Sunday Times 4785 by Dean Mayer – ‘armless fun

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Not too tricky by Dean’s exacting standards, and with some lovely stuff. Several generously clued cryptics (9a, 11a, 20a and 12d) enabled me to fill in quite a few squares on a first quick skim through, getting me off to a flying start. Things got a bit trickier after that, but I managed to cross the finishing line without feeling that I needed a good lie down (my usual state after a Dean Mayer puzzle).

The usual wit and elegant cluing are on display throughout the puzzle. In particular, I thought the farm animals device at 3d was very nice, 7d was extremely neat, and 5d was an absolute gem.

I remain somewhat uncertain about the last detail of the parsing at 2d, and look forward to being put straight on that. Anyway, here’s how I think it works…

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

Across
1 A power described by simple physicist (6)
AMPERE – A then P inside MERE (power described by simple) giving us Andre-Marie of that ilk
5 Partnership for one out of loyalty (8)
ALLIANCE – EG (for one) comes out of ALL{EG}IANCE (loyalty)
9 All showers are relaxing here (6,4)
NUDIST CAMP – Gentle cryptic – where those who bare all go to, um, hang out…
10 Drop anchor in low river (4)
MOOR – MOO (low) + R (river)
11 Those involved in a domestic row (8,6)
TERRACED HOUSES – Cryptic definition turning on the two meanings of “row”
13 School maiden has to discharge gas (8)
SCHMOOZE – SCH (school) + M (maiden – cricket abbrev.) + OOZE (discharge)
14 Country chap’s anecdotes (6)
GUYANA – GUY (chap) + ANA (anecdotes). Ana (as a standalone word rather than a suffix) was new to me, but with the GUY being clearly clued (and the crosscheckers) it couldn’t be anything else
16 A short tug, and snake gets rodent (6)
JERBOA – JER{K} (short tug) + BOA (snake)
18 Playing fragile old French organ (2,6)
LE FIGARO – *(FRAGILE) – with O (old) also in the mix – and “playing” signalling the anagram, giving us one of the two French papers of record
20 Is it overly sweet? (6-4,4)
UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE – Jokey cryptic based around “overly”
22 Almost completely stop (4)
QUIT – QUIT{E} (almost completely)
23 Sit back after cast angrily voice complaint (10)
LARYNGITIS – SIT reversed (back) ‘after’ *(ANGRILY) with “cast” pointing to the anagram
24 A plea for help to tackle leading cause of cancer (8)
ASBESTOS – A SOS (A plea for help) goes around (‘tackles’) BEST (leading)
25 Pass light over empty stage (6)
ELAPSE – PALE reversed (light over) + S{tag}E (empty stage)
Down
2 Hair growth over parting is bound to be longer (9)
MOUSTACHE – O (over – cricket abbrev.) inside (parting) MUST (is bound to be) + ACHE (longer). At least, that’s what I originally thought – which gave me a bit of a problem as I cannot equate ACHE with LONGER (as opposed to LONGING or LONG). Maybe it works by having MUST just from “is bound”, with “to be longer” giving us ACHE (I suppose one who is a ‘longer’ has an ‘ache’). Or maybe I’ve completely missed the point (far and away the most likely explanation…)
3 Funny English farm animals (7)
EPIGRAM – E (English) + PIG & RAM (farm animals), with FUNNY here being a noun rather than an adjective. Very nice.
4 Highly courteous when one goes for a project (11)
EXTRAPOLATE – EXTRA POLITE (highly courteous) but with the I replaced by an A (when one goes for A)
5 Bookshop may sell this in all the best branches?
(1,8,2,4)
A FAREWELL TO ARMS – “All the best” gives us A FAREWELL, and “branches” gives ARMS. Gorgeous clue, I thought.
6 See power cut off (3)
LOP – LO (see) + P (power)
7 It supplies our occupying forces (7)
ARMOURY – OUR is inside (occupying) ARMY – & Lit, I believe
8 Split open part of head (5)
CLOVE – DD, the second referring to (e.g.) a clove of garlic
12 In which large sums of money are wasted? (4,7)
HIGH FINANCE – Cryptic turning on “wasted” being a term for “high” (as in stoned)
15 Places for young railway workers on train (9)
NURSERIES – NUR (railway workers – the old union that was dissolved in 1990) ‘on’ SERIES (train)
17 See red hair (7)
BRISTLE – DD
19 Old lady wants it — a cold dish (7)
GRANITA – GRAN (old lady) + IT A (wants it – a), giving the Italian sorbet-like treat
21 Is mother initially proud of us? (5)
POURS – P (first letter of – ‘initially’ – P{roud}) + OURS (of us). Do people still say “I’ll be mother” when pouring tea? Not a phrase I’ve heard in years, in which case this might be a bit of a mystery to younger solvers. Or maybe I just tend to sit down with people pouring wine rather than tea.
23 In elevator with missing female (3)
LIT – LI{F}T (elevator with missing F{emale}). As for the definition, whilst solving I had a vague feeling that both IN and LIT are terms for “drunk”, but post-solve research failed to validate the IN bit of that theory. However, if you read far enough down the Chambers entry for IN (now there’s dedication for you) you come across “alight”.

