Fifteensquared

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Archive for November 9th, 2006

Independent 6261/Math - Eightsquared

Posted by rightback on 9th November 2006

rightback.

Solving time: 6:04

An impressive 11 answers on a 24dn theme, though only 13ac, 14dn and possibly 16ac are likely to have caused any difficulty for anyone with only a passing knowledge. I found the top right the hardest quarter.

Beginners’ 3 tips of the day: ‘traveller’ = REP, ‘working’ = ON, ‘against’ = AGIN.

Across
4 AP(O)PLE + X + Y - can’t quite make the surface reading work here
10 anag. of MALE inside STATE - ‘of’ seems superfluous to the cryptic reading
11 SNARL - double definition, ‘foul’ in the sense of ’snarl up’. Spent most of my last minute looking for possible alternatives here, and I’m still not completely convinced
13 FIANCHETTO - a difficult anagram which comes from the Italian fianco meaning ‘flank’. To fianchetto a bishop means to move it one square into the knight’s column (e.g. for white, to b3 or g3). This move is a feature of a number of chess openings, especially those with ‘Indian’ in their name
16 GA(MB)IT - in chess, an ‘opening gambit’ usually means an opening in which one player sacrifices a pawn (sometimes more) to gain positional or strategic advantages. Nothing to do with ‘gamble’
21 E(DUCAT)E
28 REP reversed + CAPITA[l]
Down
5 PFENNIG - 100 of them made a Deutschmark
7 AXE reversed + C[u]T
8 YELL ‘OW’
14 CAPABLANCA - P replacing S in Casablanca. José C from Cuba was World Champion in the 1920s. A guessable answer, even without knowing the name
17 I’M AGIN + IN (= elected) + G(overnment)
21 EMBERS - last letters of ‘came… joyous’. The plural ‘endings’ doesn’t quite seem to fit the Cinderella surface reading
22 CL(IQ)UE - worked this out once I’d stopped the clock, having initially thought ‘hint’ = CUE
24 C(HE’S)S
26 PAWN - double definition, to pop something is slang meaning to take it to a pawnbroker’s

Posted in Independent | 3 Comments »

Guardian 23919/Paul - just my luck for my first post!

Posted by linxit on 9th November 2006

linxit.

According to Hugh Stephenson, the Guardian crossword editor, Paul is the toughest of all the setters on the team. This puzzle certainly suggests that he’s not fibbing! My solving time was 29:44. I finished the bottom half fairly quickly but had almost nothing in the top half and must have stared at it for 10 minutes before getting a start. As is common in the harder Guardian puzzles, a lot of clues refer to the answers to others so you almost have to solve it in a particular order.

ACROSS
5 Double definition, ref the Charlie Brown comic strip by Charles Schulz
11 B(LOO, D.H.)OUND - whenever you see John in a clue, think LOO or CAN
14 SCOOBY DOO - rhyming slang
16/10 SHE(DATE)AR
19 BE(D(irty), JACK)ET
23 GU(AR(D)IA)N - Another common trick - definition is “us”
24 GARCON - Nancy referring to the French town. Also look out for similar usage of “Nice”
26 AFTERTASTE - Anagram “setter, a fat”
28 EYESORE - homophone, “vidi” = “I saw” in Latin

DOWN
2 EL(E.G.)IA,C - “essayist” nearly always means Elia, “say” is just as likely for e.g.
4 (sh)RUBBERY
6 END,URE - “runner” = river - also look out for “flower” or “banker”
7 NEOLITHIC - “anagram of “client I ho” (half of hope); 18 (SQUIFFY) is the anagram indicator
8 T,ANKAR(a),D - “which it is” allows the setter to use “Turkish capital” twice for the T and the ANKAR(a)
9 Anagram of “painter’s mood” minus the a, + ST
15 OD(OUR,L(ine))E,SS - using “our” the other way round from 23ac
18 SQU(ire), IFFY - one you need to get in order to solve 7dn
21 E, MOTION - Andrew Motion is the current poet laureate
22 BITTER - straightforward double definition, but you need to get it to solve a couple of other clues
25 RA(B)IN - ref Yitzhak Rabin, former Israeli PM

Posted in Guardian | 3 Comments »