Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31290
Hints and tips by Smylers
Hello. Welcome to Monday’s Telegraph Crossword, with hints and explanations below. Sorry, I’m running late today, so I’ll add some illustrations at lunchtime.
Before my next turn on the blogging rota we have this site’s Mid-Year Bash in Birmingham, and we’re all invited. (If you’re reading this, that includes you!) Hope to see some of you there.
Across
1a Dodge pesticides heartlessly sprayed around (8)
SIDESTEP: Remove the heart, the central 2 letters, from ‘pesticides’, and then spray the rest around to spell out the answer. The heart is 2 letters because there’s an even number of letters, so no single letter is in the middle.
5a Manipulate The Telegraph‘s strict nature (6)
RIGOUR: After a word meaning manipulate (results of a vote, perhaps), we need a word that could indicate ‘The Telegraph‘s’ (with that possessive S) from the point of view of the setter and multiple people associated with The Telegraph.
9a Instrument Mike and Oscar left at home (8)
MANDOLIN: Enter in order: the letter represented by ‘Mike’ in the Nato phonetic alphabet; the ‘and’ from the clue; the ‘Oscar’ letter from the Nato alphabet; the abbreviation for ‘left’; and the usual ‘at home’.
Back in February, Weatherman referenced REM in two consecutive crosswords, and since then I’ve been seeing how long I can keeping up including a related REM song in the hints. Sometimes it takes a bit of searching to find a clue for which there’s an appropriate song; this one today was a gift.
10a Bags containing new nibbles (6)
SNACKS: A word for some bags is made to contain the abbreviation for ‘new’.
12a Reckoned the setter’s in property development, primarily (9)
ESTIMATED: Turn ‘the setter’s’ (as in ‘the setter is’) into how the setter of this very crossword would say it about themselves (retaining the contracted form) and place it in a word which can mean ‘property’ (perhaps in the sense of that which is inherited?). Follow that with the primary letter of ‘development’.
13a Arrived before ordinary small part (5)
CAMEO: Place a word meaning ‘arrived’ before the abbreviation for ‘ordinary’ (as used in the predecessor of GCSEs, for instance).
14a American editor regularly took drugs (4)
USED: An abbreviation meaning ‘American’ is followed by a shortening of ‘editor’.
16a In the direction of tense scaredy-cats leaving clubs (7)
TOWARDS: Start with the single-letter abbreviation for ‘tense’ that I don’t think I’ve encountered outside crosswords (but maybe I just hang around with the wrong sort of people?). That’s followed by a term for scaredy-cats from which the letter indicating ♣️ has left.
19a Perform with partner once, English and sweet (7)
EXECUTE: The usual former partner is followed by the single-letter indicating ‘English’ and an adjective that can mean ‘sweet’. The answer is in the sense of ‘undertake’ rather than getting up on stage and doing a turn.
21a Has that hurt nose occasionally? (4)
OWNS: An exclamation somebody might make to convey “that hurts!” is followed by some letters taken from ‘nose’ occasionally, that is at regular intervals.
24a Impress representative after son cheers (5)
STAMP: The abbreviation for a particular type of political representative goes after both the letter indicating ‘son’ and a short word meaning ‘cheers’ in the sense of ‘thank you’. I thought this was a neat definition.
25a Last-minute recovery from the side (9)
LATERALLY: We need to concatenate words meaning ‘last-minute’ and ‘recovery’ (in the sense of an improvement).
27a Wife initially helps moose to get molluscs (6)
WHELKS: Enter in order: the letter representing ‘wife’; the initial letter of ‘helps’; and another word for moose, which in this case happens to be plural, used in Europe and Asia (according to Chambers, which says a moose is a different beast in North America).
28a Informed guide if it only partially goes the wrong way (8)
NOTIFIED: The answer is found in part of ‘guide if it only’ when read going the wrong way.
29a Quality of flipping brown river (6)
NATURE: Flip a short word for a shade of brown and follow that by a short river. One with a short name, I mean; the physical river is 74 miles long.
Pic credit: © Colin Gregory, CC BY 2.0
30a Superficial sort boring date with piano (4-4)
SKIN-DEEP: A noun meaning ‘sort’ (as in ‘type’) bores inside an informal verb meaning ‘date’ (as in be romantically involved with). That’s all followed by the musical symbol specifying piano as the desired volume.
