DT 30706

96 comments on “DT 30706”

1. Tricky but satisfying is my take on today’s offering. I finished unaided but did not understand some of the parsing. It felt strange to get the answer then work out the parsing. For example, I solved 8a but only realised afterwards that it was a letter substitution. Stupidly, I spelled 19a incorrectly so that held me up with 17d. All in all, a great guzzle. I have ticks all over the paper but my COTD is the baked product at 9a because it brings back wonderful memories of holidays in Brittany.

   Thank you, setter for the fun challenge. Thank you, Mr. K. for the hints.

   The telephone engineer did not turn up yesterday and the landline still does not work. We have a very poor mobile signal where we live so I can’t get hold of them.

   1. You stuck a ‘Y’ in 19a didn’t you Steve.

      1. Yes 🙄

         1. So did I!😁

2. There’s only one word for this puzzle, world class!

   Took ages to get the hang of it, but once I could see how the setter’s mind was working it soon picked up pace.
   Quite a few were educated guesses, and then go back over it to see why it worked, especially 7d.

   Took far too long trying to force ‘sweatiest’ into 11a before a saw what an arse I was being and the penny dropped. Sweatiest indeed.

   Second to last in was 1d because I’d convinced myself that it had to start ‘tra’, oh well….

   Great clueing throughout, my two (of the many) were 7d and 27a, great fun and many thanks to the setter, intrigued to see who it is.

   1. Two words Tipcat!

      1. Sid Waddell

         1. Intrigued, I googled Sid and one of his famous quotes was:

            “Even Hypotenuse would have trouble working out these angles!”

            Brilliant!

3. A nice tester to finish off what has been a very enjoyable week in the world of word wizardry.

   I always smile when I see 13a as its etymology is a great story and 20a is one of those extremely handy Scrabble words.

   My podium is 19a, 14d and 15d.

   Many thanks to the setter and Mr K

   3*/4*

   1. You are so right about 20a and Scrabble. I have compiled a handy list of similarly useful words. I still miss my mother greatly but particularly as a ferocious scrabble opponent!

      1. Such a brilliant game.

         Eerie is another goodie.

         I took the trouble to learn the 120 odd two letter words which is v handy.

         Do you have a Super Scrabble board with quadruple word squares?

         Great fun.

      2. Day Zee Gee, are you aware of this accepted Scrabble word that contains just vowels….euouae?

         Worth noting.

         

         1. Wow! You may not see this as it is so late. We sat and watched the fantastic Prom of Beethovens 9th then I went to bed too fired up to sleep so am now tackling the toughie with a cup of hot chocolate and a digestive biscuit. That really is an extraordinary word – I had no idea it existed. I don’t get to play scrabble much these days, George is not a wordsmith like me, he likes chess. I also miss playing Backgammon at which I was a bit of a wizz. But I do love my DT guzzles and BD was such a great find. 😊

            1. You’re not wrong!

               For some inexplicable reason, I have never played Backgammon.

               I need to get my act together.

               How did you get on with the toughie? I’ve tried a couple recently and found it a real challenge.

               I posted my thoughts .

               Zowie!

4. Apparently, so far, no-one has counted how many letters of the alphabet the setter used – 25 with no X. A very enjoyable pro_imal to round out the week – 2.5*/4.5*

   Candidates for favourite – 26a, 2d, and 18d – and the winner is 2d (as usual I had to check the order of the third and fourth letters).

   Thanks to pro_imal and Mr K.

   Here are some kitties for those having withdrawal symptoms.

   

   1. And here is another. 😊

      

      1. Thank you chaps for the kitties … whew, I was having DTs here!

      2. Super pussy cats! I’ve not been able to fit in time for the guzzle today as my phone has been hacked so I’ve spent the day trying to get my emails back. So thankyou Mr K the kittens cheered me up.

5. Absolute cracker, and I evidently rose from the right side of my cot this morning for I found this a gentle offering which flowed swiftly from N to S on the first pass with no hold-ups. Brilliant surfaces in the main. Ticks everywhere, with podium of 19a, 14d & 9a, but I could have added so many more to that list.

   Many thanks to the setter, presumably ProXimal, and to Mr K

6. I loved this. Lots of lego clues which, along with the truly cryptic are my favourite. A couple of strange, to me, synonyms and I had to remind myself of the adage ‘if in doubt…….’ before 12a fell, but all in all an absolute pleasure to solve. I have half a dozen contenders for favourite but I’ll choose 7d, which is indeed excellent, with podium places for 26a and 15d. Thanks to our setter and Mr K. ( Missing the pusskins!)

