DT 30930 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
View closed comments 

DT 30930

by Smylers  

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30930

Hints and tips by Smylers

+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***

Hello. Today’s crossword is apparently from the anonymous member of the regular Monday trio, the one who isn’t X-Type or Twmbarlwm. Welcome especially to anybody new to cryptic crosswords: hints and explanations for each clue are below, with definitions underlined and the answers hidden behind the Told you! blobs — though don’t click that one, obviously.

Do leave a comment sharing how you found the crossword, which clues you particularly liked, if any of my explanations aren’t helpful enough, or if it isn’t clear what a picture or video has to do with the clue it’s supposedly illustrating. Please see the etiquette guide for how things are done round here.

Having being part of the hinting team for a while now, I’d like to thank the custodians of Big Dave’s Crossword Blog for offering me this opportunity. I (perhaps conspicuously) didn’t include them among those I thanked in my first hints … because at that point I wasn’t sure whether this actually was something to be thankful for, or some inconvenient burden I’d just agreed to have imposed on me! Fortunately it has been the former.

It turns out I enjoy getting up early every other Monday to solve the crossword, attempt to transcribe what’s passing through my brain while doing so, and think up some nonsense to sprinkle among it. So thank you to CrypticSue, Gazza, Mr K, and Prolixic for thinking of me and letting me do this. (And also thank you to any other regulars of this site who were offered the gig before me but turned it down!)

I still don’t know how bloggers are chosen. I just got a — completely unexpected — email from Gazza one day. If you’re lucky enough to find the same happening to you, I recommend saying “yes”. It’s a privilege to do this, and I’m grateful to you all for reading.

Across

1a Time with teacher to pen question for game show (10)
TASKMASTER: Start with the letter used to indicate ‘time’ in, say, formulas in physics. End with a dated term for a schoolteacher of a particular sex. Between those make them pen a synonym for ‘question’ as a verb. The answer is a game show featuring celebrities performing unusual challenges which started on Dave and is now one of the most-watched shows on Channel 4.

6a Breathe in sharply when doctor’s brought round (4)
GASP: We need a short conjunction that can mean ‘when’, then to bring one of the abbreviations for a type of doctor round the outside of it.

9a Man with iron, 59 (5)
FELIX: To get this man’s name, enter the chemical symbol for iron and the Roman numeral for 59.

He’s just referred to as ‘Master Tom’ in the above, from over 100 years ago, but in later performances he was given the name in the answer here.

10a Revolutionary musical about Post Office worker (9)
OPERATIVE: We need: the name of a famous West End musical; a common abbreviation indicating ‘about’ or ‘on the subject of’; the abbreviation for ‘Post Office’. Revolutionize the whole lot so it’s facing backwards and it spells out the answer.

12a Never wearying of being a fat idle drunk (13)
INDEFATIGABLE: Make the preceding words drunk, such that their letters are in a different order.

14a Spicy pork pie eaten by the Major, ultimately, and Basil Fawlty? (8)
HOTELIER: Start with a word that can be used to describe spiciness in food. Then we need the ultimate letters of ‘the’ and ‘Major’; separate them and make them eat what ‘pork pie’ is rhyming slang for.

15a Threaten troublemaker with death (6)
IMPEND: Follow a troublemaker or little devil with a word for the death or final part of something.

a statue of a cheeky little devil
Pic credit: Anna, from a Polish castle

17a Most weak metals melted (6)
LAMEST: Melt ‘metals’ so that its letters run and spell out the answer.

19a Drop blue act (8)
DOWNTURN: ‘Blue’ can refer to many things; Sy constructed a Guardian Weekend crossword a couple of years ago in which multiple clues were just ‘Blue’ with varying numbers of letters. Here we need a word for feeling sad. After that put a word for an act, perhaps one on-stage in a variety show.

21a Pompous fancy man flirts with poet (4-9)
SELF-IMPORTANT: Put the letters of ‘man flirts’ and ‘poet’ in a fancy order.

24a One who might help when out of one’s depth? (9)
LIFEGUARD: The crypticness here is that we usually use the phrase ‘out of [my/her/his/your] depth’ metaphorically, but in this case we need to think of a situation where it applies literally, and then who would help.

