Sunday Times Cryptic 4895, by Dean Mayer — Golden archness

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I hope everyone here and their loved ones are well and safe. Having a distraction like a good crossword puzzle in a time like this can be a godsend. To tackle a problem for which there is known to be a solution is a great relief from the more intractable ones facing us, and finishing brings a feeling of being in control that is too often elusive in our day to day lives in the midst of a pandemic. As long as you can concentrate, that is… I found thoughts intruding of aspects of our current mess while working and blogging this excellent offering from Dean.

Slippery surfaces, cunning wordplay, and a few words that you don’t see everyday… Really everything you could ask for, an instant classic.

I indicate (maragnas)* like this, and italicize anagrinds in the clues.

ACROSS
 1 20 shillings, cents or euros? (5)
SCORE — S(hillings) + C(ents) + OR + E(uros)
 4 Marine guide possibly working for island (6,3)
DORSAL FIN — (for island)* I guess the appendage can fulfill other functions, hence the “possibly.”
 9 Best time to run in defeat (9)
WORTHIEST — WOR(T)(HIE)ST Yes, “worst” can mean “best,” in referring to coming out ahead in a competition.
10 Golden arches—usual rubbish is consumed, primarily (5)
AURIC — Gag me with a spoon! First letters, COD. The irony is that the most (in)famous patron of the fast-food chain so clearly alluded to here doubtlessly does not know the answer word, nor could even guess its sense (even though it is the first name of the James Bond villain Goldfinger). It has nothing to do with the ear—unlike auricular!—but it is the last name of French composer Georges. It has a very precise meaning in chemistry, and a homonym refers to the auras that soi-disant psychics supposedly see.
11 Perhaps those in rubber will excite more of us (8)
FOURSOME — (more of us)* I suppose the reference is to the game of bridge. I have included “will” in the anagrind, because otherwise it isn’t doing anything.
12 Go about as a bird would go! (4,2)
BEAT IT — BE A TIT This phrase has been clued many times here by breaking up the words this way, with sometimes TIT meaning a silly person.
14 Liquid runs so if retaining “A”, “X” being liquid property (7,7)
SURFACE TENSION — (runs so if)* surrounding ACE + TEN
17 Keep going to Latin classes (3,11)
NIL DESPERANDUM — You can probably attend them remotely now… ”Never despair!” in Latin. A watchword for our fraught time. Keep Calm and Carry On!
19 Lounge lizard initially bends over (6)
SPRAWL — L[-izard] + “bends,” WARPS<=“over”
20 Ready for battle (3,5)
WAR CHEST — Got your mask on? CD, “Ready” in the sense of available money
23 Old magistrate taking bible class the day before (5)
REEVE — R(eligious) E(ducation) + EVE
24 Spring lecture given without single drink (9)
ORIGINATE — OR(I)(GIN)ATE
25 Sea lion swallows a large piece of meat (9)
MEDALLION — MED(A)(L)LION, “Sea” being the MEDiterranean
26 Dyed fabric clothing sailor returned (5)
BATIK—“Clothing,” KIT + “sailor,” AB<=“returned”

