Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 3370 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Senf
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A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg where, if the weather forecast for the next 7 days is accurate (ha-ha), we will have missed out Spring completely and gone straight to Summer with temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s.
For me, and I stress for me,© Dada still almost as quirky as last few Sundays – seven anagrams (six partials), one lurker, and one homophone, all in a symmetric 32 clues; with 16 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 – 9a, 13a, 30a, 2d, 16d, and 23d.
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 Keen on pattern of fine threads, looking back – lovely! (10)
A synonym of keen (as in eager for?) placed after (on) the reversal (looking back) of a single word for a pattern of fine threads (produced by a spider?).
10a Meat and drink kept, as pickled (4,5)
A drink (that was issued daily in the RN) and an anagram (pickled) of KEPT, AS.
13a Fault found with perfect mount (5)
A behavioural synonym of fault and (with) the combination of a letter and a number that can represent perfect.
15a Reportedly, where apples found for agent (7)
The homophone (reportedly) where apples can be found as a drink.
21a Dawn in short, except if dark (7)
A synonym of dawn with the ending removed (in short) and a synonym of except.
24a Finely shave old man gripping end of blade (7)
A (formal) synonym of old man containing (gripping) the last letter (end) of bladE.
27a Feast in celebration on a cake (9)
A synonym of celebration placed after (on) A from the clue and a type of cake.
30a Testing wheel? That’s too bad (4,6)
A double definition – the first is an adjectival synonym of testing and a type of dairy product that can be referred to as a wheel.
Down
1d Killer, a killing made? (4)
A double definition – the second might refer to a large sum of money.
2d State is onto criminals, land invaded (9)
A synonym of land (as in achieve?) containing (invaded by) all of IS from the clue and (onto) the abbreviated form of a synonym of criminals.
4d Runner, flier; and hunter (7)
A triple definition – the second is illustrated.
11d Mark has trapped American bear (7)
A mark (on cloth from spilled liquid?) containing (has trapped) the ‘standard’ two letters for American.
14d Where planks cut, right length, bet I’m wrong initially (6,4)
Firstly (initially), an anagram (wrong) of BET I’M, followed by the single letter for Right and a unit of length (more than a foot but less than a perch).
20d Princess at home with lover, much appreciated (7)
The usual two letters for at home, a synonym of lover, and two letter word equivalent to much appreciated.
25d Feeling nice, oddly, what about that? (5)
As an interjection, a three letter synonym of what containing (about that) the odd letters of NiCe.
26d Article on middle of shelf for you (4)
A definite article placed before (on) the middle letter of shElf.
Quick Crossword Pun:
IRK + ADDER + MIA + WARTS = ACADEMY AWARDS – Hmm – not one of Dada’s best.
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American singer-songwriter Robert Allen Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan was born on this day in 1941. His second studio album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which reached number one in the album charts in the UK, featured Blowin’ in the Wind:
All I can say is impossible- needing help with about half the clues – I will get my coat – I often find I can’t get on the wavelength of the ST – thanks Senf
It must be the sun affecting my grey matter because I did not find this easy at all. Much of the parsing eluded me and I had a couple of bung-ins from checkers.
My favourite is the Quickie pun.
Thank you, Dada but you beat me today. Thank you, Colonel for the hints and making sense of some of it for me.
I don’t think I have ever submitted a Telegraph Prize Cryptic with so many clues that I am unsure of filled in with ‘educated’ guesses. I have much sympathy with Paul Goeans, I thought i would never finish this tricky crossword. I d like the geographical clue s at 19a and 1d, the cryptic definition at 30a and the clever lego clue at 10a. Thanks for the rough challenge, compiler. It doesn’t do you any harm to have your ideas shaken up, when you get to my age. Thanks to Senf for the hints.
I do enjoy Dada puzzles. No, really, i do. However, nowadays, when I see a question mark, I find myself saying “oh now what?”
Thanks for the clues Senf. Having read them, I see that I had missed some of the parsing here and there, as discussed above.
That was brutal. I needed a couple of hints, many trips to the thesaurus and sheer bloody mindedness to get a full grid. That said I’ve still got some dodgy parsings to check against the full review next week. Thanks to Dada for the mind mangling and Senf for the very necessary hints.
Dada’s given us a tricky challenge (as a Prize Puzzle should be) which I solved from the bottom up. Thanks to him and Senf.
Top clues for me were 30a, 5d and 25d.