Sunday Times 5178 by Dean Mayer – sauce for the goose

Author   keriothePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

21:00. Tricky one from Dean this week, although I don’t remember now (I’m writing this blog on Saturday evening) what held me up. Some lovely stuff here as usual. How did you get on?

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

Across
1 Having cats and dogs as pets in war is daft
RAINSWEPT – (PETS IN WAR)*.
6 In a way, green is yellow
STRAW – ST, RAW.
9 Loyalist ready ahead of anarchy
PATRIOT – PAT (ready), RIOT. As in the RPF, for instance.
10 Spleen’s full of single spirits
WRAITHS – WRA(I)TH’S.
11 Don’t mention vermouth’s on order
OMIT – OM (Order of Merit), IT (short for Italian Vermouth, as in Gin and It, a sort of proto-Martini).
12 In peculiar ties, Hawaiian bandleader
ARTIE SHAW – contained in ‘peculiar ties hawaiian’.
14 Great theatre for Swift plays?
OF THE FIRST WATER – (THEATRE FOR SWIFT)*.
17 I led entire cast in parade for actress
MARLENE DIETRICH – MARCH containing (I LED ENTIRE)*.
18 Possibly poor vision of listeners in darkness
NEAR SIGHT – N(EARS)IGHT. I’m not sure why ‘possibly’ here.
21 Top of the bill — yours truly
ACME – A/C, ME.
23 Over bridge — not a way to carry eggs
OVIDUCT – O, VIaDUCT.
24 Doubly plastered parts always bent
ABILITY – A(BI, LIT)Y. BI here is a prefix.
25 Worry about part of performance
DOING – DO(IN)G.
26 Area of conflict weakest in Spain
PALESTINE – PALEST, IN, E. ‘Conflict’ here is a euphemism.
Down
1 Painter is one about to frame work
ROPE – R(OP)E.
2 I suggest it in a term that’s obscure
INTIMATER – (IN A TERM)*.
3 Former capital city is green, but with parts in ruins
SAINT PETERSBURG – (IS GREEN BUT, PARTS)*.
4 Old deal includes it for surrender
EXTRADITE – EX, TRAD(IT)E. Something one might do to war criminals, for instance.
5 That is what to do with a broken-down vehicle
TO WIT – TOW IT!
6 Hit confirmed by X
SEALED WITH A KISS – a definition referring to a song that I remember very vaguely as a Jason Donovan number, and a cryptic hint.
7 Rat to leave with cat
RETCH – wRETCH.
8 This place is finished!
WESTWARD HO – Westward Ho! is a play by John Webster, subsequently a novel by Charles Kingsley and then a village in Devon, named (weirdly) after the novel. The name of the village has an exclamation mark at the end of it – that is to say, it finishes…! Groan or applaud according to taste!
13 User of tissues, green and blue perhaps
COMMON COLD – COMMON (green, as in Barnes, Putney or Wimbledon near me), COLD (blue, perhaps). Again ‘perhaps’ here seems unnecessary to me.
15 It may depend on grandad
SHIRT TAIL – CD, referring to the collarless ‘grandad shirt’.
16 Roman officials, superior in dress, potency halved
TRIUMVIRI – TRI(U)M, VIRIlity. The Three Pashas – or ‘Young Turks’ – would be another example, notable for their conflict with the Armenians.
19 A party, one elsewhere
ALIBI – A, LIB, I. We’re suddenly doing a Latin crossword: ALIBI does not mean ‘elsewhere’ in English.
20 Offer, say, returned clothes
GET-UP – reversal of PUT, EG.
22 Stamp for letters etc
TYPE – DD.

50 comments on “Sunday Times 5178 by Dean Mayer – sauce for the goose”

  1. Enjoyed this one. Loved ARTIE SHAW and MARLENE DIETRICH, with the former jumping to mind before seeing the hidden. Thankfully, we had OF THE FIRST WATER several weeks ago else I wouldn’t have known it. Liked SEALED WITH A KISS but I remember the Bobby Vinton original from ’72. Biffed WESTWOOD HO and missed the meaning of ‘finished!’. I only knew triumvirate but it wasn’t difficult to come up with the correct ending with half of ‘virility’. K, you missed the ‘It’ in the anagrist of INTIMATER.
    Thanks K and setter.

    1. Brian Hyland actually from the early 6Os, somewhat in keeping with the rather dated feel of this crossword.

      1. Did not know that, so thanks. In his 80s, newly married and still recording, I have just read.

      2. Recorded two years after his biggest hit “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” when he was only 16. There’s an excruciating video of him performing the Bikini song on You Tube.

    2. Yes, I remember Brian Hyland’s version from 1962. Apparently a group called The Four Voices released it first in 1960 but with little or no success.

  3. 48:21
    This was a tough one. I could make no sense of 8d, knowing only the play. Also DNK grandad. Is NEAR SIGHT English? Near-sighted, of course, but near sight? My sight is near? I suppose ‘possibly’ is there because near-sightedness is a matter of degree and isn’t necessarily poor vision. I liked ARTIE SHAW & OF THE 1ST WATER, but COD to ABILITY.

