Sunday Times Cryptic No 5147 by David McLean — mystery equations

This one took some work, even with a total of seven anagrams (usually pretty easy for me). The surfaces are deceptively smooth, a few obscure definitions are deployed, and there is one very… original clue that I imagine a few people might still be wondering about. An impressive performance, providing an engrossing experience.

I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and words flagging such rearrangements are italicized in the clues.

ACROSS
 1 Engineer at Brunel being revolutionary? (8)
TURNABLE    (at Brunel)*   The surface, where the anagrind unobtrusively hides, makes apt reference to the renowned 19th-century civil and mechanical engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.   …And I would have gotten this much sooner if I hadn’t read that name as the Southeast Asian country Brunei.
 5 Boat behind base (6)
BOTTOM    Triple definition!!!   The nautical sense of the word can be either part of the hull (defined in a couple ways), a vessel’s cargo space, or, as here, a cargo vessel (Dictionary.com).
10 Reason pet needs treatment for tongue (9)
ESPERANTO    (Reason pet)*
11 Plug in iron close to Pioneer audio device (5)
FADER    F(AD)E + PioneeR
12 29 – 17 = 12 (5)
EIGHT    SCREWING – SING = CREW, i.e., EIGHT (specifically for rowing)   …I honestly don’t know what to call this clue. There is no part of it to underline as the definition. While solving the problem gives you a definition, that’s only in your head, not on the page. But the way this works is impressive—how the subtraction of the number and all the letters of one clue from both aspects of another gives you both the number of this clue and its answer. You can’t complain about cross-references when they are part of such an ingenious construction.
13 You could say Faux Bob’s a slithery criminal (9)
HAIRSTYLE    (a slithery)*   That’s a real do, and you can find how to make yourself one on YouTube.
14 Winter ban on booze broken by isle and island (3,7)
NEW BRITAIN    (winter ban)* with I(sle) inserted   The largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of Papua New Guinea
17 Confess US evil and head for Guantanamo (4)
…And (finally) shut it down…?!
SING    SIN, “evil” + Guantánamo   This slang sense of SING is mainly American (US).   …Just noticed that the clue does’t have the acute accent in “Guantánamo,” which I put in automatically. Well, that’s the correct way to spell it! 😉
19 Murder and execution … that’s no good (2,2)
DO IN    DOING
20 According to Spooner, foul cricketer’s an angel (10)
BANKROLLER    “rank bowler”
22 Surplus ball on several deliveries of balls (9)
OVERSPILL    OVERS, “several deliveries of balls” + PILL, “ball”
24 Runner showing sound judgement in hearing (5)
SEINE    “sane”
26 A nuke about to engulf large open space (5)
PLAZA    A ZA(L)P <=“about”
27 Plain and clear about German backing Congress (9)
SERENGETI    SEREN(G)E + IT<=“backing” (That’s sexual “[c]ongress,”  y’know.)
28 Well put-together types of food containers (6)
DISHES    DD
29 King admitted to engaging in darn cheating (8)
SCREWING    S(CR)EWING   Yes, “darn” can be a noun, “the process or act of darning” (Collins).
DOWN
 1 I finally got IT nerd hyped and pent up about work (3,5,7)
THE PENNY DROPPED    (nerd hyped + pent)* surrounding OP, “work”
 2 Restabilise prices agent initially exaggerated grossly (5)
REPEG    REP, “agent” + Exaggerated Grossly
 3 A Sartre novel featuring old penetrating sorts? (8)
AERATORS    (A Sartre + O)*   That’s “penetrating” as piercing to make holes to let some air in.
 4 Meal for one? (5)
LUNCH    CD, playing on “one” (cryptically, the afternoon hour)
 6 Ill-mannered pensioner cut short by Sturgeon? (6)
OAFISH   OAP, “[old-age] pensioner cut short” + FISH
 7 Lady with an Edwardian dresser (5,4)
TEDDY GIRL    CD   Collins defines this as “a girl companion to a teddy boy”—as if to say that a young female couldn’t be part of the 1950s–early ’60s youth subculture that adopted clothes styles reminiscent of the reign of Edward VII unless she were partnered with a young male in the group!
 8 Business giant merged disastrously with Rank (6,9)
MARKET GARDENING    (giant merged + Rank)*   …A new one on me, and once I’d found the answer, I still wrote in GARDEN MARKETING—immediately corrected.
 9 Choose to hide old literature or prosecute MP’s activity? (8)
POLITICK    P(O)(LIT)ICK
15 Pale ale for one in drink (9)
WHITEBASS    WHITE, “Pale” + BASS, “ale”    You could indeed say that the brand name BASS is virtually synonymous with “ale.”
16 Tea break interrupted by one most emotional, perhaps (8)
TEARIEST    TEA + R(I)EST
18 Not any point saving last of Belgian waffle (8)
NONSENSE   NO (BelgiaN) SENSE
21 Old period property (6)
ESTATE    DD, the first qualified as antiquated, though it isn’t tagged as such in Collins: “5. state, period, or position in life, esp with regard to wealth or social standing | youth’s estate | a poor man’s estate
23 Line of oi{ly ric}kshaws (5)
LYRIC    Hidden   Dictionaries have LYRIC as “words of a song” when, or usually as, plural. They don’t specify that it’s all the words of a song.
25 Old people can be cool … flipping cool (5)
ICENI    ICE, “cool” (as a verb, as when you add ICE to a drink) + IN<=“flipping”   During the Iron Age and the early Roman era, the ICENI lived in eastern Britain. Nowadays, they live in crosswords, where they are quite prolific.

