Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30787
Hints and tips by Huntsman
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** Enjoyment ***
An enjoyable Anthony Plumb puzzle. I found it a fair bit trickier in the south than yesterday but suspect I may have made rather harder work of it than I ought to have.
After 4 lovely rounds of golf in the sunny Algarve last week it was back to the reality of splodging along rain sodden fairways yesterday in a staff v members day. I think I’m going to put the clubs away until next year.
In the following hints, definitions are underlined, indicators are mostly in parentheses, and answers are revealed by clicking where shown as usual. Please leave a comment below on how you got on with the puzzle.
Across
1a Fields finally cultivated in pig slurry, to everyone’s shock (12)
SURPRISINGLY: the last letter (finally) of fieldS + an anagram (cultivated) of IN PIG SLURRY.
9a Grabbing tin and observing top coming off (9)
SNATCHING: the chemical symbol for tin + a synonym for observing minus the initial letter (top coming off).
10a Serious rant after golf (5)
GRAVE: the letter Golf represents in the NATO alphabet + another word for rant.
11a Goes in hospital department with fevers? Not half! (6)
ENTERS: our usual department + 50% (not half) of fevERS.
12a Exciting prison gang (8)
STIRRING: one of the many slang terms for prison + a synonym for gang.
13a Second tutor is kind (6)
STRAIN: the single letter for Second + a synonym for tutor (verb).
15a Proof I’ve recalled day in French church (8)
EVIDENCE: reverse (recalled) I’VE in the clue + the single letter for Day + the French for IN + one of the usual abbreviations for church.
18a Christianity maybe converted one girl with another one getting taken in (8)
RELIGION: insert the Roman numeral letter for one into an anagram (converted) of ONE GIRL.
19a Numb as prime minister makes a comeback (6)
ASLEEP: Use AS in the clue then append a reversal (makes a comeback) of a 19th Century Tory PM.
21a After a little drink a nervous twitch is noticeable (8)
DRAMATIC: a small measure of drink often associated with whisky + A from the clue + a word for a nervous twitch.
23a Lower energy if hugged by the woman (6)
HEIFER: insert (hugged by) the physics letter for Energy + IF in the clue into a third person singular pronoun for the woman. The required definition synonym is maybe not immediately obvious.
26a Walk around Spain getting stiff (5)
STEEP: place a synonym for walk or pace around the IVR code for Spain. Again the definition synonym may not be the first to spring to mind.
27a Artificial lake with no restriction? On the contrary (9)
IMITATION: on the contrary indicates that it’s the synonym for restriction that lacks the single letter for Lake.
28a The scoundrel fighting boxers? (12)
UNDERCLOTHES: an anagram (fighting) of THE SCOUNDREL.
Down
1d Nurses stress about bandaging Ali’s bottom (7)
SISTERS: an anagram (about) of STRESS around (bandaging) the final letter (bottom) of Ali.
2d Cook in oven or pan (5)
ROAST: double definition – the latter nowt to do with cookery.
3d Noting nicer dog barking after run (9)
RECORDING: the single letter for Run (cricket) followed by an anagram (barking) of NICER DOG.
4d Diamonds perhaps look attractive on set of garments (4)
SUIT: triple definition.
5d Pessimistic domestic pinching coffee mug, ultimately (8)
NEGATIVE: insert (pinching) the last letters (ultimately) of coffeE & muG into a synonym of domestic or indigenous.
6d Drink fit for a king is served up?
LAGER: reverse an adjective describing things that are royal for a tipple now sadly more popular than real ale.
7d Card game sick people announced (8)
PATIENCE: a homophone (announced) of a term for sick people hopefully receiving medical care.
8d Repeating my word for horse (3-3)
GEE-GEE: repeat an interjection of surprise or enthusiasm synonymous with my word.
14d Relieved after religious education student is let off (8)
RELEASED: the usual two letter abbreviation for religious education & single letter for student + a synonym for relieved or alleviated.
