NTSPP – 043 (Comments) – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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NTSPP – 043 (Comments)

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Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 043

Sloggers & Betters by Elgar

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Welcome to the forty third in our series of weekly puzzles.

Elgar distributed a special puzzle at the recent Sloggers & Betters 7 meeting, and has kindly given permission for it to be reproduced here.


The puzzle by Elgar is available by clicking here:

NTSPP - 043

Feel free to leave comments about this puzzle.

6 comments on “NTSPP – 043 (Comments)”

  1. For reasons that will become obvious when people solve this puzzle, I was given an early chance to solve it, which I have to say I needed – as is the case with all Elgar puzzles, you do need some time to get your head round his wicked glint!

    I must say how extremely chuffed I am to be included in an Elgar crossword and with such august company. At first sight this would appear to be an example of what someone called an in-house joke for an elite clique, which is, of course, what it was intended to be. However although some clues do require knowledge of the various bloggers and setters, there are a large number of other clues which just require you to be able to solve a tough cryptic crossword.

    Thanks to BD for the occasional helpful nudge in the right direction. Big thanks to Elgar for the wonderful puzzle and for ‘my’ clue. I also liked 1d!.

    1. Re 1d,
      “Standard role played by Big Dave when things get nasty? (6)”
      A good clue on its own.

      Is it just me? But this it also evokes memories of a TV programme of my 1970s/80s youth. David —— [insert solution to 1d], might leave the screen entirely when things get nasty. (I’m trying to avoid a spoiler, so Google or Wikipedia the following search: David —— 1977 once you’ve solved it to see what I mean. The one who turns up when it gets nasty is not called Big Dave!)

  2. Stunning crossword from Elgar. A review is underway for anyone who, like me, is bemused, flummoxed and bewildered by the brillance of this crossword. Many thanks to Elgar for a good brain stretching crossword.

  3. Two superb Elgar puzzles on successive days – we’re being spoilt! It took me most of the afternoon but I eventually finished it, although I’m still trying to puzzle out some of the wordplay. Congratulations to BD (twice!) and CS on getting mentions.

  4. I often fail to finish Elgar’s puzzles, yesterday’s Toughie included – so thanks for the blog, Big Dave.

    Still to complete the SW corner but it’s been great so far.
    After getting slightly stuck I benefitted from the help of the nina, a Check button (on Crossword Solver) to confirm my answer if I hadn’t yet sussed the wordplay and especially referring to page 2 of the crossword page, which I only just spotted was there and gives some hints to help explain the wordplay in 7d or 24a, for example.

    If I’m right about the parsing, 11a seems to use a perfectly valid wordplay device I’ve not seen before (except in assembly language computer programming, where that sort of thing can help in rapidly dividing by two). Then again, maybe there’s another way to read it that I haven’t spotted.

    Looking forward to the review, Prolixic. Now onto the SW corner…

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