Sunday Toughie No 154
by Dada
Hints and Tips by Sloop John Bee
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Another Newbie to the Sunday Toughie, I was quite surprised to find Dada as the compiler today. Once I got over the surprise I found this a floughie toughie and I don’t think horses have any concerns either here or in the backpager. I haven’t had time to tackle Senf’s Dada yet but I have spotted some similarities.
Dada has brought a slightly “25a ungenerous” 14across and 13down clues today on what I call the H4 grid (from the dark blocks along the sides of the grid). I will plump for the crafty 9d today but the precarious 16a ran it close before falling at the last.
I counsel you “15d” to be aware that the red pencil has been active this weekend with just a few 1a remaining of Christmas Comestibles
Here we go, Folks…
As it is a Prize puzzle I can only hint at a few and hope that will give you the checkers and inspiration to go further. I’ll return with the full review blog just after the closing date. Don’t forget to follow BD’s instructions in RED at the bottom of the hints!
I hope I don’t have to redact any comments but I am new at this and don’t want to rock the boat. If in doubt, I’ll rub it out! I think that sentence is a bit redundant. You have all been so helpful in sorting out prior parsing failures, and I am sure I will need similar help again.
Most of the terms used in these hints are explained in the Glossary and examples are available by clicking on the entry under “See also” Where the hint describes a construct as “usual” this means that more help can be found in The Usual Suspects, which gives a number of the elements commonly used in the wordplay. Another useful page is Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing, which features words with meanings that are not always immediately obvious. Don’t forget the Mine of Useful information that Big Dave and his son Richard so meticulously prepared for us.
A full review of this puzzle will be published after the closing date for submissions. Some hints follow: Remember the site rules and play nicely.
Across
1a Yikes, not much of a bloomer? (6)
Small bits of a bloomer after slicing.
11a Atlas’s burden reportedly, Scottish isle (4)
A homophone (reportedly) of what Atlas was supposed to bear. Eilean a’ Cheò – Bha Mise An
12a Surrealist graded by wise retired Impressionist (5,5)
Surrealist is an anagram indicator and retired is a reversal indicator. An anagram of graded followed by a reversed synonym of wise.
16a Where honour may be found in precarious set-up? (5,2,5)
Four-thirteenths of this precarious set-up may be honours. (5/13ths if you include 10’s)
20a Scent pudding, and eat! (10)
An informal term for pudding and to possess or eat.
22a Obsession about Lima being a capital (6)
A synonym of obsession around the letter that Lima suggests.
25a Ungenerous – as hornets might be? (6)
Hornets are “mean” critters when angry.
Down
1d Ridiculous opening prize (8)
An opening through which a sliver of light may emerge and the prize in a poker game, or am I being ridiculous?
5d Third of twelve nets on butterfly (7)
The third of twelve contains on from the clue.
7d Scoundrel chasing game catches no deer regularly (6)
A childish chasing game catches alternate letters of no deer.
9d Craft on ground remained (11)
On is crickety and ground is an anagram indicator, crafty or dexterous sleight of hand.
15d Counselling woman without helmet to carry shield (8)
Without the letter at her helm, a woman of some refinement contains a shield for the eyes.
21d Don’t stop fluttering eyes in club (5)
Please don’t stop fluttering your eyelashes at me!
Compiler
Dada
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Surprisingly light for a Dada toughie – you’ve got to admire the man’s output – but jolly. 16a, 1d and 21d pleased me. Many thanks to Dada and Sloop. Baroque & Roll has to be the worst pun of the day!
I was planning a Zoom call for the forthcoming Birthday Bash, but on investigating my basic Zoom account I am limited to 40 mins.
I could do a MSteams meet though and in order to not post the link too publicly I will send a test link to anyone who asks here
I would really love to come to Little Venice but am put off by the walk along the canal. Not so bad arriving but going back in the dark and not sure my knee will take it! Poor old girl. (I can still do the splits though!). If I did chicken out Zoom would be good. But what time does the Bash start?
You wouldn’t have to walk back by yourself, Daisygirl. It’s almost certain there’d be others going in the same direction at the same time, but even if not I’m happy to escort you (or anybody else) back to the station or hotel at any time.
And it’d be lovely to meet you!
DG – did you see what RD outlined a few days ago:
DG, it’s quite straightforward. Take the tube from Kings Cross to Baker Street. Change there onto the Bakerloo line and travel westbound four stops to Warwick Avenue. Little Venice is about a ten minute walk from there.