7. Who doesn’t love a bit of Lego? 19a was especially fine. Lovely surface in 14d and 1a was fun. It could almost, but probably not quite, have lost the last four words. Reads very nicely as is. I’m sure Senf is right, so many thanks to Prox and, of course, Mr K.

8. I struggled with 3d because I spelled 1a incorrectly! I before E is a good rule

   1. Welcome to the blog, jeremy.

   2. Welcome to this oh so fabulous blog, JN.

      I remember the spelling as he was English and the En of English is at the end of his name.

      But yours works perfectly okay.

9. 3*/4.5*. An excellent, fun challenge from the no-X man. The parsing of a handful of the clues was very intricate, but very satisfying when the pennies finally dropped.

   Many thanks to proXimal and to Mr K.

10. Excellent end to the week

11. ***/*****
    Fell into place with 1ac
    2d my runaway favourite once the penny dropped.

12. I do like the way in which the X-man often incorporates rarely clued words and phrases into his puzzles, very refreshing. From today’s collection, I handed out the accolades to 27a plus 7&14d.

    Thanks to proXimal for an enjoyable Friday challenge and to Mr K for the review. Added thanks to Senf for the pusskins and to our setter for the laugh-out-loud Quickie pun.

13. At first blush this looked impenetrable but the 6 anagrams including the excellent and useful 1ac oiled the wheels. Thanks Mr K for explaining 15d which I didn’t fully understand in what proved to be a 2.5*/*** for me. 8a was good but my favourite was the well constructed 7d. Thanks to the setter – Proximal if it is he.
    PS Mr K I have a feline photo you might like for use on a future occasion – how best to send this to you?

14. A pleasant way in which to end the “working week” (what’s that?) with just a couple of prompts needed for the parsing (7d and 15d). SC’s memories of 9a in Brittany must certainly differ from most apologies for them available in the UK. 2d bung-in was Fav when penny dropped. Thank you proXimal (?) and MrK.

    1. Coming to BD late as I have today, I wondered who would be the first to star 2d. One of my favourite pieces of rhyming slang , largely because it was a long time before I knew/understood what it meant! I lead a sheltered life.

       1. Apparently, that phrase had another meaning before it was adopted by those rhyming cockneys…

          https://www.yourclassical.org/episode/2020/06/12/brahms-and-liszt

          1. 🙂👍

          2. Good spot. 👏👏

             You’re on fire, Sparky!

15. What a great puzzle this was. I kept returning to it and chipped away a few clues at a time. I would never have got the parsing for 8A in a million years so thank you for the hints, and thanks to the X-less setter too.

16. Most enjoyable Friday puzzle. The challenge was made greater by my better half having a look at it before she left for work and putting in an incorrect 1a. I then added to the confusion by later misspelling the correct answer 😕.

    Needed Mr K’s hints to explain 4 of my answers. Favourite has to be 23d.

    Just back from a warm and sunny Aberdeen beach and you can’t say that very often. Lila the Lurcher enjoyed her excavations in the sand – heavens knows what she is looking for.

    Thanks to Proximal and Mr K.

    1. Love to Lila from Sadie! Our Sadie has never been to the beach, she hates water!

       1. Lila is not too sure about the waves and tries to bite them. The beach is her thing and is left resembling a WWI battlefield.

17. A bit of a scattergun solve in between teeing golfers off at Centurion with scant attention paid to the parsing. The whys of many & a proper appreciation of the puzzle only came with a subsequent read through. Very enjoyable indeed. 15d would be my pick from a high number of ticks.
    Thanks to proXimal & to Mr K

18. I am very pleased that I managed to complete this unaided as initially I thought I was not going to get started. I had several I could not parse including 8a, 26a and 15d which is where the check answer feature at least tells me I have guessed correctly before the hints tell me the why. I liked the mix of clues, the anagrams and Lego clues were first class. 9a was my favourite.
    Many thanks to the setter and to Mr K for the, as ever, helpful hints.

19. I have a question..

    Some of the solvers said yesterday that ‘possibly’ could be superfluous for the ‘solutions/answers’ clue as a solution is one form of an answer which I get. Today, there are two clues that include the word ‘say’, i.e an example.

    If ‘possibly’ is superfluous, isn’t ‘say’ also superfluous as Liverpool is, amongst many things, a **** and the queen is a *****?

    I have never liked ‘say’ appearing in clues as it often affects the surface. I understand why it’s there but is it a ‘must’?

