Sunday, Deccember 6, 2009 (ST 4352)

This puzzle was originally published in The Sunday London Times on October 25, 2009

Introduction

I'm a bit late this week in posting my blog. It is certainly not due to the puzzle being overly taxing - as it was anything but difficult. I just had a very busy Sunday.

Today's Glossary

Some possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzle

M1 - a major motorway (highway) in England linking London and Leeds.

RE - abbreviation Royal Engineer (or sapper - noun 1 a military engineer who lays or detects and disarms mines. 2 Brit. a soldier in the Corps of Royal Engineers.)

Links to Solutions

A review of today's puzzle by talbinho can be found at Times for the Times [ST 4352].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

1a Desires new form - stays required (7)

As in this example, one often sees words like "required" or "needed" appearing in clues. The implication of such constructions is usually that a word matching the definition is required (or needed) as the solution. Thus, this clue can be viewed as a terse presentation of what could be stated more verbosely as "The solution is an anagram (new form) of DESIRES, one which is required to be a word meaning 'stays'".

12a Overtaking inch into middle of coastal road (8)

Only after having solved this clue on the basis of the definition (coastal road) together with a couple of checking letters was I able to work out the wordplay. The use of "overtaking" as an anagram indicator seems rather dubious - a point on which talbinho concurs in his review.

22a I withdrew, then had a meal - to get thin? (8)

My interpretation is that this is an example of what might be called indirect wordplay (which may not be the recognized way of describing such a clue, but being unaware of any other, I'll settle for it). One first has to translate "I withdrew" into "I came back" which indicates a reversal (back) of I CAME or EMACI which is followed by (then) ATE (had a meal) to produce EMACIATE (to get thin).

29a Marshal reportedly is old naval hero (7)

Sir Walter Raleigh was an "English courtier, navigator, colonizer, and writer" - but was he a "naval hero". Since the description seemed not to raise the hackles of the Brits, the clue presumably could not have been too far off the mark.

21d Bird's taken off from motorway with something on a leaf (6)

While the wordplay here is not as blatantly indirect as in 22a, I find it still requires a bit of interpretation on the part of the solver to determine what action is needed to find the solution. If a bird "takes off", it goes up. Consequently, since this is a down clue, the wordplay is instructing us to reverse the word "bird" (i.e., make it go up).

Signing off for this week - Falcon