Sunday Times Cryptic 4867, 8 IX 2019, by Dean Mayer — Save the day

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
IN THIS DAY AND AGE—the latter being the Anthropocene—it behooves us to take a CONSERVATIONIST stance. Realistic forecasts of imminent change give me the WILLIES. Just look at what’s happening to our OCEANS. Is that SEA TANGLE really plastic? Of course, we know whom to blame: 1 across (in another sense besides the two given there).

The disaster immediately before us is 11. Two weeks ago, there was a clue whose definition fell short of a perfect fit, and here another setter confronts me with the same sort of error, which I am duty-bound to highlight. (EDIT: See editor Biddlecombe’s elucidation below.)

Difficulty-wise, this just seemed about par for the course, though I did resort to Chambers Word Wizard for my LOI, 23, a phrase heretofore unknowne.

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

ACROSS
 1 For example, the “A” of “A1” (7)
CAPITAL — DD? But the two overlap, thanks to the word “the”—wouldn’t have to, but they do. Does that make this an &lit? I say no, because you can ignore the “the” and read the first part as a straight definition in itself, without needing the wordplay (which apparent reference to paper size alludes, as I’m sure you’ve all figured out, to the word’s sense in a phrase like “Capital idea!”).
 5 Crack pan and empty pot (7)
DECRYPT — DECRY (“pan”) + P[-o]T
 9 Dying a death is an upset now (2,4,3,3,3)
IN THIS DAY AND AGE — (Dying a death is an)* Turns out there there is nothing intrinsically morbid about the answer, though I’ve done my best, above, to load it with a baleful subtext.
10 In B&B, need the whole bar (9)
BLACKBALL — B(LACK)B + ALL
11 Close to complete, so complete (5)
EVERY — [-complet]E + VERY, “so”… The closest I’ve come to making a sentence where EVERY could replace “complete” is with the phrase “take every care”; but “take every care” and “take complete care” use slightly different senses of the word “care,” countable and uncountable. (Edit: Peter Biddlecombe, below, defends this with the phrase “have every confidence in,” so OK. I wonder if this is really the only such example… and it still grates on my ear.)
12 Heading for Clacton on Sea, wasted huge amounts (6)
OCEANS — C[-lacton] + (on Sea)*
13 Mostly free ice and fizzy drink over brandy (8)
CALVADOS — CALV[-e] + SODA<= Here “free” is a verb, and when an iceberg or glacier releases a huge chunk of frozen water it is said to (like a cow giving birth) “calve.” Thanks, Dean, for another subtle reference to climate change.
16 Blushing now, playing around as you’d expect (2,6)
NO WONDER — ”Blushing,” RED + NOW, ON, “playing” <=
18 Bones in back area (6)
STERNA — STERN + A
21 A lot of this eliminates backtracking (5)
MILES — Hidden reversed
22 In opening drink, starts to taste sausage (9)
CHIPOLATA — C(HIP)OLA + TA[-aste]… “In” being “hip,” dig
23 Hand (in hand?) (6-2,7)
JOINED-UP WRITING — A “hand” as in a writing style, i.e., cursive, with a reference to the expression “hand in hand.” A phrase new to me. (I parsed this more thoroughly in the comment to Bletchleyreject below. Now it looks like an &lit.)
24 Award increased titles, oddly (7)
ROSETTE — ROSE, “increased” + TTE, odd letters in “TiTlEs”
25 Money put into West End’s opening show (7)
MATINEE — MA(TIN)E + E[-nd]… not the “opening show,” though a matinee might very well be

DOWN
 1 I’m extremely bad, admits idiot making U-turn (5-4)
CLIMB-DOWN — Trump returning the US to the Paris Agreement? CL(IM)(B[-a]D)OWN, with “admits idiot” reversing the more common order of subject and verb. 
 2 Despised thing which plugs leak (3,4)
PET HATE — PE(THAT)E
 3 Consider “sharpish” when using pins? (5,2,4,4)
THINK ON ONES FEET — CD
 4 Like Croesus in lady’s pants (6)
LYDIAN — (in lady’s)* As in the common expression, “As Lydian as Croesus”
 5 Playing CD, nearly free of dirt (3,5)
DRY CLEAN — (CD nearly)*
 6 Green keeper? (15)
CONSERVATIONIST — DD… though just barely!
 7 Vote for break in time for audit? (4-3)
YEAR-END — YEA (“vote for”) + REND
 8 Casual shirt with New York Minute (5)
TEENY — TEE + NY (and I got this one in a New York second)
14 Marine growth behind fish (3,6)
SEA TANGLE — SEAT + ANGLE
15 Gathering around church, go through gentle song (8)
BERCEUSE — BE(RC)E + USE (“go through)… the Roman Catholic establishment, not the C of E
17 Fear leaves guards I ultimately leave (7)
WILLIES — WILL(I)([-leav]E)S
19 Adjust rule covering call centre (7)
REALIGN — RE([-c]AL[-l])IGN
20 Mum, with soldier’s wife, put up tent (6)
WIGWAM — MA + W(ith) + GI + W(ife) <=
21 Trouble over gold key (5)
MAJOR — JAM<= + OR

