Sunday Times 4788 by Dean Mayer – ça va pas, non?

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
59:50. Well that was an absolute stinker, the hardest Times or Sunday Times puzzle for a very long time, for me at least. I came close to giving up, but the fact I was due to blog it kept me going: the desire to avoid public humiliation can be quite a motivator.

Things started so well, too. 1ac went straight in, which is always an encouraging sign, and then I felt I had a reasonable foothold – close to half the clues solved – after my first pass through. But after that my cruciverbal powers seemed to desert me, and solving every clue became like getting blood from a stone. In several cases I didn’t have the faintest idea how to even approach the damned thing: there is a lot of very devious wordplay in here, which particularly when combined with an oblique or cryptic definition makes for pretty deadly clues.

The most deadly of all, though, was 18ac, which I thought took a pretty liberal view of which French expressions can be said to have entered the English language. This one is in ODO, but I have never heard it used in an English context. It’s perfectly familiar to me, because I speak French, but this didn’t really help: it just didn’t even occur to me that this could be an answer in an English crossword. I got there eventually, but I’m not sure how.

My last in, however, was 1dn. This expression has come up before: in fact it came up in a Dean Mayer puzzle that I blogged in 2015. I didn’t know it that time, and I had forgotten it again this. I finally remembered it just before my solve reached the hour mark, at which point the urge to have a drink took some resisting, even at 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning.

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

Across
1 A raised hand
STANDING OVATION – CD. This is going to be be easy!
9 Sex never good? That’s unknown
NOOKY – NO (never), OK (good), Y (unknown).
10 Cleaner put man off
DETERGENT – or DETER GENT.
11 I waste time conserving energy in the best way
IDEALLY – I D(E)ALLY.
12 Grass and earth break up in well
ESPARTO – E (earth), SO (well) containing PART (break up). The first really tricky clue in the puzzle: not a particularly commonplace word (I did know it from past puzzles but it took forever to come to mind) and some not-desperately-helpful wordplay. E for ‘earth’ isn’t common, and SO for ‘well’ is a little oblique.
14 Almost primitive nobleman
EARL – EARLy. Some of these clues are actually pretty easy.
15 Insist on bombing bridges with a rebel
SANDINISTA – (INSIST)* contains (bridges) AND (with), followed by A. I got this from the definition, once a few checkers were in place. Again, the wordplay is very tricky. ‘On bombing’ as an anagram indicator, ‘bridges’ as a containment indicator.
18 “We” are not “us” — “us” is wrong
NOUS AUTRES – (ARE NOT US US)*.
19 Crash party with Nazi bodyguard
DOSS – DO, SS.
21 First part of doctors and nurses involved nudity
UNDRESS – (Doctors, NURSES)*.
22 This is read out before beginning to read
DEAR SIR – (IS READ)*, Read. Semi-&Lit.
23 Conductor to study in Italy
TOSCANINI – TO, SCAN, IN, I.
25 Name capital city on peninsula
DUBAI – DUB (name), AI (excellent, capital). I was a bit puzzled by the ‘peninsula’ bit here, since I didn’t think DUBAI was on one. But I just needed to zoom out: it is of course on the Arabian Peninsula.
26 I don’t know passenger’s last words?
YOU’VE GOT ME THERE – two definitions, one mildly cryptic.