25a Mug? The compiler had nothing to fill it (5)
IDIOT: The compiler is the person who wrote the clue; we need how they could have said ‘The compiler had’ from their point of view. Then take the ‘it’ from the clue, separate its letters, and fill the gap between them with the letter that looks like the digit that indicates ‘nothing’.

Did anybody else first try a piece of crockery that’s similar to a mug and follow that with the ‘compiler had’ term to generate a well-known Greek god, and then spend time wondering how that could possibly be described by ‘nothing to fill it’ … or was that just me?

a cartoon cupid

26a A pain in the neck for Mr Astley? (4)
RICK: Think of a word for a literal pain in the neck. If that’s got too many letters in it, lose one of them and what remains is also a word for the same thing. It’s also the first name of a famous Mr Astley.

27a Official under me bungled democratic process (10)
REFERENDUM: Start with a shortened term for an official from sport. The rest can be made by bungling the letters of ‘under me’.

Down

1d Appeal sent upstairs, then very loud row (4)
TIFF: Get the usual euphemism for sex appeal and send it upstairs by writing it bottom-up. Follow that with the musical instruction for playing very loudly.

a screen-grab of a DRS decision in a cricket match

2d Person who won’t play with anyone? (7)
SOLOIST: This is somebody whose role involves a particular type of playing. It’s the kind of playing that’s often done collaboratively, but this is the label for somebody doing it by themselves.

3d Glibness, possibly, that could have its pros and cons (5,8)
MIXED BLESSING: This is a reverse-clue, a type we don’t often see on Mondays: if the answer were interpreted as a cryptic clue, it could yield ‘glibness’ as its answer. More details: The second word of the answer is an anagram of ‘glibness’; its first word could be an anagram indicator, such that the whole could be an instruction to generate ‘glibness’.

4d Second bed available without charge? (4-4)
SCOT-FREE: Enter in turn: the abbreviation for ‘second’ (as in the unit of time); a type of bed, mainly used by infants and crossword setters; and a synonym for ‘available’, in the sense of not currently being occupied. In the definition, ‘charge’ doesn’t refer to payment, and the question mark is because this is just one way of being the answer.

a symbol indicating a battery without charge

5d Stop ignoring pair’s affair (5)
EVENT: This is ‘stop’ as in to block something from happening. It starts with the abbreviation for ‘pair’; ignore that to get the answer. Or think of an answer that matches the definition and crossing letters, and stick the abbreviation for ‘pair’ on the front of it to get a word that can mean ‘stop’ — one of the beauties of cryptic crosswords is that you can approach clues either way.

7d Is the compiler competent and friendly? (7)
AMIABLE: As with 25a, the compiler is still the person who’s written this clue; think how they could ask ‘is the compiler?’ from their point of view. End with another word for ‘competent’.

8d Acting as plane perhaps coming for Spooner (10)
PRETENDING: Well done to anybody who solved this straight from the wordplay without any crossing letters! We need something that could perhaps be a ‘plane’ — not the flying vehicle — and an adjective meaning ‘coming’ or ‘awaiting processing’. If Rev William Spooner said the two words together out loud but swapped their initial sounds, you’d hear the answer. Remember that as ever with Spoonerisms, they are all about the sound; if you just try to swap over the first consonants of the words’ spellings then you’ll have a vowel left over.

11d Opinionated and horribly vague trite man (13)
ARGUMENTATIVE: Put the subsequent words in a horrible order. Horrible if you’re trying to spell ‘vague trite man’, that is; if you’re trying to spell the answer, then it’s probably the best order to use.

13d “Trader‘s mine,” seaman reported (10)
WHOLESALER: If somebody reported words for ‘mine’ (as in a place where things are dug up) and ‘seaman’, they could sound like this answer.

16d Dish that might be given to convict (8)
PORRIDGE: A type of food is also a slang term for a type of sentence given to some convicts.

18d Wicked: stupendously ace film! (7)
MALEFIC: ‘Wicked’ in crosswords often refers to candles or things that have wicks. Today however its the ‘evil’ sense. Chambers labels the answer as “literary, formal or old use”; its start is familiar from other words with ‘bad’ connotations, and its ending sounds like an adjective, so you can probably work it out even if you aren’t familiar with this specific word, by putting the letters of the last two words in a stupendous order.

20d Experimental and not given a hearing? (7)
UNTRIED: Here we need to think of a word for giving somebody a court hearing, then apply one of those prefixes that turns a word into its opposite. The question mark is because the opposite isn’t really used with this word when relating to hearings.