35 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic 4867, 8 IX 2019, by Dean Mayer — Save the day”

  1. The last 10′ offline, spent on 15d and 22ac, of all things; just couldn’t remember the sausage. BERCEUSE just suddenly came to me from the E,U,E and CE; I didn’t even know it was a song. I didn’t get the ‘free ice’ part, but 13ac had to be CALVADOS; thanks, Guy, for enlightening me. I don’t see how ‘free from dirt’ is a definition by example; DRY CLEAN is the example.
    2. And in any case, the place to look for synonyms has to be a dictionary surely not a crossword companion. They are an invaluable aid to solving and setting but they aren’t always accurate.
      Look closely at Chambers thesaurus for example and you’ll see numerous “near” and not so near misses.
  3. I had to think about EVERY as well, but found ‘complete’ as one of the handful of synonyms for it in the Chambers Crossword Companion. Your G&S example works for me.
    I guess the capital M in Minute (8d) makes it a reference to the Don Henley song.
    MATINEE was the best for me.

    – Nila Palin

  4. I found this more difficult than usual taking 50:14 to complete. I had a MER at EVERY too, but shrugged and moved on. SEA TANGLE was new to me, and the apparently inside out CLIMB DOWN confused me a bit. I spotted the glacier calving event in our apple brandy. JOINED UP WRITING held me up for ages. BERCEUSE was my LOI. I eventually saw it from checkers and definition. A good challenge. Thanks Dean and Guy.
  5. ….but had to use aids eventually to get the unknown BERCEUSE. The glacial sense of “calve” was also new to me.

    I parsed NO WONDER, CHIPOLATA, JOINED-UP WRITING, and WIGWAM later.

    Idiot admits “I’m extremely bad”…..would have read better at 1D in my opinion.

    COD THINK ON ONES FEET

  6. 32 minutes which surely must be a record for me for one of Dean’s puzzles so I’d classify it as an easy one.

    1ac went straight in and I’m glad it never occurred to me to worry about what type of clue it is.

    BERCEUSE aka ‘Cradle Song’ is probably familiar as a title or style to budding musicians who encountered it during piano lessons etc. The one from Gabriel Faure’s ‘Dolly Suite’ is well-known to generations of British children as the closing music to ‘Listen with Mother’ which went out on BBC radio for 32 years 1950-1982 although they may never have known what it was called. Are you sitting comfortably? You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aDGp2Ta85M

      1. I tried to learn it once, but never got beyond the first few chords. But then it was technically a duet.
  7. 50 minutes, and still needing a checker for BERCEUSE, so there’s definitely no braggart in my step today. COD to PET HATE, which made me smile during my struggles. I liked THINK ON ONES FEET too. The S from the tangle of the Isles (sung at primary school) meant I could biff CALVADOS, and see ‘Soda’, but I wouldn’t have guessed that sense of CALVE if I’d have been here till kingdom come. Tricky puzzle. Thank you Guy and Dean.
  8. The meaning of “every” is as in “I have every confidence in …”. Difficult, but there unless you think that kind of confidence comes in countable pieces. And I’m fairly sure that we have used it before.
    1. Is that really a proper expression? I would never say it! I would say, “I have complete confidence,” for the obvious reason.
    2. Now that I’m actually out of bed, I find that “every confidence” is indeed in dictionaries—with “confidence” given as uncountable. Which seems very peculiar.
  9. No hold-ups for me with this enjoyable offering. 20 minutes with BERCEUSE not parsed, didn’t clock the Catholic bit. Joined up writing the favourite.
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  11. 11:39. No problems with this.
    ‘I have every confidence in’ is a strange expression, when you think about it.
    1. I think it often means, I don’t, but I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt until you fail in which case you will have let me down.
        1. The former Chairman of Trafford Council’s Licensing Committee would often tell us in meetings that he “had every confidence” that a forthcoming decision would meet with our approval. This was a clear signal that we should promptly consider any possible alternatives.
      2. Indeed. It is most commonly said by Prime Ministers of members of their cabinet shortly before they are forced to resign.
  12. No problem with EVERY but plenty of problems elsewhere. This was very hard I thought. Too many to mention individually but I got tangled up in SEA TANGLE, was nowhere near BERCEUSE despite knowing the French word berceau and Croesus was not commonly known as Lydian where I have lived. I did get Chipolata and Calvados; but I doubt that’s going to be the next diet fad.
    David
  13. One of the best of the week and I was happy to finish in just under an hour. I had to half-guess a few such as LYDIAN (thank you for enlarging my vocabulary and introducing me to an original synonym for ‘rich’) and SEA TANGLE. BERCEUSE needed some dredging as my LOI.

