DT 28591 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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DT 28591

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 28591

Hints and tips by 2Kiwis

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

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

 

Kia ora from Aotearoa.                

Our spell of glorious weather continues. Calm clear sunny days which make our regular beach and estuary walks sheer delight.

This puzzle from Jay really had us working quite hard. We enjoyed unraveling it and then we had an anxious couple of hours when the site went off-line before we could put this post together. Fingers crossed that it is all working normally again now.

Please leave a comment telling us how you got on.

Across

1a     Goods vehicle from Germany heads in for repair (11)
MERCHANDISE : The short form of a German car manufacturer and an anagram (for repair) of HEADS IN.

9a     Pause, welcoming coach’s check (9)
RESTRAINT : A word meaning to coach or school is inside a pause or short break.

10a     Exile must lose right to get storage facility (5)
DEPOT : Remove the abbreviation for right from inside a word meaning to exile.

11a     Report of bloke seeing natural water feature (6)
GEYSER : This word, in the pronunciation usually used in the UK, is a homophone for a common name for a bloke (usually an elderly one). (In New Zealand we use a different pronunciation)

12a     Succeed in cadging exotic fedora worn by the Spanish (8)
FREELOAD : The Spanish definite article is inside an anagram (exotic) of FEDORA.

13a     Violent type joining couple of sailors (6)
TARTAR : A three letter word for a sailor (possibly derived from sailcloth material) gets repeated.

15a     Cooler time for person of conviction? (8)
JAILBIRD : ‘Cooler’ is a slang word for the first half of the answer, and the second part of the answer is a slang word for ‘time’ in this context.

18a     Bill’s to be inclusive of new gates (8)
POSTERNS : A sort of bill that might be used for advertising, along with its ‘S, includes the abbreviation for new.

19a     A doctor with English degree and simple kind of life (6)
AMOEBA : ‘A’ from the clue, a military doctor, the abbreviation for English and a bachelor’s degree.

21a     Works hard getting a victory in track sports, initially (8)
TRAVAILS : ‘A’ from the clue and the letter signifying victory are inside a track or pathway, and finally the first letter of sports.

23a     A French star — good but not recognised (6)
UNSUNG : The French indefinite article, then the star at the centre of our planetary system and the abbreviation for good.

26a     Go through again having regard to limit (5)
RECAP : A two letter word meaning having regard to and then an upper limit.

27a     Only receiving Italian broadcast for game (9)
SOLITAIRE : The abbreviation for Italian and a word meaning broadcast are inside a word meaning only or alone.

28a     One of ten damn changes — make a remark about that (11)
COMMANDMENT : An anagram (changes) of DAMN is inside a remark like the ones that follow these hints.

Down

1d     The special one needs to see bishop in power (2,5)
MR RIGHT : The abbreviation for the official title for a bishop is inside power or strength.

2d     Reliable prisoner loses head, being out of practice (5)
RUSTY : Remove the first letter from a description of a reliable prisoner.

3d     Arc heroes running in this? (5,4)
HORSE RACE : An all in one clue which is an anagram (running) of ARC HEROES.

4d     Fix one’s heart trouble (4)
NAIL : The central letter (heart) of ‘one’ and a word for trouble.

5d     Dashed, needing time for female domestic (8)
INTERNAL : ‘Dashed’ here is a mild epithet. You need to replace the abbreviation for female with the abbreviation for time.

6d     Supply the essence of Freud, ne’er written up (5)
ENDUE : A reverse lurker to be found in the fifth and sixth letters of the clue.

7d     Cheers up in Kentucky with accomplished sort of cricket (7)
KATYDID : The official abbreviation for Kentucky contains the reversal of a two letter word for cheers, and then a word for accomplished or carried out.

8d     Suitable place to the south of a quiet river in Italy (8)
APPOSITE : ‘A’ from the clue, and the musical notation for quiet, then crosswordland’s favourite Italian river and a word for place or location.

14d     Investigate hearse crashing when circling about by river (8)
RESEARCH : The letter from the Latin signifying about, and the abbreviation for river are found inside an anagram (crashing) of HEARSE.

16d      Beast set up trend, oddly having put a film on (9)
LAMINATED : A word for a beast is reversed and followed by the first, third and fifth letters of trend.

