Sunday Times Cryptic 4869, 22 IX 2019, by Robert Price — Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
Not that there’s anything “off” about this puzzle. I found it generally satisfying, with a few interesting bits of vocab, and nothing to complain about.

No, the title references my word of the day, PROROGUE, selected for what I expect is an obvious reason. (Are you PRO ROGUE?) I wonder how long this puzzle had been waiting in the queue. The song may not be quite appropriate, but I couldn’t resist when I remembered the sense of “Thing” as the name of a parliament. Ha.

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

ACROSS
 1 Method of very quietly feeding a fish (8)
APPROACH — A(PP)ROACH
 5 Switch feet from right to left (4)
SWAP — PAWS<=
10 Spread coal tar on canine’s sensitive area (4,5)
ROOT CANAL — (coal tar on)*
11 Thrash sides in financial trouble (5)
FLAIL — F[-inancia]L + AIL
12 Cons finally ask to wear jumpers (5)
ROOKS — ROO([-as]K)S
13 Device for controlling temperature in our lager supply (9)
REGULATOR — (our lager)*
14 Drink to lacrosse’s first summer league table (6,6)
SQUASH LADDER — ”Drink” is SQUASH, + L[-acrosse] + ADDER (“summer”). My LOI, although a term I must have come across here at least once in the past several years.
18 Patron’s complaint about new leading lady (12)
BENEFACTRESS — BE(N)EF + ACTRESS
21 Game youngsters enjoy drink on short flight (9)
HOPSCOTCH — HOP, “short flight” + SCOTCH, “drink”
22 Hill showing a kind of lily every now and again (5)
KNOLL — Alternate letters in “a KiNd Of LiLy.” Decrypted, the grammar is inverse of the usual; in the surface, the hill shows the lilies, but in the cryptic, it’s the other way around.
23 Cause ground to dip (5)
SAUCE — (cause)* I can’t see “to” as a wordplay/definition connector, so it must be part of the anagrind—appropriately enough, ha, since you have to grind the anagrist to or into (so that it becomes) a word for “dip.”
24 Musical rushed without Romeo’s back story (9)
NARRATIVE — EVITA (“musical”) + R(R)AN <= (R being “Romeo” in the NATO alphabet)
25 Reason not to write copy one in pen? (4)
OINK — O (0) INK! Not the smoothest surface, with “copy one” seemingly meaning “the first copy.” There is overlap between the CD and the definition with “in pen,” but “Reason not to write” could stand alone as the hint for “[zero] ink,” with one’s scribing implement implicit.
26 What’s left after Scotland’s last energy commission (8)
DELEGACY — [-Scotlan]D + E(nergy) + LEGACY, “what’s left.” Not sure I’ve ever encountered this word in the wild.

DOWN
 1 Doctor photographs strain and graze (8)
AIRBRUSH — AIR, “strain,” and BRUSH, “graze”… My first exposure to the technique was through, ahem, certain photographs in certain magazines that I collected as a teenager.
 2 Stop meeting hooker, reprobate! (8)
PROROGUE — PRO, “hooker” + ROGUE, “reprobate”
 3 Run around, trapped by unusually big predators (5)
ORCAS — O(R)(CA)S
 4 It combats the cold charm heartlessly used in infidelity (7,7)
CENTRAL HEATING — C(ENT[-h]RAL)HEATING
 6 Spirit of one consumed by rage (6)
WRAITH — WRA(I)TH
 7 Not worth having drink after uplift on tax (6)
PALTRY — LAP<= + TRY, “tax”
 8 Harp on a floor’s edge had to be moved (4,1,4,5)
FLOG A DEAD HORSE — (a floor’s edge)* Over here in the New World, the expression is “beating a dead horse,” but this was my FOI anyway, and I was off to a flying start.
 9 Waste product’s first to go after a flush (8)
AFFLUENT — Ick! A + [-e]FFLUENT
15 Whiffs of fish start to escape aboard ship (8)
STENCHES — S(TENCH)(E[-scape]S
16 Class hasn’t finished eating most of old pudding (8)
SEMOLINA — How unappetizing! SEM(OL[-d])INA[-r]
17 Instrument displaying pressure change in case of seismicity (8)
PSALTERY — P(resssure) + S(ALTER)Y
19 Treatment for the ear, face and heart of lion (6)
PHYSIO — Sounds like “phiz,” Dickensian slang for the face (physiognomy) + [-l]IO[-n]. Collins says “phiz” is obsolete in the US but still current in the UK. I wrote “Dickensian” before I was reminded that “Phiz” was the pen name of Boz’s illustrator. The answer is short for “physiotherapy.”
20 Rang up policy section about dispute (6)
OPPUGN — Reverse hidden. To OPPUGN is to challenge, contradict, as an argument, while to “impugn” is to attack. Dictionaries are telling me the latter is “obsolete” and the former is current, though I would have guessed the opposite, having often heard of someone’s reputation being impugned, and having hardly, if ever, seen OPPUGN…
22 King, lacking experience, banishing just the one scoundrel (5)
KNAVE — K + NA[-i]VE

