DT 29461 (Hints) – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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DT 29461 (Hints)

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 29461 (Hints)

The Saturday Crossword Club
Hosted by Tilsit

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

A very good Saturday morning from Warrington.

I’m doing something today I haven’t done for over a month and that’s to actually go out and do something. Normally my trips out have been just to my community nurse for the usual health checks and leg dressings, but even those were put on hold. However, I’m organising a fully-distanced and safe face-to-face quiz. It’s the British Grand Prix of Quizzing today, one of the big dates on the calendar. We are holding a local heat for just ten people (normally we have 50-100 at my venue). Question papers have been quarantined for 72 hours, the contestants will be around 4m apart (the room is huge) and we won’t be socialising as much as we normally do. I’ll let you try some of the questions later. There are about 20 small venues around the country and a large Zoom proctored event as well.

Click on the image to view a larger version

Most of this week has been taken up trying to persuade my temporary guest to become sociable. Sadly, she has chosen to do a Marlene Dietrich by wanting to be alone in her carrier, with occasional trips out for food and litter tray use. Yes, I’m cat-sitting for a relative and Siena (for that is her name) is a real grumpyboots. Watch this space.

Now to the crossword, and to be fair, that’s a bit of a grumpyboots as well. I don’t say it often, but I couldn’t warm too much to this. It felt as though the setter was saying ‘Aren’t I being clever’? While I can sometimes appreciate it, it just didn’t feel like it today. Quite tricky in parts, and I have to say our Mysteron setter today (although I have my ideas) has produced something that would look at home in a Wednesday Toughie.

I won’t be able to offer hints for all the clues that are troublesome, but I’ll try to ensure it gives you a good entry into the grid, so you can use the additional letters to help you. The pictures are there to signpost as well. If it’s a long answer and I have avoided an explanation it is almost certainly an anagram of two or more of the words (15 across, for example).

Let me know what you thought. Please remember the rules and play nicely. The naughty step has a barbed-wire cushion on it today!

As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, an assortment of clues, including some of the more difficult ones, have been selected and hints provided for them.

Most of the terms used in these hints are explained in the Glossary and examples are available by clicking on the entry under “See also”. Where the hint describes a construct as “usual” this means that more help can be found in The Usual Suspects, which gives a number of the elements commonly used in the wordplay. Another useful page is Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing, which features words with meanings that are not always immediately obvious.

A full review of this puzzle will be published after the closing date for submissions.

Some hints follow.

Across

1a Rehearse murder with sword (3,7)
Two definitions to start. To rehearse something like a play, and if there was a duel, how you’d literally win it.

9a Experiencing charm of spring after short time (10)
An odd definition, but it is what it is. After something meaning a short period of time, add a word meaning to spring or jump.

12a Circling a lake with my waterproof footwear (6)
A word that means ‘My!’ goes around A and L (lake) to give the name of an old fashioned piece of waterproof footwear.

18a Unruly children trade in fear (6-6)
The name for unruly children (7 letters) goes with something meaning to trade. Re-split the letters as 6-6 and you get a phrase.

21a Garden feature takes time, it’s supposed to be difficult (8)
I sort of feel this clue asks you to make a little extra leap. Inside a word for a garden feature goes T (time). This gives the name of something said to be difficult, in an expression you would say it’s not this (two words) in comparison and this is a synonym for that.

25a Starter motor finally found in quarry, apparently (10)
Something you’d have as a starter in some types of restaurant. The last letter of motor goes inside a two-word way to quarry, or what you’d do in a quarry. Another clue, I think that asks you to make a bit of a leap to find the answer.

26a Sharp intake of breath from rabbit punch initially (4)
Another slang word meaning to rabbit and the first letter of punch.

27a A time to give such as Rudolph ‘orse food (3,4,3)
One of the days of every other year where you stump up cash for a good cause. One of the famous reindeer’s attributes (3-5) plus something a Cockney horse would eat (i.e. without the initial ‘h’).

Down

1d Abdicate, installing son in rule as monarch (6)
The abbreviation for son goes inside the job of a monarch.

