Sunday Times 4876 by Dean Mayer

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
9:58. A pretty gentle one from Dean this week, but of the usual high quality. Nothing terribly difficult or obscure, but a couple of uncommon usages (floss, faction, cat) to keep the interest level up.

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

Across
1 Free love extremely noble?
LET OFF – LovE, TOFF.
5 1 answer B and answer D
ABSOLVED – A, B, SOLVE, D. Strange looking clue!
9 Declare love — fine romance’s condition
STATE OF AFFAIRS – STATE, O, F, AFFAIR’S.
10 Will the author matter on reflection? Almost
SELF – reversal of FLESh.
11 Grass skirts with jumper
SAND HOPPER – S(AND)HOPPER.
13 Lawyers accepting account at card game
BACCARAT – B(ACC)AR, AT.
15 Victor and Annie cooking a sort of sausage
VIENNA – V, (ANNIE)*. I hadn’t heard of this type of sausage, but it seemed perfectly feasible.
16 Menu that, oddly, has jam?
TARIFF – ThAt, RIFF. TARIFF can refer to either the import taxes or a list of them. Anyone exporting to the EU is about to become a lot more familiar with both.
18 Party for Her Highness interrupted by news
HEN NIGHT – HE(NN)IGHT.
20 One gun’s shot in smoke, producing white powder
ICING SUGAR – I, CIGAR containing (GUNS)*.
22 Not working, taking some paid leave
IDLE – contained in ‘paid leave’.
23 Scouting revival blocked by fraud
RECONNAISSANCE – RE(CON)NAISSANCE.
25 Carries one’s own hat
BEARSKIN – or BEARS KIN.
26 Covenant put away in experiment
TREATY – TR(EAT)Y.

Down
2 Furthest points, in context, remain
EXTREMA – another straight containment clue, which wouldn’t be allowed in the daily puzzles. This time in ‘context remain.’
3 Bust exposed — zip trouble?
OUT OF ACTION – OUT, O, FACTION. I was a bit surprised by this use of FACTION but one of the definitions in Collins is ‘strife or dissension within a group’.
4 Kind of down following defeat
FLOSS – F, LOSS. Another surprising (to me) usage, but Lexico has ‘the silky down in maize and other plants’.
5 Some joiners saw this as out of character
AGAINST THE GRAIN – two definitions, the first of which is a description of something that might happen but which isn’t a recognised expression. So ironically it’s cryptic because it’s literal!
6 Cut across area that’s fine but not in shelter
SAFE HAVEN – S(A, FinE)HAVEN.
7 Garland that is left over
LEI – reversal of IE, L.
8 Band manager records “One in Ten”
EPSTEIN – EPS, TE(I)N. Brian of that ilk, the fifth Beatle.
12 Headlong fall
PRECIPITATE – DD.
14 Criminal in UK frees dissident
REFUSENIK – (IN UK FREES)*.
17 Charge across river? Damn!
ACCURSE – ACCU(R)SE.
19 Battle-axe that man will throw up
HELLCAT – HE’LL CAT. To ‘cat’ is to vomit: a usage I have only ever come across in crosswords.
21 Lunatic tries to take exam again
RESIT – (TRIES)*.
24 My heart’s sound
COR – sounds like ‘core’.

32 comments on “Sunday Times 4876 by Dean Mayer”

  1. This was 32 mins with most puzzlement over 5ac ABSOLVED my LOI.
    Strange clue indeed!

    FOI 2dn EXTREMA!

    COD 23ac RECONNAISSANCE

    WOD 14dn HELLCAT but CAT as a verb was not known. Cat sick is particularly disgusting!

    I notice BACCARRAT (Chemin de fer) is with us once again, Mr Bond.

  2. Nothing to scare the horses here. I think it may be a matter of lull before the storm for Dean and John Henderson, as their most recent offerings (the Elgar Telegraph Toughie in the latter’s case) have been unusually tractable.

    Enjoyed the quirkiness of 5a, which I thought would have been right up horryd’s alley. Perchance, the goat enjoyed it?

    Edited at 2019-11-17 04:22 am (UTC)

  3. Thanks, keriothe.
    In my notes I have “felt forced” against 5ac ABSOLVED.
    Like horryd, I had not heard of CAT as a verb before.
    Thanks for SAND HOPPER.
    29m 08s
  4. Pretty easy for Dean, although I didn’t know 11ac, and in fact didn’t parse it, I see. A VIENNA sausage is like a miniature hot dog; I suspect it’s what you’d get in most American diners if you ordered sausage with your breakfast eggs. I rather liked 5ac, my LOI, but once is probably enough. Also liked HEN NIGHT & BEARSKIN.
    1. The sausage is usually a Weiner, pronounced “weener”, or shortened still further : “fill the basket up with sandwiches and weenies” as Nat King Cole sang in “Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer”.

      I only got to this on Friday evening, and was relieved to find that Dean was in a reasonably lenient mood. Apart from that darned cat, I had no real difficulty.

