i Cryptic Crossword 4166 by Tees
June 13, 2024
Difficulty rating (out of five) ⌛⌛⌛
I really enjoyed this puzzle: Tees at his best with a sprinkling of easy clues to get you going, but many really challenging entries with fine surfaces, some of which had complicated but absolutely fair wordplay.
There was no theme or Nina, unless you count two of Santa’s reindeer (as according to an 1823 American poem of which I was informed by a diversion to Wikipedia), which were clued symmetrically in the SW and NE corners. They were both hitherto unknown, but I got the former from wordplay; the Jewish tribe in the latter was also unknown, but my first guess was lucky. The only other unknown was the plant part at 24a, which rang a very faint bell when I looked it up.
I enjoyed the good mix of clues. PRONOUN was entered from its cunning definition, missing the wordplay until I later visited FifteenSquared, to which a link appears below. However, whereas this clue required six cryptically defined letters to be removed, the THOROUGHFARE at 27a required three letters to be inserted. I was not deceived into believing that the capital in 4d was JAPAN’s. Top marks for surface go to 16d where a crafty definition for RACE is clued by a simple though not too obvious anagram. And I bet I am not alone in spotting the anagram for HAIRNET only after entering the answer from crossers and definition.
A great Penny-Drop Moment feeling the HOT-WATER BOTTLE at 3d and another brilliant surface at the COCONUT SHY in 1d, but for my Clue of the Day, I recall the PDM once I had identified the PM as N***H in 14a: ”Old PM with charisma making attractive point (8,5)”.
Please find all the wordplay and comments at:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2020/06/07/independent-on-sunday-1580-tees/
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
Denzo
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
Yes, liked this too – just into three egg-timers for time. I was pleased to get the plant from wordplay.
Same here, as I’d not heard of it. Smooth going though; I was tempted to plump for just ⌛⌛.
I’m another who got COTYLEDON from word-play plus crossing letters.
Good and enjoyable.
Must be having a bad day as this was a DNF for me, failing on NAIROBI and DASHER. I can forgive myself for the former, never having heard of an OBI, but the latter… oh dear, although the only ASHER I’ve ever heard of is Jane. Enjoyed the rest though.
Thanks Tees. Good stuff and a very impressive run of productivity.
Fairly pleased with myself for coping with the CEMENT and the BIT deletions, this type of clue so often being my Achilles heel these days.
Nothing too difficult, but I guess ⌛⌛⌛ is about right. I got DASHER early on, which led me to DANCER (and the former gave me a earworm of Jacob and Sons from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat). My favourites, though, were INAPT for neatness and HAIRNET for the misleading surface – it wouldn’t offer much protection from the rain!
All done and dusted in 3 timers but with some sticky moments. We struggled with 8d and 11a. We weren’t helped by carelessly using “Guinea pig” at 7d. Fortunately 13a was a gimme and highlighted the error. There were a couple we needed full parsing from the other side to understand properly. 4d was our LOI. We broke the rule again!! If 2 terms seem to be together- ie Japan’s capital- they are not. Misdirection 101 as the yanks would say!
Other Nana has talked about 24a so I’d heard of them but didn’t know the spelling until now. Hadn’t come across 11a before but that was relatively straightforward to work out and then verify. A fun and intriguing solve. Much enjoyed.