16d Billy the Kid possibly gasped and rode off, losing Garrett initially (9)
DESPERADO: an anagram (off) of (g)ASPED + RODE (losing Garrett initially). A neat surface alluding to the Peckinpah film. I’ll spare ALP the Eagles & resist the temptation to play Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.
17d Marshal is enthralled by phone (8)
MOBILISE: insert IS from the clue into a type of phone.
18d Root vegetable somewhat excellent? (6)
RADISH: the first 3 letters of the required vegetable (a slang term meaning cool or great) followed by an informal adverb for somewhat. I suppose it could even be a double definition.
20d Relatives referring to wearing thongs, maybe (7)
PARENTS: insert (wearing) the usual two letter preposition meaning referring to into what thongs could (very loosely I would have thought) be an example of (maybe).
22d Snake, North European, climbing tree (5)
ASPEN: the venomous snake that killed Cleopatra + a reversal (climbing/down clue) of North & European.
24d Trust female with sex appeal tucking in American husband? (5)
FAITH: insert the usual two letters for sex appeal between the single letters for Female, American & Husband.
25d Extract from Heidi’s criminal record (4)
DISC: hidden (extract from) in the two words preceding the definition.
Nothing really stood out for me today but that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the puzzle. Please let us know which clues ticked your boxes.
The Quick Crossword pun: INN + ARM + MONEY = IN HARMONY
Another enjoyable Tuesday guzzle although I’m not sure about 4d, which I have an answer for but don’t understand. I spent far too long trying to make an anagram of “Is let” after “Rel” in 14d until the penny dropped. I smiled at the relatives in thongs at 20d but my COTD is the marshal enthralled by a phone at 17d.
Thank you, setter (The professor in the library, I presume) for a great challenge. Thank you, Hintsman for the hunts. I was totally off track with 4d.
Loved 4d, isn’t it a triple def?
I die of shame … that’s exactly what Huntsman said! Note to me, pay attention!
As Typically Tuesdayish as ever, confirmed by both grids – **/****
Candidates for favourite – 9a, 12a, 15a, 1d, and 24d – and the winner is 1d.
Thanks to Mr Plumb and Huntsman.
Reliable Tuesday fare from the prof. although I’m not a great fan of the yoof-speak that keeps cropping up in crosswords these days – OK, I know I’ve got to move with the times no matter how much it grates! I see that our tree of the month gets another outing as does the PM from many moons ago who has proved to be so useful to setters. No stand-out favourites for me but both 12a &2d raised a smile.
Thanks to Mr Plumb and to Huntsman for the review – I wonder whether you really will put those golf clubs into winter storage?
Are you a middleclass woman of a certain age Jane? 🤭
If so she’s probably not alone on BD!
Mea culpa!
That covers it, DG. I’ve never been keen on Mr Wallace either!
Me neither, even though I am not a middle-class woman of a certain age.
I you’re referring to 18d, one of the few I had no problem with. I have a youngster friend who uses it ad nauseam!
Another excellent Tuesday puzzle off the production line. Not difficult, but nicely clued throughout. I particularly enjoyed 1d.
Thanks to AP and The Hintsman.
Reliable Tuesday fare – thanks to our setter and Huntsman.
My favourite clue was 4d.
Another goodie to keep the momentum going for the month.
I fairly powered through it but slowed down a tad in the West Coonry as I couldn’t justify 18d which was fun when I worked it out. The Prof is sooo dan wiv der kidz.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen marshal spelt with 2 Ls on the back of hi-vizzes.
The word ‘hi-vizzes’ has been on a tremendous journey (it’s like the paper’s Word ladder):
High-visibility vest/jacket
High-vis
High-viz
High-vizes
High-vizzes
This is the sort of mess we get into when we abbreviate things or, to put a spin on it, it’s wonderful how this bonkers language of ours evolves.
As is often the case, I digress….
My podium are the ones linked to the body i.e 23a, 20d and the brilliant 1d.
Many thanks to the man in the library with the lead piping and Hoots Mon!
2*/4*
Hello from a sunny Vega Baja.
We must be old as we’d never heard of the first bit of 18d.
And my usual grump about 7d – I personally don’t think they sound alike at all. Each to his own I suppose.
