Toughie 3111 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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Toughie 3111

by Gazza  

Toughie No 3111 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gazza

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **

Thanks to Kcit for a pleasant puzzle but one that, for me, didn’t have a lot of sparkle. The pairs of 3-letter words in the grid may be an intentional Nina – I’m not sure.

Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.

Across Clues

1a Misinformation about laser relocating loose bone (5,3)
FALSE RIB: a falsehood containing an anagram (relocating) of LASER.

5a French are backing assembly valuation (6)
ESTEEM: the French word meaning ‘are’ (as in ‘tu **’) followed by the reversal of an assembly (for an athletics competition, perhaps).

9a Children banned from room as a sign of caution (5)
AMBER: remove the abbreviation for children from another word for a room.

10a One digs putting wine in a lot of milk (9)
EXCAVATOR: insert a sparkling wine in a verb to milk or squeeze without its last letter.

12a Supplier of music and dances taking care of English seaside distractions (5-5)
BEACH-BALLS: a German composer (one of several from the same family) and some formal dances with an abbreviation for English inserted.

13a Extract of vanilla was brought back for ice cream maker (4)
WALL: hidden in reverse is the surname of the founder of an ice cream making company.

15a Begin man’s story, ignoring a flowering plant (4,7)
STAR THISTLE: string together a synonym of begin, a possessive pronoun meaning man’s and a story without it’s A.

16a Question removing women’s item of clothing (3)
HAT: remove the abbreviation for women from the start of a question.

17a Trained to drop black — setting up for this? (3)
RED: a verb meaning trained or reared without the abbreviation for black. What colour do you need next after you’ve potted a black in snooker?

18a Electromagnetic heat source? Doctor’s first to block silly trendy cure (4,7)
EDDY CURRENT: insert the first letter of doctor in an anagram (silly) of TRENDY CURE. Not a term I knew.

20a Late but not worried after expected confrontation (4)
DUEL: remove the verb meaning worried from ‘late’ and precede what remains with an adjective meaning expected.

21a Mine in China not initially doomed, having suffered a quake (10)
PALPITATED: insert another word for a mine between what a china is in rhyming slang and a past participle meaning fated without its initial F.

24a Ready to perform? Band’s not worked out unknown quantity (2,5-2)
ON STAND-BY: an anagram (worked out) of BAND’S NOT and one of the algebraic unknowns.

26a Travellers following a scent (5)
AROMA: the name of the travelling community follows A.

27a Limited striking allowing importation of vermouth (6)
FINITE: an adjective meaning striking or attractive contains the abbreviation for vermouth.

28a Something done about tear following medical intervention? (4-4)
DRIP-FEED: a word for action or something done contains a verb to tear and the abbreviation for following.

Down Clues

1d Inefficient through following opening of fallible research operation (6)
FLABBY: a preposition meaning through follows the first letter of fallible and a place where research takes place.

2d Pound sign (5)
LIBRA: double definition, the first the Latin word for pound as used in our old money l.s.d.

3d Hard water’s flowing down, generally (10)
EARTHWARDS: an anagram (flowing) of HARD WATER’S. I wondered about the ‘generally’ but I suppose it could mean ‘up’ if you’re ascending to the surface in a mine, say.

4d Nothing in book by caddy? (3)
BOX: insert the nothing-resembling letter between the abbreviation for book and what’s used for ‘by’ in maths.

6d Location of bars, but not tango bar (4)
SAVE: the parallel lines in which you’d find musical bars without the letter represented by tango in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet.

7d Sociable type, minor actor, put off having to share character (9)
EXTRAVERT: charade of a minor actor and a verb to put off or deflect with the letter at the junction shared.

8d State crazy to restrict railway network (8)
MARYLAND: a synonym for crazy contains the abbreviations for railway and local network.

10d Basic dental works? This holds things together (7,4)
ELASTIC BAND: an anagram (works) of BASIC DENTAL.

11d I pray Grand Hotel gets remade after demand for good script (11)
CALLIGRAPHY: an anagram (gets remade) of I PRAY, the abbreviation for G(rand) and H(otel) (in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet) follows a demand or appeal.

