ST 2720

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2720

A full review by crypticsue

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

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

I love Sunday morning crossword solving – and I love superb puzzles like this one even more when it’s my turn to do the review!  Lots of favourites which I have highlighted in blue.

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

7a           Salt retained by exposed crustacean (8)
BARNACLE –   The chemical symbol for salt-  sodium chloride: NACL , is retained by or inserted into BARE (exposed).

9a           Lack of excitement, in a way, before close of play (6)
APATHY –   A PATH (a way) plus Y – the ‘close’ of play.

10a         Ignorantly or carelessly, for example, one splits an infinitive (6)
ADVERB –  Ignorantly and carelessly are both examples of an ADVERB, used controversially to split an infinitive.

11a         Foreign money invested in gold and yen, as usual (8)
ORDINARY –  OR (gold) DINAR (a monetary unit used in nine countries) and Y (the abbreviation for the monetary unit, the Yen).

12a         Bit of brass tool used by meteorologist (4,10)
WIND INSTRUMENT  does  sound like it could be something  used by a meteorologist to measure wind speed.  However eleven days on, i don’t suppose Toni (or anyone else for that matter) will remember  her ‘discussion’ with Big Dave on the Sunday evening about wind instruments not being brass instruments  ( or even read this review) but just to clarify, the BRB says:

Wind instrument –  a musical instrument sounded by means of a current of air; especially a woodwind or brass instrument sounded by the breath.

Brass instrument – (collectively) the brass wind instruments.

Woodwind instrument – any other orchestral  wind instrument other than the brass instruments, made, or formerly made, of wood, some now made of metals such as silver..

15a         Birdcage in store not broken (4)
COOP   –   Remove the hyphen (not broken) from the CO–OP.

17a         Followed, so to speak, religious work in area (5)
TRACT –   Sounding (so to speak)  like tracked (part of a verb  meaning followed), TRACT is either a religious pamphlet or an area of land.

19a         Female’s heartless game for precious stone (4)
RUBY –   Either a female Christian name or a precious stone is obtained by removing the middle letter (heartless) from the game of RUGBY.

20a         Intelligent types like people in article – perhaps I do not, oddly (10,4)
ANTHROPOID APES-   A (indefinite article) followed by an anagram (oddly) of PERHAPS I DO NOT.

23a         Record collection classical quartet stored in vaults (8)
ARCHIVES –   Insert IV,  the Roman numeral for four (classical quartet) into ARCHES (vaults).

25a         National leader contributing to understanding – and history (6)
GANDHI –   Lovely &Lit – he’s hidden in understandinG AND HIstory.

27a         Artist as one engaged in revolutionary movement (6)
TURNER –   Someone who turns (one engaged in revolutionary movement)  gives us the surname of one of our great artists, JWM Turner.

28a         Alarming changes on border (8)
MARGINAL –   An anagram (changes) of ALARMING.

Down

1d           Knave covering king or queen – or ace, or ten … (4)
CARD –  Insert the single letter abbreviation which can mean Rex (king) or Regina (queen) into a CAD (knave).

2d           Where information about property is included, to be sure (6)
INDEED –   Split 2, 4 to get where information about a specific property is held.

3d           Roman emperor’s head has been turned – it’s love (4)
ZERO –   Turn the initial letter  (head) of Nero the Roman emperor 90^o either left or right, to get ZERO (love, nothing).

4d           Carriage used in April and August (6)
LANDAU –   Hidden in ApriL AND AUgust.

5d           Coats painter put on fashionable pottery, we hear (8)
RAINWEAR –    RA (Royal Academician, painter) IN (fashionable) and WEAR (a homophone –we hear –  of ware, pottery).

6d           Like behaviour of the kind that’s wrecked chair and other furniture (10)
CHARITABLE –   An anagram (wrecked) of CHAIR plus a TABLE (other furniture).

8d           About to help around home, making cupboard (7)
CABINET –   C (circa, about)  and ABET (help) with IN (home) inserted.

13d         Worshipping inappropriately, so do ritual wrongly (10)
IDOLATROUS –   An anagram (wrongly) of SO DO RITUAL.

14d         Walk from vehicle after parking? Just the opposite (5)
TRAMP  –   Do the opposite and put the P for parking after the TRAM (vehicle).

16d         Play one’s part, with good casting (8)
PITCHING –  PITCH IN (join in, cooperate) and G (good).

18d         After short time, construction worker set off (7)
TRIGGER  –   T (the short abbreviation for time) and RIGGER (a person who puts up scaffolding for construction works).

21d         Painter found in area south of Rio Grande, say (6)
RIVERA –   A Mexican painter –   A (area) is put south of a RIVER (say indicates that you are looking for the feature of which the Rio Grande is an example.

22d         A loose woman among one’s relations (6)
AUNTIE –   A (from the clue) and UNTIE (loose).

24d         In which one might overhear one-sided conversations from neighbours (4)
SEMI –  Depending on how thin the party wall is between you and your neighbours in a semi-detached house.

26d         Pressure of part in theatre (4)
HEAT –   Hidden in part of tHEATre.

Thanks once again to Virgilius.   I’ll be back next week with another Sunday review.