Sunday Times 4982 by Dean Mayer – naughty in My sight

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
11:39. Another fine puzzle from Dean. Nothing too difficult, but a few unusual words that required attention to wordplay. My last in was 9d, where the answer seemed obvious but the wordplay certainly wasn’t and I didn’t want to put the answer in without understanding it. I got there after a minute or two.

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

Across
1 One boards alone travelling by air?
EOLIAN – I in (ALONE)*. Variant of AEOLIAN, ‘of or relating to the wind; produced or carried by the wind’, derived from Aeolius Aeolus (thanks Kevin), god of the winds.
4 Bird or dog similar to pig
CURASSOW – CUR, AS, SOW. I didn’t know this bird, so derived it from wordplay. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a blue variety.
10 Various things wrong in barbaric boxing clubs
BRIC-A-BRAC – (BARBARIC)* containing C.
11 Stay at the front?
TRUCE – CD. Stay as in ‘stay of execution’.
12 Weapon hauls shocking, but bishop is fine
WINCHESTER RIFLE – WINCHES, then TERRIBLE with the B (bishop) changed to F (fine). Neat!
13 Trickle from river (from mouth)
OOZE – sounds like ‘Ouse’.
14 Using saws right to crack pistachio nuts
APHORISTIC – (PISTACHIO)* containing R. A saw here being ‘a wise saying, maxim, or proverb’.
17 Our home’s an unusually large residence
MANOR HOUSE – (OUR HOMES AN)*.
19 Overload one’s hire car
TAXI – TAX, I.
22 A concern for the old ticker?
BIOLOGICAL CLOCK – I’m not quite sure how to parse this, but I think ‘ticker’ is just what you might call a ‘cryptic hint’ helping guide you to a clock.
23 Enough anarchy to grip this country
GHANA – contained in ‘enough anarchy’.
24 I hold back, assuming it’s begun
INITIATED – I, reversal of DETAIN containing IT.
25 Horse featured in problematical film
THE STING – T(H)ESTING.
26 A digger oddly worried
ON EDGE – ONE, DiGgEr.
Down
1 Space to drop anchor mounted under barge
ELBOW ROOM – ELBOW (barge), reversal of MOOR. In my twenties I spent more hours than I would care to admit in a pool bar of this name in Notting Hill.
2 Garland trade welcomes new man of great learning
LEIBNIZ – LEI B(N)IZ.
3 A way to get variable interest? No
APATHY – A, PATH, Y.
5 Drunk must conceal wine, which is novel
UNCLE TOMS CABIN – (MUST CONCEAL)*, BIN. A BIN is a storage place but also ‘one particular bottling of wine’ (Collins).
6 A bodybuilder’s heavenly body
ASTEROID – A STEROID.
7 Die of seizure after joke’s backfired
SNUFF IT – reversal of FUN’S, FIT.
8 In place of whiskey, have this
WHERE – W, HERE. ‘Here’ being something you might say when you hand something to someone.
9 Belief in, say, pinning down
PRESUPPOSITION – PRE(SUP)POSITION. ‘In’ being a preposition, and ‘sup’ meanting to eat or ‘down’.
15 Bird, young one, on a river
CHICKADEE – CHICK, A, DEE.
16 Turn back, breaking rank as superior
ARROGANT – reversal of GO (turn) in ARRANT.
18 Gas caused distress for baby
NEONATE – NEON, ATE.
20 Took on work in Bill & Ted
ADOPTED – AD(OP), TED.
21 Begin filming battle
ACTION – what a director says.
22 Produced good leather trousers
BEGAT – BE(G)AT. G (good) is ‘trousered’ by BEAT (leather).

32 comments on “Sunday Times 4982 by Dean Mayer – naughty in My sight”

  1. An entertaining puzzle and an entertaining blog. Thanks, keriothe.
    Thank you, particularly for ELBOW ROOM, UNCLE TOM’S CABIN and PRESUPPOSITION.
    Now that you’ve explained 9d, that’s my COD. I would describe it as a typically succinct Dean Mayer clue.
    I also like EOLIAN and WINCHESTER RIFLE. I get confused between EOLIAN and (the) Aeolian (Islands).
    I always thought LEIBNIZ had a T before the Z.
    I think we’ve had ASTEROID recently.
    Thanks Dean and thanks, again, keriothe.

