DT 25962

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25962

Hints and tips by Gazza

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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****

Another Tuesday and another fine puzzle, full of well crafted clues. After last week’s debate on how difficult the puzzle was I’ll be interested to see how people react to this one – I vacillated between three and four stars but eventually plumped for three.

Across Clues

1a  Call up from inmate’s cell, we hear (9)
{CONSCRIPT} – a word meaning to call up for military service is constructed from CON’S (inmate’s, i.e. convict’s) and a sound-alike for CRYPT (cell).

8a  Man in charge at Waterloo? (13)
{STATIONMASTER} – a cryptic definition of the man in charge, not at the battle of 1815, but at the London terminus of the same name.

11a  President — the man’s a Democrat (4)
{HEAD} – a charade of HE (the man), A and D(emocrat) produces the person in charge.

12a  Shock plea dropping Ecstasy (5)
{APPAL} – drop the E (Ecstasy) from APPeAL (plea) to leave a verb meaning to shock.

13a  End with overweight sweetheart (4)
{FATE} – a charade of FAT (overweight) and the heart of swEet leads to a word meaning destiny or death (end).

16a  Professional soldier’s general (7)
{REGULAR} – double definition – a term for a professional soldier and a synonym for general or normal.

17a  Little rod getting shrimp? (7)
{TADPOLE} – a charade of TAD (little) and POLE (rod) gives us a tiny thing (shrimp).

18a  Support of faithful crumbling (7)
{FULCRUM} – a word for support is hidden (of) in faithFUL CRUMbling.

20a  Train undercover agent (7)
{SLEEPER} – a lovely double definition – the type of train on which you can get your head down, and a spy who spends years undercover before being activated.

21a  Snitch appears before English judge (4)
{RATE} – a charade of RAT (snitch) and E(nglish) makes a verb meaning to judge.

22a  Garden’s naff ornament mocked endlessly, initially (5)
{GNOME} – an amusing all-in-one clue – take the first letters (initially) of the first five words to get this figure of fun.

23a  With company, the French drink (4)
{COLA} – this brown carbonated non-alcoholic drink is made from CO (company) and LA (the, in French).

26a  Isn’t archaic? No, becoming out of date (13)
{ANACHRONISTIC} – an anagram (becoming) of ISN’T ARCHAIC? NO gives a word meaning out of date.

27a  Capital choice taking posh daily (9)
{BUCHAREST} – choice is BEST – include (taking) U (posh) and CHAR (daily) to get the capital of Romania.

Down Clues

2d  Remains of left’s losing head (4)
{ORTS} – left’s is pORT’S (i.e. the left side of a ship) – take off the first letter (losing head) to leave a word meaning remains.

3d  Cork by end of knots on hat (7)
{STOPPER} – put together S (end letter of knots) and the sort of hat that men were wearing last week at Royal Ascot (and which used to be worn by an 8a on ceremonial occasions) to get a synonym for a cork.

4d  Bank’s responsibility after crash (7)
{RAMPART} – a term for a defensive mound or bank is made from a charade of a word for a role or responsibility after RAM (crash into).

5d  Starts to put on sexy exhibition? (4)
{POSE} – another all-in-one clue – take the first letters (starts to) of the last four words. This does not quite come off, for me, because either “starts” needs to be in the singular or the answer needs to have a final S.

6d  Throttling, twisting gag in last turn (13)
{STRANGULATING} – an anagram (twisting) of GAG IN LAST TURN produces a synonym for throttling.

7d  Moor steamship, possibly for alteration (13)
{METAMORPHOSIS} – an anagram (possibly) of MOOR STEAMSHIP gives us a term for a major alteration or transformation, such as that from a caterpillar to a butterfly.

9d  So, to free her, let loose (9)
{THEREFORE} – another anagram (let loose) of TO FREE HER leads to a word for “so”.

10d  Tries in physical exercise (9)
{REHEARSAL} – put HEARS (tries, in the courtroom) inside REAL (physical or tangible) to get an exercise in preparation for a later performance.

14d  Gable perhaps for cold bird (5)
{CLARK} – there’s an attempt at misdirection in this amusing clue, which fooled me at first into looking for an anagram of gable. Actually it’s a charade of C(old) and LARK (bird) that we want, to give the forename of Mr Gable the film star (or of Mr Kent, the superman).

15d  Trims top off rows of bushes (5)
{EDGES} – rows of bushes are hEDGES – remove the first letter (top off, in a down clue) to leave a verb meaning trims.

19d  Ovation ends in procession for Queen (7)
{MONARCH} – we want to place the outside letters (ends) of OvatioN inside MARCH (procession) to get a synonym for queen.

20d  Meeting marines at sea (7)
{SEMINAR} – an anagram (at sea) of marines gives us a word for a discussion group or conference.

24d  Brown’s game following European Commission (4)
{ECRU} – put RU (rugby union) after EC (European Commission) to get a word (from the French for unbleached) for a light fawn colour like unbleached linen.

25d  Questions? Labour’s ignoring Tory leader (4)
{ASKS} – start with tASK’S (Labour’s) and remove the T (ignoring Tory leader) to leave a synonym for questions.

The clues that I liked best included 1a, 20a and 14d, but my clue of the day is 22a. What’s your opinion? – leave us a comment!