Toughie No 3243 by Firefly
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Firefly has given us a theme today based on 13a (which is quite appropriate for me since not having had a flake of snow all through the winter I awoke this morning to find a white covering on the ground).
My progress through the puzzle started at the pace of an arthritic snail but speeded up later. I enjoyed the battle – thanks to Firefly.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Across Clues
8a Hearts relegated from division, accepting goalie’s regular appearances to be an absurdity (8)
SOLECISM: remove the card abbreviation for hearts from a division or split into two distinct parties or factions and insert regular letters from ‘goalie’.
9a Enclosure arriving initially by rail (6)
AVIARY: assemble the initial letter of arriving, a preposition meaning by or ‘by way of’ and the abbreviation for railway.
10a The setter intends to be 13 (3)
ILL: the contracted way the setter would say he intends to.
11a Departing from vault after being exposed (8)
OUTBOUND: a vault or leap follows an adverb meaning exposed or revealed.
12a Leads in contracts (6)
FLEXES: double definition, the first a noun and the second a verb.
13a Articles we spiked in “Thunderer” terribly written — and lousy! (5,3,7)
UNDER THE WEATHER: ‘we’ is thrust between two grammatical articles and all that is contained in an anagram (terribly written) of THUNDERER.
15a Idiot’s appropriating piece of current satire (7)
LAMPOON: an informal word for an idiot contains an abbreviation for a unit of electric current.
18a Sirenian’s second base shifts far west in spring (7)
EMANATE: start with a manatee and move the second occurrence of the base in logarithms as far to the left as possible. Moving the first base would work equally well.
21a 13 writer’s muscle awfully sore owing to habit (3,5,3,4)
THE WORSE FOR WEAR: start with a 4-letter literary word for muscle or strength and add an anagram (awfully) of SORE, a preposition meaning ‘owing to’ and a synonym of habit or clothing.
24a Sue’s upset with drink and fritters (4,2)
USES UP: an anagram (upset) of SUE and a verb to drink.
25a Pump line (8)
PLIMSOLL: double definition, the first what may be worn for PE (although we used to call them daps).
26a/27a 13 from a dish of apricot, perhaps? (3,6)
OFF COLOUR: the BRB confirms that the first word is a preposition meaning ‘from a dish of’. The second word is what apricot is an example of.
27a See 26a
28a Meals Neapolitan is cooking reduced by one p, surprisingly (8)
ITALIANS: remove the shuffled (surprisingly) letters of ONE P from NEAPOLITAN IS and make an anagram (cooking) of what remains.
Down Clues
1d Pass over sign of hesitation — touch of nerves among troops? (6)
COLUMN: a mountain pass precedes an expression of hesitation and the first letter of nerves. ‘among’ just seems to be padding.
2d Send back the Spanish meat as inadequate (6)
FEEBLE: stick together a Spanish definite article and a type of meat and reverse the lot.
3d Update of office gossip (9,6)
SITUATION REPORT: synonyms for office or post and gossip or rumour.
4d Spot of violent disagreement when a tree carelessly pruned (7)
SMIDGEN: our second subtractive anagram – remove the jumbled letters of A TREE from DISAGREEMENT and make an anagram (violent) of what you have left over.
5d Break in Florida — my health not right (4-4,7)
HALF-TERM HOLIDAY: an anagram (not right) of FLORIDA MY HEALTH.
6d Stretch of uphill deviation periodically encountered near summit of Nuptse (4,2,2)
PILE IT ON: regular letters of ‘uphill deviation’ and the top letter of Nuptse (which, I now know to be a mountain in the Himalayas).
7d Most envious of brief Hellenic retreat (8)
GREENEST: an adjective meaning Hellenic without its last letter and a retreat or shelter.
14d Dear me — seconds wasted — hold back! (3)
DAM: remove every second letter from the first two words.
16d Bond, in commercial hotel, overturned racket (8)
ADHESION: stitch together an abbreviated commercial, the letter that hotel represents in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet and the reversal of a racket.
17d Hands round note: “Disco in uncle’s place” (8)
PAWNSHOP: an informal word for hands containing the abbreviation for note is followed by a synonym of disco or dance. Uncle’s place is where people may go to pop their weasel.
19d Master missing friend from court (3)
ACE: remove the friend from a court or royal residence.
20d Tower above tantrum in train (4,3)
KEEP FIT: a tower in a castle and a tantrum.
22d “Best friend” slowest I ever had (6)
WESTIE: a hidden word. I wonder if Firefly is paying a tribute to his own ‘best friend’.
