ST 2641 (Hints) – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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ST 2641 (Hints)

by Big Dave  

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2641 (Hints)

Hints and tips by Big Dave

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the more difficult clues 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 submission

Across

1a           Where you’ll find king, queen or bishop, and second of pawns in position (6)
The home of a king, queen or bishop can be derived by putting the second letter of pAwns inside a position

4a           British cargo transporter in shady cove (8)
B(ritish) followed by a large open boat used in unloading and loading ships (cargo transporter) gives this shady cove or dodgy character

14a         Original paths made by PM once in London park (9,5)
An anagram (original) of PATHS MADE followed by the name of a former PM gives a London park

24a         Venue for one sport or another (9)
A double definition – a venue for three-day eventing and a racket sport

27a         This river, from the headwater, reaches large estuary, ultimately (6)
To find this famous river, just take the final letters (ultimately) of six words in the clue

ARVE Error: need id and provider

Down

1d           Long ago, they ruled islands in sound (8)
These rulers of Ancient Egypt sound like some islands in the North Atlantic between Iceland and the Shetland Islands

ARVE Error: need id and provider

5d           Curbed two people, it’s said, in this business (7,7)
A verb meaning curbed or restricted is followed by how two people are described in the proverb which ends “three’s a crowd” to get this business

7d           What Basie and Ellington each had? Right (5)
An appellation such as Count or Duke is also a right to possession or ownership

ARVE Error: need id and provider

8d           Root crop recipe’s one thing to eat (6)
… don’t forget that R is the abbreviation of recipe, often shown as ℞

16d         Fish in small can poet finishes (8)
This fish comes from a charade of S(mall), a can and the name of the poet famous for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

ARVE Error: need id and provider

22d         Ask for money, having daughter imprisoned? (5)
To get this verb meaning to scrounge money put Daughter inside a prison made from bars of metal

If you need further help then please ask and I will see what I can do.

As this is a Prize crossword, please don’t put whole or partial answers or alternative clues in your comment, else they may be censored!

Today it’s Happy Birthday to Ramsey Lewis (77)
ARVE Error: need id and provider
 		ARVE Error: need id and provider

42 comments on “ST 2641 (Hints)”

  1. Nice gentle stirring of the grey matter.
    Say, **/***
    Some clever constructions.
    Thanks setter and BD

  2. I didn’t enjoy this puzzle a great deal. I think we’ve been spoilt by last weeks’ excellent offerings. :( Thanks setter and BD

  3. Another elegant puzzle from Virgilius, which I enjoyed greatly.
    Thanks to setter, and to BD.

    Let’s hope the recent trend of good puzzles continues!

  4. Greatly enjoyed this one, smooth clues.
    Thanks for hints which explained clueing for 8d which had eluded me.
    Thanks to Virgilius for an enjoyable start to a lovely day in Kent.

  5. The pennies at the top took a while to drop – I blame the heat – it was 19 in the shade here at 7.30 am. Usual Sunday treat from Virgilius. Thanks to him for the treat and BD for the explanations.

  6. Nice puzzle that took two sittings. Still not absolutely sure that I have the right answers for 3d and 12a. I think the city is in brazil but can’t see what’s left has anything to do with an animal with or without tail and 12a I have an answer for but can’t fathom the wordplay

    1. The ‘without a tail’ in 3d means that you take the last letter off a body of an animal to get a South American city. You will need to insert an a into the middle – without meaning ‘outside’ in this case. You will need to borrow the shin pads I used earlier when kicking myself about 12a. Add the first (front) letter of page to your solution and about it. You can blame the heat, I didn :D

      1. Thx Sue, got hung up on Rio and the rest went south after that. As for 12a it helps if you can spell 1d and not get the a and the o mixed up! You can have your shin pads back, very useful :-)

        2. Also guilty of being unable to spell 1d. I blame the heat too – 28C in Oxford.

      2. Hmm… I was certain I had the city right in 3d but I was going mad over the wordplay. I couldn’t for the life of me see why there a was a letter to be removed from the “body” until I actually typed the word into google only to find that I had been misspelling it all along with only one of the final pair of letters!

        Anyhow – finally finished (with a good deal of electronic and BD help) and I think I understand all of the answers I have. Just one I’m not too sure about:
        23a – Oh no wait, I’ve just got it!

        Anyway, thanks to all for providing (sometimes frustrating) enjoyment and furthering my education…

  7. The ‘********’ clip took me back down memory lane .. so much so that I showed my teenage lad a Youtube clip of the beautiful Aqua Marina!