22d Spread covering large dish (5)
PLATE: Make a spread cover the clothing abbreviation for ‘large’. The tricky thing here is that the spread has a couple of accents on it, and a different pronunciation from how its (accentless) letters feature in the answer. The dish here is a literal piece of kitchen-ware, not a metonym for some food.

23d The opposite of stern heads of schools taking extreme measures (4)
STEM: In the context where ‘stern’ refers to one end of something, we need a word for the other end. There’s a well-known word for this, but it only has 3 letters, so that’s no use here. Spell out the word we do want with the ‘head’ letters of the final 4 words. Checking a dictionary, that turns out also to be an opposite to ‘stern’ — which seems like a poor choice by whoever came up with it, since in joined-up handwriting the two opposites look almost identical.

Quickie Puns

In today’s Quick Crossword the first 2 clues are italicized, indicating that their answers when read aloud together can be made to sound like another word or phrase. If you want to check, here are the answers and pun:

DINER + MIGHT = DYNAMITE

And today we have the setter who’s also snuck a pun into the bottom row of the grid:

HEIST + TREAT = HIGH STREET

85 comments on “DT 30930”

  1. A great start to the crosswording week once again. Having said that, it did take me a while to get a foothold but, once a few checkers wert in, off I went. The one clue I don’t understand is 23d. How can the opposite of “stem” be “stem”? I didn’t know the game show at 1a but it was quite gettable from the clue. My COTD is 12a simply because it is a wonderful word.

    Thank you, setter for the fun solve. Thank you, Smylers for the hints.

    1. I seem to reember an old saying about cleaning a ship from stem to stern, Steve. So presumably it is the stern that’s the back end and the stem is the .other. My knowledge of ships is limited so perhaps another conteibutor knows more……

    2. Steve, from stern to stem is a nautical expression meaning from one end of a ship to the other.

      My difficulty with that clue is that in the typeface used in the paper the two words are virtually indistinguishable meaning that, unwittingly, the answer appears to appear in the clue!

      2. Ah, the famous case, partly based on font, of RN looking like M, in lower case of course – a trip to Specsavers may, or may not, help.

          3. Kern is a new one for me. What a splendid word.

            Thank you, S.

            How apt that it has an r next to an n.

        2. Specsavers wouldn’t help, Senf. I’ve just taken possession of a new pair of specs. As Smylers says, it’s a keming issue. 😊

          1. Never heard of keming before, but what a great word to describe bad kerning – so obvious – every day’s a school day as they say

  2. A rare case of everything clicked from the off for completion bang on * time. Good to see Basil & the Major, enjoyed the Rev clue & the homophone at 13d but I’ll pick 3d as my clear favourite ahead of 24&27a
    Thanks to the setter & to Smylers

  3. Enjoyable and light. Perfect fare for a Monday.
    I did not know the game show at 1a, but it couldn’t be anything else. Having read Smyler’s description that it involves celebrities doing challenges, I don’t think I am missing much. CoD to the cricketing 1d. Thank you setter and Smylers.
    We flew back from Inverness yesterday after a very enjoyable week in the Highlands in glorious weather. Nature highlights included dolphins at Chanonry Point, three golden eagles in Strathconon, ospreys and several cuckoos (both heard and seen). Thanks again to Huntsman for filling in for me on the Thursday blog.

    1. I wouldn’t give my description of 1a too much credibility, because I haven’t seen it either! The contestants are mostly comedians, including many that I rate highly, not the random mix of people just trying to be famous that are encountered on some shows. So it’s probably better than I made it sound.

      But I feel that’s a fair test of cultural knowledge in a crossword: as with a Friends character recently, if somebody who hasn’t seen the programme has somehow ended up aware of the relevant name, then it clearly has some general awareness.

  4. 1*/3*. My only concern is yet another in the epidemic of meaningless anagram indicators that are becoming the norm; in this case in 18d.

    Nevertheless, this was light and fun, as a Monday back-pager should be. 3d was my favourite.

    Many thanks to Mr Ron (remember him?) and to Smylers.

    1. I liked that we got both ‘horribly’ and ‘stupendously’ as anagram indicators — putting letters in a different order can be either really bad or really good!

