Toughie 3225 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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Toughie 3225

Toughie No 3225 by Dada

Hints and tips by ALP

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

BD Rating – Difficulty * Enjoyment ****

After another lamentable weekend of English sport I find myself sorely tempted to follow something we’re actually good at. Like queuing. Thank goodness, then, for this crossword: deep, deep peace after all that miserable hurly-burly. Fairly gentle, very jolly. I must give extra credit to Dada for gifting me the perfect excuse to post 3d’s clip. I’ve been itching to pull that trigger! Only five anagrams (including one partial), a lot of insertions and a fair few (excellent) double definitions made for a fun, brisk solve. I really can’t envisage you brilliant lot having any problems with this. How did you get on?

Across 

1a Addiction: Hard? Not entirely (5)
HABIT: H(ard) + smidgen (1,3).

4a Main road, one passing through channel (8)
CARDINAL: The usual road + the usual one inside/passing a (water) channel.

10a Describing thin walls of cells, metal inside concrete (7)
RETINAL: Metal (3) inside concrete/solid/factual.

11a Huge metal object in space, gold tooth? (7)
ORBITER: The two-letter gold + a whimsical description of a tooth (ie, what one does).

12a Right story ending in redemption (4)
LIEN: A (tall) story + redemptioN = setters’ favourite right.

13a Wave by one jetty? (5)
EBONY: BYONE, wave. That question mark is doing some pretty heavy lifting here! Very Dada, very funny.

14a God accommodated in secular establishment (4)
ARES: A lurker, hidden in the last two words.

17a Pub of course? (10,4)
NINETEENTH HOLE: The bar one finds at the end of a certain course. So brilliant it could almost be a chestnut but I’ve certainly never seen it before. Sublime.

19a French port in Grenoble unavailable at first, so rum drunk (8-3-3)
BOULOGNE-SUR-MER: GRENOBLE+U+SORUM, drunk.

22a Grey matter, that which is usually brown or white (4)
LOAF: Double definition. Slang for Poirot’s little grey cells and a foodstuff that is generally brown or white. I’m actually struggling to think of one that isn’t one or the other, but there must be. In Germany, probably.

23a Song priest sang at Latin Mass, originally (5)
PSALM: Acrostic. You know the drill.

24a Pest shot (4)
SLUG: Double definition. Garden pest and/or bullet.

27a Power in three leaders in Luxembourg and Italian capital (7)
TRIPOLI: P(ower) inside (a group of) three + L(Luxembourg + I(talian).

28a Fruit course delivered (7)
CURRANT: A homonym (delivered) of (water) course.

29a Crew visiting guru in days gone by (5,3)
STEAM AGE: Crew/side inside/visiting (a wise) guru.

30a Tidy feathers on entering coop (5)
PREEN: The usual two-letter “on” inside a three-letter animal enclosure.

Down  

1d Day in sport, running and jumping (8)
HURDLING: D(ay) inside (an Irish) sport = another sporting event.

2d One bird pecked another (7)
BITTERN: Pecked/nipped + seabird.

3d Piquancy in short dance (4)
TANG: Latin dance, minus its last letter.

5d Melted chocolate drunk without stopping (6-3-5)
AROUND-THE-CLOCK: CHOCOLATEDRUNK, melted.

6d Score tied in the end, bet off (4)
DEBT: tieD + BET, off.

7d Old place of birth outlined in note (7)
NATURAL: The usual (biblical) old place outlined by a synonym of “of birth” = a (musical) note.

8d House and home of a sport (5)
LORDS: Double definition. The house and/or the home of the sport. Thanks to Dada again for prompting this old, old gem. Just couldn’t resist!

9d Extraordinary fat Austrian composer, a pain (14)
FLABBERGASTING: Fat/blubber + a four-letter Austrian composer (despite his two –IMHO – appalling operas, he loved jazz, so he can’t have been all bad!) + A pain (from bee?).

15d Shawl nicked (5)
STOLE: Double definition. Need I say more?

16d Go to pay for drinks, and cry (5)
SHOUT: Double definition. What’s yours (“it’s my *****”) when you stand a round at the bar and/or loud utterance.

18d Spook just haunting wetland (8)
FRIGHTEN: Just/fair/correct inside (haunting) bog (the sort found in Norfolk).

20d Pane spattered with oil, whitish glass (7)
OPALINE: PANEOIL, spattered

21d Chap defending conflict, the bane of office workers? (7)
MALWARE: Man (gender) outside/defending the usual conflict.

22d Insect briefly circles top of tall flower (5)
LOTUS: A (wood?) insect, minus its last letter, around/circles T(all).

25d Report in good time? (4)
BOOM: Another double definition. Report (of a cannon, say) and/or a good time (ie, not one of bust).

26d Ambush in district after uprising (4)
TRAP: District/bit (of town?), reversed (uprising).

