Toughie No 3304 by Elgar
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
The sort of rainy day where if you are Tim the Tortoise (I’m looking after her while our neighbours are in France), it is a day for sheltering in the corner of your run, but if you are a crossword solver, you are happy to stay indoors and solve this Friday Toughie from Elgar – there were quite a few solver-friendly clues this time (and who can resist a crossword with 7d in it!) but some of the others took quite a time to both solve and parse – in the latter case, I’m looking at you 4/26a!
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought
Across
1a Readers absorbed by his adventure stories like tea and cake? (6)
BUCHAN A Scottish author whose readers would be absorbed by his adventure stories such as The 39 Steps – his surname is made up of some tea ‘absorbed’ into a type of cake
4a/26a Retro instruments, stripped of core measure and current, do take charge (4,2,2,3,5)
STEP UP TO THE PLATE A reversal (retro) of people under the control of others (instruments) without the middle letter (stripped of core) followed a measure of spirits, and two words (do = ditto) meaning current (the first fashionable, the second most recent)
9a Classic way for train compartment to smuggle in fine food (6)
CAVIAR The Roman (classic) word for road (way) ‘smuggled’ into a train carriage
10a/24a From which, sadly, he can die with cool sips (8,8)
POISONED CHALICES Gifts which are likely to cause great difficulty to the recipient. An anagram (sadly) of HE CAN DIE and COOL SIPS
12a Pilferers originally steal cycles, note, by personal choice (4,1,3)
PICK N MIX The original letter of Pilferers, a synonym for steal where the first letter ‘cycles’ to the end, the third note of the tonic sol-fa scale and the letter used to indicate by in multiplication sums and measurements
13a Tick that Spooner gives a lot! (2,4)
SO MUCH Spoonerise an informal small period of time (tick) and a synonym for that
15a/18a Bold, apparently fashionable types watch hospital admission? (3,8,2,6,7)
NOT BACKWARD IN COMING FORWARD Not from the past (apparently fashionable) and a phrase (8,3,4) that could describe a hospital admission
18a See 15 Across
20a Extremely reduced temperature is due to onset of lurgy? The reverse (6)
LOWEST The clue says that you should take an abbreviation for Temperate and part of a verb meaning is due to followed by the ‘onset’ of Lurgy. Do as the last two words say and ‘reverse’ the positions of the T and the L
22a With it you’d want to do the same! (3,5)
SEX DRIVE If you had ‘it’, you would be very much desiring another person (the informal meaning of ‘it’ that many solvers always claim to have never heard of)
24a See 10 Across
25a Transfer inferior silver back (6)
SECOND A quadruple definition clue
26a See 4 Across
27a Ex-dealer might admit this love of Tristan? (6)
ISOLDE The love of Tristan in a medieval romance – split 1,4,1 this would be an admission by an ex-drug dealer
Down
1d Army section dictated trade with mushroom farmer? (6)
BICEPS Not a section of the army but … :) A homophone (dictated) of a verb meaning to trade with a farmer of a particular type of mushroom
2d Watch dog rearing threaten holiday (4,5)
CAVE CANEM A reversal (rearing) of a verb meaning to threaten (dog) and an abbreviated holiday – the Latin for ‘beware (watch out for the) dog’
3d More grey rinse, reluctantly (7,4,4)
AGAINST ONES WILL Once more, a dull light brownish-grey and a verb meaning to rinse
5d Invitees to early lifeboat trip arrived in these (4)
TWOS The way in which invitees to a very early lifesaving trip arrived
6d Message from father, or a son in mediaeval attire? (8,7)
PASTORAL ADDRESS OR A (from the clue) and a synonym for son inserted into a way of describing attire from long ago
7d Zipping up proves too much for this animated emperor! (5)
PINGU Hidden in the first two words of the clue
8d Ming vases possibly familiar? (3,5)
OLD CHINA This description of Ming vases could possibly, if you were a Cockney, be a way of referring to a familiar friend
11a Blunder with current run through browser (7)
GIRAFFE A blunder into which is inserted the symbol for electrical current and the cricket abbreviation for Run
14d Went about in a Mini? (7)
SKIRTED Went around or wearing (in) a mini
16d Radio vote for Sir Ken’s best joke perhaps lost Charlie (9)
DODDIPOLL An obsolete (lost in the mists of time) word for a fool (Charlie) – A homophone (radio) of a vote for the best joke of Sir Ken, the Liverpudlian comedian
17d That is at least six games broken by Croatian Grand Slammer (8)
SCILICET The Latin word meaning that is, often seen abbreviated in crossword clues, is obtained by inserting the surname of a Croatian tennis player (Grand Slammer) into a series of at least six games a tennis player has to win
19d Essential injection? Line makes way for bishop (4-2)
NEED-BE Replace the abbreviation (makes way for) for Line in an informal name for an injection with the chess abbreviation for Bishop
21d On the way, Toughie compilers work together (5)
WEAVE The way our Toughie compilers as a group might refer to themselves and an abbreviated wide and handsome street (way)
23d Attend course for PCs (4)
BEAT A two-word way of saying attend – the PCs here are not computers!
Pleased to have completed this, albeit after a very slow start. Most enjoyable although I find the 13a Spoonerism a tad unconvincing. Maybe it’s just me…Thanks Elgar and crypticissue
It’s an Elgar, so by definition a full-on 5-star Toughie, but I thought it slightly more benign than some of Mr Henderson’s can often be. Chipping away at clues and adding letters to the three (very) long and (very) broken clues suddenly resulted in lights dawning all over the place and pennies dropping.
I did not cotton-on to the parsing of 4a/26a or 15a/18a and am hugely grateful to Sue for explaining why my answers were correct. I had to look up name lists of animated penguins to understand my answer to 7d, and 16d was an entirely new word to me, having to look it up afterwards to confirm it existed – for a long time I was making mental lists of every Sir Ken I could recall.
For much of the puzzle I thought the brilliant 27a was going to be my COTD, but it was supplanted by the laugh-out-loud genius of 1d, a candidate for clue of the year. They were joined by the inspired quadruple definition of 25a and the witty 5d.
5* / 5*
Many thanks indeed to Elgar, and most especially to Sue for filling the gaping void that is the Friday Toughie slot without Dutch.
At first pass this seemed insoluble – I had one done [13a]. Then 7d went in, I guessed at 4/26 and got the [pretty clearly indicated] anagram at10/24. Now done but I confess to being foiled by the parsing of 4/26 [it’s the “do” what did it]. Fave clues were 2d and the LOL 1d.
Thanks to Elgar and CS.
Oh yes, 2d definitely a Podium Contender too.
Elgar is so devious that even when he provides a clue that looks obvious (e.g. 20a or 23d) I tend to delay writing in the answer in case there’s some subtlety that I’ve missed.
There are some cracking clues here – thanks to Elgar and CS.
Top clues for me were the brilliant quadruple (25a), 27a and 5d with my favourite being the LOL army section (1d).