DT Cryptic No 25912 – Hints

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25912 – Hints

Selected hints by Big Dave

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *

There’s not much I can say about this puzzle, other than this week there are no place names in it.  Girls’ names feature twice in the answers and once in the wordplay.  If it wasn’t for the self-imposed responsibility of producing some hints for this blog, I would be inclined to stop doing these Saturday puzzles altogether.

Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 30th April.  I wish him well!

Across

1a Pass without harm when windy storm has finished (4,4)
A phrase meaning to pass without harm which is a charade of a movement of air (usually a bit less than the said windy storm) and a word meaning finished

10a Bill enters cab. On the contrary suffering from inability to control movements (6)
On the contrary indicates that it’s TAXI (cab) enters AC (bill) to give a word you have probably never heard of meaning suffering from inability to control movements

14a Players’ lively passage (7)
According to Chamber’s: a lively busy movement in triple time, usually with a trio

17a Merriment with this French lady (5)
A lady whose name is a charade of a synonym for merriment and the French for this – and a missed opportunity to base a clue on the famous Irish author of Ulysses or even on Lord Haw-Haw

20a Take a back seat (5)
… on a horse

26a One accepted by many with quite remarkable evenness of temper (10)
Difficult to work out why you would want to put I (one) inside MANY, add QUITE and then find an anagram of all of it, but that’s what you have to do

29a Physicist from Sweden has anxiety with gypsy (8)
Apparently rom is a gypsy man, but it was new both to me and to the Microsoft Word spellchecker!

Down

2d Disinclined to meet a South American city seducer (8)
This seducer is a reasonably straightforward charade of a word meaning disinclined, A and the best known city in Brazil

3d Talk effusively about songlike hits’ sound first (3,7)
Awkward construction, but it boils down to a phrase meaning talk effusively about coming from a homophone (sounds) of whacks (hits) first, followed by a synonym for songlike

4d Empty thinker (7)
If you got this cryptic definition of a person who thinks there are empty spaces in nature without the checking letters, then well done!

7d Show preference for Bible quartet included (6)
I know of no reason, other than the surface reading, that is an excuse for bad construction – if you worked out that the Authorised Version of the Bible was to be included in the number FOUR, rather than the other way round, then you must be on the same wavelength as this setter

13d Cross cat (5)
It’s a cross between a lion and a tiger, or is it the other way round!  You have two to choose from, make sure you pick the right one

19d Farewell to owing money, Leo has nothing (6-2)
A childish word that means farewell

20d Heard girl’s nickname (7)
A synonym for nickname that sounds like a girl’s name – and you know how much I hate clues like this

21d Reportedly too near cooler mug (4-3)
This homophone leaves a lot to be desired, and leads only to the spelling, not the pronunciation, of the answer – suffice it to say that this mug is shaped like a man wearing a three-cornered hat

23d Lady found ousel fluttering round island (6)
Fortunately this lady is a simple anagram of OUSEL around I(sland)

To find out what Peter Biddlecombe makes of this puzzle, then tune in next Thursday!