Toughie No 3222 by Stick Insect
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Stick Insect’s turn to provide the Wednesday Toughie – this one has lots of opportunities to brush up on your knowledge of abbreviations
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought
Across
1a Cable disentangled from propeller (4)
ROPE Hidden in (so can be disentangled from) the last word of the clue
3a Scarper with current friend, OK (10)
LEGITIMATE An informal ‘instruction’ to run away (scarper), the symbol for electric current, and an informal friend
10a Arrest female student following literary support (9)
BOOKSHELF A verb meaning to arrest, the feminine form of the third person pronoun (female) and the abbreviations for student and Following
11a Letter to Ephesians, a letter initially in a bottle (5)
PHIAL The 21st letter of the Greek Alphabet (Ephesus was a city in Ancient Greece), A (from the clue) and the initial letter of Letter
12a The German times race (5)
DERBY The German definite article and a word used in multiplication to mean ‘times’
13a Putting down vegetable in spring finally (9)
SQUASHING A type of vegetable, IN (from the clue) and the final letter of sprinG
14a Migrating base two kilometres inside Hertfordshire town (8)
TREKKING The letter that is the base of the natural system of logarithms and two abbreviations for Kilometre inserted into a Hertfordshire market town
16a Statement found in rubbish by Detective King (6)
DIKTAT Some rubbish goes by or after an abbreviated detective and the chess abbreviation for King
19a Help agreed after former PM departs (6)
MAYDAY An interjection expressing agreement and the abbreviation for Departs go after a former Prime Minister
20a Simple spider might describe its residence thus (8)
HOMESPUN Split 4,4 this might be how a spider would describe its residence
22a Novel artist in adopting old pattern of lines (9)
STRIATION An anagram (novel) of ARTIST IN ‘adopting’ the abbreviation for Old
24a Free stamp (5)
FRANK Free or open and/or a stamp
26a Send off team in return, abandoning court (5)
EXILE A team of eleven players inserted into a reversal of ‘return’ in the sense of return to office without (abandoning) the abbreviation for court
27a I can time railway route (9)
ITINERARY I (from the clue), a can, a period of time and the abbreviation for railway
28a Way to decide winner of row about European holiday (10)
TIEBREAKER A row goes about the abbreviation for European and a holiday
29a Group prohibited on the radio (4)
BAND A homophone (on the radio) of a synonym for prohibited
Down
1d Fanatical, starts to rail against broadsheet papers (5)
RABID The ‘starts’ to Rail Against Broadsheet and some abbreviated documents
2d Support tyre when cycling around India, showing decency (9)
PROPRIETY A support followed by the cycling of the first two letters of TYRE to the end of the word, the result going ‘around’ the letter represented by India in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet
4d Just saint directed towards good prayers (8)
EVENSONG A synonym for just, an abbreviated saint, a preposition meaning directed towards and the abbreviation for Good
5d Flood at home, before unknown disease (6)
INFLUX The usual ‘at home’ and a shortened form of a disease go before a mathematical unknown
6d Unfeeling second for Mister Big, seizing pawn (9)
IMPASSIVE The second letter in mIster, and a synonym for big, into which is inserted (seizing) the chess abbreviation for Pawn
7d Island leader demoted: island makes excuse (5)
ALIBI Move the first letter (leader demoted) of an Indonesian island to the end of the word and then add the abbreviation for Island
8d School spaces filled by conspicuous person (9)
ENLIGHTEN A conspicuous person is inserted between (filled by) two lots of the printer’s unit of measurement for a space the size of an N
9d Pale Ale, dismissing the French gibe (4)
ASHY The second word of the clue without (dismissing) the French definite article, followed by a gibe
14d Swelling of belly subsiding when top removed (9)
TUMESCENT A childish word for a stomach (belly) and subsiding or going down without its first letter (top removed)
15d Supply a boar, elk and a pouched creature (5,4)
KOALA BEAR An anagram (supply) of A BOAR ELK and A
17d Pick of the bunch? (3,6)
TOP BANANA A cryptic definition of a most important person
