Toughie No 3449 by Dada
Hints and tips by ALP
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***/****
Dada’s been pretty friendly today, peppering us with anagrams and some jolly lingo (17a, 19a, etc). Having said that, 8d won’t please everyone, I’m sure! But there’s lots to like. All yours.
Across
1a River hasn’t come to an end in dock (5)
SEVER: The UK’s longest river, minus its last letter.
4a Noise, sound ultimately inside bell? (4-4)
DING-DONG: Noise/row + [soun]D inside (dinner?) bell. Smart &lit.
10a Source of wood on raging fire, cold earlier (7)
CONIFER: ‘ON’ + FIRE, raging, all after C[old].
11a Coarse for a start, and most offensive? (7)
CRUDEST: C[oarse] + most offensive or vulgar. An all-in-one that’s perhaps ever so slightly same-sidey, no?
12a Part played, turn in speech (4)
ROLE: Homophone of turn (over).
13a Pick up American coin after shilling (5)
SCENT: The most common US coin after S[hilling].
14a Wine, what’s up in France? (4)
CAVA: The French (2,2) for “what’s up” or “how’s it going”.
17a Language impressing Hollywood actor and celebrity, nice one! (6,1,7)
THANKS A MILLION: (Sri Lankan) language impresses/contains Hollywood actor Tom (not Cruise!) + celebrity/famous attraction (as per the animal(s) once kept in the Tower of London, apparently).
19a I’ve identified a ghost – you can do it! (5,3,6)
THAT’S THE SPIRIT: How one might say “I’ve identified a ghost” (or a bottle of whisky, say) = an expression of approval and/or encouragement.
22a Type a choice of consecutive letters? (4)
SORT: How one might offer someone a choice of such letters, expressed as (1,2,1).
23a Reptile almost swallowing English creep (5)
SNEAK: A generic “reptile” minus its last letter (almost) swallows/contains the usual “English”.
24a River bordering lake or Pacific (4)
CALM: (University) river borders/contains the usual “lake”. Sweet clue but wouldn’t “and” make more sense than “or” here?
27a Old clothes in minaret, higgledy-piggledy (7)
RAIMENT: MINARET, higgledy-piggledy.
28a Network serving short drink on the rocks? (7)
LATTICE: Drink (milky coffee, yuk!) minus its last letter (short) + (bartender’s) “rocks”.
29a Soak has drunk Madeira on tour of north (8)
MARINADE: MADEIRA, drunk, containing (on tour of) the usual “north”.
30a I’m inside, Meg surprisingly outside for a picnic on the green? (5)
GIMME: ‘IM’ inside MEG, surprisingly. Odd construction, fun definition!
Down
1d Sure upset with City defence (8)
SECURITY: SURE+CITY, upset.
2d Article inside hacienda perhaps in plain (7)
VANILLA: One of the usual “article”s inside an example of a hacienda.
3d Sandpiper like sandpaper, reportedly? (4)
RUFF: Homophone of an adjective that describes “sandpaper”.
5d At home, wire netting on boundary right for minor (14)
INCONSIDERABLE: The usual “at home” plus wire/flex netting/containing ‘ON’+ boundary/edge + R[ight]. Nice Lego.
6d Larva eating rubber plants (4)
GRUB: Lurker, hidden in the second and third words.
7d Fragrant plant ass pulled up after heading for orchard (7)
OREGANO: A reversal (pulled up) of the wild ass one only ever sees in crosswords after O[rchard].
8d Understood word of gratitude, obliging word? (5)
GOTTA: Understood/saw + a (short) word of gratitude or thanks. Hmm.
9d With captive’s head eaten, a predator isn’t, unfortunately, put off activity (14)
PROCRASTINATED: APREDATORISNT, unfortunately, contains/eats C[aptive].
15d Fish steak in a stew (5)
SKATE: STEAK, in a stew.
16d Bank run following tip from savers (5)
SLOPE: Run/stride after S[avers].
18d Rush dug into the surface, root in place (8)
STAMPEDE: Dug into surface/marked deeply + [plac]E. I’ve always thought “root” indicated the first letter (and it does, in an across) but I now realise that, in a down, it can refer to the “base” or last letter. This makes perfect sense and I’m grateful for the heads-up!
20d Winger, cross-country runner (7)
HARRIER: Double definition.
21d A smiler suffering in actuality (7)
REALISM: ASMILER, suffering.
22d Seat vacated at opening of weird play (5)
STRUM: S~T + weird/odd. The “at opening of” is just for placement. Don’t go trying to put a ‘W’ in like I did!
