Sunday Times Cryptic 4859, Bastille Day 2019, by David McLean — Very light

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Sitting by a fierce fan on this first day of the latest US heat wave, I’m very glad that this one is so easy to write up. It also seems calculated to make me wish I were at the beach.

I do (sarmgana)* like this, and italicize anagrinds in the clues.

ACROSS
 1 This bad habit can be thrilling (4-6)
NAIL-BITING — DD
 7 Convention full of people, I’m told (4)
PACT — ”Packed”
 9 Swimmer navy doctor saves close to port (8)
STURGEON — S([-por]T)URGEON. Adding to the nautical flavor of the surface, “navy” also narrows down “doctor” to the one on a ship, as in the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail, but also as early as 2nd-century Rome. (We’re still by the sea in the next two clues…)
10 Cloud over boat moored in Denmark (6)
DARKEN — D(ARK)EN
11 Swift pint after walk by the seashore (6)
PROMPT — PROM + PT
13 Worried to enter flipping boozer in bad condition (6-2)
BEATEN-UP — The “boozer” is a PUB, which, “flipping,” includes EATEN, “worried”
14 Tell the group in disarray to do this? (4,8)
PULL TOGETHER — (tell the group)* &lit
17 I consider it wrong to conceal new fling (12)
INDISCRETION — Well, if you have an open marriage… (I consider it)* + N
20 Important law abruptly overturned by judge (8)
CRITICAL — CRITIC, “judge” + LA[-w]<=
21 Bird circling head of Iberian horse (6)
HEROIN — HERO(I)N
22 Fish trap on river gathering the odd fish? (6)
WEIRDO — WEIR, “fish trap on river” + DO, “gathering”—is “the” supposed to be part of the definition?
23 Article put out on home brewing (2,3,3)
IN THE AIR — ”Article” being THE, “put out” being AIR, and both being attached to IN, “home”
25 A kind of light fitting (4)
VERY — DD. One of my last ones in, though I thought of the answer immediately. The first definition rang just a faint bell (“a pyrotechnic signal in a system of signaling using white or colored balls of fire projected from a special pistol”)—I must have seen it here once—and the sense of the second was slightly elusive. Adding emphasis to a noun, VERY means “exact, particular”—as in the very word wanted, le mot juste… But “fitting” seems less intense; I might say someone’s remarks on some occasion are “fitting,” meaning not inappropriate, but applaud someone else’s intervention as being absolutely right on, the very thing that needed to be said. Nuance.
26 One providing warning via illuminating point? (10)
LIGHTHOUSE — CD. Near as I can make out, that’s all this is. “Point” is part of the names of many lighthouses, a point being a narrow strip of land that reaches into the sea. (Lighthouse Beach, on Fire Island, used to be my favorite getaway…)

DOWN
 2 Lotion fat nurse applied liberally! (8)
AFTERSUN — (fat nurse)*
 3 Christmas starts to leave one ragged (3)
LOR — First letters of last three words. “Christmas!” as an exclamation. Short for “Lord!” Where I come from, you might hear “Lordy!”
 4 Clumsy relations entertaining writer sent up (5)
INEPT — IT<=,”relations,” hosts PEN<=
 5 Some feel bong is backward and inferior (7)
IGNOBLE — I prefer vaping. Reverse hidden
 6 Gangster shot dead by chap who’s been collared? (9)
GODFATHER — GO, “shot” + D, “dead” + FATHER, “chap who’s been collared” (priest)
 7 Reporter apt to distort cause of crime (11)
PERPETRATOR — (Reporter apt)*
 8 In hearing, vet provides settlement, of a sort (6)
CHEQUE — ”Check”
12 I’m so utterly stupid on many levels (11)
MULTISTOREY — (I’m so utterly)*
15 Group of Conservative thinkers from Winchester? (3,6)
OLD SCHOOL — Winchester being literally an “old school.”
16 Guards surrounding irregulars at front lines (8)
POLICIES — POLIC(I)ES
18 Foreign article about cutting support for flogging (7)
SELLING — ”Foreign article about” = LE<= , interrupting “support,” SLING. EL is a foreign article too, cierto, but “about” also helps the surface…
19 Don’t move and chill to a certain degree (6)
FREEZE — DD
21 Start playing chart success on X-Factor (3,2)
HIT IT — HIT, “chart success” on IT, that certain sexy something
24 I like love (3)
EGO — E.G. + O

26 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic 4859, Bastille Day 2019, by David McLean — Very light”

  1. Dear Guy, it’s 95F here in Shanghai at noon and is set to rise to 100F for a week or two!

    Last Sunday was easier as was this crossword which took me 33 minutes.

    FOI 4dn INEPT

    LOI 23ac IN THE AIR

    COD 22ac WEIRDO

    WOD 3dn LOR! (Lor’luv’aduck!)

  2. ….is a concept that is new to me, so I had to biff LOR. The parsing was straightforward though. I also failed to see “gathering=do” at 22A, and looking at the clue again I’m not impressed by it.

    My LOI required an alpha-trawl, but shouldn’t have done.

    FOI PACT
    LOI POLICIES
    COD IN THE AIR
    TIME 15:12

    1. On TV shows such as ‘Sorry!’ and ‘Terry and June’, it was used by those who wished to refrain from using the possibly blasphemous ‘Christ!’

      ‘A bit of a do’ is ‘a gathering’ surely?

      As for 22ac – lousy clue IMHO.

