Sunday Times 4782 by Dean Mayer

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
25:30. I will be brief today because I have been struck down very suddenly by some sort of lurgi. I’m just glad I did most of this blog earlier in the week.

I don’t really know how hard this was because I had a lot of distractions and interruptions while solving. It was quite tricky if memory serves (unlikely, let’s face it), but also very enjoyable.

There is one definition (at 25ac) I’m not happy with: no doubt I’m missing something.

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

Across
1 Like 10’s demand?
ASKING – AS KING, the KING in question being (spoiler alert!) ARTHUR, the answer to 10ac.
5 Methodist with no other backing
WESLEYAN – W, reversal of NAY, ELSE.
9 One state has turned into another
MISSOURI – M(IS SOUR)I, MI being Michigan. MISSOURI is MO, in case you were wondering.
10 Conan Doyle’s gift? Unfinished project
ARTHUR – ART (talent, gift), HURl. I think I got this from 1ac and the checkers in the end. The wordplay elements don’t exactly spring instantly to mind. The fact that the question mark indicating the definition by example is separated from the definition itself adds an element of difficulty.
11 Chaotic place, centre for human race
ZOOM – ZOO (chaotic place, as in ‘I went to A&E and it was an absolute zoo’), huMan. I went to a zoo the other day and the only animal was a single dog. It was a Shitzu.
12 Opening link, I cut off supply?
RETICULATE – (I CUT)* contained in (opening) RELATE (link).
13 One can’t promise filthy curses
IMPRECATIONS – I (CAN’T PROMISE)*.
16 Pair of seamen worth paying for
MERCHANTABLE – MERCHANT (seaman), ABLE (seaman).
18 He’ll deliver curtains for you
GRIM REAPER – CD.
20 Bay tree’s not wide
ROAN – ROwAN. This bay is a horse.
21 Move to embrace single bird
BUDGIE – BUDG(I)E.
22 Odd church hiding a church activity
OUTREACH – OUTRE(A), CH.
24 Censor interrupts flipping vulgar teacher
EDUCATOR – reversal of RUDE containing CATO. There were two CATOs, this one was the great-grandfather of the other one.
25 Elizabeth’s proposal? Not a chance
BETIDE – BET, IDEa. Strange definition. Chance can mean happen, and happen can mean BETIDE, but I don’t think chance can mean BETIDE, which just means occur (with no element of chance).

Down
2 Small child loves a snowmobile
SKIDOO – S, KID, O, O.
3 One is unlikely to have a night out
INSOMNIAC – CD.
4 Wildebeest seen in big numbers
GNU – contained in ‘big numbers’.
5 Blow-by-blow description of calls?
WHISTLE-STOP TOUR – another CD.
6 Inquiry’s formality an indicator of caution
STAR CHAMBER – STARCH, AMBER.
7 Praise old auction item coming up
EXTOL – EX, reversal of LOT.
8 A charming frame for artist’s last etching
AQUATINT – A, QUA(artisT)INT.
12 Temperance Hotel’s last liquid supply
REPLACEMENT – (TEMPERANCE, hoteL)*. REPLACEMENT teacher = supply teacher.
14 I approach hideout resolutely
IN EARNEST – or I NEAR NEST.
15 Avoid alien invading Earth
GET ROUND – G(ET)ROUND.
17 Was Chief Inspector bad?
RANCID – or RAN CID. CID is of course short for Copper In Disguise.
17 Unexpectedly produce computer parts for US server?
MAGIC – MAC (computer) ‘parts for’ GI, i.e. it splits to allow GI in. An unusual and neat device.
23 Check salt is below temperature
TAB – T, AB (salt as in sailor). Check and TAB both being words for bill.

