Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2481 – 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, 30th April.
Some hints to get you started:
Across
1a Unintended stress to a learner I’d kept in (10)
To find a word meaning unintended, take a synonym for stress in the sense of relative emphasis placed on a syllable or word, add A and L(earner) and put I’D inside (kept in)
9a The value of one part of speech for poet (10)
OK, it’s a proper noun, but the cluing leads you to one of Lakeland’s best known poets!
15a Author, ergo, revised repeatedly and skilfully (6,6)
Another proper noun, this time an author who wrote about animals down on the farm, or did he?
18a When local access starts, preparing to read inside stories (7,5)
A delightful cryptic definition about when you can drink in you local hostelry
21a What torments flesh or tail of pony? (8)
This all-in-one (or %&it) clue is my favourite today – a combination of an anagram signalled by “torments” and a last letter signalled by “tail of”
22a Strike outside a corporation (6)
Regular followers will by now be familiar with this informal alternative definition of corporation as a belly, especially a pot-belly
24a Part of America under control of Columbus (4)
… as the capital of this state
27a Having bars, like well-known watering-holes (10)
Having bars is a characteristic of the last two words
Down
1d Attending Shakespeare’s As You Like It (2,4)
A phrase meaning as you like it from attending and the shortened form of Shakespeare’s forename
5d A new tax on relative, in short? Just the opposite (10)
A well constructed charade that leads to a word meaning just the opposite
11d Inferior example of its type, or real change in medicine? (4,8)
Change indicates that an anagram of OR REAL is to be placed inside a medicine
16d Ridicule Teddy repeatedly (4-4)
A bit of licence here, as this bear was not called Teddy
If you feel you need hints for any other clues, let me know and I will see what I can do – but please don’t give away answers in the comments.
I enjoyed this one. A few potential traps, but generally a very fair and nicely clued puzzle.
27a was a grand clue, as was 21a.
what has stooping got to do with rowing and stern?
cryptic 2481 an excellent crossword but hung up on 13across
got it. fine is OK and string is part of bow!
I have what must be the answer to 24a, but can’t fathom the reasoning,
Kram
It’s hardly cryptic, but Columbus is the capital of this American State – check in The Mine!
That’s what threw me BD, as it is one for general knowledge rather than cryptic!.
Pleading for the defence: the cryptic element is the possible idea that this is about Christopher Columbus. Once you decide it’s about a town, or that “part of America” implies a state, there are only three 4-letter choices – and one checking letter is always enough to decide between them. The list of three is one of the very few facts I’d suggest memorising for xwd solving purposes.
I’ll never forget them as my first Times Championship final was spoiled by screwing up a clue to one of the three, which probably cost me a prize (back then, the first eight got at least something). A supposedly less able solver who’d been in the audience told me the list of three on the tube home.