Toughie 358

Toughie No 358 by Firefly

A little fun in the sun

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***

This was quite a straightforward solve with mostly easy clues; in fact the only really tough bit was the sting in the tail wordplay conundrum posed by the very last clue.

There were just a couple of moments where I thought the legitimacy of the wordplay was questionable, but it was never anything that hindered solving and the clues rarely fall foul of Ximenean standards. The enjoyment rating for me was strictly moderate – good clues all round, but no “Wow” moments bar 7a which I think is very cleverly observed.

Favourite clues are highlighted in blue; how do they compare with yours?

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Across

7a    Prevailing hailstorm? (7)
{AVERAGE} A healthy dose of cleverness to begin, with the definition prevailing referring to typical, perhaps even humdrum? For the wordplay it’s a lovely merging of the word for hail that’s in “— Maria” followed by a word (noun or verb) for storm.

8a    She’s fleshier — less ice-cream for a start, then exercise (7)
{HERSELF} This is a subtraction anagram, where you have an anagram of the answer but the setter has used some extra letters. Here it’s FLESHIER; the instruction to remove a letter comes from less ice-cream for a start which points to I, and the anagram indicator is the slightly oblique exercise.

10a    Route whereby old ship takes in Trinidad and Tobago (4,5)
{CART TRACK} One thing that often makes the Toughie live up to its name is the use of obscurities and we have one here; the old ship is CARRACK, a type of Mediterranean galleon. Place this around the (IVR) abbreviation for Trinidad and Tobago.

11a    Crown is feature of periodontia rationale (5)
{TIARA} A nice easy hidden answer in periodontia rationale.

12a    Lure of French soldiers’ company (5)
{DECOY} When you see French in a clue it’s likely you’ll need to translate the word before or after it, and in this case the word is of. To that add an abbreviation for company in its military sense.

13a    R.I.P.? (5,4)
{DEATH WISH} This is a clever take on what the answer could mean, its second word being typical on e.g. greetings cards, but for me it’s an incomplete clue without a proper definition of the answer. To help you along, think of what a person is said to have if they seem intent on taking extreme risks.

15a    Tucked away by mid-morning, First Secretary tidies up … (7)
{NEATENS} This may elicit a few grumbles methinks. The wordplay leads to a juxtaposition which isn’t clearly indicated and it resulted in a bit of parsing torture for me. We start with a word for tucked away (as in consumed) which appears after (instead of before, which is what it looks like should happen) the letter in the middle of MORNING – indicated as mid-morNing – and finally the First letter of Secretary (again, a slightly questionable indication).

17a    … file in bed. Cosier? Not half! (7)
{DOSSIER} The file that forms the answer consists of a word meaning bed (especially a rough one that may be used by a homeless person) and one half of the word COSIER.

18a    Nursery’s whole crops failing — no hint of why (9)
{PRESCHOOL} This is almost identical in form to 8a. This time start with an anagram of (failing is the indicator) WHOLE CROPS and remove the first letter (so there’s no hint of) Why.

20a    Farewell cards I’ve put alternately … (5)
{ADIEU} Back to (French) school now, for an answer made up of the alternate letters in cards I‘ve put.

21a    … open and shut in scrapbook — their earliest resting place (5)
{OASIS} The resting place defined here is typically a watered spot in the desert, and the answer comes from the initial letters of the first five words in the clue. Their earliest is marginally iffy, but the message is clear enough.

23a    Natter excitedly about periodical: ‘Virago’ (9)
{TERMAGANT} The answer is possibly not familiar to all but the wordplay makes things fairly easy. Take an anagram (excitedly) of NATTER and place it around a colloquially shortened word for a type of (often glossy) periodical.

24a    Flu to die out, given experiment with mice? (7)
{ENDEMIC} I always thought of this answer as adjectival only but Chambers confirms it’s a noun, namely a disease such as flu. The wordplay takes a word meaning to die out, then a craftily suggested anagram of MICE. It’s not a spectacularly worded clue but the imagery is very coherent.

25a    Fixer of documents for merchant? (7)
{STAPLER} Despite the question mark this is a straightforward double meaning clue, albeit with an uncommon second one. The fixer of documents is a machine which attaches sheets of paper together using a small piece of wire, and the answer also means a person who supplies leading commodities or raw materials. So the question mark isn’t needed – it could even be misleading.

