Sunday Times 4882 by Dean Mayer

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
26:44. The last Sunday before Christmas has been a Jumbo in recent years, so I was surprised and I confess a little disappointed to open this one and see a standard 15×15 grid. Apparently the timing has changed slightly, and we will get a Jumbo on the day this blog is published. So guy_du_sable pulls the short blogging straw this year – sorry Sandy!

This may not have been a Jumbo in size but I found it very hard. Somehow I never got completely stuck though, and the tough clues were – for me – in the ‘ooh you clever devil’ category. Sometimes the line between that and ‘oh for crying out loud’ can be a fine one, but for me Dean never crossed it in this puzzle, despite going quite close a couple of times.

Happy new year everyone, see you in 2020!

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

Across
1 Be near opening of sheep fold
SCRIMP – Sheep, CRIMP.
5 Official makes you see old lady during bath time
DIPLOMAT – DIP (LO MA), T.
9 Tingling in legs, also hands
PINS AND NEEDLES – the answer was obvious, but it took me a while to figure out the wordplay. PINS are legs, but how are NEEDLES hands? I think the answer is in the hands of a clock: Lexico defines a NEEDLE as a ‘thin pointer on a dial, compass, or other instrument’, which seems sufficiently broad to include a clock.
10 For Channel 4, English is valuable
PRODUCTIVE – PRO, DUCT, IV, E. Productivity is not the same thing as value, but it’s often very directly associated with it, most obviously in agricultural land.
12 Dad’s meeting son while away
PASS – PA’S, S.
13 You’d soil pants in a horrible way
ODIOUSLY – (YOU’D SOIL)*.
15 Room designer may get one over on boss
STUDIO – STUD, I, O. A designer or artist might have, get, a room like this.
17 Trade convention
CUSTOM – DD.
18 Rat skirting a trap set by old pest controller
CANE TOAD – C(A, NET O)AD. I didn’t know that these creatures (which are apparently ‘true toads’, whatever that means) were pest controllers but according to wiki ‘because of its voracious appetite, the cane toad has been introduced to many regions of the Pacific and the Caribbean islands as a method of agricultural pest control.’ So now you know. The cryptic was clear enough.
19 Go mad on retirement
STAB – reversal of BATS.
21 Wine out of case, ultimately for bottle
WINCHESTER – WIN(CHEST)E, foR. A WINCHESTER is a type of scientific bottle and not, as I assumed, a size category. I bought a 5l bottle of claret for Christmas day this year, which was very cool, if a little hard to pour from. A bottle of that size is known as a ‘McKenzie’.
23 The butt of many a joke?
BARREL OF LAUGHS – CD, because a BUTT is a type of barrel. Filled with Malmsey they make convenient murder weapons for any undesirable dukes you might have in your immediate acquaintance. I was prevented from solving this clue for some time by assuming it was going to be a bum joke.
25 I have some cows and three horses around?
NEATHERD – (AND THREE)*. ‘Neat’ being a word for cows found in crosswords…
26 Sweet result of feeding sandwiches
TOFFEE – contained in ‘result of feeding’.