18d Sailor’s dance is long around Navy mess (8)
HORNPIPE A verb meaning to long for goes around the abbreviation for Royal Navy and a mess of printer’s type
21d Still since regularly excavating atomic mineral (6)
SILICA The regular letters of StIlL sInCe followed by the abbreviation for Atomic
23d Gardening society’s head ignoring every small flower (5)
RHINE Remove every appearance of the abbreviation for Small from the abbreviation for a gardening society, Is (society‘s) and a headland
24d Escaped backing welfare age dropping (4)
FLEW Hidden in reverse (backing) in the third word of the clue once you have removed (dropping) the word for a long period of time (age) encountered earlier in the crossword
25d Vital newspaper employee entered text, perhaps (5)
KEYED Vital or most important and an abbreviated newspaper employee
Found this a good deal easier than Serpent’s one yesterday so a rare instance of my solving experience tallying with our reviewer’s difficulty rating (fully expected the just the one *). Not sure I’d have been able to correctly define 14d if I’d seen it out of context but the wordplay was clear & it kind of rang a bell. No particular clue stood out but thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle.
Thanks to Stick Insect & to CS
I found this much trickier than yesterday’s Serpent which took me about the time as a Thursday backpager. The Stick Insect was a proper Toughie
Flew through this super puzzle in about the same time as today’s backpager, so I evidently tuned-in from the off – not for the first time with this setter. Absolutely loved it, and found myself chuckling at almost every clue. Great surfaces, some ingenious clueing, and yes, knowing some abbreviations certainly helped. That 18d used an alternative spelling for the mess made no difference to me: I hadn’t heard of that mess in any of the three spellings accorded it by the BRB, but fortunately the answer was an obvious biff even before the full clue had been read.
2* / 5* for me, and I found I had ticks afterwards for the 11a, 20a, 27a, 4d, 6d, & 8d – but my COTD by a short head was the laugh-out-loud 3a.
Many thanks indeed to Stick Insect for this superb challenge, and to CS for the review.
The only mess I can think of for 18d is as in ‘apple p** bed’. I guess they are connected back in the mists of etymological time.
According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable it is a printer’s term to describe the mix up of types (as when dropped) or a jumble of letters when a word or sentence is badly printed. It may refer to the mixed ingredients of a xxx or it may come from the assortment of types used in the old xxx or Pre-Reformation books of rules for the prayers of the day, The books were called this because of the colour and confused appearance of the rules which were printed in old black-letter type on white paper thus giving a xxxd appearance
I thought this sat nicely alongside the backpager, with a similar level of difficulty and just as enjoyable. The clueing was neat and nothing seemed out of place. 20a made me laugh and was my favourite this afternoon.
Thanks to SI and Sue.
A DNF for me despite a hopeful start.
A pleasant midweek Toughie – thanks to Sticky and CS.
I thought that a couple of the surfaces (2d, 24d) didn’t make a great deal of sense.
I liked 3a and 10a but my overwhelming favourite was 20a.
I have to side with Gazza. Pleasant is undoubtedly the word for this breezy little number. I also totally agree re 2d and 24d. What?! But it’s always nice to see a few old favourites and 28a was jolly – sounds just like my house every summer. Thanks to Stick Insect and Sue.
I was one wavelength from the off today and found this puzzle very doable. For 2d I simply saw anagram material. I’ve never really got my head around the cycling business. Favourite was 9d which took me an age to parse supported by 14d and 17d. Thanks to Stick Insect and Crypticsue.
Found this appreciably more difficult than others seem to have done but it was worth it if only for the spider’s residence!
Thanks to Stick Insect and to CS for the review – learnt something new in the conspicuous person, thank you.
It took us a while to see where the central letter for 23d came from and there were two possible flowers we could see before that was settled.
Enjoyed the solve.
Thanks Stick Insect and CS.