Sunday Toughie No 239
by proXimal
Hints and Tips by Sloop John Bee
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A delightful puzzle from proXimal, that I didn’t find too tricky last night. As usual, he starts with a Spoonerism and follows up with the first compound anagram.
The grid means we have a slightly unbalanced 14a and 16d clues and my half of the hints are equally unbalanced (6a and 9d)
I hope you find the checkers to cross the line, but will try and nudge you in the right direction if asked.
Here we go, Folks…
As it is a Prize puzzle I can only hint at a few and hope that will give you the checkers and inspiration to go further. I’ll return with the full review blog just after the closing date. Don’t forget to follow BD’s instructions in RED at the bottom of the hints!
I hope I don’t have to redact any comments, but you have all been so well-behaved that the red pencil is likely to remain in retirement.
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. Don’t forget the Mine of Useful information that Big Dave and his son Richard so meticulously prepared for us.
A full review of this puzzle will be published after the closing date for submissions. Some hints follow: Remember the site rules and play nicely.
Across
9a There are no people in this brown dress, according to Spooner (5,4)
To brown some bread perhaps and a formal dress, are treated by The Reverend Doctor
The obvious link under a spoiler;
10a Dance crew performing out of abandoned workplace (5)
An anagram (performing) of crew is removed from workplace, what remains is anagrammed (abandoned) for the dance
12a State border guards backing rule (7)
A border guards to state or declare positively, then reverse it (backing)
17a Take up little room after turning in bed (7)
A little room for a monk perhaps is reversed (after turning) in a bed
21a Service industry employee receiving tip in exchange (9)
To trade by exchange of commodities contains (receiving) a synonym of tip
29a Preacher’s source of antagonistic mail law enforcers uncovered (9)
The source of antagonistic, some mail and what remains of law enforcers when uncovered
Down
2d Swimmer’s clobber is rubbish (10)
An ocean swimmer and his possessive ‘ess and an informal clobber (click the pic for more info)
4d Egotistical person starts to splash everyone in stream (6)
To cause or allow to flow in a stream contains the starting letters of two words in the clue
6d Upset father managed to put on calm air (10)
A reversed (upset) father, followed by a synonym of calm that is put around one of managed
8d Manner of speaking is standard way around Charlie (8)
A standard score at golf and a small country way around the letter that Charlie indicates
14d Bit drunk leaving celebration in stupidly big boat (5,5)
The second compound anagram. An anagram (drunk) of bit leaves “cele(b)ra(ti)on in”, what remains is then anagrammed again (stupidly) for a big boat
16d Rate water sources for plants (10)
A rate of travel and some plural water sources lead to some plural plants
18d Ride conveyance to marsh with horse going north (8)
To from the clue, a marsh and a reversal (going north in a down clue) of an inferior horse
22d Rook likely eviscerated other bird (6)
A chess notation, a synonym of likely and what remains of other when eviscerated
27d Having advanced to the south, go off course (4)
An advanced abbreviation goes to the south of to go off or decay
Compiler
proXimal
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I enjoyed this although some of the parsing took me a long time to tease out. 29a was a new word for me.
Top picks for me were 10a, 9a, 21a, 22d, 1d and the lovely 2d.
Thanks to SJB and Proximal.
21a was a favourite here as well, as it gave me a chance to illustrate my favourite Alnwick bookshop
This took a while to get into but then it is a prize Toughie. Some of the clues were quite convoluted but quite solvable if the instructions were followed. A case in point is the large vessel at 17d where I took the wrong meaning of “overlooking” until light dawned. As ever, the spoonerism was suitably groan worthy and 7d appears in Dada’s back pager as well. We also had the water sources at 16d recently but who’s complaining? The word at 2d is such a good one and I can hear Rowan Atkinson saying it slowly. The lurker evaded me for ages because it was so well hidden. My COTT is the stupidly big boat at 14d with the ride at 18d running a close second.
Thank you, proXimal for a fun challenge. Thank you, Sloops for the hints and Blackadder.
I think I was removing a large rather than a one from 17d until commonsense 12a’d. My recent radar pinged a couple of times too. I also wondered if some of the answers were slight digs at the former PM hiding in the unches of the 14th column
On balance I found this more approachable than Dada’s prize cryptic today. Smooth surfaces and minimal diversions meant finding the solution was not particularly onerous. My only question mark concerns the parsing of 3d VIP. Perhaps someone can elucidate without breaking any rules. Favourites for the podium are the employee at 21a, the preacher at 29a and the big boat 14d.
Many thanks to proXimal for the friendly workout and SLB for the hints.
The dark bituminous material takes the plural ess and cycles it from last to first creating a VIP or celebrity
Thanks John, so simple. I was delving into dark matter in space.
Not overly difficult, but it took me ages to parse 10a.
Top four 26a, 6d, 14d, and 22d.
Many thanks to proXimal and SJB.
IMO 10a was tricky to parse because the bit to be removed was a large chunk of the fodder (4 & 5 of 9), the other compound anagram 14d was split 3,10 of 13
I agree with SJB – proXimal’s puzzle today is both delightful and none too tricky. Of the ‘usual suspects’ I’m putting just the 9a Spoonerism on my podium today, with the two compound anagrams just lagging behind my other picks: 12 and 24 on the Across podium then 1, 6 and a tie between 2 & 7 for the Down podium places. 2d had to be picked because it is such a mellifluous word, and the 7d surface reading brought a smile. As well as being on a podium step, 12a was also my LOI and needed writing down before I could see the parsing! When it comes to rating water sources for plants, I think it may still be a while until our hosepipe gets on the short list again…
Many thanks to proXimal and also to SJB – hope you make it to your October 2nd concert. I’m not familiar with the band (well, they’ve only been around for the last 40 years it appears) so I’ll check them out on my playlist…
Delightful and not too tricky as our blogger says – thanks to proXimal and SJB.
Ticks from me for 9a, 29a, 2d and (my favourite) 5d.