Sunday Times 4892 by Dean Mayer – déjà vu

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
14:49. This one started very easy (1ac went straight in) but then got trickier, culminating in a very long pause at the end over 3dn. When I eventually figured out what was going on, it rang such a deafening bell that I searched for the answer in LJ and discovered that pretty much exactly the same clue had appeared in exactly the same place in a puzzle set by the same setter and blogged by the same blogger less than a year ago. Read my comment here if you want to know exactly what it was about this clue that held me up.

It turns out though that my biggest problem was 13ac, which I didn’t understand when I put in OXYGEN TENT as the only recognisable phrase that fitted the checkers. I think I even considered the actual answer but rejected it on grounds of non-existence. It just goes to show that when in doubt you should follow the wordplay.

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

Across
1 Something precious from old friend
OPAL – O, PAL.
4 Undermine reason to keep current literature
DEBILITATE – DEB(I, LIT)ATE. The definition seems a little loose to me but I suppose debating is collective reasoning.
9 Doorman’s voice after calling in advance
COMMISSIONAIRE – COM(MISSION, AIR)E.
10 Person initially into dental work out of touch?
IN PLAY – IN(Person)LAY. In rugby if the ball is ‘in touch’ it is out of play, so…
11 Mercenary run, a run to intercept goods
GRASPING – G(R, A SPIN)G.
13 IO2U?
OXYGEN DEBT – a clever clue: too clever for me. It’s IOU (a debt) with the O repacked by O2, the usual form of oxygen. ‘A temporary oxygen shortage in the body tissues arising from exercise’.
15 Hum — create sounds like this
REEK – sounds like ‘wreak’.
16 Alien is on the way — leave it!
STET – ST, ET.
18 Wanting equaliser, puts away header for Man City
SQUARE MILE – I think this is (EQUALISER)* containing Man, but that means the anagram indicator must be ‘wanting’. ‘Wanting’ means specifically deficient, lacking, which I don’t think works as an anagram indicator. Am I missing something?
20 Pawn most of first teeth
PEARLIES – P, EARLIESt.
21 Can it eat when cabin opens?
SHUT UP – S(HUT)UP.
22 Notice places where slugs hide in food
BULLETIN BOARDS – BULLET(IN, BOARD)S.
24 Prolonged parking worked in streets
PERSISTENT – P, (IN STREETS)*.
25 Make a spike point
EARN – EAR, N.

Down
2 With mobile phone I’ll get by in desert city
PHOENIX – (PHONE)*, I, X (by).
3 Spill pickle? More flimsy sandwiches
LAMPLIGHTER – LAM(PLIGHT)ER.
4 Perversely I had fling, being attractive
DISHY – reversal of I’D, SHY (fling). ‘Perversely’ here is a reversal indicator, which I also find odd.
5 Number he sings in funny duo’s closing piece
BRING ME SUNSHINE – (NUMBER HE SINGS IN)*. This was of course the ‘closing piece’ of Morecambe and Wise. ‘Funny’ is the anagrind so in the definition they are just a duo.
6 House with shed in road on river
LANCASTER – LAN(CAST)E, R.
7 Japanese fish that is regularly seen
TAI – alternate letters in ‘that is’.
8 Couple carrying tiny new child
TWEENIE – T(WEE, N)IE.
12 Walk for a mile through exotic tableau
PERAMBULATE – PER (for a), (TABLEAU)* containing M.
14 When metal is found in loch, is this pollution?
NASTINESS – N(AS, TIN)ESS.
17 Shudder as male breaks into soprano
TREMBLE – TRE(M)BLE.
19 Almost lay beneath trough
LAUNDER – LAy, UNDER. ‘A water trough, esp one used for washing ore in mining’.
21 Shoe to briefly knock up
SABOT – reversal (up) of TO, BASh.
23 Lions, but not on heraldic device
LIS – LIonS. AKA fleur-de-lys.

36 comments on “Sunday Times 4892 by Dean Mayer – déjà vu”

  1. I was another OXYGEN TENT. I didn’t quite understand the clue. Everything else all correct without any difficult I remember.
  2. I seem to have tossed my copy, but I must have looked up OXYGEN _E_T, as I had never heard of it. NHO 5d either, but evidently didn’t need to. Having learned here what a spill is, 3d didn’t pose a problem (I had no conscious memory of last year’s clue). No MER at 4ac; think of Isaiah’s (and LBJ’s) “come, let us reason together”. Of course, watching the Presidential candidates’ “debates” might give one the wrong idea.
  3. I must have remembered LAMPLIGHTER from last year as it went in fairly early. Otherwise the usual gradual Dean Mayer unravelling, with a few I didn’t know about such as BRING ME SUNSHINE.

