Sunday Times 4858 by Dean Mayer – oh brother who art thou

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
26:48. A stiff challenge from Dean this weak. He has a way of finding slightly off-the-wall definitions for things that create a lot of head-scratching followed by the dropping of pennies. Occasionally (as in 18dn in this puzzle) you could argue that he’s pushing the boundaries of synonymity but generally speaking you just have to adjust your thinking a bit. 1ac is a good example of this, among several others.

There was one clue in here (14dn) that I found very odd, and I can’t help thinking I must have missed something.

All in all though this was a lot of fun to solve, so thanks to Dean and here’s how I think it all works…

Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (TIHS)*, anagram indicators are in italics.

Across
1 Ship in drift?
IMPORT – DD. Drift as in ‘do you get my drift?’ I’m sure I wasn’t alone in assuming that ‘in’ was a filler word and that ‘ship’ was going to be a definition. And then the penny dropped.
5 Nasty sex? Buy it
VIPERISH – VI, PERISH (buy it). ‘Sex’ is six in Latin, the appropriate language for Roman numerals.
9 Miss a party
GALA – GAL, A.
10 Ancient writer, so well recalled
METHUSELAH – ME (writer), THUS (so), reversal of HALE. ‘Ancient’ being a noun here.
11 An Ivy League wannabe?
SOCIAL CLIMBER – not-very-cryptic definition based on the idea that ivy is a ‘climber’.
13 Worse luck after the end of this
ALAS – A LA (after, in imitation of), thiS.
15 Wise to keep books in circulation
ROTATIONAL – R(OT)ATIONAL.
16 Stuffing rodent, new label trimmed
ORNAMENTED – NAME (label) contained in (RODENT)*. Trimmed in the sense of ‘trimmings.’
19 Tucked into fine round cheese
FETA – reversal (round) of ATE (tucked into), F.
20 Still together
AT THE SAME TIME – DD.
23 Tiny piece of lemon put in for taste?
FLAVOURING – F(Lemon)AVOURING.
24 Run away in defeat
ROUT – R, OUT.
25 Wisely, he thought “I need help carrying box”
SOCRATES – SO(CRATE)S. All we are is dust in the wind, dude.
26 Heavy fabric — it’s used in uniform
SAMITE – SAM(IT)E. I didn’t know this fabric but the wordplay was helpful.

Down
2 Bird made off with bird box
MEADOWLARK – (MADE)*, OWL, ARK.
3 Browser fine with software interface
OKAPI – OK, API (Application Programme Interface). An animal related to the giraffe, found mostly in crosswords.
4 Acrobat needs to get it right
TUMBLER – TUMBLE, R. I would have said that ‘tumble to‘ is synonymous with ‘get it’ but according to Chambers the ‘to’ is optional.
5 Three figures specifying one?
VITAL STATISTICS – bust, waist and hip measurements (three figures) specifying body shape (another kind of figure).
6 Bob’s prize collected
PLUMMET – PLUM, MET. I found this definition a bit odd, but Collins has ‘to disappear suddenly, as beneath a surface’. I’m not sure how to meet is to collect. To collect someone from the airport, perhaps? Seems a bit loose.
7 Ran through concrete shed, you might say
REELED OFF – sounds like ‘real doff’.
8 Still sweeps up
SNAP – reversal (up, because this is a down clue) of PANS. The definition refers to the horizontal movement of a film camera, I think.
12 Equivalent to whip that’s regularly used on horse
TANTAMOUNT – TAN (whip), alternate letters (regularly) in ThAt, MOUNT (horse).
14 Take another shot of Brother Jonathan
START OVER – a very odd clue, this. Brother Jonathan is ‘the personification of New England’, but originally he was used to refer to the entire United States: a precursor to Uncle Sam. If this is just a way of indicating an Americanism, it’s archaic and terribly obscure. And it’s a bit odd since I’m not so sure START OVER is specifically American any more. I wonder if I’m missing something.
17 Use tax reforms to tackle hydrogen emission
EXHAUST – (USE TAX)* containing H.
18 Barricade, very long, possibly fine
DAMAGES – DAM, AGES. Another rather odd definition: a fine is not the same thing as DAMAGES.
21 Drunk hurt before start of military tattoo
THRUM – (HURT)*, Military. ‘Thrum’ is a noun here.
22 Royal Society will host this too
ALSO – contained in ‘Royal Society’.