    I know we are going down the route of ‘A implies B but B doesn’t imply A’ but I wonder if it’s necessary.

    Enter, amongst others, ALP, Jose and Mustafa, stage left….

    1. 🤷 (edit: meant to be a shrug, doesn’t seem to display as intended, sorry Tom)

       😁

    2. Aha, it’s the old definition by example rule because (clearly) not all cities are Liverpool and not royals are queens. So, strictly, they do need a say/perhaps/possibly/QM, etc. I’m not keen on “say” either. I’d much rather see a QM. But setters do have to mix it up, I quite see that. The Toughies, I find, are slightly less strict on this rule. There’s certainly one today where you might normally expect a “Roman”. But you know me. Less clutter the better as far as I’m concerned! And the DBE rule can be quite perverse, to my mind. A setter can clue “dog” for “labrador” but, the other way round, it – apparently – needs an indicator. Cryptic grammar will always baffle me. But tis all part of the fun.

       1. Thanks ALP.

          To me, binning ‘say’, ‘possibly’ a question mark etc, wouldn’t affect the clue, as we all know what it’s getting at.

          The result would be a shorter clue that is right up RayT’s strasse as it would give him a chance of getting his average word count under five, a mark I think he’s never achieved.

          1. No we don’t know what he is getting at. I would say that say is necessary in this case for me at any rate.
             I say it stands to reason. Say no more.

             1. No problem, BH. I should have said ‘as I know what it’s getting at’.

                Apologies.

                1. I love these discussions!

       2. All labradors are dogs but not all dogs are labradors. So dog can define labrador directly, but labrador only defines dog by example. The convention is that definitions by example are explicitly indicated, so the solver knows whether they are looking for a word that is more or less specific.

          1. Thanks Mr K.

             Being a Maths man, I do love a bit of ‘A implies B but not the reverse’ action.

             With 11a, does ‘say’ make you think differently as it doesn’t for me?

             When I see the name of the place a few things come to mind with or without the word ‘say’.

             1. ‘Say’ has its place but I think it’s sometimes used unnecessarily.

                1. I do take your point, Tom. It does sometimes seem an odd rule. Port can define Liverpool, Rio, or even a USB, etc. But, going t’other way round, even though we all know that Liverpool is a port/city (what else could it really be) it needs to be indicated. Rules are just rules, I guess. Presumably this rule was designed to make solvers’ easier but it doesn’t always work that way, of course. I’m pretty sure, though, that setters would rather not dent a surface by having to chuck a “say” in. Unless they’re sneakily clueing “utter” or summat. But they’re bound by convention.

                   1. Thanks for the reply, Alpers, especially at this time of day.

                      It hardly ever makes a difference to me but, as you and BobH say, it could be a useful tool for some.

                      An interesting discussion made all the better for you throwing in your two pennethworth.

                      You’re a top man who does add a lot to this blog, you ‘One star toughie’ freak, you.

             2. Without the definition by example indicator I would expect Liverpool to be indicating reds. For “Liverpool, say” I’d be considering port, city, team, side, club, etc. If DBEs can be unindicated the solver would have to always consider both what a word can define and what it can be an example of. That’s a much bigger search space. It would mean that when one sees “son” in a clue like 11a, one would have to consider the possibility that it could be defining issue, child, relative, boy, male, etc. I regard that as unfair to the solver.

                1. Understood.

                   My guess is that 95% of solvers know the setter doesn’t mean what a clue says. We always look for something else.

                   But, I suppose they need to spell it out, just in case.

                   For what it’s worth, in this case,the word ‘in’ grammatically implies the city. If it was the team it should be ‘for’.

                   Thank you for your response.

20. Ha – slow start with the across clues but the downs came to the rescue.
    Still don’t understand why ** means behave in 21d – but thoroughly enjoyed other than that.
    Has to be a proximal so thank you for the fun and the MrK for the blog.

    1. Do as you’re told ?

    2. Did the weather vane **/behave as it should when the wind blew?

21. Very good puzzle that needed some thought. Still puzzled by the 2 letter synonym for cook in 26a!
    Overall a good week for puzzles, now let’s see if the dreaded Toughie appears again this weekend.
    Thx to all
    ***/****

    1. Hi B

       An accountant can do/cook the books.

       1. I’m not sure doing the books equates with cooking them TSD! To me, the latter has a connotation of dishonesty, whereas the former doesn’t. I thought the clue was more to with phrases like “are the vegetables done yet”.

          1. Ah! Maybe you’re right, Mark.

             I was going down the ‘do meaning con’ route but yours is better.

