Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2479 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
For the weekend prize crosswords I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full analysis of this puzzle will be available at 12.00 next Thursday, 16th April.
Some hints to get you started:
Across
1a A pen’s powers, none the less, might be seen in these publications (10)
Here “might be seen” signals an anagram of the first three words, but excluding “O” (none the less)
10a One is opened – see inside (9)
This cryptic definition of one of the qualities of the number one has a word meaning opened, with vide (see) inside – quite often vide is abbreviated to “v”, but here we have the full Latin word
17a What you need to do (6)
Just a bit too cryptic for my liking – what you need to do to solve any clue
21a Brief film about execution for dishonest behaviour (5-8)
My favourite clue today – a charade made up of a brief film, c (circa, about) and a means of execution
27a For which opponents must go to court (it’s not hard) (4,6)
This one makes up for 17 across – it’s a barely cryptic definition of a ball game
Down
1d Almost dark, but not quite (4)
Almost all of the time of day when it is dark
4d Steals from place where secret is filed? (8)
This is a nice one – PL(ace) is followed by where you would file Secret, and anything else starting with the same letter!
7d Experience release, securing some work (7)
A word meaning to experience comes from a word meaning to release (the same verb as used in 10 across, different tense) around a unit of work
8d Minor thoroughfare that is surrounded by strange trees (10)
This minor thoroughfare comes from the full Latin phrase for i.e. (that is) inside an anagram (strange) of TREES – the second clue today that involves the full Latin rather than the more usual abbreviation
13d Soldier runs in this, perhaps – an athlete’s garment (10)
A slang word for a soldier is followed by an anagram (perhaps) of R(uns) and THIS to give a garment worn by athletes, and others
20d Sheep delivered around middle of night (7)
This large-horned mountain-dwelling sheep of N America and Siberia comes from a word meaning delivered around the middle of the word night – in crosswordese “G” is usually the middle of night, but here it is the middle three letters!
Have you noticed a change in these Sunday puzzles? If so, are they better or worse, harder or easier?
They are much better of late.
It appears they now are using compilers who know how to formulate proper cryptic clues (in the main).
Hopefully the Telegraph has sacked the previous “bozos” they had doing it.
Yes the Sunday crossword clues have certainly improved, they tend to be more interesting to solve and less ambiguous then previous ones.
It might be an idea to add a Latin version of the French aid in ‘The Mine’ as the full and abreviated Latin words are becoming more frequent in the Telegraph. Long time since I went to school and some haven’t read Latin!
The Latin phrase entry is “in progress” – but I have to prune it down from over 3000 entries before I can publish it!!