Sunday Times Cryptic 4967 by Dean Mayer — En garde !

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

Some tricky feints and lunges here to keep you on your toes. The two longest clues are CDs, and as usual they kept me guessing longer than most, especially 9. But my most protracted engagement in this bout was with the very short 27, which is phrased in such a way as to imply that there must be some sort of wordplay in the swordplay, albeit somehow impossible for me to find. I was almost resigned to classing it as another CD. But could that really be the point? Eventually, I resorted to Collins online… after which, I could only riposte: Touché !

I indicate (Ma ran gas)* like this, and italicize anagrinds in the clues. Prêts ?… Allez !

ACROSS
 1 Leave with valetudinarian (4)
WILL — W(ith) + ILL, “valetudinarian”
 3 Cake using far from rich dough (10)
SHORTBREAD — SHORT, “far from rich” + BREAD, “dough”
10 Animosity from soldier in hearing (7)
RANCOUR — “Ranker”
11 Turned around to tell a story (7)
ACCOUNT — CA<=“around” (“turned”) + COUNT… Collins informs me that in British English “tell” can mean COUNT specifically in reference to votes.
12 Taken for a ride in used Ford again? (6-7)
DOUBLE-CROSSED — “Ford” as a verb meaning to cross without a boat a shallow part of a river or stream I was familiar with, but it is also a noun meaning a place affording such a crossing. Etymologically related to fjord.
14 Decorated revolutionary enters in red pants (8)
ENRICHED — (in red)* infiltrated by CHE
15 Tough to hide one old cut (6)
HAIRDO — HA(I)RD + O
17 Fibre shown by service organisation for motorsport (6)
RAFFIA — RAF, “service” + FIA, Federation Internationale de l’Automobile
19 Red key (8)
CARDINAL — DD
22 One monitoring offender — chosen right, I can’t go out (10,3)
ELECTRONIC TAG — ELECT, “chosen” (as in “the elect”) + R(ight) + (I can’t go)*
24 Announced cover charge for water (7)
HYDRATE — “hide rate”
25 Running as a cure for break in foot (7)
(A controversial treatment…)
CAESURA — (as a cure)*
26 Briefly rouse guards or a maiden (3,1,6)
FOR A MOMENT — F(OR A M)OMENT
27 Sword needs point to slash (4)
EPEE — E being the (19) “point” and “slash” British and Australian slang for PEE, “the act of urinating (esp in the phrase have a slash)”

DOWN
 1 Cynical lad we treated during plague (5-5)
WORLD-WEARY — WORRY, “plague” (verb) surrounds (lad we)*
 2 Lack of interest in monkey eating duck (7)
(…much to the tabloids’ disappointment)
LANGUOR — LANGU(O)R
 4 A Labour hero, he is quick to accept Liberal (8)
HERACLES — HE RAC(L)ES
 5 Understanding “About a Boy” (6)
REASON — RE A SON
 6 Non-executive director in travel company? (8,6)
BACKSEAT DRIVER — CD
 7 Country clubs in EU area with staff returning (7)
ECUADOR — E(C)U + A(rea) + ROD<=
 8 See something held in palm (4)
DATE — DD, the second one a bit cryptic
 9 Combine harvester? (10,4)
COLLECTIVE FARM — CD
13 Say one should open sort of institution (10)
COLLEGIATE — COLL(EG)(I)ATE
16 Important place to go on an island (8)
MAJORCAN — MAJOR, “Important” + CAN, “place to go”
18 Perhaps slip up providing supplier of berries (7)
FIELDER — IF (“providing”)<= + ELDER, “supplier of berries”… cricket
20 Top bid, not bottom (2-5)
NO-TRUMP — NOT RUMP
21 Run and run, entering race (6)
STREAM — ST(R)EAM… STEAM can mean “race” in the figurative sense of (Collins) “to move or travel as if by steam power.”
23 Child, perhaps, of La Rochefoucauld (4)
CHEF — Hidden. (That would be the delightful Julia, bien sûr…) This clue is justified by the sometimes eyebrow-raising convention of taking for our purposes a two-part name or term as one unit.

29 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic 4967 by Dean Mayer — En garde !”

