Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31235 (Hints)
The Saturday Crossword Club
(hosted by crypticsue)
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Another sunny start to Saturday morning with a Saturday Prize Puzzle with several clues that made me smile. I am not sure who set it, but I can say whoever it is, they are quite fond of both anagrams and insertions!
Please ask for help if you are stuck on clues I haven’t hinted, but before doing so, please read the comments that appear before yours, so that you are not duplicating questions, and make sure you obey both THE INSTRUCTIONS IN RED at the end of the Hints and the blog’s Comment Etiquette – Big Dave’s Crossword Blog)
Most of the terms used in these hints are explained in the Glossary and examples are available by clicking on the entry under “See also”. Where the hint describes a construct as “usual” this means that more help can be found in The Usual Suspects, which gives a number of the elements commonly used in the wordplay. Another useful page is Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing, which features words with meanings that are not always immediately obvious.
A full review of this puzzle will be published after the closing date for submissions.
Across
1a Ageing criminal getting bird (7)
A slang word meaning old and a convict
5a Problems are back for Dutch scholar (7)
A reversal (back) of some mathematical problems and ARE (from the clue)
10a Yours truly might tip this rubbish! (2,3)
This expression of disbelief might be an item of headwear our setter might tip
11a City has fallen in ancient region (7)
An anagram (fallen) of CITY HAS. I don’t usually include anagrams in the hints but it is interesting to read about the ancient region, as I did when checking that I had remembered its name correctly
22a Party worker Charlie dined on river (7)
The letter represented by Charlie in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, dined, on [the subject of] and the abbreviation for River
27a Endless ale drunk: wind reportedly trapped (7)
An anagram (drunk) of ALE into which is inserted (trapped) a homophone of the verb wind
28a This ultimately destined to leap when developed? (7)
A rather splendid cryptic definition of the larval stage of an amphibian that does a lot of leaping once it has developed
Down
1d DS eager for excitement got moving with gun? (7)
An anagram (for excitement) of DS EAGER – this gun has more to do with lubrication than weaponry
4d Setter’s coming into favour? Look disgusted (7)
How our setter would say they were inserted into (coming) favour
6d Animal limb – bad trouble bandaging that? (9)
A limb of the body and trouble or difficulty ‘bandaging’ an adjective meaning bad
14d Offer up pouch, with grain getting provided inside (9)
A small pouch or bag with a type of grain into which is inserted a conjunction meaning provided that
18d Literary family don’t stand properly? (7)
This literary family don’t stand properly but they do xxx xxxx!
19d Ultimately thought man right to return ticket (7)
A reversal (to return) of the ultimate letter of thoughT, a chess man and the abbreviation for Right
24d Proportion in harangue avoiding extremes (5)
When the final clue goes onto a second page of the print-out, it is always good when the wordplay is so clear that you can write the solution in the grid without bothering to write the clue out on your piece of paper. Remove the outside letters (avoiding extremes) of a loud, aggressive speech addressed to a crowd (harangue)
As this is a Prize crossword, please don’t put any ANSWERS, whether WHOLE, PARTIAL or INCORRECT, or any ALTERNATIVE CLUES in your comment. If in doubt, leave it out
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The Quick Crossword pun: CORE + TOFFS + HIDE = CAUGHT OFFSIDE
This SPP required a lot of thought and a fair spread of General Knowledge. Whilst it’s invariably true that it’s helpful toget on the compiler’s wavelength, I found it was particularly true for this crossword. Yet every clue was fair and logicalonce I’d figured out the parsing. There were some intricate andclever lego clues, I particularly liked 19d. Of the General Knowledge oriented clues, I liked rhe Dutchman at 5a, the trgion at 11a, geographical7d and thefamily at 18d. Thanks to thecompiler for the very enjoyable brain workout and to CS for the hints
I thought this was quite tough and I was defeated 1a (I had another word for the definition that fitted sort of but didn’t parse) and a couple of other clues in the NW. Very enjoyable puzzle though with my favourite being 8d which took a while to parse. Thank you setter and Cryptic Sue as ever.
I really enjoyed today’s puzzle which contained a few clues designed to give the grey cells a proper work out. Once solved, some with the aid of checkers, there remained the not so small matter of the parse.
