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Archive for May, 2007

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Independent on Sunday 902 by Quixote

Posted by nmsindy on 31st May 2007

nmsindy.

The usual excellent fare.

Solving time: 13 mins

* = anagram

ACROSS

1 SEAMSTRESS Cryptic definition

6 SCAM(p)

14 SWIMMING POOL Which in crossword language could mean - make an anagram of it getting polo.

18 HORSEMANSHIP (Shah I’m person)* Arabs are a type of horse.

21 C A CHE (Guevara) from the 1960s. Have not seen him so much recently in puzzles.

22 WINDSCALE In Cumbria Storm and Gale appear in the Beaufort Scale (wind strength)

24 STRETTI (titters)*

26 TO-DO Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett play

27 BELLY DANCE (Call by Eden)*

DOWN

1 SPEC IE (that is)

3 SAM BROWNE BELT (meant wobblers)* Part of military uniform, invented by Sam B

4 RU CH E CH = Switzerland (IVR) Rue = street in French

7 CO NATION New word for me, so good that Quixote gave friendly wordplay.

8 MO (DE) STLY

16 T (HICK) SET Cricket context Graeme Hick tset for test - change in middle order, which also means the batsmen in the middle of the batting order.

17 PRO(CURE)D

19 G A WAIN From King Arthur’s knights

20 FELLOE “fellow” Part of wheel.

22 (o)NE PAL

Posted in Independent | No Comments »

Independent 6434 by Phi - Absolutely Not!

Posted by nmsindy on 31st May 2007

nmsindy.

The usual top quality puzzle from Phi, with all clear in the end. Held up a little by two musical clues (9 ac, 4 dn) crossing, but got there in the end. In line with recent Indy trends, there is a theme. I refer to it after the clue explanations.

Solving time: 20 mins

* = anagram

ACROSS

9 OOMP(A)H Oomph = much effort, vitality

10 SAG O

11 MA GNIFICAT (facing it)* Song of Mary, based on New Testament.

12 C (ENS) OR Very good with misleading join at “Banner/headline Last letters of “headline in Times” in Cor. Good to see the papers acknowledging each other’s existence.

15 CHAIN REACTION A very good cryptic definition.

23 Jacques TATI Known for Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday and more. Hidden in naTATIon (6 down), but I guessed it before getting to 6 down and pencilled it in.

24 UNTIED Tricky and the last I entered. The whole clue has to be read as the definition i.e. it’s the opposite of joined. Cryptically it means joined = united. It’s taken the opposite way - it becomes ti and you get untied.

25 TATTOO E (end of IndependencE) D (Day)

DOWN

1 (o)NE W AGE

4 HOL(I)ST Gustav Holst (1874-1934) best known for the Planets - I was looking for is to go in at first, with a four letter composer.

5 IMPI(ous) Warriors seen in Zulu country and frequent visitors to crossword grids. 4/7 = more than half

6 NA(TA)TION Formal word for swimming - used in clue for 23 ac.

14 EMI G RATION allocation shows it’s ration not rating

15 CRA(SHIN)G

18 E (S) CUD O O (old) DUCE (European leader - the title assumed by Italian dictator Mussolini) around S = second. All reversed. Portuguese currency replaced by the euro in 2002.

20 NUT MEG Again all reversed gem tun

22 ENID Dine(d) - another reversal

Theme: Top and bottom rows spell NOTHIN/G DOING

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Guardian 24091/Paul – one’s or your?

Posted by ilancaron on 31st May 2007

ilancaron.

Solving time: 35’

Lots of wondrous wordplay to admire here – and some to wonder about. Sometimes numbers in clues really are numbers – and not other clues. The editing isn’t The Guardian’s best to say the least. I won’t bother pointing out the mistakes.

Across

5 BUS STOP – rev(pots=pockets, sub=reserve). “Pockets” as in snooker and a cryptic def for where one finds lots of “waiters”.
9 TIMES – rev(Semit[e]). See also 19A.
11 N,EARTH,IN,G – it was a NEAR THING but I managed to restrain myself from looking up the capital of Greenland.
15 A,FORE,SAID – it’s how you pronounce the number 4! So wordplay in the answer. Like some of you I’m sure, I spent a bit of time wondering how to involve 4D (KNOW-IT-ALL).
18 MAN,DRILLS – just so we don’t forget who we’re descended from.
19 TORAH – rev(har[l]ot). A touch of indirection: “Student dismissed” indicates “L removal”.
21 ULTRA –alternate letters of “oUtLeT gReAt”.
25 HANDLE=”Handel”,BAR –great wordplay (with a somewhat forced surface). “Some music”=BAR and ref. Eddy (or his son Axel) Merckx, the Belgian Tour de France cyclist (I used to ride a lot so I know a lot more cycling trivia than cricket).
26 GHANA – hidden in “thouGH A NAvy”. Another clever clue: it’s a “land” and it’s “locked” inside the fodder. Unfortunately GHANA isn’t itself landlocked which would have been nice.
27 SPA(N[o]NE)R – Brit wrench.

