Sunday Times 4860 by Robert Price

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
23.32. I’m on holiday this week, so will keep it brief. I found this puzzle quite hard, but a lot of fun to solve.

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

Across
1 Gelding coming from shed to allotment
CASTRATION – CAST, RATION. A snake can be said to CAST its skin.
6 Short period without a female companion
STAG – STAGe.
9 A composer’s decision to avoid court
VERDI – VERDIct.
10 In video, a Sixties film originally has become clearer
TAKE SHAPE – T(A, KES, Has)APE. I struggled a bit with this one: I could see TAKE SHAPE fitted the definition but it took me ages to see how the wordplay worked.
12 Meet with us and get hammered?
WEST HAM UNITED – (MEET WITH US AND)*. &Lit. West Ham are known as the Hammers.
14 A lot is happening to garden tools
IN SPADES – IN (trendy, happening), SPADES.
15 Country vegetable, never ever thrown away
SWEDEN – SWEDE (or rutabaga as it’s known in North America), Never. Another where the wordplay eluded me for a while.
17 Execution site brought back large stake
GIBBET – reversal of BIG, BET.
19 Appearances of rock groups put on abroad
OUTCROPS – OUT (abroad), CROPS. I hesitated over this because I thought ‘groups’ was a bit loose for CROPS, but it’s there in expressions like ‘the current crop of politicians is profoundly depressing.’
21 Eco-friendly rabble I goaded to riot
BIODEGRADABLE – (RABBLE I GOADED)*.
24 Prisoner’s honest, witness finally explains
CONSTRUES – CON’S, TRUE, witnesS.
25 Where mourners might be attentive
AWAKE – or A WAKE.
26 Spring arrest
STEM – DD.
27 Wrong about herb with duck after mushroom turnover
PECCADILLO – CA (about), DILL, O after a reversal of CEP (mushroom).

Down
1 Hoover up a drink
CAVA – reversal of VAC, A.
2 Goes slowly after son carelessly dashes off
SCRAWLS – S, CRAWLS.
3 Recalling testimony, under control
REINSTATEMENT – REIN (control), STATEMENT (testimony). A football player might be recalled/reinstated to a team after being dropped.
4 Row about high tech becomes more peevish
TETCHIER – TIER (row) containing (TECH)*.
5 Ropy stuff for sealing wood, I’m thinking
OAKUM – OAK, UM. ‘Loose fibre obtained by untwisting old rope, used especially in caulking wooden ships’, ‘caulk’ being a ‘waterproof filler and sealant, used in building work and repairs.’ A rather obscure word I have learned from crosswords.
7 How soldiers might be saluted
TOASTED – the secondary definition refers to the kind of soldiers you dip in a boiled egg.
8 Rocky edge with Sirens being rapacious
GREEDINESS – (EDGE SIRENS)*.
11 Ads for carrier go on to support submarine?
SANDWICH BOARD – BOARD (go on) underneath SANDWICH, of which a submarine or sub is a variety.
13 On foot, little one promotes rides from friends
PIGGYBACKS – PIGGY (the little toe), BACKS (promotes).
16 Wrongly accused Liberal’s entered Downing Street perhaps
CUL-DE-SAC – L contained in (ACCUSED)*.
18 Cheese stores have cake
BROWNIE – BR(OWN)IE.
20 More than a couple of lines in total
OVERALL – OVER (more than) A, LL.
22 After defeat, evil leader gives way
ROUTE – ROUT, Evil.
23 Turn down a little love token
VETO – contained in ‘love token’.

