Sunday Times 4904 by Dean Mayer

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
27:36. A blinder of a puzzle from Dean this week. Tough, but very enjoyable. Loads of great clues in here but without doubt 17dn is the pick of the bunch for me. Brilliant!

So thank you very much to Dean for a thoroughly entertaining half-hour and here’s how I think it all works…

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

Across
1 Officer found in previous place
LOCATE – L(OC)ATE.
4 Order my parts to run hot air
TOMMYROT – T(OM, MY)ROT. OM = Order of Merit.
10 Lots of money and evidence in safe
BOMBPROOF – BOMB (lots of money as in it costs a…), PROOF.
11 Bread filled with small fried potatoes
ROSTI – RO(S)TI.
12 One in traffic jam about to go off with different drivers?
CARROT AND STICK – CAR (one in traffic) (ROT, AND), STICK (jam).
14 Moved into a site east of power plant
POINSETTIA – P, (INTO A SITE)*. I don’t remember ever seeing these at Christmas time when I was a kid but they’re ubiquitous now.
16 Siam visitor from Japan — Nagasaki
ANNA – contained in ‘Japan – Nagasaki’. I had no idea about the definition here but the wordplay was very clear. It’s a reference to Anna Leonowens, the subject of a book that was turned into the musical The King and I by Rogers and Hammerstein.
18 See individual volcanic formation
CONE – C (see), ONE (individual). ‘A conical mountain, especially one of volcanic origin’ (Collins).
19 Southern state penitentiary’s regular staff
ALPENSTOCK – AL (Alabama, southern state), PEN, STOCK (regular). PEN as a penitentiary is in Collins but marked as American and in Chambers without qualification. Easy to deduce though.
21 Cultivated country girl can edit edited editorial
LEADING ARTICLE – LEA (a meadow or ‘cultivated country’), (GIRL CAN EDIT)*.
24 Rising and falling, boy wants it back
TIDAL – reversal of LAD, IT.
25 After black, flower is white
ALABASTER – A LA (after), B, ASTER.
26 Not playing well after scoring?
SCRATCHY – CD, a reference to a vinyl record.
27 Just count after number one
MERELY – ME (number one), RELY (count on).

Down
1 Sky over wolf
LOBO – LOB (sky), O.
2 Flight deck has attendant on run
COMPANION LADDER – COMPANION (attendant), LADDER (run). I think I’ve come across this term for a ladder between decks on a ship before but I had to construct it from the wordplay and even then I didn’t recognise it until I looked it up. The definition is an exceptionally cunning one.
3 To lead gunners, some Nazis will offer big guns
TOP BRASS – TO, PB (lead), RA (Royal Artillery, gunners), SS (some Nazis).
5 Unpleasant part of campaign
OFFENSIVE – DD.
6 Doctor got out of bed in a bad mood
MOROSE – MO, ROSE.
7 Game whose winner never takes the lead
RUSSIAN ROULETTE – CD.
8 Expert groups, in gratitude, sign US document at last
THINK TANKS – TH(INK, documenT)ANKS. According to Collins, this meaning of the work INK is indeed American, which was news to me. A more apt definition in the UK these days would be ‘opaquely funded lobbying group for undisclosed private and corporate interests inexplicably allowed to present itself as an impartial commentator on BBC news programmes’ but this one also works.
9 Pull up when one’s dropped anchor
HOST – HOiST. Oh that sort of anchor!
13 Suspect ale might produce risks
SPECULATES – (SUSPECT ALE)*.
15 Pin and clip secured by the knotted wire
TELEGRAPH – (THE)* containing LEG (pin), RAP (clip).
17 How to pronounce the “h” of “aaargh”?
ASPIRATE – ‘aaargh’ being what pirates say, of course. It doesn’t do to pay too much attention to the structure of this clue but who cares? It’s brilliant! What does a pirate call the transmission rate of a viral infection?
20 Accommodation choice that’s kept badly
BILLET – B(ILL)ET.
22 Managed to catch old horse
ROAN – R(O)AN.
23 Snoop around English quarry
PREY – PR(E)Y.

39 comments on “Sunday Times 4904 by Dean Mayer”

  1. I couldn’t make anything out of 9d. I wasn’t sure about clip=RAP, but it had to be. 17d is brilliant, but it was pretty easy. I had a harder time realizing that ‘After black’ did not mean the word begins with B. I knew ‘companionway’, though I didn’t know it was a ladder. This may have been my fastest time for a Dean puzzle, except for the not solving part.
  2. How to pronounce “aaargh” with “h” (8)
    may have parsed better, but the surface reading suffers
    I think it’s certainly worth keeping the better surface

    It may have been easy but it made me smile

  3. 54 minutes. LOI was LOBO, after seeing LOCATE. LOBO the wolf then did ring a bell, having LOBbed the goalie. I’m not sure if I’ve heard of a COMPANION LADDER before, but if I have I’d forgotten and I needed the crossers for the first word. COD to RUSSIAN ROULETTE. A very good puzzle, which looked tough and was tough. Thank you K and Dean.
  4. Top class stuff as per usual .. I did enjoy 17dn, like everyone.
    Nho roti = bread, it is just French for roast as any fule kno. Looking at google images, it appears I have eaten rotis often, but as chapattis..
  5. I managed to get all of this apart from 4a TOMMYROT and 9d where I had an unparsed ROOT. The wolf was unknown as were a couple of others.
    Was pleased to get this far. David
  6. I’m probably a lone voice crying in the wilderness, but Robert Newton said “Aarrr Jim lad”. “Aaargh !” is an exclamation of sudden pain or horror, so for me it doesn’t work. It didn’t stop me solving it though.

