Toughie 3233 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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Toughie 3233

by ALP  

Toughie No 3233 by Gila
Hints and tips by ALP

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment **/***

I’m not overly au fait with Gila and, stymied by Hungary’s hour difference, I was fearing unfamiliarity might prompt a late night/early morning. And I’m not a huge fan of poisonous lizards. Is anyone? Though I gather that a gila is, in fact, a “reluctant monster”. So that cheered me. But I also feared that my brain had turned to mush as (tragically) you can catch ITV in Budapest and the wife forced me to watch the Dancing on Ice final (ugh) which must have knocked at least 50 IQ points off. I needn’t have worried though – this was bright, light and very Tuesday-ish. All yours.

Across

9a Forthright Republican interrupting troublemakers at the front entrance (9)
TRENCHANT: R(epublican) inside/interrupting T(roublemakers) + entrance/bewitch.

10a Short American soap opera? (5)
DRAMA: A short (whisky) + A(merican).

11a After toiling here one might check out, cause unknown (7)
FACTORY: Gazza’s undoubtedly right – I hastily over-complicated this as I was being chivvied to pull my thermal trunks on. Cause/element Something that checks out/is true + (be)cause (in that case) as per Chambers  + one of the usual unknowns. Slightly odd construction, I thought still think.

12a Mostly unnecessary feature of record players (7)
NEEDLES: Not required, minus its last letter.

13a Love to abandon healthy person having cocktail? (9)
SUNDOWNER: Lose/abandon the usual love from a five-letter synonym of healthy (of mind?) and add a word for a person that has (something).

15a Drunk unwilling to pay for a round? (5)
TIGHT: Double definition. Drunk as adjective + mean.

17a Urban bar about to introduce starters of unbelievably immense loaded tacos (5-2)
BUILT-UP: One of the usual bars reversed outside/introducing UILT (starters). Loaded tacos are surely immense, pretty much by definition, no?

19a Distance, say, a cart reversed (7)
YARDAGE: The usual two-letter say + a (horse-drawn?) cart, reversed.

20a Energy encapsulated by lovely flower girl, perhaps? (5)
NIECE: E(nergy) inside lovely/pleasant. PS I still think the flower is de trop but I note that Sue likes it so job done, Gila.

21a Alerted to crashing bore (9)
TOLERATED: ALERTEDTO, crashing.

24a Better type of comedy movie finally (7)
IMPROVE: Ad lib comedy + moviE.

26a Grind last bit of pepper ­– a pinch! (3,4)
RAT RACE: (Peppe)R + A pinch/bit.

28a Means of checking rules, we’re told (5)
REINS: Homonym. Checking as in stopping.

29a Good faith in sofa bed misplaced (4,5)
BONA FIDES: INSOFABED, misplaced.

Down

1d Ways to nab a very loud number of crooks? (6)
STAFFS: The usual ways (not roads) nabbing/outside A from the clue + the usual very loud (musically).

2d Commercial mail centre undergoing renovation (10)
MERCANTILE: MAILCENTRE, renovated.

3d Resounding section of the chorus (4)
ECHO: Lurker, hidden in the last two words. Is the section doing double duty here or is the “of” the indicator? Not sure. I still think resounding for the definition is pushing it.

4d Bluff bordering some deep chasm (6)
CANYON: Bluff or trick outside/bordering a synonym of some (3).

5d Area regularly guarded by mean, threatening fish (8)
STINGRAY: aReA guarded by/inside mean (with money). Is the threatening really needed? PS Rabbit Dave thinks it’s OK but Halcyon and I don’t, so the jury’s out.

6d Voyager coming upon river on top edge of rainforest (10)
ADVENTURER: Arrival + a river in Yorkshire + R(ainforest).

7d Entitled chap jumping the gun endlessly (4)
EARL: Premature, missing its last letter.

8d Magazine produced by group in class (8)
CASSETTE: The usual group inside a social class (in India, say).

14d Nothing provided by one hostel, strangely, is free (2,3,5)
ON THE LOOSE: The usual nothing + ONEHOSTEL, strangely.

16d Vulnerable creature adapting to change without a companion in the end (5,5)
GIANT PANDA: ADAPTING, changing, outside/without A + companioN.

17d Gang endeavour to support current illegal activity (8)
BANDITRY: Gang/group + endeavour/attempt, including the symbol for (electric) current.

18d Skin from potatoes covering more second-rate veggies (3,5)
POT HERBS: P(otatoe)S outside/covering a four-letter synonym of more + second-rate (in exams, etc).

22d Big cat grabbing a deer’s tail and part of throat (6)
LARYNX: A big cat (not a lion) outside/grabbing A + deeR.

