Sunday Times 4781 by Jeff Pearce

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
An entertaining puzzle from Jeff which I (somewhat unusually) managed to complete in one sitting, which would suggest it was not too taxing. I particularly liked the cryptic device at 15ac, and I thought 9d was a gem, albeit some might regard it as borderline offensive. Being a cricket fan I personally enjoyed 8dn which I thought was very neat, although I suspect the reference to a contemporary English player may well have caused some head scratching for our friends on the other side of the pond.

26a introduced a welcome splash of modernity, being very much a word from the “selfie age” – it was also my last one in, which tells me something about my grip on the contemporary world!

So, thanks very much to Jeff and here’s my best shot at explaining it all.

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

Across
1 Some food said to be lacking taste (6)
COARSE – Sounds like (said) COURSE (some food)
4 Station providing drink before the office (8)
WATERLOO – WATER (drink) ‘before’ LOO (‘office’ being one of the many slang terms / euphemisms for lavatory – but personally I’ve only ever come across this particular one in crosswordland)
10 Stars with European city lawyer (9)
ANDROMEDA – AND (with) + ROME (European city) + DA (lawyer)
11 Anger about loud gun (5)
RIFLE – RILE (anger) goes around (about) F (loud – as in music notation)
12 Important member of the great and good welcoming
a foreigner (7)
SALIENT – S{ain}T (member of the great and good) ‘welcomes’ ALIEN (a foreigner)
14 Centre of learning’s large book about Celtic’s result
(7)
OUTCOME – OU (centre of learning – i.e. the Open University) + TOME (large book) around (about) C (abbrev. Celtic). I’d never come across that abbreviation before, but it seems to be recognised in various online resources.
15 This could be rude (4-6,4)
FOUR-LETTER WORD – Neat cryptic definition with a double meaning – RUDE is indeed an example of a four-letter word…
18 Comic’s cleaner story when with vicar on the radio
(7,7)
CHARLIE CHAPLIN – CHAR (cleaner) + LIE (story) ‘with’ CHAPLIN (sounds like CHAPLAIN – ‘vicar on the radio’)
22 Grates start to rust on joints (7)
RANKLES – R (start to Rust) ‘on’ ANKLES (joints)
24 Tart sometimes looked stewed (3-4)
PIE-EYED – PIE (tart sometimes) + EYED (looked)
25 Row about good golfer (5)
TIGER – TIER (row) goes around (about) G (good) giving us Mr. Woods, now allegedly renamed “Cheetah” by his wife
26 Will one snap when gatecrashers do this? (9)
PHOTOBOMB – “Will one snap” gives us a cryptic steer towards the taking of photos in circumstances where someone intentionally or accidentally crashes into the shot. My personal favourite of this genre – featuring Her Majesty looking very pleased with herself – is here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/commonwealthgames/10988380/Commonwealth-Games-The-Queen-photobombs-Australia-hockeys-Jayde-Taylors-selfie.html
