Toughie No 3435 by Silvanus
Hints and tips by Gazza
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
I thought that Silvanus was being fairly gentle with us today. Thanks to him for the enjoyable challenge.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Across Clues
1a Corrupt lawman guilty, in the soup (12)
MULLIGATAWNY: an anagram (corrupt) of LAWMAN GUILTY.
9a Tricked to frame inmate ultimately by angry screw (9)
CROSSHEAD: a verb meaning tricked containing the ultimate letter of inmate follows an adjective meaning angry.
10a Left behind, at intervals appears in danger (5)
PERIL: the abbreviation for left follows regular letters from ‘appears in’.
11a Rod’s said to generate rows (6)
QUEUES: what sounds like a rod used to hit balls and its ‘S.
12a Author in tumble, consumed by drink (8)
TROLLOPE: a verb to tumble is contained in a verb to drink excessively to make the name of a 19th century male novelist (or, alternatively, a modern-day female novelist related to him).
13a Assets, developed over a long period, being stripped (6)
ESTATE: remove the outer letters from a verb meaning developed over a long period (about 9 months for a human or 22 months for an elephant).
15a Small wagon with Spooner’s tinned venison? (8)
HANDCART: Spooner might turn this into a preserved male deer.
18a Area of auction house Leo roams around (8)
SALEROOM: an anagram (around) of LEO ROAMS.
19a Intense time succeeding recent PM, one right to go (6)
ARDENT: stick the physics abbreviation for time on the end of the surname of a recent Commonwealth PM after removing one of the abbreviations for right.
21a Hear swilling gin can be infectious (8)
CATCHING: a verb to hear or pick up and an anagram (swilling) of GIN.
23a I run cycling, it’s fine to scoff! (6)
EDIBLE: start with a phrase meaning ‘I run’ (from the nose, possibly) and cycle the last two letters to the front.
26a Key housing close to Saint-Malo, France, high up (5)
ALOFT: a keyboard key contains the closing letter of Saint-Malo and the IVR code for France.
27a Notice vehicle blocking popular church ahead (2,7)
IN ADVANCE: an abbreviated notice and a road vehicle go between an adjective meaning popular and one of our usual churches.
28a Hanks film pub pal hailed to be quirky, entertaining one (12)
PHILADELPHIA: start with the map abbreviation for a pub and add an anagram (to be quirky) of PAL HAILED containing the Roman one.
Down Clues
1d Qualification over a question received by church primate (7)
MACAQUE: start with an academic qualification then insert A and an abbreviation for question into an abbreviation for church (the same one that was used in 27a).
2d Miss acquiring goods essentially for free (5)
LOOSE: a verb to miss or mislay contains the central letter of goods.
3d Gadget maybe peeled pink rhubarb and mushrooms on the counter (9)
INSPECTOR: the inner letters of pink and the reversal of a term for rubbish or nonsense and types of mushroom.
4d Reverent adult at start of day (4)
AWED: the film abbreviation meaning adult and an abbreviated day of the week.
5d Council member, more blunt, dismissing top staff (8)
ALDERMAN: a comparative meaning more blunt or plain-spoken without its first letter and a verb to staff.
6d State, almost unknown, to the north of China (5)
NEPAL: an adjective meaning unknown or unprecedented without its last letter and what china means in rhyming slang.
7d Proudly claim spa hotel discounts? On the contrary (8)
ARROGATE: a North Yorkshire spa resort without the letter that hotel represents in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet. ‘on the contrary’ here means that the spa discounts the hotel rather than the other way round.
8d Articulate female you heard during Spring term (6)
FLUENT: the abbreviation for female then the letter that sounds like ‘you’ inserted in the name of the Spring term at Cambridge University.
14d Outline of timetable revealed about hospital fund-raising broadcast (8)
TELETHON: the outer letters of timetable then a phrasal verb (3,2) meaning revealed containing the map abbreviation for hospital.
16d Short-lived era deposing revolutionary somewhat reckless (4-5)
DARE-DEVIL: hidden in reverse.
17d Who’d fancy tackling new difficult skiing event? (8)
DOWNHILL: an anagram (fancy) of WHO’D contains the abbreviation for new. Finish with a synonym of difficult.
18d Party of 101 in Asian country brought over (6)
SOCIAL: the Roman numeral for 101 goes inside the reversal of an Asian country.
20d Having week away, weather’s unusual for May perhaps (7)
THERESA: an anagram (unusual) of [w]EATHER’S.
22d Problem of film director losing swagger (5)
HITCH: remove a verb to strut or swagger (thanks to BRB) from the surname of a film director associated with suspense.
24d Squirrel starts to chew hazelnut cluster (5)
BUNCH: a child’s name for a squirrel (or a rabbit, which may help more) and the starting letters of two words in the clue.
25d King, conceivably eccentric (4)
CARD: what a king is an example of in a pack.
For my podium I’ve selected 9a, 1d and 20d. Which one(s) came up to scratch for you?
Agree this was fairly gentle, but there were a few that gave me pause for thought. 13a was clever, but 6d favourite. 7d LOI, not a common word.