3d Control such as Nelson far too much (4,4,4)
What Nelson(s) are to a sportsman who is not a cricketer plus a phrase meaning far too much. Split the letters you have into three four letter words to get the phrase.

4d Old tenor’s music producer (4)
The abbreviation for old and the surname of a famous tenor (more later).

7d BBC chief detained by adult working for club (8)
The abbreviation for a big boss at the BBC goes inside a word meaning adult (as in porn) and add a short word that means working,

11d Stipulate car’s given out form of pollution (12)
Anagram of two words to give you a specific scientific word for little bits of stuff in the air.

14d China has big problem with crime (3,7)
A word for a problem (like this puzzle!) and a type of crime that has its own division in the police force.

17d Nutssomething we associate with Christmas (8)
A word meaning nuts or bonkers is also something that you buy at Christmas.

19d One who’s taken silver back (6)
This held me up a lot longer than it should and is simply two definitions. An athlete who gets silver is this, and to back someone at a meeting.

23d Plant that’s right in marshy ground (4)
Inside marshy ground (think East Anglia) goes the abbreviation for right.

So, there you are. Let us know what you think. We’ll be interested to know. Remember to play nicely.

The Crossword Club is now open.

See you next Saturday and I’ll leave you with some utterly wonderful singing. Get your hankies ready!


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The Quick Crossword pun: foal+tit+ours=Fawlty Towers


126 comments on “DT 29461 (Hints)

    1. Yes, sabrinastar, and I wonder whether Tilsit’s aware that Extinction Rebellion has blocked deliveries of The Sun, Times, Daily Mail and Telegraph.

      1. Tilsit and I had a phone conversation earlier this morning and, yes, he did know about the printing problems.

        You don’t realise how much time you spend with the Saturday paper (and these days it is my only paper of the week) until you haven’t got one.

        1. No Telegraph to be had in our little market town thanks to extinction rebellion (lack of capital letters is deliberate) so I have , for once, had time to do yesterday’s Toughie. Hope it doesnt continue tomorrow.

        2. I am cross because I fired off another of my Letters To The Editor yesterday and am always hopeful that the next morning
          I will see my name in lights! Three times so far in 60 odd years -just maybe today was the fourth – I shall never know.

            1. Oh very lightweight- all the times I write on weighty subjects and today I thought bet they have printed a silly one. I was endorsing the soporific effects of lettuce vis a vis Peter Rabbit and Mr McGregor! Don’t tell me it is in !!!

              1. If it was entitled Lethal lettuce and was about Peter rabbit’s father being made into a pie, from someone in Bristol, then yes, it is the last letter on the page

                1. No, I live near Cambridge. It is blatant discrimination, he sees my name and thinks oh no not that batty old woman again. I bet my letter was superior. And PLEASE don’t tell me the Night Sky in September was also in today’s paper, I always cut it out and stick it on my fridge. One of the best freebies around here is a visit to the university observatory, fabulous. Oh well, it’s gone six so a large gin and tonic is called for.

                  1. Oh I think I will join you … 😊 I think perhaps it might be the best medicine for hip pain.

            2. Incidentally, 5.25 and still no paper. What do these people think they are achieving by denying a poor little old lady crouched by a meagre fire with a rug round her poor old legs a little innocent pleasure with a newspaper ?

              1. I agree! I had to read up on extinction rebellion to know what it was. How on earth can not printing newspapers possibly solve climate change!

                1. They don’t need a reason to protest, they just enjoy making other people’s lives a misery. And so disappointed that the police let them get away with it.

                  1. Surely they should have the wit to realise that by threatening the freedom of the Press they willl make a lot of powerful enemies. They must be pretty dense!

        3. Gutted not to be able to get a Saturday Telegraph! It’s the only one we buy, and we always do the Pub Quiz, and the General Knowledge Crossword (though getting a bit bored by that one now – too many obscure film directors & authors of books I’ve never heard of), then the Cryptic lasts me several days (I rarely start it until Monday).
          Fortunately I hasn’t done the previous Saturday’s Cryptic, so I’ve had a bit of entertainment this week, though couldn’t finish it without some hints – for which thanks!

