Sunday Times 4776 by Dean Mayer

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
13:49. Not too many problems with this: a relatively straightforward solve by Dean’s standards. Some interesting and unusual usages though – ‘function’ for CUBIC, ‘pie’ as an anagram indicator – and a couple of unusual words – FELLAH, REREDOS – with accessible wordplay. All perfectly fair though: my only real gripe is with 12dn. Anyone who thinks this word describes bosses hasn’t met mine.

I have adopted the practice of putting anagram indicators in bold italics, which I have noticed other bloggers doing and I think it’s a helpful touch.

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

Across
1 Cute lady’s welcomed in function
CHERUBIC – C(HER)UBIC.
6 Rough pie filled with cold beef
GROUCH – (ROUGH)* containing C. ‘Pie’ here is an alternate spelling of ‘pi’, a printing term meaning a ‘jumbled mixture’. So this is a jumbled mixture made of ROUGH. I think.
9 We run around with tramp
WANDER – W(AND)E, R.
10 Unable to record? Record silence
NOT A PEEP – or NO TAPE, EP.
11 Poor farmer has job covering frozen ground
PERMAFROST – POST containing (FARMER)*.
13 Step ladder’s good
RUNG – RUN, G.
14 Always act as an extra
FOR GOOD MEASURE – FOR GOOD, MEASURE. This could be MEASURE as in ‘a particular action intended to achieve an effect’ or ‘a legislative bill, act or resolution’.
16 Almost avoid right pocket
MISAPPROPRIATE – MISs, APPROPRIATE.
19 Orders to ditch fine cheese
BRIE – BRIEf.
20 Pubs talk English for Gibraltar resident
BARBARY APE – two BARs, YAP, E.
21 On the way out, see kid entering bank
MORIBUND – MO(RIB)UND.
22 Correct time to open club
SPOT ON – SPO(T)ON. SPOON is an old word for a certain type of golf club, now found only in crosswords.
24 On floor I see peasant
FELLAH – FELL, AH! ‘A peasant in Arab countries’ (Collins).
25 Arrogance that’s true of stars
SIDEREAL – SIDE, REAL.

Down
2 Energy cuts must stop
HEAVE TO – H(E)AVE TO.
3 One way to keep one free
RID – R(I)D.
4 The Queen Vic could be cleaner
BAR OF SOAP – the Queen Vic being the pub in Eastenders, of course.
5 Follow clubs playing well
CONFORM – C, ON FORM.
6 Say bird understood
GOT IT – GO, TIT.
7 Left one under half open window
OPPORTUNITY – OPen, PORT, UNITY.
8 To seek purification, is inclined to enter church
CLEANSE – C(LEANS)E.
12 Soldier’s breaking concrete like a boss
MAGISTERIAL – MA(GIS)TERIAL.
15 Was judge seeing criminal disappear?
APPRAISED – (DISAPPEAR)*.
16 Writer associated with murder and horror describing evil
MARLOWE – MAR(LOW)E. Presumably a reference to the fact that Christopher MARLOW was murdered, although according to Wikipedia he was killed in self-defence and his killer was pardoned.
17 About to appear on bloody huge screen
REREDOS – RE, RED, O/S.
18 A policeman at back eating single sweet
TAPIOCA – reversal of A CO(I)P AT. Yuck.
20 A kiss for Basil?
BRUSH – DD. Boom boom!
23 Blade used by tattoo artists
OAR – contained in ‘tattoo artists’.

15 comments on “Sunday Times 4776 by Dean Mayer”

  1. of which the last fifteen bloody minutes were spent on MARLOWE, BRUSH, FELLAH, & MORIBUND, which if I recall correctly were all solved in a bunch at the end of the fifteen minutes. NHO Basil Brush, so I dithered between ‘brush’ and ‘blush’, at least once I got the U; before that I just dithered. No idea about the Queen Vic, so this one was BIFD. I think MARLOWE was my LOI; I was not at all sure about MARE, and I was under the impression that he died in a knife fight. ‘horror’ also made me think of Conrad’s Marlow, but–I just checked–he has no E. And of course it’s Kurtz not Marlow who says, “The horror!’. I had a similar reaction to MAGISTERIAL to K’s; the word simply doesn’t mean ‘like a boss’.
  2. Thanks, Keriothe. I had difficulty with the SW corner too. With a couple crossers I thought of Philip Marlowe, who is clearly associated with murder, but equally clearly a character and not the writer, and then never got further along to Christopher. I know pi or pie from a typesetting project in grade school. In the US home-movers mark boxes which have an assortment of things rather than only plates, or books, or whatever, “Chowder”. Same idea, I think, though I might have recognised chowder as an anagrind more quickly than I recognised pie. Thanks Dean.
  4. COLLINS:
    magisterial in British
    1.commanding; authoritative
    2. domineering; dictatorial
    3. of or relating to a teacher or person of similar status

