Sunday Times 4932 by Robert Price

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
27:28. Phew! That was tough, but also absolutely superb. So many clues that appeared completely baffling until the eventual PDM (penny-dropping moment), but none of the difficulty is a result of obscure vocabulary. Loads of great clues but the &Lit at 2dn was probably my favourite, and I enjoyed 1ac if only because it was my last in and I kicked myself hard when I finally realised what was going on.

So thanks very much to Bob for half an hour of exquisite torture, and here’s how I think it all works…

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

Across
1 What a courier brings over?
DELIVERIES – DD, the second relating to cricket of course. So obvious once you see it, I’ve no idea why it took me so long.
7 Chicken parts now imported
WIMP – contained in (parts) ‘now imported’
9 Church overheads, expensive, lower after cutting back
STEEPLES – STEEP, LESs.
10 A lack of tax limiting a public official
NOTARY – NO, T(A)RY
11 Vehicle transporting fruit needing one more collected
CALMER – CA(LiME)R.
13 Succeeded in part thanks to mental capacity
GOT AHEAD – GO (part), TA, HEAD.
14 Controls around southern air bases
CORNERSTONES – CORNERS (controls, as in a market) containing S, TONE.
17 Learn to crawl? Quite an achievement!
MASTERSTROKE – MASTER STROKE. The definition by example (‘crawl’ for STROKE) is indicated by the question mark.
20 Fashion image on a vanity case?
EGOMANIA – (IMAGE ON)*. Nice definition.
21 They dry too well, so ends have split
TOWELS – TOo, WELl, So. The ends of each word having ‘split’ (i.e. left).
22 Perfect sounding local delicacy
INTACT – sounds like ‘inn’, TACT (delicacy).
23 Accepting a role finally, that one may do in the afternoon
TEA PARTY – thaT, onE(A PART), maY. Nicely disguised definition.
25 Beast returning hence
OGRE – reversal of ERGO (hence).
26 Ticker, possibly not one’s own
SECOND HAND – if something is SECOND HAND it is not ‘one’s own’ if only in the sense that one is not the only person to have owned it. Arguably a little loose but you get the idea.
Down
2 On stage, waiter ultimately confounded
ESTRAGON – (ON STAGE waiterR)*. An absolutely superb &Lit, referring of course to Waiting for Godot. The two ‘waiters’ are indeed ultimately confounded because (spoiler alert) Godot never turns up.
3 Murder US-style, namely cold-hearted (3)
ICE – C (cold) in (the heart of) IE (that is, namely).
4 An irrational king executed a mathematician
EULER – E, rULER. E is ‘a transcendental number, fundamental to mathematics, that is the limit of (1 + 1/n)n as n increases to infinity: used as the base of natural logarithms.’ But you knew that, of course.
5 Complex things outside one’s understanding
INSIGHT – (THINGS)* containing I.
6 Boys transfixed by a girl’s piano pieces
SONATINAS – SON(A TINA)S.
7 What could make you chew its evil concoction
WITCHES BREW – one of those reverse jobs where the answer is wordplay indicating part of the clue: ‘chew its’ is an anagram (brew) of WITCHES. Not to be confused with the Miles Davis record.
8 Lots of farmworkers lacking aids when lifting
MYRIAD – reversal of DAIRYMaids. A devilishly cunning clue that took me ages to figure out.
12 Little old lady to pursue basic pay
MINIMUM WAGE – MINI, MUM, WAGE (pursue, as in a war).
15 Rebukes about sporting nose rings
RESONATES – RATES (rebukes) containing (NOSE)*.
16 Bob or crew cut?
SKELETON – the SKELETON bob being a variety of sled, and a SKELETON crew being one limited in size, or cut.
18 Giving support that boxers need
ELASTIC – the boxers here being neither fighters nor dogs, but underwear.
19 For one with award, raised a drink
EGGNOG – EG, reversal of GONG. Revolting stuff.
21 Pair including a novelist
TWAIN – TW(A)IN. There aren’t many gimmes in this puzzle, make the most of them!
24 Wood is turned this way occasionally
ASH – alternate letters of ‘this way’, reversed.