I had five head scratchers this morning with four of them taking me a total of 25 minutes to figure out. The fifth is 7d that has me stumped – pretty sure I have spelt my response correctly, I think it meets the requirement, but how it fits with the cryptic clue is another matter. The frustration of course is that when it’s explained to me it’ll invariably be obvious.
Time for crosswords has expired, grandson’s football match kicks off shortly, I’ll log back on later today to complete my education.
My COTD is 19d with 8d and 20d as runner up.
Many thanks to the setter and crypticissue for the hints.
7d – Sage is the definition. The old woman is an informal mother, then there is a synonym for stern ’embracing’ the Roman one, an upright character being added at the end
Despite having been born in India and having spent some of my youth there, it was the Beatles that introduced me to this particular sage!
PS Many thanks to the setter an CS!
Thank you crypticsue, much appreciated….as I knew would be the case a couple of hours away and all is clear. I was blind to the obvious.
15 year old goalkeeper grandson was selected to play for the Under 18 1st team today. Good saves, good distribution, very proud of the young man.
You should indeed be proud, especially as he’s a goalie as height is an advantage at that age?
Is he tall or just ridiculously talented like ‘Double GP’ (Grandpop Graham Powell)
(there’s better out there)
Very entertaining SPP, full of witty and clever clues.
A good example would be 28A, which I think is &lit, or very close to, but for me it’s hard to pick winners in a puzzle where there are so many contenders. Perhaps 18D should have a mention? In any case, I showed 27A to my twenty-something son, just as a little nudge for him
Thank you CS, and setter.
Re 28a, great spot — I hadn’t noticed that.
Deffo &lit.
A top-tier clue.
I found this quite a bit chewier than the average Saturday PP. The E was relatively straightforward, but until I remembered the Dutch scholar the W stayed blank. The ancient region was parsable although if I had heard of it it escaped my mind. Then it was a steady plod to fill all the gaps. Probably could have been faster if I had used an anagram tool for 18a & 26a, but did work then out, after which the remaining downs fell quickly.
I liked the party worker (22a) and
the corrupt lover (15a); my COTD is the literary family at 18d.
My thanks to the setter and CS
2*/3.5*
Really good and quite tricky today. Thanks to the setter and CS.
CS – Methinks the quick one is “caught offside”.
I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t quite ‘hear’ the right pun
A very slow plod for me, but got there in the end. As to the quickie pun. Think football😄
I very rarely do! I have changed the pun following MikeN’s comment above yours
A steady solve with e-confirmation required for, previously unknown to me, 11a – ***/****
Favourite – a toss-up between 9a and 8d.
As CS has put ?? after the pun, I do have an answer – CAUGHT OFFSIDE
Thanks to whomsoever and CS.
The pun was corrected before you ‘arrived’
Some welcome inventiveness here. it required thought but was quite rewarding.
Best clue for me was 28a – very neat.
Thanks Sue, and thanks to setter too.
The pun is a football term, Sue.
Oh, stop it, Tom!
This puzzle grew and grew on me as the solve progressed. By the time I’d finished, I had a plethora of ticks on my page and ended up thoroughly enjoying it. The ancient region needed confirmation. There were honorable mentions for 1a, 19a, 18d, 7d and 18d, but cotd must go to the groan inducing 28a once the penny dropped. Thanks to compiler (not convinced it’s NYDK, do it probably is) and CS.
Now look here! The Mighty Chelsea take on some northern team in less than fifteen minutes, and here am I trying to chair a meeting of the committee. For heavens sake! Look – 11a just get yourself up on to that plinth. No time for discussion. You are admitted to The List.
Honestly. Priorities!
Thanks to the setter and PC Security (anag). Come on Chelsea!
I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge made all the better without accompanying thunderstorms. 34 degrees on the patio, so a rapid escape into the air conditioned study. I don’t think I got a single answer on my first pass and I was ready to abort my attempt but then slowly and enjoyably it all fell into place, COTD for me is 18D only because I want to be be contrary and argue that the family may have done the opposite properly. Thanks to CS for the hints and the setter for a great puzzle.
A quick Thai shibboleth.
This intrigues me because we westerners pronounce the problematic sound numerous times in every day speech.
