Daily Telegraph Vintage No 21
Hints and Tips by Rossophile
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** Enjoyment ***
Back in the hot seat. Back to normality and forward gear after yesterday’s challenge. Big thanks to Deansleigh. A pleasant solve today with a few tricky parsings. I’ve had to guess a couple. Delighted to be enlightened
As usual, links to image rich offerings, with hidden solutions. Mouse select the web offering to reveal answer. Also, on a tablet, I found that a double click the blank, and select “look up” will reveal.
https://www.macdonnell.co.uk/DT/V21.pdf
https://www.macdonnell.co.uk/DT/V21.htm
Across
1a Musical figure of integral parts (8)
TRIANGLE: Anagram (parts) of integral
5a A secondary highway overseas (6)
ABROAD: A double definition; (A), (B-r**d) and synonym for overseas
9a Common cheek to bear this colouring? Only by mistake (8)
LIPSTICK: Slang for cheek (L*p) followed by synonym of “to bear”. Mistake might be “slip”
10a Gift of old money (6)
TALENT: Double definition; an ancient currency and unit of weight in Greece, Roman Empire and the Middle East; also a skill or ability
12a Burdensome punishment given to named persons only? (4-5)
PACK DRILL: A physical task as result of wrong-doing (expecially military), or part of the expression “No names, no p*** d****”. If no wrongdoers are identified, no punishment follows.
13a Jack the packman (5)
KNAVE: Another word for knave in a pack of cards, worth more than 10, less than a queen
14a Heavy blow, the square cut (4)
BANG: Multiple meanings possible. A double definition; The result of a forceful collision, also the name of a type of haircut. Can also be a cricket shot, a cross bat played off the back foot, with a horizontal bat swing.
16a Main road (3-4)
SEA LANE: A cannel used by boats in the sea (main)
19a Church to clean out its eastern section (7)
CHANCEL: Abbreviation for Church (CH) followed by an anagram (out) of clean
21a Unaccompanied, walking-on part (4)
SOLE: Double definition. A single role, of the underside of a shoe.
24a Girl needing daily refreshment (5)
LYDIA: Anagram (refreshment) of daily
25a Parson into handyman activities gets Yellow Pages (9)
DIRECTORY: The acronym of Do It Yourself, with a six letter word for a compendium of information
27a Make angry North agree, somehow (6)
ENRAGE: Anagram (somehow) of Abbreviation for (N)orth, and agree.
28a Will exercise revolution when sapper leaves and I take over from you, by the sound of it (8)
VOLITION: Word constructed from revolution, with “i” substituted for “u”, and the initial “re” removed. Sappers dig trenches, or “saps”
29a Off-peak calls? (6)
YODELS: “High on a mountain (peak) sat a lonely goatherd”. This is a sound he makes communicating, with rapid changes in pitch from low to high
30a Such a beef might employ many vessels (3-5)
SEA FIGHT: Beef refers to an argument or grievance. In naval terms, many ships at war
Down
1d Flowers that split the upper class (6)
TULIPS: Anagram (Split) of split and (U)pper class
2d Breaking camp inside it shows a strong influence (6)
IMPACT: Anagram (breaking) of CAMP and IT
3d Famous school rising over degree (5)
NOTED: That cruciverbal favourite school spelt backwards over (D)egree
4d That’s deficient – boot polish has no lid (7)
LACKING: Boot polishing B****ING, has no lid (first letter)
6d Vote against Potter’s last object (9)
BLACKBALL: Double definition; The final colour to be sunk in snooker, and to vote against.
7d Top gear in Covent Garden? Lummy! (5,3)
OPERA HAT: Head wear at this performance. Lummy (Lord Love Me) is slang for “first-rate” ie. Top
8d Acted there within but wavered (8)
DITHERED: Synonym of Acted (D*d) with “there” inserted
11d Range of paranormAL PSychology (4)
ALPS: A lurker, reference to mountains
15d Chief spirit in red port (9)
ARCHANGEL: A senior winged messenger in heaven. Red port is a fortified wine. Perhaps a place for ships to dock in the Red Sea.
17d Kitchen vessel seen at Henley at end of July? (8)
SCULLERY: Double definition. A synonym for kitchen, and an example of what 8 rowers do in that that boat,
18d How Wordsworth became delirious? (8)
WANDERED: Think Daffodils. “I w******d, lonely as a cloud”
20d That’s a dicey way of getting home! (4)
LUDO: A game with dice, for two to four players. The aim is to finish, get home
21d Cor! Goes like the Dickens – what a character! (7)
SCROOGE: Anagram of COR and GOES. An infamous man in A Christmas Carol
22d Like Gray’s herd, long overdue (6)
LOWING: A construction of (L)ong and overdue. Sound cows make.
23d Ring, we hear, the young bird (6)
CYGNET: Homophone of a type of ring worn on finger. Young swan
26d Boy displaying scar (5)
CLIFF: Boy’s name and part of eSCARpment
It took a while to sort the parsing of a couple but, otherwise, relatively straightforward. For some reason 10a simply would not come to me and I kicked myself when I revealed the answer. My COTV is the punishment given to named persons at 12a.
Thank you, erstwhile setter. Thank you, Rossophile for the hints and your continued toil.
An enjoyable and fairly modern puzzle – thanks to Rossophile for the blog.
I thought that the grammar in 28a was a bit dodgy and 1d seems to be an anagram sans indicator.
I assumed that 9a was saying that putting lipstick on the cheek (rather than the lips) was a mistake.
Lum (in 7d) is a chimney or top hat so lummy is a facetious way of describing the answer.
I think that red in 15d means Communist because in 1980 the port was in the Soviet Union.
The vessel in 17d is a sculler (type of small boat).
The clues I liked best were 12a, 14a, 21a, 6d and 7d.
My grandfather used to say in a soft Devonshire accent ‘cor lummy days’ as an expression of surprise. It always reminds me of him! I think Wallace muttered ‘lummy days’ in The Wrong Trousers.
Lang may yer lum reek…
Lesley, my wife used to say that all the time. She was from Arbroath.
Mmm Arbroath Smokies
I have them sent by post but you can’t beat the But n Ben in Auchmithie.
I think of all the vintage crosswords, I most enjoyed solving this one. The west was easier than the east, with one or two parsings eluding me, so thanks for the enlightenment Rossophile.
I had to remind myself that Potter and Top Gear hadn’t been invented when this crossword was published!
Curiously, the grid was exactly the same as NYDK’s puzzle yesterday.
Thanks to Rossophile for the blog.
I agree with Moonraker, a v pleasant reminder of Thursday’s of my youth. In 1980 I was still (trying to) filling the gaps left by Dad and Mama Bee. I don’t remember this exactly but like Quasimodo his face rang a bell.
Thanks to Rossophile and an earlier BD.
DT Vintage 5 was from the blog era and I hope we get a few more in this series that were covered in BigDave’s blog.
Another very pleasant solve in this series. We particularly enjoyed the poetic references in 18d and 22d.
Thanks Rossophile.