Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 3253 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Senf
A very good Sunday morning from Warmerpeg – where the Nestaweya River Skating Trail; has closed for the season after just nine full days of operation over 600 metres, between January 25 and 30 and February 13 and 17, all because of the mild winter. In the past, the trail has been open as long as 76 days (in 2019) and stretched as far as 10 kilometres (in 2018).
For me, and I stress for me, Dada quirkily friendly. ‘Heavy’ on anagrams as usual – nine (four partials), two lurkers, two homophones, and four long ‘uns all in a slightly asymmetric 30 clues; with 15 hints ‘sprinkled’ throughout the grid, you should be able to get the checkers to enable the solving of the unhinted clues. And, remember, the Naughty Step is OPEN!
Candidates for favourite – 18a, 23a, 1d, 5d, 8d, 19d, and the Pun (if you know your Scottish and American actresses to solve one of the contributing clues).
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, a number of the more difficult clues have been selected and hints provided for them.
Don’t forget to follow the instructions in RED at the bottom of the hints!
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 Troublesome start while in very hot water? (7,2,4)
An initial experience that is quite an ordeal or (Brian won’t like this) the gift of the Holy Spirit.
9a Hole, after reversing, crossed by a street vehicle (9)
A type of hole (as in an opening in the skin) which after being reversed is contained (crossed) by A from the clue and a (narrow) street – to answer the question before it is asked – based on my professional experience, yes, the answer is a vehicle.
13a Financial gain, though lack of it for teacher (4)
A single word for financial gain (income minus expenses in its simplest form) with IT removed (though lack of).
15a Bond formed by boy in group (7)
Guess a boy inserted into (in) a three letter synonym of group.
21a Cloak, better back on vampire (4)
A verbal synonym of better (as in outperform) and the last letter (back on) of vampirE.
23a Country folk onto you (5)
A three letter synonym of folk placed after (onto) the poetic form of you.
26a Dawn has lit up place (5)
A two letter single word term for lit up and a synonym of place – careful avoidance of the repetition radar.
28a One pocketed by foolish client, I’d want double! (9,4)
The Roman numeral for one contained (pocketed) by an anagram (foolish) of CLIENT, I’D WANT.
Down
1d Snake that’s savage squeezing a prisoner hard (3,11)
Lego at the ready – a four letter synonym of savage containing (squeezing) all of A from the clue, a three letter abbreviated synonym for prisoner, and a synonym of hard (as in stern).
2d Old Argentine leader wants agent gone after revolution? (5)
The reversal (after revolution) of a (2,3) phrase that can mean wants agent gone.
4d A retreat under yours truly, most unpleasant (7)
A from the clue and a synonym of retreat (as in comfortable place) placed after (under in a down clue) the objective form of the first person singular pronoun (yours truly).
8d Feeling initially coming up in old cook for meaty dish (4,10)
More Lego – The first letter (initially) of Feeling and a synonym of coming up all inserted into the surname of the ‘old cook’ (who wrote a book on household management).
16d Bonus drink after an assortment of Italian morsels (9)
A three letter bonus (received by restaurant workers?) and the abbreviated form of one of our favourite (alcoholic) drinks all placed after AN from the clue.
24d Yowl! I am upset you trod on my paw! (5)
An anagram (upset) of I AM and a two letter interjection as an expression of pain if someone treads on one’s foot (my paw).
25d Minor irritation in dirty accommodation voiced? (4)
A homophone (in . . . voiced) of a term for dirty accommodation.
Quick Crossword Pun:
MARRY + ANNETTE = MARIONETTE
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The ‘Quiet Beatle’ George Harrison was born on this day in 1943. After the break-up of the Beatles he continued to be very successful as a solo artist and as a member of the Travelling Wilburys a group he formed with Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. His most successful solo single was My Sweet Lord in 1970 which later was at the centre of a heavily publicised copyright infringement suit beacause of its alleged similarity to the Ronnie Mack song He’s So Fine, a 1963 hit for the New York girl group the Chiffons:
Pretty straightforward for a Sunday offering, no real hitches at all, just seemed to flow for me today.
Liked 9a as I loathe the often used ‘over the pond’ version, and great to see the picture showing this answer.
Thought the two vertical long ‘uns didn’t need much more than reading though once to throw out the obvious answer.