22. The amount of Lego involved today somewhat took the edge off the crossword for me and in fact, I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t spend too much time trying to parse answers I had entered, 15D being a good example.

    Apart from that, I enjoyed the challenge so thanks to Proximal and Mr K.

    ****/*** No particular favourite today.

23. A good puzzle for a Friday. Took me ages to parse 1d as could only see time as T.

    Top picks for me were 27a, 15d and 2d.
    Thanks to Mr K and the setter.

    Is anyone else having problems with the puzzle site on chrome? I have no problems opening it but as soon as I choose a puzzle the screen goes blank. After waiting and pressing F5 (sometimes a couple of times) the puzzle appears and all works as it should. Started yesterday and occurs on the cryptic, quick, mini and pangram.

    1. I just tried it out and yes, after choosing a puzzle I just got a blank screen but after a refresh, the puzzle appeared. Weird.

24. I found this quite chewy in places, but it’s Friday and ProXimal, so to be expected. Needed a couple of hints to get me over the line, and I also incorrectly spelled the author in 1a which delayed matters. Many good clues, so I’ll plump for 9a as my cotd. Thanks to ProXimal and Mr K.

25. Like Steve, I found this guzzle tricky and, whilst the solution to each clue was clear, the parsing wasn’t, even with reverse engineering. I liked the magnificebtly clunky-sounding 1a and some of the many lego clues particularly 9a, 19a and 27a rhanks to Proximal for the brain gymnastics and tobMr K for the pusskits and the hints. I shall now read the latter to enlighten my ignorance.

26. Again this week not a Friday puzzle that floated my boat due to parsing and clueing in many of the clues.
    Not on wavelength today.

    Favourites 16a, 19a, 25a, 23d & 24d but no winner today.

    Thanks to proXimal & CS

27. Thank you proXimal and Mr K. I 14d-ed solving this while eating a 9d and then some fruit (not an 8a, though!).

    7d’s terminal fine was my favourite clue to unravel, though I did also particularly appreciate 20a both for being food related and teaching me how to spell a word that I can never get right.

28. Good afternoon

    Sat sitting on the train home after visiting my gorgeous granddaughter, and feeling relieved to have finished today’s crozzie, especially as I fetched a black pen with me instead of the Lucky Green one!

    Lots to get my teeth into today; a great many challenging clues, and one or two parsing issues that are, thanks to the work of Mr K, now resolved. Notes and crossings-out all over the margins!

    COTD is a tie between 15d and 17d. Many thanks to our compiler (proXimal?) and to Mr K.

29. A puzzle of two parts to me, it’s Friday after all, north completely beat me from 11a upwards. I did have the wrong answer to 27a, using “m” as the first letter. I’d never heard of it, so bunged in what fit with the checkers. I know nothing of Hobbits, I had to “click here” to get the answer. I have lots of ticks, hard to choose a fave. I needed the hints to understand some answers. I still don’t understand 2d, I see my answer is correct.
    Thank you setter, Smylers above has named proXimal so I’ll go along with that. No time for kitties today Mr. K? You did a grand job sorting this lot, so thank you for that.

    1. I only knew 27a from Labour leader Michael Foot being berated for wearing one to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day — which somehow was so significant that it continued to be referenced for years afterwards†, despite not actually being true!

       † It’s pretty much the only thing I know about Michael Foot. I was 4 at the time of the (non-)donkey-jacket event, and have no memories of him or the event, just of people afterwards mentioning his coat!

       1. Michael’s brother Hugh was Governor of Jamaica in 1951. When he left Jamaica, I “inherited” his wife’s mare, I named her after the wife, Lady Molly. Lovely little mare, many happy hours riding through the sugarcane intervals. Every now and then you’d get a waft of ganga (weed) and come across a man happily smoking a spliff!

    2. Merusa – on 2d , it is Cockney rhyming slang. Someone who is Brahms and Liszt is pxxxxd or drunk. Under the influence, drunk as a newt etc although why newts I have no idea (TDS65?)
       I am really too much of a lady to know or understand any of these things of course.

30. Agree with Mr K ***/****. Really took me time to get into this puzzle and thought I would have to give up. However the clues gradually became clear and ended with a slow but steady solve. Quite a few were educated guesses which I then worked out the parsing from. Working backwards maybe, but got there in the end! Only problem was 26a with cook & do as synonyms – wasn’t sure if this was correct. COTD was 17d with the brilliant misdirection of “refuse”, took me ages to realise I was reading it wrongly and that it was actually waste. Many thanks to ProXimal and Mr K for the hints.

