Toughie No 3369 by Dada
Hints and tips by ALP
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
I described one of Dada’s recent toughies as one of his gentlest ever and was met with a chorus of disagreement but, damn my eyes, I’m going to say it again! I actually thought this was lighter still. Having said that, 10a’s exact parsing/logic still has me slightly baffled. Hopefully, you’ll all find it blindingly obvious. All yours.
Across
8a Social worker opens maps, briefly, in state capital (7)
ATLANTA: The usual social worker (not bee) inside/opens (a book of) maps, minus its last letter (briefly).
10a Criminal, could one be as sick as a parrot, reportedly? (7)
ILLEGAL: I don’t quite get this, sorry. There’s a three-letter word for “sick” and then a homophone (reportedly) of a bird that’s most definitely not a parrot. We’ve got “could one be” and “as” twice, then a question mark. So, I can only imagine the wordplay means to suggest “whimsically, unwell like a sort of bird, reportedly”. But this all seems like some pretty heavy lifting to me. Unless I’m missing summat. Which is more than possible. One for the grown-ups, I reckon!
11a A deep depression surrounds island that’s back up for grabs (9)
AVAILABLE: ‘A’ from the clue + deep depression/valley surrounding an Indonesian island, reversed/that’s back.
12a Baskets, small vessels filled with runners, initially (5)
TRUGS: Small-ish (but powerful) vessels/boats containing/filled with R[unners].
13a Takeaway dish with honey and milk ultimately rejected (5)
KEBAB: Honey/sweetheart + [mil]K, reversed/rejected.
14a Not right there, if carrying more weight (7)
HEFTIER: THEREIF, not right.
17a Foxes’ home surrounded by water, cockerels perhaps rule the roost (4,3,8)
WEAR THE TROUSERS: The synonym for foxes’ home is contained/surrounded by (what) water (is) + (essentially what) cockerels/roosters (do in the morning, say). Fun construction but does anyone actually still say that these days?
19a Blazer on umpire returned after batting (7)
INFERNO: ‘On’ from the clue + umpire/official, reversed/returned, after the usual two-letter “batting”.
21a Promise Cornish maize? (5)
SWEAR: Cornish (postcode, say) + (a piece of) maize or corn.
24a Supernatural being in middle of earth wearing ring (5)
TROLL: [ea]R[th] inside/wearing “ring” (like a bell).
26a Development announced in April or May, say? (9)
SPROUTING: Announced/published in(side) (the season of, say) April/May.
27a Rivet then broken, one pulled from track (7)
ENTHRAL: THEN, broken, and (train) track, minus/pulled from the usual “one”.
28a Patty dictated for old citizen (7)
BURGHER: Homophone of (beef, etc) patty.
Down
1d Stop and beg for silk fabric (6)
DAMASK: Stop (water, etc) + beg/request.
2d Palace supporter backing a loser originally, bad player (8)
ALHAMBRA: The usual “supporter” following/backing ‘A’ from the clue + L[oser] + bad player/actor.
3d I kneel when playing with brat, little kid (5-5)
ANKLE-BITER: IKNEELBRAT, playing.
4d Hater furious about erection of house, jointly owned property (9)
TIMESHARE: HATER, furious, contains/is about (a small-ish) house, reversed/erected. Are these still a thing over here? To be avoided like a bargepole, I’d have thought. Very popular in the US though, I believe. There must be a joke in there somewhere but I’ll bite my tongue!
5d Fabric cut for muppet (4)
CLOT: Fabric/material, minus the last letter (cut).
6d Rodent with disease in pain, shaved (6)
AGOUTI: (A very painful) disease in(side) [p]AI[n].
7d Learner in various courses finishing actions (8)
CLOSURES: The usual “learner” in(side) COURSES, various.
9d Youth order awarded since bullying offensive, first of all (4)
ASBO: Acrostic (first of all) found in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth words. These don’t actually exist anymore, do they?
15d Nearly sixteen strong (4-6)
FOUR-SQUARE: Another way of saying “sixteen” mathematically, minus the last letter (nearly).
16d Smell, one drifting around old fish (5,4)
LEMON SOLE: SMELLONE, drifting, around/containing the usual “old”.
17d Artist, one with small instrument? (8)
WHISTLER: I think we can call this a double definition, can’t we? (Mother!) artist and/or (some)one with/using a small instrument. Or indeed someone making a musical (arguably) noise without one!
18d Vision okay in crew (8)
EYESIGHT: OK/sure in(side) the usual “crew”.
20d Light seed transported by jet (6)
FLOATY: Seed/grass transported by/inside (to) jet.
22d Look at care (6)
REGARD: Double definition.
23d Steal game (4)
CRIB: Another smart double. The second definition = a (card) game by its diminutive name.
25d Peer into barrel or drum (4)
LORD: A lurker, hidden in the last three words.
We’ve got six anagrams, four reversals, three doubles and one lurker plus one acrostic, a couple of homophones and a wealth of containment/insertion (including no fewer than four “in”s!). Quite a few one-letter deletions too. Pretty brisk and fairly jolly. I rather liked 2d’s Lego, 4d’s surface and 5d’s lean wit but, despite the rather dated expression, 17a and its “cockerels” gets my vote. What did you make of it?
I’ll be the first to disagree as I thought this was just over a 2* Toughie
Thanks to Dada and ALP
Haha. You NEVER agree with me, which is extremely worrying as you (unlike me) actually know what you’re doing!
