Sunday Times Cryptic No 5181 by Robert Price — nut season

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic

This spicy treat seemed a bit easier than the last one by Mr. Price that I had the honor of blogging—just two weeks ago, so I remember! Again. we have a pun across the top line, which continues to make a coherent phrase with the two bottom Acrosses (I didn’t detect a pun there, though I could of course be missing something). This phrase cannot help but remind me of the suddenly precarious state of public broadcasting in the United States. Here in the US, “Fall” (alluded to in my LOI) is indeed imminent, with the autumnal equinox falling on Monday.

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

ACROSS
 1 Sport for a German, the paying supporter (6)
FUNDER    FUN, “Sport” + DER, “the” in German
 
 5 Chaps add up in their heads (8)
MENTALLY    MEN TALLY
 
 9 Established firm (10)
DETERMINED    DD
 
10 Suit jacket (4)
CASE    DD
 
11 Fully loaded vessel finally leaves port (4)
ADEN    LADEN
 
12 Make sweet pop — one expects it for gifts (5,5)
SUGAR DADDY    SUGAR, “Make sweet” + DADDY, “pop”
 
14 Elitist brought back fine art from Japan (6)
BONSAI    SNOB<=“brought back” + A 1, “fine”
 
16 Trim body rowers reported (8)
TRUNCATE    “trunk” + “eight”
 
18 City man dressed in silk (8)
HELSINKI    HE, “man” + (in silk)*
 
20 Loud wood-eating insect (6)
FLASHY    FL(ASH)Y
 
22 Author wary about getting into difficulty (10)
PLAYWRIGHT    PLIGHT (difficulty) with (wary)* inserted    …I love this word. A play is built like a ship.
 
24 US poet’s grit when speaking out (4)
NASH    “gnash”    …As I prepared to write here, browsing the poems of Ogden Nash (1902–1971), many of which I know quite well, I came across a heretofore unknown and very singular production from that usually so humorous pen, in a vein so different that it seems to be by a different, if distantly related, author—say, one Ogden Gnash.

Listen…

There is a knocking in the skull,
An endless silent shout
Of something beating on a wall,
And crying, “Let me out!”

That solitary prisoner
Will never hear reply.
No comrade in eternity
Can hear the frantic cry.

No heart can share the terror
That haunts his monstrous dark.
The light that filters through the chinks
No other eye can mark.

When flesh is linked with eager flesh,
And words run warm and full,
I think that he is loneliest then,
The captive in the skull.

Caught in a mesh of living veins,
In cell of padded bone,
He loneliest is when he pretends
That he is not alone.

We’d free the incarcerate race of man
That such a doom endures
Could only you unlock my skull,
Or I creep into yours.

(Gneedless to say, this is gnot what made him famous.)
26 Cruel being rejected for this reason (4)
ERGO    OGRE<=“rejected”
 
27 Claim line (10)
PROFESSION    DD
 
29 End a week off exhausted (8)
WEAKENED    (end a week)*
 
30 Small screw regularly holds leather in position (6)
STANCE    S(mall) + TAN, “leather” + sCrEw
 
DOWN
 2 Overturn result after leading (5)
UPEND    UP, “leading” + END, “result”
 
 3 Governesses raised girl, charging fees (7)
DUENNAS    DUES, “fees” laden with ANN<=“raised”
 
 4 Lessening on purpose (9)
REMISSION    RE, “on” + MISSION, “purpose”
 
 5 People go off fruit (3)
MANGO    MANGO
 
 6 Minimum hydroge{n a dir}igible requires (5)
NADIR    Hidden
 
 7 Old hat caught under a rocking chair (7)
ARCHAIC    A + (chair)* + C(aught)
 
 8 Desperate, continue to scrap (4-5)
LAST-DITCH    LAST, “continue” + DITCH, “scrap”
 
13 Becoming an oil billionaire almost, in Guinea (7)
GETTING    GETTY + IN + G(uinea)
 
15 Too big, old and fat, nearly blocking threshold (9)
OVERLARGE    O(ld) + VER(LARD)GE
 
17 Fun cryptic funny setter releases (9)
UNFETTERS    (Fun)* + (setter)*    Quite unusual to have two separate anagrinds.
 
19 Short rugby player in an exacting role? (7)
SHYLOCK    SHY, “Short” + LOCK, “rugby player”
 
21 Trouble recalling a name is worrying (7)
AMNESIA    (a name is)*
 
23 Fall — not primarily nut season (5)
No, that’s year-round now…
RIPEN    TRIP + EN, “nut”: another word for “en” meaning a space (smaller than an em) in printing
 
25 Unemotional criticism, mostly about nothing (5)
STOIC    ST(O)ICK
 
28 Former brave leader has departed (3)
OLD    BOLD
 

 

23 comments on “Sunday Times Cryptic No 5181 by Robert Price — nut season”

    1. I guess a lot of people didn’t bookmark the temporary URL. Domain migration is in progress. Hopefully will be working by mid-morning tomorrow.

  2. I’m afraid I lost patience with this one after about 40 minutes as I had too many answers for which I couldn’t explain all the reasoning, so I looked the last three answers up. I won’t go into detail because on reading the blog and revisiting the puzzle this morning I see that any failings were entirely my own. Just not in the right mood on the day perhaps.

