ST 2647

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2647

A full review by gnomethang

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***

Morning All!  This is the puzzle from Sunday 8^th July. I found it reasonably straightforward but once again there were some lovely smooth surface readings.

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Across

1a           Opening part of cathedral, say, that’s not quite finished (6)
CHANCE – The CHANCE(l) of a cathedral when missing its last letter gives a fortuitous opening

4a           Willing Duke’s prepared to be shot? (8)
DISPOSED – A charade of D(uke) IS and POSED (prepared to be shot/photographed) is also a word meaning willing or amenable.

10a         Here, what’s North-East? China (5)
NEPAL – I will stick my neck out and say that Nepal is to the South-West of a part of China so this is a semi &Lit. place PAL (mate – China plate in cockney rhyming slang) after NE for North East.

11a         Youngsters in cricket side ahead of season (9)
OFFSPRING – Youngsters is the definition. This is a charade of OFF (a cricketing side, sorry!) and SPRING – a season of the year.

12a         Issue polite man at entrance has covered (7)
EMANATE – To issue or come from within. The word is hidden within (covered by) politE MAN AT Entrance.

13a         Sailor in his usual surroundings put back lots of maps (7)
ATLASES – A place SALT (sailor) inside SEA (Where he works) and reverse the lot (put back) to get a number of maps in book form.

14a         Personal concern in unusually tense test drive (6,8)
VESTED INTEREST – A personal concern usually offering a gain is an anagram (unusually) of TENSE TEST DRIVE.

17a         KLM pilot who’s, dramatically, unable to land? (6,8)
FLYING DUTCHMAN – KLM is the national airline of the Netherlands so a KLM pilot is likely to be described thus. This doomed ship in folklore was unable to set to port and was cursed with riding the seas forever.

21a         Great indignation of king in period deprived of power (7)
OUTRAGE – R (Rex, Latin for King) inside an OUTAGE (period without electrical power). The definition is great indignation.

23a         What to do before lighting up kitchen appliance (7)
Once the ladies are in the drawing room the men traditionally broke out the cigars and whisky and at this point would propose a toast to the Queen – hence TOAST ER (Elizabeth Regina)

24a         Advocate placing obstruction across street (9)
BARRISTER – A legal advocate. Place BARRIER (obstruction) around the outside of (across) ST for street.

25a         Concentrated hard within short time (5)
THICK – H(ard), as in pencils, inside TICK (a short time) gives a word for concentrated, (as soup or gravy).

26a         They have two legs and fly (8)
TROUSERS – A nice cryptic definition of a pair of strides – the fly, of course being the zipper.

27a         Tediously persist, creating a monster (6)
DRAGON – To DRAG ON (tediously persist), when run together gives a mythical fire-breather.

Down

 

1d           Do work for husband (8)
CONSERVE – Conservation of animals is known as HUSBANDRY . Make a charade of CON (Do/Cheat) and SERVE (work for). Thanks gazza for putting me back on track!

2d           Increase cut in shock evaluation exercise (9)
APPRAISAL – This is an evaluation exercise, particularly for employees. Cut the last letter from RAISe (increase) and place inside (simply IN) APPAL for shock.

3d           Work of art college with typo? (7)
COLLAGE – Don’t go looking to deep here as this is easier than it looks!. COLLEGE with the first E mistyped as an A gives a piece of art built up from small elements or scraps.

5d           Furniture moved around with carts in transport system etc. (14)
INFRASTRUCTURE – Everything that makes up the built environment in e.g. a city. Make an anagram (moved around) of FURNITURE and (with) CARTS.

6d           Tall tree standing over yew, reportedly widespread (7)
POPULAR – Start with the POPLAR tree and then insert U – a homophone of ‘you’, indicated by ‘reportedly – to find a word meaning widespread.

7d           European wife is guarded by sons (5)
SWISS – The European from the land of Cuckoo Clocks and Cows with Big Bells. Place W(ife) and IS inside two S(ons).

8d           Gradually understand significance of summary (6)
DIGEST – To gradually assimilate facts, for example. The second definition is ‘summary’ as in the Reader’s Digest which had short form articles and novels.

9d           Lock of hair included by breaker of commandment in explanatory communication (8,6)
COVERING LETTER – A well spotted insertion of RINGLET into COVETER (a breaker of one of the 10 Commandments who fancied his neighbour’s OX). This leads to the brief message explaining the contents of a larger document.

15d         Indefinite article the writer inserted in revision of hit song (9)
SOMETHING – The definition is ‘indefinite article’ – not in grammar but just as an article that is not strictly defined. Place ME (the writer from Mr Greer’s perspective) inside an anagram (revision) of HIT SONG.

16d         Like service that’s held without any interruption (8)
UNBROKEN – An apposite clue for the Wimbledon fortnight. A service game in tennis that is held with no points given away is UNBROKEN which also means ‘without interruption.

18d         Characters that aren’t upright I put in charge in last resort (7)
ITALICS – The slanty characters like this!. Start with the I and then place the abbreviation for ‘in charge’, IC, inside LAST that has been re-sorted as an anagram.

19d         Church covering more appropriate part of gospel (7)
CHAPTER – CH for Church is on top of (covering in a Down clue) APTER or ‘more appropriate’ to lead to a part of a gospel or any passage from the bible.

20d         Doctor put in protective clothing for battle (6)
COMBAT – Any battle or fight. We need MB for the abbreviation for a doctor (as opposed to DR or MO etc) and then place him inside COAT – the protective cover.

22d         Temperature, roughly, in part of body (5)
TORSO – To finish we have the trunk of the body. Start with T and then add OR SO, roughly.

Thanks to Virgilius for another entertaining puzzle. I’ll see you tomorrow morning for the start of my Saturday stint.