Sunday Times 4743 by Dean Mayer

20 comments on “Sunday Times 4743 by Dean Mayer”

1. …and in fact I thought it was rather easy for one of Dean’s productions. I finished in 45 minutes, which is a good time for me. I had heard of a lot of what the blogger hadn’t heard of, making my solve less painful.

   Once upon a time, I scribbled answers in classical Greek on a weekly quiz, and know that rho is ‘Ρ,p’ and pi is ‘Π,π’, very different in appearance from the corresponding English letters ‘R’ and ‘P’. I still thought the clue was a little unfair, since Patras would be ‘Πάτραι’, and not have a rho to its name.

   1. Is not the fourth letter of Patras a Rho?

      Some folk appear to be saying that a good range of General Knowledge should not be necessary to complete a Times puzzle?

      Probably Patras was used by the setter to deceive as, in Greek, the p in Patras is not the first but the fourth letter? I thought it was an excellent clue.

      1. You may well be right with your parsing of 24d (although we appear to have Vinyl saying that there is no rho in Patras). I can’t comment further as I have zero knowledge of Greek. I have been to Patras but my only memory of it is a particularly riotous night in a bouzouki bar – which doesn’t help!

         Re. your other observation regarding GK, I don’t think anyone is disputing that a good range of GK is a necessary prerequisite for completing a Times puzzle. To the extent there might be any discomfort with this clue, I think that could be due to the fact that in this instance the lack of any supporting wordplay means that you are dead in the water if you do not have the required GK – and that is regarded as a bit tough on solvers where the answer is obscure.

         Whether rho is obscure enough to fall into the “would be nice to have a bit of wordplay to help out here” bucket is anyone’s guess – one man’s “everyone knows that!” is another man’s “you what?”

         Anyway, the important thing is that it was a fun puzzle.

2. Like Vinyl, I’d heard of most of the words Nick hadn’t; probably unlike Vinyl, I didn’t know what most of them meant: OPPUGN, for instance, or FURBELOW. I couldn’t write rho in Greek, but I knew pi wouldn’t fit, and that was enough. I biffed PERUKE, and only much later recalled ‘cat’. 18d had me puzzled until I remembered that the rules of the Times puzzles don’t apply in the ST. LOI was 21d; I figured it had to be MISTER sans T, but gave up trying to interpret it further. I had no idea ‘over’=’again’ was an Americanism. COD to 23ac.
3. I’ve been feeling a bit unenthused as the last few puzzles I’ve done have lacked that bit of zing, so this was just the tonic I needed. A few obscure ones including PERUKE which I’d vaguely heard of somewhere and some great clues including those for FURBELOW, KICK START and BASHFUL. To at least one non-UK solver BARREL OF LAUGHS, is well known, often used in a sarcastic sense. My favourite was the combatants with their down weapons in PILLOW FIGHT.

   A big thanks to setter and to blogger.

4. …unIike my cover drive ever was. I did this in about 40 minutes, puzzling too long on OPPUGN before spotting that it was contained backwards and finally giving up on UPTURN. I’d vaguely heard the word FURBELOW but had never asked what it meant before. HEELPOST was unknown but anagram soluble with crossers. Enjoyed the BARREL OF LAUGHS with COD BLOWOUTS. Thanks Nick and Dean too, if I may be so presumptuous.
5. I knew RHO looked a bit like a P from Physics as it was customarily used for density and resistivity. I also knew it from a course I did in New Testament Greek but PATRAS must begin with pi, as Vinyl says, so it was a strange clue.
6. 27:38. I found this very tough, and mostly not because of the obscurities. I remembered FURBELOW, HEELPOST and ‘cat’ from previous appearances. I think we’ve had PERUKE before too, although it’s easy if you happen to know the French for ‘wig’. No idea about ‘hunks’ but the wordplay was helpful.
   I didn’t have a problem solving 24dn but I still don’t understand it.
7. A tough puzzle which had me not so much stumped as bowled by a googly. A DNF in around 1hr 20mins. Unfortunately I fell into the face trap at 20 AC and so biffed Cesar at 21dn. I might well have biffed Miser with the correct checkers but wouldn’t otherwise have taken Miser as synonymous with hunks. Couldn’t see the wood for the trees at 18ac where I was convinced I was looking for an anagram of ‘but so is’ containing ‘0’ for squat (diddly squat). This led me to bung in buososti (a rare musical term for a series of flat notes) which I just preferred over and above biosostu (a radical Japanese architectural solution to sustainable living in the cramped urban environment). Lots to like though, 12dn my COD. Thanks to the setter for the challenge. Thanks to the blogger for enlightenment. BTW Nick, I think you have a typo in the blog, at 15dn, the “h” in the solution is clued by “horse” in the clue not “hand”. Or have I go that wrong?
   1. Thanks for spotting the horse/hand typo – fixed.
      1. Thanks for amending the blog. I can only imagine what a beast this puzzle must have been to blog, even by this setter’s usual high standards!
8. Wiki tells me that Patras is Greece’s third larges city. Perhaps the clue at 24d is simply saying that P in Patras is Rho?
   Thanks to setter & blogger – great puzzle.
9. Another enjoyable and testing crossword from my favourite setter. However, not enthusiastic about 24d. I knew it …. but am not sure how I was meant to work it out if I didn’t ?
10. Once again a Dean puzzle was much too hard for me.
    I started with Ref and Barrel of Laughs but only managed another seven clues including Fame, Miser (did not know why) and Rho (thought it was a Greek letter).
    Had Fearful for 18d then gave up. David
11. For once I found this easy and ticked complete in 15 minutes. The miser = hunks thing was the only one not known before. Well blogged nick.
12. Failed miserably on this one with 3 wrong. PANG, UPTURN and PRESESSION, in 1:37:58. I knew Rho and PERUKE, but agonized for ages as I didn’t know the Puke meaning of cat. Most of this was a long drawn out struggle. A tough challenge. Thanks Dean and Nick.
13. Had no difficulty with 24dn: npbull has it – Patras was simply an example of a Greek city, chosen to put everyone on the wrong track.
14. As a foreign solver,l could not let 23a beat me,butt gave me an idea that it was to do with barrel,so just checked expressions under ‘barrel’ and there it was in my Oxford.
    Ong’ara,
    Kenya.
15. We always find it amusing how we know some really obscure words and are ignorant of well known definitions.

    The only time I ever heard furbelow was back in the early 60s on Beyond Our Ken or Round The Horne. The pun went something like this.

    Kenneth Horne: “In Victorian times women’s dresses had a furbelow”
    Kenneth Williams: “but their necklines were furbelow where they should be”.

    As usual thanks to all the setters and bloggers. Very often we’d be lost without you.

    Janet and Tom, Toronto.

16. Nick,

    Somewhat late I know but what’s a few months between friends? I have a stash of un-solved crosswords and this fell to hand on this rainy day. DNF as I struggled and then gave up on exactly the clues you highlight in your summary – so – many thanks for clearing it all up.

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