Sunday Times 5154 by Dean Mayer – very nearly an armful

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

9:15. Not a difficult puzzle by Dean’s standards this week, but the usual high quality. Nothing unknown for me, although almost any other word for a plant would have been equally helpful to me at 17ac and if you’d asked me exactly what a 6ac was I’d have struggled to tell you. How did you get on?

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

Across
1 Provider of grounds for gossip?
RUMOUR MILL – CD.
6 In Greece, walk from Athens to Argos
STOA – contained in ‘Athens to Argos’. A STOA is ‘a portico, as in ancient Greece, having a wall on one side and pillars on the other’ and a portico is ‘a covered walkway in the form of a roof supported by columns or pillars, esp one built on to the exterior of a building’ (Collins).
10 Everybody turned on the radio
WORLD – sounds like ‘whirled’.
11 Semiquaver is the next for playing
SIXTEENTH – (IS THE NEXT)*.
12 Peculiar match – a peculiar drug
PHARMACEUTICAL – (MATCH A PECULIAR)*.
14 Piggy in the middle?
ROAD HOG – CD. In the middle of the road.
15 Stay out late
SLEEP IN – CD.
17 Climbers examine unfinished bunker
VETCHES – VET, CHESt. You might call a coal bunker a chest, and Chambers defines ‘bunker’ as ‘a large bin or chest, esp for coal’.
19 A doctor stood as a theologian
AMBROSE – Saint A, MB, ROSE. Never heard of him.
20 A little trouble brewing?
STORM IN A TEACUP – CD.
23 Cornering, going off
ON THE TURN – this is a case of the kind of clue I was discussing with Peter B last week. Although ‘cornering’ indicates the whole of the answer, I don’t consider it a definition because it does not correspond to a recognised meaning of the phrase ON THE TURN. So I personally don’t underline it. Other approaches are available!
24 No reported sound from 4?
NEIGH – sounds like ‘nay’. Referring to 4dn.
25 Wise to release one bird
ERNE – ERNiE.
26 A provider, perhaps?
BLOOD DONOR – CD, A being a blood group.
Down
1 Being outspoken, provoke disputes
ROWS – sounds like ‘rouse’.
2 Military review one month ago
MARCH PAST – MARCH (one month), PAST (ago).
3 He made them run off and run a lot
UNDER THE HAMMER – (HE MADE THEM RUN)*, R. What a great anagram!
4 Face straddling small brown horse
MUSTANG – MU(S, TAN)G.
5 US airport head’s negligence
LAXNESS – LAX (Los Angeles International Airport), NESS.
7 Do not put up with one having cold
TONIC – reversal of NOT, I, C. Do as in do-re-mi. Very nicely concealed.
8 Light-headed types like Cinders?
ASH BLONDES – a definition and a cryptic hint.
9 Perhaps careless, spread and breathe fire
FEATHERBRAINED – (AND BREATHE FIRE)*.
13 Most serious joke as memorial
GRAVESTONE – GRAVEST, ONE.
16 Riot in support of union
PROFUSION – PRO, FUSION.
18 Animal, in some ways American, reared
SENSUAL – reversal of LA(US)NES.
19 He loved Sebastian — a ridiculous notion
ANTONIO – A, (NOTION)*. A Twelfth Night reference.
21 Decimal, in many cases
OFTEN – OF TEN.
22 Fish daily
CHAR – DD.

25 comments on “Sunday Times 5154 by Dean Mayer – very nearly an armful”

  1. I always end up having to check answers in a dictionary when I do one of Dean’s puzzles as although I can usually fathom the answer from the wordplay, invariably it’s a word I’ve never come across. This crossword was no exception with unknowns such as STOA and VETCHES, but both gettable from the wordplay.

    Some beautiful clueing here such as ‘Piggy in the middle’ for ROAD HOG, ‘A provider’ for BLOOD DONOR, ‘stay out late’ for SLEEP IN, etc, etc. They’re probably chestnuts but I still enjoy solving them. Liked STORM IN A TEACUP and COD to MARCH PAST after thinking the setter had thought it was April before the penny dropped.

    Thanks K & DM.

  2. First in was 1a COFFEE SHOP, which seemed to work quite well, until it didn’t .

    At 16d I took ‘riot in support’ to be one of the infinite ways to indicate an anagram and came up with a PRONUPIST as one who’d be in favour of nuptials. Alas, it didn’t work for long either.

