Sunday Times 4711 by David McLean

16 comments on “Sunday Times 4711 by David McLean”

1. … DISLIKE. But it had to have a K to complete the pangram; so not DESPISE. Getting more used to DM’s style after a few puzzles. I like them. Perhaps not as much as the other DM??

   27ac: Guess this must just be an “in-form ant” — a social worker who’s performing well.

   Edited at 2016-09-17 11:35 pm (UTC)

2. I also had ‘despise’, but made the mistake of leaving it in (didn’t notice the pangram). I parsed INFORMANT as McT did, while wondering if ‘at work’ was necessary. CAPSIZE was late in coming–I have CAPTION, CAPTIVE, CAPRICE written in the margin–, largely because I had no idea what ‘new Lion’ meant; still don’t, actually. RESETTLE also took me time–was my LOI–I think because ‘up sticks’ to me (it’s not in my dialect) meant moving without implying a destination (can one up sticks and take to the road?). I was/am puzzled by USE/work.
   1. Lions are the Rugby Union international team made up of players from any of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. A new selectee would need his cap size taken so that he could be properly capped.
3. Never less than interesting, these puzzles, and they’re satisfying to complete though I’m not sure that “enjoyable” would be exactly describe my experience.

   RAV was unknown as was C for “city” at 1ac which seems to be sanctioned only by the Oxfords (of the usual sources) and then only with reference to names of football teams when the C is one of several letters. I’m not keen on this as it sets a precedent for any letter of an acronym or longer abbreviation to be taken out of context and used to stand for almost any word. Still it’s what I’m getting used to on a Sunday so I wasn’t exactly taken by surprise and floored by it.

   Edited at 2016-09-18 05:14 am (UTC)

   1. The example of C = City in ODE is “Lincoln C”, in which it’s the only abbreviated word. You could see it in something like “Man C”, but unless the dictionaries start recording Manchester as a meaning of “Man”, it will NOT be allowed to indicate Man in a clue without a “first 3 letters” indication. The same applies to single letters like O=orchestra, as in LSO and many others, but not under O in the dictionary.

      Edited at 2016-09-18 06:18 am (UTC)

4. 22:13. I enjoyed this a lot.
   ‘Social worker’ is quite a common way of defining ANT (or indeed BEE). The way I read it the words ‘at work’ are unnecessary but they contribute to the surface and turn the clue into a kind of DBE, since work is just one of the things you might be doing well at if you’re IN FORM. Although I’m not sure what that might be if you’re an ant.

   Edited at 2016-09-18 08:41 am (UTC)

   1. Managing to move that rubber tree plant?

      Edited at 2016-09-18 09:47 am (UTC)

      1. But surely that is work for an ant. I don’t think they’d do it otherwise, given the clear impossibility of the task. Unless they were particularly optimistic.

         Edited at 2016-09-18 12:38 pm (UTC)

         1. and dreaming of apple pie in the sky.
            1. Well indeed, but I remain sceptical. It seems to me he’d just be butting his head against, well, something or other.

               Edited at 2016-09-18 07:34 pm (UTC)

   2. Thanks for the insights K. Had not come across the “social worker” (as opposed to worker) for ant before – will tuck that one away for the future.
      1. There’s certainly a concept of a “social insect” — see https://www.britannica.com/animal/social-insect — and any setter who knows that is unlikely to be able to resist combining it with ant/bee = worker when it’s convenient for the surface.
5. I usually like DMs puzzles, and I usually get through them with a bit of work. I liked this, but did not get through it even with rather a lot of work. Lots of places I got the wrong word – the worst was ERG, the unit of work, which is alternate letters in TAKE DRUGS. Thanks for the edification, Nick.
6. Thanks for pointing out the pangram McT – totally missed that. Thinking about it, I guess that is a classic example of when spotting a pangram can be extremely useful, otherwise there was nothing else to indicate that Despise was wrong as the cross checkers fitted (unless, of course, you happened to be blogging it and therefore felt compelled to parse the thing…)
7. Can someone enlighten me regarding the reference to a pangram in 20d. I have no idea why it meant the letter K had to be there.

   Margaret in Ottawa

   1. I think a pangram is a crossword in which the answers include all the letters of the alphabet. I think the setters like to do this to give themselves a challenge. In this case, for the more awkward letters: J is in Joyous, Q is in Quoits, V is in Rav and Derive, X is in Water Taxi, Z is in Capsize. So to be a pangram there needs to be a “K” somewhere and it is in 20 down, Dislike. However, I think that the clue should give an unambiguous answer and it should not be relying on a external device such as the crossword being a pangram.

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