Sunday Times Cryptic 4953, by Robert Price — string of pearls

A spectrum of life here, with advice to a weary employee, a nightmarish work scene, a brewery mascot, news in men’s fashions, competitive coworkers in an atmosphere of smouldering tension, and, of course, the uninhibited couple in the guest room.

No big problems, but I did get stuck on 14 across, never having heard of the sport (sounds pretty cool!) and one essential element of the wordplay. I wouldn’t mind learning a few new things in every puzzle.

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

ACROSS
 1 Seeming old, wise to accept retirement at last (10)
OSTENSIBLE — O(ld) + S(T)ENSIBLE
 7 Lands lots lay claim to (4)
BAGS — Three definitions… the third of which I’d never heard of (which certainly made the clue more interesting—and a very late, shrugging entry). If anyone doesn’t know, BAGS! is an exclamation in British and Australian children’s slang that indicates “the desire to do, be, or have something.”
 9 Meat from a deli’s former branches (8)
PASTRAMI — PAST, “former” + RAMI, “branches,” plural of “ramus” and specific to anatomy and zoology
10 Occasion entrants need to attend in Lycra tops (6)
ENTAIL — “entrants need to attend in Lycra”
11 Cunning little animal hid at the back (6)
SHREWD — SHREW, “little animal” + [-hi]D
13 Vile car’s fancy instruments (8)
CLAVIERS — (Vile car’s)*
14 Sport lustrous jewellery in the ear (12)
ORIENTEERING — ORIENT, “lustrous” + EERING, “ear ring”… I saw the last part right away, but did not know the term ORIENT for the luster of a pearl of the finest quality or (as here) as an adjective referring to such pearls.
17 Author books a horticultural class (5,7)
HARDY ANNUALS — (Thomas) HARDY + ANNUALS, “books”
20 Animal pelt, expensive sounding (8)
REINDEER — “rain” “dear”
21 Get the measure of plumbers (6)
FATHOM — DD… I was seeing two definitions overlapping: “Get the measure of” and “the measure of plumbers” (in the sense of those who determine depths)—I couldn’t figure out any way to diagram that—before I heard from Jackkt, below. (That I had also mistyped the clue here as “Take the measure of” may indicate why I failed to totally get it.)
22 Cry from one trapped by machinery (6)
PLAINT — PLA(I)NT
23 Dog used to publicise beer (8)
AIREDALE — AIRED, “used to publicize” + ALE, “beer”
25 Small garden in Oxford? (4)
SHOE — S + HOE, “garden”
26 Bars made to vary dishes (10)
DREAMBOATS — (Bars made to)*

DOWN
 2 Fish moving up a southern coastline (8)
SEASHORE — SEAHORSE with the second S(outhern) appearing earlier
 3 Picture capturing a swallow (3)
EAT — E(A)T
 4 Green ties making a comeback (5)
SWARD — DRAWS<=“making a comeback”
 5 Cheese that’s firm turning hard inside bread (7)
BRIOCHE — BRI(CO<=)(H)E
 6 Promotion leads to envy veiled in delight (9)
ELEVATION — EL(E)(V)ATION
 7 Item packed in a case under black beachwear (7,4)
BATHING SUIT — “Item” is THING, “packed in” A SUIT, “a case,” under B(lack)
 8 It’s wound around swelling (6)
GOITRE — GO(IT)RE
12 Jumbo jet’s interior assembled in the plane (11)
ELEPHANTINE — [-j]E[-t] + (in the plane)*
15 Worried chaps collared by wrong sort of journalist (9)
TORMENTED — TOR(MEN)T + ED
16 Like some matches of old, carelessly ignited (8)
FLOODLIT — (of old)* + LIT, “ignited”
18 Distance travelled in reverse, for example, by a cart (7)
YARDAGE — EG + A DRAY <=“in reverse”
19 What le outré means (6)
WEALTH — (What le)* Creative Anagrind Prize, special points for le truc avec le français.
21 Meeting university dons arrange (5)
FORUM — FOR(U)M I had NODUS (U + dons)* first, in the sense of “node,” “a point, especially in the form of lump or swelling, where one thing joins another” (Collins; Lexico does not refer NODUS to “node”; emphasis added).
24 Couple performing loudly upset hosts (3)
DUO — Keep it down in there! Reverse hidden

15 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic 4953, by Robert Price — string of pearls”

  1. A tough one: POI OSTENSIBLE, LOI ORIENTEERING (I didn’t think it was a sport, but then I didn’t really know what it was). I’ve always taken ‘Bags I X’ as the equivalent of ‘Dibs on X’, which is what I would have said as a kid; but ODE doesn’t mark ‘dibs’ as US, and my Oxford American Eng. dictionary doesn’t have ‘dibs’. I especially liked PASTRAMI, WEALTH, & FORUM. Is there a need for the ‘a’ in the clue for SEASHORE? There’s only one S that can be moved up.
  2. We have 14ac you have IRON MAN. The are barely seventy Orienteering Clubs in America – 120 in UK – you’ll need a map and a compass.