14d Highway feature identified by arrangement of map letters (10)
STREETLAMP: for our third anagram in a row we need an arrangement of MAP LETTERS.

15d Holy man curtailed service for author (9)
STEVENSON: our usual holy man followed by a religious service without its last letter gives us the author of Treasure Island.

16d Remote workers not working? (5-3)
HANDS-OFF: a word for manual workers and an adverb meaning not working.

19d Conflict embraced by European divine and former King (6)
EDWARD: a serious conflict is contained in an abbreviation for European and a divine or theologian.

22d Left to head north then east in sort of metaphor? (5)
TROPE: reverse the naval left and add the abbreviation for east.

23d Account in newspaper reveals truth (4)
FACT: insert the abbreviation for a financial account in one of our daily newspapers.

25d Something that’s drawn, perhaps? Not a collection of flowers, say (3)
BED: to draw a **** on means to aim a firearm at. Remove the A from the thing that’s drawn.

I liked 17a and 6d. Which one(s) pleased you?

13 comments on “Toughie 3111”

  1. For me this had just the right level of difficulty for a Thursday Toughie. As well as Gazza’s favourites, I also liked 26a

    Thanks to Kcit and Gazza

  2. Came up against several unknowns in this one. I’m familiar with spare ribs and floating ribs but the answer had passed me by. 15a was a new plant for me so required several checkers dropping into place as did 18a. I also was unfamiliar with the phrase used in 25d – my ‘something drawn’ was a bow which made 28a very interesting! I’ve never considered the ice cream maker without his ‘s’ so that one made me laugh.
    Top three here were 9&24a plus 23d.

    Thanks to Kcit and to Gazza for the review and cartoons – loved the relaxed fit!

  3. A couple of iffy definitions, I thought, but enjoyable and surprisingly straightforward for a Thursday. 11D was my favourite, very neatly done. Thanks to Kcit and Gazza.

  4. I needed the hint to parse 17a, most of the I found difficult but satisfying when the penny finally dropped ams there was lots of that particularly 28a which became my favourite. Thanks to Kcit for the challenge and Gazza.

  5. I liked the fact that, as is often the case with kciT some of the solutions were a bit “technical” but it was let down slightly by some rather obvious anagrams. The 3-letter ones were clever, as were some of the 4s. I particularly liked 16d which took me ages to see [I didn’t have either 16 or 20 at that point].
    Thanks to kciT and Gazza.

  6. I don’t venture over here very often but I started doing the toughie without realising it today. Having got a few filled in I thought I’d persevere and lo and behold I pretty much completed it on my own. I’m so chuffed!!
    Thanks to setter and Gazza for the hints, they really helped me where I wasn’t sure of the parsing.

    While I’m here please may I ask a question? I used to get Rahmat Ali’s and Crypticsue’s reviews of the prize puzzles sent to my inbox. They seem to have stopped and I wonder if it’s because of recent changes to the site. Problem is I can’t remember how I set them up in the first place.

    1. Well done on doing so well with the Toughie, MsGlad. I hope that will encourage you to try more Toughies (the ones early in the week are quite often not that tough).
      The notifications of new posts to subscribers’ inboxes had to be turned off during the recent changeover but Mr K is working hard to reinstate that facility.

  7. An enjoyable Thursday Toughie, and a decent challenge. Highlights for me were 17a & 4d – both being proof that good clues don’t need to have long answers!

    Many thanks to Kcit and Gazza

  8. Took us quite a long time to justify 25d, in fact it was the short answers that gave us most of our delays.
    An enjoyable solve for us.
    Thanks Kcit and Gazza.

  9. I enjoyed the challenge and was chuffed to finish it. I put smiley faces next to 12a,15a, and 2d.
    Thank you Kcit. And many thanks to Gazza to help me understand the handful that I couldn’t parse.

  10. A day late to this & enjoyed it possibly a wee bit more than our reviewer. A few post solve confirmations required & all parsed bar an embarrassing failure to see what extor had to do with milking – doh. Unusually for me it was the short ‘uns I liked best. Great spot Gazza re the 3 letter answers – surely not a coincidence
    Thanks to Kcit & to Gazza

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