Down
2 Greek character taps letters on one
CHI – CH, I. The ‘taps letters’ being the letters on hot and cold taps, of course.
3 Completely reversed
INSIDE-OUT – DD.
4 Flap wings in agitation, captured by photo
PANIC – P(AgitatioN)IC.
5 Partners enthralled by god’s body
DENSITY – DE(NS)ITY. North and South being partners in bridge.
6 Keep going over each training period?
PRESEASON – PRES(EA)S ON
7 Neat border plant
OXLIP – OX, LIP. …sometimes twice!
8 On account of mouth filling, swallowed ice
ASSASSINATE – I’m not sure if Dean crosses the line I referred to in my introduction here, but he certainly gets close to it. AS IN seems close in meaning to ‘on account of’, but I can’t quite make them mean the same thing in any sentence I can think of. Can you? In any event, insert SASS for ‘mouth’, and add ATE (swallowed). Edit: wrong! See below for a simpler explanation from the editor.
11 Commanding respect, waves to Bluebeard
REDOUBTABLE – (TO BLUEBEARD)*.
14 Homes were demolished in unknown location
SOMEWHERE – (HOMES WERE)*.
16 Put out after doing OK
UP TO SNUFF – UP TO (doing), SNUFF (put out).
18 Bluff — a need for binding agreement
CONCORD – CON (kid, bluff), CORD (a need for binding).
20 Go off right, opening chest
BURST – BU(R)ST. Again, ‘go off’ for BURST seems a bit loose (‘go off’ seems necessarily the result of a deliberate mechanism) but it’s close enough not to have caused me a problem.
22 A male auction item?
HELOT – A HELOT is a slave, so might be a HE LOT. &Lit.
24 Fly that is chasing husband
HIE – H, IE.

20 comments on “Sunday Times 4882 by Dean Mayer”

  1. I have a note on my copy: “8d? on a/c of=ASIN?” But I just now think I thought of a sort of possibility: the Last Supper as in Luke/on Luke’s account of the Last Supper. (I don’t know if the LS shows up in Luke, and I’m not going to check.)
  2. I can’t believe I finished quicker than Keriothe; but it certainly didn’t feel hard to me, at least for a Dean. There were a couple of DNKs, though: WINCHESTER, for one, and I thought (correctly, as it happens) that the cane toad WAS a pest, didn’t know it was used as a pest controller. Once again Gresham’s Law of crosswords (bad solutions drive out good ones) applied, to 19ac, where ‘nuts’ came to mind first, preventing ‘bats’ for a long time. Similarly, at 5ac I thought of DRAGOMAN first, with the result that 5ac was my LOI. (ON EDIT: It’s something of a comfort to see that Phil made the same mistake. And now I see that a dragoman isn’t even an official.) This was another example of Dean’s terrific economy of cluing. I liked 10ac and 25ac, but COD to 12ac.

    Edited at 2019-12-29 07:46 am (UTC)

  3. I didn’t enjoy this much as there were too many question marks hanging over answers or definitions in wordplay so that by the time I’d completed the grid I wasn’t motivated to chase them up to find out whether or not they were all justifiable.

    In fact I made a note on my print-out at the end ‘almost unfair at times’. I’m not claiming now that any lines were crossed but for me much of the enjoyment of solving a clue, particularly when it’s been hard one, is to realise that the answer or the wordplay has been staring me in the face all the time if only I’d had the wit to see it. There’s little fun in scrabbling around in dictionaries after the event trying to justify what the compiler has come up with, so well done to our blogger undertaking the heavy-lifting on our behalf and doing his best to make it all work.

    Edited at 2019-12-29 06:32 am (UTC)

  4. but I had to use aids on about three occasions (PRESEASON, WINCHESTER, HELOT) so really a DNF. Thanks keriothe, particularly for ASSASSINATE.
  5. ….Usain Bolt, and seriously thought I’d be under the 10 minute mark. That would certainly have been a PB for one of Dean’s puzzles, but at the 9 minute mark I ground to a halt in the NE corner.

    The problem was largely of my own making. I’d biffed “dragoman” at 5A. I usually put a ring round a clue number that I’ve biffed, but hadn’t in this case. Solving ASSASSINATE didn’t show up my folly of course, and OXLIP was already in. Only when I realised that 6D was PRESEASON (which I usually hyphenate) did the error of my ways stare me in the face.

    I thought HELOT was unusually weak for Dean.