Down
1d Northbound motorway surrounded by river birds in season (6)
SUMMER: Surround the letter that indicates a motorway with both the abbreviation for ‘River’ and some specific birds. Then enter that all northbound in the grid, and the answer will read southbound. Feel free to leave a comment telling us your favourite northbound motorway.
Pic credit: © Philippa McKinlay, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
2d Give pardon at Easter? Not entirely (6)
DONATE: The answer is found lurking in the clue, by using some consecutive words, but not the entire of them.
3d Upset, maiden goes off in rage (5)
STORM: The letter that indicates the number of maiden overs in cricket and a word meaning ‘goes off’ (as in food) are all upset — which in this case doesn’t indicate an anagram (that would be unfair, being an indirect anagram of words not in the clue) but that the collection of letters assembled by the wordplay are entered up the grid.
4d Was left holding spades (7)
EXISTED: A word meaning ‘left’, in the sense of ‘departed’, holds within it the letter indicating ♠. A nifty clue.
6d Came in drunk with an author (3,6)
IAN McEWAN: The letters of ‘came in’ are drunk and have changed their order. They’re followed by the abbreviation of ‘with’ and the ‘an’ from the clue.
7d Lord Chancellor who lost his head supports running church again (4,4)
ONCE MORE: Think of the name of a Lord Chancellor then make them lose their head by removing their first letter. Then realize that this time the head-losing isn’t word manipulation but literal, referring to execution at the behest of Henry VIII. Their surname goes under both a word that can mean ‘running’ (in the sense of a machine) and one of the usual churches.
Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527
8d Press one to alter answer (8)
RESPONSE: Alter the order of the letters in ‘press one’ to spell out the, erm, answer.
11d Change current from the south (4)
EDIT: When this answer is read from south to north it’s a type of current.
15d Briefly read over Rod’s card game (4,5)
STUD POKER: A word meaning to read (a university subject, for instance) is made brief by omitting its final letter. That’s placed over a word for a rod.
17d Whingers bothered composer (8)
GERSHWIN: The letters of ‘Whingers’ have been bothered so much that they spell out something completely different.
18d Morally corrupt – good to take notice (8)
DECADENT: A word meaning ‘good’ or of an acceptable standard takes takes inside it the usual notice.
20d Slippery customers, contemptible people from the East End (4)
EELS: Here we need a term for a contemptible person to which the Oxford Dictionary of English has granted the rare accolade of three labels: it’s ‘derogatory’, ‘informal‘, and ‘dated’! Then make it plural and say it as it would be by a stereotypical person from the East End of London, and enter it in a way that reflects that pronunciation.
I found this cover version so as to avoid giving away the band name, but I actually really like we get to see the way they build up the layers, looping them over each other.
21d Seem to follow unfashionable point of view (7)
OUTLOOK: A word for ‘seem’ follows one that can mean ‘unfashionable’ (specifically, it’s the opposite of a usual word for ‘fashionable’).
22d Spot to catch one fish (6)
PLAICE: A spot (in the sense of a location, or maybe where somebody finished in a contest) catches inside it the Roman numeral that indicates ‘one’.
23d I heard politicians in Northern Ireland getting leered at (4,2)
EYED UP: Start with a word which when heard sounds the same as ‘I’ does. Follow that with the abbreviation for one of the political parties in Northern Ireland.
26d Regularly briefing on time in power (5)
REIGN: Take letters at regular intervals from ‘briefing on’.
Quickie Pun
Today’s quick crossword again felt harder than typical to me; if this keeps up, I’m going to have to recalibrate my sense of ‘typical’. The clues for the first three answers are italicized, meaning that when spoken together they sound like another word, a phrase, or a name; check your answers here:
COUGH + FEMUR + SHEEN = COFFEE MACHINE
Recent Reading
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a book that many people expect I would have read as a teenager — indeed, I would have expected somebody like me to have read it — but somehow I missed out on doing so. Belatedly, I realized I could remedy that by reading it now instead, and I’m glad I did. It’s held in such high esteem it would be hard to live up to its reputation, yet I still managed to find it funnier than I was expecting, with laughs right from the start.
