Sunday Times No 4905, by Robert Price — Masked and Antonymous

Author   Guy du SablePosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
(The actual title of the 2003 Bob Dylan film directed by Larry Charles is a bit redundant, methinks.)

With a long one going in early on and only one slightly unusual word here, this was a smooth and steady solve last week, savored while I watched some old movie on YouTube. What stood out, besides that one word, were a couple of anagrinds that looked like maybe the most unusual and creative we’d seen for a while. (One of them, however, I was making out to be more unusual than it is.)

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

ACROSS
 1 Island swamp retreating to leave an arid region (4,6)
GOBI DESERT — I BOG<=“retreating” + DESERT, “to leave” No mirage, we were also here the day before!
 6 Learner dismissed by pottery expert (4)
DEFT — DE[-l]FT
 9 Catty utterance from a girl, that hurts (5)
MIAOW — MIA, “a girl” + OW, ‘that hurts”
10 Riddle about pie filling? It’s mostly meat (9)
PEPPERONI — PEPPER, “riddle” + ON, “about” + [-p]I[-e] MER, as “riddle” means (Collins) “to pierce or perforate with numerous holes” and PEPPER “to shower or pelt with many small objects’; if you say, “the report was riddled with errors,” I still see holes but the sense is close to an example given for a definition of PEPPER, “to sprinkle liberally, to dot”—although the definition for RIDDLED with the former example is “to fill or pervade,” not quite the same.
12 An affair with a lover that’s somewhat edgy (1,3,2,3,4)
A BIT ON THE SIDE — CD, my first (or second?) one in.
14 Stretch a legend, almost to becoming absurd (8)
ELONGATE — (A LEGEN[-d] TO)* Though the unscrambled anagram isn’t an absurdity at all, of course, but a perfectly legible word, I guess the function of the last two words was clear to everyone.
15 Top student to get nice little job (6)
EARNER — [-l]EARNER ”Top” meaning “behead.”
17 Attendance money received by the French ambassador (6)
LEGATE — LE is “the[,] French” and GATE is “attendance money,” a somewhat odd phrase that will never be an answer in a crossword.
19 Metal churns filled by chaps making cheese (8)
EMMENTAL — (Metal)* with MEN, “chaps,” inside
21 Bishop and religious group row about stray dog (6,7)
BORDER TERRIER — B(ishop) + ORDER + T(ERR)IER
24 Garment first to be stripped off in fitting rooms (9)
APARTMENT — ([-g]arment)* walled in by APT
25 Jar smashing by the sound of it (5)
GRATE — “Great”
26 Action tantrums brought about (4)
STEP — PETS<=“brought about”
27 Like War and Peace, finally sent in by someone unknown (10)
ANTONYMOUS — [-sen]T inside “anonymous,” “by someone unknown” Nothing very strange about this word; the root is everyday, but I’m not sure I’ve ever come across the adjective in the wild.

DOWN
 1 Grand parliamentarian clutching a brolly (4)
GAMP — G(A)MP Though a Yank, somehow I knew this.
 2 Well performed trick produces a show of confidence (7)
BRAVADO — ”Brava!” is “well performed” (for kudos directed at a female) + DO is “trick”
 3 Where ministers often go drinking with cryptic setter (7,6)
DOWNING STREET — Hobnobbing with friends in high places, eh, Bob? DOWNING, “drinking” + (setter)*
 4 Games incorporating leading backs (8)
SUPPORTS — S(UP)PORTS
 5 Lush climbing plant in fresh soil (5)
REPOT — TOPER<=“climbing”
 7 Wear one rose on working clothes (7)
EROSION — I,“one,” inside (rose on)* I thought this was another unusual anagrind; “working” the anagrist “clothes”—in the sense of covers, disguises, masks—the answer! Aha! However, as Adrian Cobb points out below, a more straightforward explanation was at hand.
 8 A poet upset by annoying poster paper supplier (6,4)
TOILET ROLL — ELIOT<=“upset” + TROLL, “annoying poster” (My local supermarket still has a shortage of the usual brands; crazy.)
11 A wintery elegy broadcast in an excruciating way (3-10)
EYE-WATERINGLY — (A wintery elegy)*
13 Sweets bulge trousers according to Spooner (5,5)
JELLY BEANS — ”belly jeans”
16 Old lady feeding swimmer a revolting drink (8)
AMARETTO — OTTER A<=”revolting” has swallowed MA
18 European centre for dress material (7)
GERMANE — GERMAN, “European” + [-dr]E[-ss]
20 One sure to blow rent on a party (7)
TORNADO — TORN, “rent” + A DO, “a party” (If it’s not blowing, of course, it’s not a tornado.)
22 Relationship that is limited by money (3-2)
TIE-IN — T(I.E.)IN
23 County borders (4)
BEDS — DD I was wondering for a bit if there is a HEMS County, before I remembered that this is slang the abbreviation (thanks, Jackkt!) for Bedfordshire and figured out that the “borders” are BEDS in the sense of a kind of (DBE) flower bed. LOI

33 comments on “Sunday Times No 4905, by Robert Price — Masked and Antonymous”

  1. ….a “bog” standard clue ? (Sorry, I’ll get my coat).

    Hadn’t realised that BRAVA was a gender specific usage, which caused some head-scratching when parsing later. NHO my LOI.

    FOI MIAOW
    LOI ANTONYMOUS
    COD AMARETTO
    TIME 15:10

  2. I figured out EMMENTAL soon enough, but I couldn’t see how ‘chums’ could be the anagrind. GAMP is named after Dickens’s Sarah Gamp (‘Martin Chuzzlewit’), who always carried one. COD EROSION.
  3. Not too many hold-ups here though I was stuck on GERMANE for a while. It’s much the same thing, but for EROSION, I had only ‘working’ as the anagram indicator, with ‘clothes’ as a containment indicator, as you’ve gone on to explain.

