Sunday Times 4940 – in the soup

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
14:16, but with a silly error. A fun puzzle though with some lovely clues. A few unfamiliar things – the lizard, one of the meanings in 7dn, 24dn – but all clearly indicated. Four cryptic definitions, which is quite unusual, but these are all good ‘uns.

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

Across
1 Find out about ball after throw that shouldn’t happen
HEAVEN FORBID – HEAVE (throw), (FIND)* containing ORB.
10 Cargo near wrong side?
ARROGANCE – (CARGO NEAR)*.
11 Little interest concerning stage part
APRON – APR (little, i.e. an abbreviation of, Annual Percentage Rate), ON (concerning).
12 Girl left behind
LASS – L, ASS.
13 This handle rarely opens or closes
MIDDLE NAME – CD. The ‘rarely’ struck me as a bit odd. Perhaps the idea is that some people go by their middle names.
15 Drunkard swims badly in a coma
DIPSOMANIAC – DIPS (swims – a noun), (IN A COMA)*.
17 What’s central to rowdiness?
DIN – contained in ‘rowdiness’. &Lit.
18 It’s my intention to harm
ILL – I’LL (it’s my intention to).
19 Vehicle for crashing on track
SLEEPING CAR – CD.
21 Naval officer eats shrimp at sea
SHIPMASTER – (EATS SHRIMP)*.
23 Outlaw given good report
BANG – BAN, G.
25 A glossy back on a lizard
AGAMA – A, reversal of MAG, A. This lizard has come up before in Mephistos and a couple of Jumbos but I had forgotten it so I had to trust the wordplay.
26 Plain sandwiches almost lasting until tomorrow
OVERNIGHT – OVER(NIGH)T.
27 These may pick up rubbish
LIE DETECTORS – CD.
Down
2 Run into oneself thus
ERGO – E(R)GO.
3 Very mean, that’s clear
VINDICATE – V, INDICATE.
4 Rising gas beginning to drop a lot
NO END – reversal of NEON, Drop.
5 Rainbow over faded trail
OPALESCENT – O, PALE, SCENT (trail). I was going to say ‘rainbow’ is an adjective here, but the usual dictionaries (Collins, Lexico) have it as a noun (a modifier). But in the Collins US edition it is listed as an adjective, which is strange: the word isn’t used differently in American English. In any event both words denote something with lots of different colours.
6 Get ready to travel here
BUREAU DE CHANGE – another CD. I haven’t used one of these for a very long time. I use Revolut for most of my foreign currency needs these days.
7 Keep prisoners in it
DUNGEON – DD. Collins: ‘a variant of donjon’, which in turn is ‘the heavily fortified central tower or keep of a medieval castle’.
8 Whitish top worn by friend?
PALLID – PAL LID. ‘Worn by’ suggests some kind of insertion but here it’s effectively just saying that the word LID is, well, there.
9 Poor insects, all buzzing as bees do
CROSS-POLLINATE – (POOR INSECTS ALL)*.
14 Total cheat, total friend
CONSUMMATE – CON, SUM, MATE. I managed to write CONSOMMATE here, in spite of understanding the wordplay at the time of solving. I think that’s how I’d have spelled the word, perhaps confusing it with soup.
16 Complete tool
IMPLEMENT – DD. LOL.
18 Load of software isn’t, surprisingly, the lot
INSTALL – (ISNT)*, ALL. I read definition and answer as nouns here.
20 Fine doctor for nursing hospital
RIGHTO – RIG(H), TO. For = to as in ‘the train for/to Edinburgh’.
22 Lifted a priest’s vestment
STOLE – DD.
24 Expert on royalty
ONER – ON, ER. An outstanding or remarkable person or thing, according to the dictionaries. ‘Expert’ seems a bit loose, but close enough for government work I suppose. Not a meaning I knew anyway so it didn’t cause me a problem.

16 comments on “Sunday Times 4940 – in the soup”

  1. I agree, keriothe, it was a fun puzzle I’ve written “v.g.” against several clues:
    MIDDLE NAME; SLEEPING CAR, BUREAU DE CHANGE (A plague upon Travelex!) and LIE DETECTORS. COD, though, to HEAVEN FORBID for the clever way the anagram of FIND is hidden in there.
    Thanks for the explanation of RIGHTO. I never did work that one out although I solved the clue.
  2. I finished this and the site says I took over two hours so I guess I did it in two sittings, although I don’t really remember. All correct anyway. Lots of witty clues where I’d have put ticks in the margin if I wasn’t solving online.
  3. OPALESCENT was my LOI, and I wondered about the adjectivality of ‘rainbow’. I had ‘def?’ written by ONER, and it still seems stretching things a bit (ONER comes up from time to time in the NYT, always with the ‘exceptional’ meaning). I don’t think I’ve ever seen ‘donjon’ spelled ‘dungeon’, although they’re clearly cognates. My uncle, J. Maurice Rogers, was (Uncle) Maury to everyone; the J was for Julius, which he couldn’t stand. Biffed HEAVEN FORBID, parsed post-submission; my COD.

