Sunday Times 4766 by Jeff Pearce

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
First, thanks very much to Keriothe for covering for me last week whilst I was swanning around in some very remote parts of Greece having a blast. I had a quick squiz at last Sunday’s blog on my return to the UK a couple of days ago, and was appalled at the ill-mannered intervention from some anonymous, feral character who clearly has no idea how to behave in civilised company. However, they appear to have been seen off most effectively by the usual crew so let’s hope they do not return. Anyway, moving on to the business in hand…

I started tackling this puzzle whilst sitting in a bar in a village near to the Albanian border, it being the only place for miles around where I could find a reliable wifi connection for my laptop. After an hour or so I had only managed to complete around half of it, and needed to return twice more for extended sessions at said bar in order to eventually complete it. What a super puzzle! Inventive, witty and damned tricky in parts, I thought.

And what a rich cast of characters – the Turner, the python, the bloke with the number and the gumshoe king. Loved it! I did not know the toothless creature or the crescent shape so both of these went in on a wing and a prayer trusting to wordplay and crosscheckers, and there were a couple of clues (27a and 16d) where I was far from certain regarding the correct parsing so I’ve just given it my best shot and look forward to further enlightenment from the assembled crew here.

So, grateful thanks to Jeff for a highly enjoyable challenge, and here is my best attempt at unravelling it all.

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

Across
1 Prominent display to promote protective covering (10)
SPLASHBACK – SPLASH (prominent display) + BACK (promote)
6 Empire pictures is screening “The Ten Commandments”?
(4)
EPIC – Hidden in (is screening) empirE PICtures
9 Remote inns prepared hearty soup (10)
MINESTRONE – *(REMOTE INNS) with “prepared” signalling the anagram
10 Article that reflects historic change in India (4)
ANNA – AN (article) mirrored (reflecting), giving an Indian coin used up until 1957, apparently. Unknown to me, but generous wordplay made it a pretty safe punt.
12 Allow prince to be very nasty indeed (6)
LETHAL – LET (allow) HAL (prince – as in “madcap Prince Hal” who subsequently became Henry V)
13 A chemical weightlifters might try to get a heavenly body
(8)
ASTEROID – A STEROID is indeed a chemical weightlifters might try…
15 Being a landlord primarily, my inebriated clients go
staggering home now? (7,4)
CLOSING TIME – Cryptic with the wordplay being *(CLIENTS GO) – with “staggering” signposting the anagram – and the first letters (primarily) of My Inebriated also in the mix.
18 Smart type takes hatchet — heartlessly heading to collect
wood for fire (6,5)
CLEVER CLOGS – CLE{a}VER (hatchet heartlessly) + C (heading to Collect) + LOGS (wood for fire)
21 Attempt to arrest a physician pursuing a very old physicist
(8)
AVOGADRO – GO (attempt) includes (arrests) A DR (a physician) after (pursuing) A V O (a very old), giving us the Italian physicist whose work underpinned much of my O level chemistry syllabus, none of which (sadly) I ever understood. Intricate wordplay, but if you follow the bouncing ball you get there in the end…
22 Hoodlum’s a chicken when facing term in Newgate (6)
CAPONE – CAPON (a chicken) + E (term – last letter – of NewgatE)
24 Club with hot tub (4)
BATH – BAT (club) + H (hot). In marked contrast to much of the rest of the puzzle, this one seemed to have escaped from the Quick Cryptic – not that I was complaining…
25 Fictional tale recalled in broadcast (10)
CINDERELLA – *(RECALLED IN) with “broadcast” indicating the anagram
26 Some corn needed initially to make bread? (4)
EARN – EAR (some corn) + N (Needed initially)
27 At first farmers say yes to grass being placed about for
them? (6,4)
FALLOW DEER – I’ve underlined the entire clue here as being the ‘definition’, although in reality the definition is “them” – but then again you could not derive the answer from “them” by itself. Anyway, whatever the correct analysis is, you get the answer by following the wordplay which I think is F (at first Farmers) + ALLOW (say yes) + REED reversed (grass being placed about).
Down
1 Demonstration with politician stuck in traffic (6)
SAMPLE – MP (politician) ‘stuck in’ SALE (traffic)
2 Bowed old instrument seen around North America (6)
LUNATE – LUTE (old instrument) is ‘seen around’ NA (North America). Apparently lunate means crescent shaped – never heard of it so it went in based on wordplay and cross checkers with fingers crossed.
3 A strange task in school, we recalled, on an area in Canada
(12)
SASKATCHEWAN – A + *(TASK) – with “strange” indicating the anagram – in SCH (school), + WE reversed (we recalled), with the whole lot being assembled ‘on’ AN. Based on a sample of three folk I’ve met from this state over the years, it is home to some of the nicest people in the world.
4 Black vessel beneath small river (4)
BARK (on edit): BURN – B (black) with ARK URN (vessel) underneath it (beneath). Thanks to all who pointed out my error – should have checked this before posting.
5 Some stars running wild in south Minorca (5,5)
CANIS MINOR – *(IN S MINORCA) with “running wild” suggesting the anagram
7 Python crushes extremely nourishing old animal — having no
teeth (8)
PANGOLIN – PALIN (Michael – he of the Python team) goes around (crushes) NG (extremes of NourishinG) + O (old). My LOI, and I only got in a position to make an educated guess once it looked like we had a “python” going around NGO from the cross checkers. The mental leap from boa constrictors to comedians then required at least another two ouzos.
8 Conservative has to manage radical writer (8)
CHANDLER – C (Conservative) with HANDLE (to manage) + R (radical – an abbreviation from chemistry that has cropped up before in these crosswords)
11 Flier sides with head of physics in old boarding school (5,7)
HEDGE SPARROW – EDGES (sides) + P (head of Physics) in HARROW (old boarding school)
14 Instrument Turner employed after lots of anguish (10)
CONCERTINA – TINA (Turner – the turbo-charged chanteuse from Nutbush) comes after CONCER{n} (lots of – i.e. most of – anguish). As with the Palin Python, it took me a while to spot what was going on here as I was thinking of lathe operators in dour Midlands factories rather than candidates for the raunchiest woman in the world – an unusual dichotomy.
16 Term for this? Clamber possibly! (8)
SCRAMBLE – *(S CLAMBER) with “possibly” indicating the anagram, and ‘clamber’ serving both as the key element of the definition and also as the anagram fodder. The S comes into play by virtue of the second instance in this puzzle (see also CAPONE at 22a) of ‘term’ pointing us to the last letter of a word – in this case {thi}S. At least, I think that is what’s going on here: the clue left me a bit bemused from a parsing perspective.
17 Journo’s note on beer (8)
REPORTER – RE (on – regarding) + PORTER (beer). I think ‘note’ is just there to help the surface flow smoothly, but I may have missed something more cunning.
19 Pitman trimmed shepherd’s companion (6)
COLLIE – COLLIE{R} (pitman trimmed) giving the popular breed of sheepdog.
20 Withdraw service (6)
REPAIR – DD. Whilst the answer came readily to mind, I nonetheless hesitated on the basis that I always thought ‘repair’ simply meant ‘go to’ rather than ‘withdraw’. However, I gained confidence when I thought of characters in novels “repairing to the drawing room”, and Chambers gives “withdraw” as a specific meaning (being the transitive version of the verb if anyone is remotely interested).
23 Hero’s vain when speaking (4)
IDOL – Sounds like (when speaking) IDLE (vain)

