Sunday Toughie No 81 by proXimal
Hints and Tips by Sloop John Bee
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The puzzle came together quite steadily last night but some of the parsings came on a much later bus, particularly the school lesson. The Reverend Spooner gave me a bit of a fright but not for long today.
14a and 16d clues and I have done my best to keep hints down to half, as ever I remain available for extra nudges if required.
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 I am new at this and don’t want to rock the boat. If in doubt, I’ll rub it out! I think that sentence is a bit redundant. You have all been so helpful in sorting out prior parsing failures, and I am sure I will need similar help again.
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
1a Forest spirit is winged beast (5,10)
How Thomas Hardy may describe a leafy forest and ones spirit, resolve or humour, often used informally to keep your “nose” up. split 5,10 and you have a winged beast
9a Debauched toymaker with head back consuming wine (9)
A brand of die-cast toys moves its head to the end around an Italian white wine
It took ages to find a pic without the brand plastered all over it, if you had one I bet you lost the little ejectee!
11a
There were plenty of these at Beningbrough Hall Gardens yesterday but I can’t filter them out from the riot of other plants so a generic google image will have to do
12a Got uneasy initially backing Mercury in Queen, perhaps (6)
The initial letter of uneasy and a reversal of the chemical symbol of Mercury in the (female) pet that Queen suggests.
A topical surface when they have just announced the sale of Freddie Mercury’s Art collection
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/2023/08/12/mary-austin-interview-freddie-mercury-home-auction-tour/
20a Uncertainty aboard the French vessel for vital period (8)
One of the ways the French say the, and the vessels you use for cooking around conditional uncertainties (… and buts) being the period you remain vital
23a Poet penning piece in centre of Canberra (6)
A chess piece penned by the central two letters of the Australian capital
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
24a Spooner’s swanky glove that’s found by stage (4,3)
A relatively easy spoonerism today. A place for energetic dancing close to the stage, How the Reverend Spooner may refer to swanky (fingerless) gloves and swap the initial sounds
29a Overseers great in number having negative effects (15)
A synonym of great, smashing…, in from the clue, a specific number and the negative effects of hitting something with your car perhaps
Down
1d Musician composed zero reggae (6,4)
I am supposed to hint the first and last across and down but he is a straightforward anagram so I will settle for a link that doesn’t plaster the answer all over the place
https://youtube.com/shorts/YKRGgf8Db1M?feature=share
2d Back in house, mature partygoer entertaining half-cut beer enthusiast (5,6)
The back letter of house, to mature or get older, and a partygoer who attends mass gatherings of people under the influence of bright flashing lights and Ecstasy, around the second half of beer. Put all that Lego together and you should have an enthusiastic and industrious rodent
4d Rejects fast dismissed by talent scouts, unfortunately (8)
Dismiss the fast that Christians celebrate before Easter from talent scouts and anagram the rest (unfortunately) for some rejects
5d Boil green cabbage at start in school lesson (6)
A newish school lesson that we probably used to call wood or metalworking is abbreviated to two letters it goes around a “green” prefix and the initial letter of cabbage
13d Bed-wetter’s denial? (8,3)
The denial of using copious amounts of water on flower or vegetable beds during a period of drought, I am sure that with our prevailing weather the water companies should do more to prevent the copious leaks that years of underinvestment have caused
14d Contest is arranged to draw in right players (10)
An anagram (arranged) of the first two words in the clue and R for right for these Brass musicians
17d Fervour around mass campaign for computer program (8)
An abbreviation of mass and a prolonged military campaign surrounded by some fervour, give us the software or similar program that is a more or less permanent and unerasable part of a computer’s memory
21d Hunting beast exposed gruesome wound (6)
Remove the outer letters of gruesome (exposed) and anagram what remains (wound) for the hunting beast that helps control rodents
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My other Sunday morning diversion is the ST Where Was I? competition which usually keeps me busy for a while. Today’s location was a familiar location for me and only needed a couple of quick checks. This proved to be a blessing as I needed the extra time with today’s Toughie.
New word for me at 5d and one or two less commonly used ones.
Favourites were 12a, 16a and 13d (which I am sure I have seen before but held me up until I remembered).
Got Mercury immediately in 12a but struggled with the wrong Queen before I sussed it.
Did the notorious Doctor not appear in the Cryptic through the week? Time he was laid to rest but I would have liked to have seen him in 24a!
Thanks to proXimal for the enjoyable challenge and SJB for several clarifications.
