I still think of Filbert as a new(ish) setter, doesn’t seem to be getting any easier though,
I found this quite tough and there’s a couple 25a and 7d I can’t really get to work so contributions welcome. No obvious themes but a few smoking & stones in the clues here and there but if you know better.
Surface reads like the start of a corny joke. You need to doctor [DOCTOR IM]*
SO – then & a developed CURE*
N(ew) & a frameless (s)IGHT(s)
FOSTERS – a brand of “Australian” lager & ON for available.
INST – this month & ITCHES. Outside of crosswords you don’t see INST very much these days
AT removed from WOMB(at). Well it is home before you’re born.
S(erve) & 1 – first & SEMEN – seed all reversed
Rubies are RED so RED in PATE for the crown of the head
PRO(fessional) – one who’s paid & CURE for smoke
Stuff I(dly) into ALUMNA – an old girl of say a University. It’s what a lot of gems are actual made of and the colour just impurities.
R(iver) removed from LEE(r)S
(myxomatosi)S & PORT – left & SWEAR – (f & )blind
I guess this is just a cryptic def, it feels like there’s more but I can’t see it.
Ahh the Elgin marbles. LEG* twirled & IN – at home
[SET DAY]* translated
STAMPED – impressed & (aldridg)E. Surface referring to the Liverpool football team of old.
MAN – chess piece & (NO – denial & IS) preposterously i.e. reversed – literally rear first.
The Special effects CGI with the I moving up
X – marked wrong on OT – old testament & AILS & the O.U.P.
The ICES are OFF
Hidden in cOX ENcourages
OK I can’t really get this to work. REST for QUIET & OR & ATE for busy? with IV – 4 a constant inserted?
Hidden reversed in steEL BONNEt
Another hidden in biAS LEE Probert
LEESON* rattling then banked by SOME – a few & E(nglish)
GET – UPS – costumes & TEAM – players
I breaking into PLATES
ME reversed & PLOY – wheeze
AIRS – songs & HOT- sexy
A & sounds like RANGE – catalogue
A naked (l)AD(y) with BE – remain inside
Double def
7d looks like REST OR A(C)TIVE with c = constant
TOOLBOOTH:
Must be about using the restroom at a tollbooth. Or is there more to it?
RESTORATIVE:
Phi@1: I parsed it as you did.
TOLLBOOTH*
As expected from Filbert, few easy clues. My picks were the ‘home before being dropped’ and ‘Stripper leaving Greece poorer’ defs at 14a and 26a and the surface for AIR SHOT. OXTAIL SOUP and OXEN were also pretty neat. I had the same thoughts as our blogger about TOLLBOOTH being a cryptic def and wondering if there was more to it. Have you cracked it, KVa @3?
There are a few sleep related clues – NIGHT, RESTORATIVE, ASLEEP and ABED – which maybe amount to a MICRO-theme.
Thanks to Filbert and flashling
WordPlodder@4!
I just corrected TOOLBOOTH in my earlier post to TOLLBOOTH. Nothing to add to what I said@2. I seem to be saying the same thing as you and flashling are saying (spend a penny=take a bio break).
I think 7d is REST OR A(C)TIVE
Is SOMEONE ELSE a thing? It seems an odd and non-dictionary entry to me.
A learning curve I didn’t make it very far up. Still, enjoyed on reflection. F ‘n blind and wheeze totally new. Liked ‘night’, ‘womb’ and ‘airshot’ and all the hidden clues.
I had “packing” as the insertion indicator in 20, and “stuff in rubies, sapphires etc.” as the definition
Thanks for restorative correction. @9 yes that looks more like it.
The last time I stopped at a TOLLBOOTH I spent considerably more than a penny, but I think the toilet break is just a distraction. ELGIN was my favourite. Thanks, both.
Thanks both. I believe I have commented before that some setters are indifferent to how easily a puzzle can be solved….there were few unknowns, but I laboured even through understanding some of the answers once explained here. I took the question mark in TOLLBOOTH to give life to the possibility of the toll being so low, but such levels probably predate booths, though we do have a 12p bridge nearby with a small hut.
Ladygewgaw@7 It wasn’t me but someone else put you right on this. French tollbooths usualy have a toilet block, but that’s an extra. I think we are talking old tolls. I had to give up this morning, but on returning the penny dropped for the remaining clues, Good fun, thanks both.
I think a who inserted after else would make iy more elegant.
I had assumed it (someone else) would tie in to some theme or other, unnoticed by me, that others might be able to advise, since it seems not to exist as a phrase in any dictionary I have seen. Never mind. I’m not sure whether you are suggesting a connection for this with TOLLBOOTH, with whose second definition I am utterly unfamiliar.
Someone else has an entry in Chambers, under some, and is on grid-filling word lists. It was originally clued in its sense of ‘a third person in a relationship’, as in ‘is there someone else?’. This seems like more of a thing, but unfortunately that meaning has no dictionary support, so a clue for the rather less thingy ‘a different person’ was substituted.
Thanks all for comments and Flashling for the blog. 1d is the start of a corny joke, but maybe the silence on that was just politeness.
1a