    FOI 26ac DREAMBOATS

    LOI 2dn SEASHORE two words? (Oceanshore?)

    COD 17ac HARDY ANNUALS

    WOD 4dn SWARD – notably for me the Greensward at Frinton-on-Sea and lovely sea shore thereabouts but no ‘battle cruisers’.

    Edited at 2021-05-09 02:13 am (UTC)

  3. I had 21a as a double definition with ‘get’ as the first and the rest of the clue as the second.
  4. Wanderers are on their way back. Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by these suns of Lancs! 45 minutes on this quite hard but terrific puzzle. COD to HARDY ANNUALS. PASTRAMI was clear with crossers but I didn’t know of the branches. Great stuff. Thank you Robert and Guy.

    Edited at 2021-05-09 06:13 am (UTC)

  5. ….must now hope that the progress continues, and that visiting places like Crawley and Stevenage remains infra dig.

    The usual enjoyable offering from Mr.Price, and no queries from me.

    FOI CLAVIERS
    LOI GOITRE
    COD WEALTH
    TIME 12:02

  6. Very good crossword, with some topnotch surface readings and several excellent clues … loved 10, 20 ac and 2, 12 dn.
    Nho RAMI or ORIENT with that meaning, but solvable anyway.
  7. I found this difficult to get into; only four solved in an initial 20 minutes. And my paper copy has the bottom half finished but nothing on top apart from a bathing suit and some claviers.
    I did manage to finish eventually. LOI was SEASHORE after PASTRAMI. Like others DNK RAMI or ORIENT in that sense.
    My favourite was BATHING SUIT.
    David
  8. 16:07. Another cracker from Bob. Last in ORIENTEERING, where like Kevin I wouldn’t necessarily have called it a sport (although it deserves the name more than several others I can think of) and didn’t know this meaning of ‘orient’.
    I don’t notice surface readings when solving but it’s worth going back and admiring them in a puzzle like this. Look at 6dn for instance: wonderful. I also liked ‘the measure of plumbers’.
  9. Indeed a much better ST crossword than the two previous, somewhat challenging and taking all but 26 minutes to complete.
    ORIENTEERING went in and out several times before it couldn’t be anything else. There’s a footy team near me that might like to know they are the lustrous pearl of North London, and not just east Leyton.
    As ever, I was terrified the horticultural thingy at 17 might be some gardener’s Latin I’d never heard of. I wonder if back in the day there was a Hardy annual brought out at Christmastime alongside the Dickens series.
    I’m with Keriothe on acclaiming some excellent surface readings. “What le outré means” is a little gem.
  10. A great puzzle. I also didn’t know the required meaning of orient or that rami were branches, but went with the definitions and checkers, although I did wonder about describing ORIENTEERING as a sport. HARDY ANNUALS was my LOI, with a sigh of relief as it wasn’t some obscure specimen. 36:06. Thanks Bob and Guy.
  11. 27.08. This was a good workout. That sense of orient was unknown to me and I thought rami a bit obscure but they were more than made up for by the clues for wealth and elephantine which I thought were both excellent.
  12. Orienteering: I suppose it’s easier to see if you’re a former cross-country runner, but cross-country with the extra challenge of choosing your own route on the spot is definitely a sport.
  13. Thanks Robert and guy
    A good challenge that I finished last Sunday but only have got around to checking it off this week.
    Found it hard to get a start and was down to DUO at 24d to get the first entry. Gathered pace from there and was able to finish most of it in a single sitting before filling in the last few in a short session after. ORIENTEERING is the only one that needed help with the parsing – hadn’t heard of ORIENT as lustrous and only took note of the ring part as jewellery, thinking that the ear was getting at a homophone. RAMI was a new term although had heard of ‘ramose’ having something to do with ‘branches’ so it wasn’t such a big leap of faith.
    Finished with EAT (taking a while to twig to ET as the picture), the clever SEA SHORE and the even cleverer HARDY ANNUALS (was looking for an author for the answer, rather than just the first part of it).
  14. On the sports networks here in Canada (and presumably the U.S.) POKER is classified as a sport. So I think orienteering must sneak in as well.

    Real toughie, very clever and enjoyable. Would never have finished it without aids.

    Tom and Jan. Toronto.

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