Sunday Toughie No 119
by Robyn
Hints and Tips by Sloop John Bee
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Phew That was a proper Toughie. Fortunately, the delay in getting the new site to upload didn’t happen and I managed to start this shortly after midnight. I managed to fill the grid by about 01:30 and after a first stab at parsing I slipped off to the land of nod just before an antipodean email sympathised with my plight (thanks to the 2K’s I hope to hear your views when you wake)
The new site no longer confirms a correct gridfill so I may have answers different to yours, I cannot hint as many as I would like so If you disagree with any of my hints or want to discuss alternative answers I will be lenient with the red pencil of doom today
The change of website and the difficulty level appear to be an attempt to reduce the number of correct entries, so maybe the Mythical™(Steve Cowling) is a little more likely
Quite a lot of Greeks today of varying levels of obscurity and after a conversation with my wine merchant on Friday I recall that today is Greek Orthodox Easter (Thanks Christos) Maybe Robyn is also celebrating Easter by the Julian Calendar
We have 14a and 14d clues today and I will try to keep the hints down to half
Here we go…
As it is a Prize puzzle I can only hint at a few and hope that will give you the checkers and inspiration to go further. I’ll be back just after the closing date with the full blog. Don’t forget to follow BD’s instructions in RED at the bottom of the hints!
I hope I don’t have to redact any comments but I am new at this and don’t want to rock the boat. If in doubt, I’ll rub it out! I think that sentence is a bit redundant. You have all been so helpful in sorting out prior parsing failures, and I am sure I will need similar help again.
Most of the terms used in these hints are explained in the Glossary and examples are available by clicking on the entry under “See also” Where the hint describes a construct as “usual” this means that more help can be found in The Usual Suspects, which gives a number of the elements commonly used in the wordplay. Another useful page is Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing, which features words with meanings that are not always immediately obvious. Don’t forget the Mine of useful information that Big Dave and his son Richard so meticulously prepared for us.
A full review of this puzzle will be published after the closing date for submissions. Some hints follow: Remember the site rules and play nicely
Across
1a Sudden ace – Becker’s first game point (6)
Four little bits of Lego™ to start, the letter on an ace, the initial of the tennis player, the game for 15 men with odd-shaped balls and a printers point suddenly came to mind
10a Old fashion label getting into fleece hosiery (8)
O for old and a fashion label that Marty McFly displayed on his underwear in Back to the Future are inserted into to fleece or con
13a Group‘s reason surfing couldn’t take place? (5)
Split 2-3 This could be the reason why you are unable to surf the interwebs, as 5 it is a specific number of musicians
17a Say wrongly subtitled film managed to get panned (13)
Three bits of Lego™ here, The film that obscured our view on a drive through the Trough of Bowland yesterday and synonyms of managed and panned
24a Child, say, welcomes jollies behind a seaside town (8)
A child approaching adulthood welcomes a from the clue and jollies is a slang term for Royal Marines loved by all the nice girls
26a Oedipus maybe hiding base love, which is comic (3,5)
How the Greek king (who loved his Mama a bit too much) may be defined by the city of his birth, hiding the letter that is the base of natural logarithms and the letter that love suggests
Me when the penny dropped
27a Perhaps mind setter’s bad temper – it’s terrible (3-3)
Robyn is not the setter here, more likely we are invited to mind his dog. A slighted and offended feeling and an anagram of its
Down
1d Scour area, ordered to capture rook (6)
An abbreviation of area and a poetic past tense of ordered capturing the chess notation for a rook
3d Criticise climbing site left by European climber (7)
A social climber or upstart, a reversal (climbing) of to criticise and a site where an event takes place from which E for Europe has left
6d Terse Spanish article coming to a point at the end? (7)
A Spanish article and a trigonometric shape that comes to a point. This terse adjective is more Greek! Expressing or expressed in few words (in reference to the Capital of the area of Ancient Greece where a succinct style of Spartan speech originated)
7d Disgraced president loses head around current Greek king (5)
Never heard of him! But the construction was clear, The physical symbol for current surrounded by the President who was disgraced by the Watergate crisis without his first letter When you have put the Lego™ together Mr Google will tell you he was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly.[3]
15d Spooner’s amounts of liquid fuel, with litres carried by kids (9)
Much grief here, My last one in by a country mile. Robyn is very naughty here, it took me ages to realise that this clue has nothing to do with the Reverend Doctor Spooner. An anagram (liquid) of fuel, and the abbreviation for litres are carried by young male children – The amount (of soup perhaps) carried by a specific type of spoon
20d Key soldiers close to President Ford, once (6)
A computer key (top left on my laptop) and the closing letter of president around soldiers of unspecified rank. As well as producing this model (that I have driven) I think they owned 12d once (which I haven’t)
22d Governess protects one place to keep eggs (5)
A fictional Governess who cared for the ward of Edward Rochester at Thornfield House contains the letter that looks like one
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In view of the Ancient Greek theme today here is another Greek from the Archives
That’s All Folks…
I always look forward to the triweekly (I’ve checked and it can mean every three weeks) Robyn Sunday Toughie and this splendid crossword didn’t disappoint. Although it was a proper Toughie, I didn’t find it as tough as SJB seems to have done and I enjoyed every minute
I loved so many clues but will just list 26a, 5d (sneaky def) 12d, the extra sneaky Spooner in 15a, the reminder of the old ‘brief’ in 18d – I could go on but the sun is shining and I want to get back outside
Thanks very much to Robyn and SJB
Maybe not quite as hard as last Sunday’s proXimal but I was glad I recently brushed up my Ancient Greek with Stephen Fry’s Mythos books
It was tricky to keep hints down to half – hence the more mature monarchs
Took me an age to get going on this one. My first one in was actually 12d, which ended up as my favourite…and which I have driven 😁.
