Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31158
Hints and tips by Smylers
Hello. My cast is off, so I have both hands available for typing again. My left wrist is still weak though: things I’ve recently discovered I’m still unable to do include stabbing a piece of (raw) carrot with a fork, and clap. I was at a black-tie industry dinner on Friday, which mainly seemed to exist so that the people who organized it could all thank each other in turn; I ended up miming a lot of applauding.
Anyway, on to today’s Telegraph cryptic crossword, which I found perfect for those who prefer more straightforward crosswords on a Monday. There was no obscure vocabulary, so if the 13-year-old doesn’t have any homework today, I’m considering printing this out for them to do instead.
Please leave a comment below, especially if you’ve never commented before. There’s lots of regulars in our friendly community, but all of us at some point started by making our first comment as a stranger.
Across
1a Take part and advance, having boxed favourite (7)
COMPETE: We need a verb meaning ‘advance’, specifically to somewhere. That boxes, or goes around, a favourite, perhaps of a teacher.
5a Liberal ignores friendly labourer (7)
PEASANT: The answer is a word which I keep forgetting can specifically mean a farm labourer, it generally being used these days in a more general sense. Form it from a word meaning ‘friendly’, from which the single-letter abbreviation for the Liberal party has been removed.
9a Core group of students bored by cryptic clue (7)
NUCLEUS: We need the usual group of students, then bore them by making a hole in them, and into that hole place ‘clue’ spelt cryptically (as in, wrongly).
10a Next R.E.M. EP somewhat radical (7)
EXTREME: The answer is lurking in some consecutive letters in the first part of the clue.
11a Being sixteen badly inhibits Conservative backing European (9)
EXISTENCE: Spell ‘sixteen’ badly, make it hold the single-letter abbreviation for ‘Conservative’, and make the whole lot back the abbreviation for ‘European’.
12a Surprise romantic meeting discussed by Jonathan Ross? (5)
TWIST: Think of a word for a romantic meaning then imagine Jonathan Ross saying it out loud. If you aren’t familiar with Jonathan Ross, he’s a TV presenter known as ‘Wossy’, who pronounces Rs as Ws.
13a Sweeten sauces from the East (5)
SUGAR: We need a 4-letter sauce (a savoury one as it happens), then to make it plural, and enter it into the grid from east to west. Helpfully, the sauces being plural pretty much gives away the first letter of the answer.
Pic credit: © Sandy Poore, CC BY-SA 2.0
15a Direct the setter’s friend to cover Hendrix periodically (9)
IMMEDIATE: The definition here is nicely misleading, because it’s an adjective, not the verb the surface reading is suggesting. Form it by interpreting ‘the setter’s’ as ‘the setter is’, then changing that to how the setter would say that, and re-abbreviating it. After that goes a word for a friend, which is wrapped around periodic letters taken from ‘Hendrix’. We have two options for the alternating letters to take: you can decide whether the sequence ‘hnrx’ or ‘edi’ is more likely to crop up in the middle of another word, and from that deduce how many letters the friend needs to be.
17a Confused, Charlie walked after son (9)
SCRAMBLED: The letter represented by ‘Charlie’ in the Nato alphabet and a word that can mean ‘walked’ both go after the abbreviation for ‘son’.
19a Great drink with former monarch (5)
SUPER: Follow a verb meaning ‘drink’ with the letters used to denote the name of a specific former monarch.
22a A profit once more (5)
AGAIN: Copy the ‘A’ from the clue, and add another word for ‘profit’.
23a Causes old clubs and casinos to change (9)
OCCASIONS: Combine the abbreviation for ‘old’, the alphabetic alternative to ♣ , and ‘casinos’. Make the smallest change possible that turns it into a word.
25a First home – is this all regularly missing? (7)
INITIAL: After the usual ‘home’, we need the next few words from the clue but missing out letters at regular intervals.
26a Requiring massaging, reportedly (7)
NEEDING: The answer sounds like a word for massaging when reported out loud.
27a Came out with revolutionary qualification including maths, primarily (7)
EMERGED: The qualification is one earned at a university. Make it revolutionary by writing it backwards, then include in it the primary letter of ‘maths’.