  1. Glad this is over (Saturday used to be the easy one)
    Looking forward to Dada tomorrow for a lot easier solve!

  2. Can we get it online without subscribing? I can’t find a way.

    Do you think the DT would forgive us if somebody scanned it and posted it here?

    1. Try PressReader … you need to be a member of your local library.

      (It was free at the start of Lockdown … maybe they want some money now?)

      1. Yes, Pressreader, not a lot of folk know you can get hundreds of newspapers and magazines for free if you join your local library and get your card ‘swiped’ !
        No Sunday Telegraph cryptic, though, for some reason.

    2. I suppose it depends what you mean by “subscribing”.
      We have subscribed to the DT generally for some time, because it’s cheaper. I always did my puzzles in this way before lockdown, I.e. on paper. Old fashioned, I hear you say…well, yes…but I like the feeling of paper in my hands and I’m not the only one.
      I say that, but I do the Guardian puzzles online (except for the Everyman, as we have the paper version of the Observer).
      It’s only during 2020 lockdown that I discovered how many definitions of subs there are.
      Using the form of “subscription” as described above, you can log in and read most of the paper’s contents online as well, but this only includes access to one puzzle and you can’t choose which one. If I wasn’t at home, it was a drag, but then, I was usually doing something that meant I didn’t miss the crossword.
      From March this year, we didn’t get the paper, or only spasmodically, so I subscribed and paid an additional fee for the Puzzles Site ( I’ve assumed you can do this without ever getting the paper?). I print them off and do them that way.
      Now, I have to decide whether or not to re-subscribe to the paper. I’m thinking not, because I can still retain the Puzzles site separately.
      It probably comes down to where you like to do the puzzle – in bed, in the kitchen, in the garden, at the allotment, on a horse, in a taxi………….. and, increasingly, you can have your tablet and eat it in most of these places.

      1. I subscribe to The Daily Telegraph Newspaper App. I get the Daily Telegraph delivered to my iPad every day. It contains five puzzles. The Toughie, The Cryptic, The Quickie, Codeword and a Sodoffku. With this subscription I also get a book of tokens so I can get a hard copy of the paper every day if I want to (I don’t want a hard copy so that gets delivered to a friend in Long Itchington.
        The other site one can subscribe to is The Daily Telegraph Puzzles App. Lots of puzzles extra to those mentioned above but no newspaper articles whatsoever
        As far as I am aware these are the only two forms of subscription officially offered by The Daily Telegraph

        I can solve much faster on an iPad as I can read what I have written

        1. You can subscribe to just the iPad version with no tokens for the hard copy. That gives you the paper and 5 puzzles

    3. I subscribe to the physical paper and have tokens for Mon – Sat which I redeem at the shop.

      For the time being, the online subscription is bundled in. However, I would need to subscribe for £4.99 a month to get the crossword online.

      Very annoying the XR have depived me of the paper today (not to mention the crossword!). I am currently in Hertfordshire, not far from the Broxbourne plant. There isn’t a single place that has the paper in the local area.

      1. Good value at £2/week is the Saturday print subscription. Gives you full access to digital 7 days a week plus the physical paper on Saturday. One free puzzle a day, although you can’t choose which.

      2. Does XR stand for Extermination Required? That’s a bit extreme , tarring & feathering, or a couple of days in the stocks would do for a start.

        Suggest when they glue themselves to something a ready supply of rotten tomatoes is made available so the silent majority can make their feelings known silently.

  3. Not my fave puzzle this week but still fun. I needed a hint or two to get me going again, (25a and the 2nd word of 3d) but the rest flowed smoothly after that.
    Thanks Tilsit and setter
    I have the PDF available to send to anyone deprived of their dead tree version if you don’t want to publish your email on here get in touch at john.black1962@gmail dot com and I will reply with the PDF

  4. Must say I kind of agree with Tilsit’s view of this one. After the first read through I thought this was going to be a real horror show but the answers slowly revealed themselves & pleased that my parsing of those hinted agrees with the review. Oddly 19d was my last in & I too took longer than clue warranted for the penny to drop. Think I’ll plump for a podium of 1&21a together with 3d in the top spot.
    Thanks to the setter & to Tilsit for his review.
    Ps fairly sure my answer to 8d is correct but not entirely happy with the first & last letter so would appreciate your thoughts maestro

  5. Well after 5 weekdays of success and enjoyment, today was crash and burn.
    Couldn’t finish without hints, thanks Tilsit.

