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Archive for November 23rd, 2006

Independent 6273/Mass - Painful for me

Posted by neildubya on 23rd November 2006

neildubya.

Something of a bruising encounter for me and I’m still licking the wounds. I find Mass puzzles very tough - enjoyable, but tough. Matters weren’t helped by getting 19A and 22a wrong and there were a number of answers which I was half-sure were right (9A, 15A, 7D, 14D) but not sure enough to fill anything in, so that deprived me of checking letters for other clues. The kind of crossword that makes me think that they’re not my 8D after all!

Across
1 P in TRIOS
5 DUPLEX - hidden
8 SHOGUNATE - anag of “UN Hostage”. New word to me and took a while to get. Great surface reading.
9 N + anag of SOUT(h) - Notus is the God of the South Wind.
12 ORANGE PEEL - ref William of Orange and the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule, and Robert Peel, British PM.
13 NIGHTCAP - was very tempted by HIGHBALL, on the basis that in football you would usually deal with a high ball by heading it.
19 CASTS OFF - I first put in JUMPS OFF but it became apparent that this wasn’t right when I worked out 6D.
22 INEPTITUDE - don’t geddit. Is this just a cryptic def (awkward=inept?) or is there something else going on? I stupidly filled in EXACTITUDE, probably because I was desperate to jump-start the whole crossword.
26 CHAR in SURGE
27 STATU(e)S - very misleading, as you probably think you need a verb for “standing” rather than a noun.
 
Down
2 ROOKING - “rook” means to defraud or swindle (”rip off”) and it’s also piece in chess that starts a game in the corner. Not sure about “last section for repapering” as an indicator for “ing” - am I missing something or have I got this wrong?
5 DUE + ANN (going up)
6 PEN, TE, COST - tip for beginners: “notes” are often “doh, re, me, fah, so, lah, te”
8 STRONG POINT
10 SELF-DEFENCE - cryptic def. “Noble art” is boxing.
16 SAND TRAP - anag of “parts and”.
18 HERB in SET - an Australian colloquialism for beer, although it’s common usage over here too. Often misspelt, according to the Concise Oxford, as “sherbert”.
20 ONTARIO - well, Ontario is a province of Canada but I see how the rest of the clue works. Any offers?
21 STASIS - anag of “assist”.
24 WHIG - homophone. To “wig” someone is told scold them severely.

Posted in Independent | 5 Comments »

Guardian 23931/Quantum - easy top half

Posted by linxit on 23rd November 2006

linxit.

Solving time - approx 12 mins.

I got three of the four perimeter 15-letter entries straight away and had the top half finished in under 3 minutes, then lost a bit of momentum and struggled a bit with the bottom half.

Across
1 PAINT THE TOWN RED - anagram of “Parent to end with” - this jumped out at me immediately and I was off to a flier.
12 LONG LEG - nicely topical but another very easy clue
17 RE,TREAD - bit of a dubious definition, “One brought back to work”, unless there’s a meaning I’m not aware of.
19 E(uropean),SCUD,OS - is it too pedantic of me to complain that escudos are no longer money, and this should be indicated in the clue? 1 across in last week’s Azed committed the same offence, but more blatantly - the currency in question has been devalued so many times that the unit “What’s spent by Angolan” is only worth about a billionth of a penny and hasn’t been in circulation since the early 1990’s. Ah, apparently they still spend escudos in Cape Verde, so I’ll let him off this time…
22 CAPSTAN - nice cryptic definition
24 CUR(ios) - I initially put CAD in here while I was still rushing for a quick time - saw “Scoundrel” for C?? and didn’t even read the rest of the clue.
25 AMMO,NIA(=”in a” muddle)
26 ON,E,NESS - how unusual to see NESS clued as “Scottish loch”
28 I,R(is)KED - another nice cricket clue - if only the “one” was Ponting!

Down
1,2,3,4,5 - all very straightforward, especially having the first letters to hand
6 WHATNOT - double definition. My granny used to have a Victorian mahogany whatnot in the hall.
7 R.E.,COLLECT - note for beginners, COLLECT=”prayer” comes up a lot.
20 D(UNE)DIN - another one for beginners to watch out for - if you see something like “a French port”, take your mind off Calais and think of ports elsewhere in the world with “UN” or “UNE” in them.
22 CROESUS - anagram of COURSE + S(ociety) - I don’t like this. How can S be “on” (the anagram of) COURSE when it’s under it? This would be acceptable in an across clue, but not a down.
23 POE (Edgar Allan),TESS (of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy)
27 ERICA = I in ACRE reversed

Posted in Guardian | 3 Comments »