Toughie 2900

37 comments on “Toughie 2900”

1. Very enjoyable puzzle – thanks to Sparks and Dutch.

   Congratulations seem to be in order as the grid appears to be celebrating a 30th wedding anniversary. I’m sure that there are several related entries including (possibly?) the name of Mrs Sparks at 29a.

   The clues I liked best were 13a, 24a and 1d.

   1. Oh, good spot! If you are right, then very warmest congratulations to Mrs and Mrs S.

   2. ah, well spotted! maybe Sparks will drop in and let us know the significance of some of the grid entries

2. Very good fun indeed. Grid filled in pretty quickly but with one or two parsings slightly unsure – thanks to Dutch for clarifications. I confess I did not remember the 18th definition of the relevant preposition in 3d, and the hurdle in 7d escaped me, though the answer was obvious. I am just left wondering about the identity of the model in 1a. I thought she was a singer, not a model…?

   And for once, I spotted a likely pangram in time for it to be actually useful – hoorah!

   Many thanks of course to Sparks for a relatively gentle but super-fun Friday puzzle.

   1. pearl as in a shining example, a model. See Chambers

3. I found this on the gentler end of the spectrum for a Friday, but it was testing enough with some fine, innovative clueing. 7d and 22d were particular favourites, although my COTD was 1d. Special mention for 6d as we live on the outlying fringes of the council area.

   Many thanks to Sparks for the fun challenge, and to Dutch.

4. A nice Friday Toughie and it soon became obvious that Mr and Mrs Kelmanson are celebrating a special anniversary. Congratulations to them

5. A friend came over for lunch today so I haven’t had chance to look at this one as yet, it will be my evening treat.
   Just wanted to pop in to wish my fellow Leo a very happy birthday – hope you’ve got something nice planned for this evening?

   1. Oh wow Jane, thank you! It’s tomorrow. My son is in Edinburgh and my daughter is in Crete, but I hope to have a few beers with some friends tomorrow night. And likewise, lioness xx

      1. Yes – I’ve got it down as 6th but made a note to mention it on your Friday blog. Sadly, the aged brain ran away with itself instead of properly decoding what I’d written! Enjoy your ‘few beers’………….

6. It seems to me that the construction of 23D is in the form {DEFINITION providing WORDPLAY}, which, I thought, is generally frowned upon, and that a clue incorporating a link word of the “creating/giving/leading to” type should properly take the form of {WORDPLAY link DEFINITION}. Am I interpreting the clue wrongly, or are both these sorts of construction permissible in Telegraph puzzles?

   1. Thanks, I love comments like this. You are absolutely right that a link should have the directionality of “wordplay producing definition”, not “definition producing wordplay”. But the link here is “offering”. I suppose you could read this as “the answer offers a + mass”. Shades of gray. You will see more blatant transgressions with some other compilers.

   2. I found this very tough – the usual 5* Friday and failed to parse 19d having decided that the car was in the definition. Favourites were 7d [the cunning “taken apart”] the garden area in 28a and 13a [the other is always good for a snigger].
      Thanks to Sparks and to Dutch for the blog.

   3. The DT gave up on the niceties of Ximinean clueing years ago. However there was never anything wrong with clues such as 23d where SOLUTION consists of WORDPLAY.

      1. Thanks, Dutch and Halcyon. I agree that it’s entirely a question of what “offering” means. I don’t think, however, that any of the definitions given in Chambers give much support to the interpretation of “consists of” (which would, of course, be fine if it did). One of the meanings of “offer” given in the ODE is “provide”, which takes me back to where I started. I think Dutch is perhaps being a little generous, although I am sure he is right to say that there is much worse out there. There is some useful stuff on the website of the late (and much lamented) Alberich about link words which was written in response to some exchanges he had with Mark Kelmanson, and if the professor drops in to look at this blog today it would be interesting to have his take on this clue.

