Toughie 3308 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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Toughie 3308

Toughie No 3308 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza

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

Osmosis has taken a leaf out of Beam’s book and given us a very enjoyable anagram-less puzzle. Thanks to him.

There’s a lot of cleverness on view in the grid. For a start we have (almost) a double pangram – there are no Hs but two of them are visible in the make-up of the grid. Also, we only have a single W but we do have a couple of spare Us (i.e. a double-U). Finally, and I don’t know how significant this is, several pairs of the higher scoring Scrabble letters appear separated by a single letter in the four quadrants (i.e. going clockwise from top-left  Q?Q, X?X, Z?Z and J?J).

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

Across Clues

1a Pastime in craft circle, cutting leaves (6)
QUOITS: the circle-shaped letter is inserted in a verb meaning leaves.

5a Tree boundary around fort put back building work (5,3)
FIRST FIX: an evergreen tree and a cricket boundary surround the reversal of the abbreviation for fort. Not an expression I knew but the BRB says it means the plumbing and electrical work needed once the framework of a new building is complete.

9a Familiar tone embodying clubs favoured rocker (10)
ACQUAINTED: assemble a bluish-green tone containing the cards abbreviation for clubs, an adjective meaning favoured or fashionable and the informal term for a rocker of the 1950s.

10a  Rod Laver’s opening penetrating chop (4)
AXLE: the opening letter of Laver penetrates a verb to chop.

11a Organised bed covering, on rotation still (8)
TRANQUIL: a verb meaning organised and a bed covering with the final letter rotated to the front.

12a Runner faces track after putting in good amount of work (6)
EXERGY: a runner in Devon followed by the abbreviation for a railway track containing the abbreviation for good.

13a Surrounded by morning papers (4)
AMID: abbreviations for morning and papers.

15a Reporter’s searched thoroughly following tense conduct (8)
TRANSACT: what sounds like a verb meaning searched thoroughly follows the grammatical abbreviation for tense.

18a Relative regretted rejecting lofty property (8)
GRANDEUR: a female relative and the reversal of a verb meaning regretted.

19a Jambalaya occasionally served with skill (4)
ABLY: occasional letters from the first word.

21a People from old coffee plantation finally retiring (6)
NAVAJO: string together the abbreviation for old, a type of coffee sourced from Indonesia and the final letter of plantation. Now reverse the lot.

23a Least balanced type of paving cropped first around base (8)
CRAZIEST: a type of paving using irregular slabs loses its last letter and that’s followed by a shorthand way of writing ‘first’ containing the letter used for the base in logarithms.

25a Chief drama school making daughter Juliet (4)
RAJA: start with the acronym of a famous drama school in London and replace the abbreviation for daughter with the letter that Juliet represents in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet.

26a Our cousin‘s ringing about tank having run out (10)
CHIMPANZEE: a synonym of ringing contains the name of a German WWII tank without the cricket abbreviation for run.

27a Spray well inside metal shed (8)
JETTISON: a synonym of spray followed by an adverb meaning well inside a silvery-white metal.

28a What’s the betting luxury hotel offers sample of perfume? (6)
SPRITZ: fuse together the abbreviation for betting odds and the name of a luxury hotel in London.

Down Clues

2d Disorder in leisure club mounted (5)
ULCER: hidden in reverse.

3d Head of Institute dropping academic dinosaur (9)
IGUANODON: assemble the leading letter of Institute, a word for bird dropping(s) and a university academic.

4d Problem around Asian peak once held up by British mountain buff? (3,3)
SKI BUM: a mathematical problem contains what resembles the old name for a Himalayan mountain now called Masherbrum and an abbreviation for British. The answer (new to me) is an informal term for a winter sports enthusiast who travels the world in search of snowy conditions.

5d Profitable Spanish artist barely drawing picture (5,10)
FATAL ATTRACTION: cement together an adjective meaning profitable (as in ‘a *** salary’), the surname of a Spanish surrealist without its outer letters and a synonym of drawing or pull.

6d Track free holiday without thanks (8)
RIDGEWAY: a verb to free and an informal word for a short holiday without a brief word of thanks.

7d Once noble isle in the main (5)
THANE: most of the name of an island (these days a peninsula) in Kent.

8d Mad, topless ascetic maybe entering varying states (9)
ILLOGICAL: an ascetic (or possibly a cartoon bear) without his first letter is contained inside abbreviations for two US states.

14d Mother catches prime youth with September’s centre spread (9)
MARMALADE: an affectionate term for mother contains a verb to prime or activate a weapon. Finish with a synonym of youth and the central letter of September.

16d Store most important bric-a-brac in residence northwards (9)
STATIONER: inside an estate agent’s abbreviation for residence place a way (2,1) of saying most important and a synonym of bric-a-brac or junk. Now reverse the lot.

17d Soldier, with regular chaps keeping in charge, makes merry (8)
REJOICES: the abbreviation for a British soldier (?) and a male name used to describe regular or average chaps containing the abbreviation for ‘in charge’. I can’t find the abbreviation at the start being used for a single soldier as opposed to soldiers.

20d Studying done here affected our country? (6)
CAMPUS: an adjective meaning camp or theatrical and a shorthand way of referring to our country as opposed to a foreign country.

22d On-board command involving a leviathan (5)
AVAST: A and an adjective meaning leviathan.

24d Outwardly sleek golfing area boosted sport (5)
SKEET: the outer letters of sleek and the reversal of an area of the golf course from which Huntsman launches his formidable drives.

There are lots of clues I liked including 1a, 15a, 23a, 26a and 3d. Which one(s) made the cut for you?

 

7 comments on “Toughie 3308

  1. It’s rare for me to be able to complete a puzzle from this setter but I stand far more of a chance with him than with Elgar – I can’t even process what Mr Henderson is asking us to do!
    Needed help from our blogger with 1&5a plus 4d and I’m sure I employed a bit of reverse parsing elsewhere but the grid is filled and I’m jolly pleased with myself.

    Thanks to Osmosis for giving me a chance and to Gazza for the review – the teddy boys’ picnic made me smile!

  2. Stymied, after 1h 35m, by 1a and 4d. Maybe I should try Killer Sudoku instead? 😱
    Thanks all.

  3. Very hard going. Osmosis up to his usual tricks with the grid, without which I doubt I would have been able to get this out. Not knowing the terms / words at 5a, 12a and 4d didn’t make things any easier. Favourite bit was the ‘Rod Laver’ reference at 10a.

    I think there was an Enigmatist in The Guardian in the last week or so which I didn’t do on the day. I might go and tackle that now as a bit of light relief!

    Thanks to Osmosis and Gazza

  4. Great puzzle, but I was defeated by 12a, stupidly forgetting about the other meaning of runner: schoolboy error! That in turn meant I was fixed on Thain and not Thane. Doh.

    Gazza, our cousin in 26a and the Kentish isle give us the double H for the almost double pangram, but still only one W.

    Many thanks to Osmosis and Gazza

    1. Thanks MG. I can’t believe I missed the double H – I think I was distracted by seeing the patterns in the grid.

  5. 1a beat me. The missing w not being possible, I resorted to the hints. Doh! I’ve also noticed all the corner letters extend inwards on a diagonal so there are 3 of each. Makes me wonder if there’s something else going on. Should’ve seen it earlier. Thought 24a rather clever.
    Thanks Osmosis and Gazza

  6. The last Toughie from Osmosis annihilated me but I almost completed this one. 12A was my downfall. I felt it had to be “energy.” I had never heard of the word “exergy” even though it parses perfectly.
    Ah well, we keep on trying with our Friday Toughies.
    Thank you Gazza and Osmosis.

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