Toughie No 3267 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **/***
I had a bit of a shock this morning. The method that I’ve used to paste the clues seamlessly from the Puzzles site into my Word document for the last 15 years doesn’t work with the new site; that resulted in a lot of fiddling about and swearing. So, if you find any typos in the clues here it’s down to me.
Kcit has given us a puzzle containing his usual large ration of abbreviations and lots of letter deletions. On the plus side he’s been very sparing with the number of anagrams. Thanks to him.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Across Clues
1a Fill a pause resulting from actor Fonda, H rejecting part of script (6,3,3)
BRIDGE THE GAP: start with the forename of a Fonda (not H, but B) and add H and the reversal of part of a script. Clever!
9a Initial move is to disregard initial promises to pay? That’s aspirational (9)
AMBITIOUS: join together an opening move in chess without its first letter and promises to pay.
10a Religious leader I brought in for opening of rectory (5)
PRIOR: insert I into a preposition meaning ‘for’ and append the opening letter of rectory.
11a Acknowledge limits to clever amendment (6)
CREDIT: the outer letters of clever and a textual amendment.
12a Golf ace with response to shot perhaps when covering network programme (4,4)
GAME SHOW: assemble the letter that golf represents in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet, the abbreviation for ace and how you might respond if you got shot (presumably not fatally). All that contains a network or lattice.
13a Wine shop vintage returned after getting one-third of way through bottle (6)
BODEGA: reverse a 4-letter adjective meaning vintage after the first third of the word bottle. It took me some time to realise that ‘vintage’ was four letters not three and that the bottle wasn’t a container I’d never heard of.
15a Like an instinctive feeling quickly spread around small church (8)
VISCERAL: an adjective meaning ‘quickly spread’ (an infection, say) containing abbreviations for small and church.
18a Decide unknown meat is dog (8)
SEALYHAM: rivet together a verb to decide or conclude (a deal, for example), one of the algebraic unknowns and a type of meat.
19a Irritate Roman Catholic embracing current liturgical direction (6)
RUBRIC: a verb to irritate or chafe followed by the abbreviation for Roman Catholic containing the symbol for electric current.
21a Grave individual holding front of ruined instrument (8)
TROMBONE: synonyms for a grave and individual contain the front letter of ruined.
23a Question about hazard after spilling first drink (6)
WHISKY: an interrogative adverb expecting a reply contains a hazard or danger without its first letter.
26a Break out from ultimately mundane routine? That takes power (5)
ERUPT: the ultimate letter of mundane and a dull routine containing the physics abbreviation for power.
27a Small source of nicotine – I question importing one into company (9)
CIGARILLO: I and a verb to question someone intensely containing a letter meaning one all go inside the abbreviation for company.
28a A sport for the active, not likely to crack (12)
SHATTERPROOF: an anagram (active) of A SPORT FOR THE.
Down Clues
1d Animal’s offspring have discovered means of breathing underwater (4,3)
BEAR CUB: a verb to have or give birth to and a means of breathing underwater without its outer letters.
2d The writer’s unhappy, erasing line showing “permeate” (5)
IMBUE: a contracted form of ‘the writer is’ from his viewpoint and an adjective meaning unhappy without the abbreviation for line.
3d Managing Times after acquisition (7,2)
GETTING BY: a word that means times in maths follows a gerund meaning acquisition.
4d Go round old classical city (4)
TROY: a synonym for a go or stab contains the abbreviation for old.
5d City interference at a very high level? (8)
ECSTATIC: combine the postal area of the City of London and a word for interference (on a radio for example). The question mark indicates that high is being used cryptically to mean ‘having taken amphetamines’.
6d Enough taste, once uncapped (5)
AMPLE: a verb to taste without its top letter.
7d Not finishing urgent packing – in that respect an indecisive sort (8)
DITHERER: an adjective meaning urgent or acute without its last letter contains an adverb meaning ‘in that respect’ or ‘on that issue’.
8d One digs up scrap, some say not completely successfully (6)
TROWEL: reverse (up) a word for a scrap or fragment and add an adverb meaning successfully without its last letter. The ‘some say’ is there presumably to indicate that the word for scrap is a dialect term.
14d Discussion expected to involve one with a report from captain? (8)
DIALOGUE: an adjective meaning expected contains the Roman numeral for one, A and the captain’s report that used to come at the start of all Star Trek episodes.
16d Confess doctor will lead surgery as medical treatment (5,4)
COUGH DROP: string together an informal verb to confess, an abbreviation for doctor and an abbreviated surgical procedure.
17d Panelling with wrought cast iron? Not right (8)
WAINSCOT: the abbreviation for ‘with’ and an anagram (wrought) of CAST I[r]ON.
18d Military update: “Area 16 occupied by core of force” (6)
SITREP: how the sixteenth area might be described (4,1) assuming that identities are allocated alphabetically contains the central letter of force.