It also contained all the famous references I was expecting, plus several I wasn’t: it’s had such widespread influence on society that there were things I’d heard of (including the ‘beware of the leopard’ filing cabinet, a Radiohead album) without knowing their source, so I also feel better informed culturally. I’m still not into sci-fi as a genre, and the random ‘wacky’ names and bizarre sequences of characters for names of various planets, beings, and objects largely feel like a distraction from the clever and witty dialogue. It’s entertaining and fairly short, so definitely worth a read if you similarly haven’t already done so, and even if you’re a sci-fi sceptic.
Ilkley Library provided me with the 42 Anniversary Edition (that’s a reference I did know!) which I was pleased to discover contains in the back various clippings and correspondence from Douglas Adams relating to the book. I really enjoyed his fax to its American editor imploring them to reverse some changes for the USA edition, including: “The fact that Rickmansworth is not within the continental United States doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!” And: “If you feel that referring to “Marks and Spencer” might seriously freak out Americans because they haven’t heard of it … we could put warning stickers on the cover (‘The text of this book contains references to places and institutions outside the continental United States and may cause offence to people who haven’t heard of them’) … Or we could even take the appalling risk of just recklessly mentioning things that people won’t have heard of and see if they survive the experience.”
A bit of a curate’s egg for me today but I still enjoyed the tussle. The lurker at 2d was very well disguised and I didn’t see it for ages. I didn’t find the grid very helpful as it resulted in four separate corners with minimal communication between them. Still. I did like Mike and Oscar’s instrument at 9a, the scaredy-cats at 16a and the Rod’s card game at 15d. My COTD is the last-minute recovery at 25a.
Another cracker of a Quickie pun.
Thank you, setter for getting the week off to a good start. Thank you, Smylers for the hints. For someone who’s running late you did a great job of posting videos.
A shame about Rookie Corner.
It’s cooler in The Marches today with a stiff breeze, thank goodness.
It happens that videos are relatively quick to add to the blog (well, for one I know exists and can be found quickly; searching for something appropriate takes much longer), whereas pictures are fiddlier. Anyway, pictures and more videos now added.
And greatly appreciated, Smylers. Thank you.
Its not a one.Demands more crosswording skill and general knowledge than would be had by the average beginer.
Hi CG
May I ask what is the general knowledge that you feel isn’t easy for beginners?
I had to look up my answer for 6d which I got through the anagram fodder. I’m more than happy with GK that I didn’t know if it was gettable from the anagram and checkers which i felt this one was.
The other two I can see that are reasonably specialised are 15d and 17d.
I don’t think three GK answers are that many for a beginner. Maybe two is the perfect number.
It would be nice to get your thoughts on future Mondays and Tuesdays which tend to be beginner-friendly as setters always appreciate feedback.
Hi, Chris – I agree with Tom. The blog is here to help beginners understand cryptic crosswords. If there is something you don’t understand then please ask the blog. It’s how I improved my solving skills. 👍
However, Chris may have a point that my rating this puzzle ★ for difficulty was demoralising for beginners who struggled with it. For which my apologies: I’m just one person, ratings are always subjective, and this happened to be a puzzle that suited me, but from comments I was clearly in the minority.
It’s going to happen from time to time that the day’s blogger is an outlier. If anybody feels that a difficulty rating is wrong, then just ignore it — or indeed, check the comments and seek reassurance in more solvers agreeing with you than the blogger!
Hi S
You said that you wanted to give this 1.5 stars but people couldn’t read your stars.
Is it worth using numbers as opposed to stars?
One more thing, going forward, I would round up not down if you’re between two numbers. Your ratings probably have more impact with rookie solvers than seasoned ones as they are still learning their craft and looking for guidance etc.
Keep up the good work as you are an excellent blogger whose work is hugely appreciated.
Agree, Tom. A professor at Chester University once told me, “If you’re going to award 68% for a dissertation, why not give it 70%? You, obviously, think the work is good.”
I tried to edit my post to also thank Smylers for his excellent blogs but, as is often the case, the edit disappeared into the wild blue yonder.
Thank you, both. Most kind of you.
A good point.
That 2% could change a person’s life, steering them in a completely different direction.
A steady start became a bit fragmented halfway down, but the downs from below produced a workable framework to finish. 18d was last in having fiddled around with 19a for seemingly ages. A little testing for a Monday in my book, but a fair and enjoyable solve, but the use of “The Telegraph’s” in 5a is a bit of a stretch for me, although I can see the intent. 1a, 7d and 30a were my picks.