  6. Time to mix metaphors again – this was a bit of a plod for completion at a fast canter – 3*/2.5*.
    However, I did find some candidates for favourites – 1a, 9a, 21a, and 7d – and the winner is 21a.
    Thanks to the setter and Tilsit.

  7. Can’t quite decide whether or not I enjoyed this one – a ‘mixed bag’ describes it very well.
    27a made me smile as did 26a, although the latter would possibly be better applied to the subject’s long-legged cousins!

    Thanks to our setter and to Tilsit for the hints and music. I remember being round at a friend’s house one evening when her husband (a cameraman for ITV) came home and told us that he’d just finished filming with a mechanic who had a dream of becoming a singer. His comment was ‘that boy could go far’ – how right he was!

  8. The longest I have ever spent on a Saturday puzzle and still managed to finish–with 19d, my LOI. But I found this puzzle painfully tedious in places and just downright too clever by half–and then half again. Usually, when I finish a puzzle with the certitude that I have correctly answered and parsed the entire grid, I have a terrific sensation of achievement, but not today. Today, I was just relieved and very tired. Nonetheless, I did like 1a, 9a, 3d, and 18a. Didn’t know what 27a was (not something we have over here, to my knowledge) so I just bunged it in, and it sounds like a winning proposition. Thanks to Tilsit for all of his heroic endeavours and to today’s grandiose setter. ***** / **

    1:46:32

    1. Do you remember a film called Patch Adams? I think 27a Is taken from that and is a charity day in UK.

  9. Oh dear. Not a good day for me today.
    Needed some of the hints as well as electronic gizmos.
    So, not very enjoyable.

    Thanks to Tilsit and to the setter.

    And can I be non-plussed again please ?

  10. A big thank-you to he who supplied my copy today.

    I agree with others, it was a bit of a mish-mash of styles, with an hmmm or two thrown in.

    Completed in *** time, COTD goes to 14d.

    Thanks to the compiler and Tilsit.

  11. What a fantastic puzzle, best of the week with so much to smile about!

    Oops, sorry; cut and pasted the wrong sentence ! 😂😂

    I’ve got more marks saying “weird, odd, wrong” against clues than ticks for prizes! **/**.

    Thanks anyway to Mr Ron and Tilsit.

  12. Thanks to Tilsit for including the ones I needed parsing tips for, especially my LOI 19d……
    I hope you enjoy your quizzing excursion – we’re quizzers, but nothing live yet, which is no fun. Getting around tables with nothing but a pencil and a drink of some sort in your hand Is the way to go. Have fun!

  13. Does anyone have a copy of the grid? Last time I tried to do a Daily Telegraph puzzle without the grid was at sea in 19 something or other – that took me over a week. :cry:

  14. Well finally finished unaided but did not enjoy very much. 25a last in. Didn’t help that I put the wrong answer for 6a which made 7 and 8d impossible to solve. Finally got 6a right and could then finish. Kept asking my engineer husband for another word for starter motor!

    1. Like the German river the other day and the North Eastern Town that turned out to be Milton Keynes you really should know better. As I always advise. Stop reading the clues

  15. Found this a bit quirky with oddly constructed clues (3d, 7d & 27a) which meant that Tilsit’s hints were much needed and greatly appreciated. Somewhere along the way, I lost interest so no real satisfaction on completion. Probably a wavelength thing and nothing to do with the setter whose efforts I can only applaud.
    I’m getting used to reading Tilsit’s Saturday comments which always leave me feeling both envious and exhausted at all he manages to achieve! Hope that you all enjoy the Quiz!