2*/3* for us – cotd was 28a for its misdirection.
Thanks to Mr Plumb and Huntsman
Hi P
The first part of 18d is primarliy used only by teenagers or 20 somethings. So, I’m sure many of the solvers won’t have heard of it. I’m cool with it but I completely understand if people aren’t.
Maybe The Prof could have added ‘for children?’, implying that vegetables are good for them as well as the steer to who would use the term? It doesn’t lengthen the clue by that much as I know he is one of the ‘Brevity Brothers’.
I thought that was rather lovely. 1a’s a great spot, 13a’s neat and 1d’s fun. 27a’s a belter. 4d too. That “on” should be underlined as part of the second def, btw. Many thanks to our setter and Huntsman. Always a treat to get another slice of Dylan’s greatest album.
It is now.
A fairly gentle offering from Mr Plumb, as befits a Tuesday, although the difficulty increased as I progressed down the grid. My one head scratch was 18d, where, once again, I had the answer but was unable to parse it. Even with Huntsman’s hint I was no wiser as the slang word was outside my range of knowledge and I would never have considered ‘ish’ as a stand alone word. All I’ve got to do now is remember for future reference! There were lots of cleverly misleading synonyms which put a new slant on clues and my paper is full of ticks denoting contenders for podium places. No overall favourite but medals await 15a, 23a and 27a. Thanks to our setter and Huntsman.
A pleasant and relatively straightforward Tuesday workout with nothing too troublesome in my (humble or otherwise) opinion, clever anagrams opening and closing the across clues, not sure 18d works for me, seems like the setter made up a word derived from the existing slang to make the clue work.
*/****
Thanks to setter and Huntsman
Hello Huntsman – not got a paper yet but just popping in to say that yesterday’s was supreme and if there was an Awards Ceremony it should get an Oscar. Glad you enjoyed the golf. I’m looking forward to two weeks over Christmas in Olhâo. Do you happen to remember the name of the good restaurant you went to in Tavira?
Aquasul & Artefact – both excellent
Wonderful thank you
A gentle and enjoyable Tuesday puzzle with some nice clues. Had to check the hints for the parsing of 27a – a clever clue. Also I did not know the slang for excellent in 18d so learnt a new word. Thanks to setter and Huntsman.
A lovely puzzle with humour and pleasingly little general knowledge. I enjoyed it hugely.
I am amazed that there are no comments about the inability to print the puzzle which I guess must show, either how many people solve on line or are late risers. I jump on the puzzle as soon as it appears in Thailand, which is about 7.00 a.m. local time. For several hours I received error messages each time I tried to print and despite consulting my I.T. support team, (son and daughter), I was not able to resolve the issue. In the end I had to resort to completing the puzzle online.
I have since had confirmation from the head of puzzles at D.T. that it was a problem at their end and not down to a senile expat. I am surprised at the lack of comment regarding the issue from this community.
I had the same problem with not being able to print the puzzle the usual way. But, I came up with my own workaround of printing grid on one sheet and clues on another.
I also came up with a workaround by printing a screen capture of a portion of the screen — which gave me everything on one sheet.
Solved this travelling widershins from the NE. 16d brought to mind the Eagles song of the same name and this forms part of my podium alongside 23a and 1d in top spot. Off now to the cinema to see Conclave. Hope it lives up to all the hype. The book was an entertaining read. Thanks to AP and Huntsman.
I must have lost an awful lot of brain cells while I slept last night, as I had quite a struggle with parts of the puzzle this morning. The anagram at 1A held out to the very end, to my shock!
I’m happily unfamiliar with the yoofspeak in 18D but the answer could be nothing else. I’m struggling to remember if anything really floated my boat when I filled the grid this morning, but on reflection, I will nominate the clever bovine 23A.
Thanks to the setter and Huntsman (I put my clubs away 30 odd years ago, mainly because I was rubbish at golf!)
I will now go back to waiting for EE to join my message query. Only another hour to go according to them!!
I was another who needed help parsing 18d but it didn’t detract from the puzzle.
Top picks for me were 12a, 23a and 16d.