Thanks to the setter and Smylers
1.5*/3*
If you access the blog via the email then the email shows all the answers uncovered.
I needed Smylers help to parse 5a.
Top picks for me were 25a, 27a, 16a, 30a and 1d.
Thanks to Smylers and the setter.
Bah, that’s frustrating, Madflower. I wasn’t aware of doing anything different on this end, and I don’t subscribe to the emails myself so have no idea what they look like.
Apologies to you and anybody else affected. What do the new-blog-post emails usually look like? Do they have the answers obscured or is it that the content is cut off before the hints?
Hi Smylers,
Usually we see most of the preamble and then it has a buttons for continue reading and comment which takes us to the blog. We don’t see any of the clues and hints upfront. Today’s version just had a comment button which takes us to the end of the comments.
We had a similar, but different, problem a while back where I believe the solution was to enter a blank line before the hints section. My memory may be wrong on that though.
A read more/ page break after the prwambke works for me in wordpress
Thanks. I thought I had the relevant tag in there after the prwambke*, but I now see the ‘Continue reading’ link was in the wrong place on the site homepage as well. Looking back through the archive, I see I messed it up a month ago, introducing some internal spaces that WordPress clearly doesn’t like. Those have now been removed, and I usually copy each review to the next, so hopefully it will now be right in future.
Apologies again to those who got unwanted answers delivered today, and thank you to Madflower for bringing it to my attention.
* Technical term; you non-bloggers wouldn’t understand it.
Significantly cooler this morning and so perhaps my grey cell had not sufficiently warmed up but today seemed to require a tad more thought than recent Mondays.
I dithered over the headless chancellor; it transpired that I could not spell! I juggled with 30a until I got things in the correct order and I had the wordplay to thank for solving 15d, not a version I am familiar with.
Today’s favourites are the 28a rekrul and the 23d politicians.
Many thanks to the setter and Smylers for the hints.
I didn’t even realise that 28a was a reverse lurker! I got it from the checkers.
Me too
Quite a curious Monday affair. I needed the hints from Smyler (thanks to him) to understand 30a and 1d and 5d was a new author to me but as an anagram doable. I did enjoy it but not sure if I found it to be a * or a **! Thanks to the setter.
I’m not sure if it’s a ★ or ★★ for difficulty either, NAS, if that’s any consolation? But the time I tried to use a half-star symbol, it didn’t work for many readers, so I had to plump one way or t’other. I didn’t feel that I solved this really quickly (though I write the hint for each clue as I solve it, which makes it hard to compare times), but at the end I couldn’t see any obscure wordplay or particularly devious clues so rounded down. Perhaps I should’ve gone up.
The author was deemed by The Sunday Telegraph to be the 19th-most powerful person in British culture in 2008.
1*/3*. A Mondayish, untaxing start to the week.
23d was my favourite.
Many thanks to the setter and to Smylers.
A nice start to the week with the setter putting together some splendid clues.
I’m always a fan of Lego clues and, unlike me, 9a didn’t disappoint with five pieces in an eight letter answer. I think the record I’ve seen is five in seven. I wonder if there’s ever been a five in six?
As ‘The setter’ means ‘I’ then I think ‘our’ is fine for ‘The Telegraph’s’ as they’re talking about their company. I don’t recall seeing it before but I like it.
My picks are 27a (great scene), 6d and 17d (excellent anagram).
Many thanks to Smylers and….hmm…..Weatherman or X-Type……the latter!
1*/4*
I found this to be more difficult to get to grips with than normally on a Monday. Particularly the top right corner. Took me ages to sort out the anagram in 6d, and 7d also caused problems. Needed the hints to parse a couple of clues. Thanks for them, and to the setter. 25a and 7d get my vote as best clues.
Hello from Amalfi Coast … a very pleasant Monday solve on a ferry to Positano.
Last two in were 21A and 25A, not sure why they took a little time. Anyway, Pody prizes go to 25A, 6D’s bookish type and the amusingly silly surface of 27A.
Thanks to setter and to Smylers ⭐️
Truly outstanding.
Lucky stick. Enjoy.
