Sunday Times 4846 by Dean Mayer – time torn off unused

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
16:56. I did most of this pretty quickly and had all but two clues solved in under ten minutes, but then I hit a total roadblock on 10ac and 2dn and wasted the rest of my solving time staring blankly at them, in increasing frustration. This sort of thing seems to be happening to me a lot at the moment.

I don’t know why 2dn took me so long to see: it’s not that hard, although it is an excellent clue. But without the crossing R I was completely stumped by 10ac. Even with the R I struggled to make any sense of it until I spotted that the word NURSERIES fitted the checkers, at which point I unravelled the wordplay and entered the answer without any idea about the definition.

Not too much by way of obscurity this week: that meaning of NURSERY, perhaps, the mineral, and the very odd-looking word at 8dn. But the crystal-clear wordplay should guide you through… provided you know what a gam is. All in all a very nice puzzle, as we’ve come to expect from Dean. Concise clues with lovely surfaces and some really neat devices. 4dn is a thing of beauty.

Oh, and Happy Easter, of course. I’m not remotely religious but this didn’t stop me getting quite upset watching Notre Dame burning this week. You don’t have to believe the stories (or know them to Goliath’s-birthplace levels of detail) to acknowledge and appreciate their cultural significance and the beauty of a building like that.

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

Across
1 Weakness, say, when love is gone
VICE – VoICE.
3 Downing Street’s first defence? Outstanding
SWALLOWING – Street, WALL (defence), OWING (outstanding).
10 Head back before cycle races?
NURSERIES – reversal of RUN (head), SERIES (cycle). A nursery is a type of horse race, apparently. It’s not in Collins or ODO (other than as a qualifier as in ‘nursery stakes’) but it is in Chambers.
11 Fantasy figure finally in shot
DREAM – DR(figurE)AM.
12 Encouraging one citizen to hold back tears
INSPIRATIONAL – I, NATIONAL (citizen) containing a reversal of RIPS.
14 A university asked for a piece of early music
AUBADE – A, U, BADE (asked). A ‘a song or poem appropriate to or greeting the dawn’ (Collins) hence ‘early’.
16 Trouble giver sadly seen in maturity
AGGRIEVE – AGE containing (GIVER)*
18 Catch some balls before he gets a run
OVERHEAR – OVER (some balls), HE, A R.
19 Drains in house superfluous
USES UP – contained in ‘house superfluous’.
21 Thick, green, and fresh veg grown here
KITCHEN GARDEN – (THICK GREEN AND)*.
24 Open book has become visible
BLOOM – B, LOOM.
25 Conductor returning home (twice) after opera
TOSCANINI – TOSCA (opera) then two reversals of IN (home). Arturo of that ilk, an old-timey conductor who appears fairly regularly in these things.
26 Flash, as exploding cannon does
NANOSECOND – (CANNON DOES)*.
27 Left in charge, do a runner
FLEE – F(L)EE.

Down
1 See sign for “champion”
VINDICATOR – V (see, short for Latin vide), INDICATOR.
2 The noise made by my army band
CORPS – sounds like ‘cor!’ (my).
4 German city centre lost in wartime bombing
WEIMAR – (WARtIME)*. Lovely clue.
5 They secure a great deal
LASHINGS – DD. The second definition is one I associate with The Famous Five and ginger beer, but I’ve never read any of the books so this could be entirely spurious.
6 Doing his job should be plain sailing?
ORDINARY SEAMAN – CD. We are so used to seeing this chap in a supporting role as just a couple of letters, it’s nice for him to get the starring role for once.
7 In storm, sail needs perfect quality
IDEALNESS – (SAIL NEEDS)*.
8 Waterproof cover offered by school parking
GAMP – GAM, P. Those of us who crashed and burned in the championship a few years ago by entering OPHOD instead of OGHAM will not forget this word for ‘school’ in a hurry. A GAMP is an umbrella, apparently, which was news to me.
9 Old backing paper
BEHIND THE TIMES – not one that needs much explanation.
13 Mineral water created in London
SERPENTINE – ‘A dark green mineral consisting of hydrated magnesium silicate, sometimes mottled or spotted like a snake’s skin’. The lake in Hyde Park is man-made, hence ‘created’.
15 Fall through crack on floor
BREAK DOWN – BREAK (crack), DOWN (knock down, floor). I can see how these things mean much the same thing but I’m struggling to come up with a situation in which they would be interchangeable.
17 Poor way to get praise rejected
PATHETIC – PATH, reversal of CITE. I didn’t know that CITE could mean ‘praise’, but it’s there in ODO.
20 Concert in heart of Brunei hasn’t been cancelled
UNISON – brUNei, IS ON (hasn’t been cancelled).
22 School, boring one
DRILL – DD.
23 Old outlaw in Scottish town
OBAN – O, BAN.