    I bunged in SQUARE MILE without thinking, but I see what you mean about ‘Wanting’ as the anagram indicator. Maybe it’s ‘puts away’ as the indicator = *’equaliser’ + (‘Wanting’) ‘m’, although the word order doesn’t really fit.

    IO2U was my favourite – I parsed it as IOU O (atom). Love that lactic acid build up.

  4. I had the exact same experience as Keriothe… last June… with LAMPLIGHTER. I see that the first time around I commented, “It wasn’t my week to be on duty, so I didn’t parse it!”

    I did this one in two efforts, having been too tired when I started it, but on my return to it I was encouraged to immediately get the unknown song title with only three checkers.

    “Wanting” can mean short of the highest standard, defective, in a sense besides lacking an element; being misspelled would seem to fit.

    I could see that OXYGEN DEBT had to be the answer, but I’m not entirely sure how that cryptic texting is supposed to be parsed.

    LOI was SQUARE MILE, as I wasn’t seeing the definition. Toodle-pip!

  5. A bit too clever for me although I got through it unaided with one error, TENT for DEBT. Other NHOs were LIS for ‘fleur de lys’, LAUNDER for ‘trough’ and the Japanese fish.

    On looking up OXYGEN DEBT after the event I found that the identical clue has appeared in the Telegraph Toughie. Does our setter set for them too?

    Edited at 2020-03-08 06:18 am (UTC)

    1. I was surprised to find this (it’s a kind of sea bream), not expecting it to have been naturalized into English (like koi), but ODE dates it back to the early 17th century.
  6. ….because NHO OXYGEN DEBT, so I pitched my tent. Also NHO TAI or seen trough in this context.

    Thanks to Keriothe for parsing COMMISSIONAIRE and SHUT UP.

    My sympathies to non-UK solvers who didn’t know the very British Morecambe and Wise.

    COD to the very clever REEK.

    1. I didn’t know of them until quite recently, but over the last 2-3 years at least, there have been a number of clues making use of them, so that I can (often, almost) associate Ernie with Wise, and Eric with Morecambe.
  7. …I’ll just have started. It was the second one in after OPAL, both write-ins. 27 minutes in all, with the hold-ups being LAMPLIGHTER and OXYGEN DEBT. I solved LAMPLIGHTER to the right parsing the last time it appeared, but this time I was torn between it and limelighter. I plumped the right way as a biff, but I fear it’s yet another sign of getting old. I wondered if LIS was anything to do with Fleur. COD to BULLETIN BOARDS. Thank you K and Dean.
  8. At first, I thought the second word of 13a had to be DEBT but once I twigged that the first word had to be OXYGEN, I went with the only term I knew -Oxygen Tent. However I did revise it before submitting after checking that oxygen debt exists.
    Otherwise, FOI was OPAL and generally I found this easier than most of Dean’s puzzles.
    2LOI was LANCASTER which held me up for a long time.
    I too remembered LAMPLIGHTER from a previous puzzle.
    David
  9. Perversely, I was more familiar with debts than tents in that context.
    I have always suspected that clues get recycled, to spare not only the planet but the setter too. I am pretty sure certain setters kept/keep a log of clues, either to make sure they don’t get reused (I know Ximenes did this) or perhaps to make sure they do. Mostly it has been impossible to check one way or another, until the advent of the Internet which makes searching past crosswords so very easy.
    I have a sympathy with setters on this .. nobody can be 100% inventive all the time, avoiding all repetition or hesitation etc.. and since I am capable of forgetting an entire set of clues within a week it doesn’t bother me unduly. Reason tells me that every possible clue has already been used somewhere, at some time, if only on the monkeys with typewriters principle
    1. Yes I agree. I’m sure this was inadvertent on the part of both setter and editor, and it’s only because I was blogging last time (so I had to spend ages trying to work it out) that I remembered it. Even then I only remembered it after working it out for the second time!

      Edited at 2020-03-08 12:55 pm (UTC)

  10. The LAMPLIGHTER clue would have been replaced if I’d noticed the repeat – I’m afraid I didn’t. I have come perilously close to repeating myself in my one cryptic every four weeks for the TLS, so I can believe it happening accidentally, especially for someone writing many more puzzles.

    Dean does contribute to the Telegraph Toughie but apparently the same clue appearing there happened back in 2008. That’s before the existence of the blog about Telegraph cryptics, so whether it was a puzzle of his, I can’t tell. Slightly puzzled that this was thought of as an obscure answer, but maybe I still benefit from a distant past in athletics.

    2. I got the answer, but I still don’t get the parsing.
      It doesn’t seem to have been explained on this page yet.
      1. Well, it’s just IOU with “O2”, the common allotrope of oxygen, replacing the usual O. Strictly, an IOU is an acknowledgement of a debt rather than the debit itself, but it seems to be close enough for people to enjoy the clue.
        1. I enjoyed the fact that it didn’t defeat me, but “I O2 you” doesn’t make a sentence, so it would seem the O and the 2 are both doing double duty. But O, sans 2, is the symbol for the element itself (O2 being merely the most common molecule of it on Earth), so maybe it really reads “I oxygen to you,” which isn’t a sentence either.