Thank you both, if it’s any consolation I’m
home in a couple of days. ✈️
Trickier than Mondays of late but perseverance paid off. 6d took an age and whilst I had the answer to 1d, I needed the hint to know why. My podium comprises 13a, 9a and 27a. Thanks to compiler and Smylers.
Re 7 down: I don’t understand the missing letter reference.
Hi, Merseybee. That was just my thought process when trying to solve the clue: the ‘head’ of a word is its first letter, so in cryptic wrordplay a word that has lost its head would be one without its first letter. However, in this particular clue, that was a red herring; “who has lost his head” isn’t instructions to be followed but an actual description of the historical figure whose name we want. It turns out there wasn’t actually a letter to be removed, which is probably why you couldn’t find one!
It seems that the heat and humidity might be addling my brain as I found this to be a little more challenging than usual, but no less enjoyable, for a Monday back pager – **/****
Candidates for favourite – 10a, 30a, 4d, 7d, and 18d – and the winner is 7d.
Thanks to the setter and to Smylers – I have never read the THGTTG book, but I did watch the BBC2 series 45(!) years ago.
P.S. Thanks for the notes on Douglas Adams’ correspondence with his USA publisher. It just goes to show how insular the USA is.
And for Spielberg’s film of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds the ‘action’ was moved from Woking to New Jersey and elsewhere in the NE USA!
I’m American, but not at all offended. My fellow countrymen are, sadly, proudly insular. As to War of the Worlds, I’m sure Spielberg used the US because the two versions we’re familiar with are the 1938 Orson Welles radio show and the classic 1953 movie version, each of which used US settings.
Maybe it’s the sheer size of the country that make it somewhat insular? I had a friend whose son went to work in Oklahoma. When asked where he came, from he replied England. He was then asked how long it had taken him to drive.
We had a similar experience in The Bronx. I was tempted to say we swam but I don’t think sarcasm would have been appreciated!
It seemed a tad harder than expected for Monday and many of the clues made me dizzy regarding direction instructions. Last in was 5 across because The Telegraph definition seemed stretched.
Top clue was 7 down although Cromwell and Wolsey came to mind at first.
Many thanks to our setter and Smylers.
I thought this was quite touch for a Monday and there are a couple of answers I still cannot parse even with the hints, notably the beheaded fellow – can’t work that one out at all. Thank goodness the tennis is over and life can resume as normal! Had a very spooky experience after ringing a company supplying water lilies. After talking to a girl for about ten minutes and getting some odd answers but perfectly logical I asked if she was a real person and she replied no, she was the AI receptionist! I rang again today and asked to speak to a real person – she already knew my name and telephone number and someone would call me back. Big brother is definitely watching us!
I’ve ordered a new satnav from TomTom and it has yet to arrive. I went on their website only to find I had to chat to a robot. It kept saying. “I understand how you feel, Steve”. No it doesn’t and who gave it permission to call me Steve?
Steve
I ordered a new pack of cards last week from amazon that haven’t arrived.
I called their customer support line and was told they were very sorry but they are still dealing with it…
Sorry.. I’ll get my coat..
Ah, the old ones are the best, Jezza! 😊
Sorry about the 7d hint, Manders. The first 2 letters of the answer are the synonym for ‘running’. The next 2 are the usual church abbreviation (although everybody I know inside that church writes it with ‘of’ in the middle, but the 2-letter form is standard in crosswords). Then the second word is the surname of Sir Thomas, the former Lord Chancellor executed in 1535. His surname has fewer Os in it than I would’ve expected if you’d asked me yesterday — so that’s another tick for crosswords being educational.
What’s your other unparsed answer? If you haven’t got it then there are probably several other silent readers of this site who’d appreciate an explanation as well.
Sorry also about the robots, but there isn’t anything I can do about that!
The o in his surname looks like a head.
So, we need to ‘chop off’ one of the two in the usual spelling to get his spelling.
That would be a good mnemonic if he’d had two heads and had one of them chopped off. Or, I suppose, if he’d been called Thomas Mre!
It’s just a way to remind people to knock off one of the Os when they write the more common spelling or should that be ‘moore common spelling’.
Taxi!
So, cryptic clues are entering the realms surrealism, Tom? We now have to think of what a letter looks like. Thus, a candlestick could represent the letter ” i ” or ” L “? 😊
Like it.
