Sunday Toughie 72 (Hints)

Sunday Toughie No 72 by proXimal

Hints and Tips by Sloop John Bee

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proXimal has provided us with a proper Toughie today. I had a bit of trouble getting going in the NW corner but the bottom half gave me a foothold and I worked up from there. He always gives me a bit more of a stretch than our other Sunday Toughie setters but I got there eventually, It was quite late when I had the final swig of the Port and Wine cask finished Laphroaig last night.

An unusual 15a and 16d clues today and I have hinted just under half, pipe up if you need an extra nudge or two.
15d is a candidate for Terence’s THE LIST if ever I saw one but as it is a straightforward anagram it remains unhinted

Here we go, Folks…

As it is a Prize puzzle I can only hint at a few and hope that will give you the checkers and inspiration to go further. I’ll return with the full review blog just after the closing date. Don’t forget to follow BD’s instructions in RED at the bottom of the hints!

I hope I don’t have to redact any comments but I am new at this and don’t want to rock the boat. If in doubt, I’ll rub it out! I think that sentence is a bit redundant. You have all been so helpful in sorting out prior parsing failures, and I am sure I will need similar help again.

Most of the terms used in these hints are explained in the Glossary and examples are available by clicking on the entry under “See also” Where the hint describes a construct as “usual” this means that more help can be found in The Usual Suspects, which gives a number of the elements commonly used in the wordplay. Another useful page is Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing, which features words with meanings that are not always immediately obvious. Don’t forget the Mine of useful information that Big Dave and his son Richard so meticulously prepared for us.

A full review of this puzzle will be published after the closing date for submissions. Some hints follow: Remember the site rules and play nicely.

Across

1a Charge to store little case (9)
A little smidgen of something inside a charge to look after something gives us the case for a bullet and its gunpowder. Woe betide anyone who puts a smidgen too much milk in Mama Bee’s tea!


10a Trap sovereign’s followers on a battlefield (9)
An illegal trap goes after a from the clue (on a) and the retinue that follows a sovereign

14a Numbers one and four selected in explaining squares (7)
The first and fourth letters of a word in the clue and a synonym of squares or balances

16a Police work catching ambassador with billion (3,4)
To work or cultivate the land, and abbreviations for the title of His Excellency the Ambassador and billion, give us a slang term for the police

22a Mediation with aim to hold review regularly (12)
A synonym of an aim or objective contains alternate letters of review


26a First home? Predict everything to be unfinished (9)
The letters that define being at home, to predict like a diviner or soothsayer and most of a word for everything
29a Road sign that’s annoying outside work (2,7)
An annoying, unpleasant or baffling circumstance around a shortened piece of work

Down


1d Passage a miner goes up (4)
I wasted a lot of last night researching mining adits, drifts, faces and levels when I should have been checking one of Snow Whites’ miners, he is reversed on a from the clue. A passage of music

not their finest but appropriate

5d Label on ground moved to elsewhere (9)
A record label known by its initials and now part of Universal Music Group and ground like cheese perhaps

6d He’d messed with this since finding debauchees (7)
A conjunction of since can be found in an anagram (messed with) of debauchees after he’d is removed

7d Most tiddly, small tuft of hair that is on good person (10)
S for small, a tuft of hair, a Latin that is, and an abbreviated good person become the most drunk person

8d Take no action having birds taking cover in shelter (3,2,5)
The sheltered side contains small songbirds of the family Paridae and a cover

13d Do keep up, run to take over lead in ultramarathon (10)
A synonym of keep up in the sense of cause to last forever, swaps the leading letter of ultramarathon for an abbreviation for a run at cricket to become  to do, commit or execute a crime perhaps

19d Soldier lost, not totally ideal (7)
This shortened soldier carried by air and most of a synonym of lost become an ideal model of perfection

25d Beat with good point (4)
To beat like leather and an abbreviation for good become the point that holds a fret into a fretboard for example

 

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