    1. Isn’t that one of the answers in the crossword? I thought that wasn’t allowed

  8. Hello everyone, just thought I’d pop in to say Hi, I really am missing you all, the weather has been so nice we have been making the most of the motorhome, I have not had a chance to catch up on any of the puzzles and today I am being whisked away to Exmouth(hopefully, as poor dogs are in kennels from today and are both unwell £92 in the vet just for antibiotics!) until Friday for my birthday which is tomorrow, so I will be printing all last weeks off and taking them with me, Having a ‘relaxing time’ is too much like hard work for me, hopefully back to routine next week, see you all then, hope you’re all behaving whilst I’m not here to keep an eye on you ;-) and enjoying the beautiful weather
    :-)

    2. Have a lovely time and happy birthday for tomorrow from one Geminan to another! :smile:
      Do hope that dogs are better soon.

  9. This is nothing to do with today’s offering, it’s a thankyou to everyone who contributes in any way to the site. I don’t get the paper till a week late so am always running way behind with the puzzles – no use adding to the blog 10 days after every one else! But I love reading the comments and especially finding that others struggle like me…….One question: how do you know who the setters are? Is it just recognising their styles, confirmed by odd blog postings? I’ve only been doing the puzzles for a few months so it’s not obvious to me.

    1. Hi Molly – welcome to the blog.
      All comments on a blog, even if 10 days after original publication, trigger an email to the blogger so you can be assured that at least one person will read any comments you make.
      There’s a section in the FAQ on how we know some setters – see here.

  10. Another excellent puzzle to end an excellent week of DT crosswords.

    It took me an age to parse 17a.

    I needed BD’s assistance to understand why 27a is what it is – although I guessed it was the Liverpool river.

    I thought that 26a was much more fairly clued than in the Giovanni last Friday (Cup Final etc). Strange how the same words keep appearing in the same week across all the crosswords. I firmly believe that it’s a conspiracy!

  11. I agree with Franco entirely, and still haven’t quite understood why 17a is what it is. But apart from that I enjoyed this puzzle, so thank the compiler (Virgilius?) and BD for the hints. :-)

    1. 17a What’s characteristic about diamonds I catalogued? Resistant to change (14)
      Definition is resistant to change. Put a characteristic or idiosyncrasy around the abbreviation of diamonds, then add I and a phrase (2,1,4) meaning catalogued.

          1. If in doubt this particular type of abbreviation seems to work for a multitude of words in crossword land I think

        2. That’s the skill of the setter – to make you think it should be the past tense when it appears it couldn’t be, given the letters you’ve already got. (sort of thing) :)

  12. I think I must be getting the hang of Sunday’s Virgilius specials. Last one in for me was 13a. Did wonder about that but this word sounds like a plural. Googled it and found all was well. Favourites probably 17a and 5d. Enjoy long answers. All fell into place very swiftly. Thanks V and BD and other contributors – not many so far. Perhaps indicates little help needed or asleep in the sun! Did not get the email today for some reason.

  13. I’ve done this in lots of little bits – half hour in garden – retreat indoors when too hot and do about ten minutes of crossword and I’ve been doing that all day. Won’t say how many times or I’ll be in trouble for mentioning how long it took me although today, in my case, I think that “rule” might be waived as it wouldn’t discourage anyone!!
    Very enjoyable crossword – quite difficult, I thought. I ended up with two that I couldn’t explain but both of those have now been sorted out – 17 and 27a.
    Favourites include 1, 4 …. too many to mention!
    With thanks to Virgilius for the crossword, and to BD and gazza for explaining the ones that I was in a muddle about.

  14. I don’t comment often, but if Virgilus reads the blog, Sunday cryptics have become a thing of beauty. I particularly enjoyed solving this one after lunch after doing some painting in the morning. Not overly difficult but a joy to deconstruct. Top marks as always.

  16. A lovely puzzle – Tried to post earlier but got an out of memory error.
    Thans to BD and to Virgilius!

    1. That quite often happens but if you just type in the url again, it usually works straightaway.

  18. Many thanks to Virgilius for yet another cracker, very enjoyable indeed, thanks also to BD for the hints.

  19. Thanks to Virgilius and to Big Dave for the hints & review. A good puzzle once again from Virgilius, i don’t know how, but every Sunday it’s an enjoyable well constructed puzzle. Particularly like 14a, as there is a bit of a pun there, giving the full name of the Ex PM. Also enjoyed 4a, very clever. Another scorcher in Central London, hope it continues as the house painters are back tomorrow. Hot weather has killed my fridge / freezer though, sadly its out of warranty.

  20. Another enjoyable puzzle from Virgilius.

    Faves were : 4a, 14a, 24a, 27a, 1d, 7d, 16d & 19d.

    Back to normal now after being away over Whitsuntide.

    Mary – Many Happy Returns!

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