    I liked the idea of the ANTONYMOUS ‘bulge trousers’ and JELLY BEANS.

  4. 24 ac: can anyone cleverer than us please explain how the t gets into the middle of the word? We got the ‘apt’ going round ‘-arment’ but not how the t shifts position.
    1. It’s still an anagram, though only one letter shifts.
      The anagram is indicated by (the anagrind) “off” (which my italicization is meant to flag).
      All 6 letters of the anagrist,
      arment,
      are inside APT
      AP (ARTMEN) T

      1. Thank you! As you may imagine I had skimmed and missed the italicisation
  5. BEDS is actually the official abbreviation for Bedfordshire rather than slang.
    1. I must not have been paying attention when it came up last time! Thanks!
      1. There are nearly as many of these as there are counties in England and Wales but among the ones particularly worth knowing for crossword purposes (apart from Beds) are Bucks (Buckinghamshire), Hants (Hampshire), Warks (Warwickshire), Notts (Nottinghamshire) and Herts (Herfordshire). A longer list is available here: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/UK_County_Abbreviations
  6. Another fine Robert puzzle taking 28 minutes, so not a tricky one. COD to TOILET ROLL, not bog standard at my Grannie’s, Phil. She’d cut up the old Radio Times. It was certainly better than Izal, the brand leader then on offer. And the lavatory was still outside at her death in 1963. Talking about hygiene factors, was anyone else reminded of the strap line from Herzberg’s two factor theory of motivation? Thank you Guy and setter.
    1. Izal was very good for playing the comb and paper, but appalling otherwise.
  7. Forgive my pedantry (or perhaps not?) but I read 7 d as I for one inside (rose on)*, i.e. (roseon) clothes the I. No?
    Many thanks to setter and blogger.
    1. Oh, shoot, surely that’s it. I must have been so taken with my explanation because I could tie “clothe” to “mask.”
      Much obliged!

      Edited at 2020-06-07 07:00 am (UTC)

    2. The error, not that uncommon, may arise from the influence of the former Portuguese currency, the escudo, plural escudos, the word deriving from ‘scutum’, Latin for ‘shield’, whereas ‘kudos’ is Greek for a highly decorated drinking vessel given to victors in the Olympic Games (see Pindar’s ode to Sogenes, winner of the boys’ pentathlon, and the line ‘…the kudos went to dark-eyed Sogenes’).
      1. Or the error might arise from thinking that kudos is the plural of kudo.
        2. My error arose from not thinking. I had the knowledge hidden somewhere in my brain that it’s not a plural, but it’s informally synonymous with “compliments.”
  9. I managed to solve 13 clues in my first session indicating an accessible puzzle. FOI was TIE IN. I often have to hunt around for an entry point. EYE WATERINGLY gave me a lot of letters and ANTONYMOUS somehow seemed familiar.
    Later in the day,as often happens, two pesky four-letter clues were holding me up: 23d and 6a. The counties I knew of in Ireland were of no help; I suddenly thought of the abbreviated BEDS (which I think has come up fairly recently). So LOI was DEFT which I’ll make COD.
    I thought Pepperoni was a product name but it had to be. And I learnt the difference between Bravo and Brava.
    Another enjoyable puzzle from Robert. David
      2. I think you’re right. I was once involved in the audit of Mattessons Meats and I used to buy them from the staff shop. The company had operations in West Ham, Durham and Birmingham. An interesting way of reminding people of their main product.
  10. 8:13. Pretty easy one, with nothing I didn’t know. I remembered GAMP from a previous puzzle.
  11. An enjoyable puzzle. Liked TOILET ROLL and ANTONYMOUS. I also wondered about HEMS for 23d until I twigged the flower BED meaning. No particular hold ups. 22:12. Thanks Bob and Guy.
  12. 24:32 an entertaining puzzle with nothing too tricky. Germane took sometime to materialise as did antonymous. I liked Downing Street.
  13. 11:04. Lovely puzzle. LOI ANTONYMOUS, which made me laugh when I got it. I liked DOWNING STREET and GERMANE too.
  14. ……..to ALL the setters and bloggers for all the hours of fun. You have trained us well. We did this puzzle at one sitting in under an hour with just one aid, how to spell delft.

    AKA Tom and Janet Toronto.

  15. Thanks Robert and guy
    Didn’t find this as straightforward as some, taking over the hour to do across several sittings – and that was even after getting off to a flying start with GOBI DESERT going in first. GAMP is an old favourite that quickly followed.
    Needed help to properly parse BRAVADO – it had to be the answer but didn’t go down the feminine BRAVA path. Thought that 8d was fitting for the times that we have been in – a curious behaviour that I still haven’t understood the reason for – a pandemic of dysentery I would understand ! Was a great clue nevertheless.
    Finished in the NE corner with REPOT, EROSION and EARNER the last few in.

    (PS. How does that rubbish from Jun 25 get to stay on a thread like this?)

    1. The blog was posted on June 5, and I probably haven’t looked at it since June 6. You may be the only person who has, judging by my Inbox.

      If you joined the club, other people besides myself would read your comments.

      1. Hey guy … wasn’t a criticism … hadn’t seen a spam on this site before that’s all.
        If by joining the club you mean posting earlier, am afraid that I can’t post any earlier than 3 weeks after the event for these as I do the syndicated version in The Australian that I subscribe to here. Doesn’t concern me all that much about the lack of readership – just do it more for completeness 🙂
        I do post on the day for the FT puzzles that I complete.
        1. I meant the Times Crossword Club. It’s a very good deal for an American; I even get a sub to the paper thrown in, not that I ever look at it. But I don’t know what the rates are for Australians..

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