42 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic No 5147 by David McLean — mystery equations”

  1. 12ac 29 – 17 = 12 (5) can be rewritten after substituting clue answers as
    “Screwing removing sing gives crew”. Here “crew” is the word associated with clue 12 (it is not five letters so it is not the answer) so “crew” must be the definition and “screwing removing sing” is the wordplay.

    1. That surface doesn’t make any sense, though.
      “Crew” is of course the definition, but it’s not on the page. Underlining “12” would beg the question.

      1. I think you have to rewrite the clue first and then underline “crew”. Normally once the answer to a numbered clue is known you substitute it for the number. If crew had been 5 letters then it would rightfully be the answer but then the clue would have been trivial. I think you have to give the setter some leeway to set the 12 “crew” as the definition rather than 12 the answer.

        1. I am obligated to first present the original clue here verbatim (except for stylistic changes like italics and underlines, in keeping with our conventions). An underline would be superfluous in my note, where everything is spelled out clearly enough without it.

      1. There’s normally a partial index on the front page which should point to puzzles. Sorry, I only print out from the website.

  2. This took me a long time. DNK FADER, NEW BRITAIN. Guy’s comment on TEDDY GIRL prompted me to go to Wikipedia, and he has a point. (The late Dorsetjimbo would always protest at the setter’s characterising teddy boys as delinquents, but Wiki does refer to teddy gangs and violence by some teddies.) I liked SERENGETI, but the COD is definitely EIGHT.

  3. Enjoyed this and managed to see most of the tricky ones early on. Loved 29 – 17 = 12, although I’ve often wondered why the cox(swain) isn’t included in the crew number. NHO of TEDDY GIRL. I’d always thought ‘sing’ meant informing or ratting, but after looking it up I see it can mean confess to a crime especially to implicate others.
    Thanks Guy.

  4. CHARIEST also worked in 16d, and I’d preferred it over TEARIEST because ‘tea’ was in the clue so ‘cha’ seemed more elegant. I saw the error when NEW BRITAIN had to be the island.
    I really liked the equation which eventually simplified to 8!
    Tough going for 35 minutes.

    1. People can be chary as well as teary, but I can’t see how “emotional” could define “chary”, which means mch the same as “wary”. A fair definition is at least as important as any aspect of a clue, so that has to come first in writing clues, and matching the definition should be a high priority in solving.

  5. 46 minutes. NHO ‘faux bob’, NEW BRITAIN or WHITEBASS.

    Another ‘chariest’ here until a checker forced the change to TEARIEST. I agree it fits the wordplay better (with TEA already in the clue) but I had misgivings about defining it as ‘most emotional’.

    1. “Most emotional” could be seen as DBE, but I think I’d put a few pounds on “emotional” in real life English meaning “teary” quite a bit more often than something like “happy” or “angry”.

      1. I wasn’t querying the definition of TEARIEST, but saying I had doubts about ‘most emotional’ defining ‘chariest’ and for that reason I wasn’t entirely happy with the incorrect answer that had first occurred to me.

    1. But you had at least to get 28 and 17 first, unless you’re psychic!
      Admittedly, it’s not nearly as mysterious as it appears at first.
      It couldn’t have been done if there were a 12d, 29d or 17d.

  6. Excellent puzzle, which I enjoyed very much. A lot of pleasure came from seeing 12a. 1d raised a smile when I finally got it.

  7. Far too difficult for me. I only got about a quarter of the answers, and in particular I don’t think I’ve ever been as far away from solving a clue, or even just vaguely understanding what a clue might be getting at, as I was with 12a. Kudos to everyone who completed it!

  8. DNF, decided that 26a Plaza was Plain (L in pain which is rather weak for “nuke”) but I ran out of ideas. That destroyed 21d Estate where the only word I could find was Usance, which makes no sense. Oh well. NHO 15d Whitebass, which I’ve added to Cheating Machine as both one word and two. Not surprising I NHO as it is an American freshwater fish not generally seen on our tables, but I suppose it does explain the habit of restaurants calling bass “sea bass”.
    24a Seine I plumped for Stile. Neither answer really = “runner” IMO, but I thought stile was just slightly closer. Unless I’ve missed something; AFAIK a seine is a net used for fishing in shallowish water, with floats on the top and weights on the bottom.