Much to like here, with big ticks for 19a, 27a and 9d. But, for me, the winner just has to be 17a. PLEASE don’t tell me it’s a chestnut – that would (ever so slightly) break my heart! Looking forward to hearing what you all think.

19 comments on “Toughie 3225

  1. I thought this was an excellent puzzle even though it was not remotely tough with only the parsing of 7d requiring a bit of head scratching.

    Many thanks to Dada and to ALP.

  2. A very enjoyable Tuesday Toughie – thanks to Dada and ALP.
    I liked 1a, 29a and 7d but my favourite was 13a (superb and, as ALP says, very Dadaesque).

  3. 17a and 7d stood out for me from this fairly rapid yet entertaining solve.

    Thanks to Dada and ALP. I cannot remember two easier puzzles in one day.

  4. Tough enough that I needed a few hints — thank you ALP for those (but I still felt it was the safer option than a supposed 1-* AP backpager!).

    And thank you to Dada. My favourites were 11a’s ‘gold tooth’ and 17a’s ‘Pub of course’. I had the same thoughts as you, ALP, on wondering whether the latter was an old chestnut, but I don’t remember seeing it before either. Maybe it’s a brand-new chestnut?

  5. Lovely Tuesday Toughie fare from Dada with a couple of bumps in the road for me courtesy of the 13a wave and the timely report in 25d.
    Top three here were the pub, melted chocolate and the fat Austrian composer.

    Thanks to Dada for a good one and to ALP for a most entertaining review.

  6. Having seen it’s not an Elgar I shall ‘have a go’. Thanks so much for the Brian Johnston clip which always makes me hoot. His daughter was in my class at school and he was just the nicest, kindest man. I saw her not long ago at a birthday bash and asked her if it upset her to hear these clips out of the blue e.g. Desert Island Discs. She loved the fact that so many people had such affection for him. Thanks for including it Alp and now to tackle the puzzle.

    1. He always seemed such a lovely man. Huge thanks for the confirmation. To have heard otherwise really WOULD have broken my heart. Phew!

    2. Aw, that’s lovely to hear about Johnners, Manders.

      And I’m impressed you’re still in touch with somebody you were at school with!

      1. Our Head Mistress was called the Lady Warden, Wagger, to us gels! Somebody’s brother said we all had the Wagger Stamp on us. Lots of us Wagger girls have kept in touch. I loved boarding school!

  7. Super puzzle, just enough bite to justify inclusion as a Toughie, and proof that Dada can write a great puzzle and keep the number of anagrams countable only on one hand despite a series of Sunday backpagers suggesting otherwise! Not entirely convinced that a ‘course’ is quite the same as a ‘current’, and there were a couple of dodgy surfaces, but minor quibbles only. Podium places to 19a (great surface, clever anagram), 9d (big smile) and 21d (sometimes office riles me so much I think the whole darned suite is 21d …), but many others could have run them close. 13a was evil – it was the only answer I thought reasonable, but until reading the hints just could not see the parsing. Yes, very Dada.

    Many thanks to Dada and of course to ALP, too.

  8. Proud to solve 17 and 19a quickly but it was downhill from there
    I enjoyed your hints ALP so I hesitate to mention 22d. it’s Lotus not locus.

  9. As others have indicated, perhaps more backpager than toughie but a lot of fun nonetheless. Solved this in stages during intermittent log stacking whilst giving my back a rest. Only the “dadaesque” clue caused severe head scratching. Thanks for the hint APL. You might have heard my groan it was so loud when I saw the answer! Thanks Dada for the entertainment. I suspect greater challenges lie in wait this week.

  10. An an enjoyable puzzle for me though not as quick as others found, but then I don’t expect it be as a comparative novice to the toughie.
    I did like 17a and I had a proper chortle when I worked out what jetty was all about in 13a.
    Thanks to Dada and to ALP (loved the clips…)

  11. Must have been us having an off day but we found this one quite a lot trickier than we often do with this setter, particularly in the NE for some reason.
    Favourite was 13a, so simple once the penny dropped.
    Thanks Dada and ALP.

  12. I too found this trickier than most. I needed the hint to parse 7d, 13a and 6d were bung-ins even though I could parse them. I hadn’t heard the French port but, even with my limited foreign language skills, I managed to get the last two words then with the checkers I had played around with what I had left monkey and typewriter style until I came up with something that looked reasonable. Favourite was 9d. Thanks to Dada and ALP.

  13. What Jane said @5 except I disappointingly didn’t figure out the timely report until reading the hint so no unaided finish.
    Thanks to Dada & to ALP for his usual entertaining review – love a bit of John Lee & your clip prompted me to play his Chill Out album – great title track with Carlos & a fine collaboration with Van but this one’s the standout track for my money.

  14. Well for me this was more like a 2.5*-3* for difficulty.
    Struggled a bit, needed some of the hints and then some.

    Favourites include 1a, 17a, 22a, 8d & 9d

    Thanks to Dada & Alp

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