22 comments on “Sunday Times 4932 by Robert Price”

  1. I went offline at 30′, with CORNERSTONES, ESTRAGON, & DELIVERIES to do, and did them in that order at lunch. DNK SKELETON bob, and thought it might be a kind of hairstyle; ‘crew cut’ plus the checkers was enough. I assumed that E was something mathematical, and sure enough. ESTRAGON was simply brilliant.
  2. I knew the play, but didn’t know the names of the protagonists, so 2d was my last one in, dragged kicking and screaming from the anagrist, and then checked on Google to make sure it existed. That was after a 40 minute struggle. Tough stuff indeed. Took me a while to parse EULER, but I got there eventually when I realised I needed to think Naperian! What I didn’t know before is that e is Euler’s constant. Great clue. Great puzzle! 40:24. Thanks Bob and K.
  3. A transcendental puzzle, with too many fine clues to mention them all. Particularly enjoyed the ‘vanity case’ and Godot’s waiter.
    (K, perhaps your definition of Euler’s number should make it clearer that it’s the limit of 1+1/N to the Nth power, as we all know)
    29:07
    1. Yes of course I knew that! You think I just copied it from blindly from Collins without having a clue what it really meant? As if!
      Now corrected.
  4. A most excellent offering. I didn’t finish in one go. DELIVERIES was my one of my last in, as I knew “over” as a cricket term but not that one “over” means several of them.
  5. This took me nearly an hour but I never felt stuck for ideas or avenues to explore. Altogether an enjoyable challenge and a real sense of achievement on completion.

    Didn’t know ‘bob’ and took ages over my LOI CORNERSTONES.

    After my recent bad experience with MYRIAD defined as ‘large number’ with reference to a Moroccan house I was a lot quicker to spot it this time round.

    Edited at 2020-12-13 07:23 am (UTC)

  6. 55 minutes, with ESTRAGON a delicious COD. On another day, several more clues would have been shoo-ins for the honour, particularly EULER and MYRIAD. I’ll be patriotic and give Napier some of the glory for the e function. He got his name in my school log table book. LOI was CORNERSTONES as it took a while to see CORNERS as controls. Great puzzle overall and pretty tough. Thank you Robert and K.
  7. So it wasn’t just me who found this difficult.
    FOI ICE, a word I have learnt from doing puzzles. But I only solved five clues in a shortish first session. A better afternoon session left me after a long time with three to get: 1a- I should have got but failed to think of cricket; I think a recent clue about typefaces led me astray. I know the play Waiting for Godot very well but I was thinking that “on stage” was a homophone indicator. I also failed to see that Controls =Corners-pretty tough that.
    Was pleased to get EULER, but unparsed; and also the unknown SONATINAS.
    This was clearly one for the experienced solvers.
    David
  8. ….that Robert has presented, and, after two sessions totalling 30 minutes, I surrendered. I really should have got CORNERSTONES, but MYRIAD defeated me. COD ESTRAGON.
  9. Much enjoyed .. I thought it perhaps a bit hard but not too much so and very fair.
    I always thought Witches Brew was by Cream. But my knowledge of jazz is close to 0
      1. You’re right!
        Though I see that there are at least three songs called Witches Brew .. none of them my sort of music, mind
  10. at 1dn my FOI so hardly my COD!

    LOI 9ac STEEPLES

    COD 15dn SKELETON – TTT sledding!

    WOD 6dn SONATINAS

    Time about an hour and ten

  12. 27:03… of delight. DNK the character at 2D but guessed correctly from the anagrind and checkers. LOI MYRIAD which took me a while… about to do an alphabet trawl when I remembered “Y” as a vowel. As well as the clever 2D I loved DELIVERIES and ELASTIC best, but I had several other ticks on my copy too. Thanks Robert and K.
  13. I started this very slowly with a few isolated answers – WIMP,CALMER,TOWELS and OGRE. Filling the gaps was a hugely enjoyable excercise. I particularly liked the definitions of ESTRAGON and EGOMANIA. Great fun. 42 minutes. Ann

    Edited at 2020-12-13 08:48 pm (UTC)

  14. Thanks Bob and keriothe
    A tough puzzle that took numerous sessions spanning a couple of days to finally get through – still with a couple that hadn’t been parsed before coming here in ICE (which was the first in) and EULER.
    Many excellent clues and none better than ESTRAGON which was my last in and at least got me to read the synopsis of the play that I knew of but hadn’t read. SKELETON, as a sled was unknown and had to check that SONATINAS was what it appeared to be.
    I think that I remember seeing similar variations of the MYRIAD clue, but it still took a while to untangle again here (it was the third to last to go in). STEEPLES, for some reason was second to last.
    1. Re: This is our last syndicated Sunday Times for the year … HNY to all

      Tom in Toronto here. See how far behind we are.

      Reading Godot is no substitute for seeing it on stage. Forget all the people trying to see hidden meaning in it. Beckett himself said it was jsut a bit of old vaudeville. Enjoy it for the wit and the language.

      1. Thanks Tom … will keep a heads up to see if it ever presents itself in Melbourne.

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