Down
1 Modern business setting? No
SUNRISE INDUSTRY – for an explanation of the term (and a rather similar clue) see here.
2 Living nearby, fed by tree and vegetables
ABOVE GROUND – A(BO, VEG)ROUND. This took me forever to see, not helped by an appearance from the rather obscure BO tree, aka the peepul, which is also how Michael Howard says ‘people’.
3 Very bright party clothes always girl’s skirts
DAYGLO – D(AY, GirL)O. More very tricky wordplay.
4 Fool, single, in Gotham
NODDY – N(ODD)Y.
5 Risky? Possibly not for one about to accept caution
ON THE EDGE – (NOT)*, reversal of EG (for one) containing HEED (caution).
6 A metaphor about fashionable drug
ATROPINE – A TROP(IN)E.
7 Murder is evil, but not very
ICE – vICE.
8 General waiting for conscription
NATIONAL SERVICE – well ‘general’ here is supposed to mean NATIONAL, but I’m not really sure it does. One of the definitions of ‘general’ in Collins is ‘of, including, applying to, or participated in by all or most of the members of a group, category, or community’, which could get you there I suppose. But it just seems too loose to me. ‘Waiting’ for SERVICE, on the other hand, is not loose at all.
13 An adult should be this guilty
RESPONSIBLE – a reference to the phrase ‘RESPONSIBLE adult’.
16 Very high up in jumbo, miss it landing
ALTISSIMO – reversed (‘up’, this being a down clue) in ‘jumbo miss it landing.’
17 Cut caused by spike leading to charge
LACERATE – LACE (spike, as in a drink), RATE.
20 From crew — it’s an enemy aircraft
BANDIT – BAND, IT.
22 Briefly protest about one’s belief
DEISM – DE(I’S)Mo.
24 Very posh, but not much money
SOU – SO, U.

33 comments on “Sunday Times 4788 by Dean Mayer – ça va pas, non?”

  1. Bien sur, un petit diable! Maintenant il faut que je va au hospital. Alors, a demain. (Excusez le piss-poor French, mais je n’utilise pas Google translate ce fois.)
      1. Mais, bien sur. La nièce de ma femme vient de mettre au monde un petit garçon.

        Edited at 2018-03-12 01:43 am (UTC)

  2. Like keriothe, I did NOT like ‘Nous Autres’. I just thought it unfair in an English crossword. I also didn’t like ‘National’ in 8d. I, too, think it is a stretch to get there from ‘general’.
    Thank you, keriothe, particularly for ‘Esparto’ and ‘Above Ground’. Somehow (well, with the use of aids) I managed an all-correct submission but it took me 2hrs 36m 59s spread over 3 sessions. Not fun at all.
  3. I was a bit surprised when K earlier in the week pronounced this a stinker, and now he’s seconded by Ulaca and Martin. Not that I thought it was easy, mind you, even easy for a Dean puzzle, and granted I gave up on parsing a couple, like 2d and 5d. ESPARTO (familiar from the NYT) and SANDINISTA parsed post hoc. DNK 1d or 20d.
    So what was there to complain about? Well, NATIONAL, I suppose, although I wasn’t particularly bothered at the time; a general/national dislike of spicy foods, say. And, of course, NOUS AUTRES, which also didn’t bother me at the time, but now does. GK includes knowledge of certain French expressions–l’esprit de l’escalier, perhaps, or fout le camp–but does not include knowledge of French. NOUS AUTRES is a pronoun, and one shouldn’t be expected to know the set of French pronouns.
    So, all in all not one of Dean’s best; but I still did enjoy it.
  4. Nous tous agree about “nous autres”, although once I finally put N-U- together with “WE” in the clue, the anagram was easy enough.

    The rest should have been easier than it was, with 4 15-letter answers outlining the grid.

    I had a blind spot with SUNRISE INDUSTRY, initially thinking it might be SERVICE INDUSTRY – for no good reason except that it was the right shape.

    Edited at 2018-03-11 05:03 am (UTC)

  5. If an expert such as Keriothe can take an hour to complete this stinker, what about a mere mortal like me? SERVICE INDUSTRY messed my grid,so had to seek help to get NOOKY. Two days to finish.
    Ong’ara,
    Kenya.
    1. Lots of us have to seek help to get nooky, Ong’ara, so don’t feel too bad.
  6. Those who don’t do the QC missed out on a gift here as ESPARTO came up on 2nd March this year.

    BO took some tracking down, but it is in Chambers under ‘bo tree’.

    NOUS AUTRES (my LOI) is in ODO and SOED but not in any of the other usual sources. According to various sources on-line the expression is specific to French as she is spoken in Quebec, and also in Lousiana.

    I recently suggested it was time we had a stinker (a call then taken up by, and attributed to, our Shanghai correspondent) so I shouldn’t complain now that we’ve got one. I enjoyed this a lot but a couple of clues bordering on the unfair took the edge off it just a little.

