Sunday Times Cryptic No 5175 by Dean Mayer — One hot month!

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

I sweated a bit over this. There are a few hurdles that may be close calls.

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

ACROSS
 1 Coat to take to the cleaners (6)
FLEECE    DD
 
 4 Oval racer to have in mind, mostly (5,3)
STOCK CAR    STOCK, “to have in” + CARE    Merriam-Webster (Yankees!) has “Oval” specifically as “a racetrack” (of that shape), while Collins (like Dictionary.com and Chambers) has only a more general allusion, “anything that is oval in shape, such as a sports ground.”
 
10 On hand (9)
OPERATIVE    DD
 
11 One in bed, some stil{l up in}deed (5)
LUPIN    Hidden   …I first heard of LUPINs from the Monty Python sketches with John Cleese as highway robber Dennis Moore taking them from the rich to give to the poor. There’s something silly-sounding about the word itself.
  
12 Go for hiding wife’s bulge (5)
SWELL    S(W)ELL
 
13 Gold medal held by dating writer (9)
WORDSMITH    W(OR)(DSM)ITH   Distinguished Service Medal
 
14 Be as killers are, next time out (11)
EXTERMINATE    (are, next time)*
 
16 Anything but new books (3)
NOT    N(ew) + OT, “books”
 
18 Total a few declared (3)
SUM    “some”
 
20 Unnecessary spin? Still, submit (11)
PREVENTABLE    P(ublic) R(elations), “spin” + EVEN, “still” + TABLE, “submit”   EVEN is synonymous with “still” (or “yet”) when used to emphasize a comparison.
 
22 Tell me to foil success (3,4,2)
OUT WITH IT    OUTWIT, “to foil” + HIT, “success”
 
23 Gunner’s noise against Othello’s back (5)
VROOM    V, versus, “against” + MOOR<=“back”
 
24 Do the first part of it (3-2)
SOL-FA    CD
 
25 Drug designer wrongly given life (9)
ENERGISED    E(cstasy) + (designer)*
 
26 Southern US police force remains negligent (8)
Euphemism…
SLAPDASH    S(outhern) + L(os) A(ngeles) P(olice) D(epartment) + ASH, “remains”
 
27 Charlie? Waste of space, more like (6)
CLOSER    C(harlie, communications code word) + LOSER, “Waste of space”
 
DOWN
 1 First of foot sloggers ordered Gallic dish (5,4)
FROGS’ LEGS    F00t + (sloggers)*
 
 2 Something to heat water, eg (7)
ELEMENT    DD, the second harking back to ancient Greek philosophy, where there were only four ELEMENTs, the others being earth, fire and air
 
 3 Stroke edge (5)
CRAWL    DD
 
 5 Royals meet Irish jockeys, keeping a kid around (5,9)
THEIR MAJESTIES    (meet Irish)* surrounds A + JEST, “kid around”
 
 6 I supposedly run in fear (4,5)
COLD SWEAT    CD
 
 7 Note this, oddly, when stuffing chicken (7)
CAPTION    CAP(ThIs)ON
 
 8 Farm managed to get support from church (5)
RANCH    RAN, “managed” + CH(urch)
 
 9 CBI — highest few, I fancy? (3,5,6)
BIG WHITE CHIEFS    (CBI, highest few, I)*   &lit!  Quaint idiom! (The W and C are commonly capped.) Collins and Dictionary.com have essentially the same definition, “an important person, boss, or leader,” while Chambers is more judgmental: “A paternalistic or domineering head of an organization, etc.”   …I found this difficult, and had to look up the Confederation of British Industry, the United Kingdom’s self-proclaimed “premier business organisation.”
 
15 Carpet salesman on edge, too (9)
REPRIMAND    REP, “salesman” + RIM, “edge” + AND, “too”   …The connection is obvious, but I can’t see how “too” and AND are equivalent. AND is a conjunction, whereas “too” is an adverb.  “Also” would have been good here, as it can be a conjunctive adverb, according to Webster’s via Collins, or what Collins proper calls a “sentence connector.”
 
