Sunday Times 4771 by David McLean

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Either I was having a lucid interval, or this was the gentlest of ST offerings in a very long time – not that I’m complaining! As I printed it out, I was alarmed by the number of question marks in evidence indicating cryptics that can often be hard to get unless you happen to hit the setter’s wavelength. But I worried in vain: done and dusted over a leisurely breakfast, which is a first for me.

14a struck me as a bit odd in that, unless I’ve misunderstood what’s going on here, part of the answer seems to have been clued twice – not that that made it harder to get, but it did make me wonder whether I had got the wrong end of the stick. On edit: sure enough, I did have the wrong end of the stick – see Jack’s explanation of how this clue works below. 16d required a bit of careful unpicking, but other than that I thought it was pretty plain sailing.

Some amusing surfaces, and COD to 18d which was rather neat I thought. Thanks as ever to our setter.

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

Across
1 Pleasant area in the middle of a club? (5,4)
SWEET SPOT – A gentle cryptic based on the “sweet spot” being the term used by golfers to describe that (often elusive!) bit in the middle of the club face which gives perfect clean contact with the ball
6 Do this if latest of binges puts on weight? (4)
FAST – FAT (weight) goes around (is put on) S (latest of bingeS)
9 Legendary winger caught by old right back (3)
ROC – C (caught) + O (old) + R (right) reversed (back), giving the mythical bird of prey. I spent a while trying to justify Roy (of the Rovers) before sanity prevailed.
10 Doing very little is disappointing (3,2,2,4)
NOT UP TO MUCH – DD
11 Born and died in poverty (4)
NEED – NEE (born) + D (died)
12 Err with sheep, you say? Honestly! (8,2)
STRAIGHT UP – Sounds like (you say) STRAY TUP (err / sheep)
14 What I’ve done with posh Penny at uni is shrewd (5-2)
CLUED-UP – CLUED (what I’ve – i.e. the setter – done) + U (posh) + P (penny). Furthermore (and a bit strangely, unless I’m missing something), the “at uni” also gives us UP. On edit: see Jack’s explanation below for how this clue actually works…
15 A wish to cook up most of cheek and tongue (7)
SWAHILI – *(A WISH) – with “cook” telling us to rearrange the letters – + LI{P} (most of ‘cheek’), giving us the language widely used in east Africa
17 National serial circulated around island (7)
ISRAELI – *(SERIAL) – with “circulated around” signalling the anagram – plus I (island)
19 A couple of fish and an unripe apple (7)
CODLING – Two fish – COD and LING – provide the term for an unripe apple. Unknown to me, but the wordplay was very generous.
20 Watch closely as backsliding southern club comes in last
(4,4,2)
KEEP TABS ON – S (southern) + BAT (club) reversed (backsliding) come into KEEP ON (last)
22 Two chaps having a laugh (2-2)
HE-HE – At risk of stating the obvious, HE and HE (two chaps). I suppose in parts of Asia it could be HO-HO…
24 Call for nice tea sets to be reordered (11)
NECESSITATE – *(NICE TEA SETS) with “to be reordered” signposting the anagram
25 A pint is suitable for the circumstances (3)
APT – A PT (pint)
26 Foreign agent protects Liberal in Split (4)
FLED – FED (foreign agent) wraps around (protects) L (liberal)
27 Feel tyres must be changed for wet sort of race (9)
FREESTYLE – *(FEEL TYRES) with “must be changed” indicating the anagram in no uncertain terms, giving us the swimming event
Down
1 Youths do this in the Poultry Liberation Front? (6,8)
SPRING CHICKENS – Nice bit of whimsy based on the idea of “springing” chickens from captivity
2 Accounting department an old inspector reported (9)
EXCHEQUER – Sounds like (reported) EX CHECKER (old inspector)
3 Flipping insect bite (4)
TANG – GNAT (insect) reversed (flipping)
4 A break from the wheel of vessel rolling by stormy spit (3,4)
PIT STOP – POT reversed (vessel rolling) comes after (by) *(SPIT) with “stormy” indicating the rearrangement
5 If we’ve gone for tails, they should really go on heads (3,4)
TOP HATS – Gentle cryptic from the world of formal wear
6 Ceremonial soldiers’ bulletproof socks? (10)
FOOTGUARDS – Bulletproof socks gives us a cryptic steer towards the regiments now used predominantly for ceremonial duties
7 Closed down, broken by November 1st crash (5)
SHUNT – SHUT (closed down) ‘broken by’ N (1st letter of November)
8 A place for people to give hoods away in the mall? (8,6)
SHOPPING CENTRE – Another whimsical cryptic – if you want to inform on a criminal (a hood or otherwise) you might head for the “shopping” centre…
13 With abandon, derides a TV broadcast (10)
ADVERTISED – *(DERIDES A TV) with “with abandon” signposting the anagram
16 I can go wrong without a YMCA travel guide (9)
ITINERARY – I TIN (I can) + ERR (go wrong) going around (without) A + Y (YMCA – sometimes simply referred to as “the Y”). Took a bit of work.
18 New cheese boards provided for those lacking time? (2,5)
IN BRIEF – N (new) + BRIE (cheese) goes inside (boards) IF (provided), giving us a version of (e.g. the news) that is designed ‘for those lacking time’. Elegant surface and clue construction, I thought.
19 Everyday duty imbued with a large and stately air (7)
CHORALE – CHORE (everyday duty) receives (is imbued with) A L (a large)
21 Cap size for a well-rounded individual, we hear (5)
EXCEL – The supporting wordplay is a homophone (we hear) of XL (size for a well-rounded individual)
23 Dog’s dinner for setter and sheepdogs with no stuffing in it?
(4)
MESS – ME (setter) + SS (S{heepdog}S with no stuffing)