  16. This was a bit of a grind. I couldn’t understand the why of 7d at all so thanks for the enlightenment, Tilsit. I’m not a fan of clues like 14d where the answer to the first word merges into the second word to make sense of the clue. Over complicated. 25a was just “really”. Surely not. Not my cup of anything today. Thanks to all. ****/**

  17. Thanks to he who e-mailed me the grid. This was a tough one, with some good misdirection, especially in 18a, where I followed a red herring and was held up for ages (****/****). 19d was my last on too. I did enjoy the puzzle, probably all the more because I didn’t think I would get one today. 18a and 21a were the best clues for me. Thank you to Tilsit for the hints and to the setter.

  18. Firstly I was really annoyed to find that as a paper subscriber I couldn’t get a copy from the website without paying or at least giving credit card details. Eventually at noon I was able to get my paper version and get into this which I thought was a lot like the Sunday one has become. There were a couple of clues I thought questionable like 12a being singular and is 22a a hide? Thanks to Tilsit for explaining the construction of the last two words in 27a’s clue. Overall after my early day rage, I settled down and quite enjoyed this.

    1. On days like this you would think that someone at The Telegraph would have the nous to make the on-line crossword “free” as they often do for the odd crossword during the week. But, nah! That would be far too ….

      For my part this took some time with the SE corner holding me up. 25ac being the main culprit. I won’t be recommending this to my aging Mother, but really looking back it was a good challenge.

      Thanks to setter and Tilsit for introducing me to the tenor who I have never heard of (electronic help got me there though, but I wonder would this clue have been acceptable before we had such assistance? I believe that one should be able to solve from the clue alone!)

      1. In fairness to the DT, I was given free access to the Digital Edition app, because I subscribe to the paper version. Received a very reasonable email from them this morning.

  19. Tilsit summed this one up, and I agree. But I should be grateful we are online subscribers and could still read the paper and do the crosswords. Not that we have a choice over here. I’ve done about half the puzzle but the will to finish has deserted me for the present. Must say I am disappointed with the British police. First they stood by and let statues be toppled, and now they let this rowdy mob stop newspapers being printed. Yet they were more than willing to go out and hassle people sunbathing in parks apparently. It’s a shame some bad apples are letting the US police down. When we first moved here we experienced a couple of instances where the police were amazingly responsive. One afternoon we began to get almost constant abusive phone calls (land line only days) from one of my daughter’s high school classmates. After a quick call to our local police station an officer was at our house within minutes. He answered the next call and told this young man, in no uncertain terms, to stop calling. And then he followed up that evening by visiting the parents. No more calls.

    1. Caller ID was a godsend when it came in. I was getting “heavy breathing” calls in the middle of the night, every night. It drove me crazy.

      1. That’s awful. Though….. please know Merusa I am not trivialising what you went through, one morning about quarter to five my phone rang and the caller I.D. said ‘Private Number’ so I couldn’t see who it was and I could hear breathing, quite fast breathing, so I didn’t say anything at all. Not Hello. Nothing. Eventually the person hung up. At 9.00 a.m. phone rang again from our (then) doctor’s office. Our doctor said “Carolyn your blood results are bad, you must go to hospital now for intravenous potassium. The lab was so concerned they woke me at 4.30 and I called you but couldn’t hear anything, I was worried you might have died.” I told him I thought it was a dirty phone call. I did feel like a right nitwit.
        BTW try to avoid potassium IV at all costs it burns like h*ll, even the foul tasting liquid is better.

  20. I think I enjoyed this but not altogether sure about that. Some of the clues seemed quite obvious but I was left with 21 and 25a and 3, 14 and 19d. I did manage to work out the answers eventually with 19d being the last. All was well once I read that clue correctly. Thanks to the setter and Tilsit for his hints.

  21. Anarchist-communists prevented me from getting my DT today. However some of you seem to have received a copy – I’ll pop round to the shop once more and see if I can get one late in the day.

