Toughie No 3495 by Light
Hints and tips by ALP
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
Yet more impossible boots to fail to fill. I did try to rustle up a cartoon or two to help ease your pain, but failed miserably. So, this will have to do. And no, I have absolutely NO idea why AI chose to put me in novelty boxers and make me look like Benny Hill. I only asked for the hat and shoes!
Moving swiftly on to Light’s puzzle. Jolly good it is too – very Thursday appropriate, I’d say. All yours.
Across
1a Philosopher against abandoning snakes outside market (10)
PYTHAGORAS: A two-letter synonym of “against” is abandoned/deleted from “snakes”, all outside (ancient Greek) market.
6a Takes off cropped top, small (4)
APES: Top/high point, minus the last letter (cropped) + the usual “small”.
9a Applaud singer touring Spain (5)
CHEER: (Believe) singer touring/containing the usual “Spain”.
10a Conductor briefly in entertaining bar (9)
ELECTRODE: (politically) “in” entertains/contains bar/lever.
12a Pal cross with the setter, extremely emotional dog (6,7)
COCKER SPANIEL: Pal/(old) mate + (to) “cross” + how Light would refer to himself + E[motiona]L.
14a Lacking leaders, discourage accord for a long time (8)
ETERNITY: Discourage/put off + accord/agreement, both missing the initial letter.
15a Wound from gun ultimately stopping US agent (6)
OFFEND: A two-letter synonym of “from” + [gu]N stopping/inside the usual “US agent”.
17a Animals harmful to crops: beaver, mink? Not entirely (6)
VERMIN: Hidden, lurking in the fifth and sixth words.
19a Means to grab drink, one obtained by shopper (8)
PURCHASE: (financial) means grabbing/containing a “drink”.
22a Kerouac book On the Road here? (6,7)
MOBILE LIBRARY: Where might one borrow a/this book by (Jack) Kerouac (or any book by anyone, depending on stock) “on the road”?
24a Care about rubbish bags, workers close to walkout (9)
TREATMENT: One of the usual “about”s, bagged by rubbish/junk + the usual “workers” (this common synonym would have – rightly – made my mum gibber!) + [walkou]T.
25a French writer Monsieur Ampère in the south of France, reflecting (5)
DUMAS: Happily, this has nothing much to do with the physicist André-Marie Ampère. The abbreviations for “monsieur” and “ampere” (it is named after him, to be fair) go inside the French for “south”, reversed/reflecting.
26a Student with time to squeeze first couple of essays in case (4)
LEST: The usual “student” and “time” squeeze/contain the first two letters of “essays”.
27a Reason co-worker appears after noon, very annoyingly (10)
INFERNALLY: (to) reason + the usual “noon” + co-worker/mate.
Down
1d The Speaker’s nominated old Northerner (4)
PICT: A homophone (the speaker’s) of “nominated”.
2d Unbearable sentiment of a chapter left in box, maybe (7)
TREACLE: A+C+L in(side) what a “box” is one example of.
3d A flower we must leave in cave – it could be a popular pot plant (7,6)
AFRICAN VIOLET: AFLO[we]R+IN+CAVE+IT, anagrammed (it could be).
4d Periodically withdrawn commie character hasn’t finished dish (8)
OMELETTE: [c]O[m]M[i]E + (alphabetical) “character”, minus its last letter.
5d Secure, had advanced south-east (2,4)
AT EASE: Had/consumed + the abbreviations for “advanced” and south-east.
7d E.g. TNT not formerly T? (7)
PLOSIVE: TNT, say, minus its initial formerly/old = what (the letter) T is an example of in phonetics.
8d Use this to get higher than normal spelt managed by summer (10)
STEPLADDER: SPELT, managed, + someone who does sums.
11d Official dealing with red van not starting, possibly (7,6)
TRAFFIC WARDEN: Dealing/trading + the usual “with” + RED[v]AN, anagrammed/possibly.
13d Perhaps lead Yard police in disturbance that’s sprung up (5,5)
HEAVY METAL: The abbreviation for “yard” + (London) police inside disturbance/chaos, minus (sprung) its initial “up”. Oh, go on then!
16d Newspaper articles about head of bank and Brown (8)
SUNBATHE: (a) newspaper + two (grammatical) articles, containing/about B[ank].
18d They hold up gown worn by bishop, and cross occasionally (7)
ROBBERS: “Gown” worn by/around the usual “bishop” + [c]R[o]S[s].
20d Somewhat upset, slam sybarite as shocking (7)
ABYSMAL: Hidden, reversed, lurking in the third and fourth words.
21d Brief signal welcoming Leicestershire’s opener at the crease (4,2)
CLUE IN: Signal/sign welcomes/contains L[eicestershire] + at the crease/batting.
23d Fancy that investment? Yes, at first (1,3)
I SAY: Investment/saver + Y[es].
Just three anagrams, two lurkers and a couple of cheeky two-letter synonyms made for a fun and breezy-ish solve. I spent much of my time trying to find extra meaning in 22a’s Kerouac (other than that he, of course, wrote the seminal On The Road). I especially liked 25a and 18d but 21d gets my vote. How did you get on?