Favourites today were 21a and 9a. Many thanks to our setter today.
A gentle but pleasant Sunday offering.
My favourite was 14d.
Thanks to Dada and to Senf.
2*/2.5*. Apart from having to guess a boy in 16a, this was light and pleasant, albeit slightly anagram heavy which seems to be normal now on Sundays.
1a was my favourite.
Thanks to Dada and to Senf.
RD, thought you would have something to say about 16a boy. It foxed me for some time
Ideed, not one of the usual lads’names!
xxxx xxxxxx, xxxx xxxxxxxx, xxxx xxxxxxx to name a few and xxxxxxx is one of the lads.
(It’s Sunday!)
My first thought too, Angellov!
A highly enjoyable guzzle today with no long-winded slogging involved, some clever misdirection a d some great anagrams. The addirion of General Knowledge in some clues added spice. I liked tthe cryptic definition at 1a, the two lego clues at 1d and 8d and the 28a anagram. Thanks to Dada for another absorbing SPP and to Senf for the hints
A puzzle of two halves for me. The top was excellent and well clued, the bottom on the whole belongs in the most difficult Toughie category.
Top ***/****, bottom *****/*
Not Dada’s best for me.
Thx for hints
Does anyone know where yesterday’s NTSPP from Meles has gone?
It seems to have been deleted at noon yesterday – I suspect Stephen L has clicked the wrong button
I see it’s back now.
It was there yesterday evening, as I was able to print it – but coming back a couple of hours ago to see what others had thought of it, the puzzle had disappeared, so it must have gone overnight. Good to see it’s now returned!
I strongly recommend yesterday’s NTSPP from Meles to anyone looking for another not-a-Toughie puzzle to occupy their time on this wet and miserable grey day: it’s accessible, amusing and well worth the effort.
Off to a flying start helped by 1a and 1d going straight in but did have a sticky patch particularly in the SW. Overall it was a pleasant challenge. My experience is that 25d is not always minor. Thank you to the well-established pairing, Dada and Senf. Hope CS is on the mend – her absence presumably means no cake in the naughty corner.
Started with all the easy pick offs and assumed an easy puzzle. Wow, how things slowed down after that!
I didn’t enjoy this mix of levels but finished in the end.
Not my favourite but thanks to the compiler!
The snake gave me the first letter of the very hot water and then I was off and away – very few hold-ups in the rest of the solve. I did scribble RD alongside 15a and he didn’t let me down! My favourites were the troublesome start, the financial gain and the new party game.
Thanks to Dada and to our man in Warmerpeg for the hints. I’d rather ‘gone off’ The Beatles by the time they ‘found religion’ but that was a gentle reminder of George’s singing abilities.
Didn’t George go in for Hinduism or something like that?
An pleasant start to Sunday for me today. slightly held up by 24d, 25d and 25a but for no reason I can see in hindsight.
No real standouts, but I enjoyed a good number including 18a, 19d and 20d – oh and I do like long answers I can get quickly so I was happy today!
Thanks to Dada and Senf.
Not quite as many anagrams from our setter as he gave us last week but still on the high side.
Thanks to Dada for an enjoyable puzzle and thanks to Senf for the hints.
At one stage I thought we were going to get a theme based on imperial measurements but it didn’t materialise.
My ticks went to 21a, 1d and 19d.
If you are looking for a theme I am sure you will have found a lovely one over in the Toughie
From the gimme at 1d this was a straightforward and uber-gentle top-to-bottom solve with no hold-ups, the now typical Sunday anagram excess, but good surfaces and minimal ‘GK’ required. 1a doesn’t really work for me: if you’re in water, however hot it is you’re not likely to be ablaze. Podium place to 19a, but little else stood out from this unmemorable puzzle.
1* / 2*
Thank you setter, but far from one of your best. Thank you also to Senf
Surprised to see that 13a name for teacher in English, over here in Frogland that’s what they’re all called. Most liked in the downs. E.g. 5d 16d, 24d, and 8d, whose book
I still use! Wasn’t sure that a 25d is always minor…or am I just oversensitive?
As for faves, a toss-up between 14d – my birthday granddaughter’s favourite game and 16d which I’ve just enjoyed.
Many thanks to Dada and to Senf – keep cool!