28a Vocalists in Germany aboard ship (7)
SINGERS: Place the ‘in’ from the clue and an abbreviation for ‘Germany’ aboard the letters used to indicate the usual ship/
Down
1d Admit company head has accepted fine (7)
CONFESS: Start with the abbreviation for ‘Company’ in company names. I can’t immediately think of when it’s used for lower-case ‘company’ (and the dictionary I checked had it expand to ‘Company’); if you can, please share enlightenment in the comments. That’s followed by another word for a head — in the sense of ‘headland’, not the body part — into which is inserted the abbreviation for ‘fine’ used when classify pencil lead hardness.
2d Ridiculing second century leader (7)
MOCKING: Concatenate: a word meaning ‘second’, in the sense of a brief period of time; the abbreviation for ‘century’; and the leader of some countries.
3d The First Lady books social gathering (5)
EVENT: Both components of this are from The Bible: the lady who appears first in it, followed by the abbreviation for a specific group of its books.
4d Key lease isn’t altered (9)
ESSENTIAL: Alter the order of the letters of the preceding words in the clue.
5d Bit of quiet on the radio (5)
PIECE: If you heard this word for ‘quiet’ on the radio, it would sound like the answer.
6d Opinions of statute I’d revised (9)
ATTITUDES: Revise the order of the letters in ‘statute I’d’. We try to keep Big Dave Crossword’s Blog a politics-free zone, so please don’t post comments of which statutes you’d like to revise.
7d Upset, face endless anger with mother country (7)
AMERICA: Make ‘face’ endless by removing both its first and last letters. Append a literary word for ‘anger’ and a colloquial term for ‘mother’, then upset the whole thing by entering it up the grid.
8d In that respect, scoffing at drama (7)
THEATRE: A word which can mean ‘in that respect’ (in the sense of “I agree with him in that respect”, to lift the example straight from Chambers) eats the ‘at’ from the clue.
14d Prompting buzz about artist, excited at last (9)
REMINDING: ‘Buzz’ here is a verb meaning to make a phone call. That goes around both the surname of a current British artist and the last letter of ‘excited’.
16d Dim nieces misused drugs (9)
MEDICINES: Misuse the letters of the first two words to spell out the answer.
17d Barely used fast rides in resort (7)
SEASIDE: I spent too long on this clue trying to fit in ‘spa’, Crosswordland’s favourite type of resort. When that didn’t work, I wondered if ‘re-sort’ing the letters of ‘rides in’ could possibly mean ‘Barely used fast’. However, what we actually need is for three words from the clue to be ‘bare’, in the sense of stripped of their outer letters. Those that remain cleverly spell out the answer.
18d Understand Grealish has snubbed sides before introduction to Everton (7)
REALISE: Snub the letters at each side of ‘Grealish’ and enter the rest of them in the grid. That should leave one square left for the introductory letter of ‘Everton’.
20d Supply extremely poor poet with ecstasy (7)
PROVIDE: Concatenate: the letters at the extremes of ‘poor’; the name of a Roman poet; and the single-letter nickname for ‘ecstasy’.
21d Quits or extends contract? (7)
RESIGNS: This is pretty much a double definition, in that the ‘wordplay’ is a second definition of the same sequence letters and just needs removing from it the hyphen that’s used to disambiguate it from the first definition.
23d Topless dirty drunk (5)
OILED: We need a word that can mean dirty or stained and to remove its top letter.
24d Small bird back at sea (5)
STERN: Follow the clothes-label letter that indicates ‘small’ with the name of a bird. That’s ‘name’ in the sense of its species or family, not a name like Geoffrey. In the definition, ‘back’ means ‘rear’, not ‘returning to’.
Quickie Pun
In today’s Quick Crossword, the first 3 clues are italicized, indicating we can say their answers out loud to make another word, name, or phrase:
RHEA + WIN + DOE = REAR WINDOW
Recent Reading
A clue in Dada’s Toughie last week reminded me of another of Sandy Balfour’s books, and to re-read them. I started with this one rather than the one from the clue, because it was published first. It’s a meandering memoir of somebody who isn’t famous. It’s the story of them leaving South Africa to avoid having to fight in favour of Apartheid, interwoven with the story of them learning cryptic crosswords.
