Toughie 3263 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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Toughie 3263

by Gazza  

Toughie No 3263 by Beam
Hints and tips by Gazza

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +

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

It’s Beam on duty today and he’s been pretty gentle with us. Thanks to him.

Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.

Across Clues

1a  Enrage former Queen consumed about snake (10)
EXASPERATE: the prefix meaning former, the cipher of our late Queen and a verb meaning consumed contain a small snake.

6a  Virtually junk food? (4)
SPAM: double definition. Virtually here means ‘in the world of IT’.

9a  Check inside mineral source for pigment (5)
OCHRE: insert the chess abbreviation for check into a mineral source.

10a  China possibly after auto plant (9)
CARNATION: what China is an example of follows an auto.

12a  Hooked perch? (7)
ROOSTED: cryptic definition meaning ‘got its claws around a perch’.

13a  Knaves with King in poker, maybe (5)
CARDS: knaves or rotters containing an abbreviation for king.

15a  Contraption is ergonomically keeping air cleaner? (7)
IONISER: hidden.

16a  More idiotic learner wearing idiotic smile (7)
SIMPLER: our usual learner driver is inside an idiotic smile.

18a  Lubricates edges on gear’s casing (7)
GREASES: a verb meaning edges or inches follows the outer letters of gear.

20a  Quiet before long envelops northern river (7)
SHANNON: an instruction to be quiet and an adverb meaning ‘before long’ contain the abbreviation for northern.

21a  Nice way to express boredom? (5)
ENNUI: the word that someone in Nice would use for boredom.

23a  Love changes seeing female organs (7)
OVARIES: the letter that resembles love or zero and a verb meaning changes.


25a  Happy Beam is in action? (9)
DELIGHTED: a beam or ray goes inside an action.

26a  Cancel important dates with sweetheart (5)
ERASE: significant historical periods and Beam’s usual swEetheart.

27a  Let rip? (4)
RENT: double definition, the second a verb to rip which the BRB says is obsolete or dialect.

28a  Main pressure around municipality’s first sewer (10)
SEAMSTRESS: what main is a literary term for and a synonym of pressure or strain contain the first letter of municipality.

Down Clues

1d  Painful spot upset love god (4)
EROS: reverse a painful spot on the body. With the reversal indicator being in the middle this clue could work either way round so we need a checking letter to decide.

2d  Support promotion thus taking clear raise (9)
ADHERENCE: join an abbreviated promotion or plug and an adverb meaning thus and insert the outer letters of ‘raise’.

3d  Crucial to check body’s attractive (13)
PREPOSSESSING: an adjective meaning crucial or urgent contains a body of men.


4d  Heretic eruditely holding up speaker (7)
RECITER: hidden in reverse.

5d  Craft’s circling current in storms (7)
TIRADES: a synonym of craft or ‘line of work’ plus its ‘S contains the symbol for electric current.

7d  Previous conviction for American religious leader (5)
PRIOR: double definition, the first the word US cops use for a perp’s previous criminal conviction.

8d  Soup stock’s quality inspires restaurant’s starter (10)
MINESTRONE: start with a word for a stock or store (you’ll find a very useful one under the ‘features’ tab on our home page) with its S and add a synonym of quality containing the first letter of restaurant.

11d  Backing account, criticise one in remark (13)
ACCOMPANIMENT: the abbreviation for account followed by a verb to criticise and the Roman one inside the sort of remark that I hope we’ll get a lot of on this blog today.

14d  Brains of lecturer catching fire briefly (10)
RINGLEADER: a senior university lecturer contains a word for fire or fireplace without its last letter. If you accessed the puzzle from one of the puzzles sites earlier (or presumably if you’re a newspaper subscriber) you’ll have seen a slightly different clue (without the ‘briefly’) which doesn’t quite work.

17d  View loch with small ness (9)
LANDSCAPE: assemble the abbreviation for loch, a conjunction meaning ‘with’, the clothing abbreviation for small and a ness or headland.

19d  Dog finally gets bed and leash (7)
SCOTTIE: bring together the final letter of ‘gets’, a small bed and a verb to leash.

20d  Almost begin party with married name (7)
STARDOM: a charade of a truncated verb to begin, a festive party and the genealogical abbreviation for married.

