Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 28102
A full review by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This puzzle was published on Saturday, 30th April 2016
I’d say this slightly trickier than usual Saturday puzzle was a Mysteron production . There appeared to be quite a bit of two of the same clue type in a row and a mistake in 17d.
Across
1a Frivolous chatter, at first it’s illuminating (8)
GASLIGHT – GAS (chatter) precedes (at first) LIGHT )frivolous)
9a Early military calling (8)
REVEILLE – A cryptic definition of a military wake up call.
10a Dangerous act — endless shock (4)
STUN – Endless tells you to remove the T at the end of a STUNT (dangerous act)
11a Person that runs after ball one gets to fly many a mile (12)
GLOBETROTTER – Here a TROTTER (person who runs) goes after a GLOBE (ball).
13a Dull hair? Sleep on it (8)
MATTRESS – MAT (dull – and yes you can spell it with one T) TRESS (hair)
15a Visual showing humour? Don’t start that! (6)
OCUAR – JOCULAR (showing humour) without its ‘start’
16a Soldiers must surround a base (4)
MEAN – MEN (soldiers) surround A (from the clue)
17a Get smashed in interval (5)
BREAK – Double definition
18a Get rid of hovel (4)
DUMP – And another
20a Israel adapted TV show (6)
SERIAL – An anagram (adapted) of ISRAEL
21a Father has an allowance — that’s sweet (8)
FRAGRANT – FR (father) A GRANT (an allowance)
23a Border constituency? Not necessarily (8,4)
MARGINAL SEAT – a Parliamentary set held with a small majority, which may or not be on the border of, say, England and Wales.
26a Trickle from said river (4)
OOZE – A homophone (said) of the River OUSE
27a Ten parts for reassembling somewhere in church (8)
TRANSEPT – An anagram (for reassembling) of TEN PARTS
28a Kind of chutney in cheese sent back (4-4)
HOME-MADE – HOME (in) and a reversal (sent back) of EDAM cheese.
Down
2d Fourth part of play — at end of scene set off (8)
ACTIVATE – ACT IV (fourth part of play) AT (from the clue) E (the end of scene)
3d Established like the one at the front of the queue? (4-8)
LONG-STANDING – I suppose really it depends how long the queue was when the ‘one’ joined it.
4d Convict turned up with raw material in abundance (6)
GALORE – A reversal (turned up in a Down clue) of LAG (convict) plus ORE (raw material)
5d Accurate yet partly misconstrued (4)
TRUE – Lurking (partly) in misconsTRUEd
6d Fail to notice maiden perhaps going to butcher’s (8)
OVERLOOK – OVER (a maiden, perhaps, in cricket) LOOK (Cockney rhyming slang – butcher’s hook = look)
7d Mug containing most of material (4)
CLOT – Most of CLOTh (material).
8d Evidence of a cry of roaming predator (4,4)
TEAR DROP – An anagram (roaming) of PREDATOR
12d Modern truths about violent weather (12)
THUNDERSTORM – An anagram (about) of MODERN TRUTHS
14d Was he after some of that bundle? (5)
SHEAF – Another lurker, this time in waS HE AFter
16d Food from Eton — tucked in after male fellow diner (8)
MESSMATE – MESS (Eton Mess being a pudding of whipped cream, pieces of meringue and strawberries all mixed up together) and ATE (tucked in) the latter going after M (male).
17d Original Clue: Objective: a rider’s weapon to be used in plot (8) Revised Clue: Objective: a weapon sawn off at the end to be used in plot (8)
BALANCED – Our setter originally wanted us to put A LANCE (a rider’s weapon) in a BED (plot) but he didn’t tell us what to do with the second E. The clue was subsequently revised to explain where the E went, and can be parsed as A LANCe (almost all of a rider’s weapon) used in a BED (plot) An apology was given in Monday’s newspaper.
19d Large, exotic maidens venturing into unknown? On the contrary (3-5)
MAN-SIZED – Instead of putting an anagram (exotic) of MAIDENS into a mathematical unknown Z – we have to do the opposite (on the contrary).
22d Replaced images, showing discrimination (6)
AGEISM – Another anagram – replaced telling us to rearrange IMAGES.
24d Horse galloped round ring (4)
ROAN – RAN (galloped) goes round O (the letter that is ring-shaped)
25d Strip of wood from machine, unfinished (4)
LATH – An unfinished LATHE.
S1
Thank you Sue, as promised I kept my notes and find I struggled with man-sized because I had the wrong Ouse and smiled at ocular and gaslight. Too many favourites to risk a choice.
In 18c how does SHED fit into THUNDERSTORM (12d)?. I had DUMP as the answer as it fits in with the D of 12d and M of 19d which SHED doesn’t.
Thanks David
I could say that’s my deliberate mistake I left in just to make sure someone commented but….
I blame bashing out the review after I’d come back from a long hot but very enjoyable walk round Sandwich.
I’ll correct the review now.
CS. 17d. I was wondering – the revised clue seems a little cumbersome/amateurish for an experienced, professional setter with it’s “sawn off at the end”. Sounds like someone at the DT has come up with that? Wouldn’t the setter have used brevity with: Objective: Rider’s sawn-off weapon to be used in plot. Just a thought…..
That should read: Objective: A rider’s sawn-off weapon to be used in plot.
You could well be right