Mainly Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8) is a story of identity: somebody who’s left one country behind and chosen another (the UK, or, more specifically, England) and is ruminating on where they belong, how they fit in, and what it means to be English. It’s breezily written, with past events recounted in the present tense giving a sense of being there, and short. As somebody who has never lived outside the UK, it’s interesting to get an outsider’s perspective, and to see their journey of no longer being an outsider.
Ten years later I am in Moscow for the second time. This time my papers are in order. I have brought with me three pieces of identity. I have my British passport. I have my South African identity document. And I have the second anthology of Guardian crosswords.
Sandy Balfour was introduced to crosswords by his girlfriend, who patiently deconstructs the clues he finds so baffling. He slowly improves, with relevant clues scattered throughout the tales of his life, becoming more obsessed with crosswords. Learning more about them, he meets several setters, so we also encounter conversations with those including current Telegraph setters Elgar and Dada, and the late Aurucaria from The Guardian. When a first read this book a couple of decades ago, crosswords were something I liked the idea of in theory but had never yet managed a whole one. I also thought it unlikely that a mere solver would get to share a drink with national setters without having some special insider status. As somebody who now can sometimes solve a crossword unaided, and who — much to my surprise — have met several setters in pubs, it was interesting to read it again.
Recommended for anybody interested in learning more about the culture of crosswords and hearing from setters, and who doesn’t mind discursive anecdotes covering a lot of things along the way. Also recommended to anybody interested in the concept of identity and Britishness, who could largely skip over the crossword-related parts. And possibly a good gift for somebody who isn’t into crosswords, as an explanation of those of us who are.
Another great start to the cruciverbal week with a puzzle that was mostly straightforward but with a few traps for the unwary. For some reason, it took me ages to suss out the Eastern sauces at 13a because I know the word well. A case of hiding in plain sight, really. I solved 20d from checkers and then I saw the poet and I had no idea about Grealish in 18d but it didn’t matter. My COTD is the maths qualification at 27a.
Thank you, setter for a great puzzle. Thank you , Smylers for the hints.
Good morning. This was an exceptionally quick fill even for a Monday. 9a, 17a and 8d are my top picks with 9a being my LOI. Many thanks to Smylers for the hints and review and the setter for the puzzle.
A very gentle crossword work-out today and no less enjoyable for that. Lots of great clues but I think the bored students at 9a were my favourite. Thank you setter and Smylers.
Very enjoyable and a great start to the week. I liked the bored students and the sauces from the east, but cotd goes to the poor poet on ecstacy. The poet in question fell foul of Emperor Augustus who found some of his poetry on persuit of casual relationships too riskè and banished him to a far corner of the empire and, despite grovelling apologies, would not allow him back.
An enjoyable challenge to ‘warm up’ the brain for the rest of the cruciverbal week – 1.5*/3.5*
Candidates for favourite – 9a, 8d, 17d, and 24d – and the winner is 24d,
Thanks to whomsoever and Smylers.
P.S. At BB17, a little bird told me that Shabbo’s second Toughie will be appearing tomorrow!
Initially a bit slow on the uptake, but the lower half was fairly easy going and once a few checkers were in place the grid filled itself. The man with a lisp at 12a was my stand out clue.
Thanks to the setter and Smylers for casting the hints having cast the cast
1*/3*
I had exactly the same issue with 17d 😊 – good puzzle – thanks
Pretty straightforward but very enjoyable with plenty of humour and some top musical references. It reminded me how much I used to like REM when Stipe still had hair like that (I obviously took umbrage when they signed for WEA and other people liked them too). Lots of clever clues too including the students at 7a and maverick Jack, with whom my son once had a run-in when he was a ballboy, at 18d. Thanks very much to the setter and to Smylers for the usual comprehensive, diligently researched and entertaining blog and clips.
Well I guess this may well be one of those Weatherman productions that the man himself told us about the bash. If so it was just the job to kick us off into the new week. No particular favourite clue but enjoyed the solve.
Thanks to the setter & to Smylers
Very gentle but completely foxed by 17d until enlightened by Smylers – severe self kicking in progress.
Many thanks to the Setter and Smylers.
