Sunday Times 4746 by Dean Mayer

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
30:01. I struggled mightily with this, feeling miles off the wavelength all the way through. I did enjoy it though, in a masochistic kind of way.

Going through it to write up the blog, as so often, I really can’t see what held me up. So many of the clues are models of simplicity. I definitely took too long over some not-particularly-difficult clues (12ac, for instance), so perhaps I was just being dim.

Lots of great stuff in here but I’m a sucker for a good &Lit and a spectacular anagram, so my clue of the day has to go to 4dn, which is both.

Thanks once again to Dean for a supremely entertaining puzzle.

Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (THIS)*.

Across
1 Show pages out of order
POMP – P(OM)P, where OM is the Order of Merit. Check out the membership on wikipedia: it looks like a fun crowd.
3 See increase in value
APPRECIATE – DD. See = understand = appreciate.
10 Free rent again
RELEASE – DD.
11 Breaks in its covers vibrate the wrong way
IRRUPTS – ITS containing a reversal of PURR (vibrate).
12 Cowboy on plains sure of getting shot
UNPROFESSIONAL – (ON PLAINS SURE OF)*. Brilliant!
14 Look, tramp returned sandwiches to restaurant
TRATTORIA – reversal of AIR, TART containing TO.
16 Plain backing on everything
LLANO – reversal of ON ALL. The Spanish word for ‘plain’ familiar to crossword solvers and, er, Spanish people.
17 In spite of that, almost square
EVENS – EVEN So.
19 Spain and France open royal houses for white people
PALEFACES – PAL(E, F)ACES.
21 Old hat with paper covering
BEHIND THE TIMES – two definitions, one very slightly cryptic.
24 Very short rope for tanning rooms
SOLARIA – SO (very), LARIAt. When you’ve been solving (and no doubt setting) these things for a certain period of time you start to think that a word like ‘lariat’ is perfectly run-of-the mill, even common-or-garden. It isn’t, but the checkers and definition should get you to the answer if you don’t know it.
25 Dog found one crossing US state
BASENJI – BASE(NJ), I. The famous non-barking dog.
26 Regularly turned pants near the bottom
UNDERNEATH – tUrNe, (NEAR THE)*. It took me ages to get past the idea that TURNED was the anagrist, ‘regularly’ the definition.
27 Scottish Herald — the end of all that
LYON – alL, YON. The Chief Herald of Scotland, apparently. I had no idea such a thing even existed. In fact I had no idea Scotland had Heralds to be chief of.

Down
1 Twisted rake’s broken with holes
PIROUETTED – PI(ROUE)TTED. I remember a senior city professional referring to another as a ‘white-shoe roué’ many years ago and the phrase has stuck with me. It’s a strange thing to say because ‘white-shoe’ isn’t really derogatory.
2 I am less “parleyed”, perhaps
MY LIPS ARE SEALED – (I AM LESS PARLEYED)*. &Lit. Bravo!
4 Man still talking
PIECE – sounds like ‘peace’. A man is a PIECE in the world of chess of course.
5 Checks unlikely to be put in again
REINSTALL – REINS, TALL. The equivalence of ‘tall’ and ‘unlikely’ is explicitly present in the (ironic) phrase ‘a likely story’.
6 Song about potty arrangement of lifts?
CAR POOL – CAR(PO)OL. ‘Po’ is an abbreviation for chamberpot found only in crosswords. Have you seen James Corden’s CAR POOL karaoke? Very entertaining.
7 Ready for a shower?
APPEARANCE MONEY – CD. To show is to show up, appear.
8 Choke as you’re eating a piece of cake
EASY – contained in ‘choke as you’re’.
9 Badger forbidden for stew
RAGOUT – RAG, OUT.
13 Teams in Italy agreed on title
POSSESSION – POSSES, SI (in Italy agreed), ON. Nine tenths of the law, or so they say. Years ago I worked with a lawyer who used to say this jokingly about his presence in meetings hours after he was supposed to be in another meeting with another client. Since I was frequently on the receiving end of this behaviour I didn’t find it particularly funny.
15 Give denial about dessert I had
REPUDIATE – RE PUD I ATE.
18 Troublemaker, terrorist? Not to criminal
STIRRER – (tERRoRIST)*.
20 Try to get information about alien thing?
FETISH – F(ET)ISH.
22 Husband slightly bent
HABIT – H, A BIT.
23 Hairy man in union full of it
ESAU – E(SA)U. SA is ‘sex appeal’, aka ‘it’, but only in crosswords. I would be a bit miffed if this were a reference to obscure scripture, but of course it’s a reference to Beyond the Fringe, a much more worthy candidate for required knowledge IMO, even if I wasn’t alive at the time. I thought I was indebted to Peter Cook for this but it turns it was Alan Bennett.

