Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2496 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A friend, himself a setter, emailed me today and described this as “A crossword for connoisseurs”. Who am I to disagree? I have given hints for those which I think will cause the most problems.
At the bottom of the post you will see an array of five stars – use these to give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
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 Friday, 14th August.
Across
1a Get names wrong, having mixed briefly with everyone (7)
A synonym for “to get names wrong” is a charade of an abbreviation for a word meaning mixed or consisting of several kinds together with a word meaning everyone
5a One way to make the most of gold accumulation (7)
How can you get a word meaning an accumulation of tasks from most of the word GOL(D)?
11a Both he and she start with one – not I (9)
I starts with a vowel!
15a Queen receiving warning ahead of time, in short (9)
There have been a few Queens of this name, starting with the half-sister of Elizabeth I, just insert a warning and T(ime) to get a word meaning short
22a Last piece of concert on radio is dance music (5)
If this was rewritten as “What is T (last piece of concerT) in the phonetic alphabet (on radio – see The Mine if you don’t know)?” then it would be too easy!
Down
1d False claim about a lot of states, such as Oklahoma! (7)
Here false tells you that an anagram of CLAIM is to be placed around the country that has a lot of states (50 in total) to get the genre of stage show of which Oklahoma is an example
6d You reportedly train specially, entering contest and beginning to play (7-2)
Here you need to put U (sounds like you / you reportedly) and an anagram (specially) of TRAIN inside a contest run by the Football Association to get what happens at the theatre before the start of a play
14d Not altogether sure, though they had a second opinion (9)
Who would have realised that the answer is hidden in the clue?
17d Like the lion’s share? By no means (3,4)
… less than 50%
So many excellent clues, it’s difficult to pick a favourite, but I did like 11 across, 22 across and 1 down.
A very enjoyable puzzle with some very clever clues, so much so it is hard to pick a favourite. Possibly 9a,11a 6d ?? Must go and enjoy the sunshine
Got completely stuck on the bottom right hand side because I had put divorce for 20d!! in the beginning i had ‘snow white’ for 16d cos i somehow missed the word ‘winner ‘ in the clue!! when I realised my mistake because it didn’t fit with 17a, i immediately changed it to Miss White who I thought was one of the Cluedo characters!!!!
I have realised the errors of my ways and completed the crossword but i didn’ t find it at all easy
Phew I managed to wrte that without giving away any answers i think….thanks for the help once again
Sunday’s Telegraph done but it was a struggle! For 22a I got the dance but did really understand why other than the first letter, thanks for the explanation, no excuse for me because we use the phonetic alphabet at work!
I didn’t see it myself at first.
A rather nice prize one, but ‘Jam & Jerusalem’ put paid to my bonus on Cluedup this Sunday! Thought 7d was a stinker but 16d was a winner, sigh!
Far too easy today!
Never mind the width, feel the quality!
oh please……… have a thought for us mere mortals
It’s good to be in tune with the majority for once! I thought that this was a cracker even though I didn’t get the last couple of clues until Monday morning. Too many really good clues to pick out one.
Bigboab, are you sure that you are taking the right newspaper? Wouldn’t the Times or the Guardian be a more suitable challenge? You could always have a real work-out with Mephisto on Sundays.
agree