  1. This was a tough one, although I can’t remember any specific problems; probably everything was slow in coming. I had an MER at WILL, thinking that a valetudinarian was only worried about his health, not actually in ill health. DNK FIA, DNK ‘slip’. I liked HYDRATE, FOR A MOMENT, COLLEGIATE, and especially BACKSEAT DRIVER. Guy, at 13d the underline should extend to ‘of’, since COLLEGIATE is an adjective.
  2. …and had a hard time getting started, but eventually I finished. I started with will, and ended with epee, biffed but then appreciated.
  3. Dean at his best and Guy, with his rapier-like wit, not too far behind. A long time – over an hour – but worth it for some excellent clues of which my picks were the ‘Non-executive director in travel company?’ cd, the ‘Child, perhaps’ hidden and Top of the Pops, EPEE. (Perhaps another under problem in drawing the line. It almost reads as an &lit, but for me ‘Sword’ alone would do as the def, with the rest as wordplay, as I think you also imply).

    Thanks to Dean and Guy

    1. Thanks. I did the underlining in the first draft and neglected to revise after EPEE was finally parsed as not a CD.

      Edited at 2021-08-15 02:57 am (UTC)

  4. Some wonderful clues here. I especially liked the definition of a BACKSEAT DRIVER. Had the most trouble with 1a, where I was confusing a valedictorian with a valetudinarian, and could only see WALK as fulfilling the definition “leave” until the scales were lifted and WILL appeared.
    26:32
  5. That was good fun!
    FOI: BACKSEAT DRIVER
    LOI: COLLECTIVE FARM
    COD to BACKSEAT DRIVER and FIELDER.
  6. Quite hard work.

    On 3dn, whatever it means on the other side of the Atlantic, SHORTBREAD in the UK is not cake, it’s biscuit. Not that we needed to be told it, but the difference defined some years ago in tax law is that when left exposed to the air cake goes hard and biscuit goes soft. Traditional Scottish shortbread goes soggy. NHO Julia Child.

    Edited at 2021-08-15 05:23 am (UTC)

    1. “Mama’s little baby loves short’nin’ bread!”
      No “cake” there either.
      My mother was quite fond of Walker’s SHORTBREAD.

      Should Dean have hinted that the definition to 3 (across) is an Americanism?
      Dean’s a Brit, right?

      Edited at 2021-08-15 05:42 am (UTC)

      1. Whatever shortbread is, it isn’t shortnin’ bread, which is made from cornmeal. For what it’s worth, I’ve always taken shortbread to be a cookie (sorry, biscuit), and shortcake, which I associate with strawberries, a cake.
    2. Collins says “A biscuit is a small round dry cake that is made with baking powder, baking soda, or yeast. [US]” and “A biscuit is a small flat cake that is crisp and usually sweet. [British]”… so all cakes may not be biscuits, but all biscuits are cakes.

      Edited at 2021-08-15 07:45 am (UTC)

      1. So the setter is let off according to Collins, but whilst not disputing that biscuits are cakes in the sense that they consist of a compacted mass of ingredients, everybody on this side of the Atlantic knows what to expect from biscuit as opposed to a cake. If they order one and are served the other they may not be pleased!
        1. Everyone on this side of the Atlantic (or would be, if I still lived there) also knows, although they’d know different things.
        2. Not just Collins. Oxford defines biscuit as “A small baked unleavened cake, typically crisp, flat, and sweet”. Names like “shortbread/shortcake” biscuits confirm that the division is not really clear.
  7. 35 minutes. I was certain that BACKSEAT DRIVER would contain NED which threw me for a while, as did the sense used of valetudinarian. (I’m sure you’ve all heard the difference between a non-executive director and a shopping trolley. but here it goes again. The trolley has a mind of its own but you can fit more food and drink into an non-executive director.) I’d never heard of Julia Child and looked her up afterwards. She introduced French cooking to the US? Was that the mayonnaise in the burger bun? COD to HAIRDO. Good puzzle apart from the cook. Thank you Guy and Dean.
  8. ….not helped by valetudinarian (to me, at least, one who frets about imagined illnesses), shortbread (Jack nails it totally !), and Julia Child (obscurity at its worst). I biffed COLLECTIVE NOUN, and only saw the FARM when I solved HYDRATE.