17 comments on “Sunday Times 4746 by Dean Mayer”

  1. No time for this one, which means lots of time, a few in the upper half proving recalcitrant long after I’d done the lower. A major problem was putting in ‘attendance money’–evidently the Oz equivalent of APPEARANCE MONEY; I knew neither term. Finally getting UNPROFESSIONAL got me to corrrect 7d, which gave me 11ac. Lots of fine clues, as usual, but I especially liked POMP, UNPROFESSIONAL, & REINSTALL. In my day, white shoes were the mark of a hick dressed up; a friend of mine who was a waiter in a very good French restaurant would estimate how poor his tip would be by the number of white shoes in the party.
    1. Definitely a pejorative term down here:

      “(especially during the 1980s) wealthy business people of Queensland, typically property developers, perceived as aggressively commercial, vulgarly showy, and politically conservative.”

      And sorry Kevin, never heard of “attendance money”.

      1. Well, that makes two of us; my (Japanese) English-Japanese dictionary, where I went after typing in ‘attendance’, says it’s Australian for ‘appearance money’, and I like a fool believed them.
  2. Not my fastest time in minutes and seconds, but in terms of more meaningful units of measure such as K’s or V’s (or indeed Sotiras), this might have been my best solve ever.

    I certainly enjoyed it. Always that extra frisson when you click on the puzzle and discover it’s a Dean, and he never lets us down. Not even tempted to say I’m getting the hang of him, just got lucky on this occasion.

    No COD, just brilliant clues everywhere. Thanks Dean and Keriothe.

    BTW K, I think you mean 2dn in your introduction, not 4dn, but I agree with the sentiment.

  3. Once again for a weekend puzzle I seem to have chucked away my print-out in advance of the blog publication day. I recall this was memorable for my finishing one of Dean’s in under 30 minutes which is something of a rarity. I remember getting LYON without actually knowing it, and the wretched dog was dredged up from somewhere as my LOI. Are Sunday puzzles getting easier?

    Edited at 2017-05-21 04:37 am (UTC)

    1. Collins also defines ‘it girl’ as ‘a rich, usually attractive, young woman who spends most of her time shopping or socializing’. There is more to the concept than sex appeal, so I don’t think the phrase supports this definition of ‘it’.
      I can accept ‘it’ as sex appeal though: it’s the abbreviation (SA) that I don’t think exists any more outside the world of crosswords, whatever Collins says. But really I’m just teasing: this is one of those crossword conventions you have to learn, and as such I don’t really mind it.
  5. Wonderful crossword this, not only great clues but some nice references to (eg) the once-controversial sermon. “We are all in some ways like a sardine can ..do you have a small corner of your sardine can that you can’t seem to empty out? I know I do.”
    Lord Lyon king-at-arms known, obvs. because of James Bond’s visit to the College of Arms in OHMS .. their headquarters is opposite Blackfriars station, I used to walk past it every day at one time en route to the city.
    I wasn’t so keen on 2dn, clever but not such a convincing surface. cod to unprofessional, just a perfect clue, a thing of beauty
    1. As I recall it, it was “Is there a little piece in the corner of your life? I know there is in mine.”
    2. If it’s opposite Blackfriars station then I walk past it every day I’m in London. I will look out for it.
  6. A DNF for me; as with our blogger I found this very hard, but failed to persist beyond about twice my normal hour, and cheated to put in the last few. Shame: I might have got PIROUETTE this week, as I came across “roué” while reading Jane Eyre just yesterday.

    Perhaps I’ll do better today, though I’m already stuck on my last few after my hour has been and gone, so it feels like I may be about to repeat the pattern.

    Anyway. Loved 22d; a concise penny-dropper.

    Edited at 2017-05-21 08:13 am (UTC)

  7. 40 minutes, with LYON guessed (thought maybe to do with Bowes-Lyon family?).
  8. This one took me 1hr 17mins 35secs but it was another top quality, unputdownable offering full of outstanding clues. FOI 3ac. LOI and entered from word play with fingers crossed was 27ac, although I do now recall something in the news about the Scottish Heraldic authority considering action against a number of high profile Scottish Premiership football clubs for unauthorised use of Heraldic symbols on their club badges, I don’t know if those clubs still face those challenges. Far too many excellent clues to nominate a COD, well maybe 1dn, no 12ac, no 7dn, wait no 20dn….
  9. I managed this one in 50:50 and found it very entertaining, if a bit of a struggle in places. Thanks Dean and K.

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