    Edited at 2018-03-11 06:05 am (UTC)

  7. 57 minutes. I think this may be the first occasion I have pipped our esteemed blogger. I knew NOUS AUTRES and saw it straightaway; I don’t know how, unless we were taught its slightly different emphasis for 1961 ‘O’ level. I got a STANDING OVATION as I picked up the paper. I didn’t remember BANDIT as an enemy aircraft so I flew back to base on a wing and a prayer. I needed all the crossers for the SANDINISTAs as my memory tried to recall if it was them or the CONTRAS that Reagan backed. I’ve never used NODDY to mean a fool. He’s either been Enid Blyton’s creation or Noddy Pullar, Lancashire and England opening bat, who got the nickname not because he would go to sleep in the dressing room once out but because he was once seen there watching the eponymous TV programme. Clue and theme of the day YOU’VE GOT ME THERE. LOI the brilliant DAYGLO. Really enjoyable. Thank you K and Dean.

    Edited at 2018-03-11 07:55 am (UTC)

  8. The kind of difficult crossword that inspired me to carry on rather than to give up (cf. today’s, on which I’ve already thrown in the towel…) My notes say I had less than half done in my first hour, and that it took me about an hour more from there. “LOADS of unknowns”, reads my plaintive scrawl.

    Doesn’t look like I noted my first one in, but my last was the unknown 12a ESPARTO, painstakingly constructed. Put me in the camp that struggled with the SUNRISE of 1d and couldn’t figure out what NATIONAL was doing for “general” in 8d. Happily, though, my GCSE French let me work out 18a quickly and I was perfectly fine with assuming it was some loanword I’d never heard of, which is probably why this didn’t take three hours rather than two…

    Anyway. Good fun, so thanks, setter, and thanks K for struggling through this one to enlighten us on the various obscurities!

  9. I didn’t find this unusually hard, at least compared to any other Deano crossword. I will say that today’s is much easier, though.
    I also thought “nous autres” rather unsuitable for an English crossword, it could hardly be said to be a regular usage. No problem with national/general. “General, public” is given specifically as a meaning of “national” in chambers.
    The only Noddy I know of (apart from Enid B’s) is Noddy Holder from Slade, which tends to support Dean’s usage here :-).
    1. “‘Tis clear,” cried they, “our Mayor’s a noddy;
      “And as for our Corporation — shocking!
  10. After last week’s 14 mins, I took about two hours longer over this unpleasantness.

    My FOI 6dn ICE

    LOI 3dn DAYGLO much like the Hon. Member for Notlob North

    COD 1dn SUNRISE INDUSTRY

    WOD NOUS AUTRES!!

    Jerry, a NODDY HOLDER in Brummig’am is a contraceptive machine, found in a gents toilet, which is the reason that Neville Holder is so-called – to the amusement of his mates!
    Most unsavoury.

    Edited at 2018-03-11 09:27 am (UTC)

  11. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to find this rather tricky, with the same unknowns as others noted – BO tree, NOUS AUTRES (which I just guessed – nearly 45 years since I did my ‘O’ level french, and I didn’t do too well in it), SUNRISE INDUSTRY… and it took me ages to remember SANDINISTA, finding the wordplay unfathomable. But I’m not complaining as it’s good to get a stinker every now and then – some of the wordplay was rather clever. So thanks keriothe and setter. My records say a rather improbable 27:10, but I gave up and resorted to aids to get me over the line rather too easily, I suspect.
  12. I winged my way through this in 41:13, but was undone by a silly error at 7d where I had(v)ILE. Who knows what my though process was, and the correct answer is now obvious. C’est la vie! Somehow my O level french from 1967 kicked in for 18a, but I did think it was a bit mechant. As Jack mentioned, the recent occurrence of ESPARTO in the QC was a big help. I also had an MER over NATIONAL for general. 1d reminded me of the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, although his was of course a Sunshine Industry. NODDY went in with a shrug, NOOKY took a while to rise to mind, and ABOVE GROUND was my LOI after plenty of cogitation. Tough stuff! Thanks Dean and K.
  13. About 2 hours but helped by having read the comments on last week’s blog before attempting. That meant I knew I was looking for something oddly Frenchified and when I got to 18ac where the requirement to anagram was clear, “nous” presented itself quite quickly and the “autres” swiftly followed. It’s been over 20 years since I last spoke French properly doing French A-level but the expression nonetheless seemed sufficiently familiar for me to suspect that I don’t have any problems with it as a solution in an English crossword. Incidentally, does anyone know if they have cryptic crossword puzzles in other languages say French, Spanish or German. I assume there’s no reason other languages would not lend themselves to wordplay and no reason other “Generalities” wouldn’t have a similar bent, don’t think I’ve ever seen one though. 1dn took a while having initially biffed “cottage” and wasn’t sure about “national” for “general” in 8dn but apart from those two, 12ac which I think I knew from puzzles past and “Gotham” for NY which I sort of half-remembered, I had very few QMs in the margins which suggests to me that most of this tricky offering was fair game.
    1. I have no idea what goes on cruciverbally in other tongues, but it seems to me that in English the virtual lack of inflection makes things a lot easier for the setter: ‘open’ can be a transitive verb, an intransitive, an adjective, or a noun, for instance. Compare ouvrir/ouvrert(e)/? in French.

