DT 26636 (Hints) – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
View closed comments 

DT 26636 (Hints)

by Big Dave  

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26636 (Hints)

Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select an assortment of clues, including some of the more difficult ones, and provide hints for them.

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.

Could new readers please read the Welcome post before asking questions about the site.

Most of the terms used in these hints are explained in the Glossary and examples are available by clicking on the entry under “See also”.

A full review of this puzzle will be published after the closing date for submissions.

Across

1a Most knowing old comedian on street (6)
A word meaning most knowing or most knowledgeable is a charade of Eric Morecambe’s partner and ST(reet)

10a Supply joke over the internet? (5)
A word meaning to supply or fit out is derived from the prefix used for internet services such as mail followed by a joke

12a Rather like diesel? One may give it a whirl (7)
A word that sounds as if it means like the acronym for oil for Diesel-Engined Road Vehicles is actually a member of a Muslim religious order noted for their wild whirling rituals

27a Sporting competition gets the French fit (6)
A sporting competition in which each team plays all of the others is a charade of the French definite article and a fever or shivering fit

Down

1d One trying to persuade cyclist to go round end of road (8)
This person who is trying to persuade by flattering and cajoling is created by putting another word for a cyclist around the final letter (end) of roaD

2d Batting stroke after cricket pitch mown (6,3)
This batting stroke hit to the offside could mean that the rectangular area in the centre of a cricket ground, on which the wickets are prepared, has been mown

3d Concession the Queen holds is a fallacy (7)
Start with a three-letter word meaning a concession and then put Her Majesty the Queen around IS to get a plausibly deceptive fallacy

9d Rescue from drowning someone ill at ease (4,3,2,5)
This phrase sounds as if it could mean to rescue from drowning but actually means someone who is ill at ease like a square peg in a round hole

22d Reporter’s first with a parliamentarian’s scams (5)
A charade of the initial (first) letter of Reporter, A and a Member of Parliament’s (not forgetting the S from ‘S) gives these scams

The Crossword Club is now open.  Feel free to leave comments.

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

The Quick crossword pun: {quay} + {wheeze} = {Kiwis}

116 comments on “DT 26636 (Hints)”

    1. Strange but those were two of my least favourites Gnomey, and of course it has taken me much longer!

      1. They were my favourite clues too, Gnomey! I’ve noted BD’s comments below, Mary, and I hope he’s right although, as a Tottenham supporter he has an ulterior reason for wanting that scoreline, but I think that you and I will have an eye on the Millennium Stadium as well this afternoon.

  2. Oh yes I wish I was clever enought to write a crossword like this but Oh no I didn’t like this one today but I can’t really say why, how stupid is that! I did have one favourite clue however and that was 24a, for 9d for some really strange reason I couldn’t get duck out of my mind!!! Good morning Dave, can you believe the football season is here, Arsenal v Liverpool today, come on Liverpool :-) thanks for hints Dave though I haven’t needed them today, good luck everyone, enjoy

    2. Yees well done Liverpool, I will have one very unhappy son and grandson today, on the other hand one very happy son and grandson :-D

  3. Normally dont have time to get the crossword done first thing on a Saturday – family duties and so on. Usually end up on this blog late at night or even Sunday morning. But – today was different! Thoroughly enjoyed this one – particularly enjoyed 17a. Nice start to a warm and Sunny day.

    1. Where do you live Al? warm & sunny it’s definitely not here in West Wales, dark and very damp!!

      2. In West Bridgford the temp gauge in the car was showing 19°C! Methinks it won’t last however….

    2. I am also in Auld Reekie and it’s been lovely out on Bruntsfield Links today. Still working on the puzzle but no hurry!

      1. 23.5 on the Thanet coast at 4.30 this afternoon. Blue sky and sun, although we did have a few spots of rain.

        1. Rained off the cricket for a couple of hours this afternoon. Currently 33C here and it’s 1840CEST. Been about 10 weeks since we had a day when the temperature didn’t top 30C!!!!!!!

      2. COW is a clue writing competition, run by Anax, see the link at the side —————————>
        It is good fun and everyone is friendly, there is no prize apart from the dubious honour of being the judge and word setter for the following week, the word is usually set on a Saturday and all entries in by 5pm Friday, have a go nothing to lose :-)

  5. Reasonably difficult for a Saturday I thought however I will wait on the final verdict from my 80 year old mother when I make the bi-weekly “dutiful son call” tomorrow morning…

  6. Definitely a one stopper for me too – I could be off to Bletchley Park yet! Very enjoyable I liked the same clues as Gnomey (welcome back from exile) and also 9d made me smile.

