Sunday Times 4930 by David McLean – ‘Allo ‘Allo ‘Allo!

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
DNF. I found this quite hard and ended up with a blank at 1ac. I could see that ‘police’ corresponded to what turned out to be the answer but I couldn’t see anything in the rest of the clue that justified it. It also didn’t occur to me that ‘being in the police’ might be the definition. I should have just bunged it in, and probably would have done if it had been the championships.

A shame because I really enjoyed the rest of it: some very good clues.

And here’s how I think they all work…

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

Across
1 Being in the Police is the pinnacle of rock
GENDARME – DD. ‘A sharp pinnacle of rock on a mountain ridge, esp in the Alps.’ Double definitions in which one of the definitions is really obscure are not my favourite clues.
5 Bishop in drink coming over? Help!
ABET – reversal of TE(B)A.
8 Live with line-snorting mum, creating this?
BEDLAM – BE, D(L)AM. Semi-&Lit. Great clue!
9 My periods of sexual activity enthral quiet doctors
CORRUPTS – COR, RU(P)TS.
10 School memo written in a quasi-Arabic style
ETON – reversal of NOTE, because Arabic is written right to left. Only quasi-Arabic because the script and word itself are English of course.
11 Son breaks fresh coverage of fake ghosts in bulletins
NEWS SHEETS – NEW(S), SHEETS. I liked ‘coverage of fake ghosts’.
12 Court reporter maybe displays subpoena in front of the Queen
SPORTSWRITER – SPORTS (displays), WRIT, ER. No, not that sort of court!
16 Full of cold, writhing feverishly with bad twitching
BIRDWATCHING – (WRITHING BAD)* containing C.
18 A hand in seas cast adrift
ASSISTANCE – (IN SEAS CAST)*.
20 Dumb artist medium-sized record label rejected
MIME – M, reversal of EMI.
21 Worker provided with stock of various kinds
MANIFOLD – MAN (worker), IF (provided), OLD (stock).
22 Light infantryman must retreat by dark, according to message
IGNITE – reversal of GI, homophone of ‘night’. ‘According to message’ is a bit of an odd homophone indicator because messages aren’t necessarily (or indeed usually) oral.
23 Journal left in toilet
BLOG – B(L)OG.
24 Collapsed apartment needs action to secure it
DEFLATED – DE(FLAT)ED.

Down
1 Beastly type in a rage with pet barking
GREAT APE – (A RAGE PET)*.
2 Material used to make many longhouses
NYLON – contained in ‘many longhouses’.
3 Government bill pint-sized Republican put in post
ADMINISTRATION – AD, MINI, ST(R)ATION.
4 Flapper in raincoat that’s adorable
MACAW – MAC, AW. ‘That’s adorable’ for AW is neat.
5 A pretty mischievous feature in a church
ACUTE ARCH – A, CUTE, ARCH. ‘Another name for a lancet arch’ says Collins, helpfully.
6 English country houses
ESTATE – E, STATE.
7 I’m right to tell new nurses medics’ ultimately useful info
GRIST TO THE MILL – (IM RIGHT TO TELL)* containing medicS. Arguably a definition by example because it’s not necessarily information.
13 Big brat in for treatment, being very gassy
RABBITING – (BIG BRAT IN)*.
14 Bloody freezing
RAW – DD.
15 Dame exercising with a tin full of beans
ANIMATED – (DAME A TIN)*.
17 Harshly ridicule a trip in tub for all to hear
ASSAIL – sounds like ‘a sail’. I wouldn’t necessarily think of a tub as a sailing boat, but the intention is clear.
19 Dig not being clobbered around head in Glasgow
NUDGE – NUD(Glasgow)E. ‘Not being clobbered’ is good.
20 I filled canvas bag with Medical Officer at front
MONET – MO, NET. Neatly disguised definition.

25 comments on “Sunday Times 4930 by David McLean – ‘Allo ‘Allo ‘Allo!”

  1. I had to look up the geological sense of GENDARME later, but probably came across it at some point in my life.
    The relevant sense of “twitch” has been known by me, I think, only since the recent episode in Central Park with the dog-walking (and -abusing) “Karen” and the African-American birdwatcher and artist…
  2. Went offline at 25′ with less than half done; lost track of the time, maybe just under an hour. DNK GENDARME, of course, and waited for all the checkers to report in; but then it seemed inevitable. I knew TWITCHING from here, and it finally came back to me. DNK the arch. 7d took me a long time because for me it’s FOR the mill, not TO; doubt that I’ve ever come across TO. I seem to recall a similar AW clue recently. Liked the fake ghosts, but COD to MONET. I didn’t think of it at the time, but I think that NITE here is simply ‘dark’; spelled that way ‘according to [the] message’, e.g. if written by a texter.
    1. Thanks for the reminder. That’s how I took it too. “Instant” or “text” messenger.
    2. Hmm, possibly. It’s a spelling that predates the existence of text messaging by a few decades and is not particularly associated with it. But I suppose a dedicated user of text spelling might write C U 2NITE M8.

      Edited at 2020-11-29 08:17 am (UTC)

      1. I did say ‘e.g.’; my point was that, depending on the message, one might spell the word ‘night’ or [shudder] ‘nite’.
        1. If it’s not a reference to text messaging it seems even more tenuous. One might or might not spell it ‘nite’ in any informal context, and messages aren’t necessarily informal.