    1. Hi JG

       An accountant can do/cook the books.

31. Many thanks to Mr K for the review and to commenters for comments. This is my little one, Uchi.

    

    1. You’re a catman! You’ve just become my fave setter! Love Uchi, so pretty

    2. Ooh a real setters pile of books but whilst 3 are in my collection I would love to know what the bottom book in that pile is

    3. Uchi is a curious name which I shall never google as that would spoil the fun: I hope to parse the word one day.

32. Recently I’ve been doing better with crosswords again – so pleased about it! I’d given up with the Friday ones ages ago – they just seemed impossible.
    Encouraged by my new-found success (and feeling very brave) I decided to have a go at today’s crossword – I think I was right the first time!! I’ll stick to the weekday puzzles!
    I did manage a few clues but not very many and some I didn’t even really understand – such as 8a?
    I did like 12 and 20a and 21 and 24d. My favourite was 2d.
    Thanks to proXimal for his crossword and to Mr K for sorting it all out.

    1. I still don’t get 2d, having looked at the rhyming sland dictionary!

       1. The rhyming slang is Brahms and Liszt = p*ssed (being drunk, inebriated, etc.)

          1. Eh? No wonder it wasn’t listed in the dictionary! I’ll try to remember that.

    2. Hi, Kath. Glad you’ve been doing better! In 8a ‘branches’ = ‘limbs’. Then do the replacement described in Mr K’s hint to get the fruit. I think clues are always harder when the involve an intermediate word that’s neither in the clue nor the answer.

       1. Thank you! It might have driven me mad!

33. Got the right letters in the right order but needed Mr K to tell me why. I’m afraid parsing so many answers was a bit too much for me when I am trying to revamp the whole kitchen. I could see it was a well thought out puzzle and I really didn’t do it justice. Still, the kitchen is looking better by the day.

34. High quality puzzle, with seriously good clues. 2D was the best laugh, but 27A was my COTD. Many thanks ProXimal and Mr K – excellent entertainment!

35. Very late today – we went out to lunch with friends, left early, manic traffic, definitely in need of a restorative nap when we finally got home. Loved the guzzle although I did need Mr K to explain 8a and I was convinced one of the queens must be feline. I thought 1a was quite brilliant and went on pangram alert at once. 2d made me laugh out loud and has to be my favourite. Many thanks to ProXimal ( love your kitten) and Mr K for the help. Goodness me, another weekend and it is autumn. At my age it is a sobering thought .

36. Fridays are a bit busy these days but I enjoyed this when I got caught up,
    It seems to me that Whoever sets the Friday Backpager is likely to be on Sunday Toughie duty with a slight tweak in difficulty
    If you like this (and proXimal’s pusskit) try Sundays Toughie – you will probably get a Spoonerism to start and a couple of compound clues and maybe Uchi will get some more Japanese food!

37. A fabulous and challenging solve today.

    Initially thought it was going to be another Friday dnf, but gradually got a few clues and then gained some momentum.

    Favourite clues has to be 2d which actually had me laughing like a drain when the penny dropped.

    Thanks to all.

38. First an apology to the mods. I did post about my experience with today’s crossword, but I noticed it was quickly taken down. I wasn’t sure why at first as I received no message about it. However, I later realised what I had done. I added a picture of my cat with his tail laying on my iPad on which I was doing the crossword. I was trying to show how my cat was stopping me from working on the crossword. What I failed to realise was that the picture was showing the answers to many clues. I am guessing that’s why my post was taken down. My apologies for that slip up.

    Anyway, this was a very tough crossword for me. I only managed to get four answers on my first lap and barely more than a handful more after that. In the end I was coming here for so much help, including revealing the answers, that it was no longer my own effort. My cat was hinting at this when he sat down next to me and lay his tail across the screen. So I threw the towel in as they say.

    I did like the Brahms and Liszt clue. That phrase always reminds me of Steptoe and Son as it was a saying for being drunk that was often used on that show.

    So no medals for me today. Looking forward to Monday’s crossword.

    1. You commented on today’s Toughie blog and it is still there

       1. Oh! I’m an idiot. 🤣

39. It’s a 1989 Reader’s Digest Reverse Dictionary.

    1. Thanks, I love checking out others bookshelves, especially when politicians pose in front of shelves where they haven’t “groomed” the reading matter
       This gets a lot of use especially when Robyn is at it

       

40. 4*/4* ….
    liked 2D “Composer that’s drunk with Brahms (5)”

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