Thanks to Huntsman and the setter.
Well, I’m not sure what is heck is up with the great new crossword website that did not allow me to print the flippin’ crossword as per normal … Nothing showed up except error codes indicating nothing there … shoulda bloody well have stayed with the original system that worked just GREAT!!!
Anyway I did manage to print it in a cobbled up fashion. Thanks Telegraph Towers.
On par with the Monday puzzle in difficulty I thought.
1.5*/3.5*
Favourites 1a, 15a, 18a, 21a, 28a & 7d — with winner 23a but 7d a close follow-up
Thanks to AP & Huntsman
As a middle (old) aged female ….I have to admit that 18d was pure guess work. I have large daisies by 15,18 and 23a and 5&17d. This was a very enjoyable guzzle, we just queried whether 21a is noticeable but that’s the only tiny gripe. Many thanks to Messrs Setter & Hintsman, for whom I have a question. I seem to think that Hertford is your golf club? We drove with some friends yesterday to a garden centre in Ware. George overshot the turn and we then found we were on the route he takes to go to Hertford Rugby Club. Our friends who were born and raised in the area were pointing out schools etc and pointed to the Golf Club to which the husband had belonged. It suddenly rang a bell. Garden Centre was heaving, by the way, on the 2nd December? Madness. If you visit you should all be roped together or hold an umbrella aloft. We’d all lost each other in the first half an hour. Fun though!
My club is South Herts in Totteridge North London which I travel to despite having 2 perfectly good courses here in Harpenden & a number much closer to home. I work at Centurion – way outside my budget to be a member.
Anyone else having problems printing from IPad today? Will only print with crossword on one page and clues on another.
same on computer now too
Just completed some investigation. Without changing any settings on my printer, today’s puzzle now printable except that the clues ‘overflow’ onto a second sheet (laptop and Windows/Edge). But compared to yesterday’s puzzle the grid is larger – 12cm x 12cm compared to 11cm x 11cm (on my print out) and the clue numbers appear to be larger (but I do need new glasses) – and the font for the clues appears to have gone up from 11 point to 12 point.
Perhaps we will get some real news on any changes in the next newsletter.
Thank you both, that is exactly the results I am getting here. Seems like DT has messed with the print options. Frustrating.
There was a technical problem which coincided with the publication of today’s puzzles. It could well be that the way the print versions of the puzzles as they appear now is a temporary fix to enable people to get a puzzle to print off and solve
Thanks, that’s good to know. Hopefully all will soon be well. And glad I didn’t go down the yellow brick road to messing with my printer settings and made everything worse.
Looks to me as though they made a software change to provide options to adjust the text size and the lightness of the print. I’m guessing that the change failed the first time around yesterday, and they’ve now fixed that. Now when I select ‘print’ a box labelled ‘Print Options’ opens. Unfortunately, the default size for the text – which is also the smallest selectable in the options – is such that the text overflows to the second page. With some experimentation this morning, I was able to get a copy printed on a single sheet by selecting 90% scale on the advanced print options on my browser. One of the options also allows you to use less ink. So, it’s possible (almost) to print a version as it used to print from the old website! Well done DT.
Yes I get that awful Print Options and from what I can tell the only options make it even larger. We all love and need the crossword on the same page as the clues. They wouldn’t put the grid on the back page and the clues on another for goodness sake. I’m not messing with my browser in the hope that someone at the DT will fix this problem post haste.
My print was smaller, and I had to solve today with my temporary measure (magnifying glass).
I agree, why do we now need to have two pages to print? A waste of trees.
It’s good to have options for larger print/grid, but they could have an option to keep the size it has been recently as well.
I fired off a note to DT Customer Services. Last time the size of font was increased so let’s hope this is work in progress and eventually we can print it again on one page.
Surprised myself by completing this but gently, gently catchy monkey did the trick with SE presenting biggest problem. I do however have to admit to being short of some parsing e.g. excellent 18a is a new one on me as is the chemical term for tin in 9a and I don’t think of 11a as goes. Sadly I don’t think 1d is really used any more in nursing (Kath?). Surely the Quickie pun relies on it being pronounced by cockneys! Thank you MrP and Hintsman (can’t believe you would shelve your clubs!).