          Edited at 2020-11-29 10:10 am (UTC)

  3. Some wonderful clueing from the setter. 8a,19d and 20d particularly good. The BIRDWATCHING clue an anagrammatic paragon.
    However, I am concerned about the Nina. An injunction to cannibalise left leaning members of congress adds more fuel to the current divisiveness in US politics.
    27:42
  4. My notes say this was a good test and I thus echo keriothe who says it was quite hard.
    Thanks for GENDARME, for explaining the ‘memo’ in 10ac and the ‘stock’ in 21ac.
    ACUTE ARCH was a new one on me.
    MONET was very clever but COD to GRIST TO THE MILL.
  5. A technical DNF with 1ac & 5dn as the culprits.

    I failed to think of GENDARME from the known definition and never stood a chance with the other which only served to confuse the issue; I’d have been better off without it.

    I got the ARCH (despite having doubts about it as a synonym for ‘mischievous’) but never thought of CUTE. I had thought I knew most features of churches by now.

    Edited at 2020-11-29 06:55 am (UTC)

    1. Nho acute arch either, but I did know of lancet windows which apparently it is another name for
  6. I finished in just under the half hour with LOI MIME. In my day EMI was the record company with Parlophone etc as the labels. I wasn’t that happy with STOCK meaning old in MANIFOLD although I do have a store of stock jokes to be used in posts like this, as above. So don’t you step on my blue suede shoes. I put in Gendarme not knowing the rock context and vaguely remembering some erudite comment here that the gendarmerie aren’t police, but I had no other answer. A good challenge otherwise. COD to MACAW. Thank you K and David.

    Edited at 2020-11-29 08:06 am (UTC)

  7. Enjoyed this which I thought tough in parts .. one of those where there are gaps here and there to fill.

    Did not know gendarme in that sense but with the G and the N what else could it be? Looked it up, only to discover that I did know it after all, as a mountaineering term .. but those days are long gone, along with most of the vocab it seems.

    1. I’ve never been on a mountain, but ‘arete’ will stay in my memory, thanks to the NYT.
  8. Gendarme: David possibly benefitted from the editor’s geography A-level there. It’s in the Concise Oxford, so I wouldn’t say seriously obscure, and there is a long-standing tradition of likening lumps of rock to people or body parts (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rock_formations_that_resemble_human_beings), so I don’t think it’s a very surprising meaning.

    Acute arch: that’s not in COD, but I guess (5,4) helped others towards it, as well as me.

    Sail in 17D: one of our reference dictionaries has “A voyage or excursion in a ship, especially a sailing ship or boat”, which allows the “tub” to be any kind of boat. That said, OED citations for the boat meaning of “tub” include ones from the pre-steam days of Walter Raleigh and Thomas Hobbes.

  9. I spotted the “being in the police” part of 1a, but the rock part was totally unknown. The ACUTE ARCH was a new one on me too. Liked MONET. 27:56. Thanks Harry and Keriothe.
  10. 32:30 but no notes as I did it online in a warm up for the non-event second helping. I found it quite tricky. Reading the blog I remember taking ages to find GRIST TO THE MILL and enjoying the definition at 20D “I filled canvas”. Thanks K and David.
  11. I managed to work my way through this one finishing by bunging in GENDARME at the end, having seen “Being in the police” as the definition; no knowledge of the rocks.
    FOI was ASSISTANCE and then pretty good progress until my final four. Apart from 1a they were IGNITE,MONET and ACUTE (I’d got the arch).
    I enjoyed this; a light-hearted feel to it. COD to MACAW or MONET.
    David
  12. my geology was restricted to Derbyshire, Ludlow and Wales, so the French Rozzers were unknown – but the clue fairly pointed. My WOD and many others’ I guess.

    FOI 23ac BLOG

    LOI 5dn ACUTE ARCH

    COD 14dn RAW

    Time – Gentlemen please!

  13. 20.53 I didn’t find this too difficult. Didn’t know the rock pinnacle meaning of gendarme but managed to get it ok from the other half of the clue and checkers. Not sure I’ve heard of the church feature specifically so that went in from the word play elements. The expression at 7dn would not come to mind for ages.
  14. 40 minutes, and I did finish, though a bit hesitant about GENDARME. I thought the rock might be Gibraltar, but the language didn’t seem to fit and of course “rock” wasn’t capitalized. Nothing else too unknown, but I seem to be getting very good at anagrams and reading wordplay very carefully.
  15. I didn’t know GENDARME but the crossing letters made it pretty clear. Ditto for ACUTE ARCH. Otherwise a slowish, unremarkable solve. 39 minutes. Ann
  16. Thanks David and keriothe
    Found this one a little easier than the normal fare from this setter, taking a tad under my average time of 45 min. Was off to a good start with GREAT APE leaping off the page straight away. Was able to work through the rest of the puzzle in a solid fashion with only ACUTE ARCH and the rocky GENDARME being the only new terms. Liked the deceptive ‘court reporter’ and grinned at the surface o f9a.
    Finished in the SW corner with ASSAIL (baulking a little at the ‘tub’ initially), MANIFOLD and NUDGE (with its clever and humorous ‘not being clobbered’ part of the word play).

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