    Thanks to the setter for the entertainment and to BD for the hints but not to Mr CS who kept talking at the start until I remonstrated.

  7. Just back from holiday, which included a fascinating visit to Bletchley Park; so today’s book of puzzles (for all us paper-people) was a nice touch. Enjoyed the crossword once, like Mary, I got the duck out of 9d. Hopefully 2d didn’t upset our non-sporting faction? Also liked the NZ theme running through the Quickie. Thanks, BD, for the blog, to which I recruited 3 “freshers” during my travels.

  8. I was getting through this really quickly but managed to make a mistake in 2d which meant I needed BD’s hints to sort things out, thanks BD. Favorite clue was 16d because it took me a long time to get and then when I did get it, I promptly kicked myself.
    Very hot in Barcelona today, the summer finally arrived last week. Enjoy the rest of the day everyone and thanks to BD and the setter.

      1. 16d Practise on carriage whose passenger is late (8)
        A word meaning to practise, as in to practise a new play, is a charade of a two-letter word meaning on or concerning followed by the type of carriage used to convey someone who is “late” or deceased.

              1. That’s unless you are North American and can’t spell colour, in which case practice can be a verb. Wasn’t it GBS who said that we were two nations divided by a common language?

                    1. Exactly! Grrr!
                      Apparently they have a problem with burglarization over there. Its the problem of all the people who burglarize homes (the burglarizators)

                    1. With a crime number, not just for the burglarization but for the mangling of the English language on this thread :D

                    2. Methinks my fellow bloggers are too clever for me! Where the hell did ‘burglarizationizators’ come from?
                      We had some af these a couple of years ago but at the time I thought we’d just been burgled by some burglers, but it was obviously a lot more serious than that!

  9. A very enjoyable puzzle to solve. 23a was my first!
    I liked 17a & 9d best but there were plenty of other good clues.
    8d gave me most bother – even after a long consultation of The Oxford Dictionary of The Classical World (section Tullius) I don’t really get it

  12. I know not everyone likes anagrams, and I agree especially if they are clumsy.

    Some have a certain charm though and that at 4A made me chuckle and made me recall the anagram of Atheist – he’s a tit – splendidly appropriate if you happen to have read any of Prof Dawkin’s work.

    2. Kilo or Kilos – I think this has been discussed previously on this site – the abbreviation can refer to singular or plural e.g. 1k or 20k.

  14. HELP!!!!!!
    Would someone please, please tell me the clue for 20d!!!
    Printed the puzzle this morning but just noticed the last 3 clues are missing. Got 2 of them from Dave’s hints above but he didn’t do 20d.

  15. Many thanks guys! I reckon that, despite assurance to the contrary, the DT site is actually getting worse rather than better!

  16. Help again please! Just noticed we’re also missing 25a and 26a and still can’t get into the ******* site!

  17. Thought this was a much easier offering than the usual Saturday fare. Shame I look forward to a bit more of a struggle.
    Come on Arsenal you can do it against the Newcastle cast offs. I see Newcastle beat the Man U. Cast offs at Sunderland. That will do for me.

    2. Hi Pete
      If you want a bit more of a challenge have a look at the prize crossword in today’s Grauniad. It’s not as hard as the usual prize puzzles but quite entertaining and at least the Grauniad site works!

      1. The Guardian prize puzzle is fine on the website (and very entertaining) but from comments elsewhere it seems that they’ve reprinted yesterday’s puzzle in today’s paper. So it’s not just the Telegraph that can’t get it right!

        1. That’s why it’s known as the ‘Grauniad’ – famous for it’s typos! At least the Telegraph doesn’t get referred to as the ‘Tegleraph’!

  19. hve to leave now for a while too much rugby and football to watch, see you later :-) Good luck Pommers

  20. Enjoyed this one even though the only hard bit was getting the clues!
    Favourites are 10a, 3d and 17a (the forgotten battle!).
    Thanks to compiler, BD and to WBGeddes, Qix and Mary for supplying the missing clues!

    1. Should have been a stroll in the park for you – just a few missing clues! Didn’t you once attempt to write the review with the clues but without the grid?

      1. Sure did! Not something I would attempt again, fortunately the gnome can to the rescue!

            1. I turn it off when I go to the lav/loo/WC/John/head. Otherwise I cover my modesty with the crosswrd. occasionaly I will take a photo of the paper to check on progress :-)

                1. I get the very strong feeling that escape from Southampton and return to the Gnome Home has sent a rush of blood to your head , well that’s the conclusion one must reach after your posts here and at 8 above :D

                  1. @#8 that is a personal bugbear which clearly we all share as pedants.The latter at #20 was only trying to provide syynonyms for toilet humour!
                    Enjoy!