25 comments on “Sunday Times 4766 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. 30′ online, then about 5 to get my two LOsI, 10ac and 7d. Ironically, I knew ANNA, but failed to get the ‘article that reflects’. I went about PANGOLIN as Nick describes, but without the ouzo. This being a ST, I should have been prepared for a living person (two this time; unusual, no?), but both Palin and Turner evaded me for a long time. Was ‘old’ in 11d necessary? And is concern the same as anguish? Perpend.
    1. Yes, I also wondered about the need for ‘old’ in 11d – probably redundant. At the time of solving, anguish and concern seemed close enough, but now you mention it I suspect ‘anguish’ is considerably further up the angst scale than ‘concern’. Within the bounds of elasticity that prevails in crosswordland?
  2. Thanks for the blog.

    Shouldn’t 4d be BURN?

    And 17d is RE as in do-re-mi I think.

    Edited at 2017-10-07 11:52 pm (UTC)

    1. Thanks very much for pointing out BURN rather than BARK – silly error on my part. Blog amended.

      Also agree your observation re. the significance of ‘note’ – I completely overlooked that! The perils of being in “holiday mode,,,”

      1. A good blog nonetheless. Easy for me to point out a couple of amendments while keeping quiet about the four or five I didn’t get!

        Yamas.

  3. Ignorant I chucked in SCRABBLE instead of SCRAMBLE for 16ac
    I see the other one I didn’t parse, CAPONE, uses term in the same way

    16ac possibly also works on another level, with the asnwer itself giving you the type of clue, i.e scramble = anagram

  4. Also wrote BURN at 4d,but l think BARK also works.Took me ages to complete this one.Would like to see a recent pic of Tina Turner,does she still look young?
    Ong’ara,
    Kenya.
  5. Hard work and got stuck in the SE corner. Finished over more than one session so no solving time avialable.

    On 4dn I haven’t been able to find ‘bark’ as ‘small river’ so if it is an alternative answer to BURN it’d be based on something obscure. I think there may be confusion with ‘bark’ meaning a ship which with ‘ark’ gives us two vessels but still no river.

