ST 2501 – Hints – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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ST 2501 – Hints

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2501 – Hints

Selected hints by Big Dave

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

These Sunday puzzles just keep getting better.  This one is somewhere between a standard daily puzzle and a Toughie in terms of difficulty.

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.

Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 18th September.

Across
1a Without taking offence, actor would like to be this (2,4,4)
A phrase which means without taking offence could also be a desirable role for an actor

9a Irrelevant, I observe, backing member of the old school (7)
A very clever reversal of the charade irrelevant, or not applicable, I and observe, or pay attention to, which results in a member of a famous old school

17a Some drinks I spilled turning round … (8)
This hidden and reversed word is defined by the three dots at the end of the clue – somewhat difficult if you are doing it on ScrewedUp as they are missing from the online version – as discussed recently, although you may often ignore punctuation, you must never forget that it’s there!

27a On an individual basis for each boyfriend (10)
Here a word meaning on an individual basis is build up from synonyms of “for each” “boy” and “friend”

Down
1d One thing, or a couple (4)
When two people, particularly celebrities, go out together for a while tey are described as being this

16d Music for church service (3,5)
Wonderful surface reading for this charade of music + FOR + church which gives one of the armed services

23d Hail, at sea, a boat (4)
A word meaning to hail at sea comes from A and a small sloop-rigged coasting ship which we last saw 6 months ago in DT 25871

If you need further help then please 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!

11 comments on “ST 2501 – Hints

  1. Ah – 17a across now makes sense! The misdirection of turned round for an anagram of I SPILLED was good but spoilt by the missing dots.

    I agree with the surface reading of 16d but always feel slightly cheated when you simply transplant a word from the clue into the answer without any indication that that is what you are supposed to do. 21d has the same issue.

    I think that my favourite was 3d.

  2. That got the grey matter working.

    An excellent Sunday challenge, which when combined with the General Knowledge crossword made for a good day’s work

    I do hope this is the standard for the future.

  3. I struggled with this one today but very enjoyable, the only one i am not sure about is 19 across.
    I can’t see where it comes from ? anyone feel like explaining it to me?

    1. 19a. Hidden by Bush, the decider (6)

      George Bush had the nickname Dubya, based on his middle initial.

    2. Really good puzzle, but still no wiser on 19a in spite of your explanation, Gazza. Am I being really thick?

      1. nanaglugglug
        For 19a you want a synonym for hidden after (by) the initial letter mentioned above. The definition is decider – if the score in a football game is 1-1 and one team scores a goal to decide the match in the last minute,say, what is that goal called?

        1. Thanks for that – still don’t think its very good, though! Only poor one in this puzzle – thoroughly enjoyed it otherwise!

  4. Monday breakfast before I finally finished this very enjoyable puzzle and then only after looking up your hint to 19a. Great fun.

    1. Some time ago I proposed “Big Dave’s Law” that every good puzzle was allowed at most one iffy clue. I will be interested to see what Peter Biddlecome says about this one next Friday.

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