17d     Relations camp without protection in America (5,3)
UNCLE SAM : The relations could be the male siblings of one’s parents, and then the central two letters (without protection) of camp.

18d     Bed, and public relations work for a supporter of mine! (7)
PITPROP : A slang word for a bed, then the abbreviation for public relations and an artistic work.

20d     Increase production of gunmetal endlessly (7)
AUGMENT : An anagram (production) of GUNMETA(l) after the last L has been removed.

22d     A flavouring, mostly jelly (5)
ASPIC : ‘A’ from the clue and then flavouring often associated with Eastern cuisine loses its last letter.

24d     Make one section of carpet in Uxbridge to be sent north (5)
UNITE : Another reversed lurker found in the fifth sixth and seventh words of the clue.

25d     Jumper found in this sort of market? (4)
FLEA : This sort of market specialises in recycled clothing.

Lots to like here. All of the clues forming the border of the puzzle appealed to us.

Quickie pun creek+heaters=cricketers

 

87 comments on “DT 28591

  1. 3* / 5*. Yet another gem from Jay! Nicely challenging and great fun.

    I messed things up at the start by putting in “sentence” for 15a as my first one in, which made me struggle for a while on the RHS. Overall however the NW corner proved to be the toughest.

    The reliable prisoner in 2d was a new word for me. I had suspected this might be an Americanism but it is in my BRB without qualification.

    Annoyingly I always struggle to see substitution clues, and today was no exception with 5d my last one in.

    It is so difficult to pick a favourite from such a splendid selection, but, if I have my arm twisted to select one, I’ll go for 12a.

    Many thanks to Jay and to the 2Ks.

    P.S. The Quickie pun is brilliant (and well timed!). I’m not likely to get much sleep tonight …

    1. I too confidently wrote in ‘sentence’ before realising it didn’t work with anything else in that corner.

      Took a while to get on the Jay wavelength today but an enjoyable time was had once the brain woke up.

      Thanks to Jay and the 2Ks

            1. Seems like a few of us were solitary together.
              Once I realised my error I managed to complete. Very enjoyable, thanks to setter and 2 K’s.

  2. Nice to be back with the Telegraph and the blog after a spell with the Times. Had to give up the Telegraph on my Ipad as it was a major drain on the battery and got very hot. Now getting free online access to Telegraph via my library and printing the crossword.

  3. This one was enjoyable but needed some head scratching and electronic assistance to finish at a canter – 3/3 (WordPress doing funny things with stars again)

    Joint favourites – 18a and 25d.

    Thanks to Jay and the 2Ks.

  4. Excellent cerebral workout to kick off the day. As per RD, 5d was last in and then was a bung-in. I needed help with 7d – of course I fell for the trap and had ball game in mind but in any case cheers in that context does jar a bit. Thank you Jay and 2Ks.

  5. Certainly no stroll in the park this morning for this quite testing offering from Jay. His usual high standard has been maintained with some witty and solid clueing throughout, so 3.5* /5* for me. I really enjoyed 1a but I could have picked any number as a favourite.

    Many thanks to Jay for the tussle and to the 2Ks.

  6. Had to work quite hard on this one with the bottom half yielding first.
    Having got used to the idea of sport featuring so highly in DT puzzles, I spent a long time wondering how Jose Mourinho was connected to 1d – not that I objected to spending time thinking about said ‘special one’!
    I’m sure I knew 7d but it took ages for the grey cells to come up with it – the name always reminds me of the books I enjoyed reading years ago.

    No outright favourite but plenty to enjoy.
    Thanks to Jay and to our 2Ks who are obviously enjoying much better weather today than we are in my neck of the woods.

    PS Unlike RD, I thought the Quickie pun was rather weak!

      1. That’s where your experience comes into play, RD – I wouldn’t have a clue as to how Mr. Boycott pronounces cricket or much else for that matter!

  7. As others have said, 15a messed things up for me. “Solitary” gave me a checker for 7d to end in Y.

    But I finished it in **** time, and thoroughly enjoyed doing so. 7d was a real drain on the memory banks, but I got there in the end.

    Many thanks to Jay and the 2Ks.