    Close enough, I think.

    Edited at 2017-12-17 04:48 am (UTC)

  5. My only hold up was MARLOWE that I put in just from “writer” without a clue about the rest. I got BAR OF SOAP ok but I assumed it was cockney rhyming slang for something. Living in the US, the name of the pub in Eastenders was GK too far. Although I did still live in UK in Basil Brush days, so that one wasn’t a problem. Some real giveaways (what else could “resident of Gibraltar” be? and, in a crossword when I see “screen” I almost write in REREDOS, like ELEMI for resin).
  6. Boom Boom indeed. 21 minutes for me. LOI FELLAH, constructed and not known as a peasant. COD BAR OF SOAP despite always leaving the room in nano-seconds when the EastEnders theme music strikes up. I have an old New Zealand based friend who goes for a ‘tramp’ rather than a walk or a hike, or otherwise I think I’d have struggled with WANDER. Nice puzzle. Thank you K and Dean, although as a pair you do sound a bit like the advertising agency at the flicks.
  7. A gentle one, this, about 20 minutes with a Sunday coffee and bun. Knew the Queen Vic although can’t stand the programme. Biff ed Marlowe with no idea who was murdered. Fond memories of Basil. Good idea to highlight the anagram indicator, K, I shall attempt to adopt it. Pip
  8. An hour and fifteen here, with a few question marks along the way, so thanks for the explanations! FOI 3d RID, LOI 21a MORIBUND, but perhaps that was because the MARLOWE and MAGISTERIAL crossers arrived quite late too, from what I remember.

    Lots of nice words in this one. I particularly like the combination of CHERUBIC and GROUCH on the first line. And it’s nice to find that words like REREDOS, unknown when I first started solving cryptics, now spring readily to my mind…

  9. 40:09 a pretty decent time for a ST puzzle. I had similar question marks at cubic for function and pie as anagrind. I also had “boom boom” written by the side of 20dn. FOI 10ac. LOI 24ac where I wasn’t confident because I didn’t know the peasant but it turns out my answer was a good fellah, so nobody needs to get whacked.
  10. I just took it that his plays have a lot of gore and a high body count and that was the association with murder. And that it was “mare” as in nightmare. The only thing sweet about the school TAPIOCA was the (not nearly enough) jam that went with it. As Keriothe so aptly says – yuck. The Anax by-line has a way of inducing a brain freeze in me but this one was kinder than many of them. 22.29
  13. Doing the weekend puzzles is my test of progress beyond the QC. For me Dean is the hardest of the three Sunday setters.
    This time I managed to get 17 clues correct with most of the NW blank. Looking at the answers, I think 1a is a good example of why he’s so difficult. For Function I was toying with Sine but had nothing else. Cubic would never have occurred to me. The solution Cute = Cherubic is another association I would never have made. And without 1a it’s hard to crack the rest.
    That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. And I think 4d is brilliant -I failed to get it.
    Anyway not long ago I would not have even attempted the puzzle so I am not grouching. David
  14. For some reason I could not spot SIDEREAL even with all the cross checkers. Did not know the word, but should have got it from wordplay. Oh well.

    Other than that, not too tricky, although I was a bit unsure about exactly how MARLOWE worked. Thought NOT A PEEP was rather a cute piece of work.

    Thanks K and Dean.

  15. Generally straightforward puzzle, took about an hour and a bit over two sessions. For some reason Marlowe gave me a lot of trouble – did not see ‘low’ for evil but what else could the writer be?
    Never seen EastEnders or heard of the Queen Vic but again what else could it be? BTW “bar of soap” is cockney slang for “rope” or “dope”.

Comments are closed.