  9. did not understand 12ac and despite the explanation above am still non the wiser
    this morning I have studied the clue very closely hoping that screwing and sing would come leaping out , no luck.
    I may be missing the obvious but could someone provide clarification.
    thanks

    1. The answer to 29ac is SCREWING; the answer to 17ac is SING. Take 17 from 29 and you get 12(ac); take SING away from SCREWING and you have CREW. A (rowing) crew has 8 members (as noted ab0ve, the cox isn’t counted); so the answer to 12ac is EIGHT.

        1. I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself about “failing to look” – you’ve reminded me of an old story about a maths professor starting a lecture by writing some equation on the blackboard and saying “This is obvious … or at least I think it’s obvious.” He then leaves the lecture theatre to go to his study, and 20-30 minutes later returns to say “Yes, it is obvious”.

  10. 36:42. I found this very hard, and it was quirky in a way that I’ve come to expect from this setter. I enjoyed it a lot, particularly 12ac, which is highly original and quite quite brilliant. A clue that is completely unsolvable in isolation, and doesn’t have conventional wordplay or even a direct definition. Love it.
    1ac is a reference to Brunel University, which is of course named after the engineer.

  11. I took 90 minutes and found it very hard, especially as I also had CHARIEST which blocked progress for a long time, since I‘ve NHO New Britain.
    I had no problem with 12ac though!

  12. This was particularly tricky. Mr Ego and I tend to tackle the Sunday puzzle together, as we both have a day off, so it gives us the advantage of two minds. LOI SERENGETI was bifd from the crossers and post-parsed. Loved the crew, though had to get the others first to weasel that out. A MER over SEINE, which is certainly a river but, as Guy would know, not a homophone, even when referred to in English. Did not know the boat meaning of BOTTOM. However, the answer was clear and there were no obscurities in the answers – just devious clues.

    1. The British are insouciant about the native pronunciation of foreign words, and sure enough, Collins makes no distinction between the pronunciations of the adjective (seɪn), the fishing net (seɪn) and the French flower (seɪn), when pronounced by an English person, but admits that the French pronounce the river sɛn.

      1. I’m sure most native English speakers would pronounce the river ‘sane’, just as we say ‘parriss’ instead of ‘pa{rrr}ee’ and the French say ‘le wikend’.

  13. NHO bottom = boat. OED gives an example from an 1883 journal:
    “Goods imported in foreign bottoms.”
    …which sounds like something from one of those Border Security/Nothing to Declare docusoaps.

    Thank you for your dictionary research on the following two, which I hadn’t appreciated:-

    28ac. The verb “darn” means to fix with interwoven stitches. And the noun can also mean a place fixed by darning. “Engage” can mean to fasten, or interlock. So I think “engaging in darn”, could also be read as “securing by means of a patch of interwoven stitches” = “sewing”.

    23d. Surprising to learn that “lyric” meaning “line (in a song)” isn’t in the dictionaries. In the last fortnight there has been a spate of articles in the music press/websites with versions of this headline:
    – – Nick Cave Defends His “Panties” Lyric – –

  14. I think it’s about time they changed the font on the printed version of this crossword. I gave up after about 15 minutes trying to parse 20 A – my LOI. I bunged in the right answer as the only word fitting the checkers and the definition. I came here to find out what I had missed. Seems it’s not DAM but DARN. It still looks like DAM to me. I can’t be the only person here with less than 20/20 vision.

    1. Even with my excellent contact lenses in, and the letters blown up on my phone, the difference is hard to discern.

      1. And in The Australian they have the annoying habit of leaving out apostrophes, making anagrams some times ungettable as there are Ss over that shouldn’t be there

  15. DNF

    Late entry. Failed on a couple, including the rather good RANK BOWLER where Dr Spooner defeated me for once. SEINE also, but I’d always pronounce it senn. No complaints though. Loved the formula clue and was also a CHA- though later happily corrected. Some cracking surfaces in the anagram clues. MARKET GARDENING was fantastic

    Thanks DM and Guy

  16. Very enjoyable despite my two mistakes: STILE instead of SEINE (since STYLE could be sound judgement) and WHITECAPS instead of WHITEBASS, a fish I do not know. I just assumed CAPS might be a brand of ale, and I do not often drink in British pubs.

  17. This was the easiest of the week for me! Go figure. I worked steadily through, being particular about the wordplay, and despite a couple of NHOs (FADER and BANKROLLER as angel) finished without cheating. I biffed 12a, as it fitted the space , and now see how clever it was. Hesitated over DISHES, as not PC, but no qualms with the TEDDY GIRL, which did bring DorsetJimbo to mind. RIP.
    Lots of fun, especially as I had an ‘easy’ day for me: CODs EIGHT and THE PENNY DROPPED.

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