DOWN
 1 Forced to leave prune? (3,3)
SAW OFF — DD “See off” with this precise meaning was new to me; it’s a strictly British usage.
 2 Work in China for US? (3,6,6)
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND — “China,” of course, being CRS for ”pal,” and “US” an example of the deceptive capitalization we haven’t seen on Sunday lately. We had a reference to this book not so long ago.
 3 Standards maintained by internet hosting (5)
ETHOS — Hidden
 4 Daughter opens robe in fantastic scene (10)
DREAMSCAPE — Paging Dr. Freud… D(aughter) + REAMS, “opens” + CAPE, “robe” The closest definition I’ve found for REAM is “to enlarge (a hole) as with a reamer” (Collins). MER at CAPE clued by “robe”; the words are not synonyms of each other at thesaurus dot com, nor listed as such anywhere else that I’ve found.
 5 No introduction needed for gospel book (4)
RUTH — [-t]RUTH
 6 Greek hero soon captures willing maiden (9)
AGAMEMNON — A(GAME)(M)NON
 7 Officer left in tears, unit disbanded (5,10)
FIRST LIEUTENANT — (left in tears, unit)*
 8 Good to admit oxygen can poison (8)
NICOTINE — This is actually true! NIC(O)(TIN)E The substance is merely addictive taken via conventional tobacco products, but liquid nicotine and e-cigarettes can be hazardous, as the stuff in a purer form and at higher doses is indeed quite toxic.
13 Result of zero fare? A motorhome to take Channel crossing (10)
STARVATION — No, this isn’t the clue to the next one…! CD, ST(A)(RV)ATION
15 Coast, where waves seem to gather? (9)
FREEWHEEL — (where)* caught up in FEEL, “seem”
16 Physicist’s worry over traveller (8)
ANGSTROM — ANGST, “worry” + ROM, “traveller,” singular for Roma, which is short for Romani (sometimes called Gypsies, which some take as pejorative). The unit of length named after Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Ångström, equal to one hundred-millionth of a centimeter, is mainly useful in expressing wavelengths and distances between atoms.
18 Run out of clothes? (6)
STREAK — Well, the closest laundromat is limiting its hours now, but I’m not going out much or for very long, and most things can be washed in the tub… CD
21 Conservative member’s rise (5)
CLIMB — C + LIMB Bit of a chestnut, easiest clue here.
22 Wet place over one dry place (4)
GOBI — BOG<=“over” + I I guessed GOB was a “wet place” in the sense of “mouth,” either yer own or even perhaps that of a river, until Peter pointed out what should have been obvious!

43 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic 4895, by Dean Mayer — Golden archness”

  1. A few comments:
    11A Think you mean “included in anag indicator”
    12A def = final “go!”
    22D wet place = bog, over = reversal rather than posititional indicator
  2. 11A Yes, as that’s how I marked it.
    12A Yeah, underlined the wrong one.
    22D How did I miss that?!
  3. I wondered about cape=robe, too. I had WADI at first at 22d, although why a wad should be wet was a definite problem. A couple of biffs, as usual, parsed post-submission. COD to OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
  4. FOI 10ac AURIC

    LOI 16dn ANGSTROM a second show this week

    COD 19ac SPRAWL

    WOD 1dn SAW OFF – what one does to the end of one’s Purdey, before and after one’s wayward daughter’s wedding.

    ‘Low wholesale prices on huge selection of top quality Mens Capes/Robes costumes for Halloween.’ The trade appears to lump them as a whole, on-line. Also ‘Wool Cape Robe’ noted.

    Time fifty minutes.

      1. Joanna Lumley’s character Purdey in The New Avengers was named after Purdey & Sons: an elegant weapon, for a more civilised age.
    2. Since a single Purdey shotgun (and they’re usually bought in pairs) costs tens (and if you really have money to burn, hundreds) of thousands of pounds, it seems unlikely that anyone would saw the end off one!
  7. Cape indicating robe: Chambers thesaurus has them on the same list, but thesauruses are not supposed to be the test, as their lists are often of related words.rather than synonyms. Collins defines a robe as “any loose flowing garment”, and a cape as “a sleeveless garment like a cloak but usually shorter”. So if a cloak is “loose and flowing”, it’s a form of robe. That might not be true 100% of the time, but it honestly seems close enough to me.
    1. That’s exactly why my ER was merely M. But I should probably try to procure a copy of Chambers.

      Edited at 2020-03-29 07:03 am (UTC)

      1. And of course when I said “If a cloak …”, I meant “If a cape …”. If you really mean The Chambers Dictionary, it’s NOT a main reference for the ST Crossword. Collins Eng Dict and the Oxford Dict of Eng are, and both are free online, Oxford now on the “Lexico” site. Both sites require a bit of care to make sure you’re looking at the right dictionary, as they give access to > 1.
        1. Oh, I was thinking that you had said that Chambers and Collins were the main references. But I’m sure Chambers is necessary for the Mephisto, which I might try again if I have time.

