Sunday Times 4956 by Robert Price

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
19:43. Another very fine puzzle from Bob, who is having a great run. This one was also quite tough, so gave me plenty of enjoyment last Sunday. As usual with this setter there are lots of elegant clues with brilliant surface readings. I don’t generally notice surface readings when solving (they often get in the way so I have trained myself to ignore them), but with Bob I make sure to go back over the clues to appreciate them, even when I don’t have to for blogging purposes.

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

Across
1 Blowing his top, awkward person makes you jump
LUTZ – kLUTZ. It’s an ice-skating thing.
3 Song mostly probing a writer’s devastation
APOCALYPSE – A, PO(CALYPSo)E.
10 Plain or extremely loud check trousers
VELDT – VE(LouD)T. What a great surface. The wordplay is slightly tricky: VET (check) contains (trousers) LD (extremely loud). I was trying to get FF into this for a while.
11 Switch stance on gender identity (9)
TRANSPOSE – TRANS (gender identity), POSE.
12 Italian food in her canapé seems unusual
PARMESAN CHEESE – (HER CANAPE SEEMS)*.
14 Glad that husband has left plenty of petrol
TANKFUL – ThANKFUL.
15 Like sage and thyme, albeit a blend
LABIATE – (ALBEIT A)*. ‘Any plant of the family Lamiaceae (formerly Labiatae), having square stems, aromatic leaves, and a two-lipped corolla: includes mint, thyme, sage, rosemary, etc’.
17 Run drugs deliveries in batches at first
OVERSEE – OVERS (deliveries in batches), EE (drugs).
19 Party, hard one to fit into schedule
ROISTER – RO(I)STER.
20 Union forced to raise legitimate issue
SHOTGUN WEDDING – CD.
23 Fine comic story, so good I can’t tell you
INEFFABLE – (FINE)*, FABLE.
24 Piercing? One’s unduly curious about it
NOISY – NO(I)SY.
25 Dishes for heating synthetic emerald, say
READY MEALS – (EMERALD, SAY)*.
26 Small island bird’s beginning to disappear
INCH – fINCH.
Down
1 Magic drug, not a thing helping save Romeo
LOVE POTION – LOVE (not a thing), POrTION.
2 Give encouraging cry during ecstasy
TOLERANCE – T(OLE)RANCE.
4 Catch it in carp’s close season
PITFALL – carP(IT), FALL. This took me a ridiculously long time to see, just because I didn’t consider the American season.
5 Part of a church’s fortune, land primarily
CHANCEL – CHANCE (fortune), Land.
6 Maybe the tower of Pisa’s special property
LISTED BUILDING – two definitions, one slightly cryptic. I’ve seen this device before.
7 Religious leader in prison over debts
PIOUS – Prison, IOUS.
8 Only some dared enter paradise
EDEN – contained in ‘dared enter’.
9 Swimmers ignoring the youngest’s higher priorities
OTHER FISH TO FRY – the answer can be read to mean ‘fish other than the fry’. I thought the expression was ‘bigger fish to fry’ but it seems both are in use. Years ago I worked for a Frenchman who had a habit of mangling English idioms in often very amusing ways. One of his best was ‘don’t we have juicier cats to fry?’
13 Gully regularly covered by mad prophet’s rock carving
PETROGLYPH – (PROPHET)* containing GuLlY.
16 Appeal to drop the act and admit it is harassment …
ATTRITION – ATTRact(IT)ION. This took me a while because I didn’t recognise the definition. It still seems odd, and I can’t find any obvious support for it in the usual dictionaries. I suppose you could say a war of ATTRITION is a war of harassment but it strikes me as a little bit loose.
18 … just dropping it would be level-headed
EQUABLE – EQUitABLE.
19 Short end of the stick of green wood
RAW DEAL – RAW (green) DEAL (wood). I don’t remember ever coming across this expression before. Edit: the expression I haven’t come across is ‘short end of the stick’. I see now I was far from clear about this!
21 Hard currency put together by a scavenger
HYENA – H, YEN, A.
22 At a wake, stand and drink to an auditor
BIER – sounds like ‘beer’.