            1. I didn’t get it either before reading this.
              It sounds more like “trip ending” when I say it in my head.

  5. Some tricky parsing today but enjoyable nevertheless. I particularly enjoyed the anagrams at 12a and 21a and the Spoonerism at 8d thanks to the compiler and to Smylers for the hints.

  6. Fairly straightforward solve.
    Many thanks to Smylers for parsing 3d and 8d – I couldn’t.
    Also thanks to setter

  7. Like the top of a freshly-made cappuccino this was light, frothy, and posed no resistance. An enjoyable starter for the week ahead with some clever and amusing clues. 1a was a write-in from the word play while reading the clue, but the answer itself is something of which I’ve never heard & certainly never seen and, from Smyler’s kind description of it, I shall not be making any effort to fill that particular lacuna (one of many, no doubt) in my lexicon of modern culture!

    3d was outstanding, my COTD, with the 8d Spoonerism and 10a revolutionary postie taking the other two steps on the podium.

    Many thanks indeed to the setter for the fun, and to Smylers for the blog

    1. Thank you. Some weeks I do feel my main contribution is less explaining how to decode cryptic crossword clues and more explaining popular culture to people who are far more accomplished than I am at crosswords!

      1. Your contributions as a blogger are hugely (and I am sure widely!) appreciated on both counts, Smylers. Every day I feel just a little bit more sympathy for the apocryphal 1960s judge who supposedly asked “Who are The Beatles?”

  8. I still don’t really get 5d. I also wondered if there was a very dodgy middle pun in the quick crossword of matadores

    1. I considered ‘matadores’ as well, but it seems like there’s too much extra in there for it to be close enough (and I don’t think our current double-punner has ever previously emulated Campbell in going up to three puns).

      For 5d, the abbreviation for ‘pair’ is ‘pr’. Put that in front of the answer and you get a word meaning ‘stop’. Then run the logic backwards to match the clue.

  9. I find myself agreeing with others today, regarding the stem/stern debacle and the fluid anagram indicators so will not duplicate comments. I didn’t even see the anagram at 18d! That said, I found the whole puzzle exceptionally enjoyable and lots of fun – even the Spoonerism, which took a bit of sorting out. Overall favourite was 3d, with podium places for 9a and 14a. Thanks to whomsoever for the pleasure and Smylers for the comprehensive blog.

  10. An entertaining start to the cruciverbal (non-)work week and it’s a holiday as well – Victoria Day honouring Queen Victoria, who is known as the Mother of Confederation – 1.5*/3.5*

    In a recent response to a question on anagram indicators I ‘created’ this ‘description’ – it seems that an indicator has become any word or words that the setters can persuade the editors indicates that the letters of preceding or succeeding word(s) need to be rearranged to fit the definition in the clue. Personally, I have no issues with the variety of indicators that we are ‘seeing’ which, for me, add to the enjoyment of solving.

    Candidates for favourite – 19a, 25a, 3d, 4d, and 13d – and the winner is 4d.

    Thanks to whomsoever and to Smylers.

  11. 12a and 3d were my picks from this entertaining and pretty straightforward stroll through crosswordland. I haven’t done a cryptic for a few days so this was a pleasant and light reintroduction to the joys of solving.

    Many thanks to our unknown setter and Smylers.

  13. Enjoyable Monday fare – thanks to our setter and Smylers.
    My podium boasts 14a, 3d and 20d.

    May I just say that my email to Smylers inviting him to join the blogging team has paid extremely lucrative dividends in providing us with a top-class blogger.

    1. Thank you for inviting him, an excellent choice with well written explanations. I look forward to the Smylers blogs.

  14. Mondays rarely provide a walk in the park for me and today was no exception but I did enjoy the challenge. North was smoothest passage. I liked 7a parsing. Believe 18d is new to me. Thank you to whomever of the trio and to Smylers.

  15. A fine, gentle start to the week that flowed from the off.

    18d is a new word for me that I’m surprised isn’t in common parlance as it’s a goodie with a straightforward etymology.

    12a is very satisfying to say but not as good as cacophony and my fave fiddlesticks!

    My picks for the pody are 10a, 21a and 3d.

    MT to the setter and Falcs.

    1*/4*

  16. Quite liked the way our setter played with words in this one and I gave my ticks to 6&15a plus 4&8d.

    Thanks to whomsoever and to Smylers for the review.