  8. Enjoyed this overall but found it a bit tricky in places. Managed to complete but needed the hint to explain 5d. As with others, I was thrown having initially put “solitary” for 15a as I recalled from a film someone being “put in the cooler” when in solitary confinement (think it might be the Great Escape) ! Soon realised that it didn’t fit with anything and the NE corner had me head scratching for quite a while. Eventually got the answer to 15a, my last one in.
    Thanks to all.

  9. For once, I got on the right wavelength straight away and trotted through at a fair lick…until I hit 1D, my last one in. Like Jane, I was on the football field for a good while even though I’d penciled in the abbreviation for bishop, thinking maybe he had another nickname I didn’t know of. Then the penny dropped. Since I had to work on that, I’ll name it among my favorites along with 28A, 7D, and 17D. Thanks Jay and the 2Ks.

  10. :phew: Jay’s flexing his muscles today – really glad to see that the K’s gave it 4* for difficulty and that others also found it tricky.
    A quick read through of the across clues only yielded one answer and the downs didn’t go much better.
    I didn’t fall for any of the possible wrong answers for 15a – I just couldn’t do it – it was my last one.
    Thought the 1a definition was ‘goods vehicle’ so didn’t get that for ages.
    I think I have met 7d before but that one also took a long time.
    So many good clues to choose from so I’ll go for a few – 15 and 23a and 4 and 25d.
    A particularly good Wednesday crossword which has taken me a very very long time – thank you to Jay and to the 2K’s.

    1. My thoughts agree with Kath. Fairly difficult and also did not get 15a wrong as my last two in were 5d and 15a and before that 1a for the same reason as Kath.

  11. Well I see I stand alone today among the bloggers as I found this very difficult and quite a struggle. 15 a where I first erased sentence then pencilled in prisoner all to no avail. Will go back and have another try with the test. Many thanks.

  12. This one crept well into the 5* rating for me, in that completing time went considerably over the usual duration allowed for solving the DT crossword! Wrong envelope (or maybe just an off-) day for yours truly. 5d a failure – favourite: 7d. Thank you to setter for a real (but not quite insurmountable) challenge.

  13. Thought on first scan through that this puzzle raised the bar a couple of notches, and so it turned out with some difficult parsing- top notch surface throughout, going for a ***/***** as the lower half fell into place quite quickly.
    Remembered the ‘reliable prisoner, and 15 a arrived with the checking letters.
    Big D’oh moment with 17d-great clue.
    Hard to pick favourites, liked 1d, I think I ‘ve seen it in previously.
    Special thanks to setter and 2 k’s today- the small matter in Australia beckons!

  14. I’ve no idea why but just for once we thought “it’s Wednesday, it’s Jay, so start with the downs”. So that’s we did and I’m very glad of it. We got twelve of them but even with all those checkers in place the acrosses still put up quite a fight, but we got there in the end :phew: Trickiest Jay for quite some time IMHO but with the usual stylish clueing so it’s ****/**** from us.

    Too many good clues to pick a favourite but it’s nice to see the old 11a getting an airing :smile:

    Many thanks to the Wednesday Wizard and the 2Kiwis.

  15. Well that was no picnic! Good challenge though and once I had cracked a few clues at the bottom of the grid the rest began to fall into place. Not sure of any particular favourite so I’ll just say 3/4* overall.
    Thank you Jay for the workout, and thank you 2K’s for the review.

  16. This was very hard going for me but after quite a while I had acompleted grid. I did not know the cricket and had to resort to looking it up on the net. I bunged in 5d. The person of conviction was my favourite clue but there were several others that I liked 1a, 1d, 12a and the lurkers. Thanks to the setter for a challenging puzzle and the decrypters for helping me with parsing 5d.

  17. Don’t know whether to be pleased to have finished a puzzle this difficult or annoyed by the very poor standard of clueing epitomised by 5d.
    Nothing to recommend this puzzle at all.
    For me ****/*
    Thx to all

      1. For very poor standard read “Brian could not parse it”. I could not get the first word of 1d but I am not blaming Jay. I never got that far down the alphabet.

  18. I’ve been lurking for a couple of years since I started trying to solve the DT cryptic on a regular basis and I’d like to thank you all and BD in particular for an excellent blog and for all the help I have received here. In this time I have gone from only being able to solve about half of a puzzle unaided, to being able to do it with the help of this blog’s hints, to now usually finishing it unaided. However, today’s puzzle was really quite tricky for me and I needed the hints for 15a, 5d and 7d. Thanks very much to the compiler for exercising my brain and 2Kiwis for the enlightenment.