  22. I found this rather clunky in part with a few vague clues. I thought I was going to motor through it (iPad version as no paper delivered today due to aforementioned reason). I hit the buffers for a while but then got it done albeit 19d eluded me for some odd reason. That being said, it was a pleasant solve before I launched into garden – planting lots of bulbs, moving, re-planting and feeding the beds with my beautiful compost. Slightly aching now so relaxing with a cup of tea before I crack open some wine. Thanks to the Setter and for the review the contents of which I found myself agreeing with. And I cut the lawn.

  23. Didn’t find this too difficult- it must be all the training with the Toughie these last two weeks. Favorite 14d.

  24. Have to agree with Tilsit on this one ; definitely a **** for me and would have been unable to finish if Tilsit had not hinted many of the clues I was stuck on. More thanks to Tilsit for only hinting one anagram. It’s so annoying to find three or four anagrams hinted in the prize puzzle. Even I am able to spot most of them so I am sure everyone on here can do so also.

    Hope your quizzing went well and you find more opportunities to get out and about. The health checks and dressing changes are going well I hope. Many thanks Tilsit.

  25. Did anyone else notice the five named characters from the Quickie pun mentioned in the Quickie grid? Very clever. Yet to do the cryptic.

    1. Great spot – I don’t usually do the quick but with your hint I had a fun time looking for the characters.

  26. Definitely not the easiest Saturday puzzle in quite a while. ***/*** rating for me with 3 or 4 of the clues *really* hard to fathom out the correct answer. Had to do quite a lot of searching to suss out the right answers for them. Also I got 18a wrong initially that made 16d impossible to solve. Then I realised what 16d was and saw the mistake in 18a.
    20d was last in with 22a and 19d (real head scratcher there for me to get that one), just ahead of the last in answer.
    Clues for favourites … 1a, 18a, 27a, 3d, 14d & 19d with winner 19d
    Whew … I need a nap after all that!

    Thanks to setter and Tilsit for the needed hints for this one.

  27. My first Saturday without a paper Telegraph and the first time in well over 40 years I haven’t been able to tackle the Saturday crossword (other than times when I have been out of the country). Didn’t realise I would miss it so much. Boo!

  28. Thanks to Tilsit’s help was able to belatedly get into this but after all didn’t really enjoy the exercise. In fact it had a rather unfamiliar feel to it and I wondered if it was a rookie setter? 2d is hardly cryptic. Two Favs were 12a and 13a. Don’t understand the trade bit of 18a. Thank you setter and particularly Tilsit.

  29. I thought that was really difficult – I have a vague idea about who the setter might be.
    I’m not sure whether I really liked or really didn’t like 27a – it made me laugh but it’s a bit barking mad.
    I did like 12, 18 and 26a and 16d.
    Thanks to the setter and to Tilsit.

  30. I felt this was a Saturday Prize Puzzle worthy of the title. Really quite hard in places, but with a few leaps of faith and parsing after the fact, I got there. 12a stood out as a favourite along with 27a.

    Thanks setter for the challenge and to Tilsit.

  31. I normally try to look on all puzzles as the hard labour of someone other than me. Today I found it difficult to be benevolent about this one. I have 4 question marks on the clues which always indicates I didn’t think much of the clue. In any event, thanks to the setter and Tilsit.

  32. I am quite relieved to see that I am not alone in finding this one very difficult indeed. My brain just didn’t seem to get into the right gear. I have muddled through most of it, with help from the hints and I still have not finished. Driving me 17d in fact. (Hope that’s not a naughty step crime!).

    Thank you to all, and hope everyone is well and not chafing too much at the restrictions. I had to look up extinction rebellion. I had no idea, sounds ludicrous to me. Planning for next year’s garden and playing with the new greenhouse. I have been saving seeds as they appear to be sold out everywhere and then discovered in the news that if I save seeds from courgettes/zucchini they might murder us our sleep. Who knew?

      1. Oh she is ruling the roost! She is tiny, with the quietest of meows but we are absolutely in love. We were so certain we couldn’t ever face having another pet and yet here we are completely besotted. I am still struggling with the blues, combination of worry about our son and family in the US and for me, the general lockdown even though I am very lucky to have a garden, but Maggie lifts me up many times every day and even at night. I don’t mind being woken up. She does have the oddest obsession with by-fold cupboard doors. she knows how to open them. We can’t work out what must have happened in her past time, perhaps her bed was inside a cupboard? Thank you so much for asking.