Good start to the week. Rather stopped in my tracks with 12 across asking myself what on earth could Johnathan Ross have to do with anything ?
No he is not a footballer, cricketer or pop singer. So pleased when that clue made sense without having to look for help so I will place it as favourite for the day.
Many thanks to Smylers and our setter.
1.5*/5*. Perfect for a Monday! Light, great fun, and smooth surfaces all the way.
No particular favourite. Every clue was excellent.
Many thanks to the setter (Weatherman?) and to Smylers.
17d was the last in. Clever clue.
Great and gentle start to the week. I did like the Jonathan Ross reference , made me laugh . I also got tripped up by 17d my last one in – glad it wasn’t just me. Couldn’t make head or tail of the clue at first and thought the definition was ‘barely used’ . Got there in the end – A nice clue. Thanks to the setter and Smylers.
A very enjoyable start to the week which went swimmingly until I got to Ant & Dec country with my last two in being the 5a/7d comby. I couldn’t think of a country with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th checkers and now I know why.
I’ve learnt a new word: rhotacism which Wossy has and I’ve just realised that it derives from rho, the Greek letter for r which he can’t say. It all makes sense. He once said ‘prostrate cancer’ on his talk show which is ironic. Ricky Gervais said to him ‘Why add a letter that you can’t pronounce to a word?’. Even though I can’t stand him, it was funny.
The setter has given us three indicators for taking off the first and letters of a word and one for the opposite: endless, barely, snubbed sides (like it) and extremely.
My podium is 9a, 12a and 2d.
MT to the setter (no ideas) and Smylers.
2*/4*
A speedy and highly enjoyable solve that was packed full of excellent clues with very good wordplay throughout. I particularly liked 8d and 27a.
My thanks to our Monday setter and Smylers.
Thanks for the hints Smylers as I couldn’t understand the answer to 17d or why “ignores friendly” deleted the “l” in 5a. All is explained. I thought an interesting if straightforward start to the week otherwise and thank the setter for a pleasant (with the “l”!) romp.
Perfectly pitched for a Monday – thanks to our setter and Smylers.
My favourite clue is 17d.
* / ****
Very nice start to the week. Everything went in quite rapidly. I did wonder at the similarity of the devices to use the ends of words (one way or another) in 7d, 17d, 18d and 20d.
Ticks went to the 7d country and the superb 12a Surprise – notwithstanding that Mr. Woss is not my favourite celebrity by any means.
My COTD was the 23d Topless dirty drunk!
Thanks to Weatherman (maybe) and Smylers.
1*/ 3.5* A very enjoyable start to the week with lots of smiles to be had.
Favourites today include the surpwise at 12a, the resort at 17d and understand Jack at 18d
Thanks to setter and Smylers
A very gentle, but pleasant start to the puzzling week, 17d was both my last in and favourite, with 5a as my least favourite. Personally, in these modern times, I consider the word to be most insulting and offensive to labourers in general and farm labourers in particular. My dictionary states as follows; “a poor smallholder or agriculturer or a labourer of low social status”. Sadly, I have never seen anyone else pick up on the word, so it must be oversensitive me. Thanks to setter and Smylers.
I agree with you on “peasant”. We are surrounded by farmers here and they are jolly intelligent and well informed not to mention hard working, far from the picture conjured up by that word.
Hi D&F
All peasants are labourers but all labourers aren’t peasants.
So, I think it’s fine.
I understand your logic, Tom 😆
Hi FF
The word isn’t used anymore and I completely understand why. But, I think it’s okay for it to be used in a crossword because the clue isn’t saying that all labourers, like farmers, are peasants.
Setters often use terms that are out of fashion as a last resort.
I agree with you, DG and F1. The term belongs in the past.
👍😆👍
👍😆👍
Fairly pleasant crossword which was completed in a reasonable time. Skies a light grey for the second day in a row so out in the garden for the afternoon.
The only news on the winter Olympics of any interest to me is when something goes horrendously wrong. One such yesterday and ice skating offers so much opportunities for pratfalls that I occasionally watch it but have to turn it off after a few moments due to severe boredom.
It’s possible that suggesting that people injuring themselves while ice-skating is in some way entertaining may have been better received on a day when I wasn’t hosting the blog?