    I’m probably missing the obvious, but nailing exactly how ‘Hand (in hand?)’ works has been bugging me all week; yes, I should have more important things to worry about. The best I could come up with is ‘Hand’ as def, with ‘in’ = JOINED-UP (as in ‘joined up’ or ‘in’, say the army) and ‘hand’ = WRITING. Just being thick.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

    1. It’s a bit odd. “Hand” isn’t the entire definition, but just the WRITING part. The parenthesis with the question mark continues it, implicitly giving it a double purpose, in the phrase “hand in hand” (JOINED UP). I was torn between calling it an &lit and a CD. Now I’m leaning the other way… may change the blog!
  14. “8 minutes, which currently seems to be my (extended) time for the Sundays. EVERY went in with a shrug – one of those where a parallel definition seems possible but just evades you.
    The Lydian clue was a bit odd, given that Croesus has an “as…as” permanently attached to him. I figured he might just as well come from Lydia.
  15. DNF. Bah! I became convinced that the meaning of hand required in 23ac was that of hired worker and so pencilled in ******-in-waiting thinking it would be some variation on ladies-in-waiting. I was also unable to get 15dn, an unfamiliar word with bee an unfamiliar synonym for gathering. Some excellent stuff though.
  16. My copy has “Very Dean” written on it – lots of his trademark wit, I thought. FWIW I parsed 23A as an &lit… Walking hand-in-hand meaning joined up (as you might write it, as it were). Likewise 1A an &lit too. I’m afraid I don’t understand your objection to that Guy. Whatevs. I liked both of those, and several others, with COD to my LOI, PET HATE. But as for the common expression(really?) “As Lydian as Croesus”, I’ve never heard of it and cannot conceive of a conversation with anyone I know where it would ever be used. In fact I had to check my answer post-solve as I had no idea where Croesus was from (or who he was, for that matter). Does that make me a Philistine? Mind you, thanks to a lecture at York University Open Day today, I now understand what a laser plasma accelerator is and how it works. I think I feel rather more edified by that than learning Croesus was a Lydian. But, I concede, others’ mileage may differ. 19:24.
    1. The common expression (as you know) is “as rich as Croesus,” not “as Lydian as…”
      It was a joke, son!
      As for 1, if you had only “For example, ‘A,” that would be the definition, sans any help from the rest of the clue—hence, not an &lit..
      I don’t see that saying “For example, the ‘A'” makes that much difference. “In” is a common wordplay-definition connector.
      So you can call it an &lit, if you like. As such, though, I find it a bit feeble.
  17. OK, I accept I’m thick, but I can’t reconcile Fear leaves guard I ultimately leave making “willies”.
    1. Leaves = Wills (as in an inheritance)
      Guards is an indicator of surrounds
      Ultimately = last or end of the word leave = e
      So you get WILL(I)(E)S
      If you get the “willies” it means you are afraid, or suffer fear.
      1. I understood the “willies”, but couldn’t see how it was arrived at (. .I’ve ended with a preposition!) Many thanks, . . . got it!
  18. This took 3-4 times longer than my usual solve and in the end only got finished with extensive use of electronic help ! There were a number of terms that were new for me and some of the word play was as tricky as I’ve seen for a while. Didn’t help matters by initially writing in INITIAL at 1a.
    Liked both of the reversed word plays – NO WONDER and WIGWAM. Thought that CONSERVATIONIST was quite good in a simpler way, as the whole clue with the ? also could be considered a definition.
    Finished in the NW corner after finally changing 1a to CAPITAL and closing out with BLACKBALL and PET HATE.

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