Sunday, September 29, 2013 — ST 4553

This review was posted on Monday, October 7, 2013 but backdated so as to appear with the September puzzles in the Blog Archive listings.

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Sunday Times ST 4553
Date of Publication in The Sunday Times Sunday, September 1, 2013
Setter Jeff Pearce
Link to Full Review Times for the Times [ST 4553]
Times for the Times Review Written By Dave Perry
Dave Perry's Solving Time ★★★
Date of Publication in the Toronto Star Saturday, September 21, 2013
Date of Publication in the Vancouver Sun Saturday, September 28, 2013[see note]
Falcon's Experience ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ Legend: █ - solved without assistance █ - incorrect prior to use of puzzle solving tools █ - solved with assistance from puzzle solving tools █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by puzzle solving tools █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Times for the Times █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by solutions from Times for the Times
Notes This puzzle appears on the Sunday puzzles pages in the Saturday, September 28, 2013 edition of The Ottawa Citizen. Due to the paywall on its web site, I am no longer able to verify the puzzle that appears in the Vancouver Sun.

Introduction

I am running behind in my blog writing, so this is a review of the puzzle that appeared a week ago. The puzzle was solved over so many small sessions interspersed with solving a number of other puzzles that it is difficult to form a coherent impression of the puzzle.

Notes on Today's Puzzle

This commentary should be read in conjunction with the full review at Times for the Times, to which a link is provided in the table above. The underlined portion of the clue is the definition.

Across

1a   Organs finally kept in bottles (6)

5a   Rotten coach out of sight of the audience (8)

The coach is a stage^[3,4,11] (short for stagecoach).

9a   Lecturer with endless fire within is chief troublemaker (10)

I must admit that, despite having found the correct solution, the wordplay remained a mystery until I read Dave Perry's review — even though I remember having previously encountered both of the following terms.

In Britain, a Reader^[5] is a university lecturer of the highest grade below professor ⇒ Dr Gardiner is Reader in Mathematics.

In British dialect, ingle^[5] is a domestic fire or fireplace.

10a   Moabite beheaded outside a Mormon settlement (4)

Ruth^[5] is a book of the Bible telling the story of Ruth, a Moabite woman, who married her deceased husband’s kinsman Boaz and bore a son who became grandfather to King David.

Utah^[7] is the most religiously homogeneous state in the US. Approximately 63% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS (Mormons), which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life. The world headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is located in Utah's state capital, Salt Lake City.

11a   Borders club dropped opener (4)

In the surface reading, Borders^[5] (in all likelihood) refers to the boundary and adjoining districts between Scotland and England and club to a sports team.

12a   Cover band is after new hit when on the road (5,5)

Cover^[5] (in reference to insurance) means to protect against a liability, loss, or accident involving financial consequences ⇒ your contents are now covered against accidental loss or damage in transit. While the same verb form is used in both Britain and North America, we use a different form of the noun on this side of the pond. In the UK, the word cover^[5] is used to denote protection by insurance against a liability, loss, or accident ⇒ your policy provides cover against damage by subsidence. This is equivalent to the North American term coverage^[5] meaning the amount of protection given by an insurance policy ⇒ your policy provides coverage against damage by subsidence.

Third party^[5] (in the context of insurance) means covering damage or injury suffered by a person other than the insured ⇒ third-party liability. Although Oxford Dictionaries Online characterises this as a British term, it is certainly also used in Canada.

14a   Small bird going around jail (6)

A prion^[5] is a small petrel of southern seas, having a wide bill fringed with comb-like plates for feeding on planktonic crustaceans.

16a   Clobber best at Ascot when drunk (3)

Clobber^[5] is British slang for clothing, personal belongings, or equipment ⇒ I found all his clobber in the locker.

Ascot Racecourse^[7] is a famous English racecourse, located in the small town of Ascot, Berkshire, used for thoroughbred horse racing. It is one of the leading racecourses in the United Kingdom, hosting 9 of the UK's 32 annual Group 1 races. The course is closely associated with the British Royal Family, being approximately six miles from Windsor Castle. 