I think your mind must be hard-wired to Dada’s, ALP! He’s certainly written much tougher puzzles but even so this was not what I would call a walk-over. I really enjoyed this over lunch and if the inside-page puzzle now gets steadily tougher until Friday I shall be a happy chappie.
17a was a cracker (and yes the phrase is certainly still used) and reminded me of an incident years ago when a friend’s young ducks were unable to reach the safety of their island and were slaughtered in their dozens by a fox, despite being fenced in and behind two tiers of double strand electric wire. Thought 17d great but the GK means it has the potential to challenge. I had to get Eagle out of my mind at 2d (Crystal Palace nick name is The Eagles) only for it to appear at 10a. Didn’t like 20d’s seed=oat.
Otherwise a lovely puzzle, thank you Dada. Thanks also to ALP for some great music – I enjoyed that version of Devil and the cartoon at 14a was brilliant.
Edit to add: and having seen CS’s comment, I think I agree with her rating!
I can only hope that Dada never reads this as I’m sure he’d be utterly horrified at your suggestion that he and I have anything in common. I think you all know me well enough by now to immediately discount my difficulty ra(n)tings. And Sue is, of course, never wrong!
A fair bit more of a challenge for me than it apparently was for our blogger but the softly, softly approach eventually paid dividends.
Tops for me were 17a & 2d with a nod to 12a simply because I like the word.
Thanks to Dada and to ALP for the review.
I reckon you’re pretty much there with 10a: my take is it’s asking you to think of something that could be as sick in the same way as a parrot — and an ill eagle could do that.
It’s the only WP I can/could see and Dada does like a bit of whimsy. As do we all. But it’s slightly odd, no?
I’d go for unusual or novel rather than odd! Effectively it’s ‘here’s an example of something, give me another one’, which I think the “could be” and “as” cover.
Anyway, maybe I should try the rest of the puzzle now …
Reminds me of ‘I’m sorry I haven’t a clue’ and an introduction to the Uxbridge English Dictionary….
“Most people don’t know the difference between unlawful and illegal. One is against the law and the other is a sick bird.”
A pleasant puzzle but I’ve never understood why the Telegraph recruited Mr Halpern as a Toughie setter but have never used him at anything like his full potential. Thanks to him and ALP.
I like 10a but agree that the question mark is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
The clues I liked best were 17a and 2d.
Do you think he is asked to produce puzzles less challenging than his Friday Graun puzzles ?
I don’t know but unless that’s what he’s asked to do I can’t understand why his DT Toughies are so much less of a challenge than his puzzles elsewhere.
Nothing too terrifying here if you follow the instructions. 10a is either very good or dodgy, and I cannot decide which, so I will go for 2d as a safe favourite.
Thanks to Dada for the fun and ALP.
Definitely a wavelength thing for me as I struggled to start with; ***/*** imho but enjoyed the challenge & finished it. COTD (for me) was the clever 4D. Thanks to setter.
I’m with crypticsue for once – 2* and a bit time for me. But I’m with you ALP re 10a – eagle, parrot, eh? Whimsy it is. And I too did like17a even tho [or maybe because] it took me ages to see it and more ages to parse it. 15d is pretty nifty too.
Thanks to Dada and again thanks for the music as well as the blog – 2 crackers I’d not heard before [Bad Flamingo’s country acid funk? and the JC with fiddle extravaganza – speechless]
My ratings are invariably off-piste, as you know, so I’m more than happy to bow to my betters. Yes, I’m not exactly sure what Bad Flamingo’s genre is, quite, but country acid funk sounds as good as any. There’s a bit of a White Stripes bluesy vibe in there too. Fun though and I like their outfits. Speechless re Cash? Surely not!
It took me quite a time to get onto Dada’s wavelength so I didn’t find it the walk in the park that you did ALP. I also thought the parsing for 10A was a tad iffy.
I liked 21 and 27A and 2D with joint favourites 17A and 4D.
Thank you ALP for the blog and to Dada.
Enjoyable but we got stuck for some time with 26a and 28a as we had “Loot” in for 23d. Faves were 10a and 17a.
Many thanks to all.
I’m afraid you’re not going to get me to agree with you either, more like a Thursday toughie than a Tuesday. I enjoyed the challenge though. 10a was a bung-in obviously. Favourite was 17d. Thanks to Dada for the mental beating and ALP.
The NE took me as long as the rest of it. 10a held it all up as I had illicit in my mind as well as illegal, thinking neither was right. When 4d and 14a fell, the others followed, but 10a was grudgingly LOI with a bit of an ‘mmmm’
Thanks
Quelle surprise ’twas tougher than a 1* for me too though reckon I made heavier work of it than I ought to have done really. I was nowhere near parsing 17a either. Enjoyed the puzzle. 2d my fav.
Thanks to Dada & ALP – been listening to Bad Flamingo for last 40 mins & like a lot of it. Loved the Mark O’Connor follow up to the Charlie Daniels went down to original & see he played fiddle on it too. Great RC puzzle yesterday incidentally.
Well, as ever, you’re in the majority and I’m, um, not. A glass or two of Guinness zero clearly kept me sharp last night. Tis not always the case, of course. Yes, I thought some of BF might be up your street. Goodo. I was coming under huge marital pressure to clip Disco Inferno for 19a and I categorically refused. I’d rather get divorced and/or swallow my own tongue! And thank you. Quite a relief to get kicked upstairs I have to admit. No more scores on the door for me. Huzzah!