          At Lexico dot com, there’s a UK and a US dictionary, and under Other DIctionaries, just Spanish.

          At Collins dot com, there seems to be only one English dictionary, but if I go to a Collins definition via a Google search, which is what I always do, I see that /us/ gets added inside the URL.

  8. Easier than usual for Dean, I thought. No queries other than not knowing A RV as ‘a motorhome’ and I was distracted anyway by ARV standing for Armed Response Vehicle met almost daily in police dramas etc.
    1. The phrase would be “an RV,” unless in some dialect that I’m unfamiliar with it isn’t. Of course you know this, but, just to be punctilious, the A and the RV are two separate parts of the clue.

      Edited at 2020-03-29 06:38 am (UTC)

      1. “However, many varieties of English have a before both consonants and vowels today. There is evidence from British English dialects of a as a universal indefinite article.” C. Gabrielatos et al., 2010.
        “Very few dialects follow the rule of the lterary language according to which ‘an’ is used before a vowel …” J. Wright, “The English Dialect Grammar” 1905.
        Use of ‘a’ before a vowel is common in AAVE in the US.
        The classic example, of course, is Mr. Bumble’s “The law is a ass, a idiot.”
        Not that any of this is relevant to the clue, of course.

        Edited at 2020-03-29 07:32 am (UTC)

        1. Yes, I was indeed aware of the Dickensian phrase. Always rather took it as a quaint anomaly. Does everyone speak that way all thru the book? I’ve read only one Dickens, and that wasn’t it.
          I meant, though I didn’t say, that I wouldn’t know what specific dialect to attribute such usage to.
          I didn’t know it was considered a characteristic of AAVE, but of course I’ve heard people speak that way all my life.

          Edited at 2020-03-29 07:41 am (UTC)

          1. It’s been decades since I read it, and can’t remember anything of it, but I doubt that there’s much a assing going on, even from Bumble. I don’t know from English dialects, and I’ve virtually never heard an AAVE speaker.
      2. As you say, of course I understand they are separate entities in the clue. I only put A RV together in my comment to indicate how I came to be thinking of Armed Response Vehicle.
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  10. According to my notes I finished this at 2:34pm which indicates a relatively quick solve for a Dean puzzle.
    There were quite a few I couldn’t parse properly (Dreamscape,Freewheel,Starvation) -thanks for explaining those. But I shot myself in the foot with 25a. I was solving on paper and the last letter of Freewheel intersects. The bottom of the L disappeared in the outline of the puzzle and I suddenly went a la carte and put in Medaillon (de boeuf etc).Then I was completely stumped by 22d and put in POOL.
    Otherwise LOI was WORTHIEST having corrected 1d where SET OFF had remained for too long.
    Very enjoyable puzzle. COD to Our Mutual Friend. David
  11. I don’t seem to have written a time down, but I think it was about 40 minutes in seeing this one off. There were many brilliant clues but all gettable, including a couple of write-ins for a Physicist. I biffed DREAMSCAPE from crossers. LOI was 13d where the recreational vehicle abbreviation has passed me by. Was the Espace we used to have one, or was it just a van with a rug? COD to STREAK, though I then spent several minutes trying and failing to remember the surname of the lady at Twickenham.Thank you Guy and Dean.
  12. ….my LOI. Only when I finally spotted the rather obvious anagram for DORSAL FIN did I realise that I had an error. I’d confidently put in “Acts” at 4D at quite a early stage on the basis of “facts = gospel”. I think it works perfectly well, and I’d be very surprised if I was the only miscreant.

    I actually did this one on Tuesday afternoon, and OUR MUTUAL FRIEND was a write-in, since it appeared in that day’s Times puzzle.

    DNK what the RV was in STARVATION, and only parsed FREEWHEEL later.

