A Puzzle by Buddy
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The puzzle is available by clicking on the above grid.
Buddy is in the hot seat this week. He's given us a clever and amusing puzzle full of innovative wordplay and subtle misdirection though my repetition radar bleeped on more than one occasion. Also I seemed to type in “abbreviation” a lot. Thanks to him.
Across
1a Translator keeps Kindle in pocket (7)
TROUSER: An abbreviation for TranslatoR “keeps” kindle/ignite
5a Rogue oligarchs rejecting one government expert (7)
SCHOLAR: OLigARCHS* (rogue)
9a Delve into first-rate book (5)
PLUMB: First rate/top/choice plus the abbreviation for Book
10a An American cycling track provides help to the French (2,7)
AU SECOURS: A/an from the clue, an abbreviation for American plus a track/trail with the final letter cycled to the front
11a Film of man caught in piece of armour (4,2,4)
COAT OF MAIL: Film/layer plus of from the clue and a homophone of the sex of a man
12a Australian with new beard (3)
AWN: Abbreviations for the first three words of the clue
14a Riff-raff mostly inferior to gentleman leading clever society (12)
UNDESIRABLES: All but the last letter of inferior to/beneath, a title for a gentleman, clever/capable plus an abbreviation for Society
18a Without being protected by patent, wound up in financial straits (12)
OVEREXTENDED: Patent/clear around without/less plus wound up/finished
21a Fairy tale about capturing Norse god (3)
TYR: Nicely hidden and reversed (about/capturing)
22a Frame paintings I select and organize, right to left (10)
ARTICULATE: Paintings/craft plus I from the clue plus select and organize/oversee with the abbreviation for Right changed to that for Left. Nicely disguised definition
25a Submissiveness - once in the sack, that is? Just the opposite! (9)
OBEDIENCE: Once from the clue placed around the sack/the pit and the usual “that is”, which is the opposite of what the wordplay tells us to do.
26a Bake brown bread when time is right (5)
ROAST: A form of “browned” bread with the abbreviation for Time changed to that for Right. Very smart but not ideal to have two clues of this type so close together especially as they both use the abbreviation for Right.
27a Rent covered by paid content (7)
PLEASED: Rent/hire inside an abbreviation for PaiD. Nicely misdirected definition
28a The man's gripped by lechery most rank (7)
LUSHEST: A third person male pronoun plus the S “gripped by” lechery/desire
Down
1d Issues finest selections for the audience (6)
TOPICS: Homophones of finest/best and selections/choices
2d Visual comic lacking introduction (6)
OCULAR: Comic/amusing minus the first letter
3d Beginning to pile abuse on corrupt journalist called to appear in court (10)
SUBPOENAED: PileABUSEON* (corrupt) plus the usual senior journalist
4d Brazilian bread with taste of mango preserve (5)
REALM: The Brazilian currency and initial letter of Mango
5d Distrust American detective involved in graft (9)
SUSPICION: An abbreviation for American (be careful of repeating abbreviations) plus an abbreviated Private Investigator inserted into a graft in a botanical sense
6d Cope with grating cough (4)
HACK: Triple definition
7d Praiseworthy, adept fellow accepting University first (8)
LAUDABLE: (Young) fellow around the abbreviation for University and adept/smart. We have this synonym in 14a, which is not ideal
8d Precipitation outbreak on cape (8)
RASHNESS: Outbreak/deluge plus a geographical cape
13d Precautions tested before getting into psychedelic drugs (10)
SAFEGUARDS: Tested/protected plus A/before inside DRUGS* (psychedelic)
15d Crowned King of Norway locked in the den mistakenly (9)
ENTHRONED: An abbreviated “king of Norway” inserted into THE DEN* (mistakenly). I presume our setter isn't referring to Millwall’s football stadium!
16d Fawn starts to scamper over foothills, then stops on arid plateau (4-4)
SOFT-SOAP: An amusing acrostic clue
17d Restore polluted River Tees almost entirely (8)
RETRIEVE: RIVER TEEs* (polluted)
19d Reversed irrational decline in price (6)
DAMAGE: Irrational/crazy reversed plus decline/get older
20d Make like a bird and take off! (4,2)
BEAT IT: If we split the solution, an imperative idiom meaning “go away” 2,1,3 we can see the wordplay
23d Model readily stripped and posed (5)
IDEAL: rEADILy* (posed)
24d Imprisoned by tyrant, I escape bonds (4)
TIES: Hidden (imprisoned by)
An enjoyable puzzle which was pretty tricky I thought. Thanks to Buddy.