32 comments on “Sunday Times 4846 by Dean Mayer – time torn off unused”

  1. This must be a pb for me for a Dean puzzle. DNK NURSERIES, of course, but got it from the checkers, and it parsed, so … GAMP comes from Dickens’s Sarah Gamp (‘Leave the bottle on the chimney-piece, … and let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged’), who is never without one. LASHINGS I’ve only come across once (I started with MOORINGS), in one of Alan Bennett’s ‘Talking Heads’ monologues, but somehow it’s stuck. I had a bit of a MER with 15d, but thought that e.g. ‘his plan fell through/broke down’ might pass. COD to LOI CORPS; I’m tired of my=COR, but this one I liked. ON EDIT: I just Googled ‘Sara Gamp’ to check that quotation (from an unreliable memory) and found this message!

    Edited at 2019-04-21 05:57 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks. Chambers confirms the etymology. I decided I’d had enough of Dickens long before I got to Chuzzlewit.
  2. Excellent puzzle but reading through it, I got to 23d before I put one in.
    Thank you, keriothe, for NURSERIES, but I must be missing sunnink as I can’t see vindicator = CHAMPION. When it came to 16ac, ‘trouble’ had me thinking of ado/ail/ill.
    Agreed WEIMAR was a lovely clue but my COD was SWALLOWING.
  3. I’ve lost my copy of this but I know I solved it without many problems, I think in just under the half-hour. I knew NURSERIES as horse races, so that was no mystery. I’m no racing man but I can hear Peter O’Sullevan introducing a Nursery Stakes. I think GAMP was LOI. I’ve never read Martin Chuzzlewit, but I have heard of Mrs Gamp and her umbrella at some stage, probably from a TV adaptation of many years ago. I recall enjoying this. Thank you K and Dean.
    1. Can you hear him referring to a ‘nursery’? It seems to be one of those Chambers-only words.
      1. Yep, accompanied by Stakes. There is a Nursery Stakes at Glorious Goodwood too, an event I’ve had the good fortune to go to a couple of times.
        1. But without the ‘stakes’, that’s the question. ODO for instance only has it as a qualifier.
          1. No, I’ve not heard it without the Stakes, or at least a Race. It has been used as a qualifier. But when I’d already decided it had to be NURSERIES, that was good enough for me! I seem to recall advising others of my explanation in another place.
            1. For the purposes of the clue it has to be a standalone noun, of course. But I had never heard of it even as a qualifier and still managed to solve the clue so [shrug].

              Edited at 2019-04-21 08:57 am (UTC)

  4. I think I thought at the time of e.g. Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘Vindication of the Rights of Men’.
  5. ….held me up for while before I realised it wasn’t that meaning of “deal”. Otherwise, I was comfortable with this enjoyable offering from Dean.

