Sunday Toughie No 10 by proXimal

Review by Sloop John Bee

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This puzzle was published on 3rd April 2022

They seem to be getting tougher each week but I will keep at it staying as calm and serene as a swan while paddling furiously underneath. A couple of devious subtractive anagrams today and help from the blog to explain the cheeselike holes in my 9a

Across

1              Healthy earnings after accepting unlimited duty (8)
SALUTARY: One’s earnings or SAL_ARY around the middle letters of d UT y.

5              Discourage construction of animal enclosure (6)
DAMPEN: A construction to restrict the flow of something DAM and an animal enclosure PEN combine to discourage enthusiasm perhaps. Spartacus thought that the ‘construction’ of 5a was an animal (female) DAM followed by an enclosure. PEN – proXimal may be devious enough to mean the female animal but I think construction is more likely to be the more `concrete` sort of Dam.

9              Royal hurt carrying on with it  (9)
MONARCHIC: I am not sure I have parsed this correctly (I hadn’t)but the head of the Royal family gets an adjective of or relating to being a King or Queen. Gazza explains it so “I think 9a is a verb to hurt (MAR) containing ON, then an adjective meaning ‘with it’. CHIC  “M-ON-AR-CHIC”  Thanks Gazza.

11           One used to divine duck wrapped in pastry (5)
TAROT: the pack of cards used to divine your fortune perhaps is made from a pastry or TART wrapped around the letter that looks like a duck O in cricket.

12           Offensive bitter drink picked up (6)
SORTIE: A synonym homonym combo here, sounds like a synonym of bitter, SORE and a homonym of Britain’s favourite beverage, TEA becomes TI, combine to give a military offensive.

13           Eliminate disrespectful rogue shaking fists around (8)
PRECLUDE: A subtraction anagram here, I am wary of the comment from the blog that we should avoid hinting too many of these but I found this pretty tricky to solve last night. A long word from the clue  DisREsPECtfUL loses (shaking) a shorter one FISTS, and is anagrammatised (around)  to satisfy the definition. PRECLUDE: Keep from happening or arising; make impossible, especially beforehand.

15           Grating group of politicians fixture of office (6,7)
FILING CABINET: This isn’t an anagram but was quite a bit easier to solve and provides lots of checking letters. The grating that Mama Bee does to keep her talons sharp (nail FILING) and some politicians with ministerial powers (CABINET) combine.

18           Dietary requirement turmeric not in crackers (13)
MICRONUTRIENT: This is an anagram, the first two words are our definition and the last one is the anagram indicator, the three words in between are the fodder.

22           Voiced worry, disturbing feeling going overseas? (8)
NAUTICAL: A double homonym (indicated by “Voiced”) To Worry or (GNAW) at, and the disturbing feeling you get at the back of your throat when Covid19 strikes (TICKLE) together GNAWTICKLE they sound like an adjective NAUTICAL Relating to or involving ships or shipping or navigation or seamen or going overseas.

23           Villain’s beside gold device on display (6)
CURSOR: Several cowardly and despicable villain’s (CURS) (The “greengrocer’s” apostrophe tells us we are looking for several villains not one of his possessions) goes beside the heraldic term for gold.  OR) A tricky little blighter I am always losing on this screen. I have changed mine to a bright colour, enlarged and persuaded it to flash if inactive but I still lose it most days.

26           Fish approach member of migratory group (5)
ANGLE: I didn’t hint this on the day but comments in the blog (from RD this time) suggest it is a triple definition, I can see To fish is to ANGLE and to approach sneakily ANGLE towards, I suppose the flying V formations of migratory waterfowl are the third ANGLE, but it is new to me. A brief investigoogle found this;

 

27           Remove feline blocking pass after some time (9)
ERADICATE: A feline pet (CAT) is contained within (blocking) a synonym of pass (DIE) and goes after a rather long period of time. ERA[DI{CAT}E] a synonym of Remove.

28           Hurst played against Hearts winger (6)
THRUSH: A partial anagram of HURST and the letter that Card players use to represent the Heart suit H, give us this small but beautiful brown bird with the name that always caused tittering on school nature studies.

Turdus philomelos

29           Anticipated reduced mass of trees be hewn regularly (8)
FORESEEN: A mass of trees or FORESt loses it’s last letter (reduced) and adds alternate letters (regularly) of
b E h E w N  FORESt E E N Anticipated or FORESEEN.