    I suspect Dean compiled this with his legs crossed, which would explain the vein of thought at 27A and 16D.

    I was only short of 6 answers after 9 minutes, but eventually submitted at 21:14 with a heavy sigh (it was a sign of things to come as my poor performances continued for most of the week).

    I enjoyed BACKSEAT DRIVER, and ELECTRONIC TAG, but COD to HERACLES.

  9. I had plenty of time for this but not plenty of answers. Very tough, even for Dean.
    FOI was WORLD WEARY but when I wearied of the puzzle I went for a walk to look at The Needles which appeared in a very good clue recently.
    David
  10. I want to say this was impossible though clearly it wasn’t because I finished it. But it took till Tuesday, just in time to catch the mail. A super tough Dean Mayer – I hope, or was it me? Devious clues and wordplays. But perseverance, trawling the dictionary and sheer biffing eventually paid off. FOI EPEE at 27d, LOI FIELDER 18d. Bloomin’ cricket again; always catches me out. This was seriously tricky.
  11. That was a tough one without a doubt. Got there eventually but 50 minutes had gone by. BACKSEAT DRIVER was my LOI and a corker! Only put CHEF in from the crossers and the hope that it was indeed a hidden. Was tempted by Hercules, but persisted with the wordplay until HERACLES came out in the wash. ELECTRONIC TAG was excellent too. CAESURA was unknown and derived from crossers and anagrist. 50.00. Thanks Dean and Guy.
  12. “tell” in 11A: it’s not just votes, or British English. The Merriam-Webster Collegiate on my iPad has “count, enumerate” as a “tell” def, and “tellers” as counters of votes and money (in a bank). A different “Webster” under “American:tell 1” on this bit of the Collins site includes telling the time in this meaning too:

    https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/tell

  14. 21:31. A tricky one, and excellent.
    Julia Child is perfectly familiar to me but as ever with debates about obscurity the key thing is that you can solve the clue even if you’ve never heard of her. There might be grounds for complaint if you needed the knowledge but you don’t.
    1. I was surprised by the number of NHOs, but then I’m American and everyone knows her there. And you cook. But I don’t see how one solves this (at least easily solves this) if one has never heard of her. If one thinks, “Aha! hidden!”, then there isn’t much besides CAUL, but what prompts that Aha?
      And I thought that the key thing in debates about obscurity was whether I knew it or not.
      1. Once you’ve got a checker or two all the clue requires is that you guess there might be a chef you haven’t heard of called Child. Nobody seems to have had trouble solving it.
  15. I’m always very impressed by the willingness of our American cousins to have a go at an English crossword, and The Times cryptic is nothing if not that. I don’t fancy the NY Times equivalent one little bit.

    I thought this a typical Dean, absolute Premier League stuff, and (for me at least) precisely placed to be difficult but not too much so.

    He is on very thin ice with shortbread = cake, whatever dictionaries may say. Fortunately I don’t much like it, as it is mainly sugar, so won’t delve any further

    I wasn’t keen on 23dn, nho Ms Child and skimpy wordplay. Still, solved it..

    Edited at 2021-08-15 12:33 pm (UTC)

  16. 33.39. Another wonderfully elegant and challenging puzzle from DM. A couple of the subtleties eluded me whilst solving – the parsing of fielder – and the chef Child, although there was a film about her not so long ago (not that I’ve seen it) starring Meryl Streep which might have given her a higher profile in the UK than she might otherwise have enjoyed.
  17. Thanks Dean and guy
    Enjoyed this across a couple of sittings that added up to 49 min. A number of terms that were new, including the ‘chef’ at 23d, ‘valetudinarian’ at 1a and FIA at 17a. Have seen CAESURA before but would not have been able to explain its definition – anyway meant that it could go in confidently.
    You could probably add 21d to expand the vein of thought mentioned by phil above.
    Thought the long cryptic definitions were excellent, DOUBLE-CROSSED was favourite and the surfaces throughout entertaining and clever.
    Finished in the SW corner with HYDRATE, CHEF and FOR A MOMENT.

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