    FOI DREAM
    LOI CORPS (much like Keriothe)
    COD ORDINARY SEAMAN (also liked SERPENTINE)
    TIME 13:22

  6. 19.27 for this, so relatively easy, helped by 1d being straight in. The “Messiah” aria “I know that my redeemer liveth” (from Job 19) is rather more prosaically and accurately rendered as “vindicator” in modern versions and it was not too big a leap from champion, at least not for me!
    SERPENTINE last in after staring at the crossers for a while.
  7. My 55 minutes seems to say I found this one tough, but fair. FOI 1a VICE (it seems increasingly rare that I get 1a as my first one in at the moment!) LOI the unknown 10a NURSERIES. I was unsure about “cite” for “praise” until I thought of someone being mentioned in dispatches, also known as a “citation”, I think? Also didn’t know GIMP (must read more Dickens) or AUBADE, now filed away for future reference…
        1. ‘Do you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris, Mrs Spottletoe?’
  8. I found this difficult but I had plenty of time as I was staying in Bamburgh and did not have any other papers to look at. FOI was WEIMAR, LOI was CORPS.
    However I did not know GAM and decided, given the German theme, that GYMNASIUM could be the basis so in went GYMP.
    As ever I must improve my knowledge of Dickens. In fact we are off to Cobham in Kent today to visit Charles Dickens’ favourite ale house (says their website) where he often stayed and which he described in The Pickwick Papers. David
    1. Ah, the Leathern Bottel .. or Leather Bottle as they have it nowadays. been there several times .. hope you have booked! It is a popular place.
      Bon Appetit
      1. Just back from The Leather Bottle.Journey there not helped by closure of the A2. The pub was very busy but we had booked. There was a drawing of Mrs Gamp on the wall just behind where I was sitting. I also sat in Dickens’ chair before I left.
  9. I thought it was a bit loose but Collins and Chambers both give ‘defend’ as a definition for ‘vindicate’.
  10. Think the parsing of 24 ac is not B Loom..but opening up the word book to get the double o of loom. It accounts for “open”. Just a thought!
  11. 21:39. Count me as another who stared at 2d and 10a for ages to finish with. I do enjoy Dean’s puzzles and this was no exception. I liked WEIMAR too, but also OVERHEAR, NANOSECOND and FLEE. Very neat. Thanks Dean and K.
  12. 28:33 for me with 10a and 2d holding me up at the end too. A fast time for me for a Dean puzzle. Knew GAMP as a brolly, probably from Dickens. Nice puzzle. Thanks Dean and K.
  13. 33:08. After a slow start (my FOI was Aubade) I rattled most of this off fairly quickly in around 20 mins but then got stuck for ages on LOI nurseries. Even with all the checkers I just couldn’t see the word that would fit. Eventually got nur for head back, series for cycle followed and nurseries was entered with a shrug. I don’t know much about horse racing and the term wasn’t familiar in that context. Very similar experience to the blogger (albeit it over twice as long a timeframe): hitting a total roadblock, wasting time staring blankly in increasing frustration and that being something that feels like an all too frequent occurrence recently, all things that struck a chord with me. Terrific puzzle though.

    Edited at 2019-04-21 12:18 pm (UTC)

  14. Thanks Dean and keriothe
    Took a bit over an hour across two sittings to get this one out with a similar solving path to others that ended with NURSERIES and CORPS. Had heard of the former although few if any 2YO races down here are called that now. CORPS was a two step solve – it became obvious from the definition that it was, but it then took a while to get the homophone working with the cleverly disguised ‘my’.
    GAMP presented little problem, being aware of the Dickensian umbrella and GAM was an ingrained word learnt from it appearing regularly in ‘Mr Wisdom’s Whopper’ puzzles from the Australian Post that I used to do with my grandmother as a teenager all those years ago.
    2. I think the question may be about the COD (clue of the day) and LOI (last one in) impenetrable jargon aspects!

      Edited at 2019-04-28 10:18 am (UTC)

  17. Have seen a definition (but can’t recall where) that in the racing world Nurseries are races for two-year-olds. It could be a long distant memory from talking to my Aunt who set up the first laboratory to test racehorses for drugs in Australia in 1947.

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