37 comments on “Sunday Times 4782 by Dean Mayer”

  1. I went offline at some point, with I don’t remember what unsolved; couldn’t have been much, since I finished in 9 minutes. Biffed MISSOURI, never figured it out. Ditto with BETIDE; had no problem with the definition, though: BETIDE=happen seems fine. Unlike K, I got ASKING from 10ac. I must have got 10ac from a checker or two, and then parsed. DNK, or BK (barely knew) SKIDOO, and DNK that MAGIC could be a verb. I also wondered about ‘inquiry’ as the def for 6d; it was a court of inquiry, no? not an inquiry. All in all, lots of reasons for taking a lot of time to solve.
  2. Well over the hour for this one. Thanks, keriothe, particularly for MAGIC. An amount of biffing went on here, fortunately, all succesful.
  3. Also wondered about the definition of BETIDE.Typical Anax setting in this puzzle.COD GRIM REAPER.
    ONG’ARA,
    KENYA.
  4. Hard work and fell at the last hurdle, needing aids to come up with OUTREACH and RETICULATE.
  5. I was pleased to finish this, slowly but without a biff. Then I thought, isn’t an answer for a Cryptic Definition by definition a biff? If so, I biffed a few.
  6. Sorry to hear about your lurgi, K. Get well soon.

    57 minutes here, with a few question marks, now resolved apart from 12a. Can someone articulate how RETICULATE means “supply”? I knew the “net-like” definition, and I’ve found an architectural meaning to do with that other crossword favourite, ogees, but I’m still none the wiser…

    FOI 5a, LOI 9a, COD 17d.

  8. 40 minutes with BETIDE assumed to mean ‘chance’ in the sense that ‘whate’er betide’ is not predicatable. COD INSOMNIAC by a short head from the GRIM REAPER. I found the supply chain for both REPLACEMENTand RETICULATE difficult to source, the biggest contributor for missing my half-hour aspiration. Decent puzzle though. Thank you Dean, and K. I hope the lurgy passes quickly.
    1. I see what you mean but I would say that the unpredictability is in the word ‘whate’er’.
  9. Another fine crossword, this. Full of wit and originality.

    I confess I am having some trouble substituting betide for chance.. also struggling with reticulate, “supply” as the definition looks plain wrong.

    Welcome to the lurgy club K, which everyone it seems has had this past month or so. Hope it goes away quickly

    1. Yes, my kids all seem to have had something similar in the last couple of weeks so it was to be expected.
      I had intended to comment on RETICULATE, but forgot in my rush to get the blog over and done with. One of the definitions in Chambers is ‘to distribute (e.g. water or electricity) by a network’, which seems close enough. I had no idea what it meant so the validity or otherwise of the definition didn’t cause me a problem!

      Edited at 2018-01-28 09:45 am (UTC)

      1. Yes, so it does .. and so does Collins, though it says “Chiefly Aus, NZ & SA.” I had only come across it before in relation to a python, where it refers to the snake’s markings. I see that giraffes are similarly described.

        1. Which edition of Collins do you have? It’s not in the online edition, or my printed 11th edition.
          1. My mistake .. I should have said, the OED:

            ” 3. trans. Chiefly Austral., N.Z., and S. Afr. To provide (an area, town, etc.) with water via a network of pipes; to distribute (a water supply) via such a network. Also in extended use: to distribute (a public utility) to a town.”

            1. That explains it! OED is the one dictionary I don’t have access to. I subscribed to the full version for a while, which is wonderful but so expensive. I have considered buying one (the Shorter perhaps) but buying paper dictionaries just seems such an outdated thing to do.
              1. I subscribe via my library. Anyone in Kent with a library card gains free access to this and a load of other reference works. Might be worth checking with your local library.
                (Jerry, not signed in)
                2. I used to have access to OED via my library but Central Beds made a policy decision last year to end their subscription.
                  1. You don’t even need to rely on a local library – I’ve got a free library card from Manchester which gives me online access to their extensive collection of reference books.
    1. That’s what I thought when solving but on reflection it occurred to me that you wouldn’t say ‘keep checks on’, and the bill sense seemed a more direct equivalence. I’m not sure though: it’s not entirely clear to me what sense of ‘tab’ the phrase ‘keep tabs on’ derives from and the dictionaries aren’t very clear on it.
      Edit: a bit of research suggests this comes from ‘tab’ in the sense of a table of account, as in when you open a tab behind a bar. So it seems we’re both right!