32 comments on “Sunday Times 4956 by Robert Price”

  1. Very enjoyable, but surprisingly easy; the only thing I can remember holding me up was trying to recall the word that went with BUILDING. A MER at ATTRITION. DNK LABIATE, READY MEALS. I liked LOVE POTION & SHOTGUN WEDDING, but COD to VELDT.
  2. Thanks, keriothe and Mr Price. I liked Raw Deal (one of many checks — it must be an Americanism, because it’s very familiar here), and Transpose. I took a long time over Noisy, since I usually spell it nosey, not nosy.
    1. When Keriothe said he’d never heard RAW DEAL, I thought it might be an Americanism, but it’s in ODE, unmarked as to region.
      1. I see I was unclear! The expression I’ve never come across is ‘short end of the stick’. I will clarify in the blog.

        Edited at 2021-05-30 09:23 am (UTC)

        1. I’d always known it as “shitty end of the stick” but then I’m from the heathen North.
          1. That at least makes sense. I mean a stick has two ends, which is the short one? How short is the short end of a ten-inch stick? How long is the long end?

            Edited at 2021-05-30 09:43 am (UTC)

            1. I agree it doesn’t make any sense although there’s ‘wrong end of the stick’ (the one that’s shitty?) and ‘drawing the short stick (or straw)’ in a ballot. I suspect it’s a saying that has emerged through usage by people mixing metaphors.
              1. Yes I’m familiar with ‘wrong end’. I can imagine it making sense in a context where people broke a stick between them and the one with the shorter piece was selected for some undesirable task. Rather like breaking a wishbone or pulling a Christmas cracker. But I’m not aware that anyone has ever actually done this, and as I said I don’t remember ever hearing the expression.
                1. That, too, is a pretty common expression in the US. Possible its a bastardisation of drawing the short straw, but its used all the time.
                  1. I looked it up in Greens (dictionary of slang, free online). It says definitely an Americanism and thinks its either polite for Phil’s euphemistically dirty stick, or from ‘short end of the funnel’, which I’d never heard of.

                    Just to say, there seem to me to have been more American phrases or references in the past couple of months in the daily, like the lesser-known of the two NY baseball teams, and more telling, most of the phrases (surprisingly) not mangled. I’m wondering there is a new American or American-influenced setter

                    Edited at 2021-05-30 01:02 pm (UTC)

  3. Make mine a triple!

    FOI 14ac THANKFUL

    LOI 19dn RAW DEAL

    COD 10ac VELDT

    WOD 12ac PARMESAN CHEESE

    Good Price, no Time noted.

  4. Enjoyably challenging and finished in 55 minutes. From memory I think the one that held me up longest was LISTED BUILDING, which I should have seen earlier. LUTZ has been in at least one other place lately so was almost first in; “salchow” or “axel” or one of those other ones would have been another story. RAW DEAL is a familiar term here but still took a while to get. PETROGLYPH was new though made sense from wordplay and the components of the word itself.

    I wondered about ATTRITION too. I know it’s not one of the “usual dictionaries” for crosswords, but the OED has one sense as “The wearing down of the enemy’s strength and morale by unremitting harassment”. (Now if you really want controversy, there are likely to be strong views about which syllable in ‘harassment’ should be stressed).

    Thanks to setter and blogger

    1. No controversy, there’s only correctly (i.e. as I say it) and incorrectly!

      As with ‘controversy’ now I come to think of it.

      Edited at 2021-05-30 05:51 am (UTC)

      1. Yes, it was you I had in mind – I remembered your previous strongly expressed view on the matter! I can take it or leave it but I can see where you’re coming from. The modern pronunciation of “ceremony” is my equivalent bugbear.
        1. While we’re at it a recent bugbear of mine is the use on American TV of the word ‘normalcy’. What is wrong with ‘normality’!?
          It transpires that it all came about in 1920 when Warren G Harding used the phrase, ‘Return to Normalcy’ in his presidential election campaign. America has enjoyed normalcy ever since.
          Gilbert Harding would turn in his grave!

          Edited at 2021-05-30 08:17 am (UTC)

  5. 50 minutes and no queries.

    I’m very surprised re ‘raw deal’ an expression I seem to have known all my life. Brewer’s lists it with no origin and no explanation other than perhaps (to paraphrase) a deal that leaves its recipient feeling raw or hurt. On-line sources suggest that it is an Americanism from around the beginning of the 20th century – so plenty of time for it to have become absorbed into UK English. I suspect I may first have heard it in Western films and TV.

