Toughie No 3234 by Django
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Another enjoyable Toughie from Django -this one perfectly pitched for a Wednesday. The whole of the bottom half of the crossword was completed before I had written anything in the top half.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought
Across
1a I’m right out of sweeteners for drinks (7)
IMBIBES IM (from the clue) and the R (right) taken out of another informal word for money offered as inducements (sweeteners)
5a Remains in church with tea for the audience — and cake (7)
CRUMPET A remnant (remains) inserted into the abbreviation for the Church of England, and a homophone (for the audience) of tea Before there is a discussion as to whether this is a cake or not, the BRB defines it as a ‘small yeast cake with holes on the top’
9a Crown and Anchor content to leave a pint every now and then on the counter (5)
TIARA Remove the ‘content’ of AnchoR, add the odd (every now and then) letters of A pInT and then reverse (on the counter)
10a Medicare reformed with President at the fore — go for it! (5,4)
CARPE DIEM An anagram (reformed) of MEDICARE with the foremost letter of President produces a Latin expression meaning seize the day (go for it!)
11a Villain discovered island in middle of Portland is spare (10)
ADDITIONAL The inside (dis covered) letters of an informal villain and an island in the Inner Hebrides, the latter inserted into the middle letters of porTLand
12a Turkey say Foreign Office is oversharing with member of parliament (4)
FOWL The abbreviation for the Foreign Office and an avian member of parliament ‘sharing’ the O for over
14a Some links framing politician (7,5)
PUTTING GREEN A synonym for framing and a member of a particular political party
18a Detectives seen in country garden (8,4)
SCOTLAND YARD A country that is part of the United Kingdom and a garden
21a Worries constituency making small move to the far right (4)
EATS Move the abbreviation for small from the start of a political constituency to the end (far right) of the word
22a Honest courier setting down parcel finally dropped off on time (10)
UPSTANDING The name of a courier company and a synonym for setting down where the final letter of parceL is ‘dropped’ and replaced by the abbreviation for Time
25a Expect profit working next to pub (7,2)
BARGAIN ON A profit and the usual two-letter working go after (next to) a pub
26a Silly grandparent appearing in Viz (5)
INANE A pet name for a grandmother inserted into an abbreviated way of saying namely (viz here not being the publication but an abbreviation for the Latin word videlicet)
27a Theatre in capital brought back Mikado (7)
EMPEROR A reversal (brought back) of an abbreviated type of theatre inserted into the capital of Italy
28a One way to make deliveries — pack too much? (7)
OVERARM This way of making cricket deliveries could, if split 4,3, meaning that you were carrying too many guns
Down
1d Cycling coach on unknown — there might be some work to do here (2-4)
IN-TRAY ‘cycle’ the last two letters of a coach to the front of the word and add a mathematical unknown
2d Perhaps Jo Whiley’s last drink (6)
BRANDY Add the last letter of whileY to the surname of a female comedian (Jo perhaps)
3d Local’s stuff regularly stolen by tyrant with evident pride (10)
BOASTFULLY The regular letters of lOcAlS sTuFf ‘stolen by’ or inserted into a tyrant
4d Pervert is looking up skirts on catwalk shows essentially (5)
SICKO A reversal (looking up) of IS (from the clue) followed by the ‘skirts’ of CatwalK and the middle (essentially) letter of shOws
5d 1 Down etc could be foregone conclusion (9)
CERTAINTY An anagram (could be) of the solution to 1d and ETC
6d Exhausted masseuse drops trousers (4)
USED ‘Trousered’ in the second and third words of the clue
7d Impressionist returning under pressure to host series ultimately gets one in the can (8)
PRISONER A reversal of an impressionist painter goes under the abbreviation for Pressure, the ‘ultimate’ letter of serieS then being inserted (to host)
8d Seeing corporation before 9, say and pitching … (8)
TUMBLING Comprehending (seeing) or falling in a heap (pitching) – an informal name for part of the body also known as a corporation goes before a slang term for jewellery (the solution to 9a say)
13d … crazy ideas about going on vacation — managed to get upgrade (10)
AGGRANDISE An anagram (crazy) of IDEAS goes ‘about’ the outside (on vacation) letters of GoinG and a synonym for managed
15d Can Joe Root for example find help for Cook? (3-6)
TIN-OPENER A can and the position in a cricket team held by Joe Root, for example
16d Group clever to control rising chaos (8)
ASSEMBLE A synonym for clever ‘controls’ a reversal of a state of disorder (chaos)
17d Swedes maybe in Costa Rica wearing shirt under jumper (4,4)
ROOT CROP A short form of a name for an Australian jumping animal followed by the IVR code for Costa Rica inserted into an article of clothing such as a shirt
19d Rogue agents detaining six-footer (6)
CICADA A rogue ‘detained’ by the American Central Intelligence Agency
20d Shiny silver transformed meal (6)
AGLEAM The chemical symbol for silver and an anagram (transformed) of MEAL
23d Pop music to dance to? (5)
TANGO The brand name of some fizzy drink (pop) or a type of dance music
24d Reasonable ticket price announced (4)
FAIR A homophone (announced) of a ticket price
A wonderful puzzle — pretty much every clue a delight (I ended up starring 18 of them!), from my first in of 9a (lengthy, but works so well both for its surface reading and as instructions for what to do) to my last in of 17d (love the ‘wearing shirt under jumper’). Thank you so much to Django.