A couple of novelties for me in 5d and 24a, although I managed to tease out the former from the wordplay and the Reverend’s ‘swanky glove’ was quite apparent in addition to being amusing. A bit of 28a parsing currently eludes me..? My podium places today went to 1a, 12a and 2d.
Many thanks to both proXimal and to SJB.
There are two potential reversal indicators in 28a. You need the first one.
Aha!
Thanks, Gazza.
Agreed – the second possible reversal indicator is actually a synonym of help that is to be reversed
I found proXimal quite tricky today but very enjoyable – thanks to him and to SJB for the hints.
5d was a new word for me but, having verified it, I still had to look up the relevant letters to find the school subject. Neither the BRB nor Collins had heard of the abbreviation for it but Mrs Google came to the rescue.
I liked 1a, 12a and 29a but my runaway favourite was the amusing 13d.
I struggled there too – eventually finding them in the GCSE syllabus. I wonder what happened to the letter rack I made 50 years ago.. my woeful woodworking skills at the time probably meant it didn’t last long
Very enjoyable from the X-man.
I have lots of ticks on my printed sheet including 12&28a plus 2d with top spot going to 13d, one of the best cryptic definitions I’ve seen for a while.
Many thanks to ProXimal and John.
Something of a learning curve for me today – didn’t know either the definition or the school lesson in 5d nor the reverend’s swanky glove, although the latter was easy enough to guess then look-up. As for the computer program – not a snowball’s chance!
Thank goodness for the winged beast which flew straight in with only the first letter as a checker – gleaned from sorting out the musician from his fodder.
Top three were 1&20a plus 13d – sure we’ve seen that one before but I’d forgotten so still got the laugh-out-loud moment.
Thanks to proXimal for the challenge and to SJB for the hints and music, especially the poignant cornet solo. I couldn’t discover which band was performing, do you happen to know?
I just picked a nice 14d from YT, but he appears to be Jérémy Coquoz performing at EBBC 2016 Gala Concert in Lille, accompanied by Hautes-de-France Brass Band
I just thought it was a nicer piece than Ewan McGregor or Pete Postlethwaite in Brassed Off
Thanks, SJB, it was delightfully played.
Thanks for the thanks – I try and find some hinty bits that are appropriate. If Robert is listening/reading I am sure we would have had exchanged some more Poetry for 23a too
The Toughie is beyond my pay grade, so as expected I found it difficult even with SJB’s hints. I had not heard of 5d, perhaps unsurprisingly as it is marked ‘archaic’ in the Oxford Dictionary. Hadn’t heard of the abbreviation on the school syllabus either, but got the clue in the end by using the rest of the hint, the dictionary and a search on Google. Took overly long to work out 25d, but got there eventually. Still can’t parse 10a, but it’s time to just bung in what I think must be the answer! Thanks SJB, without your hints I would have made little progress today.
Take two words from 10a and remove the outer letters (fully shelled) add a from the clue and think of a nice cooling dip with a curry
Thanks very much SJB. I now see what the word ‘fully’ in the clue indicates and can account for all five letters. 👍🏻
Excellent puzzle, well deserving of the Toughie label and very rewarding to solve, packed with wit and invention. Thanks for the workout, proXimal.
I came up with a solution that fit the definition for 5d (not a new word for me) but couldn’t unravel the wordplay, so thanks for the blog but especially for that hint, SJB – all makes sense now and confirms that my guess was correct!
Found this very challenging indeed & not helped by making a complete pig’s ear of trying to solve it. A DNF on account of 25d remains unsolved & I needed the full permissible complement of hitting the submit button on the old site to check progress (necessitating 2 corrections en route) to get that far. Initially had A&T as the 4th&5th letters at 1a & too embarrassed to admit to the other boo-boo. 5&17d (for which I used the hint) new to me but happy memories of gigs in the 24a long ago. 13d my runaway fav – super clue.
Thanks to proXimal & to John – how you thought this on a par for difficulty with the Dada puzzle is beyond me.
Ps – after a couple of day of the site retaining my name & email it’s back to having to enter them each time.
A synonym of keep or retain moves the letter that south represents to the bottom to be the plural noun for birds as a class of vertebrates
My brain was probably a bit be-fuddled by the time I got to the Dada
Thanks John. That actually occurred but don’t recall coming across that class of vertebrates before. Not surprised you were a bit befuddled by the time you got round to Dada. Thank God I only have to hint a Tuesday