17 Hermit’s last to start getting stick over month in France (9)
THERMIDOR    THERMI,  “Hermit’s last to start” + ROD<=“over”   THERMIDOR, comme le nom l’indique, is the “month of heat” and designated the days between July 19 or 20 to August 18 or 19 in the French revolutionary calendar of 1789–95 (and again in the ephemeral, immortal Paris Commune of March–May 1871). It was during this month that “the Incorruptible” Maximilien Robespierre literally lost his own head to the revolutionary violence he had fomented. “Thermidorian” came to describe a period of conservative reaction, the restitution of a previous order with the squelching of more radical aspirations.
 
19 First man grabs drunk, upset waltzing girl (7)
MATILDA    AD(LIT)AM<=“upset”
 
21 Is grazing ridges around Kent area (7)
BROWSES    BROW(SE)S
 
22 Liam, Noel et al love things being what they are (5)
OASIS    O, “love” + AS IS    …Someone did “Wonderwall” (again) at karaoke Sunday.
 
23 Watch Roman poet losing resistance (5)
VIGIL    VIRGIL   …Virgil visited the last time I blogged.
 

 

31 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic No 5175 by Dean Mayer — One hot month!”

  1. Well this was tough in places but mostly fair with some interesting/amusing twists (not Oliver). Our answers managed to agree with the esteemed blogger and we parsed it all with a few questions.
    Liked 16ac NOT and 24ac SOL FA both mostly for brevity; and 15d REPRIMAND for smooth deviousness. COD to 9d BIG WHITE CHIEFS (interesting combination) and clearly CBI is not the Indian police. Honourable mention 21d BROWSES.
    Was not sure about 23ac VROOM for ‘gunner’s noise’ – but OK. Definite MER for 26ac SLAPDASH being ‘negligent’. Had to check THERMIDOR 17d (no lobster involved).
    Also appears some setters exploring the boundaries with their insertions eg. 5d THEIR MAJESTIES, where the ‘around’ was puzzlingly located or specified.
    A bit of ‘Yoda speak’ also seems to be creeping into recent puzzles – not this one thankfully.
    Plaudits to setter, and Guy for completeness.

    1. You may not know that ‘gun’ can mean to cause an engine to race, as in revving it, and the noise made is often written as VROOM.

      1. It’s amazing how I/we managed to get the answer without knowing that.
        Of course, this does raise the tenuous nature of a gunner being a closet hoon.

    2. Not sure you didn’t see this, but “around” is part of the definition for the clue-part JEST. “Keeping” is the only insertion indicator.

      “Negligent” is fine for SLAPDASH, à mon avis, though a euphemism for the suspect activity of the cops in the surface.

      1. Sorry! I did miss reading that in Ur blog.
        And it does work that way.
        I do not jest (well, here anyway).

  2. 2D: It took a long time for “element” to mean something different to the ancient Greek idea. There are “four elements” paintings by Arcomboldo, and Robert Boyle seems to have created the modern meaning of “element”, around 1661.

  3. Re the “silly-sounding” LUPIN: Lupin Pooter was one of the funnier characters in the comic novel The Diary of A Nobody by brothers George and Weedon Grossmith.

  4. No idea who Liam and Noel were, but got by with the checkers and wordplay. DNK CBI (or BIG WHITE CHIEFS, for that matter), but didn’t have to. TOO=’and, moreover’ can be used sentence-initially as a sentence connector; seldom is, I grant you, but. E.g. ‘Too, she hasn’t felt inclined toward apprehension lately.’ https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/too-its-a-strange-usage/ I liked a number of clues (as I always do with Dean): REPRIMAND, OPERATIVE, THEIR MAJESTIES, SOL-FA inter alia.

    1. Regarding “too,” surely in my long life I’ve heard what you report, but I confined myself to giving the definitions and part-of-speech classifications found in the dictionaries at hand. “Too” as a sentence connector or opener hasn’t made it into our usual sources.

      1. But how about ‘too’ meaning ‘as well’ – such as in ‘I have heard it used that way too’. Maybe not the best English but, hey, this is crossword land.
        Apologies if I’m missing the point.

        1. You’re missing nothing. This common sense logic seems to match a meaning mentioned in dictionaries, with examples like “can I come too?”.