    Edited at 2021-11-28 01:23 am (UTC)

    1. Leibniz seems to be a rare exception to the rule visible in blitz, Fritz, kibitz and Chemnitz. Maybe a surname or two crept through before Germanic spelling became so consistent.
  2. Couldn’t make anything of 11ac or 8d. Nor could I parse PRESUPPOSITION. A lot of COD candidates: I’ve got checks at EOLIAN, WINCHESTER RIFLE, APATHY, ARROGANT, & BEGAT, but like Martin, now that I get it I’ll go for PRESUPPOSITION.
  3. thanks Keriothe and Dean. I suppose I can agree with ” nothing too difficult”, in that I finally got there in 40:53, though there were times I thought I wouldn’t. Looking at the top line when all completed, one could be forgiven for thinking it might have been a tad challenging.
    Thanks for parsing PRESUPPOSITION & UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. I particularly liked 7d for its very clever surface.
    1. Possibly, SD. As GdS says below it’s a term I associate specifically with a woman’s fertility but it does seem to have a more general meaning so it could well be a reference to the heart.
  5. Helter-skelter through this gift, with Uncle Tom’s Cabin my COD. Also enjoyed CURASSOW – keriothe there is a blue-billed variety Crux alberti among 15 of the genus.
  6. I did not know the wine-related sense of BIN, but wonder if our oenophile blogger really had to look it up. Only realizing now that I, uh, biffed this one. It happens.
    Always nice to learn about another bird! (Pace our cleverly rhyming colleague.)
    I’d always associated BIOLOGICAL CLOCK with not-terribly-old women merely nearing menopause.
    LEIBNIZ’s monadology is one trippy philosophy. Deleuze wrote an absolutely fascinating book on it (and the Baroque), Le Pli, but—unfortunately—I cannot recommend the only English translation.

    Edited at 2021-11-28 03:29 am (UTC)

    1. Any decent ‘offy’ (off-licence) offers ‘bin-ends‘, good wine at knock-down prices-most are not that cheap, but reasonable and potable.
    2. I did know the term BIN, but thought of it more as a container than a term for a wine, so I checked. If I had thought about it a bit more I might have remembered Penfolds, who sell a number of wines with the name ‘Bin X’. Bin 707 Cabernet for instance, which is excellent.
  7. Would I always solve and fully parse The Times (and ST) crossword in it? I achieved or under-achieved 41 minutes on this, with PRESUPPOSITION parsed after the event. I’ve never heard of CURASSOW and needed all crossers. There were many good clues though. COD to APHORISTIC. I liked WINCHESTER RIFLE and BIOLOGICAL CLOCK too. My little CHICKADEE was known both through W C Fields and a long lost girl friend who used to call me that. I hope it was a term of endearment. A good puzzle. Thank you K and Dean.

    Edited at 2021-11-28 08:39 am (UTC)

  8. FOI was BRIC A BRAC and I managed 16 clues in a long first session. I see from my notes that I finished just after 3pm which counts as quick for me on a Dean Sunday.
    I had quite a few unknowns and biffs. Late in were EOLIAN -where’s the A I thought: LOI LEIBNIZ -where’s the T I thought.
    CURASSOW was unknown but easy enough to derive. PRESUPPOSITION was well known but impossible to parse -thank you K.
    Enjoyable and worth while. I liked the smooth surface for MANOR HOUSE.
    David
  9. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of Dean Mayer, he comes along with this one! Found this really tricky, from the NHO first two acrosses through to my LOI 11ac TRUCE. I never fail to forget the WINE/BIN clue, hadn’t come across “grip” as the signal to an inclusion, dismissed OOZE for OUSE…. I never quite got on the wavelength here. A struggle, more due to my shaky competence than his clue-ing, but completed in around 90 minutes, though with aids (dictionary).
  10. The Bible contained much ‘begatting’ if I remember my OT. 22d my LOI

    FOI 6d ASTEROID – as per last week. Rocket launched to shoot it down, I hear.