                    3. I did enjoy – we have missed such contributions while you have been in ‘foreign’ parts.

                2. Sorry, I seem to have started this with the typo! Not got used to the full size keyboard I’m having to use at the moment – netbook fixed next week with a bit of luck!

  21. Thoroughly enjoyed to-day’s, though the NW corner held me up for a while due mainly to the blankey-blank cricket clue!! However, got there in the end with 1d being last in. Can someone please explain 11a to me? without, of course totally giving away the answer! I HAVE an answer, but don’t really understand why except I know it’s a form of exercise. Thanks!

    1. I just fancy a bit of lemon drizzle cake so here goes:

      the number one, followed by a word meaning certain as in certain of the solvers couldn’t do it, and then a word meaning knack with the last of the Kilos removed.

  22. Did any of my fellow papers solvers do the Bletchley Park 1941 test puzzle in the booklet? Gazza says that even with the time I solved it in, they wouldn’t have let me be a codebreaker because I am a girl. Blooming cheek.

    2. Tut, tut, Gazza! Some 80% of those working at Station X were female. There were several female cryptanalysts, of which Mrs BB and Mavis Lever (later Batey) were the most notable. Mrs BB was the first to suggest how the Wehrmacht Enigma rotors were wired, and Mavis (who worked for ‘Dilly’ Knox) cracked the Italian Enigma when she was only 19. Mavis acted as consultant on the film Enigma.

      1. Agreed, most of the 10,000 who ended up working at BP were women, but Joan Clarke (one of the woman there) wrote “Even though the ratio of women to men working at Bletchley Park was 8:1, women were mostly employed in clerical and administration work and not the more intricate cryptology, which was a male dominated area”.

    3. Haven’t had a chance to look at it yet – I haven’t even checked out today’s NTSPP yet – but I’ll get to both at some point, I hope.

    4. A few (many) years ago I passed the code breakers exam for a job at GCHQ.

      Of course, now that I’ve told you that, I’ll have to kill you all.

      :-(

  23. Solved it quickly, but didn’t really enjoy it. Sorry. That’s my second grumpy comment in two days, so it’s more likely to be me than the Setters…

    Thanks anyway, and have a lovely weekend everyone.

    Nick

  24. A quick solve … just in time to be dragged out shopping, from which I have just returned several hundred pounds the poorer (and with four items to be exchanged :().

    12a was my favourite, with 14a as #2 for it’s sheer ingenuity.

  25. A 19d puzzle for a pleasant change. Builds the confidence no end to finish one without too many problems, although did have toi check 18d with chambers.

      1. Read the solution – I think Nigel is saying that it was normal fare for a Saturday, not a tricky one.

        1. Got it (19d) from below; didnt think the crossword was that easy though. 17a was quite clever.

          1. The West Saxons under Alfred the Great and Athelstan (his grandson and first king of ‘all-England’ held hegemony over the Danes, Strathclyde Scots and the rest until Cnut’s time ie 1016.

  26. Just finished this morning as busy day yesterday – was left with NW corner – cricketing terms not my strong point so thanks for the hints. Quite enjoyed this one and favourite clue was 24a least fave 2d.

  27. Good Saturday offering…completed before setting out first thing yesterday. I liked 4a, 12a, 17a and 3d
    Thanks

  29. Hi everyone! This is my first posting although I often visit here for hints which have proved very helpful. I’m totally flummoxed by 19d Standard metal in rake (7) I have three of the letters and a possible 4th if 23a is what I think it is :-)

    Hints would be gratefully appreciated.

    Thanks!

    1. Welcome to the blog number_6.

      The definition for 19d is standard. You need a four letter word for rake (as in a dissolute person) around a type of metal (used to make cans).

      1. Thx Prolixic! It’s all become clear. I was using rake as it stood in the question. Crossword is now complete :-)

        Many thanks!

        1. Would I be right in thinking you are not a number, you are a free man?

          Still one of my favourite series ever.

          1. Sort of Lostboy but it’s actually free woman :-)

            Must admit the remake was ***** in comparison to the original.

              1. I lost the will to live after a couple of episodes of the new series, and stopped watching it. I really don’t know why they have to remake (and ruin) classics.

                Sorry, It was the monocle on your avatar that made me think you were a bloke.

                Welcome to the blog :-)

                1. No prob. It was the avatar I was given and I dont know how to change it doh. Yep have to agree with you that when they remake most classics they are never as good. The remake of The Wicker Man springs to mind there

  30. Really enjoyed this one, got stuck on 3d, couldn’t work out 2nd letter and had to resort to electronic’s this afternoon.:D

Comments are closed.