        1. You don’t want a 5 year old Siena? I’ll parcel her up and send her!

          Came home to her hiding behind the sofa and being very very grumpy.

  33. I found this very strange, talk about lateral thinking! I never did get 19d, having bunged in an answer that had nothing to do with the clue. Now that Tilsit has explained it, I find it pretty clever and it might be my fave!
    I quite liked 25a as I got the “starter” meaning straightaway. First in was 1a, which helped. I didn’t know the tenor at 4d, but what else could it be with the checking letters.
    Thanks to our setter and to Tilsit for unravelling that lot, stopped my head spinning!

  34. No silly mistakes, just a rather slow filling in of the grid. This crossword would have been better suited to December looking at 27a and 17d. I’m still trying to hang on to the last of summer. Thank you setter and Tilsit. 12 a was a smiler. I remember my father wearing them in the snowy winters of the Scottish Borders.

  35. I am late posting today, having been out since before the review was posted.

    I wasn’t sure about this puzzle when I started it but I warmed to it as I worked through it and I am going to give it a rating of 2.5*/3.5*.

    I’m not convinced that the answer to 8d is synonym of oblique.

    1a was my favourite.

    Many thanks to the setter and to Tilsit.

    Now for the NTSPP and MPP.

  36. The picture on the front page was the socially distanced British Grand Prix – Warrington heat.

    We arrived and as it was a nice day, we used the patio.

    We had the pleasure of seeing the Number Two for Bowden (the away side) hit 118 out of his teams 180.

    In reply the home team (much younger and less experienced) were at one point 4 for 4 and ended up 42 all out.

    Amusing to see at the end of every couple of overs they stopped and hand gel their hands (including the umpires!).

    Quiz went well. Nationally 170 people played with 60 playing in a proctored zoom setting and lots of smaller venues like ours.

    The overall winner was Pat Gibson from the Eggheads team reclaiming his title – last year’s champion Paul Sinha from the Chase was seventh.

    Incidentally, Paul’s recent radio show is on BBC Sounds at the moment as is very much worth listening to.

    Catch it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000llxh

    You’ll find facts and connections you never know possible!

  37. As the comments reflect this was a curate’s egg. Finished with electronic help for one.
    25a typical example, one man’s good clue is to others the setter being too clever.
    It is a pity rent-a-mob prevented many partaking of today’s offering, the views of some regular contributors would have made for added interest
    Thanks to setter & Tilsit – glad the quiz went well, sad that Eggheads is being dropped.

  38. I quite enjoyed this, though it took abut a third of the time a wednesday toughie normally takes me.
    There were a few “old friends” (as Don Manley calls chestnuts) e.g. 13a, 17d, 23d, and some rather refreshing novel (to me, anyway) clues e.g. 25a, 26a, 27a, 14d
    Thank you setter and Tilsit

  39. Is there any way I can get a copy of the clues and blank grid for DT29461.
    I subscribe to the paper edition, but cannot access the online version.

      1. Please could you also send me a copy of DT Saturday’s grid and clues? So frustrating that we visited 6 shops today, none of which had the main DT due to extinction rebellion!
        Thanks in advance.

          1. Hi Big Dave

            I tried to buy Saturday’s Telegraph (for the puzzle, of course!) at 5 different shops en route between Wales and West London. No luck, thanks to the protesters. Would it be allowed to send me a copy of the puzzle if anyone has a paper copy to copy and email? Would be very grateful!

            Many thanks,

            Jenni

  40. Thanks to the setter and to Tilsit for the hints. Quite a tricky puzzle, needed the hints for 25a and 3d, also to parse 18a, 7&14d. Last in was 20d, favourite was 12a. Was 3*/3* for me.

  41. Merusa.
    It isn’t that stopping the printing of newspapers will help climate change.
    The protest was directed at the Murdoch group of newspapers which reflect the climate change denyings of its Dirty Digger proprietor.
    Perhaps you missed the BBC documentary recently that showed the undue influence that he exerts over many facets of our lives, particularly election and referendum results.
    But then you probably think the BBC to be a left-wing propaganda unit.
    I’d always imagined that my fellow crossword addicts might be kindred spirits, but the political bias of the reactionary opinions in today’s feedback has cured me of that.