  17. Very gentle but enjoyable start to the week. I’m afraid 25a might just be you, Smylers – do we have any shrinks on here to analyse ☺? Great blog as usual!

    My clue of the day (they rarely are) was the Spoonerism, which I got without checkers but would only ‘pencil’ it in until I did have the checkers as I’d forgotten the arboreal (I so want ‘aboretal’ to be a word) contribution!

    Other ticks went to 13d; I said the other day, I love clues where the solution is made up from words pronounced or separated differently. Also enjoyed the 22d spread as I was eating some!

    Thanks again to smilers and our setter.

  18. Haha 10a I got the right answer for the wrong reason. Musical = opera then I couldn’t figure out what Post Office had to do with it! Thanks for the explanation.

    1. Please could you change your ‘alias’ as I’ve been known as CS for fifteen years and people might think your comment/s were made by me

    2. “Well done to anybody who solved this straight from the wordplay without any crossing letters! ”
      When the hint says that you know you are in trouble. A pity in a crossword that had a lot of lovely clues – Although I would have described 8 down as definitely “malefic”.
      Can I join the “Cancel Spooner” movement, please?

      1. Hi, Bert. Welcome to the blog!

        My remark on 8d wasn’t intended as a criticism of the clue, just a report that I only got it once I had some letters. One of the points of a crossword is that you don’t need to be able to solve every clue on its own, because crossing letters will appear. I actually like it when crosswords account for this by having clues of different difficulties.

        I suspect Spoonerisms are here to stay, though they don’t appear in every crossword (and they’re easy to identify!), so many days you will get your wish.

      2. Welcome from me, as well, Bert. Please return on a daily basis if you can. We would love to hear from you. 👍
        As for spoonerisms, they’re rather like Marmite as far as I’m concerned.

  20. I think that all worked out quite well, except for 27a when I saw D-M I confidently inserted an O which held up my solving. My last one in was 5d but the clue is perfectly valid so it was just me being slow. 13d favourite. I have to bake a cake today for my turn hosting Book Group. I seldom make cakes these days as we just eat them. Many thanks to the Setter and Smylers.

    2. Not just you, Daisygirl: as well as Lynne above, SL8 also mentions 5d being their last one in, and it was mine as well — I’d got the rest of the blog written and scheduled to go with a gap where the explanation for 5d should be. I only worked it out when looking up ‘pair’ in the Bradford’s. I think parsings which involve ‘intermediate’ words that don’t have all their letters in the answer are often trickier.

      Also, something has to be your last in! If it hadn’t been for 5d, it would just be something else.

  21. I’m obviously completely on a different planet today as I found this neither particularly light nor particularly accessible, but there goes. No excuses as they would all be 17a. I will however give cotd to 9a. Hopefully on that basis I’ll be more lucky tomorrow. Thanks to compiler and Smylers.

  22. For me this was a normal Monday puzzle in the same difficulty of Campbell offerings prior to his untimely demise. Fun to do, lots of grins and chuckles and a couple of chestnuts.

    1.5*/4* for me today.

    Favourites 9a, 14a, 25a, 4d & 13d — with winner 14a
    Smiles/chuckle for 25a, 1d, 2d & 16d

    Thanks to setter & Smylers

  23. Very enjoyable with a nice variety of clues. I had 3d as a favourite and although it was enjoyable there were several which were head scratchers, 5d holding out the longest.

    Many thanks to the setter and to Smylers for the hints.

  24. Enjoyed today’s offering, no particular hold ups except for the stem/stern debate. Off to have a steroid injection in my shoulder, last one didn’t work so fingers crossed. Thanks to all and especially Smylers for keeping up the good work, we do all appreciate our bloggers.

  25. I also struggled with the stern/stem issue. Otherwise a good puzzle to start the week. I’ve never seen 1a but have seen trailers for it.

    Top picks for me were 3d, 9a and 8d.

    Thanks to Smylers and the setter.

  26. I rather enjoyed this one today, definitely more friendly than a lot of recent Mondays. Not to say I found it easy, as it did take me a while to get off the runway, but helped by solving some of the longer answers first. A lot of solving by checkers, and a couple of bung ins, and it was Bob’s your uncle. I would like to see more from this setter, so thank you. And thanks also to Smylers. Anyone brave enough to take on the solving/hinting tasks is high up in my estimation.