      Edited at 2018-01-28 10:58 am (UTC)

  11. 1hr and 12 mins. Found this tricky. I know very little about police ranks but did wonder at 17dn whether a Chief Inspector would run CID as opposed to a Detective Chief Inspector. I was stuck for ages at 19dn with both wp and that sense of magic. Also 21ac where (with apologies to BW and his other avatar) I only just managed to avoid putting in a thoughtless (and completely made up) lungie with budgie appearing at the very last sec. I didn’t think too hard about reticulate or betide, the first vaguely known as something to do with snakes and so probably supply meaning lithe, betide does seem to require a three-point turn in the dictionary.
  12. I found this tough, requiring a lot of convoluted thinking. A lot of unusual definitions too. I needed to confirm RETICULATE as something other than a pattern on a snake. BETIDE(my penultimate) also went in as the only possible answer, but not fully understood. ZOOM was my LOI with a hand clapped to the forehead when I eventually saw it. GNU started me off. Satisfying to finish correctly though. 43:01. Thanks Dean and K.

    Edited at 2018-01-28 01:13 pm (UTC)

  13. Average difficulty for me. Thanks K for parsing MISSOURI. I had ARTICULATE for a while until I found REPLACEMENT. I knew RETICULATE from seeing the giraffe and also, I think, from some types of leaf.
  14. I have just checked my entry and see that I managed to put LUNGIE at 21ac! I was travelling a lot this week, so reliant on my iPad. This meant I couldn’t use mohn’s blog auto-complete thingy, so to do the blog I had to re-solve all the clues as I went. When I came to this clue (which would have been Tuesday or Wednesday) I put in BUDGIE without so much as a second thought, and forgot completely that I had put in something completely different and nonsensical a couple of days before. Quite impressively daft.
  15. I am just getting to grips with Dean’s puzzles and this seemed tough. Gnu was an easy start but after that I had to grind away over several sessions.
    I wrote answers to most but did not understand Betide and Reticulate. Was completely stumped by 10a and 8d which I had to look up.
    Otherwise lots of enjoyable stuff. COD to 5d narrowly.
    One mynah point, do we spell lurgi lurgy or…? David
    1. Lurgy is more common but lurgi is in Chambers and was the original spelling according to ODO. Take your pick!
      Edit: a quick google confirms lurgi in the original Goon Show scripts so I’m sticking with it.

      Edited at 2018-01-28 03:28 pm (UTC)

        1. I’ve never really listened to the show, but the cultural influence is undeniable, and since that’s where the word appears to have come from it seems fitting to keep their spelling.
  16. Lurgi impacted performance from me – could not finish this one. I like to think that had I been on blogging duty I would have been able to eventually get Reticulate and Replacement, but who knows? Anyway, I finally threw in the towel with these two missing.

    I fully share your views on BETIDE – couldn’t be anything else really, but went in with a bemused look.

    Thanks for instructive blog and thanks as ever to Dean.

  17. If you read keriothe’s intro quickly it looks as if he has been struck down by some sort of LUIGI!!
  18. ……..Marvelous how one word can nudge the door of memory ajar. I wrote this bit of doggerel 30 odd years ago and haven’t thought of it since. I was madly in lust with a first cousin and her maternal uncles would have beaten the daylights out of me if they found out.

    Silken Sophie warm beside me.

    If they find us, woe betide me.

    But I would forfeit all life’s bliss

    To wake with Sophie, warm, like this.

  19. Thanks Dean and keriothe (hopefully you’re well and truly over that lurgi now and no new ones)
    It’s a pity that we miss out on the Jumbo, but this one was pretty tough.
    Started quickly enough with SKIDOO (a word I’d discovered only in crossword land) and here the wordplay was one of the easiest in the puzzle. The rest of it lasted a couple of days although only three sittings for a total solve time of around the hour and a half.
    RETICULATE was one of the later entries, but the meaning to distribute utilities was well known to me. GRIM REAPER was my standout clue of the day … with an OMG when it finally dropped for me.
    Finished in the SW corner with EDUCATOR (not sure why so long to get), BUDGIE (which should have been easier than I mede it) and MAGIC (which was just plain hard).

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