Toughie No 3500 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
Osmosis has brought his usual bag of tricks to this puzzle which I really enjoyed working through. He’s given us almost (but not quite) a pangram, a pleasing lack of anagrams and pairs of the more unusual letters juxtaposed in the centre of the grid.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Across Clues
1a Boycott innings, initially lacking, to become Ashes battle (11)
BANNOCKBURN: assemble a verb to boycott, an informal word for an innings minus its initial letter and a verb meaning to become ashes.
10a Coat, here in Martinique, no good (5)
ICING: Martinique is a départment of France so we need how the population there would say ‘here’ followed by the abbreviation for ‘no good’.
11a Odd mirror occasionally broken by an arm spinning round (9)
IRREGULAR: the even letters of mirror contain the reversal of A and a handgun.
12a Drop-ins seen here – around noon? (3,6)
DAY CENTRE: the answer could be a way of describing the time around noon.
13a Tailor’s original fabric cutting a dress provisionally (3,2)
TRY ON: the original letter of tailor and a type of fabric with A cut out.
14a Barking woman visiting tucked into case of Shiraz reserve (6)
ERSATZ: a pronoun for a woman in Cockney style is followed by a preposition meaning visiting inside the outer letters of Shiraz.
16a Drug den briefly passing as parlour at intervals (8)
QUAALUDE: the word den without its last letter follows a conjunction meaning as or ‘in the capacity of’ and regular letters from parlour. The answer (new to me) is the proprietary name for a sedative.
18a Hair accessories lover receives along with kiss (8)
BANDEAUX: a male lover contains a conjunction meaning ‘along with’. Finish with the letter used for a kiss.
20a Fine sauce bottles way old (4,2)
JUST SO: a type of sauce contains the abbreviation for a way or road. Finish with the abbreviation for old.
23a After filling in form, book computing course (5)
ORBIT: string together the inside letters of form and abbreviations for book and computing.
24a Wound back tape finally, speakers outwardly thus if not working? (9)
NOISELESS: reverse a type of wound and append the final letter of tape and the outer letters of speakers. Speakers are doing double duty.
26a Biscuit‘s unifying agent (9)
GARIBALDI: double definition. See here for the unifying agent.
27a Music expert content to help school member? (5)
ELGAR: the content of ‘help’ and a member of a fishy school.
28a Harassed Man Utd fan follows live competition? (11)
BELEAGUERED: an informal word for a Man Utd fan follows a verb to live or exist and a competition involving a fixed number of teams.
Down Clues
2d Flier Johnson passed around right-wingers to solicit togetherness? (5)
AMITY: the forename of famous aviatrix Johnson contains the rightmost two letters of ‘solicit’.
3d Failure to repel student dope shocks (7)
NEGLECT: reverse our usual student and an informal term for dope or info. Add the abbreviation for medically-administered shocks.
4d Projector primarily transposes zealous material (6)
CHINTZ: a projecting feature and the primary letters of two words in the clue.
5d Perhaps customs here shortly uncovered counterfeit booze (8)
BORDEAUX: where you’d find customs officers without its last letter followed by an adjective meaning counterfeit or artificial without its covering (i.e. top).
6d Amount of wattage rower used over this event? (7)
REGATTA: hidden in reverse.
7d Town centre suburb deserted, unrefined (13)
MIDDLESBROUGH: a synonym of centre, the outer letters of suburb and an adjective meaning unrefined or coarse.
8d Amateur clubs possibly supporting shop’s latest leisurewear (8)
PLAYSUIT: an adjective meaning amateur and what clubs is an example of follow the last letter of shop.
9d Significant other rock star Sting joins group (6,7)
PRINCE CONSORT: a rock star famous for changing his name to something unpronounceable, a sting or fraud and a synonym of group.
15d Maybe swallow trifle, then porridge (8)
SONGBIRD: a word for a trifle or small amount (as in ‘going for a ****’) and another informal word for porridge.
17d Loveless one admitted to crush on eastern dumpling (8)
QUENELLE: ‘one’ loses the love-resembling letter and what’s left goes inside a verb to crush or suppress. Finish with the abbreviation for eastern.
19d Fit to serve up English beer opened by Bill (7)
EATABLE: an abbreviation for English and a type of beer containing a (chiefly North American) term for a restaurant bill.
21d Posh university recruits liberal music producer (7)
UKELELE: the letter used for posh and a university in Staffordshire containing the abbreviation for Liberal. I think that ‘liberal’ should be capitalised in the clue because its abbreviation relates to a political party.
22d Activity of cat Jack, scratching surface, enjoying existence (6)
JIVING: cat here means a jazz fan. The card abbreviation for jack and a present participle meaning ‘enjoying existence’ without its first letter.
25d Two under age snorting line, south of Spain (5)
EAGLE: ‘age’ contains the abbreviation for line and that all follows the IVR code for Spain. The answer is a golfing term.
I particularly liked 1a, 12a, 23a, 5d and 22d. Which one(s) appealed to you?
By no means his toughest and helped considerably [in the SE] by the central gimmick. But fun as always with the big O. My top clues were 13, 14 and 18a.
Thanks to Osmosis and to Gazza for the blog.
Worthy of the rating Gazza has given this super Friday Toughie.
I thought as this is not an Elgar week, it would be a breeze. It was not and there was no escaping him as he made an appearance at 27a.
The cricketing reference in 1a was also pertinent, today being the first day of the test series v India, which started at the number of letters in the clue. Spooky.
16a new to me also, I liked the use made of the first three letters in the answer.
The projector in 4d was also very amusing.
Other ticks on my page are 14, 18 and 23a and 7, 8 and 25d. The clues I haven’t mentioned were pretty good too!
A nice bottle of 5d awaits me, I hope it’s not as described in the clue.
Thanks to the other half of the A Team for the blog and stepping in with illustrations and to Osmosis. Brilliant.
Apologies, Gazza, for my comment regarding stepping in with illustrations. I got confused with Mr K’s remarks in the blog for the backpager.
I have an excuse.
My brain hurts.
This was a definite Friday Toughie although not as tough as some of his offerings have been. I’d never come across 16A before but the set of letters already inplace helped me get there.
Out of the many excellent clues I particularly liked 13, 26A, 3, 7,17,21 and 25D.
Podium goes to 12A.
Thanks to Gazza for the blog and laughs( favourite 13A) and to Osmosis for the challenge.
Ouch that was hard. I had to cheat (a bit) to find the 16a drug, and spent too much time trying to find stupid (non)words to make this into a double pangram given the matched assortment of four of the big ticket Scrabble letters in the middle. Definitely a proper Friday Toughie.
Thanks to Osmosis for the challenge, and to Gazza for the Blog and Giggles
Please check out today’s prize toughie – you get a mention!