Sunday Times 4914 by Robert Price – source for the gander

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
12:28. Another really entertaining puzzle from Bob this week. I particularly liked 12ac, with its deceptive wordplay, and the cryptic definitions. These often attract negative comment but I thought both examples in the long down clues were excellent.

There will no doubt be the usual discussion about homophones like that in 3dn, which works for non-rhotic speakers like me but not for others. If homophones are unacceptable on that basis though they would have to be banished entirely, which would certainly make setters’ lives harder.

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

Across
1 Fraud helping to hide bank payment
CONSIDERATION – CON(SIDE), RATION.
10 Wife’s left at Crewe, due to change train again
RE-EDUCATE – (AT CREwE DUE)*.
11 Share clobber
WHACK – DD. I think of the first sense as just meaning a (large) amount. When intended to mean a share it is usually (always?) preceded by the word ‘fair’. Close enough, anyway.
12 Relative of Bonnie wanting half the case about Clyde
NIECE – tricky wordplay here: bonNIE (Bonnie wanting half), ClydE (the case about Clyde). Super clue.
13 One from a huge range of greetings from Kuala Lumpur?
HIMALAYAN – HI, MALAYAN (from Kuala Lumpur?). Note the question mark indicating a definition by example, because there are other places in Malaysia. Unnecessary IMO.
14 VIPs and why they stand at the bar?
NOTABLES – they stand at the bar because there are…
16 Cold youth crossing a river shows great bottle
CARBOY – C(A, R), BOY. This word for a large bottle was familiar but only very vaguely so I needed the wordplay.
19 Cream unfinished fish is next to
BESIDE – BESt, IDE.
20 All over pong surrounds one type of cheese
HALLOUMI – H(ALL, O)UM, I. Aka squeaky cheese, excellent grilled on a barbecue. What did the cheese say when it saw itself in the mirror?
22 Inclined to admit suspect is a mugger
ASSAILANT – ASLANT containing (IS A)*. Another DBE, this time with no indication.
24 Live dance music
BEBOP – BE, BOP (dance).
25 Anxiety about old man’s housing
DREAD – D(RE)AD. This clue uses the same deceptive construction to indicate containment as 20ac.
26 Keep going private say, only with 50 per cent off
SOLDIER ON – SOLDIER, ONly.
27 Who really has the power in emergencies at sea?
EMINENCE GRISE – (IN EMERGENCIES)*.
Down
2 Work by a setter disguised as light entertainment
OPERETTAS – OP, (A SETTER)*.
3 Nerve of informant in speaking out
SAUCE – sounds like ‘source’. Cue howls of outrage from rhoticists everywhere.
4 The last place one would retire to
DEATHBED – CD.
5 Loveless, your home turned cold and damp
RHEUMY – (YoUR HoME)*.
6 Drier beginning to leak oil mixed with water
TOWEL RAIL – (Leak OIL WATER)*. I was a bit puzzled by this because a towel is a drier, but quis siccat ipsos siccates? As they don’t say in Latin.
7 Organ and piano ultimately are not the same
OVARY – pianO, VARY.
8 Providers of support for those with decreasing work?
IRONING BOARDS – CD. I initially thought the second word here would be STANDS, so I put that in, and then when I realised the first word was IRONING I almost didn’t reconsider it, which would have left me with IRONING STANDS. Fortunately I noticed in the nick of time that this was nonsense.
9 Being unsuited, out of one’s depth perhaps?
SKINNY-DIPPING – another CD, and another good one.
15 Unwell, ordered to swallow tablet by doctor
BEDRIDDEN – B(E, DR)IDDEN.
17 Singers of music, keeping time
BLUEBIRDS – BLUE(BIRD)S. ‘Time’ in the prison sense here.
18 You might chew this gum, eating badly
PASTILLE – PAST(ILL)E.
21 Stepping up to pluck the last fruit
RAISIN – RAISINg. Slight MER at ‘fruit’ as a definition here. It is a fruit of course, but the dried characteristic strikes me as pretty fundamental.
23 Cook leaves handwritten text about sandwiches
STEAM – reversal of MS (manuscript) containing TEA (leaves). I got a bit confused here because I considered STEAM but thought that ‘sandwiches’ was indicating ‘tea’, which made it rather tricky to parse the rest.
24 Pipe band’s top revolutionary resistance song
BRIAR – Band, reversal of R, AIR. Also spelled BRIER sometimes, so watch out!

32 comments on “Sunday Times 4914 by Robert Price – source for the gander”

  1. A posh towel rail acts as a drier if you switch it on. Thanks for the Halloumi cheese gag! Biffed DAMSON initially at 21d as last one in, given the checkers, but drew back from the precipitate ‘submit’ in the nick of time. All green in 28:23
    1. Yes I did realise that: we actually have heated towel rails in our house. They aren’t particularly posh: just a type of radiator.
      What kind of cheese do you use to hide a horse?

      Edited at 2020-08-09 08:49 am (UTC)

  2. I gather this was difficult for me, although I have no memory of it and next to no notes. DNK HALLOUMI or CARBOY; the only Carboy I know is partner in the law firm of Kenge and Carboy in “Bleak House”, although he never appears. Like Corymbia, I had DAMSON at 21d for a long time, changed it at the last minute. LOI TOWEL RAIL. I liked NIECE, although the surface is a bit odd; COD to EMINENCE GRISE.