    1. Welcome from me too – don’t worry about finding today’s crossword tricky – I think most of us did.

    2. Welcome from us too H. Now that you have de-lurked we look forward to regular comments from you.

  19. Took longer than normal held up in the top right corner. The clue at 12 ac suggests the anagram of fedora is worn by the EL. Once I had that sorted the rest of the answers raced in. Thanks to the 2Ks and thanks to Jay for a fine puzzle

    1. Really don’t see any problem with 12a. It’s simply EL inside (worn by) the anagram of FEDORA.

  20. Found this one quite a struggle and needed the hints for 5d and 18a, so a relief to see that others also found it tough.

    Thanks to the setter and to the 2 Kiwis for the hints.

  21. Couldn’t make head nor tail of this one…even tried turning the puzzle upside down. It din’t help.
    Way beyond my level…

  22. I agree that Jay cranked up the difficulty a notch or two today. The NE corner proved the toughest for me, taking longer to fill than the rest of the puzzle combined.

    My favourites were 1a, 23a and 28a.

    Many thanks to Mr Mutch and to Colin and Carol.

  23. 18a and 21a caused the most problems for me along with 5d.
    Some very nice clues though, such as 1d, 28a and 19a.
    I agree with the difficulty setting.
    I’m glad the sun is shining somewhere, gruesome wet weather here.

  24. Darn… judging from the comments it’s one not to miss, so I’m going to have to trawl the town to try to find a newspaper this evening. Wish me luck, I’ll need it!

    1. Managed to get one and glad I did. Brilliant stuff. Didn’t need hints but thanks anyway to our bloggers.
      Thanks Mr Mutch, loved it. *** / ***** Perfect score.

  25. Hello everyone! Back in Hyères after a hectic one month in the States – saw a lot and did a lot except solving puzzles! Really enjoyed solving today’s offering but was completely stumped by 7d -never heard of the word. My favourite was 15a -hesitated between gaolbird and jailbird… 11a made me smile. 3/3. Have yet to see Jean-Luc in person but touched base by text.

  26. Truce! You won this one fair and square, Jay. I think I shot myself in the foot a bit by putting an “s” at the end of 9a, shudda orta revisit these things when I hit an impasse.
    Likewise 15a, I had written the last letter so badly it looked like a “p” instead of “d”. Those were the only two I missed.
    Like Jane, I knew 7d from early reading days – trying to remember from where.
    No faves, too much good stuff.
    Thanks to Jay and the 2Kiwis, that was hard but a lotta fun!

    1. Hi Merusa,
      A trilogy from the pen of Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey). The titles are ‘What Katy did’, ‘What Katy did at school’ and ‘What Katy did next’.

        1. I remembered the books, but had no idea it was a cricket. When I tried googling it from the wordplay, I nearly fell off my chair

        2. That one came up on the blog a little while ago. It had been so long since I’d read it that I subsequently bought a copy online – along with Dear Enemy. Thoroughly enjoyed reading them.

          1. I have them both on my Kindle, just as enjoyable as when I was a’tween. Remember the movie with Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron?

        3. Thank you for reminding me about Daddy Long Legs. Loved that book about 60 years ago!! Might not appeal so much nowadays.

  27. Morning all.
    Quite a relief to wake up this morning to find that it had all appeared as scheduled while we were fast asleep.
    Framboise is the only one to have pointed out that for 15a either of the two spellings for the first part of the answer would fit the checkers. We did check before we published that we had chosen the correct option, ie, the one with the setter’s initial letter.
    It certainly seems we were not alone in finding this puzzle a notch or two trickier than usual and really enjoyable.
    Cheers.

  28. Quite hard but doable. Spent some time on 7d and had to check that my parsing led me to a real word.
    18d is another one that didn’t appear plausible at first.
    But Jay is always fair and I’m becoming used to his logic.
    Thanks to him and to 2kiwis for the review.

  29. Thanks to Jay and to the 2 Kiwis for the review and hints. A wonderful puzzle from Jay as usual. Quite tricky in places. I struggled with 5d until I realised it was a Jay trademark substitution clue. Last in was 7d, favourite was 8d. Was 3.5 ✳ /5 ✳ for me.