23 comments on “Sunday Times 4785 by Dean Mayer – ‘armless fun”

  1. As Nick said, not too tricky by Dean’s standards, although I had no idea whatever how 5d worked until Nick enlightened me; brilliant clue, wasted on me. 13ac took longer than it should have simply because where I come from the word is schmoose. LOIs ironically enough were MOOR and finally CLOVE. COD I think to LARYINGITIS.
    1. Fully agree LARYNGITIS was also a thing of beauty – meant to call it out for special mention in the blog but must have forgotten to at the last minute.
    2. From yesterday – I did know Bob & Ray Kevin, mostly from my late father-in-law, but not the foundry connection. They used to crack my FIL up so much that he could never get to the end of explaining one of their spoofs without convulsing completely.
      1. You might try a sample from ‘The Best of Bob and Ray’. One of my Brit friends loved them; another returned the CDs to me the next day.
  2. Typical Anax,really enjoy his his style which is rather Rufuesque but with a unique touch.Many CODS,especially 16ac.As a foreign solver,’is mother’ was a challenge but wordplay came to the rescue.
    Ong’ara,
    Kenya.
    1. Unspammed. Ong’ara, to avoid future contributions going into spam and if you are posting anonymously, you need to place a space between full stops and the next letter. Live Journal thinks you are posting url links and treats this as ‘suspicious’. Alternatively, if you set up a (free) Live Journal account and create your own ID you won’t have this problem.

      Good to hear from you in Kenya, btw.

  3. My 27 minutes suggests this was an easy puzzle, though none the less enjoyable for that. I realise now that I biffed 5dn and only parsed the ‘branches/arms’ part of the wordplay.

    ‘In/lit’ has come up before and was perhaps more commonplace in the days when ‘being mother’ meant pouring tea. My first family-home had only open fires for heating and we’d talk of a fire being “still in”, meaning it had not gone out overnight, or if it had, someone would be tasked with “getting it in”.

    Edited at 2018-02-18 06:04 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks for the explanation Jack – and the very nice image of home life in bygone days.
    2. Thank you jackkt. I had forgotten all about this definition. Being a septuagenarian open fires have long been things of the past. But there you are, I recall so vividly my mother asking my father ‘is the fire still in’, i.e. can it still be revived.

      AW Bham

    3. We used those terms too, Jack. I think that emptying the dishwasher has taken the place of riddling the ashes as the first task of the morning.
  4. Top class stuff, just look at those surface readings .. they really don’t come any better than, say, 5dn.
    They (wife, anyway) still say “Shall I be mother,” Nick but first you really need to have a teapot – and in these days of teabags, they are few and far between.
    At 2dn you just have to equate “must ache” with “is bound to be (a) longer” .. which I think does pass the substitution test
    1. Thanks for your insight into 2d. I’m sure you are right, but I still feel a tad unsure. I’ll put it in the “life’s too short…” bucket!
  5. This took me 33 minutes over coffee… and then took me another 33 minutes over another coffee. Still, I was feeling extra-dozy last weekend, just getting over a cold, or that’s my excuse, anyway. FOI 4d EXTRAPOLATE, LOI 25a ELAPSE. Glad to have had my quickly-biffed 5d (I’m a Hemingway fan) explained, as well as 5a. Thanks to setter and Nick.