      Edited at 2018-03-11 11:14 am (UTC)

    2. The Wikipedia entry on cryptic crosswords has some information on other languages.
  14. I had read last week’s blog before looking at this; so I’d been tipped off it was difficult.
    On my first read-through I solved four clues (incl 13d) which is not bad for me on a Dean puzzle.
    However I got the message and decided to do The Sunday Telegraph cryptic instead. We get both papers on a Sunday and I don’t normally look at the Telegraph cryptic. It turns out it’s like a hardish QC and I finished that quite quickly.
    I remember Esparto from a recent QC but wasn’t able to bring my new-found knowledge to good use.
    Thanks to BW for the memory of Geoff Pullar.
    I am recovering from another disappointing visit to Deepdale- and I was wearing my lucky shirt! David
  15. I was pushed for time that day and having opened the thing I was hellbent to finish it rather than show a time of 8 hours plus. I can speak French but rarely have the opportunity and I’m pretty sure I’ve never said NOUS AUTRES though I did sort of know it. And I too thought it unfair. Snap with Kevin on ESPARTO so thanks for the parse on that Keriothe. And I completely missed the well-hidden ALTISSIMO and didn’t stick around to look for it. 29.48
  16. Thanks for unraveling that lot so clearly K. I definitely dodged a bullet there with the blogging rota! A rare DNF for me, having spent an unfeasible amount of time grappling with it and then deciding that life was too short. And to be honest, I somehow doubt that the spur of public humiliation would have enabled me to get there – simply beyond my competence.

    No complaints – a good learning experience for me.

  17. Dean is my favourite setter by far. This, of course, beat me.
    I could say that I drove 2 hours in deep snow to get to a friend’s Dartmoor farmhouse where I tried to do this in the kitchen with dozens of screaming kids. All true but if I had had a week of silence in the British Library I would not have finished this.
    Thanks Dean this was clever but not entirely a pleasure.
  18. I usual enjoy Dean’s puzzles but I can’t say I enjoyed this very much. I didn’t like NATIONAL for “general” and took ages to work out the French – even after realising it was an anagram. But I did feel the usual buzz when it all finally clicked. 68 minutes. Ann
  19. DNF, but I liked it, particularly Dean’s trademark cleverly hidden definitions. I didn’t have a problem with National – I thought of local storm warnings and then general alerts – and on reflection I thought anything more clear could have made the clue too easy. I dismissed Ninny as the fool, but thought Noney made a pretty good candidate. So that wrong, and consequently no Detergent. Nice blog, keriothe. Very nice puzzle, Anax.
  20. For no discernable reason, COTTAGE INDUSTRY was my FOI which kind of slowed things down in the NW. Finally sorted when STANDING OVATION hove into view. Dont like NOUS AUTRES for all the reasons commented on above. Anyway, got there in the end, unlike Harry’s one today where I am completely stuck on my last one.
      1. I quite enjoyed Harry’s offering today, although I did think I wasn’t going to finish it at one point. My LOI 26a had me stumped for some time!
  22. Struggled manfully for 41 minutes, so assumed it was a) tough and b) somewhat devious. I thought NOUS AUTRES might be the Paris branch of Sinn Féin, and left it at that. Almost enjoyable.

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