Down

1 PUT ONE’S MONEY WHERE ONE’S MOUTH IS – I got this quite quickly once I had M?N?? for the 3rd word. Double/cryptic def (ref. bread as slang for MONEY). The perennial issue I have with these is whether it’s YOUR or ONE’S – typically we use YOUR in everyday speech but my non-scientific conclusion is that in crypticland ONE’S is more common: probably since it has more useful letters.
3 ON,SET – ref. ON and off sides in cricket. I think that “all padded up” for SET is just a way to make the surface more consistent.
4 KNO(WIT,A)LL – I’m pretty sure that “Having not much of an inclination” is a cryptic def for KNOLL.
6 STORMIEST – (sort items)* — “foul” as in weather.
7 TUR(I)N – I actually got this from 14D referring to “7 shroud”. And “break wind” isn’t what you think.
8 PI(E-EYE)D - clued quite differently in a recent Times: it’s Eey[or]e=donkey in rev(DIP), where “or not” indicates removal.
14 TA[u]R(PAUL)IN – “Shroud” is used to indicate containment of PAUL, our saint – and the 2nd letter of Turin (7D) needs to change – doesn’t say to what but…
16 OBSTETRIC – (r, I bet cost)*. def is “of delivery”.
17 A,[b]I(R-INTA)KE – some more complex wordplay: being train* in [b]IKE (“another vehicle losing its first”)
20 HUSBAND – genius double def clue: “Save Man United!”: where “Man United” is a great way to cryptically define a HUSBAND and ref. sale of Manchester United to, gasp, Americans.
23 WEBER[n] - Not sure about this but seems there are composers WEBER and WEBERN so…
24 EGG,ON – enumerated as (5) but really should be (3,2). Ref. it takes 3 minutes to make a soft-boiled egg (and, according to legend, solve The Times cryptic!).

Posted in Guardian | 7 Comments »

Independent 6433/Dac

Posted by neildubya on 30th May 2007

neildubya.
Across
1 R,(A DIPS)*
4 I,MIT(t) in SCAR - excellent &lit clue.
9 (A SLAVONIC VIRTUE)*
11 SHELLAC - tricky one this, and a guess for me. SHELLAC is a US word meaning “to defeat convincingly” and it’s also the stuff used to make gramaphone records.
12 (b)OLDNESS
13 TEMP in CO,NT - NT for “books” (New Testament) is a well-established crossword convention.
22 E in (HAS UK)*,P
24 I’S,ADORA - “adorer”. A reference to the dancer.
27 S,TREE,P - the “old actor” is this chap. Don’t think I’ve ever seen P for “poise” before but it’s in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (where “poise” is a unit of viscosity - something else I didn’t know).
 
Down
1 REV,IS,E
2 PICKED OUT - not really sure what “albeit tentatively” is doing here…?
6 ME,(w)ANDER
7 C in TRUE
8 (SPOTTERS)* - excellent clue, very deceptive. It was too early in the morning for me to notice straightaway that it was “train spotters” (i.e. “train” as an anagrind) rather than “trainspotters”.
15 (NOBLE EMU R)*
16 ROSS,ETTI - “Etty”, a reference to this person. I guess ROSS could be Jonathan Ross?
18 EYEBOLT - “I bolt”
20 BRA,VEST

Posted in Independent | 2 Comments »

Guardian 24090, Brendan: botanical females

Posted by jetdoc on 30th May 2007

jetdoc.

A particularly appropriate one for an inaugural blog by a female gardener, being themed around women and plant names. Quite a mix of clues — mostly pretty easy, but one or two more challenging ones, and two I don’t quite understand.

Across
1 CHERRY — HER in CRY. An easy one to start with.
6 PATIENCE. Were I a G&S enthusiast, I would have spotted the double definition immediately. As I’m not, I wasted a bit of time trying to make something out of wordplay.
9 DAPHNE — simple anagram, plus a reference to 23ac
10 VERONICA — consistent with the theme of women’s names/plant names, and fairly straightforward wordplay — ‘one caught’ in VERONA. But a very tricky definition — ‘way to avoid charge’. I would not have known without a dictionary that a veronica is a movement in bullfighting.
11 FLOWER GIRLS. Rather a weak clue, I thought, relying entirely on references to other answers for the wordplay.
15 EATABLE — EA = each (abbrev) plus TABLE = food.
17 GRANADA — GRAN plus ADA. Fairly straightforward.
18 PLANTSWOMEN — a word in common usage in horticultural circles, but maybe less familiar to non-gardeners. A bit of a red herring in the wordplay — ‘providing several answers here’ could suggest the answer is a location rather than a reference to the puzzle.
22 VIRGINIA. I like this clue — ’I’ twice in an anagram of RAVING.
23 LAUREL — straightforward, ‘laurels’ being honours.
24 ROSEMARY — two names in one making a shrub which is also a herb.
25 VIOLET — simple anagram for a colour at the end of the visible spectrum.
Down
1 ORANGE — Double definition. The only featured plant which isn’t (as far as I know) used as a woman’s name.
2 TAKE FRIGHT — anagram of FREAK in TIGHT. Nice concise clue.
3 TIMOR SEA — I spotted this anagram of ‘it’s a more’ straight away, then found that it is not marked as such in my atlas.
4 CODIFIED — ‘company’ plus IF in DIED (‘bought it’).
5 EXPLOITS — EX-PILOTS with the I moved.
7 NAIL — A in NIL. ‘Digital component’ is a nice definition.
8 EXAM (presumably). Why does ‘fire up’ give this?
12 GRENADIERS — simple anagram.
13 BALMORAL — BAL (French dance) plus MORAL.
14 GAUNTLET — another one I don’t understand. A gauntlet is a challenge, but why is this the location of a punishing run?
16 BAPTISMS — B IS and MS around APT.
19 WHAT IF — F following an anagram of ‘with a’.
20 OVER — double definition — ‘no longer affected by’ and the hardy perennial (while we’re on the plant theme) cricket reference.
21 IRIS — one more botanical female to finish. SIR and I backwards, using the double meaning of ‘pupil’.

Posted in Guardian | 4 Comments »

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