      FOI BACCARAT
      LOI STATE OF AFFAIRS
      COD BEARSKIN
      TIME 13:52

      1. A wiener, or weenie, is a frankfurter or hot dog; Nat was not filling up his basket with Vienna sausages, which are about 5cm. long.
        1. Kev, ‘The wiener is a cured, smoked and cooked sausage. It is a ready to eat sausage or it may be boiled, fried or grilled for serving. The wiener originated about 300 years ago in Vienna, Austria and German immigrants brought this technology to the USA. The terms frankfurter, wiener or hot dog are practically interchangeable today. The big difference is that today’s mass produced wieners have nothing in common with high quality wieners of yesterday.’
  5. I really enjoyed HEN NIGHT and OUT OF ACTION. I liked 5a because of its quirkiness. Thanks K for letting the ‘cat’ out of the bag (or, hopefully, in the bag) – never heard of this meaning. The EPSTEIN clue reminded me of UB40. Is Will Self widely known outside of the UK?
  6. With only one clue (12dn) outstanding after 29 minutes I so nearly achieved my target half-hour which would have been a rarity for a Sunday puzzle, however I needed an extra 5 minutes for that last answer. It came to me only after I had corrected a careless error in the spelling of RECONNAISSANCE at 23ac which had provided me with a wrong checker for the missing word.

    I met the expression ‘cat up’ many years ago in a favourite ‘Fry & Laurie’ sketch.

    Edited at 2019-11-17 07:26 am (UTC)

  7. 14:40 with similar puzzlement to others at the sausage and the meaning of CAT. 5A seems to be a bit of a marmite clue; I’m one who liked it. I also liked the surface at 2D and the wordplay for SAND HOPPER. Good fun. Thanks Dean and K.
  8. After about 10 years of trying to solve a Dean crossword in the form of Anax , Loroso and now his real name in the ST, I have finally fully solved one without aids. The only bit I couldn’t parse was the cat bit and despite much googling I have not found a link that shows this definition. Can anyone help please?
      1. What is embarrassing about asking for a link given that (a) I couldn’t find one and (b) while the meaning had been mentioned, noone had provided a link to it. I’m happy now to be told that it appears in Collins
  9. 28 minutes with LOI SAND HOPPER. COD to HEN NIGHT. The young ladies who descend on Blackpool for such occasions sure know how to celebrate one. I didn’t know of VIENNA sausage, not that it caused any problem. I’ve only spent half a day in Vienna, sadly not being there in 1952 when my avatar got his epithet, and then I pigged out exclusively on Sachertorte as instructed by Mrs BW. A good choice. She didn’t have her hen night in Blackpool. I usually slightly bridle at any drug based clues, so ICING SUGAR did produce a wry smile. I think I’ve known of FLOSS on plants since my early, countryish days. This for me was an easyish ride for a Dean. Thank you to K and to him.

    Edited at 2019-11-17 09:10 am (UTC)

  10. An unusually straightforward puzzle for a Dean, but very enjoyable. I had a vague suspicion I’d met CAT in that sense before, but was glad of the definition to help. FLOSS in that sense was new to me too. Can’t say if I’ve come across VIENNA sausages before, but it didn’t give me pause for thought. Liked HEN NIGHT. Brian Epstein was the Beatles manager until his sad demise, but I thought George Martin, their producer and arranger, was known as the 5th Beatle. 19:46. Thanks Dean and K.
    1. ‘Cat’ cluing PUKE came up (no pun intended!) in April 2017 in a ST puzzle also set by Dean, and again in August 2018 in a Times cryptic.
  11. After the previous day’s toughie, I approached this with trepidation. But it turned out to be surprisingly tractable and enjoyable.
    I wasn’t quick. The last to fall in my second/third session were the unknown SAND HOPPER, HELLCAT and VIENNA.
    Liked EPSTEIN and good to be reminded of him; so many managers were rapacious and destructive to their charges.
    David
    1. Indeed they were ! My short career in pop music ended when we discovered that our manager had carpeted his hall and stairs from the fund we’d intended to use to purchase new equipment.
  12. I had Extrena for Extrema. I had doubts about Hellcat but glad to see it was right.

    COD: Hen Night.

  13. I’ve seen that meaning of CAT in crosswords quite a few times, but have a particular wish to see its use retired!

    Other than that, enjoyed this muchly.

    I don’t often leave a clock running (and when I do, try quite hard not to try to race it, if that makes sense) but do have a time for this one: 36:01.

    Thanks Dean and Keriothe.

  14. 24:04. Pretty straightforward for a DM puzzle but still lots of neat touches. Would probably have been a fair bit quicker but for a few minutes word blindness on LOI 12dn. I also wondered if faction meant trouble and if floss meant down in 3dn and 4dn but felt confident that they must.
  15. I got caught in all the Dean traps, so while I made good progress it was slow good progress. I probably liked Epstein the best, both for the music reference and for the one in ten bit. Tkx Keriothe and DM
  16. The first “definition” of AGAINST THE GRAIN is brill, IMHO.
    Very nice puzzle, sorry I’m late.

    Edited at 2019-11-18 12:05 am (UTC)

  18. Thanks Dean and keriothe

    Found this to be much less challenging than is normal from this setter, getting through it pretty quickly in 3-4 four micro sessions when I could grab them.
    As for Will SELF being known outside the UK, he was in fact my first one even though I’ve not ever read any of his work. Had to perform checks on most of the words already discussed above and finished at the top of the puzzle with STATE OF AFFAIRS, EPSTEIN and that quirky but enjoyable ABSOLVED as the last one in.

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