23d Formal doctor gets a say occasionally (6)
DRESSY: One of the usual two-letter doctors + gEtSaSaY (occasionally).

25d What may be felt in one’s stomach after eating too much French bread? (4)
PAIN: The French for bread.

27d Time away from work is dandy! (4)
TOFF: T(ime) + the opposite of in (work).

A fair few single-letter insertions/deletions, thus breezily workmanlike and huzzah for that. I liked 16d’s surface image and 13a’s wordplay but the short, simple and sweet 26a was my favourite. How did you get on?

25 comments on “Toughie 3233”

  1. An enjoyable but fairly straightforward puzzle to start the Toughie week – thanks to Gila and ALP (enjoy the goulash!).
    For my podium I’ve selected 10a, 13a and 1d.

    I took the first seven words of 11a to be the definition with ‘check out’ meaning ‘clock off’.

    1. I’m sure you’re right. I fear I’ve complicated it unnecessarily. Check out could indeed mean punch out. All that goulash has clearly addled my brain.

  2. This wasn’t too tough and it was great fun to solve. The only thing I needed to check was the comedy movie in 24a.

    I’m a bit puzzled by 20a. What role is “flower” playing in the clue? It would seem to work just as well without it, and the surface would still be fine.

    I also agree with ALP that 3d seems a bit unsatisfactory; if “of” is the intended lurker indicator, “resounding section” is a strange definition.

    My podium comprises 10a, 26a & 1d.

    Many thanks to Gila and to ALP.

        1. The BRB says a flower girl is “a young girl carrying flowers in a bride’s retinue at a wedding”. I suppose this is quite often a niece of the bride (there is a ‘perhaps’ in the clue!).

          1. Hmm…

            I’m sure you are right, Gazza, but it seems unnecessarily convoluted to me.

            1. RD as I understand it a flower girl at a wedding is normally the daughter of a friend or relative. So I think our setter is on firm ground here with question mark.

      2. Thanks, Gazza. I did consider the possibility of a gerund but I rejected that as I couldn’t formulate a sentence where you could replace “echo” with “resounding”. Can you oblige please?

          1. Full marks for creativity, Gazza. I’m not fully sold on it, but I it’s probably good enough for a crossword!

  3. Hmmm. There were a couple of nicely disguised definitions at 21 and 26 but otherwise a bit disappointing. I think 11a is horribly verbose – if you’re right Gazza then why not say “clock off”? Workers don’t check out for goodness sake. What is “flower” doing in 20a and ditto “threatening” in 5d?
    Thanks to Gila and ALP.

    1. Halcyon, I would think that Steve Irwin’s family would consider a 5d as threatening. I don’t think it’s padding in this case as it is helping the solver narrow the possibilities (in the same way that “little woman” rather than “woman” might be used to mean “Jo”).

      1. Actually it seems that Irwin’s family were the least likely to take that view and all credit to them. They acknowledge that his death was a one in million accident probably a result of Irwin inadvertently behaving like a predator to the Ray. Threatening is quite inappropriate in the context. Anthropocentric nonsense.

  4. Enjoyable if a bit too friendly for a Toughie even on a Tuesday

    I quite liked the flower girl reference in 20a

    Thanks to Gila and ALP

  5. Quite straightforward once I stopped trying to make ‘ravine’ work for 4d and used the fodder correctly for 14d – fortunately ‘on the house’ didn’t mess up any other answers but it was still wrong!
    My top three were 8&17a plus 2d.

    Thanks to Gila and to ALP for the review – don’t begrudge your wife her Dancing on Ice, she doubtless has to live with your music choices!

      1. According to the fount of all knowledge aka Mr Google, Screamo was an actual genre but is now a term used by peasants to describe music with harsh vocals – I rest my case………

  6. Well I enjoyed this. There were enough head scratchers for me to make this not entirely straightforward. I didn’t understand flower in 20a so technically a bung in. I too toyed with house in 24d until the penny dropped. I think the hint for 8d should say group. Favourite was 17d. Thanks to Gila and ALP.

  7. This felt like a midweek backpager rather than a Toughie, but it still produced some smiles along the way. Nothing really stood out as a favourite but I did enjoy 1d.

    Thanks to Gila and ALP.

  9. An enjoyable quick post-supper solve, very gentle for the inside page but I hope it got a wider audience than usually appears to be the case for Toughies.

    Many thanks to Gila and ALP

  10. Days late to it but a perfect quick pre lights out romp with admittedly not a great deal of attention paid to the wordplay.
    Thanks to Gila & to ALP

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