    I note re today’s puzzle (#5182) that under the new puzzle regime the setter’s name has been omitted. Also the e-newspaper is not available for some reason so I was unable to check there. Normally we would know the setter’s name because they go in strict rotation, but we’ve just had two in a row from Robert Price because of Dean’s absence last week, so I don’t know where we are in the rota.

    1. David Mclean. Obtained from the ‘print all puzzles’ page, where strangely it appears! Today’s is 5182 by the way.

  3. Didn’t know DUENNAS. Thought of sugar candy first before seeing pop/daddy. Thought FLASHY was pretty clever with the wood inside the fly. Didn’t see the top row FUNDER MENTALLY. Took a while to figure out RIPEN for season and a bit longer to remember the dash/nut meaning. Fun crossword all round
    Thanks Guy and setter. You’ve doubled up the ‘e’ in duennas, it’s just Ann in dues.

  4. DNF. Goodness only knows why, but I got it into my head that the def for 13d was ‘Becoming an oil’ which just had to be an obscure, unheard of word describing a chemical process, so I followed what I thought was the wordplay and entered GATEING; it’s a worry. I enjoyed the rest, particularly SHYLOCK, my LOI and the extended def for DUENNAS which I was glad to remember.

    BTW, the crossword version on the Club webpage says “Dean Mayer is away” at the top of the puzzle.

    Thanks to Robert and Guy

    1. Ah thanks. I see “Dean Mayer is away” was also in the printed newspaper.

      There was no such message on the “main” newspaper puzzle site: so I’d wondered about the change in expected setter.

      In fact the main website is clearly the poor relation: there is no setter name for today’s puzzle or Mephisto. Although the printed paper and crossword club tell us it is David Mclean and John Grimshaw.

      So, it looks like the usual pairings of Sunday Cryptic and Mephisto setters are now changed. And, for this month, Guy and keriothe will each have the one setter to blog.

      1. The change in the ST Crossword rotation is temporary – Dean Mayer will be back in his spot on 5 October, which would have been his spot in the usual rotation.

  5. Late to the party today, because the regular site may not be again up if that is what is intended to happen eventually. Regular target link gives an error of not providing suitable check response.
    Anyway got here using the temporary provided.
    This was enjoyable. Particularly liked 5ac MENTALLY. 20ac FLASHY, 27ac PROFESSION and 17d UNFETTERS get honourable mentions – the last because of the somewhat witty double A.
    (‘Honourable’ is showing as a spelling mistake on my machine, but isn’t that the older English way?)
    Was not sure about meaning for SUGAR DADDY 12ac, and DNK ‘nut’ was a name for EN (an editor’s special, but maybe regulars or the better educated would know).
    DNK the particular ‘governessess’ in my case and had to research to fit clue.
    Apologies for any crossings (just corrected one), will read.
    Thank you setter and Guy.

  6. It appears I submitted off leaderboard for this but can’t remember why now. Didn’t parse RIPEN though so thanks for that.

    The usual link for this site was not working yet when I tried so only those who saved the temp link provided by Johninterred will find it.

    1. AI on my machine provided the temporary link when I used certain key words and held my mouth correctly. This is what I used:
      timesforthetimes temporary link for site migration
      and Google AI popped up a helpful message with the link.

  7. Took 27 minutes over this one, worth it for the FUNDER MENTALLY across the top, and, for whatever reason, MAN GETTING OLD down the middle.
    Curiously, by all appearances, the club site hasn’t delivered my “score” nor marked my entry as being correct (or not). Bet we can’t migrate the Times websites!

  8. The double anagrind did for me in 17d – as setters become more and more creative with their anagrinds, it’s hard to keep up.
    Otherwise, a good challenge as ever with Robert.
    Here’s hoping the new website comes on stream imminently

  9. I’m one who forgot to bookmark this URL. Now it’s my bedtime and I’ll just say this took me about an hour, I dithered between ERGO & OGRE (rejected for this reason), and I liked DETERMINED.

      1. Just in case, repeated from above on the site:
        AI on my machine provided the temporary link when I used certain key words and held my mouth correctly. This is what I used:
        timesforthetimes temporary link for site migration
        and Google AI popped up a helpful message with the link.

  11. Thank you for the blog. I think it is very useful and helpful reminding us that for Robert Price we should be looking out for the top row (and probably bottom row), message/pun.

  12. I thought the bottom line was a continuation of the top line, and an illustartion of the joined words down the middle column.
    I also thought that there was a wider difference between the easier and the harder clues today – I usually find RPs cluing very steady, difficulty-wise.

  13. DNF, defeated by HELSINKI (went on a city trawl but somehow didn’t get there, and never considered that ‘dress’ might be an anagrind) and SHYLOCK.

    – Vaguely remembered DUENNAS, almost certainly from one of these puzzles
    – Didn’t know that Getty was an oil billionaire so GETTING went in with a shrug
    – Had no idea how RIPEN worked

    Thanks Guy and Robert.

    COD Playwright

  14. Thanks Robert and Guy
    Took four sessions and 81 minutes to get this one finished over a couple of days – so quite tough for me. Happy to have been able to work out all of the parsing, even though some of them were after filling the grid. While expecting a Dean puzzle wasn’t looking for the normal ninas across the top and bottom, but did spot them on completion. No real holdups anywhere, it was more about getting into his convoluted mind to find the answers.
    Finished in the NW corner with REMISSION, BONSAI and FUNDER the last one in.

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