    FOI SCRIMP
    LOI DIPLOMAT
    COD NEATHERD
    TIME 14:11

  6. 20:07… of which over 4 minutes on my last one – ASSASSINATE. Lots to enjoy along the way. PINS and NEEDLES my FOI thinking of needles on a dial straight away for hands. I also liked PRODUCTIVE, CHI, PRESEASON and UP TO SNUFF. Thanks Dean and K.
  7. My reading of 8D, which Dean’s notes seem to support, was that “on account of” indicated AS, and “filling” indicated IN.
  8. …er? I never did quite work out what The Searchers added after ‘Pins’ but I did know a girl who went to John McNally’s wedding. 32 minutes with ASSASSINATE unparsed. An old analogue like me had no trouble thinking of a needle as a pointer or hand on a dial. LOI NEATHERD with penultimate CANE TOAD, whose role in the food cycle was unknown. UP TO SNUFF was dredged from the recesses. COD to PRE-SEASON. You knew you were getting fitter when the stiffness came the next day rather than two days later. I liked BARREL OF LAUGHS too. Nice puzzle. Thank you K and Dean.
  9. “A plant or animal living symbiotically with another in a subject relationship” or in current parlance “an item”
  10. To reiterate previous pleas, wouldn’t it be fairer – in an English crossword – to indicate Americanisms? Especially when two occur in such close proximity in both part of the already suspect clue “sass” and the definition “ice”. Jeffrey
    1. So many words or expressions that started out as Americanisms are now incorporated into everyday English so I imagine it would become a nightmare for setters and editors to be required to make a judgement as to which should be indicated and which don’t need to be. Even dictionaries vary over some words.

      I’m happy for there to be no obligation on this point as long as it’s understood that variant US spellings should always be indicated.

    2. I agree with jackkt, and would argue that both these words – particularly SASS – are sufficiently common in English English now to require no qualification. But it’s clearly subjective: just the other day the expression ‘diddly-squat’ actually was indicated as an Americanism, which was a great surprise to me as I’ve even using it all my life!
  11. Thanks Peter. That’s a simpler explanation… but still leaves me scratching my head as to how AS means ‘on account of’…
      1. As = because
        Because of = on account of
        As ≠ on account of

        Edited at 2019-12-29 10:29 am (UTC)

  12. I found this one tricky, with the NEEDLES part of 9a going in on a wing and a prayer. Fortunately NEAT has entered my brain with a direct synapse to OX, so that OXLIP and NEATHERD were entered blithely. SCRIMP was my FOI, but CHI went in from checkers, not understood until arriving here. WINCHESTER was LOI, as I eventually twigged that it can be more than a rifle. Liked BARREL OF LAUGHS. 47:12. Thanks Dean and K.
  13. There were ways into this Dean puzzle. FOI was PASS.I think of The Searchers every time I walk in the room so PINS AND NEEDLES came quickly. After that there were many hold-ups and guesses and breakthroughs-satisfying stuff.
    Was glad I learned NEAT doing crosswords, but having got OXLIP I was surprised to see it again with NEATHERD which was my LOI after the unknown Cane Toad. HELOT replaced AMLOT late on. Lots I didn’t fully parse including Winchester but did eventually manage to finish without aids. David
  14. 36:05 so no real problems. DNK Winchester was a bottle and did not twig needle as the hand on a clock or other instrument but otherwise found this fairly doable.
  15. Thanks Dean and keriothe
    Found this pretty tough, taking 3 sittings and spot on the hour to get it done. Had to come here to find the full parsing of CHI (our syndicated copy in the Australian had the clue as ‘Greek character taps letters on cue’) and the ASSASSIN part of ASSASSINATE.
    Hadn’t heard of the WINCHESTER bottle.
    Have heard of the CANE TOAD – would have to be one of the worst ever decisions to import them in to the Queensland sugar cane fields – they have probably killed many more wild and domestic animals (they are poisonous to eat and their skin is toxic to the touch for some) than the fire cane beetle that they were introduced to try and control !
    Thought BARREL OF LAUGHS would have qualified as an &lit – rather than just a cd – BARREL (butt) OF (of) LAUGHS (many a joke). Thought it was very clever !
    Finished in the SW corner with NEATHERD (just didn’t see the anagram for a long time) and BURST (took a while to see ‘go off’ as the definition).

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