Toughie 271

Toughie No 271 by Myops

So this is what an obstacle course feels like

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

Yes, I’m giving this five stars for a difficulty that comes partly from very clever and oblique wordplay and partly from some devilish obscurities that should have even experienced solvers ransacking their dictionaries. I’ve given four stars for enjoyment mainly because I appreciate a tough challenge, but I suspect there will be a few who found the whole thing a bit much even for a Friday.

Some of the clue-writing here is just awesome; while there may be no laugh-out-loud clues by way of surface readings, there are some epically imaginative constructions spiced with a great deal of originality.

This is a puzzle which on occasion pushes the boundaries and, for me, there are a handful of clues whose fairness is debatable.

So in addition to the usual blue for favourite clues I’ve used red to indicate those where I thought the solver was being tested a bit unfairly.

Leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.

Across

3a    With day to glance round this island, pass slowly (4,2)
{DRAG BY} There are very few give-aways in this puzzle – and this isn’t one of them. Start with the abbreviation for “day”, add RAY (one meaning of “glance”) and place this around an abbreviated form of this island (assuming you live in England, Wales or Scotland).

6a    Fussy if stalling cows (4)
{FIKY} Sheer murder! The anagram indicator (or is it supposed to be a reversal?) “stalling” applies to IF, then we have an obscure variant spelling for “cows” which is based on “kine”. The whole is a Scottish word meaning “fussy”.

8a    Emirate? Name one — one suffices (5)
{DUBAI} At last a moderate respite; a word meaning “to name”, followed by two single-letter interpretations of “one”, giving a city in the UAE.

9a    Buffoon with hook nose could be swimming up Loch Linnhe (11)
{PUNCHINELLO} An error in this clue, in which we need an anagram (swimming) of UP LOCH LINNHE – sadly that has an extra H which we don’t need.

10a    Here’s exotic Ayesha, the Queen that’s pure (5)
{SHEER} “Exotic Ayesha” refers to the Ryder Haggard novel, followed by that old cryptic stalwart ER for the Queen. “Pure” here is in the sense of “I solved this one by pure luck”.

11a    One who decorates with gold isn’t meant to be extravagant (11)
{ORNAMENTIST} A nice smooth surface here in a clue made up of OR (gold) and an anagram (extravagant) of ISN’T MEANT.

16a    Men at work should have right to ignore soft speaker (6)
{ORATOR} Our “speaker” consists of OR (other ranks, or soldiers – “men”), AT, and then a very devious arrangement of wordplay where OP (opus – “work”) and R (right) are strung together before we’re told to remove the P (piano – “soft”). This seems to shout “unfair” but there’s nothing in the clue to say we don’t have to add those two parts together before making the subtraction.

17a    Streakers are unceremoniously removed for a run like this (8)
{STARKERS} Take an anagram (unceremoniously) of ARE and remove it from STREAKERS, replacing it with A, then make an anagram (run) of what remains. Almost a brilliant semi-&Lit clue except that in our modern anything-goes world streakers aren’t necessarily removed.

19a    Person in irons perhaps or vice versa (8)
{PRISONER} Despite one little obscurity which demands that you know “per.” is an abbreviation for “person”, this clue is stunningly good. The definition is “person in irons perhaps” – but this also works as wordplay if you change it to “irons perhaps in person” where we have an anagram of IRONS in PER.

20a    Worthless talk from fellows cutting hair (6)
{PIFFLE} Another lovely surface and, thankfully, an easier clue. The abbreviation for “fellow” is F – repeat this and place it inside a colloquial word meaning “hair”.

22a    Discerning parental guidance about Internet surfing with adult content (11)
{PENETRATING} I solved this from checking letters and spent about ten minutes trying to work out how the clue worked. “Parental guidance” refers to the film classification PG, and this is placed around an anagram of INTERNET (the indicator “surfing” is somewhat oblique!). In turn, this goes around the abbreviation A (adult).

25a    After golf what’s next? Gleneagles? (5)
{HOTEL} For what comes after “golf”, think of the call-sign alphabet – thus Gleneagles is a famous example of the answer.

27a    In a castle party reel can, birling with increasing speed (11)
{ACCELERANDO} Difficult to work out, but mostly I was thrown by the almost nonsensical surface reading. Inside A C (castle) DO (party) we have an anagram of REEL CAN – aficionados of Scottish dialect will probably see “birling” as the anagram indicator. The answer is a musical instruction to increase the speed at which a piece of music is played.