    Edited at 2017-10-08 05:20 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, mea culpa – see response to the redoubtable mrchumley above. For some reason I was convinced I had heard of a bark as a stream and failed to check before posting.
  6. Count me in for burn not bark .. I also agree that 16dn is a dd, with “term for this” a definition as well as “clamber possibly.” Actually, taken as a whole, that is a very clever clue.

    Top class effort from Jeff, so thanks to him. I would thank you too Nick, but I too am consumed with jealousy at the idea of spending a week in the remoter parts of Greece..

    1. Thanks for the insights into 16dn Jerry – I suspected all along that I had failed to penetrate its full subtlety. As you say, very clever.
  7. For once I knew the small coin. I clocked in at 70 minutes, having on both SCRAMBLE and CAPONE puzzled about where a letter had appeared from. Thank you for the explanation, which I must remember this time. LOI PANGOLIN, difficult enough with breakfast coffee so congrtaulations to anyone who could see it after two ouzos. COD CLEVER CLOGS but could have gone for the FALLOW DEER or the HEDGE SPARROW. The number of molecules per gram molecule has never left my head thanks to a fine Chemistry master. Thanks to Fruity Hankinson, sadly probably now up in the celestial laboratory. Thanks to you too Nick, and Jeff for another good puzzle.
    PS I was a BURN man too.

    Edited at 2017-10-08 07:45 am (UTC)

  8. 39:43. I found this really hard, but thought it was excellent. I also had BURN and the club site seems to approve.
    I would call 16dn &Lit. Not that it matters of course but I’m not sure how to categorise 15ac: it’s an unusual clue.
  9. 1hr 20mins from me. Most done in the hour but got very stuck on my LOIs 20dn where -e-a– seemed to admit far too many possible answers to know where to begin, and 27ac where I just couldn’t see the second word for ages. Tricky puzzle with quite a few wordy clues but all good stuff. Only gripe from me being the use of MINORca as part of the anagrist to clue an answer where the second word was MINOR which I thought was a bit weak however decent the surface may have been. I wasn’t sure that hoodlum could be used to describe someone as high up the criminal ranks as Al Capone but my dictionary gives: hoodlum: hooligan or gangster, which covers it. DNK 1ac as protective covering, thought it was what happens to a chap’s shoes if he stands too close to the urinal. COD 18ac nice expression perhaps not in use as much now as when I was younger.
  10. My seven day memory is obviously failing as, once again, I struggle to remember where I started, although I’m pretty sure I finished with FALLOW DEER. I also didn’t know LUNATE, but thought it a good bet from the wordplay. SASKATCHEWAN was a big help and nicely clued so it was easy to spell. I always struggled to understand Avogadro’s Law/Hypothesis, but he went into the grid without complaint. I knew the Pangolin as an ant/termite eater, but didn’t realise it was toothless. An enjoyable puzzle which took me 45:51. Thanks Jeff and Nick.

    Edited at 2017-10-08 01:04 pm (UTC)

  11. A lively puzzle, completed in 39 minutes. Re ‘repair’, though I only have the online version of Chambers to hand (which doesn’t mention ‘withdraw’), I think it is an intransitive use in this context.

    Edited at 2017-10-08 11:20 am (UTC)

  12. I spotted the meaning of ‘term’ in ‘Newgate’ but missed the ‘term’ in ‘this’so ended up with SCRABBLE instead.
    Nick, I thought you were going to say you met an Albanian border guard in that bar who was a whizz at The Times’ Cryptics
    1. Now that would have been something – what a fantastic piece of whimsy! There’s a short story just waiting to be written around that…
  13. The whole thing, I think, is indeed supposed to be the definition. It’s an &lit; where the definition is as cryptic as the wordplay.
  14. 15ac is all very nice so far as I can work out, but I’m afraid I still don’t get it perfectly. Please could someone explain what the first three words of the clue are doing. It seems that the wordplay works perfectly without these words and that despite &littish characteristics the definition is just ‘home now?’.
    1. my inebriated clients stagger home after I have closed the deal with a fine single malt in my boardroom. Being a landlord directs us to the pub.

      remaining anonymous for obvious reasons

  15. Raced through this in about 20m until I got to the SE corner; it took two rum and cokes and a good night’s sleep to see it off in the morning after 15m more. 16dn and 22ac both depended on using “term” as an indicator of a final letter, but I have never seen this and I cannot find it anywhere.
  17. Found this one relatively easy. Surprising, because 2 of us usually take a couple of hours to complete puzzles most of you do in 20 minutes. One quibble about the blog from an expat Brit living in Canada – Saskatchewan is a province, not a state☺

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