16 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic 4869, 22 IX 2019, by Robert Price — Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”

  1. I think that, like Guy–or I think, like Guy, that– I must have come across SQUASH LADDER here once, but it was as near as dammit to a DNK; the U suggested the Q, and that led to getting the wordplay. I spent too much time on 1d with DR/MO before twigging. COD to either OINK or PROROGUE.
  2. ….SQUASH LADDER once. In fact I participated for a few months. You were allowed to challenge any player who was two positions either side of you in the rankings. All went well until I discovered the massive gulf in class that existed immediately above the the bottom six, and was savaged by a fleet-footed young woman who left me feeling as if a heart attack was imminent. I scratched, and sold my racket.

    The usual elegant offering from Bob, where I just escaped from entering “effluent”. 11A made me think of Bolton Wanderer.

    FOI ROOT CANAL
    LOI ORCAS
    COD OINK
    TIME 13:06

  3. 43 minutes, with LOI PHYSIO. It’s a while since I heard fizz for face. I only know KNOLL from the grassy version in Dallas. I was happy with OINK, with the definition “to copy one in pen’ demonstrated by ‘reason not to write’. I knew the word DELEGACY, but not really as a commission, more as a few representatives of a larger group requesting something from the boss on behalf of their group. COD to SQUASH LADDER. The only time I participated in one of those was at the Henley General Management Course 1978. I managed to read 9d as AFFLUENT, a neat clue, as was SAUCE. Another good Robert puzzle. Thank you to him and to you, Guy.
  4. FOI was KNAVE followed quickly by KNOLL-we have a number of these around here, the estate agents like them as house prices there tend to be higher, like the houses.
    After that I found this to be a struggle and harder than some of Robert’s recent puzzles. I saw AFFLUENT easily enough but I needed a second or third session to get the SW and I think AIRBRUSH was LOI as I had not identified the definition.
    Enjoyed the challenge. COD to SQUASH LADDER. David
  5. 40 minutes enjoyment, no problems. There’s been a lot of OINKing around here recently following the welcome arrival of the QC setter of that name.
  6. I’m not sure how long this would have taken at a single sitting. As it was, I definitely took more than an hour and the most recalcitrant (26, 19, 25, 18 and 15, in that order, according to my notes) were done in dribs and drabs during breaks in a busy afternoon. Enjoyed 2d PROROGUE and the OINK at 25.

    Quite a lot of stuff outside my ken, here. I doubt I’ve ever been in the same building as a SQUASH LADDER, let alone climbed up one…

  7. 13:59. No particular problems with this. I think I’ve come across SQUASH LADDER before but it took a bit of dredging up. I’ve only played squash a couple of times in my life and I got completely thrashed on both occasions.
  8. On a plane to Oktoberfest I was hugely disappointed not to finish by falling short on oppugn and psaltery neither of which I had heard of. I was convinced the latter was going to start with s and end in y.
  9. 37:45. Another high quality Sunday puzzle much enjoyed. It took me far too long to crack 25ac, 26ac, 2dn, 19dn and 20dn. COD to the timely prorogue.
  10. Although I completed this in 35:18, I was caught out by the EFFLUENT trap. Well played Bob! Liked the topical PROROGUE. Shuddered at the ROOT CANAL, one of which I endured fairly recently. PHYSIO took an inordinate amount of time as did my LOI, OINK, which I may have to assign as COD. Thanks Bob and Guy.
  11. 15:55. I think I may be catching on to Bob’s style as this is quite quick for me. I smiled at the topical PROROGUE, but I also enjoyed BENEFACTRESS, PSALTERY, PHYSIO and the nicely hidden OPPUGN. Thanks Bob and Guy.
  12. A perfect Sunday crossword (which I always attempt while drinking wine so I do not want five obscure antelopes clued by anagrams etc. etc.). Thanks all.
  13. I had a hard time with this, and I don’t know why, so thanks for the blog, Guy. years ago, When I got too old to dig up 25 other people to play lacrosse, I took up squash – so the squash ladder and recent lacrosse references were tap-ins. Thanks Mr P
  14. Very good puzzle, COD Oink, fun penny dropper.
    But I don’t think stench can be classified as a whiff.
  15. Thank Bob and guy
    Found this very challenge over a very slowly drunk coffee on a Sunday afternoon. Was able to work through all but the SW corner which had to be mopped up a little later.
    Was another who initially had penned in EFFLUENT at 9d and it was only going through the last parsing check that I just couldn’t make it work … and then saw that AFFLUENT would.
    Hadn’t really heard of the SQUASH LADDER term before and only worked it out through the wordplay. Wasn’t able to parse PHYSIO as did not know the FIZZ =face definition. Finally finished with that and then the well hidden OPPUGN as the last one in.

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