Sunday Times 4790 by Jeff Pearce

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
21:48. I’m afraid I can’t remember much about this. I do remember that I found it mostly very straightforward apart from a small number of stubborn clues at the end of the solve, but I can’t even remember which clues they were, other than 29ac. That one certainly caused me a lot of problems, and accounted on its own for a significant proportion of my time.

Looking back at this now I can’t for the life of me see what slowed me down (other than 29ac of course). It all seems perfectly straightforward. Of course this is often the mark of a good puzzle, which this undoubtedly is.

So thanks to Jeff and without further ado…

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

Across
1 Build up a ship’s company in speech
ACCRUE – sounds like ‘a crew’.
4 Nick Queen’s supporter going round in this city
CANBERRA – CAN (prison, nick) then ER (Queen) has BRA (supporter) ‘going round’.
10 Cider seen splashed about seat
RESIDENCE – (CIDER SEEN)*. ‘Seat’ in the sense of the ancestral home of a great family. Casterly Rock, for instance.
11 Performing in extremely lively Southern city
LYONS – ON (performing) contained in LivelY, S.
12 Well fed soldiers given permission to enter gym
REPLETE – RE, P(LET)E.
14 Players getting boo ruined first symphony’s intro
OBOISTS – (BOO)*, IST, Symphony.
15 Where chess players may be sweeping
ACROSS-THE-BOARD – a literal definition and moderately inventive one.
18 Book with strange predictions on what’s to be done
JOB DESCRIPTION – JOB (book), (PREDICTIONS)*. Even I’ve heard of this book of the bible.
22 Value politeness
RESPECT – DD.
24 Some angst or mental agony
TORMENT – contained in ‘angst or mental’.
25 Host runs out in skimpy underwear
THONG – THrONG.
26 Being complicated add details
ELABORATE – DD.
28 Gentle exercise with a climber
SWEET PEA – SWEET (gentle), PE, A.
29 What’s behind the humour about a girl
RETINA – RE, TINA. The acqueous humour being the plasma-like liquid that fills your eye. Obvious now, this took me forever to, um, see.

Down
1 Cultivated Indian metropolis one managed to tour
AGRARIAN – AGRA (Indian metropolis), R(I)AN.
2 An island, not an iceberg
COS – this and iceberg being varieties of lettuce.
3 Sends rude letters about shed kit
UNDRESSED – (SENDS RUDE)*.
5 A doctor owes me? Excellent!
AWESOME – A, (OWES ME)*. Party on, dudes.
6 Iberian port fells a hobbit
BILBO – BILBaO. I was in BILBAO about 18 months ago, hungry and with an hour or so to kill. I walked into the first restaurant I saw, which had the unprepossessing air of a very slightly upmarket greasy spoon. They served me a quite extraordinarily good three-course lunch for €13.
7 Return to berth and help delivery for guest?
ROOM SERVICE – reversal of MOOR, SERVICE.
8 Help part of rhythm section gives if failing to start
ASSIST – bASSIST.
9 Heartless vet’s a loathsome creature
INSECT – INSpECT.
13 Normal boy’s way to search for a bit of chicken
PARSONS NOSE – PAR (normal), SON’S, NOSE (way to search).
16 Deliberately show leg and most of chaste model
ON PURPOSE – ON (leg side in cricket), PURe, POSE (model).
17 Curse a powerful piece of music primarily about America
ANATHEMA – A, preceded by (primarily) AN(A)THEM. The A in the middle of ANTHEM is for America.
19 Triumphant expression from drunk in this place?
SO THERE – SOT, HERE.
20 Insulting term directed against bishop in paper
RATBAG – R(AT, B)AG.
21 Free a traitor imprisoned by soldiers
GRATIS – G(RAT)IS.
23 Friar leaves cargo for cardinal
EIGHT – frEIGHT. ‘Cardinal’ for any old number is something I’ve learned to look out for relatively recently in my solving career, for some reason.
27 Boxer making comeback in Manila
ALI – contained reversed in ‘Manila’. A neat clue that would be even neater if the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ had been a comeback for Muhammad Ali, but in fact Ali had won the second of three fights agains Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden. But it’s still neat.

15 comments on “Sunday Times 4790 by Jeff Pearce”

  1. I can’t remember much about this one now either. I think I started with ACCRUE and I definitely finished with RETINA, as it took me ages to see it too. It also took me ages to see AWESOME, which I don’t think I parsed until I came here! 35:40. Thanks Jeff and K.
  2. I pretty much agree with keriothe: nothing really memorable except for 29ac which had me foxed for quite a long time.
    57m 47s
  3. Don’t often hear 20dn RATBAG these days – very much Hancock (lite) to Warren Mitchell (heavy) country. Still, my WOD.

    COD 5dn AWESOME with the AWESOME(5dn)with ‘doctor’ the verb and not noun ‘doctor’ used as a verb and not a noun. Awesome, the most over- used word in America until ‘LOOK’- which is used in every other TV interview when ‘LISTEN’ is actually required.

    FOI 2dn COS

    LOI 17dn ANATHEMA

    28 minutes with nothing too 5dn.

  4. Like Ong’ara, I could only come up with Regina, and that made no sense. But then, I never came close to getting the word play, so nothing would have made sense, probably including RETINA. Bah! indeed.
  6. … I zipped through this by my standards, taking 21 minutes, so Job’s patience not needed on this one. LOI RETINA, which was a neat clue as they were ACROSS -THE-BOARD. Among the most irritating words to be heard in life are “it’s not in my JOB DESCRIPTION” which I’ll make COD to honour one of the most interesting pieces of literature in the Bible.Thank you K, and Jeff for a beautifully constructed puzzle.
  7. I narrowly missed biffing REGINA at 29a like others, but luckily thought better of it in the end, and it became my COD. 51m all told, FOI 1a ACCRUE, LOI 25a THONG.

    Thanks to setter and K.

  8. No problem with 29a, which I (ahem) saw immediately. In fact I raced through this puzzle in 9:48 with plenty of enjoyment along the way. COD to RATBAG. Thanks Jeff and K.

    Edited at 2018-03-25 08:08 am (UTC)

  10. I finished this inside 35 mins but sadly with Regina instead of retina. I justified it on the basis that E and R are behind The and Humour and ER is of course her Maj. I remember thinking it was a longshot but tempus was fugit-ing and I was keen to finish so went with it. The rest went in fairly swiftly, top half quicker than the bottom. Couldn’t quite parse 17dn but other than the error dredged from my fevered cruciverbal imaginings at 29ac, no other problems.
  11. 29 mins and 50 secs with one wrong. I fell for the girl of course. I toyed with Selina and flirted with Jemima but finally settled on majestic Regina. I thought Retina was an excellent clue.

    Edited at 2018-03-25 12:08 pm (UTC)

  12. Back after a couple of days away.
    Enjoyed this puzzle but defeated by Retina and Anathema. David
  13. Also defeated by 29ac, so eventually bunged in SELINA for no reason other than I used to know a cat by that name.
    1. Yes I was tempted by SELINA for a while, if only because I couldn’t think of anything else.

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