 

Down

1              Like 16 houses belonging to leader of Thailand (4-4)
SEMI-SOFT: Best go find the answer to 16d first. Suburban houses with one close neighbour (SEMIS) “belonging to” (OF) the leader of Thailand. (T) Like 16(d) is a definition by example (like) of the solution we seek here.

Limburger
Country of origin	The Low Countries and Germany
Source of milk	Cow
Texture	Semi-soft
Aging time	2–3 months
Related media on Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

2              Hands hiding in eastern vessel (5)
LINER: Ones Left and Right hands surround (hiding) in from the clue and E for eastern for a rather large cruise ship.

3              Wrenching sound endlessly with rhubarb being pulled up (7)
TORSION: A synonym of sound (NOIS)e loses its last letter and another synonym of rhubarb (ROT) are reversed (being pulled up) in a down clue.  TOR SION to twist or wrench out of shape.

Noun: torsion
1. A tortuous and twisted shape or position
2. A twisting force

4              Launch docked over on river in urban area (4)
RUHR: To Launch or HURL loses its last letter and is reversed (over) and put (on) R for river giving us an urban industrial area of NW Germany.

6              Worried about Zulu? Preserve ancient language (7)
AZTECAN: ATE or worried surrounds the letter represented by Zulu in the Nato alphabet and is followed by a preservation technique (CAN)ning to create an ancient language.

7              Is this spin shot repetitious? (9)
PIROUETTE: Another subtraction anagram that caused me a bit of grief. In this case  IS is removed from REPETITiOUs.
What remains is then anagrammatised to create a spin in ballet perhaps.

I fell for the April Fool joke that Tom Holland (the little lad in the stage version of Billy Elliot shown above) now known as the latest Spiderman, was to be the new Doctor Who. What if anything fooled you, dear reader?

8              Seed from stone container overturned (6)
NUTMEG: A precious stone or (GEM) and a large container or cask especially one holding a volume equivalent to 2 butts or 252 gallons, (TUN) are reversed (overturned in a down clue) to produce a hard aromatic seed of the nutmeg tree used as spice when grated or ground.

10           Beginning to crack before bishop, odd part of organ (8)
CEREBRUM: A bit of lego here, The beginning to Crack, (C) a poetic term for before, (ERE) one of the abbreviations for Bishop, (B) and a synonym of odd, (RUM) go together in that order to become part of the organ we think with

Noun: cerebrum (cerebra,cerebrums)
1. Anterior portion of the brain consisting of two hemispheres; dominant part of the brain in humans.

14           In revolution, medal occasionally comprises award (8)
ACCOLADE: A nice reverse lurker. Comprises is the lurker indicator, In revolution tells us to look in reverse, award is the definition, so the answer we seek must be in the remaining two words.

16           Grilled food topped with mostly green cheese (9)
LIMBURGER: A food usually grilled, (BURGER)  topped with most of a shade of green (LIMe) gives a type of cheese. a 1d cheese from The Low Countries and Germany. This cheese is renowned for being a bit stinky but this confirmed turophile thinks it’s not as bad as some.

17           Swimmer‘s routine’s changed abandoning island for good (8)
STURGEON: (ROUTINE’S)  is changed but before we scramble the letters, the letter that represents island (I) is replaced with that for good (G) and then changed we have a swimmer.

19           Greek character losing heart disposes of tools (7)
CHISELS: A synonym of disposes of (SELLS) loses its heart (SE LS) and follows the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet (CHI) + (SELS) to give some woodworking tools.

20           Rejoin train going north moving right to the front (7)
REUNITE: a synonym of train or entourage (RETINUE). is reversed (going north in a down clue) but before bunging it in you need to move the letter represented by right to the front. (ETINUER) reversed is REUNITE.

21           Within cooler, fifth of inmates innocent (6)
INFANT: WIthin (IN) a cooler (FAN)  and the fifth letter of inmaTes come together to give an innocent child perhaps

24           Mount thin plate (5)
SCALE: A double definition. to climb or scale a mountain and the thin plates that form a fishes skin. Also, the thin plates that you can buy to repair a childhood swiss army knife are known as scales.

25          Could possibly love food preparation (4)
MAYO: A synonym of possibly MAY and the letter that looks like the tennis score that is represented by love