    Edited at 2018-02-18 08:39 am (UTC)

  6. …books I read in my younger days. I don’t have my solution copy or a time as I return from a week’s break this morning, but found it straightforward with the exception of parsing MOUSTACHE. I liked UPSIDE-DOWN-CAKE. Not had that for a long time. Must have gone out of fashion like mandarin oranges in a flan did. But COD to A FAREWELL TO ARMS, which I read more than half a century ago (when mandarin orange flan was where it was at) and have now entirely forgotten what it was about. A pleasant puzzle. Thank you Nick and Dean.
    PS On edit and return home. I didn’t find it that straightforward as I took 47 minutes. And COD was TERRACED HOUSES as seen then.

    Edited at 2018-02-19 06:58 am (UTC)

  7. I had most of this done inside 50 mins but the cryptic Def at 9ac stretched my time to over an hour. Usual high quality puzzle with the usual nice touches: “is mother”, “occupying forces”, 5dn, 20ac, 23ac etc etc…I was thrown a bit by “gas” for “schmooze” but I guess if you’re schmoozing your gassing. Btw, fwiw, I had 7dn as &litt-ish rather than fully &lit because I think the wp is limited to “our occupying forces”, I took “it supplies” to be the Def enhanced by the other words in the clue but not required as part of the wp (others with more expertise will know better than me so I stand ready to be corrected).
    1. Yes I would call this semi-&Lit because the whole thing is the definition but as you say there is a bit of extra wording beyond the wordplay.
      This took me 28:28, so I seem to have found it pretty hard. Very enjoyable though, as ever with Dean’s puzzles.
    2. Thanks for the &Littish observation – bit of a blind spot of mine as I have never managed to fully get my head around the niceties of this clue type (notwithstanding Keriothe’s periodic learned explanations on the topic which I read and think “Aha! Now I get it…” – until the next time I have to actually recognise one).
    1. Well I missed that completely! Well spotted and thanks for pointing it out, whoever you are.
  9. Thanks for the parsing on MOUSTACHE and FAREWELL TO ARMS Nick – I didn’t quite make it. Got off on the wrong foot with “Napier” in 1a (yes I know but I’m a bit wobbly with my physicists) but managed to come home under the half hour – just – and all in good fun. I for one didn’t see the pangram – clever.
  10. Yet again the pangram passed me by. I was stretched to 40:09 by this, so trickier than some, but not too difficult for a Dean puzzle. Lots of smiles as pennies dropped. 1a was my FOI and LARYNGITIS my last. Didn’t know JERBOA but the wordplay was helpful. Was quite happy with 1d, with “ache” = “be longer.” Too many likes to single one out. Thanks Nick and Dean.
  11. In golfing terms this was a No Return for me. Many lost balls and hardly any pars. For example 22a: I thought Almost Completely was Full[y]; and a stop can be full, and I can’t think of anything else! The domestic row had to end in Couple which fitted with 7d, one of the few I was sure about. That led to Cash Machine for 12d, a bit loose perhaps but the best I could come up with. And it fitted with 25a.
    Still much to learn.
    I did get Moustache -but couldn’t parse it. David

  12. A little late thanks to losing our broadband connection halfway through solving this Sunday’s cryptic. Won’t be on again until Tuesday evening. Currently enroute to Sydney to cancel my NZ Visitor’s visa and activate my Australian Resident’s Return visa so am using lounge access at AKL airport. I’m sure you are all interested…

    Anyway, I thought this was a lovely puzzle even if it took me 91m 33s. My favourites were the two plays on words involving ‘showers’ and ‘row’. Nice to see Anax catching up with a a device I used in a treasure hunt car rally in 1972 or thereabouts, before petrol prices rocketed upwards as a result of the Yom Kippur War. I set one clue in the small town of Forest Row in East Sussex which I described cryptically as ‘An argument in the woods?’

    Edited at 2018-02-19 03:48 am (UTC)

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