23d With this you get lamentation and 13 (6)
AILING: the abbreviation for ‘with’ followed by the answer (this) gives us a word for lamentation or keening.
The top clues for me were 11a, 17d and 23d. Which one(s) did the business for you?
beyond me today – i couldn’t get a foothold to start – endless head scratching – i moan when puzzles are too easy but this was so so dificult that i succumbed and resorted to the hints for which i am most grateful thanks to firefly and to gazza even with the hints, and consequent surfeit of checkers, i still was stumped i only hope i am not alone!
Enjoyable and not especially tough in toto but peculiar in places. Some lovely flourishes (“articles we spiked”, “piece of current”, etc) but a couple of hmms and the odd surface that creaked. I thought 10a was a tad weak, 28a’s clunky and 24a’s definition of fritters (even allowing for crossword stretch) was questionable. Not the same thing at all! In 21a, I know the “writer’s” meant to be helpful (ie, literary) but it really wasn’t! Fun, though. This was good, honest sport. 5d’s a great spot, 15a’s lively and 17d was very jolly. And I liked 13a’s surface very much, even though the anagram wasn’t terribly taxing. Thanks to Firefly and Gazza.
Ignoring the exception that was Tuesday, this has been a good week for proper Toughies
There was an expert in Sirenians in a murder mystery I was reading yesterday which helped no end with 18a. My favourite was 25a – not a line you hear much of these days
Thanks to Firefly and Gazza
Fortuitous timing indeed! I had to check the meaning in 18a to justify the answer – that old cliché about every day being a school day.
As with yesterday, I was relieved that our blogger found this quite testing. It took me ages to get going, but then it evolved into a steady solve, albeit a slow one. 25a snd 17d were my co-favourites in this most entertaining Toughie.
My thanks to Firefly and Gazza.
Needed help from my knight with a couple of bits of parsing and crawled across the finish line feeling somewhat 2d, certainly on the solving front! Favoured clues were 25a&17d,
Thanks to Firefly and to Gazza for the review and the cartoons.
For most of this puzzle I was staring a second consecutive dnf on the face but I stuck at it. Once I got a couple of the more difficult ones I finished it comfortably after struggling all the way through I might add. 8a was a new word for me and I needed the hint to parse 21a and I still don’t fully understand the muscle bit. Favourite was 4d mainly because I worked it out. Thanks to Firefly and Gazza.
The BRB says THEW is ‘(literary)(used chiefly in plural thews or thewes) custom; trait; manner; moral quality; muscle or strength’.
Thanks Gazza that saves me the job of looking it up. I’ll try and remember it in the future.
Found this really hard work until we got 13a sorted and things got much more straightforward thereafter.
An enjoyable solve for us.
Thanks Firefly and Gazza.
One of the best for a while, a proper toughie to while away a miserable early evening. 25a was my favourite. Thanks to Firefly and Gazza.
No idea how long I actually spent on this but opened it on the old site 9hrs ago. Solved the bottom half without help earlier today & returned to the tougher top half this evening. Completed but only with the aid of 4 checker reveals which was one more than needed yesterday. Another day then of foolishly trying to play off the championship tees but unlike yesterday at least I got ‘em all parsed correctly albeit many whys arrived on the last bus.
Thanks to Firely & to Gazza.
Really browned off at being bounced into the puzzles section instead of the erstwhile version in the digital np. Find it really clumsy and resent the patronising Schnickschnack.
Apparently, nobody else seems to mind?
You & me too. If they remove the old puzzles site (which I use for the Sun Toughie & obviously now for the last 2 days) I will consider cancelling my subscription – in my view the new site is by a margin the worst one out there (Graun, Indy & FT far better). All about flogging puzzle subscriptions to those who only have the basic digital package presumably
Glad to hear I’m not alone.
Boy, was this tough?!! Two completed on the first run through and ages spent looking at just three answers. Gradually got going and finished it but not one of the most enjoyable for me. No favourites I’m afraid *****/***
With the exception of 3d,which I thought rather weak/spurious, this was a great Thursday Toughie, perfectly pitched – ie I found it very challenging but doable in a reasonable time.
COTD for me was 17d but so many vied for that position including 9a, 28a, 4d, 23d.
4* / 4*
Thank you to Firefly and Gazza
Jolly difficult! I got 7d straight away and then came to a grinding halt. One clue, not a good thing! So many thanks for the hints – I would never have got THEW without them. I’ll crawl back to bed now!
PS thanks to Firefly as well, of course!
Way above my pay grade, but pleased to get as many as I did.
Thanks for the hints.
? Friday already…….not a clue!