There is a sound in Thai words which exactly matches the, ”ng”, sound in, singing, ringing, bringing etc. The problem is that it appears as the first sound in a Thai word. I am assured by all my Thai friends that they have never encountered a westerner who can extract the, ”ng”, from bring and use it to start the Thai word, ”nguan”, meaning sleep. Try it.
A goodie but using the word shibboleth trumps it.
I had to check 11a as it was new to me. Other than that it was a satisfying solve.
Top picks for me were 1a, 1d, 13a, 6d and 18d.
Thanks to CrypticSue and the setter.
Tougher than recent Saturdays, with several answers to double-check before hitting ‘submit’ (1a, 11a, 18d). LOI was 13a with my favourite clue being the delightful 28a. Even though the answer was obvious, I had to resort to a crossword solver to find the speech in 24d – I’d been looking for a verb, not a noun, and I’m still not convinced it’s a good synonym. Still, highly enjoyable with some superb surfaces. ***/*****
I enjoyed this even if it took longer than usual. Some great clues and all fairly worded. 1, 9,10 and 17 are my top picks. 17d reminds me of what an old colleague used to call every girl in the office! 28d is also worthy of a mention
Many thanks to the setter and CS.
Loved today’s offering.How often can 28 across be clued and yet come up with something so original. For that reason alone I put it in top spot. Lots of general knowledge where the answers are not pop groups or the sort of modern stuff I am ignorant of. Happy day and thanks to all.
Not sure if I will post because winning a biro would be a real let down. It’s a fountain pen or nothing. You would think I had a choice !
You can have my DT fountain pen, as I posted only recently my bottle of Wuink has dried up. To think that once upon a time I would only use a proper pen!
Quink can be found on Amazon under the name Parker Fountain Pen Ink – it comes in both black and blue
A tad tougher than Saturdays of late and, like Prawn, I’m not convinced it is the work of Big Apple Door Furnishing. 11a foxed me totally and I did need to resort to the nefarious for that one. Never heard of it nor the Pontic steppe either so I’m not surprised it made it to The List. An old favourite was clued in a most original way at 28a and this nearly gained the honours. However, I am awarding COTD to the cryptic at 26a because I thought it very clever.
Thank you, setter for the puzzle. Thanks you, CeeSoo for the hints.
This took a bit of work on this fine spring day but was a nice challenge.
What’s the score with ‘upright character’? Are all capital letters upright characters? Surely not. I must be missing something.
‘Ultimately’ twice? This cannot be.
2d is a fun word: it can be pronounced the same three other ways: firstly, if you take away the first letter, then the third letter, then the fifth letter.
The original spelling of 18a has a different penultimate letter. So, that’s us Brits once more getting influenced by Bill the Conk, post-1066 and all that. The Americans have got this one correct.
27a wasn’t easy, i.e you had to think of a homophone of a synonym that wouldn’t be first off the rank. I didn’t know that harangue can be a noun. So, that’s been added to the crib sheet.
I saw this morning that only 1% of people solve 3 out of 4 cryptic crosswords unnefariously which isn’t a word but, to quote Mr Wolstenholme, it is now (nefariousness is a word, Jenny M!). So, Alasdair lambie’s Spanish daughter et al shouldn’t get too down about people on this blog saying they solved it without too much trouble. My guess is a high percentage of solvers on this blog are in that 1%.
I’ve also got no problem when someone posts for the first time saying they have finished one for the first time (or however many times and goes back to lurking). It’s a hell of an achievement that they should be proud about and deserves to be celebrated and acknowledged.
My picks for the podium are 5a, 28a (is it missing the word ‘is’?) and 3d (nicely done).
MTTT setter (hoo nose) and she of the Kent crypt.
3*/4*
This is really encouraging news as it has taken me some time (years) and much lurking to get to a point where finishing the cryptic is more common that not finishing . Not quite there with the Toughie yet but it’s always good to have a purpose in life 😄
Ok, unnefariously is officially a new word on this blog at least ! That’s an interesting statistic the 1%… , but I heard that 80% of statistics are made up😀. I wonder what it covers ? Does it mean without the BRB or anything online , or asking a friend ? Quite often if I parse a clue and it’s a word I don’t know I check Google to make sure. Would that be covered ? I did that today for the clue relating to an ancient region. Maybe I’ll keep my own stats for a while see how it goes.