7. Delighted to have ‘finished’ this sparkling Sparks Toughie with a good number of bung-ins and some electronic (letter) assists (for me, where Friday toughies are concerned, anything that gets me across the line is fair game), so many thanks to Dutch for all the help parsing my bung-ins. While I long for an immaculate inning (a baseball, not a cricket, reference) on a Friday Toughie, I’m very happy to have a full grid. So many clues to pick from for the best, but 27a is my favourite of the moment. Cheers, Dutch–and Happy Birthday tomorrow!–and thanks too to Sparks.

8. First, thanks very much Dutch for the super blog and to commenters for their warm wishes on the correctly spotted theme!

   Re the discussion @ 23dn, I’d view the definition “offering, v.t. = laying before someone” as a bidirectional equality indicator signifying either {AMASS laying before you A MASS} or {A MASS laying before you AMASS}. But “providing, v.t. = supplying, yielding” is _by_convention_ (not mine!) unidirectional, hence the accepted avoidance of {D for WP} in clues. Since my very experienced (mega-picky and fastidious) testers and the forensic crossword editor didn’t criticise the clue, I can only guess that they all parsed it in the same, intended way.

   Thanks again for the pearly wishes.

   PS When did it stop being possible to italicise or to embolden comments on this blog?

   1. Thank you sparks for dropping in and the warmest of congratulations. I am wondering if there is significance to Telford, , pub crawl, dietician, Pearl, etc.
      I won’t ask about straddle.

      1. No significance to any of those Happy birthday Dutch, and it’ll be happy anniversary to my old Dutch

   2. The ability to embolden , italicise or underline text in comments is still there.

      1. Gotcha, Gazza . I got soft in my old age, looking for buttons But the old html m/o for underlining no longer seems to work?

      2. Ah. Old way has been deprecated, but even if I try the “span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>new way” for underlining it doesn’t seem to work

         1. You can use the u tag to underline

            1. That’s exactly what I tried Gazza … using “leftangle_u_rightangle” to open and “leftangle_forwardslash_u_rightangle” to close. I just did it on your name and it didn’t work!

               1. You need backslash rather than forwardslash in the closing sequence.

   3. Thanks for the elucidation, and many congratulations on your anniversary.

      1. Thanks Mr Fish. One of my testers tonight saw this thread and just messaged me the following comment, which I think perfectly sums up what is safely outside Dutch’s “shades of grey”: “FWIW, I think {D offering/producing etc WP} is OK if the WP is a simple charade. For anything more complex, nah.” Basically, he’s expressed in a nutshell the bidirectional equating of juxtaposed strings that I, testers and the editor obviously had in mind.

         And thanks Gazza, though the attached screenshot shows that the source code of your comment at Big Dave’s site has a forward slash! That’s me well and truly confused!

         

         1. Sorry – I think I had a senior moment. It is, of course, a forward slash that’s required.

9. Finally got this one completed but not without several hiccoughs along the way. Fortunately, the wisdom of Dutch made light out of my areas of darkness!
   Podium places for 9&28A along with 5,21&22d.

   Many thanks to Sparks (I hardly dare ask but is Sparky still grumbling on?) and to Dutch for his oft needed assistance.

   1. Thanks Jane. Sparky still trundling on — weaker, older, more than a bit deaf, partially sighted, fewer teeth, assorted meds — but still reverts to puppydom when food surfaces. Bless his tiny legs.

10. the last three or four answers stretched the time considerably for us but eventually we got everything sorted and parsed.
    Found the pangram but missed the significance of the theme.
    A delight to solve.
    Thanks Sparks and Dutch.

11. Unfortunately, 4A does not work because that is an ordinal number, not a cardinal. Sorry, Sparks.

    1. You’ve changed your alias so this needed moderation. Both versions will work in future’.

       The definition, as Dutch has underlined, is ‘of a Cardinal’.

       1. Alias: it has been a while, I had forgotten. Thanks.

          “of thirty” = thirtieth? I don’t see that working. You can say ‘last of thirty’ but not make the substitution; ‘last thirtieth’ has a quite different meaning. ‘One of thirty parts’, but not substitute Even ‘one of thirty’ does not work. The rephrase required spoils it. An ordinal is a sequence indicator, not a property of the cardinal.

    2. Yes, the definition is “of a cardinal”

12. Hello

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