      Edited at 2019-07-21 06:32 am (UTC)

      1. I totally agree on “A Bit of a Do” (which was David Nobbs’ underrated follow up to Reginald Perrin), but it simply didn’t click.
        1. David Nobbs- his books are wonderful.
          From memory the opening line of ‘A Bit of a Do’ is:-
          ‘Bugger off’, said the parrot, unaware of its impending doom.
  3. For me most of this was gettable and enjoyable but I got completely stuck on three clues. At 22a I had NETRIO; the gathering probably did for me.I did have VERY at 25a but had no idea about the parsing -so thanks for that.
    And at 16d I had MONITORS. I never saw LINES as the definition and it’s a word which comes up so often and with so many meanings.
    Need to walk the dog early this morning as the tee times at The Open have been brought forward. Can Lowry hold his nerve?
    David
  4. I was about the half-hour on this, with LOR and VERY both entered from the second definition. I’d have never thought of LOR for Christmas if I’d been here till kingdom come, although I can remember the terms. Verily, I didn’t know of a VERY light. I saw WEIRDO straightaway and was happy with DO for gathering. Nice to see Tim Vine’s award-winning one-liner as a retread in 12d, so COD to MULTISTOREY. (Crime in multistorey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels.) Thank you Guy and David.
  5. I struggled a bit with this one, sometimes to understand the parsing when I already had an answer I knew to be correct. A week later I wonder what my problem was.
  6. Bit peeved with this, not because it took me 33 minutes but because I’m prepared to cry foul. At 23 I have IN THE MIX, which looks pretty fair for brewing, and I can’t see why “put out” couldn’t translate to mix. Of course, even if VAR allows the appeal, it’s too late to stand a chance at the gold pen, but not too late to salve my wounded pride and even reduce my error count. Ref?
    2. I’m happy that “in the mix” matches the definition closely enough, but I can’t see a meaning of “put out” that equates to “mix” (and I’ve looked at the Longman Dictionary of phrasal verbs as well as the usual references — standard dictionaries are not always strong on PVs).
  7. No time for this, but I think it a little over average for me.(i.e. about 25 minutes) I also puzzled over “fitting” for “very” and the “Illuminating point”, which I took to refer to the beam radiating from a point. POLICIES my LOI. I liked NAIL-BITING and PULL TOGETHER but COD to GODFATHER.
  8. I got through all of this bar 22, and eventually gave up. I think it’s not impossible that on a morning where I wasn’t trying to solve this over a full English in a hotel while valiantly battling a hangover I’d have been fine, but not knowing that meaning of “weir” did make things rather harder…

    Perhaps if I’d managed to dismiss the idea that I was (yet again) looking for some unknown fish it would have suddenly turned easy!

    Edited at 2019-07-21 09:57 am (UTC)

  9. DNF. I took ages to get weirdo and couldn’t understand how Christmas meant lor, fortunately the word play for that one was clear but sadly I failed to see the light at 25ac. I just didn’t know very in that sense and fitting was too vague for me to get to it from the other angle. Very frustrating to come up short.
  10. DNF. I couldn’t get 25ac, which is a combination of an obscure meaning and a highly questionable one. The word ‘very’ in the expression ‘the very thing’ means ‘precise’. Your example demonstrates this: if you said ‘the fitting thing that needed to be said’ the word ‘fitting would be redundant. The word ‘very’ isn’t because it means something different. It’s true that the Collins definition includes the word ‘suitable’ but that’s not good enough IMO.
  11. Put out
    (pʊt aʊt)
    verb, transitive
    15. crosswords
    to mix, rearrange, form an anagram from
    1. Why thank you. It was one of those things where put out and mix (up, perhaps) sounded close enough not to require further thought. In Chambers, put out includes “publish” but not “air”, so you have to do a bit of a 3 point turn for that, too.

      Edited at 2019-07-21 03:04 pm (UTC)

      1. That definition is of course from the Dictionary of My Imagination, but I think the point stands.
        1. As far as I know, “in the mix” means only “included.” To say something is an ingredient of whatever is brewing—or baking, or cooking… doesn’t seem equivalent to the idiomatic sense of the lone word “brewing.”

          I’m still getting (Anonymous!) comments saying that RACKS was just as good as RICKS for an answer a couple weeks ago (“Stacks of wrenches,” DD). Well, no, it’s not… I think this opinion can only be held by someone who just didn’t think of RICKS when working the puzzle.

  12. Another In The Mix, with the same rational – to mix up = to put out. Also forgot the vaguely known Very Pistol, and never would have unraveled that meaning for Very.
  13. Really enjoyed this one, and especially MULTISTOREY, WEIRDO and LOR, which I had no problem with, fortunately. I wonder if there’s mileage in a crossword theme of squeamish euphemisms for God! and Christ! Eg jeepers, crivens, gee etc. I suppose you might have to clue them without definitions though.

    Unusual to see d for dead (6d) in the ST, as it’s in Chambers only. It’s ‘died’ in Collins and ODE.

    – Nila Palin

  14. No problem with VERY light as a signalling device. WEIRDO took a while to parse. I saw LOR straight away but didn’t put it in until I had the checkers. Billy Bunter then came to mind to confirm it. POLICIES was my LOI. Can’t remember where I started. 34:12. Thanks Harry and Guy.
  15. Thanks David and guy
    In our syndicated version in this Saturday’s Weekend Australian, the clue at 13a had ‘booze’ instead of ‘boozer’ and the enumeration for 23a was (2,3) – so had to guess what it really was … having it as the last one in – eventually deduced the (2,3,3) option … and thankfully opted for the AIR answer rather than the MIX one.
    Ended up getting it completed with all but WEIRDO fully parsed after having three sittings and just under the hour and a half to do it.
    Hadn’t seen the ‘CHRISTMAS’ and ‘lor’ expressions before, although could see afterwards how they would’ve come about.
    Was surprised that so many people had a problem with VERY – have seen it come up numerous times over the years in puzzles – so obviously not so frequent in the Times / Sunday Times ones ! It was my second one in.
    Found it quite tough but very enjoyable.

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