18a   Plant that's muddy green or indigo, primarily (8)

Erigeron^[5] is a widely distributed herbaceous plant of the daisy family, which is sometimes cultivated as an ornamental.

20a   Chicken and fish returned uncooked inside (6)

22a   Nice gym likely to collapse without stanchion at the back (10)

PE^[5] is the abbreviation for physical education (or Phys Ed, as it would likely be called by most school kids).

An archaic meaning of nice^[5] is fastidious or scrupulous. 

24a   Mad to ignore heart attack (4)

Dave Perry's comment "lift and separate required on 'heart attack'" refers to the fact that while "heart attack" happens to be a single entity in surface reading, it must be separated into two separate components in the cryptic reading — with "heart" being part of the wordplay and "attack" constituting the definition. The term is a play on the 'lift and separate' description commonly found in advertising for bras.

26a   Daily Chronicle hadn't any readers initially (4)

In Britain, daily^[5] (also called daily help) is a dated term for a woman who is employed to clean someone else’s house each day. Char^[5], another name for a charwoman^[5], is a dated term for a woman employed as a cleaner in a house or office.

27a   Perhaps Candy Crush payment is delayed by novice (10)

If 24a required one to "lift and separate", this clue requires that one substitute, lift and separate. To understand the wordplay, one must recognize that the phrase "put on ice" is synonymous with "is delayed". That is the substitution step. Then one must lift and separate the phrase, with "put on" serving as a charade indicator and ICE as the charade fodder. Thus the wordplay becomes APP (perhaps Candy Crush) + RENT (payment) + (put on) ICE (acquired in the substitution).

29a   Southern part ol Bexley is an area suffering inflation (8)

Welling^[7] is a district in South East London and a part of the London Borough of Bexley.

30a   Two ways to be shy (6)

Down

2d   I competed with climber (5)

3d   Man's taunts heard by City (7)

The wordplay is AL (man) + (has; 's) GIERS {sounds like (heard by) JEERS (taunts)}.

The surface reading is likely a reference to Manchester City F. C.^[7] (often referred to as simply City), an English Premier League football [soccer] club based in Manchester, England.

4d   Doctor enters holding tiny pill to replace sugar (9)

5d   Not even  funny (3)

5d   Man cuddling one gets sacked (5)

7d   Bird belonging to us used in a pancake (7)

The touraco^[5] is a fruit-eating African bird with brightly coloured plumage, a prominent crest, and a long tail. Also called loerie or lourie in South Africa.

8d   Starting to change concealing a heavenly body (5,4)

13d   Vivid, say, description of campers? (7)

15d   Carnival featuring injured war heroes (5-4)

A raree show^[10] is a street show or carnival.

17d   Elephant, perhaps, destroyed camp with an unknown herd (9)

In mathematics (algebra, in particular), an unknown^[10] is a variable, or the quantity it represents, the value of which is to be discovered by solving an equation ⇒ 3y = 4x + 5 is an equation in two unknowns. [Unknowns are typically represented symbolically by the letters x, y and z.]

19d   Officer  sweeping  public  common (7)

A quadruple definition!

21d   Wife sorted out yarn (7)

23d   Vessel - one touring end of archipelago to see creature (5)

25d   Trendy son carries copper anvil (5)

The symbol for the chemical element copper is Cu^[5].The incus^[5] is a small anvil-shaped bone in the middle ear, transmitting vibrations between the malleus and stapes.

28d   Small boxer dog (3)

Pug^[3,4,11] (short for pugilist) is a slang term for a boxer.

Key to Reference Sources: 

^[1]   - The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition
^[2]   - Search Chambers - (Chambers 21st Century Dictionary)
^[3]   - TheFreeDictionary.com (American Heritage Dictionary)
^[4]   - TheFreeDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)
^[5]   - Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford Dictionary of English)
^[6]   - Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford American Dictionary)
^[7]   - Wikipedia
^[8]   - Reverso Online Dictionary (Collins French-English Dictionary)
^[9]   - Infoplease (Random House Unabridged Dictionary)
^[10] - CollinsDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)
^[11] - TheFreeDictionary.com (Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary)

Signing off for this week — Falcon