28a    Songbird — Catullus’ bird — gets a thousand (5)
{MAVIS} The answer (more readily recognised as a female name) is a bird (the song thrush) which sees AVIS (Catallus’ bird) paired with a letter meaning 1,000. This letter appears before AVIS even though the clue suggests otherwise.

29a    Even reduction of feet in yard is fractional (4)
{TINY} The “even reduction” required here is the removal of the same number of letters from each side of “feet in yard” to give a word meaning “fractional” (or, very small).

30a    Stick had broken before (6)
{ADHERE} An easy finish to the acrosses – an anagram (broken) of HAD plus the poetic word for “before”.

Down

1d    Ideas you don’t want advanced; this is probably the 13th (4)
{IDES} This day of the month (thought by scholars to be the 13^th) relies on the abbreviation for “advanced” being removed from IDEAS. “You don’t want” is the instruction but there’s a clear breach of grammar/syntax in offering no punctuation to it.

2d    Recognising inflexion of verb too is a noun (11)
{OBSERVATION} Another unusual anagram indicator, “inflexion”, tells us to rearrange VERB TOO IS A then add N (noun).

3d    Pot did (or not) for stewing kangaroo (11)
{DIPROTODONT} Thank heavens for checking letters. It’s very obvious an anagram of POT DID OR NOT is at work but I inserted the missing letters because they seemed to work best in the order I chose!

4d    Cover’s beginning when it’s gone (6)
{AWNING} The “beginning” of something can be its DAWNING, and we need to remove the beginning of this – so “beginning” is doing double duty here, which I guess many solvers won’t be happy with.

5d    Herbivore in book that’s all about the home (8)
{BEHEMOTH} The answer is the name of something we often think of as a huge monster, but apparently it’s thought to be the hippopotamus, which is a herbivore. The wordplay uses B (book) and an anagram of THE HOME – the placement of the anagram indicator “all about” is a bit dodgy.

6d    The street for news of all events. Every second counts (5)
{FLEET} In “every second counts” we have an instruction to use every second letter of “oF aLl EvEnTs”. Quite a clever clue, although “Every second counts” reads like a random afterthought.

7d    Tops of knees indicate length tailors suggest for them (5)
{KILTS} Super duper piece of clueing in which we use the initial letters of “knees indicate length tailors suggest” to give exactly the right answer!

12d    Rough men worried about doing not well where they may do better (7,4)
{NURSING HOME} An anagram (worried) of ROUGH MEN around the cleverly defined SIN (doing not well – “doing” is used as a noun as in “this is of your doing”). The definition “where they may do better” seems a bit nebulous to me.

13d    Really I have to be useless (11)
{INEFFECTIVE} If you see “I have” in a clue look out for IVE in the answer. Before this we have a two-word phrase meaning “really”.

14d    Criminal steals gold plate (6)
{TASSEL} I’ve always liked the anagram indicator “criminal” – it ranks alongside doctor and jockey as being potentially very misleading. The anagram of STEALS (see how well it works!?) gives the answer which, as well as being a hanging tuft of gold threads, is also a gold or silver plate on a vestment.

15d    Pen store at college (4,2)
{COOP UP} “Pen” is a verb serving as the definition. The store is a famous High Street one that’s good with food, and “at college” is a slightly modified take on what most setters clue as “at university”.

18d    One who came out came without I see being excluded (8)
{DEBARRED} Given the checking letters you’d probably get the answer straightaway, but understanding the wordplay needs a bit of a stretch of imagination. “One who came out” is a DEB, followed by I V (vide is Latin for “see”) removed (without) from a word meaning “came”.

21d    Mickey’s beloved mother (6)
{MINNIE} Our setter does like his Scottishisms! This double meaning clue refers to the cartoon character Mickey Mouse and a Scottish word meaning “mother”.

23d    Chile offended Turkish ambassador (5)
{ELCHI} Not a very common word, so the anagram (of CHILE) is a good idea, although I’m not keen on the indicator “offended”.

24d    Hostile soldiers you once would hold up (5)
{ENEMY} This is a clever take on a word with few wordplay opportunities. For the answer meaning “hostile” place MEN (soldiers) inside an archaic word for “you”, then reverse all of it. Despite the originality, that filler word “would” is a bit of an obstruction to clear thought.

26d    Roll is kept by junior officer (4)
{LIST} …and relax. This wordplay sees IS placed inside (kept by) an abbreviation for “lieutenant”.

A really tough challenge, this one, with several answers placed while having absolutely no idea why they were right.

So, how was it for you?