Down

1d    Disparage Delia’s first crepe I chewed and swallowed (10)
{DEPRECIATE} Another case of a slightly forced surface reading but an excellent contemporary image bound by solid Ximenean wordplay. Delia’s first leads us to D, then we have an anagram (chewed is the indicator) of CREPE I, and finally a word meaning swallowed.

2d    Edward abandons undue formality in storeroom (6)
{PANTRY} A subtraction clue this time. Start by thinking of a word for undue formality, typically applied to someone who behaves in a schoolmasterly and precise way, then remove ED, a shortened form of Edward. The answer is a type of room where provisions are usually kept.

3d    Stoops to flirt with maidservants when fog’s lifted (8)
{VERANDAS} This is a difficult one to work out, not least because of the clever definition stoops which has nothing to do with back-bending; it actually refers to covered areas at the fronts of houses. To get the answer, start with MAIDSERVANTS as anagram “fodder” but, before jumbling the letters, remove four of them. Which ones? Well, they’re in sequence but not together, and they mean a less dense version of fog.

4d    Church also known as incorporating Rector’s spiritual centre (6)
{CHAKRA} This gets the blue highlighter largely because Firefly has created something coherent from an awkward word, even if it isn’t perfectly smooth. Start with an abbreviation for church (that’s either CE or CH but the answer at 8a will confirm the right one), then the abbreviation for also known as which is placed around the single-letter abbreviation for Rector. The definition spiritual centre does not mean a building – in yoga it’s one of the seven centres of spiritual power in the body.

5d    Women strain — homesick at heart, poor things (8)
{WRETCHES} Almost another blue highlighter here; perhaps the reading is a little less convincing this time. The abbreviation for women is followed by a word meaning strain (as in, with a view to using the big white telephone) and the middle letters of homESick.

6d    This star, note, isn’t on a kind of diet (4)
{VEGA} It was the definition This star that let me place the answer without looking at the wordplay – I’m guessing this may have been the case for many since star could equally mean the lady below. The wordplay uses a kind of diet to define one which features no animal products at all, and from this you have to remove the single-letter abbreviation for Note.

7d    Tending to hurt on one’s stomach? (8-5)
{ACCIDENT-PRONE} A slightly loose attempt at an implied double meaning here. Tending to hurt is the definition and you could perhaps substitute that with clumsy. The second word of the answer also means lying down on one’s stomach, but the lack of anything to further indicate the first word of the answer makes me feel as if this is an unfinished clue.

9d    Theresa turfed out cleaner (7,6)
{FEATHER DUSTER} A pretty easy anagram (out is the indicator) of THERESA TURFED leads to an answer which refers to what’s being used here:

14d    At home setter’s one piece of furniture is unique (10)
{INIMITABLE} An excellent reference to the fact that we setters are hideously underpaid, this concisely presented word sum (charade) uses a word for at home, I’M (setter’s), a letter to represent one, then an example of a piece of furniture.

16d    Dance? I’d rather not (6-2)
{EXCUSE ME} This double definition could also mean sorry, or “Would you mind getting out of the way?”

17d    Loo door’s broken, sadly (8)
{DOLOROSO} An easyish anagram of LOO DOOR’S leads to a musical instruction to play in a soft and sorrowful manner.

19d    Science of liquid measurement? (6)
{OPTICS} Another double definition, although this time the question mark is wisely used since the alternative meaning relates to those inverted bottles behind the bar of a pub, so of liquid measurement is an oblique interpretation.

20d    Fanfare worker ignored when climbing mountain (6)
{ARARAT} The cross-checking letter pattern A-A-A- should help most to get this immediately, but the wordplay involves a quite unfamiliar word; TARANTARA is a fanfare, from which a word for worker (from the insect world) is removed and the whole thing then reversed (so it’s climbing).

22d    Ribbon removed from preliminary efforts for ‘Bubbles’ (4)

{SUDS} The hardest one to work out despite getting the answer immediately, this word for ‘Bubbles‘ takes the word STUDIES and removes a sequence of non-consecutive letters which together can mean ribbon.

Over to you for your comments…