ST 2718

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2718

A full review by crypticsue

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****

Another fine Sunday treat from Virgilius, no special favourites this week,  just great all-round entertainment.

 

Please leave a comment telling us what you thought.  You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.

Across

1a           Transient visitors doctor forbids to spend long time (5,2,7)
BIRDS OF PASSAGE –   An anagram (doctor) of FORBIDS, PASS (spend [time] and AGES (long time).

9a           Unknown eclipsed by fine partner in bridge (7)
FLYOVER –  F (fine) followed by LOVER (partner) into which is inserted a Y (one of the unknowns in mathematics).

10a         Person in charge of dog with name Rex (7)
HANDLER –  HANDLE (a slang term for one’s name) plus R (Rex).

11a         Start off like a close friend or associate (4)
ALLY –   Remove the ‘start’ from PALLY (like a pal or close friend).

12a         Close relative restricting Irishman’s diet (10)
PARLIAMENT –   Insert an Irishman called LIAM into one of the closest of relatives, a PARENT.

14a         Undomesticated cats in parts of pound (6)
OUNCES –   I usually groan when these dratted cats turn up in crosswords but when Virgilius clues them so nicely… !  OUNCES are not only wild cats but also sixteenths of a pound avoirdupois.

15a         Fish from seine emptied out and shifted ashore (8)
SEAHORSE –   A nice surface reading as one would hope fishermen would rescue seahorses from their seine nets.  Remove the middle letters from SeinE (emptied out) and follow with an anagram (shifted) of ASHORE.

17a         Show again how to cut down fruit.
REAPPEAR split 4, 4 would be to REAP (cut down a) PEAR (fruit).

18a         Fraction of a number that’s small, of course, speaking informally (6)
SNATCH  –  a small fragment of a song (number)   S (small) and NATCH (an informal way of saying naturally, of course).

21a         Behind one’s back, bishop is in Paris (6-4)
SECOND-BEST  –   SECOND (back, support) B (the abbreviation for Bishop in a game of chess) and EST (the French word for is, used in Paris and other French places too).

22a         Female or fellow in North  (4)
FINN –   Use either the F from either  Female or from Fellow, add IN (from the clue) and N (north).

24a         Consumed pork pie provided by head of radio studio (7)
ATELIER –   ATE (consumed)  LIE (pork pie being Cockney rhyming slang for a lie) and R (the head or first letter of radio.

25a         Black woman in tropical country (7)
BOLIVIA –   B (black) and OLIVIA (woman’s name).

26a         Group carrying cases at Waterloo, for example  (9,5)
STRETCHER PARTY – The people who carry injured soldiers (cases) from battlefield such as that at Waterloo in 1815.

Down

1d           Wild animals in New York city (7)
BUFFALO –   Wild animals –  the word can be singular or plural – or a city in New York State.

2d           Club that, in short, includes leading RAF characters (5,3,7)
ROYAL AND ANCIENT –   This golf club’s name is often abbreviated to R & A, the ‘leading’ characters of RAF.

3d           Bar is what prevents a goal (4)
SAVE –    Both bar and save mean to hinder or prevent something from happening.     A save in football is what a goalkeeper does to prevent a goal being scored.

4d           Either gender joining a line, according to protocol (6)
FORMAL –   F(emale) OR M(ale) (either gender) A (from the clue, and L (line).

5d           Warrior with a sole weakness? Yes and no (8)
ACHILLES –   Yes, Achilles only had one weak spot, but no, it wasn’t his sole, it was his heel!

6d           Scholar, in newspaper article, lying about being scantily clad (10)
SUNBATHING –   Insert a BA (Bachelor of Arts, scholar) between SUN (the daily paper) and THING (article).

7d           Good and mature terrier, even, disturbed other breed (6,9)
GOLDEN RETRIEVER –  G (good) OLD (mature) plus an anagram (disturbed0 of TERRIER EVEN.

8d           Painfully move author around hospital (6)
WRITHE –  Insert H (hospital) into WRITE (a verb meaning to author).

13d         Variety of persons I have assembled, quick to react (10)
RESPONSIVE –   An anagram (variety) of PERSONS followed by (assembled)  I[‘]VE (I have).

16d         Encored piece of music I see pronounced as lacking in refinement (8)
BARBARIC –   Two lots (encored) of BAR (piece of music) plus I from the clue and C (a homophone, pronounced, of see).

17d Asian sailor switching sides, first and last, is such a scoundrel (6)
RASCAL –   Change over the first and last letters of LASCAR, an Asian sailor

19d         Short of fare, crossing a country in Europe (7)
HUNGARY –   Fare here meaning food so if you were short of food, you would be hungry.   Insert (crossing) A from the clue to get a  European country.

20d         Like something functional setter and solver accomplished (6)
USABLE –    US (setter and solver together)and ABLE (accomplished).

23d         Fail for lack of practice, primarily (4)
FLOP –  The initial letters (primarily) of For Lack Of and Practice.

Hopefully both the site and Gnomey will be back  ‘on duty’ next week  –  I’m standing in because he’s working late again tonight (Wednesday)  –  it would be nice to hope that the Telegraph’s IT people were putting in overtime too!