Toughie No 3641 by Django
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Django is as entertaining as always but not that tricky. Thanks to him.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Across Clues
1a Singer drinking a little milk shake (7)
TREMBLE: a singer with a high-pitched voice contains the first letter of milk.
5a Leaves Caribbean island having made good copies (7)
TOBACCO: start with a small Caribbean island and replace its abbreviation for good with that of (carbon) copies.
9a American vandalised a sundial somewhere in Spain (9)
ANDALUSIA: an abbreviation for American followed by an anagram (vandalised) of A SUNDIAL.
10a Peron maybe moving university south – he’s two faced (5)
JANUS: Evita’s husband with the abbreviation for university moved. Finish with the abbreviation for south.
11a Mean Tory or absent Labour? (5)
PARTY: a synonym of mean or average and Tory without its ‘or’.
12a Car, central characters of feline and rodent go round in (9)
LIMOUSINE: the central letters of feline and a rodent containing IN.
13a “Work rest and play” jingle ultimately lacking say Mars (3,6)
RED PLANET: an anagram (work) of REST AND PLAY [jingl]E after we’ve removed the letters of ‘say’.
16a Complaints about holding area put in writing (5)
MOANS: a preposition meaning ‘about’ contains the abbreviation for area with the whole lot inserted in the abbreviation for handwriting.
17a Satisfactorily complete the case heard in court (3,2)
SEW UP: a homophone of an alternative for ‘the case’ in a query like “is that the case?” and an adverb meaning ‘in court’.
18a Bacon Brussels Stuffing Turkey book to be Ramsay’s first – he’ll tell you all about it (9)
RACONTEUR: insert the abbreviation for the body for which Brussels is a metonym into the IVR code for Turkey and append that to BACON. Finally replace the abbreviation for book with the first letter of Ramsay.
20a Barb informed expert (9)
WISECRACK: stick together adjectives meaning informed and expert.
23a Least likely source of shoes for footwear models? (5)
LASTS: an adjective meaning ‘least likely’ and the first letter of shoes.
25a Sarah’s son‘s two different accounts (5)
ISAAC: a savings account and the abbreviation for account.
26a Outraged like gran after home visit’s conclusion (9)
INDIGNANT: an informal (and dated) verb to like and another affectionate term of gran follow our usual ‘at home’. Append the concluding letter of visit.
27a What a sub does with fish around creates danger for small boats? (3,4)
LEE TIDE: what a sub does in a newspaper office followed by a thin fish. Turn it all around.
28a Power line on short lead cutting out in part of church (7)
STEEPLE: the abbreviation for power and line without its IN follow a verb to lead or direct without its last letter.
Down Clues
1d Hunter rejected theatre role (7)
TRAPPER: weld together the abbreviation for a type of theatre and a synonym of role then reverse it all.
2d Duck behind Henry occasionally (5)
EIDER: occasional letters from two words in the clue.
3d Perhaps Mar-a-Lago porter said why Florida must replace hotel – it’s an awful dive (5-4)
BELLY-FLOP: start with a word used in Mar-a-Lago (and the rest of the USA) for a hotel porter and replace what hotel represents in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet with what sounds like ‘why’ and the abbreviation for Florida.
4d Untrustworthy type losing wife’s support (5)
EASEL: a creature synonymous with treachery loses the abbreviation for wife.
5d Rock music star taking agent on vacation but not sons – it’s upsetting (9)
TRAUMATIC: an anagram (rock) of MUSIC STAR A[gen]T after removing the abbreviations for son.
6d Gambler’s focus: debt – assuming Jack in pocket (5)
BIJOU: the central letter of gambler and our usual abbreviated debt containing the abbreviation for Jack.
7d Nominee, Honest Abe having change of heart (9)
CANDIDATE: a synonym of honest or frank and Abe with its middle letter changed.
8d Some boys, terse – they’re hard to open up (7)
OYSTERS: hidden.
14d 11 carry on bags in a set seen regularly nearer row 1 (9)
DOWNSTAGE: string together a synonym of 11a and a verb to carry on or undertake containing regular letters from ‘in a set’.
15d Runs towards green screens to create story (9)
NARRATIVE: an adjective meaning green or ‘wet behind the ears’ contains two crickety runs and a preposition meaning towards.