16 comments on “Sunday Times 4771 by David McLean”

  1. Surprisingly easy one from Harry. I never did get the definition of 21d, so smooth was the surface. I also started off mistaking anagrind for definition at 13d. DNK CLUED-UP, and was puzzled by the otiose ‘at uni’; it looks to me like the setter dithered between two ways of getting U P, and failed to eliminate one.
  2. A record, for me. And that’s including the 20-30 seconds I take to eyeball every answer before hitting submit

    SPRING CHICKENS was the best of a good bunch of clues

  3. My take is it’s a double definition:

    In the first part “What I’ve (the setter has) done” is create a clue to the word UP: “Posh penny at uni” so he has CLUED UP. In this case the clue within the clue is standard wordplay: U (posh), P (penny) with the definition “at uni”.

    In the second part of 14ac CLUED UP is defined by “shrewd”.

    Quite clever I thought.

    I was delayed only 24 minutes by this puzzle, which counts as rather easy in my book but none the less enjoyable for that.

    Edited at 2017-11-12 07:16 am (UTC)

    2. Aha – thanks Jack. That went right over my head. I should have known better than to suppose that our esteemed setter had placed a redundant element in a clue! Blog duly amended.
  4. Slowest poster so far at 38 minutes. For some reason, on the first run through I didn’t see either SPRING CHICKENS (usually heard in the sentence ‘He’s no SPRING CHICKEN’, so I think my brain subliminally gives it the opposite meaning), nor SHOPPING CENTRE, a place I have the customary male morbid fear of. SWEET SPOT was a write-in, something that was easier to find on a cricket bat in my youth than it is with a golf club in ‘no-spring-chicken’ years. Last two in were FAST and CODLING, the apple only remembered when the crossers generated the two fish. I thought it was an enjoyable puzzle. COD CLUED-UP which I did parse as per JACKKT. IN BRIEF a lovely clue too. Thank you Nick and David.

    Edited at 2017-11-12 07:51 am (UTC)

  5. A PB for me too, beating my weekday PB as well, just under 11 minutes, and not really trying for speed just writing in the answers. Disappointing as the pleasure doesn’t last long enough, had to go and print off the Jumbo to fill the leisure space. Liked XL.
  6. A pleasant 25:24 for me, with TANG FOI and EXCHEQUER bringing up the rear. CODLING, as an apple, was derived from wordplay. Liked SPRING CHICKENS. A fun puzzle. Thanks Harry and Nick.
  7. 37 mins so pretty quick for a ST puzzle. Smooth solve with answers dropping steadily but plenty of fun. I knew the sweet spot of a cricket bat and so assumed it would also apply to a golf club. Not sure I knew “footguards” but “bulletproof socks” got me there. I particularly liked 1dn, 27ac and COD 18dn for the neatness of “cheese boards provided”.
  8. I thought this was a very enjoyable puzzle; liked the jokes and the surfaces e.g. 1a and 9a. And I did not find it easy but well worth spending time on as the answers were mainly words and phrases that are generally familiar. I did not know Codling as an apple but it was well clued.
    After several sessions I had 21a left. I could not get that one and am still wondering about the definition: does Excel mean Cap? David
    1. Yes, I also wondered about Excel as I wrote it in. However, on checking post-solve, Chambers gives “to be better than” as the first definition – which seems to me to equate readily to “cap”.
  9. David Mclean was very generous on this one unlike his normal fare Enjoyable nonetheless.
    Ong’ara,
    Nairobi.
  10. I was surprised when I checked my time to find it was only 16 minutes.We rarely get anything so straightforward on a Sunday. I didn’t see the definition of 13d and hesitated until I had all the checkers. Ann
  11. 9:49. No problems here, although I too was puzzled by 14ac. Thanks to jackkt for the explanation of what I agree is a very clever clue.
  12. 28:37 which is a good ten minutes faster than my previous best. A pleasant solve, although I can’t help thinking “one or two fish and an unripe apple” would be a better clue for 19a (OK I’m just being cocky now).

    Thanks Nick and thanks Jack for explaining 14a, which I misread like most.

  13. This puzzle was published in the Australian this weekend (1 wk behind Uk). Excellent xword almost a quiptic in places but IMO exactly how a cryptic should be. Well done ST. Thank you! PJ

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