All your hints are correct as far as I can see Sloop. Top work, as I needed the explanation for the jollies.
Thanks Robyn for a tough Toughie and to SJB.
Another cracking Robyn puzzle – many thanks to him and to SJB.
I really liked 4a, 14a, 5d (youthful monarch – brilliant!) and 18d but my favourite has to be the very sneaky 15d.
Robyn up to his usual high standard with a ‘just right’ Toughie for a Sunday morning. I often nominate a balanced podium of favourites for both across and down clues, but today I am leaning toward the downs with my selections being 11a, 17a, 5d, 12d, 15d and 18d. I particularly enjoyed the mis-leading ‘Spooner’, but was on my guard from the off because the phrasing of the clue seemed a bit un-Spoonerism-like. The ‘old servant’ and ‘Greek king’ were new to me but both were clear from the construction. LOI was 19d because I had entered the wrong answer for 27a, being animal specific and requiring an ‘o’ for the last letter of 19d. After some time spent trying to think of a ‘manner of speaking’ that fitted my checkers (well, there are lots of Italian words for styles of music that end in ‘o’!) I decided something had to be amiss and managed to home in on the correct answers.
Many thanks to both Robyn and SJB.
P.S. The DT must have listened to me, or perhaps many like-minded solvers, because the font size in printouts from the new site are now larger and easily legible. And they have added the date, which is another request that I had (but not yet the day of the week). The grid size on a printout has also increased, so much so that there is now a risk of clues overflowing onto a second A4 page. Better to be too big than too small, but I’m hoping this may be fine-tuned. Access to the archive is also much extended, and I expect it will further extend over time. I do find navigation around the archive is a bit clunky, requiring lots of clicks at the moment. Nevertheless, the site is now much improved and, for me, useable. Thank you, DT – keep up the good work!
I agree that the new site is improved, once I made the app update the solve went pretty smoothly, although I have weaned myself off using the 5 bonus letters, I will miss the confirmation of a 100% grid-fill though. I am sure I will make a mistake eventually and the blog will point out those mistakes when they happen
Was really struggling until the hints became available but once I got going I managed to complete the grid. I think that I have the correct answer to 19d but I am struggling to parse it.
Being a recovered train-spotter, 7d gave no problem, being the name of a preserved loco at Crewe.
Favourites include 13a, 25a and 15d.
8d is a horrible word!
Thanks to Robyn and SJB for the much needed hints.
RE 19d.I too had to scratch my head for a while.i discovered that ‘jade’ is an old horse… if that helps without me being sent to the naughty corner 😬
That explains it. Thank you.
No naughty corner from me, that synonym of jade made the hint before I had to cut them down for the blog
I wish I had remembered that preserved loco too – my sister lives in Crewe and I have seen it several times but as the NRM at York is nearby I am much better acquainted with their trains
Tackled at lunchtime but away until now. Super, super puzzle – I had the fortune to tune in relatively quickly and felt this had the deftness of touch, wit, and humour that would have marked it out as a Robyn production even before coming here.
26a & 12d both outstanding and share the top step of the podium ,with runners-up 15d & 16d. Many others could have joined them.
Thank you Robyn and SJB
Mercifully much easier than last week (eventually threw in the towel 3 shy) though still on the tough side for the likes of me. All completed without reference to the hints but who knows if correctly now the old site is no more. Greek myth not really my bag (only remembered where Rex came from when saw the comic) so had never heard of the fella at 7d. As ever with Robyn a terrific puzzle with ticks all over the shop – 5d has to the pick for the penny drop.
Thanks to Robyn & to John
That is pretty much how I solved Oedipus too,
Once I saw the base and the love and realised that the comic was the definition I was
“Oh that’s where he is from”
SJB, thanks for the review, particularly for posting the Tom Lehrer video. Coincidently the NTSPP theme included just this title along with others by this maestro if you care to have a look. It was compiled with you partly in mind!
Thanks, the NTSPP is on my list next just catching up on Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
( Kidding)
It may be a spring afternoon but it doesn’t feel like it here!