ST Cryptic No 2478 – Hints

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2478 – Hints

Selected hints by Big Dave

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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****

Another excellent Sunday puzzle, although I had to coax each answer out!.

For the weekend prize crosswords I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.  A full analysis of this puzzle will be available at 12.00 next Thursday, 9th April.

Some hints to get you started:

Across

7a A little worried, enters to accept the bribe (9)
It’s all in how you read it! – a little / worried, enters to accept / the bribe; a Scottish word for little inside (to accept) an anagram (worried) of ENTERS gives this bribe

11a The new figure entered, enter wrongly (6)
Again, ignore the surface reading – the new / figure entered / enter wrongly; a word meaning new comes from a figure (100 in Roman numerals in this case) inside (entered) an anagram (wrongly) of ENTER

12a I get out of it and go off for a jog (4)
I’m not at all sure what the difference is between this answer and a jog, but then you won’t catch me doing either!

25a Cross one by one this time (6)
I loved this elegant play on the Roman numerals for the given time

Down

1d Chucking the snow ball in, collapse (5)
Take an anagram of SNOW, put a ball inside and you get a fainting fit of the kind that used to happen when the Beatles played live!

4d Never gets upset, for instance, by reverses. Is sweet (7)
Not only sweet but, according to the proverb, is best served cold!

19d It’s hard. The number is disconnected (7)
Our third Roman numeral of the day ends this answer!

23d One runabout. It’s an old vehicle (6)
This light open carriage is probably very old

Statistics show that there is a lot less interest in the Sunday cryptic than the others, which is a pity because recently, apart from the Toughies, they have become the best puzzle of the week.