ST 2834 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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ST 2834

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2834

A full review by crypticsue

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

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

This puzzle was published on Sunday 7th February 2016

I wasn’t expecting to review this particular Sunday crossword,  so hadn’t given thought to a Prologue until just now.   Looking at my piece of paper, in addition to noting that it was a puzzle for Gnomethang to review, I appear to have taken my ‘average’ solving time for a Sunday puzzle and there are  lots of * and even ** by a considerable number of the clues,  so I obviously enjoyed myself as much as I normally do on a Sunday.

Please leave a comment telling us what you thought.  You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five best!

Across

7a           Bachelor with partner husband loves — what a commotion! (8)
BALLYHOO –   B (Bachelor) ALLY (partner) H (husband) O O (‘loves’ plural – a score of 0 in a tennis game is known as  ‘love’)

9a           I concur about copper’s shrewdness (6)
ACUMEN –   AMEN (I concur) put about CU (the chemical symbol for copper)

10a         Master mistreated group of pupils (6)
STREAM –   An anagram (mistreated) of MASTER

11a         Wren’s building is in sacred setting, I assure you! (8)
HONESTLY –   A ‘building’ made by that tiny bird, a wren, is inserted into HOLY (sacred)

12a         Business dependent on intensive stock control (7,7)
FACTORY FARMING –   A cryptic definition that caused a number of people, me included, to put BATTERY before the online puzzle submission system told us we had ‘one wrong’.

15a         Starts off producing answers the hard way (4)
PATH –   The ‘starts’ of Producing Answers The Hard

17a         Picture that is appended to second volume (5)
MOVIE –   IE (id est) put at the end of (appended to) MO (second) V (volume)

19a         Affected by cold, one may run under bridge (4)
NOSE –   A splendid cryptic definition that was marked as one of my favourites.

20a         Poorly perform again in front of head, showing lack of education (14)
ILLITERATENESS –   ILL (poorly) ITERATE (verb meaning to do again or repeat) NESS (head)

23a         Occurs, as such, after middle of radio broadcast (8)
DISPERSE – D (the middle letter of radio) IS (occurs) PER SE (as such)

25a         Soldier attending major    film (6)
BATMAN – An officer’s personal attendant, or a particular  film

27a         Defeated in race? Without rancour, taking heart (6)
OUTRAN –   Found lurking in the ‘heart’ of withOUT RANcour

28a         Detailed description one put before people, for example (8)
SPECIMEN – SPEC (a ‘detailed’ or abbreviated specification or description) I (one) MEN (people)

Down

1d           Amount of power in what one hears (4)
WATT –   A homophone (one hears) of WHAT

2d           Subtle changes in most intense colour (6)
BLUEST –   An anagram (changes) of SUBTLE

3d           Bunk in toolshed, oddly selected quarters (4)
TOSH – Bunk in the sense of rubbish, claptrap –   The ‘oddly selected’ quarters of TOolSHed.

4d           Way in which royalty supports author (6)
MANNER –   MANN (Thomas the German author) and ER (our Queen, royalty).

5d           Part of exam that ends with appropriate mark (8)
QUESTION –   Part of an exam which might have an appropriately placed ? at the end.

6d           Losing some put in another form for new terms (10)
NEOLOGISMS –   An anagram (put in another form) of LOSING SOME.

8d           Monotonous rhymes for some (7)
HUMDRUM –   Because HUM and DRUM both rhyme with SOME

13d         Money-grubbing article, full of malice about a king (10)
AVARICIOUS –   A (indefinite article) and VICIOUS (full of malice) put about A (from the clue) and R (Rex, king)

14d         What’s always coming after onset of flu? (5)
FEVER –   F (the ‘onset’ of Flu) and EVER (always)

16d         Her pilot manoeuvred into place for landing aircraft (8)
HELIPORT –   An anagram (manoeuvred) of HER PILOT

18d         Each food provided is as it should be (7)
EATABLE –   EA (each) TABLE (supply of food provided)

21d         Supporter of monarch’s behind cast in audition (6)
THRONE –   Superb definition!   A homophone (in audition) of THROWN (cast)

22d         Fool making different points with it each time (6)
NITWIT –   N and W (different compass points) with IT (from the clue) after them ‘each time’.

24d         Moderate repeatedly taking part in ceasefire, as expected (4)
EASE –   Repeatedly taking part, or lurking, in cEASEfirE AS Expected.

26d         State requirement for sentence being cut (4)
AVER –   You need A VERB as part of a sentence,  but for this solution you need to ‘cut’ the last letter.

 

I’m not entirely sure how long a golfing ‘weekend’ in Portugal lasts so you may get two reviews from Gnomey next week or one or more from me.

 

B1

5 comments on “ST 2834

  1. Thanks for the excellent blog Sue. I haven’t gone back to check the grid, but I think BATTERY in 12a did fit (weren’t the checkers _A_T_R_?). My own answer was PASTURE FARMING!!!

    1. Ooh, yes. I seem to remember that I’d have submitted a wrong solution if I hadn’t been offline at the time of solving and then seen the blog.

      Many thanks, crypticsue.

      1. True – problem caused by my trying to remember a puzzle I’d solved 10 days previously while bashing out a blog at the last minute while Gnomey did his packing.

        I’ve amended the review.

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