Toughie No 3694 by Prime
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty <* – Enjoyment ****
Although it probably helped that I knew the required ‘unknowns’, and even allowing for a couple of bits of tricky parsing, I found this enjoyable Prime crossword on the friendly side for a Toughie
Do two folklore creatures constitute a mini-theme? Two lots of the same abbreviation certainly made the repetition radar beep!
Please let us know what you thought
Across
7a Who might investigate NEST over repeatedly accepting large import (8)
OOLOGIST We start with some Misleading Capitals! Repeat the cricket abbreviation for Over three times, insert (accepting) the abbreviation for Large and follow the result with the main point or pith of a matter (import in the sense of meaning)
8a Brownie maybe arrived almost completely uncooked (6)
CAMERA Arrived and almost all of a synonym for uncooked I had one of these Brownies when I was eleven
9a American Q&A about uniform colour (4)
AQUA The abbreviation for American and Q and A (from the clue), the latter going ‘about’ the letter represented by Uniform in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet
10a Bouncer might have this one arrested by patrolmen abroad (10)
TRAMPOLINE The Roman numeral for one ‘arrested’ by an anagram (abroad) of PATROLMAN
11a Person straying from small area of target (6)
SINNER The abbreviation for Small and an area of a target
13a Sadly, suitor won’t save retrospective of Now, Voyager (7)
TOURIST An anagram (sadly) of SUITOR wonT without (save) the reversed NOW
14a One held consecrated wafer ahead of time (7)
HOSTAGE The consecrated wafer of the Eucharist goes ahead of a period of time
16a Remove glow of joy? (7)
DELIGHT With a hyphen inserted this joy could be an instruction to remove light
19a Source regularly given up by young reporter, taking minutes to yield (7)
SUCCUMB The odd letters (regularly given up) of SoUrCe followed by a junior reporter into which is inserted (taking) the abbreviation for Minutes
20a Bird disease (6)
THRUSH A nice songbird or a not so nice disease
21a Excited, she lets bra loose (10)
BREATHLESS An anagram (loose) of SHE LETS BRA
22a Quickly read small book by Kipling (4)
SKIM The second appearance of the abbreviation for Small, this time with a book by Rudyard Kipling
23a Needle in middle of haystack you locate unexpectedly soon, to begin with (6)
STYLUS The letters in the middle of haySTack followed by the letters that begin You Locate Unexpectedly Soon
24a District attorney with long-standing pardons overturned a lot (8)
SHEDLOAD A reversal (overturned) of an abbreviated District Attorney, an adjective meaning of long existence and some interjections expressing enquiry (pardons)
Down
1d One bloodsucking tick’s above capital city (8)
MOSQUITO Some informal short periods of time (ticks) go above (in a Down solution) the capital of Ecuador
2d Earth Angel’s opening is American pop (4)
SODA A poetic name for the ground (earth) and the ‘opening’ of Angel
3d Arctic bird shedding tail (6)
BITTER A marsh bird of the heron family without its final letter (shedding tail)
4d Swipe right, dumping doctor over furtiveness (7)
STEALTH Swipe here is an informal word meaning to purloin; remove (dumping) the verb meaning to doctor or manipulate from the second word in the clue and then reverse (over) the letter that remain
5d Muesli rife with worrying food additive (10)
EMULSIFIER An anagram (with worrying) of MUESLI RIFE
6d Former Chancellor‘s sign of shame over budget’s conclusion (6)
BRANDT A former Chancellor of West Germany – a mark of shame and the letter that ‘concludes’ budgeT
8d Pill beats rubber (7)
CAPSULE I was probably lucky with this one in that the rubber was in Elgar’s Toughie 3688 which I blogged a week and a half ago. Beats or surpasses and the product of a Central American rubber tree
12d Clear incompetent holding diamonds (10)
NOTICEABLE A two-word phrase meaning incompetent ‘holding’ the slang name for diamonds. For some strange reason, the Telegraph Puzzles Site would only accept this solution with a Y at the end
15d Mostly clumsy, overly large cowboys (7)
GAUCHOS Most of an adjective meaning clumsy followed by the abbreviation meaning overly large
17d Doctor at Polish treatment centre (8)
HOSPITAL An anagram (doctor) of AT POLISH
18d Where the head’s seen pupil who’s left lines (7)
OBVERSE An abbreviated former pupil (who’s left) and some lines of poetry
19d French wit taking top down for fantastic creature (6)
SPRITE Take the letter at the top of a French word for wit or liveliness and move it to the bottom
20d Preview where bagel could go, lacking the bagel (6)
TASTER Where you might put a bagel without (lacking) the bagel-shaped letter
22d Fish rejected hybrid fruits without bite (4)
SOLE Take some fruits that are the hybrid between a tangerine orange and a pomelo, remove (without) the ‘bite’ and then reverse the remaining letters
I did need the hints for 1a – thank you, Sue – but the rest fell steadily apart from a few head scratchers such as 24a. I did like the consecrated wafer at 14a and the bloodsucker at 1d. My COTT is 15d down with its clumsy cowboys.
Thank you, Prime for a great challenge. Thank you, Sue for the hints.
Well that was a slog with only 50% completed before resorting to the checkers and app-support to wheedle the remainder out one by one before the hints were published. Crypticsue makes everything sound so simple: maybe I’m just impatient?
I also remembered the rubber from a few weeks ago, probably the only thing I do remember from an Elgar Toughie. If I am to pick favourites they’d be the Chancellor, the straying person and the holy wafer, 6d, 11a &14a.
Anyway, thanks to Prime and CS
Entertaining stuff – thanks to Prime and CS.
I too only knew the 8d rubber from its recent appearance.
Lots to like including 14a, 24a, 4d and 18d.
I took agin this initially – what on earth is the point of the false capitalisation in 7a and for what does it stand anyway? But it improved with the solving, nice and steady, with only 24a and 22d holding out for a while.
Top picks were the aforementioned 24a, the dumped doctor at 4d and the clever def at 18d.
Thanks to Prime and CSue.
I enjoyed this and completed quite quickly this morning with a handful left to check with the blog.
Thanks for explaining 1d and 7 a. I was stuck on import as trade so struggling to parse.
COTD is the wager at 14a and the 24a DA.
Could have missed 20a though yuck