    I saw Simon and Garfunkel at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, and they closed the set (their seventh or eighth encore !) with “a song I haven’t finished writing yet”. When Paul launched into “I wish I was a Kellogg’s Corn Flake” I doubt that I was alone in thinking that he’d turned on his urine extractor. At that stage the lyric “If I became a FIRST LIEUTENANT, would you put my photo on the piano” was the unwritten part of “Punky’s Dilemma” which appeared on the album “Bookends” a couple of months later. Obviously I had an earworm for the rest of the day.

    FOI SCORE
    LOI RUTH
    COD NIL DESPERANDUM
    TIME 17:04

    1. Dean missed a trick there: he could have had two identical clues with different answers, which would have been neat.
  13. Nice puzzle. Have no clue who the intended referent of 10a might be, though I know journalists are partial to fast food. Not Michael Bloomberg?
    1. I’m referring to the person who said this:
      “You want ventilators and masks from the federal government’s reserves to treat your citizens? Well, governors have to treat me well, it’s a two-way street.”
  14. Limping home in 50 minutes, I found this tough all the way through (which frankly is less frustrating than the recent puzzles that I’ve found easy right up to the last clue, which I’ve found impossible. I’ll desperand if I want to…)

    FOI 3d ETHOS LOI 19a SPRAWL, enjoying the marine guide at 4a the most, I think, though 12a would probably have won COD if I’d not seen its like before…

    1. I don’t think this is a CD actually. I think the definition is ‘work’, and then the wordplay ‘china for us’ is a secondary indication of the same thing: OUR MUTUAL FRIEND is a china (mate, friend) for us. The capitalisation of both China and US is deceptive.
      2. Oh, of course, thanks. I will now (rather late) underline only “work.”

        Edited at 2020-03-29 02:55 pm (UTC)

  16. 37:23. This was a good Sunday workout with plenty of ticks for clues that I really enjoyed: 1ac (20 and shillings went so naturally together that I failed to lift and separate Def from wp until very near the end), 4ac, 9ac, 14ac, 19ac, 20ac, 13dn and even though I’m sure I’ve seen it before 18dn. I had no idea how it worked when solving but now it’s been explained I’ll add 15dn to the list. An errant cut out at 1dn held up my foursome. I also spent ages looking at 24ac the wrong way round, trying to find a synonym for drink comprised of synonyms for a hop or a leap and a telling off around a I or an S. Oh yes, and I also took over in 22dn as a positional indicator. I thought it was a bit strange to use wet place to clue gob!

    Edited at 2020-03-29 11:17 am (UTC)

  18. 23:24. “Great stuff!” it says on my copy. I liked SCORE, RUTH, SPRAWL, STREAK and FREEWHEEL best and I too think I’ve seen that clue for BEAT IT before. Thanks Dean and Guy.
  19. An enjoyable puzzle which I completed in a smidge under 40 minutes. SCORE was my FOI and ANGSTROM brought up the rear. NIL DESPERANDUM needed a lot of crossers, and DORSAL FIN took a while to surface. BATIK was constructed from wordplay, but then rang a very faint bell. No trouble with RV as the recreational vehicle. DREAMSCAPE and FOURSOME held me up. 39:41. Thanks Dean and Guy.
  22. I was about 45 min, except without Originate due to being quite sure of Attack where Streak was meant to be. The bottom half went more slowly due to Nil Desperandum being NHK, and also crossing everything else.
    Nice blog, as always, Guy. Nice puzzle, as always, Dean. Nice clarity, as always, Peter.
  23. What a joy to find one of Dean’s puzzles this morning! The idea antidote to lockdown. 36 minutes, Ann
  24. It’s a bit late, I know, but I still don’t get “feel” as a synonym of “seem”. Stephen
  25. Thanks Dean and guy
    Yet another Dean (four in a row now) as I go over back log puzzles … and another good one that took well over the hour to finish.
    Took a while to get into, despite getting the long FIRST LIEUTENANT quite early on. the other long ones came much later in the exercise. Didn’t really think about the word play for OUR MUTUAL FRIEND until reading the blog – and in retrospect, think that it was very clever.
    Finished in the SE corner with ORIGINATE (with its well camouflaged definition) and the well-constructed CLIMB as the last one.

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