      2. Dictionary definitions are sometimes not up to date about very common real life usage – see the latest ST clue writing report, about clues for Eurovision.

          1. It’s a clue writing contest started by Barbara Hall close to 40 years ago. As long as some redirect magic is working, the URL for it is:

            https://thesundaytimes.co.uk/cluewriting

            Historically, at least four of the prize winners have later been ST crossword setters. Robert Price is the most recent example.

            Google searches will find a link, but usually a less convenient one for mentioning in print.

    2. Yes knowing the Gallagher brothers (and that type of clue) are luck of the draw for the solver. For me it was a write-in, even though not a fan of these living (careful here) artists.

      1. Agreed. I have no interest in the Gallagher brothers or their music. It’s only because there’s been a lot of coverage in the recent news that I was able to write this in with ease.

  5. I came close to giving up on this one. The left hand side came relatively easily then I stalled for a couple of days. Never did manage to parse PREVENTABLE (thank you Guy)

  6. 40 minutes. I probably just need reminding of a possible context but I am still having difficulty with ‘go for / SELL’. I could understand ‘go for / buy’, but that doesn’t help.

    2. Doesn’t your example equate “sell for” and “go for”, not”sell” and “go for”?

      1. You’re right!
        Dictionary.com has this definition of SELL, and at Collins online you can find it in the American section:
        « to have a specific price; be offered for sale at the price indicated (followed by at or for ). » (Fixed typo on the site, “orfor.”)

  8. I also had problems with ‘Go for’ = sell, so thanks, Quadrophenia. I could only think of it in the ‘attack’ sense. Otherwise, typical Dean Mayer tricky, with several unknowns – STOCK CAR, BIG WHITE CHIEFS (as referencing CBI). THEIR MAJESTIES held me up for ages, as I could neither be sure of the definition nor the anagrist, if indeed it was a partial anagram! Finally bifd with crossers and post-parsed. Liked THERMIDOR and OUT WITH IT. Dash it, I liked all of them once I’d finally cracked them, with the only question mark for SWELL, as mentioned. Thanks, Guy and Dean.

  9. Annoyingly I forgot to keep a record of this, but I definitely don’t remember getting THERMIDOR, having no idea about the wordplay and not knowing the term, or BROWSES.

    – THEIR MAJESTIES was a long time in coming
    – Not familiar with BIG WHITE CHIEFS but eventually figured out the anagram

    Thanks Guy and Dean.

    COD Ranch

  10. My thanks to Dean Mayer and Guy du Sable.
    DNF, 5d Their Majesties. I found it hard.
    POI 2d Element. I MERed at this until I remembered the Greek elements included water. What an odd belief!
    22d DNK who Liam & Noel are, but didn’t need to.

  11. I agree with curryowen and still can’t find an equivalence of ‘sell’ and ‘go for’. To me ‘sell’ = ‘go’ and ‘sell for’ = ‘go for’.

    1. I don’t find this clue to be inconsistent with the way similar words that typically take a preposition for certain definitions are normally clued. SELL means “go [for or at].”

  12. 20.33

    Late entry. BIG WHITE CHIEFS from somewhere; otherwise would have been longer. SOL-FA was good.

    Thanks Dean/Guy

  13. Not knowing who Noel and Liam were, and having GET WITH IT for 22a, I struggled with OASIS for a long while, but the clever SOL FA helped. Started off quite speedily in the NE, but slowed to a CRAWL in the NW. Very much liked CAPTION, LUPIN and WORDSMITH, as they helped me get a toe-hold. And MATILDA of course, now that I’m officially Aussie.

  14. Thanks Dean and Guy
    Struggled with this one across a couple of days and 3 or 4 sittings totalling just over the two hours – so found it tough !
    Don’t know if I could name a song of theirs from the top of my head, but knew from the news around the two Gallagher brothers enough to write in the answer and then parse it. The long 5d and 9d were not terms that immediately sprang to mind and were painfully constructed from the anagram material. Had to check it, but THERMIDOR had crossed paths with me sometime in past crosswords. MATILDA struck a chord. 🙂
    Finally finished with those two long ones that allowed me to correct my OPERATING to OPERATIVE and then be able to fully parse it.

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