    1. As I said earlier I had no idea about the protests and had to look it up. I too am not a fan of Murdoch. When we first moved to Canada I was in Winnipeg and the company I worked for bought some basically useless programming from one of his minions. I tried to warn the big bosses about who he was but to no avail. They lost a packet. Bear in mind this was a company that would schedule meetings with out-of-town business partners at the local strip club. I enjoyed Winnipeg: The Forks, The Children’s Museum, the fantastic food from all kinds of cultures, the parks and festivals, even the weather! But maybe not the mosquitos which have landing lights they are so big and the canker worms.
      Not long after I/we moved to the dome here in Ontario and I put all that behind me. I/we enjoy Ontario too. Very much.
      OK that’s enough off topic, I don’t want Big Dave to send me to the step for waffling!

    2. Merusa lives in the US so probably did miss the Murdoch programme.
      The only overtly political post today was yours.
      My wish is that I can carry on my life without being told, either by Murdoch or ER how l
      I can only live it the way they will let me .
      At least with newspapers I have the intellectual choice as to whether I read them, which one I read, and if I do how I interpret what I read. Just as we “kindred spirits” have the right to access the pleasures afforded by the crossword should we wish.
      However the objective of the anarchic factions of ER yesterday was to prevent the silent majority enjoying those hard-won (by both the left and right of society) freedoms.
      It is typical of the ER philosophy that we are labelled as being “politically biased” and accused of having “reactionary opinions” when we break our silence.

      1. Thank you LROK for saying my piece for me. Everyone knows my opinion, being overly opinionated, and I feel about Murdoch with as much affection as I do of Der Gropenfuhrer. No, I did not see the BBC programme. I do care about the environment and feel that something must be done. However, depriving people of their newspapers and entertainment I do not consider to be constructive in any way.

        1. Au contraire! I was enjoying a leisurely breakfast of boiled eggs, mushrooms, tomato and toast washed down with Waitrose English Breakfast tea!

  42. Saturdays aren’t Saturdays without the DT Crossword

    Has it been published online anywhere ? links ?

  43. My news agent finally delivered my Saturday Telegraph today, but without the main section. Having been away for two weeks, I had been really looking forward to tackling the crossword again.

    Can anyone help?

  44. 1.5 million newspapers were not delivered yesterday apparently. They are being recycled. Why not give people the opportunity to purchase them the next day?

    I have already purchased mine, but do not have it. :-(

  45. To Big Dave.
    NOT INTENDED FOR PUBLICATION
    It is many years since I ceased the Daily Telegraph as my news provider.However, their puzzle section is second- to – none, and I subscribe to it on-line.
    You website is an excellent adjunct to my solving efforts.
    I strayed beyond the hints yesterday because 8dn wasn’t among the featured hints and I wondered if any of the ‘Feedback’ would help.
    I became upset with my perception that the protestors’ cause was not understood, and surely your moderator should have stepped in at the tarring and feathering suggestion?
    I shall continue to use your hints but never again stray into your cosy reactionary interchanges.
    Bill Greenoff.

    1. Oooh, the temptation to respond to this almost hurts, but I shall remain the lady my parents prayed I would become.

      1. I try too though sometimes my ‘ladyness’ slips a bit, I have been known to swear like a sailor about things like stubbed toes.

  46. 3d held me up and was the last in. I was pretty sure of the third word and had an idea about the first but just could not get the phrase. Favourite was 27a when the penny dropped. Others worthy of mention are 22 and 25a and 2 and 16d. 2d is gettable as a “straight” clue but the cryptic angle makes it memorable. Thanks Setter , very clever but I suspect unfathomable to some. I liked 27a but did not fully parse so thanks Tilsit for help with that. From another comment or comments I guess some would not have got it particularly our overseas friends who are not aware of the event in question, nor perhaps regional variations of language.

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