DT 25918 – Hints

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25918 – Hints

Selected hints by Big Dave

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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **

A better puzzle than last week, but still not good enough for the top slot of the week – the flagship Prize puzzle.  The dreaded place name makes an unwelcome return, but at least there are no girls’ names, or even boys’ names.

Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 7th May.

Across

1a Meal quietly taken inside – first-rate (6)
A late evening meal that comes from the instruction to play the music quietly inside a synonym for first-rate

4a Chinese food that repeats (4-4)
A Pidgin English word for food that, when repeated, is a Chinese mixed condiment

9a Church architect first to use force (6)
Put the standard abbreviation for a church after the architect who designed St Pauls Cathedral and you get a word meaning to use force

12a Sad sage frantically going round the bend provided physical relief (8)
Easy for the regular solver who already knows that the bend is usually a U-bend; frantically indicates that you must put an anagram of SAD SAGE around that bend and then you have a word that means provided physical relief

13a Soldier back in Portuguese port is rascally French hero (6)
The Portuguese port that this American soldier can be found, reversed, inside is also the name of a card game that came up in Toughie 139 yesterday

15a Money falls I comprehend (3,5,5)
When this happens, you should get the answer!

26a Enclosure from commissioner, relatively small amount of money (8)
A sense of humour in this clue – it’s the commissioner that’s relatively small, although some might say that, at £1, the adjective also applies to the amount of money

29a They have their standards in English education (6)
A cryptic (?) definition of the acronym of the regulatory body that looks after Education in England

Down

1d Does it matter performing at show? (2,4)
A phrase meaning does it matter is an easily found anagram of AT SHOW

3d Enclosure left inside in French hollow (7)
This enclosure, or piece of territory entirely enclosed within foreign territory, is built up by taking the French for in and the kind of hollow in a rock that you could have fun exploring and then putting L(eft) inside – especially for you Nance, and welcome to the blog

11d Be finished on time at lower level (7)
BE then a word meaning finished, in the sense of tidy, and finally H (Hour / time) give a word meaning at a lower level

14d Silliness in article gangster took out of Italy (7)
This synonym for silliness is built up from IN, AN article and ITALY without gangster AL Capone

16d Pipes up? Here presumably (5-4)
A cryptic definition of where in the roof you would find the pipes of this large keyboard instrument

19d Hurry with grain and port (7)
A charade of synonyms for hurry and grain give a port on the southern bank of the Mersey

20d Benefiting India for endless disaster (2,3,2)
Disaster indicates that an anagram of INDIA FO(R) gives us this phrase meaning benefitting

21d Became threadbare despite losing nothing while being raided (6)
A bit of a mix-up here as to get this synonym for threadbare you need to drop the O (nothing) from a word that means that you did the raiding and not, as suggested, were being raided.

23d Lady was successful to include graduate (5)
This, much to my relief, turned out to be a word meaning a lady, not the name of one

25d Armed forces were entertained by some eleven satirists (1,1,1,1)
You can find this organisation which provided entertainment for the armed forces during and after World War II hidden in the last two words of the clue

If you need any further help, either email me or leave a comment and I will see what I can do.