Toughie 2329

Toughie 2329 by Hudson

Hints and tips by crypticsue

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

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

I thought this Hudson Toughie about the right difficulty level for a Thursday, even if it did leave me more than a bit peckish.

I’m always disappointed when a setter selects a crenelated grid like this one, and they don’t actually use the letters revealed round the perimeter for a Nina. Now if only I’d been the sort of person who notices what’s going on with a grid straight away rather than not consciously looking at it until fairly far on in the solving process, I’d certainly have seen something most helpful a lot sooner than I did, particularly when it came to making sense of the clue for 24a. Hopefully the rest of you were more observant!

Please leave a comment telling us what you thought.

Across

7a    High snow drifts engulfing Oscar, going like the wind! (9)
WHOOSHING An anagram (drifts) of HIGH SNOW ‘engulfing’ the letter represented by Oscar in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet gives us the sound of something large passing rapidly through the air

8a    Capital city regularly excusing truancies (5)
TUNIS Excuse or leave out the regular letters of TrUaNcIeS

10a    Shaky batting, getting 13 (6)
INFIRM The two-letter word using to indicate that a cricket team is batting followed by a synonym for the solution to 13d

11a    Sweet thing from Mauritius mixed with upper-class once (8)
TIRAMISU An anagram (mixed) of MAURITIuS – upper-class once indicating that you only need one of the Us

12a    Juliet Harrison’s touring coastal features (6)
FJORDS The surname of Harrison the American actor Harrison plus an S (Harrison’s) ‘touring’ the letter represented by Juliet in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet

14a    Block record first episodes of Just a Minute (6)
LOGJAM A synonym for record and the first ‘episodes’ of Just A Minute The paper version of this clue has the radio programme’s name in italics so I’ve done the same here

16a    Inquisitive lad returning last thing on Friday (4)
NOSY A reversal (returning) of a lad (I’ve got two of them!) followed by the last letter (thing) on FridaY

17a    Indicate player in an off-side position (5)
POINT A double definition – the first a verb, the second referring to a cricket player’s position

18a    Stop knocking back meths, having dumped husband (4)
STEM A reversal (knocking back) of METhS once you have dumped the H for Husband

19a    One getting into the groove down on the floor? (6)
TONGUE This ‘one’ is the first part of the name for a particular type of floorboard which joins a projection along the side of one into a groove in the other

21a    Weak, backsliding constituent of Iron Lady? (6)
FEMALE Insert a reversal (backsliding) of another way of saying weak or implausible into the chemical symbol for iron

24a    Part of Manhattan — you should eventually see summer here (4,4)
EAST SIDE A well-known part of Manhattan, even if you’ve never been there. As to the second part of the clue, I refer you to the prologue and would add that our setter could have added the word even before the you in the clue and I’d still probably have taken just as long to see what he was on about

26a    Immature youngsters left adult rave drunk (6)
LARVAE The abbreviations for Left and Adult followed by an anagram (drunk) of RAVE

27a    Drive ball, knocking the covers off in match (5)
RIVAL Knock the covers off dRIVe and bALl

28a    Military might sack captured soldier (engineer, rtd) (9)
FIREPOWER Another way of saying sack, the abbreviation for a captured solider and a reversal (rtd) of the abbreviation for Royal Engineer

Down

1d    Quaffed, according to Connery, in cheap joint? (5)
SHANK Quaffed means to have drunk in large quantities – the solution comes from the way someone with an accent like Sean Connery, if he’d done some quaffing, might say an informal term meaning to drink quickly. The addition of the question mark at the end of the clue is very appropriate as since these particular joints became more popular, they certainly seem to have gone up in price!

2d    Swell to drop by on sucker in the US (8)
POPINJAY A fop or conceited person is obtained by adding an American term for a sucker or easily duped person to an expression meaning to drop by (3,2)

3d    Poet‘s song of praise unfinished in scripture reading? (6)
RHYMER An unfinished song of praise inserted between the abbreviation for a scripture lesson and the letter representing Reading in some basic school skills

4d    Fashionable crowd avoiding Spain this month (4)
INST An abbreviation for a term used in formal correspondence to mean this month – just remove the E (avoiding the IVR code for Spain) from a fashionable crowd (2, 3)

5d    With which to augment — when ground — a light cappuccino? (6)
NUTMEG ‘A light’ tells you to leave out the A when making an anagram (ground) of aUGMENT

6d    A kid’s gone off the rails, as Hogarth saw the mother? (3-6)
GIN-SOAKED An anagram (off the rails) of A KIDS GONE

9d    Hired gun in metal band? (6)
ARMLET Although the clue implies that the hired goes before the gun what you actually need is part of a verb meaning hired after a term for a weapon such as a gun

13d    Mother buried dog’s body (5)
STIFF Remove (buried) an informal term for mother from a particular breed of dog

15d    I moan & moan furiously — it’s an obsession (9)
MONOMANIA An anagram (furiously) of I MOAN MOAN

17d    Photographs capturing whistle-blower given title (6)
PREFIX An informal plural abbreviation for photographs ‘capturing’ an abbreviated whistle-blower

18d    Small space stocking beer, where lots get hammered (8)
SALEROOM Insert (stocking) some beer between the abbreviation for Small and some space

20d    Tucking into Darjeeling (a tea), upside-down cake (6)
GATEAU Lurking (tucking into) in DarjeelinG (A TEA) Upside-down

22d    Brussels to support 50% reduction of defence element (6)
MILIEU An abbreviation for the Union we commonly refer to as ‘Brussels’ goes after the first half (50% reduction) of an adjective relating to defence gives us another word for element, environment or setting

23d    Find shelter in 5th Avenue (5)
HAVEN Find this shelter in 5tH AVENue

25d    Leave former partner over sexual relations (4)
EXIT Two of crosswordland’s favourites – a former partner and one of the informal terms for sexual relations

Whatever Bufo is doing on his day off from blogging, I sincerely hope it is somewhere considerably drier than it is in East Kent today!