  27. An enjoyable start to the week for me with about 75% completed before I had to take a sneaky look at the hints. I suppose I enjoyed 14a with the reference to Basil and the major even though I was originally on the wrong wavelength looking for a spicy pork pie. Also thank you to Smylers for the clip from that great political documentary series, Yes Minister/Prime Minister.
    As always, thank you to Smylers for the hints and the setter.

  28. Some fairly easy clues and a few which required a bit more thought.
    Dodgy indicators can generally be identified by their position in the clue and the syntax as a whole. I’m all for a bit of invention for compilers to come up with fresh ideas for them rather than use the usual ones.
    I’ve gone for 10a, 14a and 8d for my top three.
    I too had a kerning issue with 23d, though did’nt know it at the time as I’d never heard of the word.
    Thanks to Smylers for the blog and that new word and to the setter for a great mix of clues.

  29. Thanks for the feedback. I’ll out myself here as the “new” Monday setter; you’ll be able to tell which are mine by the double puns, in a tribute to Allan Scott.

    Regarding “stupendously”, whether compiling or editing, I tend to use a subset of the list of anagram indicators in Chambers Crossword Dictionary as my anagram bible. While I don’t allow every anagram indicator contained therein, “stupendously” gets my vote.

    1. Aha! Thank you for commenting, Chris, and for identifying yourself publicly. I feel like we should’ve guessed, as the person perhaps most likely to be paying tribute to Campbell.

      Hope you’re enjoying setting regularly.

  30. Very enjoyable Monday puzzle and just the right level of challenging. Thank you setter and thank you Smylers (I checked 15a and 23d with you before writing them in). And setter, any reference to the (12a) Mr Fawlty always welcome!
    Thank you also to Smylers for the Etiquette Guide (I hope you don’t have to deal with too many breaking the rules!)

  31. Smylers is having a joke! I’m one of those people who, if told not to do something, I do it. In his preamble, Smylers said “Though don’t click that one obviously”.

    I did. 😊

  32. Not heard of 1a or 18d but guessed both at first attempt. Some tricky clues in there but generally more Mondayish than some have been of late. Favourite was 20d. Thanks to CL and Smylers.

  33. I must be having a bad day, I could get nowhere with this. Never heard of the game show or Mr Astley, still baffled by the Spoonerism, etc etc

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

    1. Welcome to the blog, ChrisMK. Hopefully a crossword with cultural references more suited to you will be along shortly. For the Spoonerism, see my reply to BobH above.

    2. Welcome to our merry band, ChrisMK. Please comment again. All are welcome. 😊

    3. “Never heard of […] Mr Astley” … welcome ChrisMK, and you really don’t know how lucky you are!

  35. Good evening

    An excellent start to the crosswording week, pitched just right for a Monday.

    Plenty of enjoyable clues, and you know what? I’m going for the Spoonerism at 8d as my COTD!

    Many thanks to our setter and to Smylers.

  36. A nice steady solve with some top clues, a fine start to the week. 1* / 3.5*
    Favourites 8d spooner (yes some people like them), 3d pros + cons and 8a man with iron

    Thanks to Smylers and Chris Lancaster, look forward to more from you on Mondays

  37. The Spoonerism today (and Spoonerisms in general) are fine by me. With a background in timber I am always on the lookout for trees in all their guises. I think it is a long standing thing since the late great Araucaria took his name from the Monkey Puzzle tree

    Thanks to Smylers and Chris Lancaster I must remember to try the quick more often, now I know there may be more puns

    I was rickrolled by the click me blob in the preamble too

    1. Araucaria featured in a recent Times puzzle, and for me at least the clue was particularly fiendish!

  38. Had a fair old battle with this crozzie today but I eventually solved most of it without assistance: I only needed the hints for 13d and 19a. As usual, I agree with the comments on the other clues and despite being tested to my limits, I enjoyed the solving. COTD 14a for the construction. Thanks to CL and Smylers. ***/****

  39. A lovely puzzle; thoroughly enjoyable, though I found it more challenging than many others.
    I’m no fan of quiz shows, and my heart sank with 1a, but it was well-clued so no shipwreck!
    Many thanks.

  40. 2*/4* …
    liked 3D “Glibness, possibly, that could have its pros and cons (5,8)”

Comments are closed.