Maverick out, Goose in …
A very nice puzzle!
On the whole, not too difficult, although 7d caused me problems, and with a couple of checkers in place, I couldn’t see past Camus for 25a.
I liked the “pal” at 12a, and my favourite was the official dealing with the van at 11d.
Many thanks to Prime and to ALP (I knew Derek Hussey, who took over from Ian Dury, very well, as we frequented the same drinking establishments in Wimbledon Village)
Oh dear… many thanks to Light, not Prime.
Apologies!
Entertaining and with sufficiently few anagrams that I was able to get a 19a on it, yet sufficiently occupying that it definitely counts as a Toughie. Thank you to Light. My top few were 7d with T; summer in 8d; the springing up in 13d; and 23d with “Fancy that investment?”.
Congratulations to ALP on your new slot. Or maybe we should recapitalize you to ‘Alp’ when it’s Twmbarlwm — a mountain explaining a hill? Particular thanks for clearing up what I was missing in 19a: I’d made “Means to grab” a second definition of the answer, and so didn’t know what to do with the drink I’d got left over!
For 15a, I was expecting the definition to be the past-tense of ‘wind’, so spent some time researching whether there was a US agent called ‘Saked’ or ‘Tured’ that I could wrap round the N …
Great puzzle, all steady & straightforward bar my LOI, 21d, an expression with which I am sure I am unfamiliar, but “it could only be”. I loved Light’s limited use of anagrams, which gave them room for so many other clue types. Ticks all over the place, so will limit to 1a, 10a & 16d, with runner-up 22a. There could have been many more. What a great day: this puzzle on the “inside pages” and a superlative back pager, too.
Many thanks indeed to Light. Thanks also to ALP – you wear your own shoes so well and that was a typically great ALP blog, containing as it did so much very dodgy music. Good compilation clip of the ‘other’ Gazza – what an incredible talent he was, and how sad the aftermath.
Like today’s backpager, a really decent workout with few bung-ins, leaving plenty to think about.
Had the answer for 7d but didn’t fully parse it as the speech sound part was not one I was familiar with.
Many ticks with 10a, 14a and 22a leading the way.
Thanks to Light and also to ALP, some super tuneage in the blog there.
(Every Picture Tells A Story contains one of my favourite lines in rock: “My body stunk but I kept my funk, at a time when I was right out of luck”).
They don’t write ’em like that anymore,
that’s rock ‘n’ roll, baby!
Needed the hints to fully parse a couple and had to check 7d which was obviously the answer. A lot of head scratching went into this but I enjoyed the challenge. Favourite was 18d. Thanks to Light and ALP.
Very enjoyable – thanks to Light and ALP.
I tried to find out (with zero success) whether Kerouac ever visited the port in Alabama which would have made the clue brilliant.
My ticks went to 12a, 14a, 13d and 18d.
Really enjoyed this and it didn’t take all day, unlike yesterday’s. Failed to parse 13d fully [sprung up indeed!] and confess it’s a fine clue. The other cracker is 24a [a bit of a tour-de-force].
Thanks to Light and to ALP for the tunes. Loved Mr Airplane Man [new band for me]- the guitar riff is set to be an ear worm for a while – reminds me of something but can’t recall what. And loved your picture – hope the online interview was a success.
I found this a really meaty Thursday Toughie. I can’t remember the last time I ticked so many clues. I thought “sprung up”” in 13D and “not formerly” in 7D were a clever use of wordplay and they share my podium.
Welcome to the Wednesday blog ALP and many thanks for your excellent parsing. Thanks also to Light for such a great puzzle.
The answer to 7d may have been obvious to TG but it wasn’t to me or at least not until I revealed the 2nd letter & then looked up the meaning of the word. Otherwise surprisingly gettable (though the whys needed teasing out here & there) for a Light production & very enjoyable indeed. The long ‘uns at 12&22a + 11d would be my podium picks but there were a good number of ticks elsewhere.
Thanks to Light & to ALP – welcome to Thursdays. Didn’t know/like the PLJ tune & thought it sounded too like Rod for it not to be him. Love that Traffic song – Dave M & Joe B do a terrific version of it too
Very late on parade with this one. Couldn’t get started last night, but managed in **/*** time this morning. And very enjoyable it was too. 7d was my favourite (mainly because it was a new word for me, but cleverly clued – and took some effort to work out, so it made me feel smug. Lots to love in this, thanks, Light.
And thanks to ALP for the blog – I was wondering what/who would be posted against 13d.
Ha, yes, I only posted 13d because I KNOW it’s one of Jane’s all-time favourites. Fascinating stuff here – Jezza hobnobbing with the Blockheads, MG branding Dury “dodgy” (!!!) and Huntsman continuing to bludgeon me with Joe B! Not to mention PJ sending me into a total flap as I thought for a dreadful second that I’d got the date wrong. Etc. Ta lots all.
Not sure how this only gets two stars! The clues were pretty obscure.