Toughie No 2948 by Sparks
Hints and tips by Dutch
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Some things I didn’t know, but all fairly clued of course. I found some of this hard but there are quite a few easier clues sprinkled about the grid. The pangram explains a couple of entries that surprised me.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought.
Across
1 Make, say, woolly slip with hard string backing worn by elderly? (4,1,6)
DROP A STITCH: A reversal (backing) of the abbreviation for hard plus another word for string or rope, all around (worn by) a (4,2) phrase meaning elderly
9a Characters, by God, swapping sides in underworld (4)
ZEDS: Take a Greek god and exchange (swapping) the outer letters (sides) in UnderworlD
10a Bernard Crick dressed without right tie (7,4)
CARRICK BEND: A knot! An anagram (dressed) of BERNARD C(r)ICK without an R
11a Urban site regularly lying about despot (4)
TSAR: Backwards even letters ( … regularly lying about )
14a In which you’d sort out weighty issue? (3,4)
FAT CAMP: Cryptic definition, with a play on weighty
16a Obvious Romeo uncovered nice ornamented belt (7)
BALDRIC: A 4-letter word that can mean obvious, letter with radio code Romeo, and the central letters (uncovered) of ‘nice’
17a Stomach ill temper about British (5)
BIBLE: The third stomach of ruminants. A word meaning ill-temper goes about the abbreviation for British
18a Error suppressed by City Police (4)
TYPO: Hidden ( suppressed by …)
19a Foundation sacking bishop the way things stand (2,2)
AS IS: A 5-letter word meaning foundation without (sacking) the initial abbreviation for bishop
20a Clangers travel in space, primarily (5)
GOOFS: A 2-letter word for travel, a preposition that can mean in, and the first letter (primarily) of space
22a Use up house-tax breaks, missing nothing (7)
EXHAUST: An anagram (breaks) of H(o)USE RAX without the O (missing nothing)
23a Rebellious group, perhaps half having run away (7)
FACTION: Take an 8-letter word that describes numbers like a half, and remove the abbreviation for runs
24a Mess remains behind hotel (4)
HASH: Some remains come after (behind) the abbreviation for hotel
28a Monarch once quivering, angry with English knight (6,5)
VIRGIN QUEEN: An anagram (angry) of QUIVERING plus the abbreviations for English and the knight chess piece
29a Face King John after exchange (4)
LOOK: The chess/card abbreviation for king comes after not before (after exchange) another word for john
30a Press part that’s tender, offering pain relief? (5,6)
AGONY COLUMN: A cryptic definition, where press really refers to a newspaper
Down
2d Range of capital announced (4)
ROAM: A homophone (announced) of a European capital city
3d Quiet river or mere (4)
PURE: The musical abbreviation for quiet and a 3-letter river
4d Caught in rising black slimy fluid, die (7)
SUCCUMB: A reversal (rising) of the abbreviation for black plus a slimy fluid in your nose contains the abbreviation for caught
5d Reverend Barham losing medals near the house in Scotland (4)
INBY: The pseudonym of Rev Barham without the central 5-letters meaning medals. I had to go google.