25d Plant in garden refused to come up (4)
FERN: Reverse lurker, hidden in the third and fourth words.
26d Brief phase for men only (4)
STAG: Phase/leg, minus its last letter.
Four last-letter deletions, a hefty eight anagrams, two lurkers and an excellent &lit made for a fun and speedy solve. I especially liked 14a, 17a, 22a, 5d and 9d but 4a gets my vote. How did you get on?
Dada in a very friendly mood today, I would say more so than the Sunday just passed.
I wasn’t sure about the synonym for celebrity, but the answer to 17a was obvious.
I liked 14a, because of the groan it elicited when I realised the answer.
Many thanks to Dada and to ALP
Other than a bit of a crumpet scratch with the &Lit at 4a (probably my fav also) this was a breeze & very enjoyable it was too. 30a my fav type of putt – on the infrequent occasions I stick it close enough to flag to not be required to hole out but 3 times yesterday.
Thanks to D&A – great music clips particularly John, Billy & Otis.
Gimmes are good. Today however I 3-putted the first five holes, so ended up with a mediocre score. Winter rules now off..
This was nicely challenging and good fun despite a handful of hmms along the way.
11a is too same-sidey; 8d is simply ghastly; “dug into the surface” is a bit of a stretch in 18d; and, the clue and surface for 22d would both work equally well without the unnecessary padding of “opening of”.
With plenty of ticks too, 4a, 14a & 17a made it onto my podium.
Thanks to Dada and to ALP.
Ha, we’re clearly as one today RD! Absolutely nowt wrong with cheese and Marmite (or Bovril, Promite et al) on crumpets neither!
Dada raised a few smiles today in spite of the avalanche of anagrams – thanks to him and ALP.
My rostrum contains 4a, 17a and 19a.
Took me far too long to find the 25d plant and I made a blunder with 1a as I was thinking of a different dock and had WHARF(e) pencilled in. Fortunately. the sandpiper came to my rescue. 8d is horrid although I guess it’s not much worse than 30a which we all seem to accept these days. Top clues for me were 14&19a.
Thanks to Dada and to ALP for the review.
Greetings from North Norfolk.
Dada must have known we were coming here as he has used two birding clues at 3d and 20d. I’m sure Jane enjoyed both of them.
For the birders amongst you, we saw various 20d birds, all within an hour as they came in to roost at Warham Greens between Wells and Stiffkey.
Male and female marsh 20d, male and female hen 20d and female pallid 20d. Great sightings of them all, admittedly with the help of a local birding expert who visits most evenings at this time of year. Oh, and a great view of a barn owl hunting as well.
We have yet to see a 3d, but we are off to Cley tomorrow, so fingers crossed.
The puzzle? Oh yes, I really enjoyed it. 14a probably sneaks onto the top of the podium for me.
Many thanks to Dada and ALP.
Enjoyable enough, though the bell rang rather clunkily for me in 4a and the solutions to 8d and 30a made me wince. With an ass pulled up in 7d and Huntsman’s crumpet scratch, I’ll say no more other than thanks to Dada and ALP.
Despite the excessive number of anagrams I greatly enjoyed the large part of this puzzle, one which would not have been out of place on the Sunday back page. For me the puzzle was let down by a couple of clues in the NE – the awful 8d and rather odd 11a – as well as 18d, which for me doesn’t really work but I’m sure is dictionary-fair.
OTOH many excellent clues, with my favourites being 30a (for the surface and instructions), 14a & 7d with runner-up 22a.
Many thanks indeed to Dada and ALP
I enjoyed the 4 long clues, which went in first and gave a good foothold. 7d my favourite, 8d my least favourite!
Thanks Alp and Dada
Needed the hints to parse 4a, 22a, 18d, all obvious when pointed out, and 14a, I’m afraid my foreign language skills run dry after ‘the’. There were a couple I want keen on but lots I did like. Favourite was 7d. Thanks to Dada and ALP.
Wasn’t
“Ça va” means all sorts of things but not “what’s up?” That’s pushing it.
Welcome to the blog
I take your point though, as you say, it can mean quite a few things – as a statement, question or response. I was quite surprised Dada didn’t go for the literal “that goes”. Or even “OK”. Would have suited the surface very well, either way.
Totally agree with you
I have started looking at some toughies and am making progress …… This one was surprisingly friendly and I managed most of it before needing assistance! Many thanks to the compiler and for the hints.
1*/3* ….
liked 22A ” Type a choice of consecutive letters ?(4) “