20d Give false alarm: “County’s borders breached by river current rising” (3,4)
CRY WOLF: the outer letters of county contain the abbreviation for river. After that reverse a synonym for current (body of water).
22d Error giving children to husband and wife? Husband must leave (5)
BOTCH: the abbreviation for children follows a word that could identity not just husband or wife but the two of them. Finally delete the genealogical abbreviation for husband.
24d Area of France almost entirely occupied by large artillery assault (5)
SALVO: an area of France bordering Italy loses its last letter and contains the clothing abbreviation for large.
25d Monster threat? Not a good look to change sides (4)
OGRE: start with a lecherous look and change one of the letters from one side to the other.
The clues I liked best were 1a and 1d. Which ones made you 5d?
I found this about right for a Thursday Toughie. It was one of those ‘you’ll get on better if you start with the Downs’ crosswords. Thanks to Kcit and Gazza.
If anyone from Telegraph Towers is reading this, please could you make the grid the same size as the one on the old puzzles site, as not only would it be a bit more user friendly, we wouldn’t have to make sure that the last clue wasn’t on a separate sheet of paper.
If we persevate we might be able to get the DT to reinstate some of the print features we had on the old site. As it is by printing the cryptic, the toughie, the quickie & the codeword daily I am keeping an ink manufacturer going on my own.
New dialect word for me in 8d’s scrap and I did need to check on the military update – silly girl!
Top clues here were 9a plus 3&22d.
Thanks to kcit and to Gazza for the review and always eagerly awaited cartoons – I invariably try to guess what your selection will be.
Absolutely loved this wonderful puzzle, tremendous fun and way too many ticks by the end of it! Started in the NW (despite not having heard of that actress) and worked steadily AC, finishing in the NE with 8d – entered only half-parsed. The dearth of anagrams was most welcome – I know they are in themselves usually very clever, but I do like the variety in wordplay that one gets from other clue types. COTD for me 18a – great surface, super working terrier. Other Hon Mentions limited perforce to 21a (10/10 for the surface), 14d and 20d.
A cracker, thank you Kcit. Thanks also to Gazza for your persistence and the great cartoons.
I’ve been in email correspondence with the Puzzles Wing of Telegraph Towers concerning printing from the B-awful ‘new’ site. I was told on Friday (before today’s repeat 22d) that “As these font changes were implemented very recently, I suspect the issues that you have encountered — most notably with a Toughie clue being cut off, which I agree is unacceptable — are just teething problems, and should be fixed in the next patch. It should not be necessary in the long term, but selecting “Fit to page” to avoid any clues running onto a second page, or scaling the size of the puzzle would be a temporary solution.”
Unfortunately the approach taken by the DT to printing the crosswords does not allow scaling to bring the content of the second page on to the first page. And in neither Edge nor Firefox have I found a “fit to page” option when going through the DT’s required print procedure. One can try to print the web page and “fit to page”, but doing so does not produce a crossword grid, and needs to be done in landscape in order to get the clues printed.
Not got a round to it yet but I had similar problems with c/p with the new site, eventually I found if you copy just the clues and paste them as plain text they come out ok, a bit of fiddling with emboldening and they look ok
s-l1200
Excellently clued and no general knowledge required. 18d was a new word for me but I know it now. Needed the hint to parse 8d. Favourite was 1a even though I had to reverse engineer it. Thanks to Kcit and Gazza.
I enjoyed this a lot. Inventive clues, albeit a few were a bit wordy, with good surfaces. Top slot goes to 18a which raised a smile, 8d and 16d. I had the same problem with 13a as you Gazza.
The new site won’t let me store my name and email [but then my browser is a bit antiquated].
Thanks to Kcit and Gazza [loved the cartoons, especially 3d].
Gazza, you’re not the only one who finds the new site a pain in the ….
No doubt we’ll work out how to handle it eventually.
My biggest beef is the £3.95 a month rapidly upped to £4.95 and no sign of a refund on the £35.88 I paid three months ago for a year’s worth of crosswords.
I rang them up and sorted out a refund fairly easily
An enjoyable solve for us that went in with any major hold ups.
Sympathise with Gazza as we had to modify our copy and paste procedure yesterday when putting our blog together. We, luckily, because of time zones, have plenty of time to fit in the extra fiddling involved with using the new site.
Thanks Kcit and Gazza.
It all went in pretty smoothly until the impenetrable brick wall of 18a&d. Wasn’t familiar with the cute dog breed & couldn’t peg the declare synonym until I revealed the S checker. Even then I struggled with last in 18d & resorted to the hint – doh.
A lovely puzzle. 1a was a super starter (pic from Jackie Brown?) & my favourite with podium spots for 1&14d & a good few ticks elsewhere
Thanks as ever to Kcit & to Gazza (love the Countdown cartoon)
Yes the 1a pic is from Jackie Brown, a great film.