16d Second number on record – Uber oddly finding one person’s address (9)
MONOLOGUE: assemble an abbreviation for a second or short time, the abbreviation for number, a synonym of record and the odd letters of Uber.
17d Flyer was upset by flyer (7)
SAWBILL: reverse WAS and add a flyer or leaflet.
19d Wine from Bordeaux and Tuscany originally lifted award (7)
ROSETTE: start with a generic type of wine then reverse the word used in Bordeaux for ‘and’ and the original letter of Tuscany.
21d Caught performer essentially using plants (5)
CACTI: concatenate the abbreviation for caught, a synonym for a performer or turn and the essential letter of using.
22d Credit check bureau bored to tears by terms (5)
KUDOS: the terminating letters of five words.
24d A politician follows Saint Mark (5)
STAMP: A and our usual elected politician follow an abbreviation for saint.
I especially liked 18a, 26a and 3d. Which ones were your picks?
A brisk grid fill but parsing a few of ‘em was more challenging. I wouldn’t have answered Peron’s forename in a quiz but the wordplay got me there, nearly gave up at 18a but eventually put the pieces together but annoyingly didn’t twig the right sub so couldn’t make sense of the why at 27a.
As ever lots to like & very entertaining. 3d was my clear favourite.
Thanks to Django & to Gazza.
I thought this was going to be quite difficult at first glance, but it gradually fell into place in a timescale I would normally expect on a Wednesday (yes I know today is Tuesday).
The two that held me up were 17a and 27a.
Many thanks to Django and to Gazza.
As Gazza says, Django was entertaining with only a few tricky bits. Having taken this week’s Rookie setter to task on long clues, I feel must mention 18a as I think that is the longest clue I’ve seen for a while.
Thanks to him and Gazza
PS: I don’t suppose anyone from Telegraph Towers will take any notice, but if only someone reduced the size of the grid, which really doesn’t need to be quite that big, then the final clues would fit onto the end of the first page. As it is, particularly today, the clues are solved while writing them on the end of the page.
Our big frustration with Telegraph Towers is the time they actually publish the puzzles. They always used to appear right on the stroke of midnight UK time. Now they can appear at random times over the next 40 minutes or so. We do realise that most of you are fast asleep then and not aware of it.
I am still finding it can usually access puzzles from about 23:30 UK time, but only if I go through the archive and keep refreshing the page
I am very content that I have no wish to access the puzzles in the middle of the night; I’m happy if they’re available by about 08:00.
Six days a week I would agree with you, but the Kiwis are trying to fit puzzling into a completely different schedule.
Only 2 for difficulty! Good grief, I thought they had bunged in Friday’s by mistake. OK there were several straightforward clues, but there were also some right stinkers – which added to the fun. And even once the grid was full there was the parsing to finish [which I didn’t]. Top picks were 5a, 16a, 3d and 19d.
Thanks to Django and Gazza for the blog and especially the parsing of 28a.
Needed the hints to parse 17a, 27a (I was convinced the fish was Ide plus I hadn’t heard of the term), 28a and 14d, I hadn’t heard of 6d in that sense. So all in all I found this more difficult than most. Still I got there in the end. Thanks to Django and Gazza.
The top half went in relatively quickly, but stalled in the south. A steady plod got me there in the end, but I needed the parsing from Gazza for 29a, 14d and 22d: Note to self – I must try to remember the use of ‘terms’ in this context; not the first time I’ve missed it.
My thanks to Django and Gazza
The one that always gets me is ‘focus’, where I always assume it’s the first letter.
6d – Gambler’s focus :- my first thought was g, and not b (the central letter).
The one that had us scratching our heads for a while was 6d so we’ll make that our favourite. An enjoyable solve once again from this setter.
Thanks Django and Gazza.
A delight to discover Django providing a puzzle today — tough, but worth the effort. Thank you to Gazza for help with understanding clues, including “the case” in 17a and “wage” in 14d.
And thank you to Django for the entertainment. My favourite few clues were 11a with Tory and Labour, 13a for the impressiveness of managing to turn the Mars slogan into wordplay for a Mars-related clue, the two different accounts in 25a, and the hotel porter in 3d.
13a my favourite too, I almost had to celebrate by eating the Mars Bar I have kept in a drawer since 1988.
Thanks to Django and Gazza
2*/3* …
liked 26A “Outraged like gran after home visit ‘s conclusion(9)”