    Ernie Wise was a a brilliant misdirection.
    27mins

  3. I didn’t understand ‘bunker’, nor did I know that VETCHES climb, but it was biffable. I (mis)spent a lot of time assuming that ‘animal’ meant an animal (K, you’ve inserted (US) in the wrong place). AMBROSE, neatly enough, is one of the so-called Doctors of the Church (along with Augustine, Jerome, and a couple of others). I liked SLEEP IN & BLOOD DONOR,

  4. 41m 55s
    Like Corymbia I started with COFFEE SHOP in 1ac
    I liked ROAD HOG, SLEEP IN and BLOOD DONOR; typical Anax clues I thought.
    Swansea City FC’s old home ground was called the VETCH Field. I wonder if that was the same sort of VETCH?
    Thanks, Keriothe.

  6. The difference with “on the turn” is between an idiomatic meaning that needs to be recorded in dictionaries and a meaning that anyone giving navigational instructions in a car could use, relying on the meanings of the individual words.
    In a similar way, “round the bend” and “just around the corner” have idiomatic meanings which are much more likely to be in a dictionary.

    So we’re still differing about whether a “definition” needs to be what a dictionary says, or something that matches a possible meaning.

  7. AMBROSE has been used elsewhere in The Times’ crosswords, maybe Mephisto. Too many CDs in this week’s for my liking. They always worry me in case I’ve missed a subtle wordplay.

    1. According to St Augustine in his Confessions Ambrose was the object of much wonderment with his habit of sitting over a book for long periods and reading it…. silently! I assume this means the common practice was just to read aloud before Ambrose came along.

  8. 29 minutes, so for me this was on the easy side for a Dean Mayer puzzle.

    STOA and VETCHES were both known so gave me no trouble other than not understanding ‘bunker’ or where CHES came from. Chambers has ‘bunker’ as a window-seat and chest.

  9. By Dean’s exacting standards a very gentle offering, with no unknowns as such, except that I couldn’t have told you that Vetches were climbers or that Ambrose was a theologian as well as a saint. Given that the clues were still of the highest standard, it was even more enjoyable than usual, with only AMBROSE and PROFUSION causing me nervousness – FONF (fear of not finishing!) – at the end. ERNE made me laugh.

  10. 25.36

    Superb puzzle imho. Too many CODs but ROAD HOG was vg.

    I was held up for some time at the end on SENSUAL – completely missed the parsing; was looking for an animal; needed a few trawls to find a word that fitted and even then needed to come here to understand it. Kippered all ends up but the good thing anout these things is that I still got it!

    Thanks K and D. Great stuff

  11. I agree with those who say there are too many CDs. Nice definitions but cop-outs because they’re only half a clue. How good the clues would be if they had wordplay as well.

  12. I enjoyed this more than most Sundays and managed a fast for me 27 mins.
    Where better for CDs than a Cryptic crossword? RUMOUR MILL was esp good.
    Vetches are common weeds and pretty wild flowers often seen in hedges round here.
    Excellent puzzle, thanks both

    1. 5 CDs in 28 clues (if I’ve counted correctly) doesn’t seem excessive to me, especially when they are of such a high standard. They provide variety and often add a little humour to the proceedings.

      1. Well I’m sorry Jack, but it does to me. And nobody has ever to my satisfaction answered my point about CDs being nice definitions but only half-clues. Not even top setters and solvers. I just can’t understand why people like them so much.

        1. Perhaps because they are mostly humorous?

          Missed sensual, having eschewed the cheat book. Thank you setter and blogger.

  13. A very archaic phrase, surely, RUMOUR MILL? So archaic that I’d forgotten it. If I’d have had the courage of my convictions, and written ROWS in place, I might have gotten it sooner…Had STOA straight away (unsure of that meaning), and ASH BLONDES fell soon after. Hard work making the anagram at 12a, but satisfying. Helped a lot with the phrase at 3d. MARCH PAST was another gimme, but certain clues remained stubborn ( like SIXTEENTH, as I’d no idea of the musical reference). Liked STORM IN A TEACUP ( though it may be a chestnut) and the neat OFTEN.

  15. Thanks Dean and keriothe
    An oldie that I had started on the day and it obviously got lost in the pile for a few months before it was finished. Struggled more than most taking over an hour and a half to complete the grid.
    I do like cd type clues that are clever and all of them were here, as was the trick with ‘A provider’.
    Finished all over the place with the very good SLEEP IN, PROFUSION and SENSUAL the last one in.

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