25 comments on “Sunday Times 4858 by Dean Mayer – oh brother who art thou”

  1. This was way hard: after my 30′ online I had maybe 10 clues solved, and I needed at least a half-hour to finish. LOI SNAP, which I got through a desultory alphabet trawl, where I went from SL.. to SP.., forgetting SN.. (I assumed it was camera panning.) Never figured out MEADOWLARK; got the (MADE), but saw LARK, not OWL, leaving me with OW to deal with. My obtuseness with hiddens reached the pathological level: I actually biffed ALSO. I could make no sense of 14d, not having heard of Brother Jonathan (would it have helped if I had?), and not knowing that START OVER was an Americanism. I wondered about MET, too, and DAMAGES. (I took PLUMMET to be a noun (=plumb line), equivalent to ‘bob’, although I gather they’re not in fact, a bob being attached to the line.) CODs to ALAS and FLAVOURING: beautifully natural surfaces disguising the role of ‘after’ and ‘for’. On edit: I was a bit surprised at the number of people who didn’t know SAMITE, as I remember it from childhood reading of Arthurian stories: ladies always seemed to be dressed in the stuff.

    Edited at 2019-07-14 07:26 am (UTC)

  2. Never heard of him till now but we do use the phrase “start over again” in the UK which could mean “take another shot”.
  3. Solving time: Forever over three sessions. I had misgivings about a couple of clues including the ‘Brother Jonathan’ thing which I still don’t ‘get’ as to my mind there’s nothing particularly American about START OVER and I’d never heard of Bro J anyway.

    ‘I met / collected him at the airport’ seems fine to me.

    1. Summoned by Church bells at 10.30 am last Sunday after an hour on this, and with my head sore from unedifying contact with a brick wall, I didn’t return to this. I was missing 13 across ALAS, which is a very good clue, and also SAMITE, which I didn’t know. I had biffed START OVER with a shrug, never having heard of Brother Jonathan. I do hear the expression as AMERICAN, only because the first time I recall hearing it was in John Lennon’s Starting Over, and by then I think he and Yoko were ensconced at The Dakota. I actually recall wondering if he meant ‘starting again’. It then crept into UK speak. COD VITAL STATISTICS. A tough puzzle. Thank you K for the blog, and Dean for the challenge.

      Edited at 2019-07-14 06:28 am (UTC)

      1. You do know SAMITE John. Not only did it come up relatively recently (at which time I claimed I didn’t know it) but a man with your well-developed sense of humour will have come across the lady in the lake in Monty P and the Holy Grail, whose arm was clad in purest shimmering samite.
        1. But strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of crossword solving. You’re right, I should have known it.
    2. The problem I have with ‘met/collected at the airport’ is that they don’t really mean the same thing, even if they are usually substitutable. I have met people at various airports over the years without taking them anywhere afterwards.

      Edited at 2019-07-14 09:30 am (UTC)

  4. ….after 22 minutes, and wrapped it up OK when I resumed.

    NHO Brother Jonathan, and biffed VIPERISH and ALAS too. Thanks to Keriothe for pointing me in the right direction. My LOI was alpha-trawled unsuccessfully on my first visit, and only fell during a repeat exercise.

    I’ve finished the last two or three puzzles of Dean’s without too many dramas, but if I thought I’d finally found his wavelength this puzzle proved otherwise.

    FOI GALA (which made me wonder if “Jonathan” was contributing to an apple theme for a while)
    LOI SNAP (almost biffed “swat”)
    COD VITAL STATISTICS
    TIME 25:40 (over my target, but I was pleased enough on a puzzle of this level of difficulty).

  5. Hmm, well I would definitely see “Start over” as an Americanism. I would start again. Yes it gets some use here too but don’t they all? Having said that I can see no point in “Brother Jonathan,” except I suppose with the sole object of making the clue harder, which it certainly did for me! Dean often treads a certain line with his clues, usually very successfully but I suppose your foot is bound to slip occasionally..
    Good blog K, thanks; I think in your preamble it should be 14dn not 14ac..
    1. So it should, thanks.
      On the subject of START OVER, I sort of agree with you (I wouldn’t say it) but I think the phrase has crossed the pond now. Chambers says it’s an Americanism but ODO doesn’t. So I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to indicate the Americanism, which makes it all the more odd to do so in such an obscure way.
      1. I agree with Lord Jerry, this phrase is soo American.
        It is hardly English I assure you. I think it was John Lennon introduced it to Blighty.

