Sunday Times Cryptic No 4915 by David McLean — IRANIAN NUKES ASIDE…

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
You know I will TAKE ISSUE with any ILL-CONSIDERED political comments that I see or hallucinate.

Worked on paper, and my copy is all marked up—but I like to doodle. The only unknown was the name of a type of headgear.

Anagrinds are usually more terse than a few found here, which are maybe sometimes harder to spot for that reason. I wonder what the longest anagrind ever concocted might have been…

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

ACROSS
 1 Successful president hard worker, Irish leader admitted (10)
TRIUMPHANT — Can’t be talking about the United States… TRUMP (ugh) + H(ard) + ANT, “worker,” with I[-rish] let in; of course, at first (subconsciously avoiding, perhaps, the all-too-obvious) I was looking for a word ending in “AINT.”
 6 Dull retrospective look at lyricist (4)
DRAB — BARD<=in “retrospective” view
 9 Quiet boy clutching bit of itchy cloth (5)
PLAID — P, “quiet” + LA(I[-tchy])D
10 Disagree with kidnap? (4,5)
TAKE ISSUE — DD, one a CD; as ”with” would be included in the dictionary definition of the answer, but within a parenthesis, it is more than mere connective tissue; I didn’t underline it in the clue because it does not appear in the answer. This was my FOI, which is usually not the case for CDs.
12 Sick prisoner embarrassed about minor rash (3-10)
ILL-CONSIDERED — ILL, “sick” + CON, “prisoner” + RED, “embarrassed” with SIDE, “minor” (as in “a side issue”) in between the last two
14 Famous soldiers had to keep close to Napoleon (8)
RENOWNED — RE, “soldiers” (Royal Engineers) + OWNED, “had” guarding [-Napoleo]N
15 A trial involving one leading tense witness (6)
ATTEST — A TEST taking in T[-ense]
17 Where you must write a woman’s name (6)
INGRID — If you’re working a crossword puzzle, at least; notations on the margins are optional. My POI.
19 Histrionic English singer captured in old snap (8)
OPERATIC — E(nglish) + RAT, “singer” inside O(ld) + PIC, “snap(shot)”
21 Musical groups performing in Polish march (13)
PHILHARMONICS — (in Polish march)*
24 Recipe sop cooked up for looker in the Navy (9)
PERISCOPE — (recipe sop)*, with a CD
25 A team apart (5)
ASIDE — A SIDE
26 Sauce with special forces people to have drop of Spa (4)
SASS — S(pecial) A(ir) S(ervices) + S(pa) (I have no idea what picture the surface is meant to draw.)
27 Feel shares must go up without any problem (6-4)
HASSLE-FREE — (Feel shares)*

DOWN
 1 The best place to go for a spin (4)
TOPS — SPOT<=going for “a spin”
 2 I published one article for The National (7)
IRANIAN — I + RAN, “published” + I + AN, “article”
 3 Punchy types delighted with swim after training (13)
MIDDLEWEIGHTS — (delighted + swim)*
 4 Mostly dislike fights with dukes in Balmoral accommodation (8)
HATBOXES — HAT[-e] + BOXES My LOI; the wordplay would have been clear enough if I had any idea what “Balmoral” meant. Chapeau l’artiste !
 5 Big bangers northern music producer finally records (5)
NUKES — N(orthern) + UKE, “music producer” + [-record]S
 7 Detachment of soldiers kept in the rear? (7)
RESERVE — DD, the second a bit cryptic. The reserves are a force (Wikipedia) “initially not committed to a battle by its commander, so that it remains available to address unforeseen situations or exploit sudden opportunities” and which may, indeed, “be held back [emphasis added] to defend against attack from other enemy forces, to be committed to the existing battle if the enemy exposes a vulnerability, or to serve as relief for troops already fighting.” If there’s anything else going on here, it’s too clever for me.
 8 A long nibble on Rod’s lolly (10)
BREADSTICK — STICK, “Rod” with BREAD, “lolly” in the sense of moolah, on it
11 Unspecified dinner and teatime must be sorted out (13)
INDETERMINATE — (dinner + teatime)*
13 Needing to get fixed up, as in ripped jeans? (10)
DRAINPIPES — (as in ripped)*
16 We’re against folk who assume work comes first! (8)
OPPOSERS — OP, “work” + POSERS, “folk who assume”
18 Wild orgies ultimately attract complaints (7)
GOITRES — You’ve got to tone down your orgies, folks… (orgies + [-attrac]T)* These are sometimes a result of exposure to NUKE radiation.
20 Case of the right drinking wine’s more yummy (7)
TASTIER — (I can’t make much sense of the surface…) T[-h]E + R has swallowed ASTI, “wine”
22 Wine with port punch getting bishop out of it (5)
RIOJA — (or this one, either, but I’m starting to get thirsty…) RIO, “port” + JA[-b]
23 Now listen to sounds (4)
HERE — “hear”