Particular praise for the ‘oversharing’ in 12a, and for the surface in 6d. I think my favourite is 23d for sheer simplicity that still somehow managed to deceive me for a while.
And thank you CrypticSue for explaining 11a; I was spelling my villain differently and so had a letter unaccounted for.
(I’m not convinced Joe Root counts as being the position he has in 15d, though. The Test team did try him at that position many years ago, but it wasn’t a success and he was quickly moved elsewhere. On the other hand, I doubt any of England’s actual recent openers are sufficiently well known to solvers who don’t follow cricket, so the clue is probably more solvable as written than by mentioning somebody else.)
Really enjoyable – thanks to Django and CS.
Like Smylers I wasn’t totally happy with Joe Root’s batting position.
My top picks were 1a, 18a, 1d and 7d.
According to “HowSTAT” Joe Root has an average of 41.70 when opening the innings 11 times in test matches.
He’s quite close to catching up with Alastair Cook (aka Chef) as England’s leading run scorer.
Ps. Loved the Django crossword!
Indeed, maybe it was unfair of me to describe Joe Root’s time at the top of the order as not a success: 41.7 is a decent average for an opener. But his averages are even higher coming in at 4 (51.6) and 5 (66.6).
More to the point, he only opened in those 11 innings, out of a total of 257 innings for England. Which means he’s only been an opener 4% of the time, and only done once (because of injury to somebody else, I think?) in the past decade.
I really enjoyed this wonderful puzzle and echo much of what has been said above & by Sue – relatively concise clueing, so was surprised to see it listed as a Django puzzle! Witty, clever, beautifully constructed, with a great variety of clues. Even if I had written an exclamation mark next to the ‘cake’ in 5a! Podium was somewhat overcrowded but I whittled them down to 12a, 4dd, 7d & runner-up 15d.
Many thanks indeed to Django and Sue
I couldn’t find anything to add to the three comments already posted so I will just agree with them and offer my thanks to Django and Sue.
Yep – top-class stuff and I agree with CS that the top was much tougher than the bottom. Perhaps not quite as chuckleworthy as some of his recent puzzles but I still have 3 winners – 26a, 13d and 17d.
I know naught of cricket and solved the 15d clue from the answer.
Thanks to Django and CS.
Weirdly, I was the opposite: the first few answers I wrote in were in the top half, and I got that completed when the bottom half was still quite barren.
Yes, excellent stuff. It all came together smoothly with just the right amount of head-scratching. When I had finished I had question marks by two items: “cake” in 5a and “Joe Root” in 15d. Enough has been said already about both of those.
Many thanks to Django for the fun and to CS for the beautifully illustrated review.
We also found ourselves solving this one from the bottom up but our smiles stayed with us for the entire solve.
Thanks Django and CS.
Thanks CrypticSue and thanks all.
Both Chambers and Collins have Crumpet as a small thick yeast cake with holes on the top and who am I to argue with that.
And I have zero interest in – and next to no knowledge of – cricket. So I landed on Root by googling “Alastair Cook opening partners”, finding this article https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/alastair-cook-s-opening-partners-since-andrew-strauss-1071288 and then selecting the name that I thought was best known. I figured that anyone who had been an opener with Cook was technically correct and the better known they were, the better the surface would sound – at least to a muggle like me.
Thanks Django, I think you were a bit tougher on us today, rather than the Tony Gardner puzzle recently but I enjoyed the journey with the help from Sue when I was struggling
Thanks Django & CS, super stuff – 1a a fabulous start with 26a, 28a, 2d & 4d perhaps my highlights, but hard to pick from a great bunch. (Only *teensy* quibble – the grammar in 9a doesn’t feel *quite* right?) Not really knowing anything about cricket, Joe Root seemed fine to me … and I think “cake” is perfectly OK for crumpet and can indeed be used in far wider contexts … e.g. “Burger King replaced by fine dining establishment (4)” ;-P Many thanks again!
Brilliant stuff yet again from Django – thoroughly enjoyed this. Many thanks to CS for unravelling my bung-ins and to Django for the top-drawer puzzle.
Solved in two sittings one this afternoon and the other this evening with a quiz and the backpager in between. SW last in. I did wonder how many times Joe Root had opened for England, now I know. Struggled at times but got there in the end and enjoyed the journey. Favourite was 3d. Thanks to Django and CS.
Super puzzle. Completed early this morning before breakfast & our last round of golf before heading home.
Thanks to Django for popping in & to Sue.