28 Stupid person starts to deliver smart answers (8)
RESPONDS – *(PERSON) – with “stupid” signalling the anagram – and first letters of (starts to) Deliver Smart
29 Something rude to do is eating very fast (6)
STARVE – STARE (something rude to do) ‘eats’ V (very)
Down
1 Stylish clothing one female’s to organise (8)
CLASSIFY – CLASSY (stylish) going around (clothing) I F (one female)
2 Matilda oddly ignored assistant (3)
AID – Every other letter (oddly ignored) of mAtIlDa
3 Small hole by the foreign river for a duck (9)
SHOVELLER – S (small) + HOVEL (hole) + LE (the foreign – i.e. in French) + R (river) giving us the duck with a rust coloured patch often seen by us Londoners on the Serpentine
5 A black sole circles a shellfish (7)
ABALONE – A B (A black) + LONE (sole) goes round A (circles a)
6 Mourn headless heron (5)
EGRET – {R}EGRET (mourn headless)
7 Swimming Liffey and Loire for a carefree existence
(4,2,5)
LIFE OF RILEY – *(LIFFEY LOIRE) with “swimming” indicating the anagram. I’d often wondered about the origin of this phrase, but never bothered to look it up until now. Apparently it comes from a 19th century Irish ballad about a young fellow called Willy Reilly who wins the heart of a wealthy young heiress and – after successfully defending a charge of abduction brought by the girl’s outraged father – our man lives happily ever after with his lady.
8 Cook’s key? (6)
OPENER – DD, the first referencing Alastair Cook, CBE and one of England’s greatest ever opening batsmen (in fact the greatest if one looks solely at weight of runs). Probably totally incomprehensible to those who do not follow cricket.
9 Act stupidly and get lost (4,2)
BEAT IT – …or alternatively, BE A TIT (act stupidly). I once heard Michael Heseltine tell the story of how, as a boy, he set up an Ornithology Society at his school. As founder and Chairman, he insisted on his formal title being The Great Tit.
13 Doctor haggling about gold and sulphur — chemical
inducing euphoria (8,3)
LAUGHING GAS – *(HAGGLING) – with “doctor” signposting the anagram – and AU also in the mix (about gold) and with S (sulphur) on the end
16 Vessel that may dispatch a pod (9)
WHALEBOAT – Barely cryptic cryptic definition
17 Bile about fashionable journalist initially hard to take in
(8)
INEDIBLE – *(BILE) – with “about” pointing to the anagram – preceded by IN ED (fashionable journalist initially)
19 At home drink I had is flavourless (7)
INSIPID – IN (at home) + SIP (drink) + I’D (I had)
20 Guard‘s request to turn in vehicle (6)
CAPTOR – PTO (request to turn) ‘in’ CAR (vehicle)
21 Provide refreshment? It’s right to fill this hole! (6)
CRATER – R (right) ‘fills’ CATER (provide refreshment)
23 Mostly big, old and slow (5)
LARGO – LARG{E} (mostly big) + O (old)
27 Put gold round a blade (3)
OAR – Just like the man says, you put OR (gold) round A

