Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2834
A full review by crypticsue
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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
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!!!
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.
Battery certainly fits as it does not impinge on any down clues.
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.
Thanks for the excellent write-up Sue