6d Wolves et al. are able to identify hollow advantage (7)
CANIDAE: A verb meaning “are able”, and abbreviation meaning ‘to identify, and AvantagE without the inner letters (hollow)
7d Garland with certain fit that’s worn casually (7,4)
LEISURE SUIT: A 3-letter garland, a word meaning certain, and a word meaning fit
8d Excluding huge vacuous items in copy (11)
OSTRACISING: An abbreviation that means huge, then the outer letters (vacuous) of items go inside a word meaning a copy
12d Removed from article — rotten flesh in stock (3,3,5)
OFF THE SHELF: a preposition meaning ‘removed from’, the definite article, and an anagram (rotten) of FLESH
13d Careless host with pets that interrupt Springwatch? (4,3,4)
STOP THE SHOW: An anagram (careless) of HOST + PETS, then a 3-letter word that can mean that (def 7 in Chambers)
15d Conspiracy covering up international test programme? (5)
PILOT: A 4-letter conspiracy goes around (covering up) the abbreviation for international
16d Outspoken bank (5)
BLUFF: Two meaning, the second is a high steep (e.g. river) bank
20d Good call about, initially, stretching tight thong (1-6)
G-STRING: The abbreviation for good and a word meaning to call on a phone go about the initial letters of ‘stretching tight’
21d Hellish cat is an oddball (7)
SATANIC: An anagram (oddball) of CAT IS AN
25d Facetiously opposed to calling someone when naked (4)
AGIN: A 6-letter word for calling someone e.g. over a PA system without the outer letters (naked)
26d Fold up web address following fine (4)
FURL: The abbreviation for a web address following the abbreviation for fine
27d Heads of select European judiciary meeting Polish assembly (4)
SEJM: First letters (heads of …)
I enjoyed some of the simpler ones. I like the Met supressing errors (18a), the house tax breaks (22a) and the slimy black fluid (4d). Which were your favourites?
A mixture of easier clues and some impossible [ to me ] ones. The latter include 5d and 9a and I’d never heard of 27d before today, but obvious from clue.Only got 10a as I seem to remember a racehorse with that name! Also not au fait with17a but fairly clued. Enjoyable **** Thanks to all.
About as well as I’ve ever done with a Friday Toughie, but I could not unpack the mysteries of 9a and 14a–both of which are now so obvious after reading Dutch’s hints. I very much enjoyed this absorbing little gem even though I’d never heard of 10a and failed to fully parse 1a. Favourites: 28a, 30a, and the 4-letter clues, but my COTD is the smarmy and squirmy 4d. Thanks to Dutch and Sparks.
Phew! That Toughie sure lived up to its name. I got there in the end, although 5d was a guess, later confirmed, as was 1a. Like others, 4d proved to be my favourite. Overall that was a proper workout, very rewarding to finish and thoroughly entertaining.
Thanks to Sparks for the challenge and to Dutch for the explanations.
DNF, beaten by 5d (not knowing the reverend or the expression). 1a was my favourite. Thanks to Dutch and Sparks.
Good job I had plenty of time for this mind bender. Some very easy bits but some only untangle able with electronic help. Enjoyed it overall, though. *****/****
Did better than I had anticipated with this but half a dozen clues were totally beyond me and others I got from the word play but were outside my range of general knowledge. I would never have got 5d or 16a in a month of Sundays and both 6d and 17a were new to me though sympathetically clued. I enjoyed 1a and 12d. Thanks to Sparks for the challenge and Dutch for the much needed hints.
References needed for a couple of answers but we did eventually get it all sorted. Rather a lot of pesky four letter answers which we always seem to find more challenging for some reason.
Thanks Sparks and Dutch.
I said yesterday that the back page was harder than this which I actually finished. We’ll, it wasn’t an Elgar! Fridays should be fun, easing us into the weekend. I just hope the powers that be listen and learn from yesterday’s disgruntled and unhappy bloggers.
I worked my way through this reasonably satisfactorily, with occasional references to Chambers and Google to check hunches, but came to a complete halt with 13d, which I still don’t get. Usually, a multi-word answer is a recognisable phrase or saying but this means nothing to me. Can anyone explain?
Depends which bit you didn’t get, Mac. The 3 letter word is how, which as Dutch says has as its 7th definition, ‘that’, in Chambers.
If it’s Springwatch which is confusing you – it’s an example of a TV show. The question mark shows the setter could have picked any show. I guess he chose Springwatch because it fits with pets and has a host.
That’s my best guess in a real curate’s egg of a puzzle for me.
Thanks. My elderly Chambers does not have that definition of ‘that’, which doesn’t help, but I had sort of worked out that Springwatch could just about justify ‘show’. However, is ‘Stop the show’ an expression?