Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 3368 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Senf
A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg where today is a Hallmark Holiday, which originated to the South of us, to honour Mothers.
For me, and I stress for me,© unless I was having a very bad day, Dada still very quirky – seven anagrams (three partials), no lurkers, and no homophones, all in a symmetric 28 clues; with 14 hints ‘sprinkled’ throughout the grid you should/might be able to get some of the checkers to enable the solving of the unhinted clues. I hope you have your Crimson Tomes at hand!
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Candidates for favourite – 12a, 21a, 24a, 6d, 7d, and 20d.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, a number of the what I very subjectively perceive to be the more difficult clues have been selected and hints provided for them.
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.
Some hints follow:
Across
1a Prisoner inspired by state of belonging, finally (2,10)
A three letter abbreviated synonym of prisoner contained (inspired) by a single word term equivalent to state of belonging.
9a Innocent, perhaps, plea initially working before argument (7)
A definition by example (perhaps). The first letter (initially) of Plea and our favourite two letter synonym of working all placed before a synonym of argument.
12a Banana skin with fat bananas in something bitter to swallow? (7)
An anagram (bananas, oh dear three letters) of fat inserted into (in) something that might be bitter to swallow.
16a Drive past car in unconscious state (9)
A synonym of drive placed after (past) an abbreviated synonym of car.
21a Steal, and sound emotionless (7)
A synonym of steal and a (weak) synonym of sound.
24a How bag stuffed with present (7)
A verbal synonym of bag containing (stuffed with) a synonym of present (at an event?).
26a Insincere feeling within the Cabinet? (8,4)
A feeling or emotion which could be within a type of cabinet (ignore the upper case C, it’s not the one in 10 Downing Street).
Down
1d Prehistoric period over, about which I seethe (4,3)
I from the clue and a synonym of seethe containing (about) a two letter synonym of over.
4d Enjoy young animal from California? (3,2)
Written (2,3) a term for young animal from the abbreviated form of a city in California.
7d How to catch river’s salmon for bird (5,7)
How from the clue contains (to catch) all of a river (of which there are four so named in England) including the possessive S and a term for a (young) salmon.
10d Denial of talent brought home to farm animals, performing fleas way ahead! (5,7)
All of an anagram (performing) of FLEAS and a synonym of way placed before (ahead) of a three letter home to (some) farm animals.
15d Bore accompanying rose (9)
In the BRB there are three listings with ‘bore’ as a headword. A synonym of accompanying and a synonym of rose (not a flower).
17d Scene where Greek character keeps fit (7)
The 19th letter of the Greek alphabet contains (keeps) an adjectival synonym of fit.
22d Country of New Guinea first of all leading a dance (5)
The initial letters (first of all) of four words in the clue placed before (leading) A from the clue.
Quick Crossword Pun:
HALVE + VEST + FESTIVE + FALLS = HARVEST FESTIVALS
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Does anyone have any memory of this, fortunately I don’t? Austrian musician Johann “Hans” Hölzel, better known by his stage name Falco, had one successful single, Rock Me Amadeus, which reached number one for one week on this day in 1986:
I found this decidedly tricky but the PDMs when parsing were well worth the brain mangling.
I’ve got ticks aplenty on my page and so it’s not easy to pick a few clues but I’ll plump for 1a, 7d, 10d, 20d, 18d and my LOI 23a.
I do remember Falco with that track and liked it. Not heard it for ages so will play it now.
Thanks to Senf and Dada.
This was an interesting challenge. I sailed through most of it but ground to a halt in Devon and Cornwall.
26a took me forever as the expression isn’t that familiar to me and I cant work out the synonym of steal. Can anyone give me an example without a trip to the naughty step? The parsing of 18d took me an age to work out and I’d forgotten the newspaper in 6d.
I like the term for ‘beloved’ though I know many here hate it (consecutive clues having ‘stuff’ and ‘stuffed’ was unfortunate).
My podium is 1a, 16a and 26a.
MTT Radio and Senf.
4*/4*