DT 28779

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 28779

A full review by gnomethang

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This puzzle was published on 30^th June 2018

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

Morning All!. Thanks to CS for the cover whilst on holiday (and trying to get a job over the line – I actually cancelled my first day of holiday!). This was a slightly stiffer Saturday Prize Puzzle and like most who commented I was left with the South West corner fairly clear having filled in the rest.

Please leave a comment telling us what you thought.

Across

1a           Meant to get lower classes free (10)
DELIBERATE – The lower classes are D and E. Add LIBERATE for free.

6a           Cooker right to make jelly (4)
AGAR – The AGA cooking range followed by R(ight).

9a           Prospect of time filling in travel document (5)
VISTA – Place  T for Time inside a VISA/travel document.

10a         Rails bearing one by top of stairs? (9)
BANISTERS – A very good all-in-one clue where the definition is the entirety of the clue and all of the wordplay. BANTERS (rails or joshes) is containing/bearing I for one and the top letter of S(tairs).

12a         Garden role not adapted by urban area (7,6)
GREATER LONDON – An anagram (adapted) of GARDEN ROLE NOT.

14a         Pointless friend losing head and gathering speed for Armstrong, perhaps? (8)
SPACEMAN – A Marmite clue. At a push I might recognise (Alexander) ARMSTRONG as the host of the quiz show ‘Pointless’ but I would not get his sidekick Richard OSMAN. In any case remove the head of oSMAN and include/gather PACE for speed.

15a         Remained sober as reported (6)
STAYED – A homophone (as reported) of STAID or sober.

17a         Residential area as far as the outskirts of Wigan (6)
UPTOWN – Take UP TO for ‘as far s’ and add the outside/outskirts of W(iga)N.

19a         Mother crossing on old airline gets night light (8)
MOONBEAM – Place MOM (an American Mother) around ON from the clue and BEA – a former UK airline.

21a         Avant-garde recordings could be so … um … eccentric (8,5)
CONCRETE MUSIC – An anagram of (it could be) SO UM ERRATIC.

24a         Old fusspot forgetting answer — that is coming in handy (9)
EXPEDIENT – EX for old and then a PED(a)NT or fusspot without the A for Answer but including IE for ‘that is’.

25a         In agreement to make amends (5)
ATONE – Split as (2,3) we have AT ONE or ‘in agreement’.

26a         Number regularly found in Indian tea (4)
NINE – Found, that is, in the even/regular letters of i N d I a N t E a.

27a         Throws away meal given king — not the finest cut of meat (5,5)
CHUCK STEAK – CHUCKS for throws away, then TEA/meal and finally K for King.

Down

1d           Female captivates very peaceful type (4)
DOVE – A DOE/female including/it captivates V for Very.

2d           Rang a salad bar up reserving pasta dish (7)
LASAGNA – A hidden/reserving and reversed/up answer inside r ANG A SAL ad.

3d           British hail American dystopian novel (5,3,5)
BRAVE NEW WORLD – A charade of BR(itish), AVE/hail and the NEW WORLD for America.

4d           Subject of jokes in actual denial (8)
REBUTTAL – The BUTT of the jokes inside REAL for actual.

5d           Singer from English National Opera visiting Turkey (5)
TENOR – The abb. for the English National Opera is inside/visiting TR – the International Vehicle Registration code for Turkey.

7d           When weather is miserable it sounds first-class (4,3)
GREY DAY – A homophone of/it sounds (like) GRADE ‘A’ or first class.

8d           Rebellion lacking enthusiasm for old comedy programme (6,4)
RISING DAMP – A charade of RISING/rebellion and DAMP/cool or unenthusiastic.

11d         Filming top actors — they have meteoric careers (8,5)
SHOOTING STARS – SHOOTING for filming and STARS for top actors. A simple but effective clue.

13d         Shield wounded guerrilla imprisoned by flipping beak (10)
ESCUTCHEON – Quite a tricky one to unravel. CUT/wounded and CHE (Guevara) a guerrilla are imprisoned inside a reversal (flipping) of NOSE or beak.

16d         Company brought up articles about improving superficial appearance (8)
COSMETIC – CO for company then a reversal (brought up) of ITEMS/articles and finally C for ‘about’/Circa.

18d         Camping equipment — something to bowl at, taking wicket ultimately (4,3)
TENT PIN – Much less familiar then the tent peg but the wordplay is clear – Place the ultimate letter of (wicke)T inside a TENPIN (something to bowl  at).

20d         Surround space nearby (7)
ENCLOSE – An EN and an EM are two recognised space lengths in typesetting. Take the former and add CLOSE for nearby.

22d         Support article that’s reduced effective powers (5)
TEETH – A TEE or support for a golf ball and then TH( e) or a definite article that has been cut/reduced. An organisation that has no effective powers is said to lack teeth.

23d         Stupid person preserved beef (4)
JERK – A straightforward double definition to finish.