Lots of clues ticked – I’ll just mention 10a, 27a, 19d and (my favourite because it made me laugh) 20d.
This challenging puzzle was great fun and brightened up a dull wet lunchtime here in London.
I have pondered long and hard over the parsing of 13d but it has defeated me, even though I can see where the letters GURDS come from.
Although it has no bearing in terms of solving the clue, strictly speaking I think that 26a should specify which T needs to be replaced, e.g. “Bake brown bread when first time is right”. I’m also not sure how rank is a synonym of lush in 28a.
I didn’t know the “grating” meaning of 6d but, now I’ve looked it up, it’s a great triple definition.
Many thanks, Buddy, this was very enjoyable.
You need an abbreviation for ‘before’ in 13d.
I need more than that – a step by step guide would be handy 😀
Well I’ve a correctly completed grid & without a letter reveal but quite a few of the answers came as a result of identifying the definition & working from there – the whys currently escape me 13d&18a. I had to look up the spelling of 3d as well as confirm both 10&21a. Thoroughly enjoyed the solve but found it of Toughie level difficulty. Particularly liked the acrostic at 16d (made me think of the wonderful sequence in Cimino’s The Deer Hunter) together with 2&20d but I’ll pick 22a as my favourite.
Many thanks Buddy
Thanks for comments so far. Apologies if this is tougher than expected. As a still-novice setter I have a hard time gauging the difficulty of my own puzzles; I’m aiming for something between a carte blanche Listener and “stripey horse (5)” and can’t really tell where it will land.
For 13 the intended parsing is SAFE (tested) + A (before) in DRUGS*. I can see quibbling over safe/tested but it is in chambers thesaurus. 18 is EX (without) in OVERT (patent) + ENDED.
RANK = lush defined in Chambers.
Thanks for a great puzzle, Buddy.
I always forget A = Before, but I really don’t like Safe = Tested. As a general principle, I prefer relying on straight dictionary definitions rather than use Thesauri as the latter often throw up anomalies. I can’t see anything in Chambers dictionary which suggests they are synonyms.
When solving, I looked up Rank in both Chambers online and the Chambers app and there is nothing in either of those to suggest it is synonymous with Lush. However, prompted by your comment, I also checked by hard copy of the Big Red Book and I see it is there. What chance have solvers and setters got when three versions of a single dictionary contain different information?!
I enjoyed this although it was a ‘tough ask’ in places and I’m still not sure that I’ve correctly parsed some of my answers. Top three here were 10,14&22a.
Many thanks, Buddy, please try to be kinder to us next time!
Quite hard, couple of hmms but thoroughly enjoyable
Thanks Buddy
We needed electronic assistance but did eventually managed to struggle over the line.
An enjoyable challenge.
Thanks Buddy.
We are still being challenged! Hopefully more pennies will drop soon!
I was hoping this might provide a soporific conclusion to my Saturday, but it kept me awake longer than anticipated and I was deprived of some much needed beauty sleep! Nevertheless, I did enjoy the late night challenge, despite some of the abbreviations taxing my drowsy brain cells. Favourites in the Across direction were 10, 25 & my overall winner, 22. In the Down direction I selected 3, 17 & 23. Both 3-letter answers were unfamiliar to me, but there was accessible wordplay. I wasn’t familiar with the particular use of ‘rank’ and ‘graft’ either, but that wasn’t a major obstacle. The 1d homophone did receive a ‘hmm’ in my sidenotes!
Thanks to Buddy and to StephenL – I had only identified two definitions in 6d, so thanks for the additional ‘grating’.
Many thanks for the review, Stephen. I did need to check in the BRB for the third definition of 6d – a real oddity, wonder whether it’s a contraction of hayrack? Thanks again to Buddy for the undoubted challenge.
The NE corner filled up fairly easily but it was slower going after that, and eventually I needed a wordfinder for 13dn, and couldn’t get 19dn; I was looking for a complete reversal of E (an irrational mumber) plus ????? so missed the obvious answer. Thanks, though, Buddy and StephenL.
Thanks for the review Stephen. I missed the triple def having had grating cough = hack.