13 comments on “Sunday Times 4860 by Robert Price”

  1. I got the first 3 acrosses without any problem, but then had TAKE SHAPE to deal with; it was only post-solve that I remembered KES, which had been a NHO when it last appeared. Biffed 12ac too, assuming that the team was called the Hammers. And I biffed 16d from the hyphens and a checker or too; I don’t think I looked at the clue. I’ve long associated OAKUM with beards, although whether it was used in making fake beards or was used to describe the appearance of a beard, I don’t know. Picking oakum was a job imposed on prison and workhouse inmates (Oliver Twist had to do it).
  2. I thought I was stuck a couple of times during this solve, but I got moving again and eventually completed in 40:47. CAVA was my FOI and SANDWICH BOARD brought up the rear. OAKUM was remembered from other puzzles, but I’d never come across it apart from that. TAKE SHAPE took a while, but I remembered KES and it fell into place. WEST HAM UNITED raised a smile. Lovely puzzle. Thanks Bob and K.
  3. 47 minutes. What with the state of my football team and the present political situation, I’m ready to wear the COD SANDWICH BOARD as I climb over the O2 this afternoon. We nearly always used to beat WEST HAM UNITED too. LOI OAKUM, seen before but of course forgotten since, which became clear when TAKE SHAPE took shape. KES seems to be the go-to sixties film for crossword setters, so I’ve no doubt mentioned my favourite bit before, when the register was being called in class. “…Fisher…German Bight…” Have a good hoilday, K. Thank you to you, and Robert for another terrific puzzle.
  4. ….for 10A to TAKE SHAPE, and I parsed it post-solve. I saw “Kes” at the cinema when it was first released and it’s still a favourite film of mine.

    I was down to three clues at the 10 minute mark. It took a further three minutes or so to crack STAG/TOASTED, and almost as long again to alpha-trawl my LOI.

    Another fine offering – thanks Bob.

    FOI CASTRATION
    LOI STEM
    COD WEST HAM UNITED
    TIME 15:44

  5. I too am on holiday and I do not have this puzzle with me. I remember getting KES and also OAKUM from the museum in Rochester. Very annoyingly I failed to get West Ham United and Toasted. Another good puzzle from RP.
    O2 be in Greenwich to watch BW walking in the air, and holding very tight.
    David

    Edited at 2019-07-28 10:53 am (UTC)

  6. Hard work but doable and fair. Helped by OAKUM having come up in a puzzle I blogged here last May.
  7. Took 43 minutes over this one—it was going to be 42 minutes, but I realised I’d not done 23d when I came to type my paper version into the online grid! Luckily that one fell quite quickly.

    What I thought was my LOI was 19a OUTCROPS, which I mostly decided on for lack of anything better, rather than with true conviction…

    Happily we did KES (or rather the book version, A Kestrel for a Knave, with the film as a bonus) at school, where I was also pushed into the camp of being a WEST HAM UNITED fan despite caring not at all about football, so at least my education came in handy.

  8. on this puzzle which started off with CASTRATION at 1ac!

    My FOI 13dn CUL-DE-SAC home now to King Boris of New York.

    LOI 1dn CAVA! (Poor man’s bubbles for Boris!)

    COD 12ac WEST HAM UNITED (poor man’s bubbles!)

    WOD 13dn PIGGYBACK (Boris supports ‘ALL London football teams!’)

  9. 20:44 with 3 minutes over my LOI, the innocuous STEM. Another great puzzle from Bob. Thanks-you. I liked CUL-DE-SAC and PECCADILLO in particular. Sadly, I mis-transcribed from my paper copy ending up with a pink square for TITCHIER at 4D so I wont be in the hat for the prize. Happy holidays K!

    Edited at 2019-07-28 09:47 am (UTC)

  10. 34:01 for another thoroughly enjoyable Sunday treat. Toasted and take shape took a while to take shape but nothing too tricky.
  11. I liked ‘never ever thrown away, for the n in Sweden, and I liked the submarine sandwich. At the end I was staring at four or five where the crossers didn’t suggest much to me and I had to go back to the wordplay. Thx k & rp
  12. Thanks Bob and keriothe
    Enjoyable solve this one which took just over the 3/4 of an hour to get out. Wasn’t able to properly parse STAG nor OUTCROPS, but both just had to be.
    I also appreciated the same two word play bits as paul_on_london @12.
    Finished in / near the NE corner with that STAG, WEST HAM UNITED (where I needed all but one of the crossers until the penny dropped), TOASTED (which was a gem when I remembered the soft boiled eggs as a kid) and OUTCROPS (as I said not quite biffed, but certainly not parsed properly).

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