Toughie No 3420 by Sparks
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Sparks has provided an entertaining puzzle where some of the parsing took me some time – many thanks to him. He usually has something going on in the grid and today all of the 4-letter answers are reversed in symmetrical locations.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Across Clues
1a Stripping cover, bang on about nurse (5)
ANGEL: strip the outer letters from ‘bang’ and then reverse the crickety ‘on’.
4a Introduced new series in self-deprecation (8)
PREFACED: an anagram (new) of a series of letters in selF-DEPRECAtion. I couldn’t parse this at all until Crypticsue pointed me in the right direction – thanks to her.
10a Gradually weaken staff in centre (7)
CORRODE: insert a staff or stick into a synonym of centre.
11a Birds flying to caves (7)
AVOCETS: an anagram (flying) of TO CAVES.
12a Punt worker, say, back in Cambridge (4)
ANTE: one of our working insects and the final letter of Cambridge.
13a Stone Age spans origins of ancient tools (5)
AGATE: AGE contains the starting letters of the last two words.
14a Greedy biblical king banishing first daughter (4)
AVID: an Old Testament king without the first occurrence of the genealogical abbreviation for daughter.
17a Noble quietly retracted warning caught by heavenly maiden (4,2,3,5)
PEER OF THE REALM: start with the musical abbreviation for quietly then reverse a golf warning inside an adjective meaning heavenly or spiritual and the cricket abbreviation for maiden.
19a Mostly Vatican restored damaged ceramics and textiles? (10,4)
DECORATIVE ARTS: an anagram (damaged) of VATICA[n] RESTORED.
22a Papers backing very American, look-at-me sort? (4)
DIVA: reverse the abbreviation for personal papers and add abbreviations for very and American.
23a Shrewd copper irritated fences (5)
ACUTE: the chemical symbol for copper is fenced by a verb meaning irritated or worried.
24a Intermittently picked out Neptunian volcano (4)
ETNA: regular letters.
27a Couple starts to talk with others a little (7)
TWOSOME: the starting letters of ‘talk with others’ and a word meaning ‘a little’.
28a Foreign agents arresting informer drilled by old republic (7)
CROATIA: a Russian doll clue. US agents contain an informer into which is inserted the abbreviation for old.
29a Was excited to an extent about France’s seafood (8)
ROSEFISH: a verb meaning ‘was excited’ (it’s in the BRB) and a suffix meaning ‘to an extent’ contain the IVR code for France.
30a Big pair of hands carrying a case of Grenache (5)
LARGE: the abbreviations for opposing hands contain A. Finish with the outer letters of Grenache.
Down Clues
1d Sparks essentially fixes bright lights (3-5)
ARC-LAMPS: the central letters of Sparks and a verb meaning fixes or fastens.
2d Fitted in Jag, a rotten choke (7)
GAROTTE: hidden.
3d Becket, say, cut off old bores (4)
LOOP: a verb to cut off with the abbreviation for old being inserted. A becket, apparently, is a **** of rope having a knot at one end and an eye at the other.
5d Issue warning edict or a threat will develop (4,3,4,3)
READ THE RIOT ACT: an anagram (will develop) of EDICT OR A THREAT.
6d Maybe Paisley’s sound – fine then depressed (4)
FLOW: the pencil abbreviation for fine and an adjective meaning depressed. The answer (thanks again to the BRB) is a Scottish word for a sea basin or sound.
7d Herb in cold and hot chopped liver (7)
CHERVIL: the tap abbreviations for cold and hot followed by an anagram (chopped) of LIVER.
8d Turf rolled over bare plots treated with something (5)
DOSED: reverse a word for a piece of turf and add the inner letters of a word for garden plots.
9d Those aiming to cut masses in, say, Kensington church inspired by blues legend (6-8)
WEIGHT-WATCHERS: start with the 2-letter postal area for Kensington in London with the numeric part spelled out and add an abbreviation for church inside the surname of Muddy, the blues legend.
15d Attempt to plug record upset novelist and playwright (5)
GOGOL: an attempt gets inserted in the reversal of a record or journal.
16d Name sources in criminal enterprise long before hint of enquiry breaks (5)
CELEB: three initial letters followed by two more initial letters.
18d Omitting introduction, author into debauchery pens better adventure (8)
ESCAPADE: the surname (2,4) of an author given to debauchery loses its introductory letter and contains a verb to better.