          I’m overthinking this, of course; it is really just a sort of visual pun, with “owe” replaced with what is (figuratively) said to be “owed” in the term OXYGEN DEBT. I can’t believe the setter has gotten away with this twice. Haha.

          Edited at 2020-03-08 06:03 pm (UTC)

          1. I don’t think there’s any intent of a pun on ‘owe’. It’s just a debt (IOU) that contains oxygen. It doesn’t necessarily make grammatical sense but the question mark is there to signal an element of whimsy and I do think you’re overthinking it!
          2. I’m late to this party, but I think it’s just a bad clue. I O2 U (as in Oxygen 2) doesn’t make any sense. I thought about I O O U, as in “I owe oxygen to you,” but that doesn’t account for the grammatically necessary”to.”

            Above all, it fails the ‘real world’ test.

            1. I agree with you. I prefer clues where the parts, when decrypted, snap together with logical precision. This one is less than satisfying in that regard.
      2. Sorry, I thought it was sufficiently obvious not to require explanation. Peter has now given one, but I’ll add it to the blog.
  11. 14:30. I had fun with this, as (nearly) always with Dean’s puzzles. I didn’t remember LAMPLIGHTER from last time, but managed to parse it. TAI unknown so I checked it existed before submitting. I liked OXYGEN DEBT but SQUARE MILE was my favourite, although I agree “wanting” as an anagram indicator is a bit odd. Thanks Dean and K.
  12. … with a year’s supply of toilet rolls ready and stockpiled.
    Dean is my favourite setter by far, as I have said frequently, IO2U is clever but doesn’t really work for me.
  13. Another OXYGEN TENT here. The closest I could come to explaining it was that the clue was meant to be IO2CU (i.e. oxygen in an Intensive Care Unit) but I know that if you’re at the stage of doubting the clues then you’re already crawled quite a long way along a shaky limb…
  14. was my one error – I did have a Q-mark next to it, but never returned to work it out.
    So my 29 minutes was struck off. Dean Mayer is an anagram of REMADE ANY? LIMELIGHTER or LIMP WRISTED were perhaps options? Naughty chair offence!?

    FOI 1ac OPAL

    LOI 15ac REEK – ho hum!

    COD 12ac OXYGEN DEBT

    WOD 4dn DISHY

  15. 53:03 I was an age on this especially LOI 13ac where I knew of the tent but not the debt. I was convinced it had to be debt though – O2 seemed clear for oxygen and IOU seemed clear for debt – and bunged it in with fingers slightly crossed. I thought this was another high quality, economically clued Sunday offering.
  16. I said “visual pun,” because instead of the “O” that means “owe” in IOU, you see O2, which means something completely different.
  18. Another OXYGEN TENT here. I had no idea what was going on with the clue and had never heard of OXYGEN DEBT. 41:20 WOE. Thanks Dean and K.
  19. 47mins wrestling with this fine offering from Dean Mayer. We agree that IO2U doesn’t quite work, and considered TENT , MASK and DEBT, with the latter clearly the most appropriate. Pearlies was LOI.
    In these End Times we have a slight sore throat, and so have withdrawn to the farm to self-isolate. We have hoarded reprinted crosswords to see us through. It could be worse. In Germany they have had a run on sausages and cheese. It’s a Wurst Käse scenario.
    1. The City of London, a tiny and surprisingly self-contained part of London, is colloquially known as the Square Mile, or just “the City”, especially when referring to its role as a major financial centre.

      Edited at 2020-03-28 09:22 pm (UTC)

      1. Ah I see you beat me to it Matt. The term is a bit dated now, given the number of banks and other financial institutions that are based in Canary Wharf and the West End, but it’s still used. I still sometimes say I work in the city when my office is in St James’s.
    2. See e.g. Collins: ‘the area in central London in which the United Kingdom’s major financial business is transacted’. You will also see this referred to in crosswords as EC (the postcode).
  21. Thanks Dean and keriothe
    Found this a pretty easy start as well but from a slightly different approach, although it took four times as long to do. TAI was first to go in, not that I knew of the fish until looking it up to check, but it was an obvious ‘skip letter’ clue. LIS was second in. Usually struggle with the three letter clues in these puzzles, but these two were generous entry points.
    Didn’t remember the LAMPLIGHTER clue and made the same mess at attempting to parse it as I did back then ! The OXYGEN DEBT was interesting – the only way that i could interpret it, was the O in IOU, meaning a debt of oxygen – a great idea but something just doesn’t gel with it, as has been stated.
    Finished in the NW corner with DISHY and IN PLAY (which I thought was quite clever).

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