Toughie No 3235 by Artix
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Artix has given us a proper Toughie today with plenty of scope for going astray. I enjoyed the battle – thanks to Artix.
There are a lot of old American entertainers referenced in the clues – I wonder whether that can be regarded as a mini-theme.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Across Clues
1a Snap zip? Back in a flash (10)
PICOSECOND: assemble a short word for a snap, the letter that resembles zip or nothing and a verb to back.
6a Unenthusiastic commoner going after public prosecutor (4)
DAMP: the abbreviation for a commoner (as opposed to a member of the Lords) follows a US public prosecutor.
10a King perhaps doesn’t finish song (5)
CAROL: King here is the surname of an American singer/songwriter. Drop the last letter of her forename.
11a Winning in poshest ground open for business (3,2,4)
SET UP SHOP: an adverb meaning winning goes inside an anagram (ground) of POSHEST.
12a Racy compilation man censored for Rees-Mogg? (8)
POLITICO: take away the letters of man from COMPILATION and make an anagram (racy) of what remains.
13a Brother’s supply possibly from druggie off his head (5)
TONER: Brother here is a make of printer. Drop the first letter from an informal word for a druggie.
15a Slippery character shifting focal point of X in 2022 (7)
TWISTER: start with what X was called before Mr Musk got his hands on it and change its middle letter.
17a Is chikara played near here? (7)
KARACHI: very clever. We need an anagram (played) of CHIKARA (an Indian instrument like a violin) to get a place in an adjacent country.
19a Half-cut old Ethiop next to a lake that’s very deep (7)
ABYSSAL: the first half of the name of someone from what Ethiopia was once called followed by A and the abbreviation of lake.
21a With golden intro, this bird sounds grandly musical (7)
KESTREL: if you precede your answer with our usual tincture of gold you get what sounds like an adjective meaning musical on a large scale.
22a Store such cheap wine (5)
HOUSE: double definition – a verb to store or shelter and the cheapest wine in a restaurant (still not very cheap in my experience). I’m not sure what ‘such’ brings to the clue.
24a Most winning match by four points (8)
SWEETEST: an international sports match follows four points of the compass.
27a Has something against bids for charity (roughly 23 pounds)? On the contrary (9)
BEGRUDGES: pounds here is a containment indicator meaning confines so ‘on the contrary’ means that a verb meaning ‘bids for charity’ contains an anagram (rough) of the answer to 23d.
28a 2 degrees … it’s a killer! (5)
MAMBA: stick together two academic degrees.
29a Bedmate’s no time for Nelson? (4)
EDDY: drop the physics abbreviation for time from what many children (and some adults) take to bed with them to get the surname of Nelson, an old American actor and singer.
30a Dreamt and swooned, losing oneself about adult relative (10)
FANTASISED: a verb meaning swooned without the pronoun used for oneself contains the abbreviation for the film classification adult and an abbreviated relative.
Down Clues
1d Kiss Hollywood heart-throb (4)
PECK: double definition.
2d In America, capital no longer invested into municipality — that’s not the norm (9)
CURIOSITY: a Russian doll clue. The old capital of a South American country goes inside an abbreviation for America and all that is contained in a municipality.
3d Stew, with game 1001 at end of season? Not quite (5)
SALMI: The BRB says this (new to me) is ‘a ragout, especially of previously cooked game’. Append the Roman numeral for 1001 to a verb to season without its last letter.
4d Lay off worker at UBS? (7)
CASHIER: double definition. UBS is a bank.
5d Maybe BBC 2’s controlled by idiot (7)
NETWORK: a slang word for an idiot (which the BRB says may be combination of nerd and berk) with the figure 2 spelled out inside it.
7d Resembling Robin’s partner, rather pale-faced (5)
ASHEN: a conjunction meaning resembling and Robin’s mate (where Robin is not Batman’s partner but the victim of a sparrow in a nursery rhyme).
8d Plants annually, by the thousand, large and small sizes (5,5)
PAPER MILLS: bring together an abbreviation meaning annually, a preposition meaning ‘by’, an abbreviation from the Latin for a thousand and abbreviations for the two clothing sizes mentioned.
9d Nouveaux riches move art for kicks (but not superficially) (8)
UPSTARTS: start with an informal phrase (2,6) to move home and replace the inner letters of ‘kicks’ with ‘art’.
14d In case, ace lawyer who’s qualified can get knotted! (10)
ATTACHABLE: a type of rigid case containing the card abbreviation for ace and a legal qualification.
16d What detects most of tea and beer infused with large dose of wine? (5,3)
TASTE BUD: the first two letters of tea and the short name for an American brand of beer contain almost all of our usual sparkling wine.
18d Noel Gallagher’s finale welcomed by children first, then parents (9)
CHRISTMAS: insert the final letter of Gallagher into the abbreviation for children, a way of writing ‘first’ and an affectionate word for parents.
20d Turner, say, eating Indian spinach dish (7)
LASAGNA: the forename of Ms. Turner, the American actress who had seven husbands, contains the Hindi word for spinach.
21d Parliament, determined to undermine benders Partygate ultimately covered up, … (7)
KNESSET: an adjective meaning determined follows bodily benders without one occurrence of the ultimate letter of Partygate.
23d … got rid of undesirables, sacking leader, and pressed forward (5)
URGED: a verb meaning got rid of undesirables without its leading letter.
25d National demanding return of Israeli, potentially leaving Palestine at last (5)
TIMES: reverse a racial description which may apply to an Israeli without one of the occurrences of the last letter of Palestine.
26d Like Toughie? Laughed out loud! (4)
HARD: this might sound to some (but not to me) like a verb meaning laughed. As far as I can see this is not in Chambers or Collins as a verb.
The top clues for me were 27a, 7d and 16d with my favourite being 17a. Which one(s) cut the mustard for you?
A very enjoyable battle with a properly tough 5* Toughie. It has been quite a busy week and at one point I thought I’d better check it wasn’t Friday
Thanks to Artix and Gazza. My favourites were 13a, 21a and 26d
I don’t normally find myself here on a Thursday, but I just wanted to check the parsing of 22a – I thought there might be more to it, but if Gazza thinks not, then I’m sure he’s right. Lovely crossword, I thought, just the right difficulty level for a Thursday… struggling to choose a favourite, but maybe 21a, which certainly made me smile. Many thanks to Artix and Gazza for setting my mind at rest.
At one point I thought I was going to be beaten, but I battled through and was rewarded with a full grid. I’m relieved the few to comment thus far found it equally testing yet highly entertaining, as did I. 17a and 20d were my top two.
My thanks to Artix for the considerable challenge and to Gazza.
That would have been tough for a Friday. Some very tricky clues here. The penny dropped with a resounding clang at 15a but “pounds” as a container indicator [27a] had me beat. I agree that 21a is a top clue as are 18d and 5d, altho I so wanted the latter to be “airhead”.
Thanks to Artix and to Gazza for the blog and the enlightenment.
Knew I didn’t stand much of a chance with this one but did what I could and then let Gazza walk me through it with his review and cartoons. Of the ones I managed to solve, I particularly liked Robin’s partner and the grand musical.
Respect to Artix and many thanks to Gazza for his assistance.
For me Artix is somewhere between Elgar and Osmosis on the Toughie’s Toughest scale. Convoluted clues, tertiary definitions and synonyms, references to the obscure and long dead… tick, tick, tick.
Completed with copious dictionary work but defeated as had to use all 5 letter hints. Very satisfying nonetheless, and the reward is to come here to enjoy Gazza’s cartoon selection and learn why some of the answers were what they were.
Thank you to Artix and Gazza