DT 26032 – Hints – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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DT 26032 – Hints

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26032 – Hints

No whingeing today!

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

I actually enjoyed this one!  The best Saturday prize puzzle in a while just about creeps into 3-star difficulty.  The only proper noun is a Biblical character who is considerately clued as an anagram.

Don’t forget that you can 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.

As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full review of this puzzle by Tilsit will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 17th September.

Across

1a Oddly silly hotel employee, cunning person (8)
You need to combine the odd letters of silly and a hotel employee, whose duties include cleaning shoes and running errands, to get this cunning person

10a Like stay-at-homes at heart (6)
To get the cryptic part of this double definition, think about where and when stay-at-homes are to be found; if they are out least of the time then they must be .. ….

14a Huntsman travelling on Metro (7)
This word meaning a huntsman, which is of Spanish origin, is an anagram of ON METRO

24a Arachnid, say, coming in towards end of day onto open framework (7)
This arachnid is a tiny blood-sucking parasite, and you need a three-letter word that sounds the same as one to insert into a word meaning towards end of day (the opposite of early) to get an open framework that is often used to support plants

Down

2d Meat served at midday meal? (8)
This processed meat is moulded into a loaf and served sliced and is most likely to be found in a sandwich!

7d Wife’s easy, removing top veil (6)
Wife in crosswordland is W; add a word meaning easy, after removing the first letter, and you have a veil usually worn by a nun

17d Don’t take so long to rescue the enemy? (4,4)
We are all fighting this enemy

25d Hebrew leader snapped cable (5)
Snapped here tells you that this Hebrew leader’s name is an anagram of CABLE

If that’s not enough to help you finish, just ask and I will see what I can do.

Please don’t put whole or partial answers in your comment, else they may be censored!

45 comments on “DT 26032 – Hints

  1. Big Dave,

    Could you please explain 27a? I know what the answer is but not how to get it (except for the GI bit).

    A fairly tame Saturday puzzle today.

      1. Aha. I was thinking “car” should of been “cart” and couldnt see what “he leaves” had to do with anything. Now clear. Thanks Libellule.

    1. I didn’t say it was difficult, but it was a pleasure to do and it was devoid of those tooth-sucking moments that we have suffered of late.

      27a He leaves the US soldier in broken-down car — that’s sad (6)
      The “he leaves the” construct was well hidden, as you discovered!

  2. Liked todays apart from 10a, it all seems a bit of a mishmash, like “Here are some words and try to sort out an answer that fits”. Is it an abbreviation of a longer word that normally has ‘ner’ inside it ?

  3. Hi Big Dave

    A very enjoyable puzzle with which to while away my Saturday afternoon here in OZ.

    I usually only do the puzzles from Monday through Friday and haven’t done the Saturday one in a while. But if they continue to be as fun as this one I will add Saturday to my puzzles schedule.

    I might try the Sunday one tomorrow although I understand that one can be quite tricky, but I’ll give it a try.

  4. good workout today. some new words to digest. unsure of some of the definitions though. never heard of 15d.

      1. Not recently as far as I can remember, but a quick search found this:
        15d Sort of snake in the grass (5)
        Which is very similar.
        DT 25991 July 27th 2009

  5. This really made a sunny Saturday morning for me – truly enjoyable and fair challenge. 1a is a new expression on me, although I’ll enjoy using it!

  6. Very enjoyable, done over a coffee – if I had to pick a favourite it would be 26a, and I really liked 1a!

    1. 15d Child under Kate struggling as Kelvin starts to tick off (4,2,4)

      A word meaning a small child is to be placed under (this is a down clue) an anagram (struggling) of KATE and followed by AS and the first letter (starts) of Kelvin to get a word meaning to tick off.

      Quite what the surface reading is trying to portray eludes me!

      1. thanks apart from that one i thought it was fairly straightforward didn’t like 1 across either though but it was fairly easy to work out once i had the down clues

  7. Usual Saturday fare although it did distract me briefly from watching England’s latest shocking cricket performance at Lord’s! Liked 7d.

  8. Like other people hadn’t heard of ******** so this delayed completion for a while. Quite enjoyed it especially as it was also nice to sit out in the sun!

    1. Welcome to the blog Terry

      As given in the hints, it is an anagram of ON METRO. As you already have five of the seven letters, it shouldn’t be too hard to work it out!

    1. Welcome to the blog John

      17a Grass snake, sort of (5)

      Grass, as in informer, is the definition, and it’s an anagram of SNAKE. If you are still unsure, follow Libellule’s suggestion in comment #6 and look at 15d in DT 25991 on July 27th 2009 – just enter 25991 into the search widget in the sidebar and click on “Find”

    2. johnt
      17a. Grass snake, sort of (5)

      The definition is grass, but it’s not the sort that you walk on.

  9. Enjoyed the crossword, but I’m wondering whether anyone else does the other puzzles in Saturday Telegraph and would agree with me that the ‘balancing birds’ puzzle published answer is wrong. Sorry if this is off limits!

    1. I don’t mind the off-topic question, but your chance of an answer is obviously a lot lower.

      A few more details, like date puzzle was published and anything else that might narrow it down would help.

      1. Sorry, again, Big Dave. As an enthusiast of your blog, I have picked up that contributors take pleasure from spotting small mistakes. I guess I am no exception. The puzzle to which I refer was published in the Weekend Section of The Telegraph 12th September, page W18 and is called “Balancing Birds”. It’s about Moments (turning forces, or what engineers call ‘torque’). I think that the puplished solution, on page W19 is wrong – and I wondered if any of your bloggers agreed with me. That’s all.

        1. I agree.

          2 blackbirds = 1 owl, so an owl is 2 units

          As shown the weight on the left is (2 + 1 + 2 + 1) x 1 = 6 and the right is 2 x 3 = 6 which is in balance

          thus 1 unit (blackbird) needs to be added at A giving 1 x 2 = 2
          and 2 units (owl) at B giving 2 x 1 = 2

          It all reminds me of my school physics master telling us, with a smile on his face, that even couples in fields have their moments!

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