Posted by neildubya on 30th May 2007
| 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 »
Posted by jetdoc on 30th May 2007
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 »