Crosswords are tough enough to challenge without any mnemonics getting involved.
I am wondering whether there is an opportunity to create a new blog that explains the comments made in this blog? Having read 13 a couple of times I for one would find it useful, 😂😂
There’s challenge for you, Tom! 😊😊
A very fair shout, doc.
If in doubt, just scroll on, baby. Scroll on.
Thanks Smylers, have now managed to parse them all, the skin deep was the other one!
I thought there were some trickier clues here than an average Monday, several requiring revisits to parse. I got there in the end and particularly liked the well disguised lurkers and 9a my favourite.
Many thanks to the setter and to Smylers for the hints.
Perfectly pitched for a Monday – thanks to our setter and Smylers.
For my podium I selected 1d, 3d and 7d.
Thanks Smylers for mentioning the Mid year Bash, I have a repost ready but waiting on EE to get my broadband running.
Back to work before the crossie I’m afraid 😒
I’m excited. I’ve got my ticket booked!
In which case, I will do my best to attend if only for a few hours, DG. I do so want to meet you. 😊
A typically gentle and pleasant start to the crosswording week with very few hold-ups. Like others, 23d was my favourite.
Many thanks to both setter and Smylers.
Definitely trickier than the usual Monday crossword with some I could not parse but were guessable with the definition and the checkers. 9a was a good musical lego clue,28aa good reverseclurker and 17d a good musical lurker. Thanks to the compiler and to Smylers for the hints , particularly for the picture in the 24a hint, reminding us of the great senseof fun and life of service of the late Anne Widdicombe
A nice puzzle to start the non-work week again this week. A couple of clues that may trip you up, but overall good solid fun.
1.5*/4* for me
Favourites include 1a, 9a, 27a, 8d, 11d & 22d — with co-winners 1a & 22d
Thanks to setter & Smylers
A little tricky for a Monday with the grid providing four distinct crosswords.
5a LOI. Not a clue that works for me.
9a and 23d favourites
I struggled with this so was rather deflated by the low difficulty rating – but got over that by making lots of excuses to myself justifying my tardy performance.
No favourites just relieved to finish.
Still often listen to the original THGTTG radio series – actually prefer it to the book and I believe it came first?
Anyway thanks to the setter and to Smylers
Yeah, the radio series came first, linking Douglas Adams to Terry Wogan via Boggy Marsh. Apologies if I rated this puzzle too low; I was borderline, and in the past when that’s happened everybody else has found it more straightforward than I did!
No appology needed – I am often unintentionally contrary with regards to ratings!
Thank you so much sharing the correspondence from publisher to author.
The fact that the publishers were worried about a reference to M&S – when the book contains mention of hundreds if not thousands of planets that are entirely ficticious – well, thats fine!
Made me chuckle, thank you
Having jumped off yesterdays Zandio , I thought this would be a typical Monday morning breeze.! Not a bit of it , this took me a while and didn’t understand 1d until I looked at the hint . Still enjoyed most of it .Last ones in were in the north.No real favourites but laughed at 27a . Thanks to all.
As seems to be the case for many others, I found the puzzle to be a step up in difficulty for a Monday but nevertheless an enjoyable solve. I thought perhaps it was just my brain operating in vacation mode. I am currently visiting family in southern Manitoba and experiencing the temperatures in the mid-30s that feel like the high 40s with the humidity that Senf has been reporting. The high humidity levels are unusual here on the Prairies but something I am well accustomed to as an Eastener. I will be heading back east just in time to catch this same weather system when it reaches Ontario and get to experience it all over again.
Thanks to the setter and Smylers. Regarding a couple of comments in the review, the abbreviation for tense is in the context of a grammatical term and a moose is a moose on both sides of the pond. It is the elk which is different. In the UK, elk is another name for moose whereas in North America an elk is the animal you know as a wapiti. The later name ( of native American origin, I believe) is also sometimes seen in North America but far more rarely than elk. Who knows why early European settlers gave the name to an entirely different beast.
Whatever an elk is, the plural is elk. As with deer and moose.
Also with sheep despite what Jeremy Clarkson says? 🐑
I’m pleased I’m not alone in finding this a tad on tricky side, not massively so but certainly a tad. Not that I didn’t find it entertaining because I did. Favourite was 25a. Thanks to the setter and Smylers.
