DT 27067

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27067

A full review by gnomethang

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

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

Morning All!. I was enjoying the solve of this puzzle until I hit 8d which is an awful word. To be fair to the setter the checking letters were not promising and probably would have required a rewrite of other clues to avoid.

Please leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.

Across

1a           Do be safe, better to be thrown out — after this (4-6,4)
BEST-BEFORE DATE – A very nice anagram and a semi all-in-one clue to start with. An anagram (to be thrown out) of DO BE SAFE BETTER.

9a           Pirate of rough appearance picked up (7)
CORSAIR – A very chestnutty homophone (picked up in conversation) of CARSE AIR (rough appearance.

10a         Strings that may be pulled by number of professors (7)
TENDONS – A charade of the number TEN and the academic DONS.

11a         Reinforce military position (4)
LINE – Two definitions – To LINE e.g. a hat for reinforcement and also a defensive military LINE

12a         Pamper common people about to live after great achievement (10)
FEATHERBED – The common HERD (common people) with BE (live) included after a FEAT/achievement. Not such a common word and it took some time to spot it.

14a         Call about the woman’s fruit (6)
CHERRY – CRY (call) around the outside of HER (the woman’s)

15a         Cry of pain to occur beset by unruly child, bully (8)
BROWBEAT – OW (a cry of pain) and BE (occur/exist) inside (beset by) BRAT – an unruly child.

17a         Carrier for young fish I catch (8)
BASSINET – A charade of BASS (fish) I form the clue and NET.

18a         Composer with undergarment and Pinafore perhaps (6)
BRAHMS – The ubiquitous female undergarment and the abbreviation of Her/His Majesty’s Ship of which Pinafore was an example in the G&S operetta.

21a         Having gone wrong, paper’s head rolls (4-6)
PEAR-SHAPED – An anagram (rols) of PAPER’S HEAD.

22a         Blue feathers (4)
DOWN – Two straightforward definitions simply and nicely linked. Lovely plumage the Norwegian Blue!.

24a         Typical example of Eastern religious book (7)
EPITOME – A charade of E(astern), PI for religious (or holy or good – remember this as it appears a lot!) and finally TOME for book. An archetype.

25a         Last longer than unfashionable clothing (7)
OUTWEAR – OUT for unfashionable (not the in thing!) and then WEAR for clothing.

26a         Unwelcome hanger-on in Arabian legend noshed meat loaf rudely (3,3,2,3,3)
OLD MAN OF THE SEA – An anagram indicated by ‘rudely’ of NOSHED MEAT LOAF. Not the best surface reading or definition in this puzzle!.

Down

1d           Tummy pain after germ reduced in the country (7)
BUCOLIC – Relating to cattle and also pastoral/rustic. Place COLIC (a tummy pain) after all but the last letter of BU(g) for germ.

2d           Dog displaying larger nippiness (8,7)
SPRINGER SPANIEL – A nicely spotted anagram, LARGER NIPPINESS being ‘displayed’ of a nippy dog

3d           Gear up to make exaggerated claim (4)
BRAG – A reversal (up) of GARB for gear/clobber/clothing.

4d           Search out supporters carrying bishop (6)
FERRET – This took me a while to get in as well until I spotted that FEET meant supporters. Add the abbreviation of Right Reverend for Bishop.

5d           Rubbish a right-winger going round (8)
ROTATORY – Descriptive of anything that is going round. A charade of ROT (rubbish) A from the clue and TORY for right winger/conservative. Nice footbally surface reading.

6d           Drudgery rendered by Spooner’s cockeyed Scottish knife (6-4)
DONKEY-WORK – If you don’t know by now, the Reverend Spooner always got his words in a mucking fuddle by swapping the first consonants in two linked or consecutive words. The resulting homophone produced a recognisable phrase (think ‘our Dear old Queen/Queer old Dean’). In this case we need a WONKEY (cockeyed) DIRK (Scottish dagger worn traditionally in the sock region).

7d           Train initially conks absorbing Boris’s money — we’ll sort things out (15)
TROUBLESHOOTERS – The initial letter of T(rain) and then HOOTERS (conks/noses) to include ROUBLES – the money of Boris Yeltsin perhaps.

8d           Weren’t accustomed to student endlessly roistering (6)
USEDN’T – Aaaargh! This was my last in and I spent ages checking cross clues to look for a mistake/alternative before finally grabbing the checking letters online. A simply vile word is created by removing the last letter (endlessly) of STUDEN(t) and then making an anagram (roistering). I was going to give this puzzle **/**** until this stinker turned up!.

13d         British shower to come up with ideas (10)
BRAINSTORM – Add B for British to the front of RAINSTORM (shower) to get some ‘Blue Sky Thinking Out of the Box’.

16d         Marine mammal a sleuth turned up atop sea (not the first) (8)
CETACEAN – Reverse or turn up A TEC (short for detective) then add above (atop) (o)CEAN – a sea without the first letter.

17d         Hit for every person dancing (6)
BOPPER – A charade of BOP for hit and PER – for every person / a head – to get a persn dancing to the Big Bopper perhaps.

19d         Punch drunk in saga about Rocky primarily (7)
SANGRIA – This is an anagram (drunk) of IN SAGE which is around (about) the starting letter of Rocky. A nice consistent surface reading.

20d         Start to explode (3,3)
SET OFF – Another double definition clue – to set off on a journey and to set off a firework for example.

23d         ‘Eadache to cause irritation (4)
ITCH – Remove the staring letter form HITCH/Headache (i.e. treat it like HEADACHE in the definition) to get an irritation of the skin.

 

Thanks to the setter (felt like Cephas to me) and I will see you all next week.