21 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic No 4915 by David McLean — IRANIAN NUKES ASIDE…”

  1. This was a good deal easier than the previous couple of Harry’s, but it seems to have made no impression on me: I’ve got no marginal notes other than that TRIUMPHANT was my LOI, and that MIDDLEWEIGHTS was biffed and parsed post-submission.
  2. 9 minutes, a personal Sunday best, despite the Spanish wine apparently expected to be spelt as R-IOJA in the printed edition. To be fair, PB did mention this last week. LOI HATBOXES which was my joint COD with DRAINPIPES. Thank you Guy and David.

    Edited at 2020-08-16 06:18 am (UTC)

    1. The best cure for R-ioja hiccups is a large glass of Me-doc.

      Now I’m stuck with an old Monty Python sketch :

      “Who’s next ?”
      “Me doctor’.
      “No, ME doctor, YOU patient”

      Edited at 2020-08-16 07:13 am (UTC)

  3. The Territorial Army (TA) beloved by crossword compilers is now officially called the Army Reserve and there was previously a period of 12 years when it was called the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve (TAVR).
  4. This was mainly hassle-free. Was puzzled by Drainpipes and of course the Rioja. COD to INGRID, my sort of clue.
    LOI was HATBOXES.I did not know the hat but admire the clue’s topicality as HRH and co are there at present.
    Finished by 2pm; quick for me. David
  5. ….I was only slightly fazed by the unknown hat.

    FOI PLAID
    LOI BREADSTICK
    COD INDETERMINATE
    TIME 10:30

    The undisputed master of the long anagram was Bob Smithies, who combined reading the news on “Granada Reports” with compiling for the Grauniad as “Bunthorne”. His speciality was the anagram of 30 or so letters in length, which would be a stand-alone clue which, in itself, referred to the answer. As it would cover maybe 5 or 6 clue spaces, it was usually best left until you’d finished solving everything else. You absolutely HAD to write it out and eliminate the checkers.

    My favourite was :
    “Roundhead : thy sire flew last Tuesday ?”

    Once rearranged, it referred to the famous painting of a Cavalier’s young son standing on a stool under Inquisition from the enemy :

    “And when did you last see your father ?”

  6. The only note I have is “very easy, especially 25ac ASIDE”.
    In 27ac HASSLE FREE, I am unsure of what the anagrind actually is: must? must go? must go up? Can’t work out which words are italicised.
    In 13d, DRAINPIPES, to me they are trousers rather than, specifically, jeans.
    No COD
    Thanks for the blog, though, Guy.
    1. The anagrind there is “must go up”, as I indicated.
      The question mark after “jeans” means it is a DBE.
      1. Thanks. I could see “must” was italicised but found it difficult to see if “go up” were as well.
        Ah! I failed to notice the “?” after jeans.
  7. No particular problems. Can’t remember what went in when. Liked INGRID. GOITRES took a while to assemble themselves. 26:30. Thanks Harry and Guy.
  8. 11:58. I failed to parse BREADSTICK not seeing that the lolly had to come before the rod. Otherwise all quite HASSLE-FREE. I liked the RAT for “singer” in 19A and the cruciberalist girl at 17A. Thanks or the blog, Guy and the neat puzzle, David.
  11. 30:10 I had a little trouble getting the crossing philharmonics and goitres (I must have tried every other possible arrangement of the anagrist before alighting on the correct solution) but otherwise this was straightforward. I think I may have laughed out loud when I read the clue to 8dn.
  12. Thanks, Guy. Nice blog as always. Interesting question about the worlds longest anagrind. Like davidivad I liked Ingrid, like johnintered I thought Breadsticks read a little awkwardly, and I still don’t see the instruction to drop pa from spa to complete Sass.
    1. I took “drop of Spa” to mean just a bit of it—i.e., the first letter, as “a bit of food” can mean F.
      1. Oh. Of course. Either I had my blinders on, or else I got confused by the confusing surface. thanks, GdS
  13. Thanks David and guy
    Surprised that so many people didn’t know the BALMORAL cat – have seen it in quite a few crosswords and remember one being worn on an old Scotsman who used to look after the Woodend golf course here in Victoria and who was the only person that I have ever met who took less strokes around the course than his age. Liked INGRID.
    The RIOJA clue was still published with a 1-4 clue, but was able to ignore it. It was my third to last in with HASSLE FREE and the tricky HERE the last couple.
    1. Hmmm, Balmoral cat worn by a Scotsman – must be like this?

      Edited at 2020-10-17 02:07 pm (UTC)

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