    My problems came elsewhere. I’d finished the bottom half in 16 minutes, but having biffed TOP BRASS and CARROT AND STICK at the 22 minute mark, I parsed them during the next 8 minutes before I waved my white flag. I finally got TOMMY ROT after 25 minutes, but after that half hour I used a word search tool to find HOST.

    COD RUSSIAN ROULETTE

  7. Nearly 35 minutes, so must have been rather chewy. I thought the CD at 7 was a rather good exemplar of the class.
    Obviously I am oblivious to the sinister forces behind BBC journalism, but I googled INK (with several parameters) to find out what K knows but I don’t and am none the wiser. Having just read a conspiracy piece on Bill Gates that accuses him of genocide and the lust for world domination that would put Ernst Stavro Blodfeld to shame, I think I’m aware now that I know nothing about What Is Really Going On.
    “No, that’s perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe gets that.” – Slartibartfast.

    Edited at 2020-05-31 07:49 am (UTC)

    1. ‘To ink’ is a mainly American hack’s synonym for ‘to sign’ ie with a pen. I have no idea what the blogger means in his/her additional comments nor do I wish to.

      Edited at 2020-05-31 08:40 am (UTC)

      1. True, as Keriothe said, but he added the shadowy cartel behind British (mis)information that I’m not aware of, possibly because I’m not supposed to be.

      2. Many thanks! I’d hate to think this forum was descending into the morass that is the world of tinfoil hat wearers. I subscribe to the general theory that most of the mess the world gets into is cockup rather than conspiracy !

        1. Quite! I do however think that – for instance – the so-called ‘Taxpayers’ Alliance’ should not be allowed to present itself as a neutral observer on the telly, because it isn’t.

          Edited at 2020-05-31 12:36 pm (UTC)

          1. We have the same problem over here, of course, especially with groups underwritten by the so-called American Legislative Exchange Council (i.e., the Koch brothers).
  8. Please explain how ‘Flight deck’ is an ‘exceptionally cunning definition’. I get ‘flight’ = stairs and ‘deck’ = storey on a ship and so ‘deck flight’ might work, but ‘flight deck’ is commonly an aircraft’s cockpit (or less commonly the landing/taking-off part of an aircraft carrier). If it’s cunning, I am not afraid to admit too cunning for me.
    1. It’s “Flight deck has” that’s the definition. i.e. a flight or staircase that a deck has (to get to another deck).
      1. Ah, thank you, but why has the blogger appeared to give the definition as ‘flight deck’? Underlined too much?
                  1. It might be, albeit of a somewhat obscure part of a ship infrastructure, but the point is the definition is, as pointed out elsewhere, ‘flight’, not ‘ flight deck’ or even ‘flight deck has’.
  9. 49:20. I struggled mightily with this, but it was well worth persevering to get all the clever wordplay. 17D was my favourite, but I liked TOMMYROT and TOP BRASS too. LOI CONE. Thanks for explaining who ANNA was K, and thanks Dean for the excellent puzzle. More like this please.
  10. A mighty struggle for me, which ended up with 9d as ROOT after 56:39. Thanks Dean and K.
  11. I was plugging away at this for the best part of 1 hour and 20 mins all told before I finally completed. Much of that time was spent like a man in a darkened room groping hopelessly around for the light switch without ever seeming able to find it. Everything parsed in the end but companion ladder entered from wp. I was pleased to finish all correct, eventually. More than a few to make it worth the effort: aspirate, Russian roulette, carrot and stick, tommyrot…
  12. I only have one criterion … did I enjoy it? and I did … immensely. Technically I’m with Phil on 17d but I don’t really care as I laughed out loud. Possibly ‘me hearties’ might have been more happosite?
  13. Worth the very long time it took me to finish this. I agree about the cleverness of the definition for COMPANION LADDER and AS PIRATE was great too. Almost enough to get me tripping the light fantastic – I must still be pining for Deborah Kerr.
  15. Great puzzle. I loved the Treasure Island reference at 17d. 32 minutes. Ann
  16. Great puzzle except I ground to a halt on 9d. I put POST which seems to fit “anchor” and “posit” for the thing to drop an “i” from, although “pull up” seemed a stretch for that, so I was pretty sure I was wrong.
  17. 2d was LOI, by some distance. That wonderful feeling of dawning realisation when the various possible meanings for ‘flight’ and ‘deck’ finally coalesce into a bombproof parseable solution completely orthogonal to initial thought processes! These Sunday offerings from Dean are always a treat. 42mins
  18. I shared the ‘wonderful feeling of dawning realisation’ mentioned above throughout most of this puzzle. I took much of the day, on and off, but thoroughly enjoyed it. 7dn and 17dn were stand out bits of brilliance. I tend not to agree with another comment about changing the surface of 7dn as the clue has to be ‘how to province ‘h” – and then, of course, the big grin when aaargh turns out to be ‘as pirate’.
  19. Thanks Dean and keriothe
    Was another who took a long time to get it done – just under the hour and a half over four sittings. Wasn’t smart enough to see the AS PIRATE joke with 17d and am sad about that !
    Some very clever plays at work here with my favourite being to unravel the logic behind CARROT AND STICK – thought it quite brilliant. I didn’t have 26a as a cd – thought that a very clever surface was broken into a double definition – with the first being like a sportsman who is struggling for form (‘not playing well’ or SCRATCHY) and ‘after scoring’ as leaving a surface as SCRATCHY.
    Sadly I was another who had ROOT at 9d – another double definition: ‘pull up’ (as plants) and ‘drop anchor’ (as in fix or embed oneself). It sort of works but is not as elegant as the real solution. It was my second to last in followed by the clever TOMMYROT.

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