    COD 4ac CURASSOW – noted philatelically in the Solomon Islands

    WOD 10ac BRIC-A-BRAC

    Guy Leibnitz has covered-off ‘Monadology’, so I won’t take it any further.

    Time: A Sunday Hour of Prayer and Reflection.

    On Edit; I finally not that WOD has finally made it into the Glossary. Thank-you Jerry
    (and Verlaine and Edwina!)

    Edited at 2021-11-28 09:34 am (UTC)

  11. A typo for TAXI so a DNF in about 70 minutes. I found this hard going and couldn’t work out WINCHESTER RIFLE after spending a long time on others like CURASSOW and APHORISTIC. Favourite was PRESUPPOSITION with the innocent looking ‘in’ and ‘down’.

    I always look forward to Dean’s puzzles and this didn’t disappoint. Thanks to him and keriothe

  12. ….whoops ! It didn’t get corrected until I eventually saw SLOI WHERE !

    Another really good puzzle from Dean, although NHO LEIBNITZ except as the manufacturer of some very nice choccy biccies. I liked the old ticker, one of my favourite films at 25A, ELBOW ROOM, and APATHY.

    I might have awarded COD to EOLIAN, but I refuse to do so as a protest about the Americanization of a word that should begin with A. So there ! (stamps foot).

    REAL FOI OOZE
    LOI TRUCE (groan !)
    COD BRIC-A-BRAC
    TIME 13:15

    Edited at 2021-11-28 10:17 am (UTC)

    1. Another TRUSS, I’m glad to see; but mine made WHERE unattainable. And this Murcan has never seen EOLIAN; I only know the word from the harp, and I can’t imagine an Eolian harp. (on edit: Coleridge (NB: an Englishman) wrote ‘An Eolian Harp’.) By the bye, K, it’s Aeolus not Aeolius.

      Edited at 2021-11-28 10:58 am (UTC)

    2. are to die for! Made in Hanover, they were named in honour of Leibniz himself! So you did know after all — but no ‘T’ with this biscuit. They are on sale in Shanghai at City Supermarket. Kunzle cakes hail from Birmingham, but they contained hintz of Austria for me as a kid! Those were the days?
      1. A Kunzle Showboat was a real treat my Mum would occasionally spoil me with. If I’d been better behaved, I suspect those occasions might have been more frequent.
        1. Kunzle get a lot fond memories on-line. I had no idea that the box was called a ‘Showboat’. The annual ‘works outing’ was to Geneva, as the family was originally Swiss.’ Phil I am sure you and John are conversant with ‘Wakes Week’,
          .
          1. My mate and I once made the mistake of going on holiday to Blackpool in Oldham Wakes Week. Not being from Oldham, we didn’t know that “it always rains for Oldham Wakes”. And it did. By Wednesday we were considering building an ark. The sun eventually appeared while we were waiting for the coach home.
    3. The first quotation in the OED for EOLIAN is from 1589 so hard to blame the US. It was the commonest spelling (with Eolien), in those days.
  13. A nice puzzle, with a few unknowns I managed to derive from wordplay. It’s been a busy week so details are now vague, but I think I started with APATHY and finished with PRESUPPOSITION. 28:15. Thanks Dean and K.
  14. Superb puzzle. Excellent blog.

    Struggled with the last few which for me were EOLIAN and LEIBNIZ mainly because I’d put ORAL in unparsed

    Like OOZE TRUCE and EOLIAN in particular but the quality was high throughout

    Absolutely no idea what was going on with the RIFLE but I did watch enough Westerns in my youth for it to be write in

    Thanks all

  15. … to check EOLIAN and CURASSOW

    Thanks Dean and keriothe
    About average time at 46 minutes for this one, that felt initially harder, but the clues typically allowed one to work out the answer. PRESUPPOSITION was the odd one out, was able to get the word, but had no idea about the how. WINCHESTER RIFLE was quite tough to see the word play as well, but at least got that one.
    APATHY was also my first in and finished with ARROGANT and THE STING in the SW corner before really convincing myself that WHERE was right and that TRUCE was the missing ‘stay at the front’ (clever misdirection).

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