles per second)
16 For best results, soldiers need this protective layer to be cracked (8)
EGGSHELL – Nice cryptic based around “soldiers” being strips of bread dipped into a boiled egg. Went down a number of cul de sacs here involving GIS etc. before finally seeing the light.
18 Fashionable and exclusive scents – initially they’re found in Boots! (7)
INSOLES – IN (fashionable) + SOLE (exclusive) + S (Scents initially)
19 One snaps in the judge’s room (6)
CAMERA – DD, with the latter reflecting the legal concept of “in camera” hearings behind closed doors
21 Nut heading for coffee in Costa, say (5)
BONCE – C (heading for Coffee) in BONE (costa – a rib like bone). Fine clue, I thought, with plenty of misdirection happening.
24 Solemn person taking top off dish (3)
OWL – {B}OWL – one of today’s more straightforward ones to end with

15 comments on “Sunday Times 4697 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. One wrong: ‘prod’ instead of GRID at 1ac; it doesn’t make sense, but it’s the best I could do. I had a hard time with the 21s, especially since I didn’t know BONCE; but I finally parsed BREAST as Nick does, and remembered the bone meaning of ‘costa’. I agree 100% with Nick on EIDER; and I can imagine the complaints if ‘elder’ had been the actual solution. Someone on the forum noted that eiders start off life downy; true, but that doesn’t stop them from growing more down as they grow.

    Edited at 2016-06-12 04:56 am (UTC)

  2. Nick, I think this was 4697, not 4696. Totally agree with you and Kevin regarding EIDER.
  3. – yes, 4697 not 6
    – yes, happy with 4dn as eider. However I can see where the elder crew are coming from. If you thought of it first and were in too much of a hurry…
    Overall another good effort from Jeff, I thought. Now for a wrestle with Dean..
  4. I had a slight delay finishing off in the SE corner, the 21s and 16 but I mostly enjoyed this.

    The fuss over 4dn was unwarranted in my view, but my beef is 15ac where cycle = C, if indeed that is the explanation. I was hoping to find that I had overlooked something when I came here to see what our blogger made of it but we have both arrived at the same conclusion.

    As far as I can see, having checked the usual sources none of them lists ‘C’ as an abbreviation or symbol for ‘cycle’, and I don’t think it is valid to extract a single letter from a longer abbreviation of initial letters (such as CPS – cycles per second) in order to justify it. In that example it stands for the plural anyway, not the singular as in the clue. By that logic, and sticking with CPS, we could be faced with C clued as ‘crown’ next week as in ‘Crown Prosecution Service’, or ‘customs’ as in HMRC. The possibilities are endless.

    Edited at 2016-06-12 07:12 am (UTC)

    1. C for ‘cycle’ is in Collins, Jack. I think I remember PB saying that he will accept any abbreviation that is in Collins, and we have had T for ‘town’ a couple of times recently.
      1. Okay, I missed it, so thanks for pointing that out and you may be right about what PB said more recently with regard to the ST puzzle. I’m still of the old school, working to the guidelines he posted some years ago concerning the daily Times (The Times puzzle does not let setters use all the abbreviations in any dictionary. For one-letter abbreviations in particular, there is believed to be a fairly short list of acceptable ones) which I suspect would not have included C for cycle.

        But times move on and this is the ST after all where as editor he can set his own policies.

        Edited at 2016-06-12 08:56 am (UTC)

        1. I’m a bit ambivalent about this, I must say. I accept it as just a normal feature in Mephisto, but there I’m used to a much more speculative style of solving: you have to bear in mind that pretty much any word could be abbreviated to its first letter (or indeed another letter: ‘take’ for R, for instance), and that any apparently meaningless string of letters could actually be a word. But these puzzles are different so I find it a bit off-putting. On the other hand ‘any abbreviation in Collins’ is a perfectly valid rule and I’m already getting used to it.
    2. Yes, I too wondered about this but recalled S for square a couple of weeks ago (which was as in PSI = per square inch) so by analogy thought it was probably OK.

      On reflection, I’m with you Jack and like your Crown Prosecutor example.

        1. Mind you I remember Peter B explicitly saying that he wouldn’t allow all the abbreviations in Chambers (which has hundreds of them), so I’m not sure where that leaves us!
          1. The same thought occurred to me, but Nick didn’t specify ‘S for square’ was in the ST rather than the Daily which clearly does use Chambers as a reference on occasions. If it was in the daily Times then we’re back to the elusive list of permitted single-letter abbreviations that no-one has actually confirmed exists.
            1. Sorry folks, sloppy on my part. S for square was in an ST (last one I blogged from Dean, as best I recall). Anyway, I’m now sitting in a beautiful terraced garden in Ragusa, Sicily following a very long lunch, and feeling somewhat less engaged in such matters than I probably should. Ah, there’s another bottle of red appearing…
  5. 16m. I considered some sort of plant, and the idea of roots growing down, but thought it would be weak as it could apply to pretty much any plant or tree, so I kept thinking.

    Edited at 2016-06-12 07:39 am (UTC)

  6. I seem to have slipped up in 4695 by allowing S=square, which as far as I can tell is a Chambers-only abbreviation. I wouldn’t expect people to get it from something like PSI, as this would logically allow P=pounds and I=inch, neither of which seem convincing, partly because both have much better-known alternatives.

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