22d  Natural yarn looking organic? Not initially (5)
NYLON: initial letters of five words in the clue.

24d  Shortened county borders (4)
BEDS: double definition, the second being the type of borders where you might plant your primulas.

For my podium I’ve selected 7d, 19d and 24d. What about you?

23 comments on “Toughie 3263”

  1. I really enjoyed this apart from two concerns. 1d is ambiguous; and 14d doesn’t work as the wordplay leads to an extra E in the answer.

    I had lots of ticks: 6a, 13a, 27a, 28a, 7d (good to see the US indicator!) & 17d.

    Many thanks to Beam and to Gazza.

    1. Ah! I’ve just read Gazza’s review and I see that 14d has undergone a late change which does now work.

      Interesting to note that adding “briefly” to the clue in the newspaper (“brains of university lecturer catching fire”) would have taken it up to seven words so the superfluous “university” has been removed to bring it back to six!

  2. A gentle but pleasant puzzle today.
    The only one which caused confusion was 16a, as I was convinced it involved an anagram (idiotic) of smile.
    Many thanks to Beam and to Gazza.

    1. Jezza, it’s worth remembering that Beam Toughies never contain anagrams.

      1. …. even though I know that, I still couldn’t see the parsing for a while!

  3. A most enjoyable and pleasantly benign challenge from Beam. I printed the puzzles early enough to have got them from the old site, late enough for the clue edit already to have been made. Hon mentions to 25a, 11d & 22d.

    Many thanks to Beam and Gazza

  4. Very rarely do I find the Toughie more straightforward than the backpager, but this was one of those occasions. As ever with this setter, the brevity, accuracy and and wit made it a most enjoyable solve with 6a taking my favourite spot.

    Thanks to Mr T and Gazza.

  5. Very rarely do I find the Toughie more straightforward than the backpager, but this was one of those occasions. As ever with this setter, the brevity, accuracy and and wit made it a most enjoyable solve with 6a taking my favourite spot.

    Thanks to Mr T and Gazza.

      1. You’ve changed your alias so this needed moderation. Both aliases will work from now on.

  6. A bit more than one * for me, some clues went straight in but a bit more thought needed for others.
    Ironic that ‘briefly’ was the missing word from the master of brevity. 😁
    Thanks Gazza and Beam.

  7. An enjoyable toughie without being too difficult. I guess this is the lull before the storm (tomorrow). I do like this setter’s style and brevity. Lots of good clues but I liked the neat 27A for podium.
    Many thanks to Gazza for making Thursdays so humorous, and Beam for his fine touch.

  8. A bit more than a 1* difficulty for me too not helped by initially entering sore at 1d. Once sorted it all went in pretty smoothly. 3d my pick of a good bunch.
    Thanks to Beam & to Gazza

    1. I did that at 1d. 50/50 and got it wrong. I agree with it being more straightforward than the back pager, but more fun. I look forward to tomorrow!
      Thanks

  9. After two dnf’s on the toughies this week this was just what I needed. I didn’t understand 14d, I now see why. Favourite was 11d. Thanks to Beam and Gazza.

  10. Mr T plus Gazza’s cartoons – perfect afternoon! Took me a while to accept 12a although the answer couldn’t be anything else, the remainder slotted in quite nicely.
    Plenty of podium contenders but I’ll settle for Happy Beam in action as my favourite.

    Devotions as ever to Mr T/Beam and many thanks to Gazza for the review and the laughs.

  11. Evening all. Thanks to Gazza for the review and to all who left a comment.

    RayT

  12. So that’s why we could not sort the parsing for 14d. Guessed something had gone wrong there. Pondered for a while about how 12 worked but did get it eventually.
    Enjoyable solve as ever from this setter.
    Nice to see Rowan Atkinson having his third outing this week.
    Thanks Beam and Gazza.

  13. I didn’t do the Toughie today and i’m sure i will not do it online anymore.

    The Telegraphs new puzzles site is not for me. Am i still paying for it?

    I would do the paper version, but as i’m about 3750 miles away we don’t get deliveries. i hope a mate back in UK may send me something now and then.

    Good bye.

    1. That is such a shame Wahoo.

      I use the Telegraph Puzzles app on an Android tablet rather than the new website and that is a lot more useable. It’s worth persevering.

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