    1. I searched online and was happy that “near sight” is used with the same meaning as “myopia” at least sometimes. Hit results included the full OED, but also included what seemed like real life usage.

      1. I assumed that ‘possibly’ let’s Dean off the hook in other words the definition is ‘possibly poor vision’ knowing that near-sighted is poor vision.

  4. 19A: “alibi” comes from legal Latin, and assisted by the fact that law has lots of Latin, it seems possible to intuit the original meaning that’s mentioned in its dictionary definitions. If someone used an etymology definition like “Hungarian town” for “coach” they would be asked to change it.

  5. A typo in 18d did for me this week. After that I could make no sense of 24a. Second week that’s happened.

  6. This puzzle (and to some extent the Saturday immediately prior) we found quite demanding, and took some hours.
    I thought 19d ALIBI was OK – one would really be claiming to be ‘elsewhere’.
    While there is some admiration: 5d TO WIT and 24ac ABILITY – for brevity and trickiness respectively – there are a few MERs: Not sure whether to admire for cleverness or decry 6d SEALED WITH A KISS for being arcane. Similar for 8d WESTWARD HO.
    Thought 22d TYPE a little thin.
    Also, while this may already be generally understood by most here, I think there is a little more to 15d in that whether ‘grandad’ is a blood relative or a ‘SHIRT TAIL’ might depend on which grandad it is.
    Had to come here for the TRIM part of parsing 16d. Presume that E in 26ac is short for Espana. Still do not quite understand how 25ac DOING works – any help appreciated.
    Apologise for any crossings on posting – will read others.
    Thank you keriothe and setter.

    1. I guess something that’s ‘part of’ something’ is IN it. If something dogs you it worries you.

    2. 25A – DOG and “worry” have a shared meaning, and the IN that is inside “doing” is part of “doing”, possibly a kind of indication that’s used rarely as it seems obvious, but fits well in the surface reading of this clue.
      26A: E is effectively for España, but that doesn’t mean any country name can indicate the first letter of its name in the local dominant language. It comes from IVR abbreviations, which are recorded in English dictionaries, so D=Germany works too, and likewise for other nations who got their choice in first. I encourage ST crossword setters to stick to the subset of IVR codes that you could reasonably expect to see on British roads.

      1. Well the latter is very thorough and useful to know. I did wonder the basis for Chambers listing ‘E’. Thank U.

  7. An hour including use of aids on five or six clues. Very enjoyable in places but other bits were too devious for me. I still don’t understand what ‘finished’ is doing in the WESTWARD HO clue, but fortunately I knew of the place and its literary history.

    There’s a typo at 10ac: WRA(I)ITH should be WRA(I)THS.

    1. I think it’s ’finished!’, as saying that the place we’re looking for is finished with an exclamation mark.

        1. Without disagreeing whatsover with Ur comment, I initially biffed this clue based on crossers and the US concept of ‘go west young man’, then checked and found the English town – to some relief as I was otherwise unconvinced.

        2. Setter could have used two exclamation marks, the second to indicate the audacity of the clue.

          1. And if ! is part of the town name then you will have awkward double punctuation at the end of some sentences- Are we in Westward Ho!? or I’ve never been to Westward Ho!. or Shift yourself out of Westward Ho!!

  8. This one definitely had an old fashioned feel to it, but enjoyed it nonetheless .
    15d ( shirt tail) is a classic example of why CDs can be very frustrating, There is nothing in the wordplay to help you to arrive at the answer and when that answer is a word/phrase you have never heard of in your life, ( or in this case never likely in the future to ) it becomes just a biffing exercise.

    1. But is it not also true that, in some cases, one must guess or ‘biff’ the answer then check parsing – as there are otherwise too many (and not necessarily good) options?

      1. Biff seems to have changed meaning – my understanding was that it came from BIFD = “bunged in from definition”, indicating bafflement about the wordplay in a clue, so not really a possibility for a CD. Cryptic defs are practically always potentially either tricky or a bit too easy. The key to this one is probably recalling the “dangle” meaning of “depend”, and linking that with “tail”.

        1. Thanks- it never crossed my mind that ‘depend’ could mean ‘dangle’- I get it now.

        2. Indeed. I spent some time studying linguistics in my youth so the way words change meaning is very familiar to me. But to see it happen to a very specific term within a couple of years of its invention is quite something!

  9. Not easy; almost exactly an hour longer than our blogger. I couldn’t parse WESTWARD HO which I tried to justify as the answer providing the wordplay – WESTWARD HO indicating a reversal of HO = OH, for ‘finished!’. Wrong on every level and I would never have seen the correct parsing. SHIRT TAIL was an educated guess as I’d never heard of a ‘grandad’ shirt. As alluded to in Mayfair’s comment, SHIRT(-)TAIL is also an adjective meaning “designating a distant relative” (OED) – again new to me.

    I liked the popular culture references, especially the reminder of the 1972 version of SEALED WITH A KISS – thanks Quadrophenia.

