Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2528
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
This puzzle has a grid that looked a bit scruffy but grew on me after I looked harder – every word length from 4 to 12 is included, and 11, 12 and 13-letter words can easily be under-used, so 3 of these is a good feature. And of course someone who contributed to the Times puzzle’s exemplary set of grids is not going to give us one with isolated sections or under-checked words. Quite a tricky puzzle by Sunday standards, taking me about as long as an average Times cryptic.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Dish son removed from middle of dangerous location (6) |
| HOTPOT – S = son is deleted from HOTSPOT | |
| 4 | Increase in speed as favourite’s back in the lead (4,2) |
| STEP UP – reversal of PET’S = favourite’s, then UP = “in the lead” | |
| 8 | One doesn’t believe in coasting haphazardly (8 ) |
| AGNOSTIC – anag. of ‘coasting’ | |
| 10 | Is lying, for crowned head, so difficult? (6) |
| UNEASY – mostly a cryptic definition based on a Shakespeare quote – “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” (Henry IV Part 2). But if you don’t see the quote allusion, you’ve also got “difficult”, a fairly clear plain definition | |
| 11 | Abraham Lincoln, primarily as one killed early (4) |
| ABEL – ABE = Abraham, L = “Lincoln, primarily” – and Abel was of course “killed early”, though I’m not sure that the word “early” is really necessary – can you be killed too late? | |
| 12 | Financial checks of assets men assembled over time (5,5) |
| MEANS TESTS – T=time, in anag. of “assets men” – in the one-dimensional geometry of a grid entry, something that goes “over” something else has to go either side of it. | |
| 13 | It allows us to make capital transfers between banks (6,6) |
| LONDON BRIDGE – cryptic def with a misleading square mile financial surface meaning and three punning words – capital, transfers, banks – two of which mean different things in cryptic and surface meanings | |
| 16 | State paper’s opinion – one high point in English dailies, possibly (12) |
| EDITORIALISE – E = English, then (I = one, TOR = high point) in anag. of “dailies”. “State” is pretending to be a nation in the surface reading | |
| 20 | Flowers linked with a lot of shops by girl (5,5) |
| DAISY CHAIN – DAISY = girl, CHAIN = “a lot of shops”. “Flowers linked” is the def. | |
| 21 | London team at first briefly hit (4) |
| WHAM – London soccer team West Ham, with the first word abbreviated – hence “at first briefly”. There must be another clue based on WHAM being both a hit and a pair of blokes who had some hits. | |
| 22 | European city corruption a politician has concealed (6) |
| NAPOLI – hidden word, with nice coincidence that Naples is associated with a bit of corruption | |
| 23 | Run or short walk with dog (4,4) |
| TURN TAIL – TURN = short walk (Brit. colloq., esp. in “take a turn around the upper deck” or similar), TAIL = dog = to pursue. | |
| 24 | What inevitably happens, over time, to chaps in household (6) |
| MENAGE = “men age” | |
| 25 | Runs into a charlatan in religious community (6) |
| ASHRAM – R=runs, in A SHAM = a charlatan – ‘sham’ has the necessary noun meaning, which I wasn’t completely sure of before checking the dictionary | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Egghead’s excited, standing on summit (8 ) |
| HIGHBROW – HIGH = excited, BROW = summit | |
| 2 | Crossing river with adverse effect for fish (5) |
| TROLL – R = river, inside TOLL = adverse effect – the def. is “fish” (verb) – trolling is a method of fishing | |
| 3 | Seat, initially not British — an Asian type (7) |
| OTTOMAN – (b)OTTOM,AN | |
| 5 | Bound to believe pronouncement (7) |
| TRUSSED = “trust” = believe | |
| 6 | Banquet taken by knight, say, one bite at a time (9) |
| PIECEMEAL – PIECE = knight, say, MEAL = banquet | |
| 7 | Currency in Europe set aside (6) |
| PESETA – hidden word, and former currency of Spain | |
| 9 | Seeing what’s coming, actor vainly switching parts (11) |
| CLAIRVOYANT – anag. of ‘actor vainly’ | |
| 14 | Shift to lower gear? Hence reprimand (5,4) |
| DRESS DOWN – motoring-based cryptic definition, and plain definition, for different meanings of this phrase | |
| 15 | Attempt to avoid reality, caught in dreadful impasse (8 ) |
| ESCAPISM – C = caught (by) – from cricket scores, in anag. of impasse | |
| 17 | Keen to get insight, finally found in prophetic Eastern work (7) |
| ITCHING – T = last letter of ‘insight’, in I CHING, the Chinese “Book of Changes” – a system of divination | |
| 18 | Turns a blind eye to infernal regions (7) |
| IGNORES – anag. of regions | |
| 19 | Arab’s greeting unfortunately upset American (6) |
| SALAAM – rev. of ‘alas’, Am. = American | |
| 21 | What, when you analyse it, is central to bathhouse? (5) |
| WATER – if you take the middle 3 letters of ‘bathhouse’, you have to H’s and one O, or “H2O” – an ingenious bit of wordplay which I didn’t spot until after stopping the clock. | |
Thanks Peter. I’ve been sitting on this puzzle all week and enjoyed your explanation of the ones I couldn’t get!
I really like the “bathhouse” one – it was one I solved myself
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