Re 1d…Well nobody else has commented Smylers…..favourite motorway north has to be the M6 from junction 35 (a mile from home), past the Howgills, over Shap and through north Cumbria to join the M74 through Scotland.
And the crossword…I found it reasonably straightforward with the NE last to fall. As someone commented earlier, it was like four mini crosswords and solved as such. A very enjoyable solve, thanks to the setter.
Thanks too to Smylers for the blog. I’ve never read Hitchhikers but do remember the tv series.
Good choice, Moonraker. That also includes the services I illustrated the clue with. (I’ve a feeling the photo is actually of the southbound services, but it has some ducks in it, and the clue mentions birds, so I went with it anyway.)
I too found it a bit chewy but partly because I was at Ladies Luncheon Club and my dear husband had a go on his own so Thos More was in 7d and so on. I liked Whingers turning into Gershwin and the 9a instrument. As usual an enjoyable experience to put the pen down by a completed grid. I’ve also caught up on Sunday’s two splendid guzzles so many thanks to all the Setters who keep me sane (ish) and to Smylers for his hints and recommendations- I must read The Guide again.
I have never commented before about clues and/or hints but I am astounded at the photograph used for 24a in view of the fact that Anne Wiiddecombe. A photograph of any other MP at this tragic time, in my view would have been more appropriate.
I’m sorry it came across that way, Mary. I wanted a picture of an MP, and thought of paying tribute to Ann Widdecombe at this time by choosing her. I looked at a lot of photos and picked out one in which she is smiling (rather than, say looking stern or being dragged around the dance floor, seemingly against her will). This blog doesn’t do politics — thank you everybody from refraining from commenting on her policies, whether for or against — but acknowledging somebody’s death doesn’t have to be political.
And thank you for your comment — please do comment again. And if there are illustrations you enjoy, do say and it may encourage bloggers to choose more that are similar.
PS: It’s Ann, no E.
Well said, Smylers. I thought the picture was tasteful and a fitting memorial to the great lady.
So did I Steve. A lovely picture of her looking joyous rather than one of the demeaning Strictly ones the media keep using.
Exactly as your pic came across, Smylers – respectful and a joyous one too. We all know you to be honourable, and your choices are always fitting and relevant. Thank you.
Thank you too for your excellent reviews and recommendations – always enjoy. And, of course, a huge thank you to Monday’s setter. Thoroughly enjoyed, although needed Smiler’s full parsing to understand my answer to 7d.
Aw, that’s kind of you to say so, Jan.
Apologies for misspelling your name!
Late on this today. Not sure just the one ⭐️ for difficulty. A fair number flew in but some hold outs. Blood on the tracks by Dylan tonight 🎸
Difficult for me today …but I managed to finish unaided…needed help with parsing 1d, 3d and 20d.
Missed the rekrul in 28….doh!
Thanks to the setter and to Smylers.
The heat has finally reached us up here in coastal Angus…..up till now we have had a lot of haar keeping temps low.
Trying to persuade Mr Metingue that it is too hot to garden…..not a lot of success ….still, the garden looks good
Good evening
A late start to the crozzie today; I didn’t even fold and smooth down the page until break time at quarter to seven, and I’ve only just put my pen away.
As I said on Friday, I’m out of practice with the crozzie what with one thing and another, but I think I acquitted myself reasonably well today with only a few sticky moments.
7d was my last to fall; I didn’t think I’d get it, history not being a strong point for me. 28a was a corker and is COTD.
Many thanks to our setter and to Smylers.
Just finished after several interruptions throughout the day. I am with a few others in thinking that this was a tad harder than a 1*. Not quite a clean sweep of the clues, about 85% completed before I had to resort to the hints. No standout clues for me today but as always thank you to the setter and to Smylers for the hints.
An early solve but late to comment. Enjoyed the puzzle which I’d judge maybe a tad trickier than you average Monday. 1,28&30a + 6,7&18d the ones that stood out. Great quickie pun too.
Thanks to the setter (Weatherman seems a good call) & to Smylers – good to see David Ford, Gun & the gorgeous Gershwin piece that Woody Allen used to great effect in his opening to Manhattan. I thought Joe Wright’s Atonement a great adaptation of 6d’s masterpiece.
2*/3* …
liked 20D “Slippery customers, contemptible people from the East End (4)”