    Edited at 2020-08-09 12:38 am (UTC)

    1. We actually have heated towel rails in our house (they’re not particularly remarkable when your main source of heat is radiators) so this really shouldn’t have puzzled me at all. Still, it gave me an opportunity to make a terrible and apparently incomprehensible Latin gag.
  4. ‘Nother good effort this, pitched at just the right level of difficulty for me; your mileage may differ.
    Does one not put the towel onto a towel rail after use, in order to air and dry it, rather than leave it in a damp puddle on the floor as I in fact tend to do?
    Liked 10ac, nice surface..
    1. Indeed. My fake Latin is supposed to mean ‘who dries the driers’, a play on quis custodiet ipsos custodes.
      This gag obviously wasn’t as good as I thought it was, and I thought it was pretty awful.

      Edited at 2020-08-09 08:44 am (UTC)

        1. My Latin is non-existent (other than superficial knowledge of the odd well-known phrase, obviously). I used google translate and I’d be amazed if my invented phrase even makes sense.

          Edited at 2020-08-09 09:22 am (UTC)

        1. A few more. What cheese do you use to get a bear out of a tree?

          Edited at 2020-08-09 04:56 pm (UTC)

            1. The Jokes For Kids standard is a little more forgiving than the Times crossword 😉
              What happened when there was an explosion in the cheese factory?

              Edited at 2020-08-09 09:19 pm (UTC)

  5. …. I’ll come flying through your door” ( Paul McCartney and Wings : “BLUEBIRD”)

    I narrowly avoided the “damson jam”, and parsed HALLOUMI afterwards. A fine puzzle.

    FOI REEDUCATE
    LOI RAISIN
    COD IRONING BOARDS
    TIME 12:56

  6. I found this Robert quite tricky, taking 38 minutes. COD to IRONING BOARD. I liked HIMALAYAN too. LOI was RAISIN, which was easier than I tried to make it, finding it hard to rid my head of DAMSON. An excellent puzzle. Thank you K and Robert.

    Edited at 2020-08-09 07:34 am (UTC)

  7. I’ve no note to say so but I must have enjoyed this as I have several clues with ticks (not the pest type) against them in my notes: TOWEL RAIL, UNSUITED, BEDRIDDEN, BLUEBIRDS and STEAM. COD, though, to IRONING BOARDS (decreasing, indeed!)
    BRIER, as opposed to BRIAR, has turned up in a cryptic recently.
    Thank you, keriothe.
  8. My Uncle Eddy owned the local garage, and in one of the sheds were carboys, enormous glass flasks, in which he kept, if I remember right, battery acid. So no trouble with that. Richard
  9. The perfect level for me. No problem with SAUCE/SOURCE or with TOWEL RAIL. COD to EMINENCE GRISE.
    1. I think it must be an error. The online version gives the length as 5 rather than 1,4 and to me the answer I have is 5 and seems satisfactory.
      Andyf
      1. Damn. I know immediately what answer you’re talking about, and honestly thought I’d killed off the error in all versions. Somehow in the production process, a little bunch of alternative answers appeared in some of the places where the software allows you to indicate accented letters and the like, and spacing. How they did so is a total mystery. I must have fixed it successfully in the online version (otherwise my mailbox would be bursting), and forgotten to finish the job in print.
  11. 21:39. “Lovely!”, it says at the top of my copy. Held up by persisting in thinking first word of 26A ended in ING. LOI RAISIN. I had TOWEL ROLL for 6D until CARBOY disabused me of that. I liked NOTABLE and IRONING BOARD best. Thanks Robert and K.
  12. A DNF in around 40 mins. I panicked at LOI whack and threw in wrack in desperation. Should’ve spent more time on it. Nice puzzle though. I enjoyed deathbed as well as the other two long down cryptic definitions. Didn’t fully parse niece and carboy was unknown but helpful wp and checkers meant carson or vanlad were off the table.
  13. Another holiday treat but I made hard work of it. Having a doubtful CRASHPAD at 4d did not help.
    I see from my notes I had three left to solve on Monday -but I had the time. However I just could not parse BLUEBIRDS and looked for alternatives; and I had derived the unknown CARBOY but in the end had to check it afterwards. I did get Deathbed in the end. An enjoyable defeat.
    David
  14. A pleasure, though the unknown Carboy, the unknown cheese, and my mangling of the spelling of Grise gave me fits getting to Bluebirds. I liked The Ironing Boards, the standing Notables, and surprisingly the Sauce. Thank you, Robt, keriothe, and ed.
    1. I’ve been slightly surprised by how little-known halloumi is. It’s an absolute staple in our house (very useful when you have vegetarians at a barbecue) and I know it’s widely available in Canada too (where it’s often labelled ‘halloum’).
      Edit: actually looking back through the comments it seems most people probably did know the squeaky cheese.

      Edited at 2020-08-09 04:57 pm (UTC)

  15. Thanks Bob and keriothe
    Nice crossword that I didn’t help myself with by promptly writing in CEMETERY at 4d – and took a while to rectify, one crosser at a time.
    Having just put one away prior to pulling this out, IRONING BOARD was the second one in. NOTABLES was another early entry and raised a chuckle and the cod for me.
    Strangely, looking at the comments, WHACK was another fairly early get – it was pretty commonly used down here, although not so much now. Took a while to work out where one of my favourite cities in KL fitted and thought that it was another neat clue when I did.
    Finished in the SW corner with RAISIN, STEAM (which took a couple of goes to parse properly) and the unknown EMINENCE GRISE phrase the last one in.

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