Sunday Times Cryptic 4819, by David McLean — Comma chameleon

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
It was pleasant looking back over this puzzle, which I recall as a(n) 13ing outing, after a week. In the first edition of this blog, I thought that the one clue where I detected a problem still seemed deficient when I came back to it, but Jackkt and Kevin have set me straight. I would guess that most of y’all got through this one in a speedy fashion. I was watching YouTube while I worked it.

There sure were a lot—eight, plus one partial!—of (mangaras)*. Anagrinds are italicized in the clues.

ACROSS

 1 I don’t know bishop in drink, okay (8)
PASSABLE—PASS or “I don’t know” + AL(B)E
 5 American beer had befuddled one supposedly enlightened (6)
BUDDHA—That brew, to speak loosely, would be BUDweiser + (had)*. I sort of like the sceptical “supposedly,” though my impression is that Guatama was on to something.
10 New man cutting top of lip in close shave (4,5)
NEAR THING—N + EARTH[-l]ING
11 Song of soprano that nut producer picks up (5)
PSALM—P(S)ALM
12 Banker head of redundancy put up in temporary digs? (5)
TRENT—T(R)ENT. “Banker” is a word used for a river only in crosswords, cf. “flower”
13 Flirt with nurse I natter about (9)
ENTERTAIN—(EN or “nurse” + I natter)*. As in “entertain an idea.” Sometimes the anagrind is “nurse.” (At first I had RN for “nurse,” as I was not familiar with the British term “enrolled nurse” and hadn’t bothered to actually work out the anagram. Thanks again to Kevin.)
14 Decide a map needs altering for military adviser (4-2-4)
AIDE-DE-CAMP—(Decide a map)*. This was my FOI. Bit of an echo below. (Did Ondine or Billy Name act as Warhol aides-de-camp? …Sorry.)
17 Fail to understand one teaching classes (4)
MISS—Double definition (and the real thing). Do English schoolchildren still call their (female) teachers “Miss”? What about the male ones? I really want to know.
19 One costly, but ultimately lacking, plan (4)
IDEA—I (“one”) + DEA[-r]
20 Horror story provided by Don King’s stylist? (4-6)
HAIR-RAISER—Har de har har
22 Knight tyrannised after daughter’s gone and proposed (9)
NOMINATED—N is for “knight” (because the king gets the K) + [-d]OMINATED
24 Yearn to have a partner, in practice? (5)
COVET—I should have gotten CO[-]MET a lot more quickly Friday, having already worked this one not quite two weeks ago. My friend Emma is a veterinarian, but I don’t know if she shares her practice.
26 A large group of people going around island (5)
ATOLL—How exactly is this supposed to work? It comes close, but… Lessee. A is A and “large” is L; in between we have a “group of people” going around, LOT <—. There’s nothing to say the A and L are themselves going around (the backward) LOT. Am I missing somethi I don’t know why I couldn’t see that after the A both L(arge) and LOT are going backwards. D’oh!
27 One plated molar lad cracked around lunchtime? (9)
ARMADILLO—(molar lad + I [or “1” for “lunchtime”])*
28 Equipment associated with school camp (6)
KITSCH—KIT +SCH(ool).
29 Advance publicity awful types ultimately diss (8)
PROGRESS—PR + OGRES + [-dis]S

Down
 1 Travelling up mountain track, perhaps (11,4)
PUNCTUATION MARK— (up mountain track)* I’m not 2’ed to say that this was my LOI, the definition was so carefully camouflaged. I love this trick, which we don’t see often, though probably often enough (you wouldn’t want to ruin the element of surprise).
 2 Fraud finally destroyed yours truly? Oh, that’s awful! (5)
SHAME—SHA[-m] + ME. Of course, all of SHAM is actually there too, but then you’d just be left with E. Still seems a little odd to lop off the M just to add it again, though this kind of thing is done often enough (if not too often. Ha).
 3 New IT update for facility (8)
APTITUDE—(IT update)*
 4 French department learning about head of interior (5)
LOIRE—LO(I)RE
 6 Politician’s anger with posh Lord’s official? (6)
UMPIRE—M(ember of) P(arliament) IRE “with” (coming before it) U for “posh.” “Politician’s anger” has to be read as “Politician has anger,” which always irks me a bit because one so rarely hears this particular elision in real life (as opposed to the contraction of “has” as a helping verb).
 7 Aberrant mad and racist histrionics (9)
DRAMATICS—(mad + racist)*
 8 Governments reshuffling amid transitions (15)
ADMINISTRATIONS—(amid transitions)*
 9 Soldiers might be prepared before one goes off (3,5)
EGG TIMER—Cryptic definition, “soldiers” being little strips of toast for sticking into soft-boiled eggs at breakfast
15 Hot chap doing Rome with a bad temperature (9)
DREAMBOAT—(ROME + A BAD T[emperature])*
16 Give a hand to break up upset cobblers (8)
CLAPTRAP—CLAP + PART <—
18 Party in possibly automatic Golf tailed guard (8)
WATCHDOG—“automatic” is kind of WATCH (hence “possibly”), which has “Party,” or DO, between it and G(olf), or “in” them
21 Finish cut on black, short hair all at once (2,4)
EN BLOC—EN[-d] or “Finish cut” + B(lack) + LOC[-k] or “short hair”
23 Object veterinarian used to restrain bird (5)
DEMUR—The vet is a DR, holding that flightless wonder the EMU
25 Cost of treasure (5)
VALUE—Double definition, though the two are not so disparate as to produce any kind of spark