        Brother Jonathan was first recorded as spoken by George Washington himself when he uttered the words, “We must consult Brother Jonathan,” when asked how he could win the war. Jonathan Trumbull (1710–85) was Governor of the State of Connecticut. He was very popular with cartoonists for many years until 1865, when Uncle Sam replaced him.

        Many Americans do not believe they are blessed with much history – they certainly are! See Wikipedia.

        Edited at 2019-07-14 10:31 am (UTC)

  6. Met=collected (6D): the first def for collect in Collins is “gather together or be gathered together”.

    14D: “Brother Jonathan” was a bit of editorial inspiration, as it seemed to fit the photography surface better than Dean’s indication of an Americanism. I’ve heard of it but it’s possible that I learned it from some barred grid crossword long ago.

    1. I think I’m the only Murcan so far to report in, but I’d be surprised if any of them knew Brother Jonathan.
      1. Never had, that I can recall.
        Cambridge says that “start afresh” is the UK version of the US “start over,” but, yeah, it was hard to believe that such a term hadn’t taken hold on both sides of the pond by now.
        1. Checked with my brother (MA Am. history, Harvard), and he had only the vaguest recollection of the name. It never had occurred to me that ‘start over’ wasn’t just plain English, like ‘start again’.
    2. Photography didn’t occur to me, Peter; I read it as ‘drink some more Brother Jonathan’, and assumed it was something like Jack Daniels 🙂

      Are you saying Dean’s original clue was changed, and didn’t originally contain Bro J?

      1. Yes – changed with Dean’s consent. (Unless the change is trivial or necessary at the very last minute and I can’t get hold of the setter, all the changes I make are agreed with the setter.)

        Any drink implication in the surface was a fluke, though Tia Maria and Tio Pepe are similar (“Aunty Mary” and “Uncle Pete”, I believe.)

  7. This was too difficult for me despite getting MEADOWLARK and some others which supplied lots of letters. I agree with Jerry on START OVER;definitely an Americanism and as BW says “imported” by John Lennon when he was living in NYC. I got this without knowing Brother Jonathan which just seems to indicate USA.
    I got SAMITE which was a correct Momble if that’s possible.
    I would never have got Ornamented for Trimmed and Okapi very tricky.
    COD to ALAS which I did not get but seems brilliant to me now I have the explanation.
    Well blogged K, a tall order today.David
  8. I love Dean’s crosswords but this defeated me in my allotted time. I was so hoping that START OVER (which I got) was a clever clue when it turns out it is just unnecessarily obscure.
  9. I found this very difficult too. I was fairly sure that 14d was START OVER, but had no idea what Bro J was referring to until I looked him up. I do see START OVER as American usage for Start Again, so I was happy enough with that. I originally had IDEAL STATISTICS for 5d, but VIPERISH put me right. I had to use a word finder for METHUSELAH as I was completely stuck there, and also for 13a. A tough cookie! 56:11 with a bit of help. Thanks Dean and K.
  10. See my earlier comment on 14dn START OVER. I assumed all our Brother Jonathans would have known ‘Brother Jonathan’. Unsurprisingly my WOD.

    FOI 17dn EXHAUST

    LOI 8dn PANS

    COD 7dn REELED OFF

    Word of the Week 1up DARROCH proper noun (as per Kim) and tr. verb (to be Darroched)

    Time 1 hour and 2 minutes

    I was very glad that the ‘s’ word at 5ac caused no alarums for once!

    Edited at 2019-07-14 09:55 am (UTC)

  11. Tricky. I did this in two sessions. 14dn… I dunno. It just about hangs together, but only in the eye of charity. Thanks k.
  12. DNF. Had no idea about brother Jonathan, hoped shot might be alcohol related and that the answer was toastmaster. It wasn’t but that made my LOI 13ac wrong too, with -l-t I went for slot (last letter of this followed by lot for luck, hoping that somehow slot meant worse). Of those I did manage to get right I rather liked 5ac and 10ac.
  13. Thanks Dean and Keri-the
    Also found this quite difficult, taking numerous sittings to get the grid completed, piecing it together clue by clue.
    He does have the ability to find nuances of definitions that make it less than obvious what it is – this together with his cryptic twists did stretch the grey matter at times. Enjoyed it immensely though.
    Finished in the SW corner with ORNAMENTED (one of those tricky definitions), ALAS and that strange START OVER clue the last one in.

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