    Thanks to Dean and keriothe

  10. Until I started solving online 2 or 3 years ago I never saw the w/e puzzles. Then it took some time to notice setter names on Sunday and even longer to see any pattern in them. I can safely say now that I get on with Robert Price far better than the other 2 but I do recall enjoying this one quite alot.

    90+ mins and a couple of contributions from Mrs rv but nothing NHO or unfair in construction and an opportunity to show off the newly learned First Water.

    Not one aimed at the younger reader and despite pushing 60 I sometimes feel in that category. I keep expecting a poster to call me “young man”. All good fun though. Thanks Dean and keriothe.

  11. Thanks to Dean Mayer and keriothe.
    DNF, 6a, 10a, 24a, 7d, and 22d, so quite hard in my book.
    12a NHO Artie Shaw. Looked him up to confirm existence.
    17a POI, nice to see Marlene.
    24a Unsurprisingly I didn’t get Ability. Complicated I think.
    POI 26a Palestine. I was trying to find anagrams of Spain plus something, Palestine occurred to me and stone me! Spain was just E. Pure luck. Good clue.
    POI 6d Sealed with a kiss. We used to write SWALK on envelopes to girlfriends where L=loving, but I had forgotten the song; fortunately daughter2 remembered it and got Alexa to play it and of course I recognised it then.
    15d Shirt tail. NHO “grandad shirt” so I was a bit foxed here.
    19d Alibi. I assumed that an alibi often proves one was elsewhere so I let it go at that. DNK it is Latin for elsewhere, but I see Google translate does know that.

  12. 36.32

    Some superb clues here – OF THE FIRST WATER MARLENE DIETRICH and SAINT PETERSBURG. ABILITY took a long time even though I was playing around with LIT and BI as I often get caught out when what I think is part of the w/p (bent) is actually the definition. Didnt help that TYPE is rhe sort of DD that I find extremely hard. Even with the Y it needed a few more moments. Had absolutely no idea what was happening with WESTWARD HO. I take my hat off to all the bloggers who must sometimes look at a clue and think “whaaaaaat!” Not that our esteemed blogger fell into that category I am sure 🙂

    1. OK I will confess that I needed third party assistance for the trick in WESTWARD HO, my initial reaction being exactly as you describe!

  13. DNF, beaten by WRAITHS (didn’t know the term) and SHIRT TAIL (not familiar with a grandad shirt so had no chance).

    – Didn’t know there’s such a thing as painter ROPE, so relied on wordplay for that
    – RETCH meaning cat was new to me

    Thanks keriothe and Dean.

    COD Of the first water

      2. (7D) I still don’t know what the intended meaning is. Is the word ‘cat’ actually a synonym for ‘retch’, as in ‘I had a cat’, i.e. ‘I had a spew’ or similarly ‘I catted’, meaning ‘I vomited’? I couldn’t turn up anything online to suggest it.

  14. Actually I found this “relatively” easy for a Sunday. I just went back and looked, I had taken just over 30 minutes and I remember quite well my FOI was Degas and my LOI was Edgar.
    Thanks everyone

  15. I am probably being obtuse (no “probably” about it) but I just don’t understand 15d. I know what a “shirt tail” is, having tucked one into my trousers for many, many decades; I also know that a “grandad shirt” is a collarless one. But how on earth can you conflate the two into this as a cryptic definition?
    For what it’s worth I put SAINT PAUL, only because it fitted and to me makes just as much sense as the proper answer.

    2. It should be worrying for U (Deezzaa) that I also tried a Saint first, then was relieved to find that a ‘shirt tail’ (besides being connected to a type of shirt that’s just a shirt tail, no collar: grandad) could also be a relative that was not a blood relative.
      But (agreed) it’s still a bit of a strange clue.

    3. A tour-de-force from his reverence, but I don’t get ‘PAT’=’ready’, nor RPF. Sorry to be a late thicko…

      1. The required meaning of ‘pat’ is ‘exactly or fluently memorized or mastered’ (Collins). Chambers renders this as ‘with or ready for fluent or glib repetition’ which gets you closer to ‘ready’. It’s a little bit stretchy as a definition though.
        The RPF is the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

  16. Thanks Dean and keriothe
    A tough one for me, reaching the 100 in minutes ! This was the second of catch up ones after being away from a printer for a couple of weeks. Finally got going in the bottom left corner and travelled up the left hand side.
    Didn’t know the bandleader, the saying at 14a, grandad shirt or the village in Devon. Still an enjoyable solve and was able to complete it and fully parse it in the end – with a lot of referential help.
    Finished up in the NE corner with that WESTWARD HO!, WRETCH (after remembering the ‘cat’ term for it) and WRAITH (having to check that meaning of ‘spleen’).

  17. Probably a bit late but you have two “i” in 10a. WRAITHS – WRA(I)ITH.

    Thanks for all the blogs, sometimes we’d be lost without you.

    Tom and Jan, Toronto.

    1. Thanks, now corrected! Hope all is well in Toronto, we were there a couple of months ago as we are every year.

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