  30. I had to use my Wordsearch program quite extensively – any port in a storm!

    Very enjoyable puzzle, 4d and 5d gave me a bit of a headache but I eventually settled upon the right answers.

    1. Welcome. You had a typo in your email address in your earlier comment which is why you went into moderation again.

  31. Nice easy walk in the park today. After I got home, I set about the crossword. Very much enjoyed it and wrangled my way to the end with the occasional dip into Google-land to confirm weird insects etc. NE corner was the most tricksy but loved the challenge and admired Jay’s work today. Fav was 12a. 3.5/4. Musical backdrop was last Saturday’s Saturday Classics on R3 with Max Richter. Fabulous.

  32. ***/****
    1A and 1D COTD’s, amongst several others.
    Found I was incorrectly associating two words together in some clues ie “goods vehicle” in 1A and “heart trouble” in 4D-clever compiling I think.

  33. A good bit above my level today but completed after help from the blog for a couple to finish off. First time I have used the blog for tips for a few weeks so pleased the difficulty was rated at four, that at least made me feel a bit better about it.
    **** / ***

    Thanks to Jay and the two K’s

  34. This was most definitely a **** for difficulty. After getting a third of the way through the grid without getting any clues I checked I wasn’t solving the Toughie by mistake – it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve selected the wrong puzzle on the Telegraph site. Good through and through. with lots of misdirection, and even a pretty (for me) obscure term at 7d. The far NE and NW corners of the grid didn’t, it must be said, help matters.

  35. Very enjoyable.
    I needed a couple of hints, but pleased to read that even the experts found it harder than normal.
    I spent far too long trying to get 1a to begin with CAR, VAN or CAB.
    I guessed 5d but needed the hint to explain, I am rubbish at these substitution clues.
    Thanks Jay and the 2xK’s

  36. I only solved 6 clues at the first pass, and they were all down clues. Didn’t get much better after that. Jay is often taxing and I was relieved to see the **** rating, so I didn’t feel quite so stupid. Thanks to 2Kiwis for the hints, very much needed today. Clearly above my pay grade.
    Don’t you call 27a Patience any more? I thought it was only here in the US that they called it by the answer in this puzzle?

    1. Two different games as far as I’m concerned. Patience is played with cards, 27a uses marbles or pegs on a board.

      1. Agreed. But. When I first bought a computer way back when, it had What we would call Patience under the heading Solitaire. It was there to teach mouse using skills. Microsoft is an American company and I would suggest that the Americans call the card game Solitaire. Two nations divided by a common language

  37. I was relieved to see this was given **** for difficulty as this was the first crossword for a while that had 3 clues that defeated me. Often I feel a toughie has been put on the back page in error when I then see it is rated as * or ** here.

    The usual suspects of 5d and 7d needed the answers as the clues weren’t enough for me. I also was determined that 15a was solitary and needed the clue to convince me it was something else (even though I was certain of my answers 8d and 16d…).

    Favourite clue was 1a as I spent ages trying to fit Audi in there somewhere, so quite satisfied when I finally solved this one.

    Honourable mention to 12 across as it was the biggest penny drop clue (I was also trying to fit an anagram of fedora into EL for some reason…silly boy!).

    ****/*** from me.

  38. First ever post. Rather like 13a I have two thanks to give. Firstly to the ‘2 Kiwis’ for today’s hints and Big Dave overall for his website, shedding light into my darkness. On my own I only managed a few answers but the 2 Kiwis have helped me walk away from 28591 much wiser for next time. I have added the Italian river to my list…

  39. A decent challenge and very enjoyable. I’ve not scrutinised all the above comments, but did anyone else notice that “gaolbird” would also work for 15a? 3* / 4*.

  40. A thoroughly enjoyable puzzle and the associated comments make an entertaining read. I too fell into the ‘sentence’ trap and had to check my memory against the dictionary for 6d and 8d.
    I missed the subtlety of 5d and needed the 2Ks’ explanation to fully understand the letter substitution in the clue. My word blindness in reading 12a as ‘caging’ instead of ‘cadging’ didn’t help but I was happy to let Mrs D fill in the last two this morning.
    Thanks for maintaining this superb site Big Dave.

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