Do you remember this? It was absolutely hilarious and no-one got hurt, except perhaps their pride!
https://www.olympics.com/en/video/steven-bradbury-wins-shock-gold-after-pile-up#:~:text=Olympic%20Winter%20games-,Steven%20Bradbury%20wins%20shock%20gold%20after%20pile%2Dup,at%20Salt%20Lake%20City%202002.
In which case you should lookout for the snowboarding big air later tonight for your fix! 🤣
A gentle but delightful puzzle, beautifully crafted. Honours to 17d, 18d & 20d.
Many thanks to the setter and Smylers
Nice gentle start to the week.
*/****
17d favourite for its clever construction.
Thanks to Smylers and Setter.
As sweet as 13a, but over too quickly, sadly. Perhaps no bad thing having sacrificed my sleep pattern to watch the Superbowl.
Lots of very well put together clues, with 18d being very clever. 16d, 17d and 24d get my podium places, but there are many others that were in contention. Top stuff from our Setter, so many thanks are due. Thanks also to Smylers.
And having sacrificed our sleep wasn’t it one of the dullest on record 😴
Good start to the week. After a slow start on the across clues it all went in relatively easily. My cotd and last in was 17d.
Thanks to setter and Smylers for the hints. I especially liked Mrs Large in her bath … that took me back several (many) years!
Another fine Monday puzzle to start the non-work week again.
Some interesting clueing, but nothing to scare the horses.
1.5*/3.5*
Favourites 5a, 19a, 26a, 18d, 21d & 24d — with winner 18d
Smiles for 19a, 26a & 5d
Thanks to setter & Smylers
For my part this required more application than is usually the case on a Monday particularly in the SW. Overlooked upset in parsing 7d and likewise interpreting buzz in 14d and like Smylers took long time to put
spa out of my mind for 17d and to cosider baring three words. Thank you setter and Smylers.
A great start to the week, my last in was 17d which became my favourite once I saw how it worked. Things are looking up, I managed a bit of gardening today as it finally stopped raining.
Many thanks to the setter and to Smylers for the hints.
Took me a little while to get into this and eventually completed unaided but afterwards I needed the hints to fully understand the parsing of 8d, 14d and 17d. 17d LOI and COTD for its construction and surface. Thanks to setter and Smylers. **/****
A gentle stroll today. But along the same lines as F1lbertfox, is it ok to have a poke at JRs lisp as a clue, just saying. Thanks to Smylers and assumedly to Bill Giles!
Bit late to comment today as we have come back from Cornwall and I told myself that I needed to do the weekend’s crosswords first.
I found this relatively gentle and liked 14d, 17d and 2d.
Thanks to Smylers and the setter.
I’m grateful for the Monday gentleness. SW was my ‘LQI’ , got slowed down temporarily, partly by reversing the ‘sauces’ of 13A incorrectly in my head 😸
Pody picks – will plump for 9A’s boring cryptic clue (as if), 17D’s ‘barely’ trickery (plus the answer generally cheers me up), and the winner is 10A – I love R.E.M. and, again, the solution is a favourite word … not so much *that* band though 🙂. I have a ‘Really good R.E.M. playlist’ on Spotify, easy to find of any one wishes 🎵
Thank you very much to setter and to Smylers. Did your 13 year old do the crossword after all, or did homework get in the way?
Perfect Monday puzzle. 18D work of genius. VMT Setter & Smylers.
Very late today for various reasons and approached it in a somewhat gung-ho Monday manner only to realise it needed concentration. Very well worthwhile though and I was lucky to immediately spot the use at 17d which was really neat. Many thanks to our Smart Setter and
Helpful Hinter.
I’ve been missing for a few days due to – no time too post, no time to start and a dnf in that order. That was then, this is now. An extremely pleasant straightforward solve, not my fastest but nowhere near my slowest. Favourite was 7d. Thanks to the setter and Smylers.
Two references to my favourite football team in two days. 18d genius today and shows a good working knowledge of the players at the club. Challenge to setters to keep this new trend going! Thanks everyone. COYB!
2*/3* …
liked 20D “Supply extremely poor poet with ecstasy (7)”