20d Green half of neighbourhood with uncrowned talent (7)
ENVIOUS: the first half of an 8-letter word for neighbourhood followed by a synonym of talent without its first letter.
21d Turner picked up in its original condition? (7)
ROTATOR: when the answer is reversed it’s the same as it was originally.
22d Discourage one of 9, perhaps, but not 1 (5)
DETER: remove the Roman numeral for one from someone who may be one of 9d.
25d Canine left wearing half-hearted canine expression? (4)
WOLF: the abbreviation for left is inside a canine sound without one of its central letters.
26d Water sport with its final coming up … here? (4)
POOL: a water sport with its last letter promoted.
My ticks went to 17a, 9d, 15d and 25d. Which one(s) received your plaudits?
I thought this very friendly, both for a Sparks and a Friday Toughie, with lots to enjoy throughout.
Living near Canterbury, there is always one person who comes straight to mind when I see the word Beckett. Fortunately I’d noticed what was going on with the four letter words and knew what had to fit in 3d, so I checked and found lots of pictures of a Becket 3d
Many thanks to Sparks and Gazza
Surprisingly gentle for a Friday, but I was defeated by 29a. A very enjoyable puzzle and extremely fair, even the oddities.
Thank you Sparks & Gazza.
Last Friday, I did not have enough time to tackle the Toughie, being fully occupied for rather longer than usual by the Times backpager … which I subsequently found had been set by Elgar – there was clearly to be no escape!
Great spot of the four letter answers, Gaz, it escaped me. Not the most fiendish Friday toughie but very enjoyable nonetheless. Didn’t know the Becket in 3d but from the clueing, there could only be one answer. Particularly admired 1a and 28d but 30a wins it for me with the Grenache reference, of which I shall later be enjoying when I crack open the Côtes du Rhône which awaits my attention. Cheers, Sparks and Gazza.
Lucky day for me – finished a 4* Friday Toughie without recourse to the hints! I just knew that CS would have found it easy but that’s not going to spoil my euphoria. I did need to investigate a couple of ‘new to me’ entries – the becket and the playwright – but that’s fair game. No problem here with 6d as I’m familiar with Scapa of that ilk, not to mention the huge peat bog that forms 6d Country, but I took a while to register our setter’s little extra to the puzzle. Favourite was 9d with the 25d canine in close contention whilst 11a gets inclusion simply for being my favourite of our feathered friends.
Many thanks to Sparks – hope Tia is thriving, and also to Gazza for the review and cartoons – must try skipping!
Very enjoyable, and I also thought rather benign for a Friday. 9d was brilliant, I was lucky to know the postcode for Kensington. Never spotted the reversible 4-letter clues.
I sometimes buy the Friday Times to have something to solve in case Elgar’s on toughie duty. Glad I didn’t last week!
Thanks Sparks and Gazza
I had to resort to Chambers to explain 3d and Mrs H [a proper London Lady] for Kensington in 9d. Is 4a an indirect anagram? Maybe not – it just scrapes in as a rather clever clue, along with the 9/22d combo and 25d [which raised a smile].
Thanks to Sparks and Gazza.
Fairly rapid solve but required the hints to parse 4a, 3d and 9d. Thanks to Gazza (and CS) and Sparks.
Feels really good to say I thoroughly enjoyed a Friday Toughie, rather than feel brain beaten. Some really good clues, all with fair wordplay. Didn’t spot the four 4 letter clues, but now I know, I think that’s very inventive.
Laughed at so many of the answers with the biggest laugh of all coming from 9D which has to be my favourite.
Thanks to Gazza for the parsing and hilarious cartoons ( 17A favourite) and to Sparks for such enjoyment.
An accessible and enjoyable Friday Toughie for us. Spotted the device with the 4-letter answers quite quickly which was a help.
Thanks Sparks and Gazza.
Pleased to finish on Friday but needless to say didn’t spot the 4 letter reversal malarkey & still one or two left to parse properly so will save the review for later. 9d was my fav for no other reason than it got Muddy into the wordplay. A very enjoyable & thankfully reasonably accessible puzzle for us lesser mortals.
Thanks to Sparks & to Gazza – successive Toughies blogged – don’t know how you do it.
Very late – I retired to an early bath to escape the wild shouts from George watching Six Nations- and have not finished it yet but I just wanted to say how much I liked the two four letter words reversed. Very neat. Thanks to Sparks & Gazza