Sunday Times clue writing contest 1656: Pilates

Good clues

Terry Neale, Orton, Cumbria
Training exercises to develop core management skills
In Pilates jargon, the “core” or “powerhouse” is the muscles of the abdomen, lower and upper back, hips, buttocks, and inner thighs. So what appears to be a description of business-related training is actually something else. If we want to be hyper-strict, the true purpose of Pilates is probably to develop the muscles involved rather than the skills needed to manage them, but it’s hard to imagine one being developed without the other.

Ross Harrison, Dechmont, West Lothian
Exercise regime is close to success after regular uphill battles
There’s little deception in the definition here, but there is a believable story of the work involved in physical exercise. The “regular uphill battles” give us PILATE from alternate letters in “uphill battles”, and after them we need the S which is the “close (noun) to success”. For “ending of”, “close to” is a possibly unusual alternative, but easy enough to understand.

RC Teuton, Frampton Cotterell, South Gloucestershire
Wanting rid of back pain? Let’s work out with this
With the elimination of the last letter of “pain”, it combines with “let’s” to produce anagram fodder. Using “with this” at the end makes this an all-in-one/&lit clue, though with perhaps a shade of barred grid crossword language.

Colin Clarke, Boughspring, Gloucestershire
Exercise involving one needing muscle contraction followed by a bit of stretching
This is another all-in-one/&lit clue. The “exercise” in the wordplay reading is P.E., which contains I=one and LAT=latissimus dorsi is a “muscle contraction”, the latissimus dorsi being a muscle in your lower back, and “contraction” being an alternative to “shortening”. At the end is S = “a bit of stretching”. Reading the clue as a definition, it seems close enough, though I haven’t confirmed that stretching necessarily follows muscle contraction in Pilates.

David Harrison, Blackburn, Lancashire
Reckless IT lapse is stretching system
In the light of recent events at British Airways, writing as a passenger who should be on a short trip using BA flights when you read this, and a former techie not quite convinced that power supply was the whole problem last weekend, the story here is much more convincing than it was when I judged the contest. And there are descriptions of Pilates calling it an “exercise system”, so “stretching system” is OK.

Malcolm Crehan, Matlock
The French involved in off-piste exercise
Rather less often than “le”, “The French” can also mean “la” or “les”. This time it’s LA, inside an anagram of “piste”. There’s not a lot of deception in the definition, but otherwise this reads well and is promising as what seems to be a first attempt.

Luciano Ward, Evanston, Illinois, USA
Exercise a bit of discretion after slipping off pedal — it’s jagged
There’s a credible story here, but for me the indication of the removal of D from “pedal it’s” to get the anagram fodder involves stretching language a bit too far. In particular, “a bit of discretion slipping off” seems to be clearer and fairer than the version including “after”, which I think leads more strongly to the D than the other letters.

Peter Bennett, Cooper’s Green, Hertfordshire
I slept with a criminal — his stretches became eponymous
This uses a different meaning of Pilates — Joseph Pilates, who invented it. In the surface meaning, the stretches are certainly eponymous, but I’m struggling a little to see how this could apply to the kind of “stretch” involved in the surface reading. But if I was writing a clue and spotted “I slept with a” as possible indication for the anagram fodder, I might be reluctant to swap to anything else.

Comments on some other clues

Work out mathematical ratio on broken slate
The surface reading is a fairly convincing tale of long-ago maths lessons. The entrant claims to have used a slate at school, and I’m happy to believe him. The wordplay is PI=mathematical ratio, then an anagram of “slate”. The problem is with “work out” as the definition. By the usual standards of written English, this would be a verb, and the noun version applying to Pilates would be “work-out” or “workout”. I’m sure many solvers would not be very worried about this, but for prize-winning purposes it matters. For such purposes, one also wonders whether a different anagram indicator would have made the nature of the slate a bit more convincing.

Work out system to drink up round after hours
Aside from the same point about “work out”, “drink up round” seems rather unlikely language compared to something like “drink up beer”.

Octet reportedly swim in beer for exercise
With Pils as the beer and ATE sounding like “eight”, we’ve got fairly indicated components. But I can’t see that “swim” is a fair addition when plain “in” tells us all we need to know, and the surface story is surreal in the way that cryptic clues sometimes end up, but even then leaves us wondering why there should be eight swimmers rather than any other number.

German orchestrated slow movement The controlled movements in Pilates seem likely to be slow rather than fast, and Joseph Pilates was German, so this clue is understandable when you know what the answer is. But I’m not convinced that there’s enough information here for solvers to identify the answer without help from something like three out of four checking letters.

I use staple moves in Contrology Contrology turns out to be an early name for Pilates, so it’s accurate, although obscure — I can’t find it in any dictionary, and having consulted both the full OED and Websters 3rd New International, I think I’ve tried enough. You could argue that with a lot of references on the internet, at least some solvers would know it, but vocabulary that can be confirmed in single-volume dictionaries is preferred. For the anagram, we also have to ignore “use” — I can’t see a meaning of “use” that would mean combining “I” and “staple” before they “moved”.

Working on a great deal incorporating fitness exercises The wordplay here is AT inside PILES. I’m happy that, for example “piles of work” is the same as “a great deal of work”, but I’m struggling to see a similar replacement of “at” with “working on” that doesn’t change meaning or create nonsense. A stronger objection is to the notion that “A B incorporating” can mean “B incorporating A”. We allow poetic language sometimes, but this seems beyond that kind of generosity.

Leading whales strive to maintain strength on Iberian Peninsular I’m afraid that as far as the wordplay goes, this is the mystery clue in this contest. I can’t see anything more than the possibility that “pilot”, as a type of whale known for leading ships, is involved, probably as a plural. But if it is, I can’t see why the OT in “pilots” should be replaced with ATE. The surface reading baffles me too — if you’re a whale on the (misspelled) Iberian Peninsula, staying alive seems unlikely, never mind maintaining strength.

Clue writing contest 1659 Retrieve

Readers are invited to compose their own clues for the answer above. Clues must be original and cryptic, of a standard similar to those in the Sunday Times Crossword.

Email your entry to puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk. The contest closes on Monday, June 12, and the best entry wins £20.

Clue writing homepage