Thanks for the tip off about a double Dada day. I just popped in to see how tough it might be and spotted the Runrig clip…we’ve just watched the Band from Rockall, it’s on BBC Alba via iPlayer and well worth a watch, if you haven’t seen it (or even if you have!).
I’ll have a look at the crossword later.
I am very familiar with Calum and Ruaridh MacDonald’s Runrig side project and I have played them here before- When I Walk Among the Hills is probably favourite, but they all are great.
Excellent crossword, really enjoyed that one, so thanks again SJB. I see 6d and 14d have put in an appearance again! Too many good clues to choose a favourite. Funny old business, this crossword puzzling, I really struggled with NYDK yesterday and this one was much easier!
The Band from Rockall largely passed me by and I’m not sure why, being a Runrig fan. Anyway, we enjoyed the programme and I’ve just bought the cd.
Thanks to Dada for the puzzle.
I’m surprised to see two Dada creations on the same day, this one being pretty much on a par with the Prize Cryptic in terms of difficulty. Thanks to Dada and SJB.
I’ll nominate 16a, 2d and 21d for my podium.
2d probably deserved a hint, so here is one
I thought it was a breeze down south but found the north more testing though overall it was certainly on the ‘floughie’ side. Coincidental or by design I wonder that honour cropped up at 16a – even with my Swiss cheese brain’s inability to retain recently acquired info even I couldn’t forget something I’d learnt from the prize puzzle minutes earlier. Ticks for 8&12a together with 9&14d. The 9d craft my clear fav too.
Thanks to D&J – especially for Ian rather than Kevin (never watched) as Francis Urquart – he was brilliant as Bill Hayden in Tinker Tailor too.
I do hope that there are two “mythicals” available today and that SC wins them both, that would be fun!
More good stuff from our setter and not appreciably more difficult than his back-pager. I had to smile at his ability to find yet another way to clue 6d! Top marks today went to 16&25a plus 9&21d.
Thanks yet again to Dada and also to SJB for crafting the hints.
I did struggle through this, but I had a good excuse as I was simultaneously watching a 9-try rugby match with a final score of 35-34! A terrific, fast flowing game with few breaks in play in which to concentrate on this fine puzzle by Dada. I still managed to appreciate a number of favourites – 1, 8 & 20 from the across side and 3, 9 & 21 from the down side; with 9d my COD. Now it’s time to watch the second half of the football…
My thanks to Dada and to SJB. I’ll check out the music clips later…
As I mentioned to SJB in the backpager comments, I found both puzzles equally testing. I have therefore spent a little longer at the pub than I’d planned! I didn’t know the artist’s first name, so nice to learn another small nugget of information. 3d was clever, with 9d being favourite.
Thanks to Dada for both puzzles, and to SJB, I’ll now peruse your hints
I did this puzzle on Monday as time did not permit on Sunday.
Thought tougher than the back pager and required a little e-help
2.5*/4*
Favourites include 1a, 10a, 25a, 1d, 3d & 7d — with winner 1a
Thanks to Dada & SJB for hints
Got there in a series of fits and starts. Just noticed spelling mistakes in the submitted puzzle. b*gg*r! Favorite 16a,
Most irritating thing about the app puzzles is if I put the phone down (or in my pocket) it randomly fills in Q’s and X’s in the unches. I’ve lost count of the times I have gone back to the grid whilst checking things for commenters to find that my chance of the mythical has gone west again!
The puzzles website used to have a ‘feature’ where by if it caught you pressing Ctrl plus a letter, it still counted. So if you were doing something in another browser tab and pressed Ctrl+W to close that and return to the crossword, a W would get inserted wherever you happened to have left the cursor. There are several prize puzzles in which I noticed too late I’d submitted with one or more superfluous Ws in them.
Pleasingly, that behaviour now been fixed!
I’m really bad at putting the phone in a pocket without closing things properly. I must do better.
On the laptop I like to take a snip of the completed grid to put in my notes for the blog. To do that it is Windows logo + shift + S
If the cursor on the crossword isn’t on an S it leaves one wherever it was last. If I ever get an essless pangra… I won’t be able to snip it
A recent Sunday Toughie Blog Notes… I moved the cursor to the S of TRAMPS before doing the snip
Sunday Toughie 152