DT 31242

Hello. Here are hints and explanations for today’s Telegraph crossword. This took me a little while to complete, but if you’re the kind of solver who does the anagrams first, rather than needing to leave them till later when there are lots of crossing letters, then you can probably knock off a difficulty star.

Do leave a comment below saying how you got on, querying what an illustration has to do with a clue, or just giving us a general life update. New commenters are especially welcome. Please follow the etiquette guide that Big Dave left us.

Across

1a Search advanced into blacksmith’s workshop (6)
FORAGE: Insert the abbreviation for ‘advanced’ into a word for a blacksmith’s workshop. If that gives you ‘Smaithy’, pick a different workshop word and try again.

4a Doctor bathes in booze (8)
ABSINTHE: Doctor the order of the letters in the next two words.

9a Rogue artist’s still losing millions (6)
RASCAL: After the usual artist and the possessive S from the clue, we need a word meaning ‘still’ from which the abbreviation for ‘millions’ has been removed.

10a Reportedly requiring massaging (8)
KNEADING: If you heard somebody report a synonym of ‘requiring’, it would sound like the answer.

12a Dull, annoying person ringing editor then managed to grab the setter (10)
PEDESTRIAN: A word for an annoying person rings round the outside of the shortening of ‘editor’. That’s followed by a word meaning ‘managed’ (in the sense of ‘operated’, rather than ‘succeeded’) which grabs a pronoun the setter could use to refer to themselves.

13a Uncultivated land with space to the west (4)
MOOR: The answer is also a word meaning ‘space’ when read facing west — that is, backwards.

14a Need to pay poet, barely holding on to wife (3)
OWE: Turn ‘poet’ bare by removing its outer letters, then make what’s left hold inside it the abbreivation for ‘wife’.

15a Arrogant vow engineer breaks (11)
OVERWEENING: Break the preceding words and re-assemble their letters in a different order.

18a Better publish about head of government’s digital ID (11)
FINGERPRINT: A fantastic definition. Concatenate a synonym of ‘better’ (in the sense of ‘higher quality’, not ‘gambler’) and a word meaning ‘publish’ (specifically on paper). Insert into those the head letter of ‘government’.

20a Sheep‘s memory (3)
RAM: This word for a subset of sheep is also an acronym for a type of memory chip used in computers.

21a Set of expectations about lyric poem (4)
CODE: Think of a word for a lyric poem and put it at the end. The number of letters remaining tells us which of the multiple short forms that can mean ‘about’ to put at the start.

22a Somehow reaches dim mathematician (10)
ARCHIMEDES: Somehow arrange the letters of the following words.

Pic credit: © Sam Radmall, CC BY-SA 2.0

24a Unqualified able seamen in front of old instrument (8)
ABSOLUTE: Enter in order: a usual sailor made plural; the abbreviation for ‘old’; and a musical instrument (which does happen to be old, but the clue doesn’t actually tell us that, because ‘old’ has already been used up by the preceding element). The answer means ‘unrestricted’, rather than ‘untrained’.

25a Small company importing revolutionary wound plaster (6)
STUCCO: Begin with how a clothing label indicates ‘small’ and end with the abbreviation for ‘Company’. (Feel free at this point to ponder whether it gets used outside of business names and so can also stand for lower-case ‘company’, then leave a comment if you can think of an example.) Into those import a word for a type of wound (as in an injury), which has revolved to turn backwards.

Pic credit: krvvitaliy

26a Regularly see aged toys getting repaired (2,6)
GO STEADY: Repair ‘aged toys’, so their letters are in the correct order for the solution.

27a Friend penning second manuscript for book (6)
PSALMS: A book of The Bible is formed from a word for ‘friend’ penning inside it the letter that indicates second(s), all followed by the abbreviation for ‘manuscript’.

Down

1d Not combustible if looking up concerning evidence (9)
FIREPROOF: Enter in order: ‘if’ from the clue, turned round so it looks up the grid; the usual ‘concerning’; and some evidence that shows something to be the case.

