Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2489 – Review
A full analysis by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *
This turned out to be an unintentional rehash of Toughie 110. See the Hints post for more details, but that accounts for the low rating allocated.
Across
1a Friend in capital embracing daughter – Hannah, perhaps (10)
PALINDROME – PAL (friend) IN ROME (capital) around (embracing) D(aughter) – Hannah is an example of a palindrome
6a Magazine’s back issue (4)
EMIT – TIME magazine reversed (back) gives a word meaning to issue – not a particularly good clue as the definition and answer could just as well be the other way around
10a Great power may – but in the past (5)
MIGHT – great power that could also be the past tense of may
11a Like extended forecast for the Rockies, say (4-5)
LONG-RANGE – double definition – a long-range weather forecast or a long range of mountains
12a Most of food in navy at sea is fish (7)
ANCHOVY – take most of CHO(W) (food) and put it inside an anagram (at sea) of NAVY give this small fish
13a Concealment of deliveries in vessel (5-2)
COVER-UP – this concealment comes from OVER (a series of six deliveries in cricket) inside CUP (vessel)
14a Never meeting obstacles in gymnastic event (8,4)
PARALLEL BARS – a barely cryptic definition of this apparatus
18a Found medicine, finally, in broken phials in city (12)
PHILADELPHIA – the last letters (finally) of founD and medicinE inside a pair of anagrams (broken) of PHIAL give this American city
21a Makes a fuss about English, in some cases (7)
CREATES – a synonym of makes a fuss about is built by putting E(nglish) inside CRATES (some cases)
23a It’s difficult when Oscar, say, holds a lot of power (7)
AWKWARD – a word meaning difficult comes from taking AWARD (Oscar, say) and inserting (holds) KW (KiloWatt / a lot of power)
24a Expressed amazement, finding limited edition by poet (9)
MARVELLED – a word meaning expressed amazement that comes from putting ED (limited EDition after the poet Andrew MARVELL
25a In English elementary education, nothing that’s wrong (5)
ERROR – take E(nglish) and RRR (the three R’s / elementary education) and insert O (nothing) to get something that’s wrong
26a Snug place to live in Sloane Street (4)
NEST – this snug place to live is hidden in SloaNE STreet
27a Match fabric odd person appears in (10)
CORRESPOND – a word meaning to match comes from CORD (fabric) with an anagram (odd) of PERSON inside (appears in)
Down
1d Page in South America chart turned up, showing these? (6)
PAMPAS – put P(age) inside SA (South America) MAP (chart) all reversed (turned up) to give somewhere that could be shown on a map of South America
2d What’s left, for example, with decorative trimming around (6)
LEGACY – something that could be left in a will is constructed from EG (for example) with LACY (decorative trimming) around
3d Country air that’ll get you back on your feet? (8,6)
NATIONAL ANTHEM – a really delightful cryptic definition
4d Competition in which three good passes help team achieve winning goal (5-4)
RELAY-RACE – a competition in which the baton needs to be successfully passed three times in order to stand a chance of winning
5d Old boy in charge is overexcited (5)
MANIC – MAN (old boy – not OB this time!) and IC (In Charge) together give a word meaning overexcited
7d Rebuilt a Metro line around Northern French city, originally (8)
MONTREAL – an anagram (rebuilt) of A METRO L(ine) around N(orthern) give a Canadian city that once belonged to France
8d Offence produced by very French amorous advance (8)
TRESPASS – this offence is a charade of TRES (very, French) and PASS (amorous advance)
9d Complaint one never gets at home (6,8)
TRAVEL SICKNESS – another excellent cryptic definition
15d Northerner in part of race covering parts of Germany (9)
LAPLANDER – this Northerner is a charade of LAP (part of race) and LANDER (the sixteen states of / parts of Germany)
16d One kind of mushrooms upset people, for example (8)
SPECIMEN – take I (one) and CEPS (kind of mushrooms) all reversed (upset – another of those down-clue only constructs) then MEN (people) to get an example – if you see mushrooms mentioned in a puzzle, then ceps are the first thing to think of
17d Guns of no use at the front? (8)
SIDEARMS – a cryptic definition of these guns
19d Tough love, including one kind of shock treatment (6)
HAIRDO – HARD (tough) and O (love) around (including) I (one) to give this treatment of a shock of hair
20d Cherished a party on the far left (6)
ADORED – a word meaning cherished is a charade of A DO (a party) and RED (the far left)
22d Series of criticisms delivered in nasal voice (5)
SALVO – a series of criticisms is hidden inside (delivered in) naSAL VOice
I’ve tried to write this review as if I had never seen most of it before!
Well done for spotting the regurgitated clues, I had thought one or two seemed familiar but hadn’t realised how many. Not sure it helped me much!
I have a general query re the use of hyphens, in 19d above we have Hairdo yet on the following day DT 25961 12a the answer was Hair-do.
I appreciate there can be alternative spellings and other examples used recently include Timeshare, Websites and Globetrot where I think the hyphen is more commonly used. (according to my online dictionary at least)
I believe crossword setters are supposed to be pernickety individuals so I presume this is deliberate but can be a delaying factor.
Maybe it’s just part of their bag of trickery or perhaps a trend to ditch the poor old hyphen?
Nigel
It’s a good point. I entered both hairdo and hair-do into the online version of Chambers. The first one went to the definition, the second finished up in bob.
As a general rule the setters / editor follow the Chambers interpretation. In T171 both buttoned-up and buttoned up were used in the wordplay, but then they are both in the dictionary.
As far as ditching the hyphen, I seem to remember Susie Dent on Countdown saying that it is mainly a matter of usage. If a word gets used a lot, then the hyphen may be dropped. On-line has largely given way to online, for example.
Hi Dave,
Thanks for your reply, regarding the clueing of ‘Hair do ‘ to be fair the setter did use 6 letters for one and 4-2 for the other so he/she was being fair.
And although the others I mentioned were clued as 9 letters I now see from a modern Chambers that Timeshare for instance has indeed dropped it’s hyphen, Suzie Dent is obviously right!