28 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic 4819, by David McLean — Comma chameleon”

  1. I think the definition is ‘Lord’s official’ (you haven’t accounted for the Lord’s), Lord’s being the cricket place.
  2. RN + I NATTER ? That’s 2 R’s and 1 N. I think it’s EN (enrolled nurse) + I NATTER.
    1. Oh, gawd, I’d never heard of that. Thanks again! I think I’m going out for a drink.
      1. Actually, I’d never heard of it either; I just now looked EN up. But at the time I remembered SEN, which has shown up a couple of times, so I figured there was an EN too.
  3. A pb for one of Harry’s puzzles. I didn’t get the earthling bit in 10ac, just biffing it. And I didn’t know ‘automatic’=WATCH. COD to 1d, both for the definition–for once I wasn’t tricked by this device–and for the very impressive anagram.
    1. Yeah, it also slipped my mind that this was an anagram, making eight full anagrams in this puzzle.
      As is no doubt evident, I didn’t get around to this until the very last minute this week.

      Edited at 2018-10-14 04:33 am (UTC)

        1. Jeez, now I feel stupid. I wish I could delete my reply to Jackkt, but now it’s impossible.

          Edited at 2018-10-13 11:59 pm (UTC)

        2. Yes, I had already acknowledged this by the time you wrote again, but it took Kevin to finally knock it into my hard head.
        3. Thanks, Kevin. We’re saying the exactly same thing but using slightly means of expressing it. The A is separate, then the L and LOT are taken together and reversed.

          Edited at 2018-10-14 12:00 am (UTC)

          1. Of course, if “going around” covers more than one word, it’s arbitrary to stop before the A.
            That’s what threw me.
            (I wasn’t totally insane.)
            That would give you TOLLA

            Edited at 2018-10-14 12:15 am (UTC)

  5. Thanks for the blog. The parsing of 27a is missing the I, which I believe comes from ‘lunchtime’ (1pm).

    Paul G

    1. Yep, that’s sure how I parsed it last week! Should’ve kept notes! Ha. Thanks

      Edited at 2018-10-14 04:34 am (UTC)

  6. 12 minutes, which would have been sub 10 if I hadn’t biffed IN SYNC for EN BLOC before the ATOLL saved me. Have to dash to meet daughter, who’s running the half marathon in Hyde Park. Thank.you Guy and setter.
  7. 44 minutes, with the north-west the hardest.

    FOI 9d ADMINISTRATIONS, which was a nice long starter and probably explains why I mostly worked from right to left. LOI 2d SHAME. Enjoyed 1d PUNCTUATION MARK. Took a while to see 20a HAIR-RAISER as I had no idea who Don King was.

    MER at the “supposedly” in 5a BUDDHA; hopefully the Equal Opportunities Commission will ensure Christ is clued as “possibly” the son of God in future puzzles…

  8. Number of anagrams: I don’t impose a limit, though I suspect some setters impose their own before I see their work. I have once or twice suggested changing a couple of anagram clues when I noticed the high count myself in test-solving. In this case, I didn’t notice it.
  9. I found this trickier than some of you, taking 39:59 to solve it, with the cunning PUNCTUATION MARK LOI. Very enjoyable with lots of penny drop moments. DREAMBOAT took a while. Thanks Harry and Guy.
  10. 15 minutes, with 1d my LOI once I saw what could fit the P word that wasn’t PENETRATION, which was far too long. Very enjoyable. thanks for blogging it Guy.
  11. 9:20. Fairly uneventful solve.
    The answers to your questions at 17ac are ‘yes’ and ‘sir’.
    1. How quaint. Is this regardless of a schoolmistress’s age, and is it the same when she is known to be married?

      Edited at 2018-10-14 07:53 pm (UTC)

      1. Apparently so. It is quaint, isn’t it? So much so that I checked with my kids that this is still the practice.
  12. 53:31 for me. I was on track for a time of around 30 mins but couldn’t see my LOI 1dn for ages. The comma being so unobtrusive compared to its showier relations the question and exclamation marks. It didn’t look terribly anagrammable so I wasted a lot of time thinking I was looking for a song (track) cryptically defined by travelling up mountain. The light did dawn eventually, probably from an age spent staring at the checkers. A very good clue although as the blogger says, we can’t have that particular device too often.
  14. Back home after a day in Manchester.
    I thought this was another very enjoyable DM puzzle. I managed to solve it over two sessions of about an hour each and LOI was 1d,which on reflection wins COD. COVET also very good.
    I struggled mainly in the SW, partly because I did not have the starting letters which 1d would have given. Atoll and En Bloc both took a while.
    David

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