Big Dave's Crossword Blog

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 28450

A full review by crypticsue

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This puzzle was published on Saturday 10th June

BD Rating – Difficulty *– Enjoyment ***

Thank you to Mister Ron for this Saturday prize puzzle. Sorry I can’t remember more about it but I wasn’t expecting to blog it!.

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 Skill put over by bridge partners wanting manuscript changes (10)
TRANSFORMS – A reversal (put over) of ART (skill) followed by N and S (north and south, bridge partners, FOR (wanting) MS (manuscript)

6a Parties hard for change? (4)
DOSH – DOS (parties) H (hard)

9a Pronounce ‘unmitigated’ (5)
UTTER – Double definition

10a International meant playing for declaration (9)
TESTAMENT- TEST (international) and an anagram (playing) of MEANT

12a Head may maintain a large place to fire 13 (4,9)
CAPE CANAVERAL – CAPE(head) CAN (may) AVER (maintain) A L(large)

14a Quietly belie running article that’s working-class (8)
PLEBEIAN – P (quietly) plus an anagram (running) of BELIE and AN (article)

15a Make Oscar for actor (6)
BRANDO – BRAND (make) O (represented by Oscar in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet)

17a Risk part of church getting left out (6)
CHANCE – Leave out the L for left at the end of CHANCEL (part of church)

19a Indifferent physician hiding nothing with note (8)
MEDIOCRE – MEDIC (physician) ‘hiding’ O (nothing) and then followed by RE (musical note)

21a Unlettered and lacking personality? (13)
CHARACTERLESS – The first bit is self-explanatory once you get the second bit

24a Confront after a fight’s reversal (5-4)
ABOUT FACE – FACE (confront) goes after A BOUT (a fight)

25a ‘Avoid Luke’, Vader admits (5)
EVADE – Lurking in (admits) lukE VADEr

26a Shy son boozer rebuffed (4)
TOSS – A reversal (rebuffed) of S (son) SOT (drunk, boozer)

27a Shares, perhaps, like vicar? (10)
INVESTMENT – To understand the ‘like vicar’ reference, split your solution 2, 8

Down

1d Ruffian in hospital in tower (4)
THUG – H (hospital) in TUG (tower)

2d Diplomat, teetotal, entering suitable organisation? Revolutionary (7)
ATTACHE – TT (teetotal) ‘entering’ AA (Alcoholics Anonymous, suitable organization) CHE (Crosswordland’s favourite revolutionary)

3d Dealer in quarrel over chart men ruined (5,8)
SCRAP MERCHANT – SCRAP (quarrel) goes over an anagram (ruined) of CHART MEN

4d Operation on spasm with Scotsman seeing doctor (8)
OPTICIAN – OP (operation) TIC (spasm) IAN (Scotsman)

5d Manual worker moans terribly (5)
MASON – An anagram (terribly) of MOANS

7d Invade on account of race (7)
OVERRUN – OVER (on account of) RUN (race)

8d Easily riled, like a dinosaur? Anything but! (3-7)
HOT-BLOODED – Because dinosaurs were, as far as we know, cold-blooded

11d Pre-Christmas period restricts Queen broadcast times, becoming commercial (13)
ADVERTISEMENT – ADVENT (pre-Christmas period) ‘restricts’ ER (the regnal cipher of our current Queen) and is then followed by an anagram (broadcast) of TIMES

13a Art room first to show heavenly vehicle (10)
SPACECRAFT – SPACE (room) goes first before CRAFT (art)

16d Save theatre with regularly praised view (8)
REPRIEVE – REP (theatre) and the regular letters of pRaIsEd ViEw

18d Nonplussed with negative profit? (2,1,4)
AT A LOSS – An expression meaning nonplussed could also be said to be without a gain in profits

20d Fall of rogue in lawsuit (7)
CASCADE – CAD (rogue) in CASE (lawsuit)

22d Teach fool the wrong way to describe artists (5)
TRAIN – A reversal (the wrong way) of NIT (fool) ‘describes’ RA (Royal Academy, artists)

23d Round pound (4)
BEAT – A round for a policeman or a verb meaning to pound heavily

I hope Gnomey has neither impromptu works ‘dos’ or weekend working next weekend as I’ll be in Northern Ireland having too much fun with my grandson to rescue him!

B1