24 comments on “Sunday Times 4781 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. So that’s where the Life of Riley comes from! Thanks, Nick. Oh, 21d is ‘cratEr’. Regarding Loo as slang for office, I have never heard of it either but in my sailing days on Sydney Harbour, I used to see a yacht with the name “The Office”! And re, “Cheetah”, surely that should read ‘ex-wife’?! Nice straightforward puzzle and good blog, Nick. 36m 14s which, according to The Times put me at #198 out of 271 so I guess a lot of folk found it very easy.
    1. Ironically, I’ve actually taken up ‘loo’ in deference to Brit colleagues; I’ll have to ask them what term they use. I’ve never come across ‘office’.
    1. Thanks Kevin. I actually had the right parsing in my original notes, then overlooked it when writing up the blog! Stupid boy… anyway, blog fixed.
    1. …as indeed it is. Had a last minute drama when posting as I realised for some reason this whole clue was missing from the blog, so did a bit of cutting and pasting to create a new clue entry and failed to edit the bit I’d copied properly. Again, now fixed. Thanks again for spotting this.
  4. Printed this out and did it during a tea break at work – quite straightforward but very enjoyable.

    Both Michael Heseltine and Elin Nordegren show commendable perspicacity, not to mention, wit.

  5. 35 minutes so at the easier end of Jeff’s scale, finished before I went to Communion. Haven’t we had BEAT IT to a similar definition recently? COARSE indeed. WHALE BOAT made me wince in sympathy, more with the whales than Captain Ahab. Liked SALIENT but COD has to be OPENER as I’m multi-tasking again right now watching the one-dayer. ANDROMEDA yet again brought back teenage memories of Julie Christie from 56 years ago, but my antiquity didn’t prevent me from writing PHOTOBOMB straight in. Thank you Nick and Jeff for the pleasant Sunday morning.
  6. Sam Pepys used the “House of Office,” this is a very old .. usage.
    We always need to be careful regarding etymology, there are so many folk etymologies around. The OED says that “The life of Riley” is actually of US origin, and so does this learned article in World Wide Words: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ril1.htm
    1. Yes indeed, many differing theories it would seem. The source I relied on was here https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-life-of-riley.html (you need to scroll down to the bottom to get to the relevant bit) which suggests a somewhat earlier coinage than the US soldiers referred to in the other articles. Anyway, it’s always been one of my favourite expressions ever since I first heard it as a young fellow.
      1. Hmm, your article looks roughly about as erudite as mine, Nick.. I suppose it just goes to show how difficult an accurate etymology really is. The OED does not even attempt it, just says “US origin, colloq.”
        We may never know ..
  7. 16:52, so pretty straightforward for a competition puzzle. I think we had BE A TIT recently, which took me a while to spot last time, but not this. I enjoyed the reference to the river that runs through Dublin in the anagrind for 7d.
  8. 38:36 so nothing too troubling. FOI 11ac. LOI 4ac where I struggled to see the equivalence between “loo” and “office” for a while. However, in Happy Days, when the Fonz needed to impart an important life lesson to Richie Cunningham, Ralph Malph and Potsie Weber in Arnold’s diner, he would often summon them to his “office” which always seemed to be the gents – for me that usage was sufficient to establish the equivalence.
  9. 14:32. Reasonably straightforward this, but as so often I don’t remember much about it.
    I second Jerry’s comments about etymology. I don’t know about the life of Riley but it is a useful rule of thumb that when you hear a neat explanation of where a word or expression comes from it is generally safe to assume that it’s wrong.
    1. I might add as a corollary: Any explanation of a term that appeals to an acronym is bushwa (POSH=Port Out Starboard Home, that sort of thing).
  10. I believe I’ve seen “the usual offices”, meaning loos, in up-market property ads in eg Country Life, but not lately (probably because they are all “en suite” nowadays). 14.23
    1. My father told me the only allowable word was “lavatory” and I should not associate with anyone who believed differently. Not sure if he included office in that however. He was thinking particularly of toilet I suppose. And loo 🙂
      1. Posh people go to the loo, never the lavatory. From its Latin derivation, a place to work or struggle it suggests dysuria or constipation. Reminiscent of the Waste Land where T S Eliot is an anagram of toilets and the fifth part describes a posh lady stooling (defaecating). Which reminds us of one of the best puzzles ever. The eleven letter word that starts with N and finishes with N and means constipation??????????????
  11. An enjoyable puzzle which took me 23:24, so not too hard by my standards. Was a bit vague on the loo/office equivalence, but let it pass. We have seen the BEAT IT clue recently and ABALONE turned up very recently in another form. Liked PHOTOBOMB. I missed the cricket reference at 8d and assumed a cook’s can opener. Thanks Jeff and Nick.
  12. I enjoyed this, lots of excellent clues; no dodgy spellings or arcane words. I was worried about the duck at first but it was clearly clued and one I had heard of. Missed the Cook reference. Liked the Tiger clue and COD to either 15a or 29a -can’t decide.
    I made steady progress and LOI was Captor which I did not readily equate with Guard. Solved fairly quickly for me. Thanks to setter and to Nick for comprehensive blog. David
  13. Like golf, like crosswords. When you’re feeling liverish with them both, the wonderful straight 300 m drive and a clue as lovely as fifteen across. Mr Pierce, you rock!
    1. Apologies, Pearce. Mr Pierce was my abominably sadistic physics teacher at school, or was he Piercy!
  14. Posh people go to the loo, never the lavatory. From its Latin derivation, a place to work or struggle it suggests dysuria or constipation. Reminiscent of the Waste Land where T S Eliot is an anagram of toilets and the fifth part describes a posh lady stooling (defaecating). Which reminds us of one of the best puzzles ever. The eleven letter word that starts with N and finishes with N and means constipation??????????????
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