    Edited at 2021-05-30 04:58 am (UTC)

  6. Another great Robert puzzle, done in almost exactly the half an hour. The front half of LOI PETROGLYPH was constructed using my biblical greek. Upon this rock I build my church and scratch graffiti. COD to SHOTGUN WEDDING. I’ve never called someone a clutz, but it’s quite likely I’ve been called one. That’s the way I spelt it as I solved, and I gather it’s acceptable. Thank you Robert and K.

    Edited at 2021-05-30 07:08 am (UTC)

    1. Klutz isa Yiddisha word:it loses its meaning when spelt with a ‘c’! The ‘k’ diminished!
      The Old Warburtonian
  7. Great puzzle. Felt it should have been quicker as was very slow on the Italian food thinking it was going to be Italian words, and both the Tower and Wedding clues caused a few minutes delay even though I knew what I was looking for.

    Really liked TOLERANCE but superb surfaces as always across the board.

    Thanks Messrs P and K

  8. Anther excellent one from Robert. LUTZ my LOI after a long alphabet trawl. I use the expression RAW DEAL so no problem. Loads of candidates for COD but I’ll give it to VELDT.
  9. I’m glad I stuck with this as it was very worthwhile although difficult for me.
    FOI EDEN. Have been aware of “short end of the stick” for decades.
    Had to construct PETROGLYPH and LABIATE but both seemed likely.
    My final three on Monday were ATTRITION,INCH (this has caught me out before) and finally LUTZ, a nice PDM moment which brought back memories of BBC commentators. Anyone remember Alan Weeks? Was he the Lutz man?
    David
    1. He was lutz man, face off man, parallel bars man, butterfly man and others – he seemed ready to commentate on anything.
  10. ….and looked like Indian ink”. Thanks for the earworm of “LOVE POTION #9” Robert ! REM’s “Monty Got a RAW DEAL” never stood a chance against it.

    NHO LABIATE or PETROGLYPH, but both were easy enough to parse.

    FOI PARMESAN CHEESE (“Life is a minestrone”, as 10cc had it)
    LOI LISTED BUILDING (I was slow to see “listed”)
    COD SHOTGUN WEDDING (a hit for Roy C)
    TIME 15:17

  11. Great puzzle from Bob, as usual. Took me 36:19 to vanquish this one, with ATTRITION LOI. Had to construct several, eg PETROGLYPH. Liked SHOTGUN WEDDING. VELDT was a PDM after several journeys up the wrong alley. Thanks Bob and K.
  12. 15:14 …of fun. I loved VELDT, NOISY, READY MEALS, LOVE POTION, LISTED BUILDING and PIOUS in particular. NHO PETROGLYPH, but the wordplay was kind. Thank-you Bob and K.
  13. 29.26. A good and challenging puzzle. In the end it was only the definition part of attrition where I wasn’t certain but took it on trust that it meant harassment. I also wasted time looking for FF instead of LD in the clue for veldt and trying to stick an H for hard as well as an I for one into roister.
  14. I seem to be having a spell of not liking the ST puzzles much, this one at least in part because I struggled with it over 32 minutes and finished with an A in the middle of PETROGLYPH, influenced by Asterix and petra oleum (Asterix and the Black Gold), and (pace BW) my version of Biblical Greek: σὺ εἶ Πέτρος καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. Maybe I should have read the clue.
    At least we only had one cryptic definition: I’m pretty sure it’s been done before almost identically.
  15. Glad I finally stopped in. I remember enjoying this puzzle a lot, but the blog is also much fun, with Keriothe’s gloss on the other/bigger fish-fry, the continuation of the theme with the wrong/short/s….y stick, and the widespread (and quite logical) misunderstanding about which end K’.s gloss on the latter should be picked up by.

    Edited at 2021-05-30 11:08 pm (UTC)

  16. No real problems, just slow and steady. FOI the easy EDEN at 8ac, LOI LUTZ at 1d, which made me smile. Like many here, I like Robert Price’s setting style.
  17. Was also away with EDEN at 8d and finished with LUTZ at 1a (must have been doing the rotated version of what sbeginner was solving!)
    Did stumble on ATTRITION and NOISY for a little while, but it worked itself out in the end. PETROGLYPH was new, but as has been said, the word play was kind. Also didn’t know that ‘sage’ and ‘thyme’ were LABIATE until doing this.
    Smiled at SHOTGUN WEDDING and enjoyed putting a lot of the charades together both before I knew the answer and when trying to justify a definition.

Comments are closed.