Hi JM.
Putting a word in that you haven’t heard of is absolutely fine. You’ve cracked the clue and that’s all that matters.
And well done to you ‘Luton Airport’ for solving more than you don’t! Goodness me it takes years to master but the daily reward is worth it.
Filling in that last answer is sooooooooooo satisfying.
Keep going, laydeez!
(my wife hates being called a lady)
Thank you. I have been away so just seen this !
I agree with all Tom has said, Jenny and Lorraine. If we could solve every crossword without any problems it would be rather boring. Some days you sail while others you land on a sandbank . Keep at it. 👍
I found this Saturday puzzle quite tricky in many areas across the grid. A couple of new words for me too.
3*/3.5* for me today.
Favourites 10a, 25a, 26a, 28a, 4d & 5d — with winners 28a & 5d
Thanks to setter & CS
This guzzle really appealed to me – I was in a high. Lived the anagrams of course and I said to George, some folks will be having a moan about there being too many of them. 1a was obscure but G got it straight away and we were off. I must have been on the Setter’s wavelength. I liked the literary references and put 28a as my favourite. My only problem was with 1d, I got a connection with gin but (oh, get away gin. – not due until 6 pm) GUN but it seemed to be the weakest link to me. But still I applaud our Wily Setter and as usual thank CeeSue for her hints. Did anyone else watch and enjoy the David Attenborough-Fest last night? What an honour, royalty and Paddington Bear. I met him (not Paddington of course) along with his brother Richard in my film industry days, I was a mere minion and it was some 70 years ago.
Tell us more….
ON a high and loved the anagrams. When will I learn to check my text?!
Oh, I dunno, Daze. You do live for an anagram.
A Freudian slip.
Can one wear a Freudian slip? Would it give an unintentionally revealing glimpse?
Many thanks all, and esp the CS.
Well, I would never have pegged this for one of yours, NYDK. Just goes to show your versatility. Thank you for a great challenge. 👍
A great shout!
And a very enjoyable crossy. Thank you.
Keep ‘em coming.
I too thought def not a DK , but there you go..thanks so much
3*/3*. Relatively tough for a SPP, but enjoyable nevertheless.
I’m not keen on “fallen” as an anagram indicator in 11a and I have a feeling that 2d only exists as a plural.
19d was my favourite.
Many thanks to the setter and to CS.
2d is singular in the BRB.
This was a nicely enjoyable and chewy puzzle with a few bits of general knowledge thrown in. I was a bit in a tangle in the NE for a while at the end , then I had a lightbulb moment and got the 7d sage clue , even though I didn’t know the word meant before so had to look it up to check, then it all fell into place. So def in the 1% club today TDS65. Thanks to NYDK and CS.
Got 6 then gave up, may have well been in Greek!
2*/ 4* Thoroughly enjoyable Saturday work out, with plenty of excellent witty clues to choose from.
Favourites today include the wee amphibian at 28a, the armoured animal at 6d and to complete the menagerie the 1a old con
Also a clever quickie pun
Many thanks to NYDK and Sue
Too busy to get back to this today but I had struggled to get into it and found it tricky. I will hope a sleep helps!
Many thanks to the setter and to CS for the hints which I may well need
Could someone explain 8d, have the answer but can’t fathom it
You were just ‘Jenny’ before which is why your comment(s) went into moderation – it is always good to give the blogger or another moderator time to get up (particularly on a Sunday!) and access the blog in order to approve your comment and answer your question
8d the definition is ‘meet’ a three-letter word which can mean for example into which is inserted a reversal (twirling) of the abbreviation for model and a verb meaning to model or pose
What did you think of the crossword?
Thank you 😊
A day late to this & like Steve & Jenny M certainly didn’t have it pegged as a Knobby production. A good bit more demanding than the SPP norm for me at least & very enjoyable it was too. Another late vote for 28a as the pick of a fine set of clues.
Thanks to Donny & to Sue
Sat down to do this each side of a round of golf playing in an easterly breeze – well the puzzle was more challenging than the golf! Didn’t get on with at all🙄
Only got a chance to look at this solve today due to a busy weekend.
Solved 2 clues, so probably not even close to the wavelength.
Will keep trying, but not sure i will improve by much.