Thanks Gazza and Silvanus
Really enjoyed this wonderful puzzle & agree with Gazza that (bar about three clues in my case) Silvanus was being kinder than is sometimes the case. The three causing me problems were “pick a former foreign leader” & “council member” (I thought the latter had ceased to exist 50+ years ago, but see they are still around in the City of London), while one day, hopefully soon, I will remember that Harrogate is a spa town. 24a was an early biff but I’d never come across squirrel=bun before – not surprised the BRB says “origin unknown”!
COTD for me 3d, joined on the podium by 21a and 15a; runner-up 1d.
Many thanks indeed to Silvanus for the entertainment, and to Gazza for the explications and cartoons!
I have an old pal in NZ so there’s even less excuse for not considering their recent PM for 19a – thanks Gazza! Top clues for me were 10a [clever construction] 13a [took a while to see the word to be stripped] and 26a [another nice construction].
Thanks again Gaza and thanks Silvanus for the challenge.
A lovely puzzle, as ever, from Silvanus, but I found it trickier than Gazza’s rating.
I didn’t know the character at 3d, nor did I know the Tom Hanks film at 28a – I clearly need to get out more.
I also bunged in aloof at 26a, until the checking letters told me otherwise.
I couldn’t remember the name of the former PM at 19a, but I’m sure this will not be too challenging for our Kiwi friends. Thank you, Gazza.
I struggled at first to parse 13a, which is very clever. A slight nod to our wonderful farmers, perhaps?
My ticks go to virtually all of the clues but, if pushed, I would give gold stars to 1a, 9a, 12a, 13a, 15a, 21a, 23a, 1d, 6d, 20d and 24d.
Great stuff, Silvanus and thanks to Gazza, particularly for explaining the parsing of 19a.
I hadn’t heard of the word for squirrel, but it was easy to guess from the clue and the checkers.
Last one in was the one containing the PM.
Many thanks to Silvanus for an excellent puzzle and to Gazza for the write-up
An enjoyable puzzle, which although fairly straightforward, had some answers I had trouble parsing. Thank you Gazza for the explanations.
Of lots of good clues I liked 9 and 15A, and 2 and 14D
Thanks to Gazza for the blog ( loved the contradictions) and to Silvanus for the enjoyment.
Another absolute winner off the production line. I cannot begin to find a favourite as the whole grid was superb. I shall simply thank Silvanus and Gazza.
This was absolutely top-drawer. A real pleasure to solve with every clue a gem making it impossible to pick a favourite.
Many thanks to Silvanus and to Gazza whose cartoons provide the icing on the cake.
Dream Team part two, and what an enjoyable puzzle it was. The only unknown for me was the term for a squirrel, I’ve only heard of it being a ‘pet’ name for a rabbit – usually with an added ‘NY’ on the end. I did also check on the definition of 7d, a word I was aware of but have never used.
Such clever use of words by Mr Smooth, he always makes it very difficult to pick favourites. My final list of worthy medallists included 9,12&19a plus 16&22d.
Many thanks to Silvanus and also to Gazza for the review and accompaniments – the discount ski lift made me smile.
Needed the hints to parse 19a (never thought of a PM that far away), 4d and 24d (I assumed, wrongly it seems, that a squirrel bun was a hairstyle). I hadn’t heard of the Hanks film but I had heard of the Inspector, what does that tell you. The rest were enjoyably straightforward. Favourite was 27a, there were a number of other contenders. Thanks to Silvanus and Gazza.
Many thanks to Gazza and to everyone solving and commenting. Brilliant cartoons, as ever.
I hope that Colin and Carol will enjoy the wordplay for 19a!
My type of Toughie – not too tough. Very enjoyable indeed (isn’t it always) with ticks aplenty. If forced to pick a fav 20d would just get its nose over the line in a bunched finish. ****/***** enjoyment rating here.
Thanks to Silvanus & to Gazza – great cartoon choices as ever.
Here’s the squirrel poem, I hope. I’m not good at this!
Thanks for posting that, Jules. I wonder whether we can consign it to that special place reserved for Americanisms – the BRB doesn’t seem to know its origin.
That’s why I posted it! Took a bit of finding, but it must have stuck in my mind somewhere! Not to say this was the origin though.
We’d like to report that we looked at the clue for 19a and wrote the answer straight in.
But we can’t! It was our last one in and took a considerable amount of head-scratching. It was certainly the highlight and favourite for us in this really good fun puzzle.
Thanks Silvanus and Gazza.
Need to brush up on my politicians, enjoyable puzzle though with that being my only hold up.
Thanks to Gazza and Silvanus.
After scoring a blank with yesterday’s Toughie, I found today’s Silvanus offering most refreshing and more fitting to my abilities for solving. The Spoonerism at 15a was one of the most comical I’ve seen in a long while – I loved it. A most enjoyable solve. Thanks to Silvanus and Gazza – I did need your confirmation that the ‘BUN’ I’d put in 24d was correct & I needed to check that 7d was indeed a word.