Hi AV
The quickie pun often only works if it’s pronounced a certain way.
The setters regularly stretch these puns which I find entertaining. Others may not.
Sorry meant excellent 18d not 18a new to me.
I know that my problems today were self-made, but I was so off wavelength. I spent most of my morning on my thesaurus, not that it helped much. I didn’t start to get on track until the downs, and I still needed Huntsman’s help to understand a lot. Oh dear, I hope I start to zoom in before the week gets much further along! As an example of my ineptitude, I bunged in 28a and completely missed the anagram. Oh well, tiny brain, can’t be helped. My top pick was 4d, following on were 12a and 23a.
Thank you setter, will try harder! Much appreciation Huntsman, I needed you so much today to unravel many.
I loved this guzzle, hit just the right note. I hadn’t heard of the first bit of 18d either. To be slightly controversial, I think Greg Wallace was absolutely bang on with his comment. Can’t stand the bloke but myself and contemporaries put up with this sort of behaviour most of our working lives. I don’t condone it but its what blokes do, and still do – life is too short to take offence at everything, get over it. He’s obviously not the sharpest knife in the box but taking Masterchef off the air is an insult to all those hard working chefs trying to make a name for themselves. I expect they will put a ‘trigger warning’ against the programme now! Hey ho. Have I opened a can or worms, we will see, I hope so.
After getting myself in a right tizzy trying to print the crosswords, and only managing to get huge grids on one page and the clues on another (thanks to all who helped explain that this is likely a DT issue – hopefully temporary) it was such a joy to find another Anthony Plumb treat today. I completed happily almost on my own, with just a couple of hints to verify. I’m afraid I got fixated on boxers being either dogs or people who fight or pack so 28a was my LI despite realising it was an anagram. Thanks Mr Plumb, Huntsman and those who helped reassure me about today’s printing woes.
Nothing special but fun all the same, thank you compiler and Huntsman for the REM masterpiece
A very enjoyable puzzle as befits a Tuesday. I too did not understand the parsing of my answer to18d so needed the hints for that but otherwise it all went swimmingly. I had 17d as my favourite but 28a was close behind.
Many thanks to the setter and to Huntsman for the hints.
1.5*/4*. Typical Tuesday fare – light and fun.
Many thanks to Mr P (?) and to Huntsman. Good to hear Can’t Find My Way Home again. A splendid version of a great song.
Nice but over too quickly 😉 I knocked about 10 minutes off my pb time! I can have a crack at Saturday’s now. A couple of clues escaped parsing (thank you huntsman) – I’m not alone in failing to get part of 18d I see. Thanks to setter for giving me a little ego lift!
Another lovely, proper, Tuesday back pager 😃 ***/**** Favourites 12a, 28a & 7d, 22d 👍
Big thank you to Anthony Plumb and to the Huntsman
If you are already signed in to access the blog, where can you sign in to prove that you are a “bot”, when you try to access the music clips? this is the first time that this has happened to me! 🤔
It seems to happen periodically-I couldn’t play them on my iPad & I posted the darn things.
It’s very irritating.
Like (most) others 18d was a bung in and was held up in the SE by not being able to get ‘strings’ out of my head for 20d, once I did it was all over. Enjoyable as ever. Favourite was 9a. Thanks to AP and Huntsman.
Good evening
Superb Tuesday fare from the Prof – not too tricky to begin with, but the SW quadrant proved a little troublesome, to the point where I had to hoy the sponge in with 18d left to solve. Therefore it’s a DNF – the answer just would not come!
Many thanks to Mr P and to Huntsman.
Only just printed today’s offering, I see its been a problem for others as well.
Maybe thats why I haven’t enjoyed as much as other recent puzzles
2*/2*
Thanks to all
Loved this. Was grumpy this morning (a touch of the early Advent melancholy) and this cheered me up no end 😁
2*/4* …
liked 23A “Lower energy if hugged by the woman (6)”