Sunday Toughie 121 (Hints) – Big Dave's Crossword Blog (2024)

Sunday Toughie No 121

by proXimal

Hints and Tips by Sloop John Bee

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I managed to find this puzzle a little bit earlier than normal, it appeared in the puzzle archive at about 11:30 last night. Although the early start was welcome, at the time of solving this was uncredited. I didn’t need to know that it was a proXimal™ as he has as good as signed this with an opening Spoonerism and a smattering of eXtraction anagrams. A glance at the paper and a revision to the website version confirms this.

We have 14a and 14d clues and I will hint half, as I have strayed into alternative clue territory myself (6d) I may have to be quite tight on extra hints. I hope you find the checkers needed to complete this puzzle

It is hard to pick a favourite but 5d, 6d and 28a appealed to me – which would you favour?

Here we go, Folks…

As it is a Prize puzzle I can only hint at a few and hope that will give you the checkers and inspiration to go further. I’ll return with the full review blog just after the closing date. Don’t forget to follow BD’s instructions in RED at the bottom of the hints!

I hope I don’t have to redact any comments but I am new at this and don’t want to rock the boat. If in doubt, I’ll rub it out! I think that sentence is a bit redundant. You have all been so helpful in sorting out prior parsing failures, and I am sure I will need similar help again.

Most of the terms used in these hints are explained in the Glossary and examples are available by clicking on the entry under “See also” Where the hint describes a construct as “usual” this means that more help can be found in The Usual Suspects, which gives a number of the elements commonly used in the wordplay. Another useful page is Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing, which features words with meanings that are not always immediately obvious. Don’t forget the Mine of Useful informationthat Big Dave and his son Richard so meticulously prepared for us.

A full review of this puzzle will be published after the closing date for submissions. Some hints follow: Remember the site rules and play nicely.

Across

8a Driving hazards inflamed Europeans according to Spooner (8)
Trademark proXimal™– straight in with a Spoonerism. Temperamental Eastern Europeans become the bane of motorists, The Roman Road at Wheeldale was in better condition than many of the roads that took us there!

11a Acrobat rider with arm on a bike’s front reversing (8)
A from the clue and the front of bike are reversed, followed by someone carrying a medieval cavalry weapon

12a Wood, say, the Spanish pilgrim turned around (6)
The Spanish article and a reversal of a Muslim pilgrim who has been to Mecca fulfil the definition by example (say) of the actor Mr Wood

15a Secure stuff with company, following being robbed (7)
It took me rather too long to parse the company part of this, company is the collective noun for a “group” of Widgeon, a more general term for such groups of birds is robbed of its following abbreviation and that follows the synonym of stuff

21a Stale pieces of bread in institution for vets (3,8,4)
A synonym of stale, the pieces of bread you may dip in a soft-boiled egg, and a usual in, an institution for retired veterans

25a Refusal to enter car, this writer’s free will (8)
The shortened form of a formal term for a car, a refusal and a possessive adjective of or belonging to this writer

28a Test, perhaps, involving sheep on counter for judge (8)
Rather clever to put a palindromic sheep into a reversal. Start with a watercourse of which The Test is a Hampshire example, find a spot to involve the sheep and reverse the whole to find the judge

Down

1d Instrumental being very short of delivery (6)
An instrumental composition, A synonym of “very” and a shortened version of an adjective connected with birth or delivery (Thanks to the resident midwife Mama Bee)

23d Device keeping kippers warm (8,7)
I hope the warmer weather has persuaded you to forego this bedtime comfort – Mama Bee is welded to the use of hers 365 days a year, but at nearly 88 years of age she is entitled to be a bit nesh!

5d Parisian article about monster clouds, very cool (15)
You have to pick the right Parisian article here, it goes about a monster, the plural noun for extensive low cloud and the abbreviation for very

6d Killing rodents, gathering one died beneath house (8)
I picked the wrong end of the clue to seek the definition here, forming a house from an informal killing of rodents around the letter that looks like one but was left with an unexplained L, I should have started with an abbreviated house, the same rodents around the letter that looks like one and an abbreviation of died

16d Regeneration of this league club could be incalculable (8)
It took a while but eventually, we have the proXimal™ extraction, Incalculable is an anagram (regeneration of) a league and club, therefore remove the club from incalculable and find the “league” in what remains

20d Strange Med island bar I blunder around (7)
A Mediterranean Island bar its initial I, followed by a reversal (around) of a blunder How Strange

23d We’d have recalled hiding this limb in reed (6)
This limb when inserted in reed would be synonymous with We’d have recalled

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That’s All Folks!