Smooth sailing today, slightly compounded by initially putting “by” in 1a, but this was swiftly sorted out by 5d. 1.5*/**** Thanks to Dada and Senf.
The gimme in 1d resulted in me being fixated with completely the wrong first word in 1a, so I went to the bottom of the grid and worked up by which time 1a sanity had been restored. Somehow never found 18a palatable outside the territory but a good excuse to enjoy when there. 8d is making me feel hungry and is my cotd for that reason alone. Thanks to Dada and Senf
Blimey! That was
light, throughout.
Solutions just flowed.
Last in, a very
Well-hidden lurker.
Thanks Dada
And Senf.
Well, for me, Dada this week upped the difficulty spectrum I thought. Also seem to be some use of his personal thesaurus thrown about the grid, along with some of his quirkiness.
Fun to tussle through some of the more difficult/tricky clues.
2.5*/3.5* for me.
Favourites include 1a, 10a, 20a, 27a, 1d & 14d – with winner 1a
Smiles for 10a, 28a, 5d & 24d
Thanks to Dada & Senf for blog/hints
14d my clear favourite in this one. Agree with the view that it was overly anagram heavy & straightforward but nevertheless thought it marked something of a return to form for Dada on a Sunday. The 4 peripheral long uns were also entertaining & I liked 16&24d.
Thanks to D&S
Ps his 2 homophones here were a tad easier than one that divided opinion in his Graun puzzle earlier this week – I thought it was great.
Turn up for yoga class, did you say? Boo and hiss! (12)
A pleasant and straightforward puzzle just right for a lazy Sunday afternoon, with 1a my favourite clue.
Thanks Dada and Senf.
Very thankful for a benevolent puzzle today, as we need to leave soon to see our granddaughter to congratulate her on being accepted to her first choice of university for their masters program, one of the only 25 they accept each year. She’s worked very hard for this, so very proud of her. Really enjoyed this today, and benefitted from being able to solve the four long answers around the perimeter. Thank you Dada and Senf.
Congrats to granddaughter, a great achievement!
Fairly rattled in.
As most I too found this a reasonably straightforward and enjoyable solve , with no holdups and need for hints. Thanks so much Dada and Senf.
All very pleasant today from Dadanagram
I shot myself in the foot a couple of times, first by putting a different second word in 1a, sorted by the obvious 5d. I’m not sure I like 13a, really? I’ve got scratchings all over my paper from solving anagrams, but I enjoy doing them. I did need word search for 9a, a better name for them than the Brit shorter one. I liked so much, hard to choose a fave, 24d amused, the four long ‘uns were very helpful, I think I’ll toss a loonie if I can find one.
Thank you Dada for all the fun, Sundays are a treat. Thanks for your explanations Senf, 9d in particular, I couldn’t unravel that.
Re 9a, if I have identified the shorter word you refer to correctly, my BRB says that the shorter word is chiefly N American. I agree about 13a though! And I was interested to see ‘lightweight’ used in the way it is in 11a as I had previously wondered whether that would be acceptable.
My shorter word, according to purists, refers even to dirigibles. This word means the pictured one.
Pretty straightforward for Dada, I thought……not keen on 15a for the obvious reasons…quite a few I could only parse with some difficulty after the event (eg 1d and 8d), but all fairly clued and guessable from the checkers….
A straightforward puzzle to cheer an incredibly wet day
Apart from the anagrams, getting the answers was one thing and parsing them was another thing altogether, but all in all pretty straightforward if a bit run-of-the-mill. Favourite was 16d. Thanks to Dada and Senf.
An enjoyable solve but delayed by a couple of clues where I couldn’t parse them. I’m still unable to parse 21a perhaps someone could drop a hint but please don’t risk the naughty step. I spent awhile trying to put lad into 15a. Many thanks to Dada and Senf
I don’t think I can explain 21a any better than I have already done in the hint.
Senf, many thanks for dropping in again. I have just reread your hint and I agree you couldn’t have bettered it! Kept trying to think of the names of Vampires (doh)!
Finished this early morning today and since been busy with friends who have now left. I found this fun and easier to get going on than some previous Dada puzzles. I liked all the long clues which gave me a good foothold.
Many thanks to Dada and to Senf for the hints.
Many thanks to Dada for taking my mind off things today and to Senf for explaining 21a, my LOI.