2d What remains of troops you heard breaching flank (7)
RESIDUE: We start with the abbreviation for some specific military troops — the usual engineers. Follow that with a synonym for ‘flank’ which has been breached by the letter that can be heard when somebody says ‘you’.

3d Prime minister sending lads to nearby houses (9)
GLADSTONE: The name of a prime minister is housed inside consecutive letters in the clue.

5d Boxer and outlaw intoxicated, drinking in the morning with European (12)
BANTAMWEIGHT: ‘Outlaw’ here is a verb; we need a synonym for it. Follow that with a colloquial term which can mean ‘intoxicated’, and which has drunk inside it abbreviations for all of ‘in the morning‘, ‘with’, and ‘European’.

6d Religious leader‘s Mass supporting current postgraduate (4)
IMAM: The physics symbol for mass goes at the bottom, supporting both the physics symbol for electrical current and some letters that indicate a particular postgraduate qualification.

7d Group of three left one securing parking in capital (7)
TRIPOLI: Concatenate a group of three (playing music, perhaps), the abbreviation for ‘left’, and the Roman numeral for ‘one’; then make the combination secure inside it the letter seen on road signs to indicates parking.

8d Article in Madrid newspaper about composer (5)
ELGAR: Start with a grammatical article that could be used by somebody in Madrid. Append a derogatory term for a newspaper, turned about.

11d Unconventional, suspect I prefer diets (4-8)
FREE-SPIRITED: Treat the final 3 words of the clue as suspect, and put their letters in a different order.

16d Guesses friend enters sites getting renovated (9)
ESTIMATES: A word for a friend (a different one from 27a) enters into the letters of ‘sites’ after they’ve been renovated into a different order.

Pic credit: © Bethany Khan, CC BY-ND 2.0

17d Programmes in Georgia question occupying military dining hall (4,5)
GAME SHOWS: Start with the abbreviation for the state of Georgia used in addresses. Then we the term for a military dining hall, which is occupied by one of the words in English that denote a question.

19d Detectives probing crazy people with no clothes on (7)
NUDISTS: A usual detective is made plural and then probes inside a synonym for ‘crazy’.

(If you’d like an illustration for this clue, you’ll have to search for a suitable image yourself.)

20d Militant section of placid army in retreat (7)
RADICAL: Make a couple of words from the clue retreat, so they’re facing the other way, then take a section from them.

21d Loud noise from family dog’s bottom (5)
CLANG: Follow a word for ‘family’ with the bottom letter of ‘dog’.

23d Wasted on the radio? That’s indecent (4)
BLUE: A word meaning ‘wasted’ (a sum of money, perhaps) if heard on the radio would sound like the answer.

Quickie Pun

In today’s Quick Crossword the first 2 clues are italicized, indicating we can say their answers out loud to make another word, name, or phrase. Reveal the blobs below to check or it inflict an earwork on yourself:

START + WRECK = STAR TREK

Recent Reading

All books sharing stories of under-represented groups should be this entertaining. Kate Fox tells us tails of northern women in a tone clearly signalled by the book’s title Where There’s Muck, There’s Bras, and continued into an early chapter ‘The Hildas’, in which the author groups together St Hilda of Whitby, swimmer Hilda Jones, stage comedian Hylda Baker, and Hilda Ogen from Coronation Street. I was previously unaware of the middle two of those, and I learnt interesting things about all of them. Hilda Jones introduced front crawl to the UK, won a silver medal as a teenager in the 1916 Olympics … but didn’t get to compete in 1920, because her parents wouldn’t let her.

The book is full of stories like this — people we deserve to know more about, many of whom suffered or overcome various setbacks — all written in a sharp and readable style. The author herself tells of how she trained as a radio newsreader, then was declined for jobs on northern radio stations on the grounds that she had a northern accent. (She tells it better than I do.)

I bought this at The Brontë Parsonage, having first encountered Kate Fox last year when she recited a poem about libraries on an episode of Radio 4’s Loose Ends that we were in the audience for, as part of Bradford being the UK’s City of Culture 2025. It zips along — ‘worthy’ only in the sense of being worthwhile, not tedious — and you’ll feel better for knowing more about the women featured, so I can’t think of a reason not to read it.