    Edited at 2021-02-07 03:02 am (UTC)

  4. 35 minutes with LOI RIGHTO. Fingers were crossed for the lizard. Lots of nice clues, of which I’ll pick out INSTALL, SLEEPING CAR and COD CONSUMMATE. I wasn’t convinced about ONER but I suppose so. Good puzzle. Thank you K and Dean.
  5. 15:25 I enjoyed your title K given the pun in the same day’s Mephisto. I enjoyed the crossword too. I DNK that meaning of “side” in 10A (it is well down the dictionary listing) but the anagram was clear. I also had a MER at “rarely” in 13A. Otherwise no problems. I liked APRON best. Thanks Dean and K.
  6. ….1A was a ONER (particularly fine example), and it took me ages to solve — and then it was a biff. I did parse it later. It didn’t get COD from me though, as my choice made me chuckle.

    FOI ARROGANCE
    LOI OPALESCENT (straight after HEAVEN FORBID)
    COD SLEEPING CAR
    TIME 14:48

  7. FOI ERGO, then I managed to get 14 in my first session of about 40 minutes.
    Had to rely on parsing to get the unknown AGAMA. After a second session, my last four were OVERNIGHT, STOLE, ONER (have possibly seen this before) and finally RIGHTO. Just over an hour in total.
    An enjoyable and not too difficult puzzle (by Dean’s standards).
    My favourite was CONSUMMATE.
    David
  8. Failed to parse that.
    Had to grind all the way through 9d Cross Pollinate in order to eliminate Pollenate.
    Good puzzle.
    Andyf
  9. Several chewy clues here. 1a took ages to winkle out and needed most of the crossers. OPALESCENT LOI. Had to rely on the wordplay for AGAMA. 27:56. Thanks Dean and K.
  10. Home in 32 mins – so time off for a change!

    FOI 12ac LASS – geddit!?

    LOI 8dn PALLID. I prefer LIMPID as a word, although I used to do ‘Setters’ and ‘Vernons’!

    COD 19ac SLEEPING CAR second prize to 27ac LIE DETECTORS

    WOD 15ac DIPSOMANIAC – ‘er indoors use the word ‘dinkoholic’ when I have a second G&T. Cheers!

    Only 9 takers before me! Sundays appear to have lost their magic!

    Edited at 2021-02-07 11:53 am (UTC)

  11. 23.57. Fun puzzle leavened with a few easier clues. FOI 10ac. LOI 1ac. I liked the CDs middle name and bureau de change.
  12. I enjoyed this puzzle, too. My only hesitation, apart from the lizard of course, was over lie as a synonym for rubbish. Have I missed something. Jeffrey
    1. If someone is talking rubbish, then what they are saying isn’t true, which might (although not necessarily) be because they are lying.
  13. 38 minutes to solve, no problems with this except for APRON. Obviously ON had to be there, but I couldn’t figure out what APR had to do with interest, but P was the only missing letter that made any sense at all, so I biffed it correctly. Like everyone else, I put in AGAMA and ONER from the wordplay. And I wondered a bit if the LASS had crossed the Atlantic. Otherwise, nice puzzle. COD to HEAVEN FORBID for its clever construction.

    Edited at 2021-02-07 07:13 pm (UTC)

  15. Thanks Dean and keriothe
    Did this distractedly and therefore taking longer and quicker to give up and use help to complete the solve which isn’t ideal. Strangely enough, reading the comments above, AGAMA was my second entry having remembered it from crosswords and reading up about it at some stage.
    A few new terms, including APR (annual percentage rate) and DUNGEON (as keep, if that was what is intended). Lots of clever constructions and a number of well-disguised definitions.
    Finished in the NE corner with OPALESCENT (after initially writing in IRIDESCENT, IRIS as rainbow logic), APRON (because of the ignorance of the ‘interest’) and DUNGEON (where I thought that it was a cd, based on where a prisoner would be kept in a ‘keep’ or medieval castle).

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