Toughie 3608

Toughie No 3608 by Elgar
Hints and tips by Gazza

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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****

I hope all our readers had an enjoyable day yesterday and are now enjoying their cold turkey.

Many thanks to the puzzles team at Telegraph Towers who kindly provided this puzzle in advance allowing me plenty of time to prepare the review. When this is published I’ll be out enjoying bubble and squeak so forgive me if I’m late in answering any queries.

Elgar’s given us an extremely enjoyable puzzle (with some 1a references) that’s not one of his toughest ones. He’s probably been given some comfy slippers for Christmas and is wearing them in place of his hobnailed boots but even one of Elgar’s gentler puzzles is still pretty tricky in places.

Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.

Across Clues

1a Christmas stamp bearing one of the disciples (8)
SEASONAL: a synonym of stamp or insignia contains one disciple (1,3).

6a Marseille so trendy for retirement homes on the market (2,4)
TO SELL: hidden in reverse.

9a Go on tour of old, old city (4)
TROY: a go or attempt containing the abbreviation for old.

10a Pottage-dealer gutted crappie for serving with a little béchamel? (5,5)
WHITE SAUCE: the name of the reputedly hairy Old Testament character who traded his birthright for a mess of pottage and the outer letters of crappie follow a word for a little amount.

11a Fine food product that adds style a new hotel wants exposure about (5,4)
ANGEL HAIR: a grooming product that adds style is surrounded by A, the abbreviation for new, the letter that hotel represents in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet and a synonym of exposure.
12a Some truth in Kant’s thought (5)
THINK: hidden.

14a Final day letter disturbs Ironside? (6)
EDMUND: a synonym of final which the abbreviation for day and a Greek letter disturb or interrupt. Ironside here is not the old TV show but the nickname of an 11^th century King of England.

17a Excitement about means to enter a mainly Muslim country (6)
TURKEY: reverse the excitement of a stag and add an implement used to effect entry.

19a Depression infusing icon, lose interest (2,4)
GO COLD: a mountain depression goes inside a word for an icon or someone venerated.
20a Cook roast platter, one side of which he dresses (6)
SARTOR: an anagram (cook) of ROAST followed by the letter at one end of platter.

22a Timely song America omitted from merry occasion (5)
CAROL: remove a 3-letter abbreviation for America from a boozy party.

23a Present is wrapped in separate block (4,5)
SNOW UNDER: a synonym for present or ‘the time being’ contained in a verb to separate or split apart.

27a The game’s up, missus finally caught in embrace of inamorato? (3,3,4)
IT’S ALL OVER: the final letter of missus is inserted into an inamorato (4,5) where the first word is an abbreviation for his language or nationality.

28a Team was triumphant, we hear (4)
CREW: a verb meaning was triumphant vocally.

29a Grey and German, the Weihnachtsmann is here (6)
GROTTO: the abbreviation for grey and a common German forename. Weihnacht is the German word for Christmas.
30a Literary companions enjoying a cider drink (5,3)
ROSIE LEE: the young heroine and the author of an autobiographical novel in which they drank cider together prior to hanky-panky.

Down Clues

2d Which messenger ran down to store? (6)
ERRAND: hidden.

3d Arrange steps Johnny Walker takes when broadcasting (5)
STYLE: this sounds like the steps that a walker in the countryside may use. I think that Johnny is being used here to mean a man generally but it’s clever because Johnny Walker was a well-known radio 16d.

4d Reporting staff appointed of late do us NHS splashes (10)
NEWSHOUNDS: an adjective meaning ‘appointed of late’ followed by an anagram (splashes) of DO US NHS.

5d Plumber’s mate just seconds from clouting him! (5)
LUIGI: every second letter from the final two words of the clue.
6d Some year, definitively (4)
THEY: a definite article and the abbreviation for year. The BRB gives ‘some’ for the answer in the sense of ‘people in general’ but I can’t come up with a sentence in which the two words are interchangeable.

7d Peach someone idolised in the family slices thus (9)
SMASHEROO: someone idolised in the family (2’1,4) goes inside a synonym of thus.

8d Publican perhaps right to put a limit on clubs, you understand? (8)
LICENSEE: a legal right contains the cards abbreviation for clubs. Finish with a query asking ‘do you understand?’.

13d Half-hearted coxes going around in reverse lured to the back of the boat (10)
STERNWARDS: a verb meaning coxes without one of its central letters contains the reversal of a past participle meaning lured or attracted.

15d One to add a touch of redolence after freshening up (9)
DEODORANT: an anagram (after freshening up) of ONE TO ADD R[edolence].
16d Occasions may formally request these club players (3)
DJS: double definition, the first the attire that may be specified for some of those attending formal occasions.

18d It’s unimportant what pusher has for her (2,6)
NO MATTER: to convert ‘pusher’ to ‘her’ we need this.

21d Colour again takes focus from key photographic feature (3-3)
RED-EYE: to colour (something) once more contains the central letter of ‘key’.

24d Sci-fi author goes cycling when hell freezes over (5)
NEVER: cycle the letters of the surname of an old French sci-fi author.

25d Part of harvest from oysters, being shucked in a 28 (5)
NACRE: stick ‘IN A’ and the answer to 28a together then shuck off the outer letters.

26d The Taj Mahal’s side area overlooking the throne room? (4)
ALOO: a side dish you might order at the Taj Mahal comes from the abbreviation of area followed by an informal word for the room containing a ‘throne’.

There are masses of ticks on my printout – I’ll just mention 27a, 30a, 7d, 18d and 26d. Which clue(s) appealed to you?