Posted by rightback on 30th June 2007
Solving time: Forgot to record, but I think I gave up on 17dn after about 15 mins. The bottom left corner was the hardest, if I remember correctly. Some very inventive clues in here.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across |
| 1 |
L(LANG)OWER - I think Comso Lang is the archbishop in question. |
| 9 |
WITHOUT STOPPING - I think this refers to ’stop’ meaning ‘to limit the vibrating length of (a string)’ (Chambers). |
| 10 |
YARD; rev. of DRAY (= a squirrel’s home) - refers to Beatrix Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin. |
| 11 |
AR(GO + [jaso]N + AU)T |
| 14 |
hidden in ‘[flyo]VER M1 FOR M[5]‘ (hidden) - the best hidden clue I’ve seen for ages. I tried for ages to do some elaborate shifting of an ‘M’ from the fifth letter of a word to the beginning or similar. |
| 15 |
[c]AME ER[e] |
| 16 |
CATER[pillar] |
| 18 |
PANTIHOSE; anag. of THESPIAN around O - this word was clued in an identical way in the Sunday Times the previous Sunday, but I much prefer this wording. |
| 20 |
QUIETISM; QU + (TIME IS)* |
| 21 |
FOOT (double definition) - Michael Foot may have caused trouble for overseas solvers. |
| 25 |
EDITORIAL COLUMN; (LAIR IN CLOUD ME TO)* - cloud layers cause me daily angst, but cloud lairs?! |
| 26 |
NEGUS; E.G. in rev. of SUN - a hot drink made from port or sherry. I didn’t know this word which made the bottom left tricky for me. |
| Down |
| 1 |
LOW (= base) + RY (= railway = line) - ‘baseline’ here is decidedly liberal, which I’m normally not so keen on, but as it’s in The Guardian I love this (topical) clue. L. S. Lowry was the Salford-based artist famous for painting matchstick men, which inspired this song/video. |
| 2 |
ALTERER; (RETAILER - 1)* |
| 3/12 |
GOOD VIBRATIONS; (TRIVIA BOD)* in (O[ld] SONG)* - I just couldn’t see where the anagram’s 14 letters came from here so took ages to get this. Another classic song, this one by The Beach Boys. |
| 4/13 |
WITH COMPASS + ON around I - ‘unlikely to get lost’ is brilliant for ‘with compass’, though I’ve managed to disprove this on numerous occasions. |
| 5/23 |
RETIREMENT PLAN (semi-cryptic definition) |
| 6/24 |
DIPLOMATIC MOVE (cryptic definition) - Boris Spassky (Russia) and Bobby Fischer (USA) played a famous World Championship chess match in 1972. |
| 14 |
VICE QUEEN (one straight, one cryptic definition) - I had QUEEN early on but pencilled in ‘mock’ as the first word and couldn’t get VICE for ages. |
| 17 |
TAIPING; “TYPING” - I’m glad I didn’t spend too long trying to solve this as I’d never have got it, having not heard of Taiping or the Taiping Rebellion. |
| 19 |
OROTUND; ROT in [h]OUND |
Posted in Guardian | No Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 29th June 2007
| Across |
| 1 |
BESIDE THE POINT - double definition. |
| 9 |
RI,T in IRAN,T - excellent surface reading. |
| 11 |
H in (METEOR)* |
| 12 |
DUN,(GONE)* |
| 15 |
HOMOPHONE - nothing to do with the answer at 4D, simply that “For” sounds like 4. |
| 20 |
RID(g)ES - I liked “zero gravity” to indicate the lack of a “g”. |
| 23 |
ENFORCE - sounds like “N for C” which is the replacement you make to turn “salicet” into “salient”. [Edit: as the commenter says below, this should of course be "EN for CE", which is what I meant to write] |
| 25 |
JUNK MAIL - nice cryptic definition. |
| 26 |
hidden in “reveaL A BELiever”. |
| 27 |
CHINLESS WONDER - is this right? If so, I can’t see the wordplay, although “chump from Eton” would seem ok as a definition. |
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| |
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| Down |
| 1 |
(ON RUN BUT THEY)* - BOUNTY HUNTER. Excellent clue, with a well hidden anagrind (”rent”) and a sly definition (”their trailer”). |
| 3 |
ERG in DETENT - I filled in DETERGENT without understanding the bit about “wheel-checker”. I’ve just looked it up and apparently it means anything that “checks motion”. |
| 5 |
A,R,L in MODE (all going up) - EARLDOM |
|
| 6 |
(s)OFTEN |
| 7 |
(DONE CROWN)* - NONCE WORD |
| 10 |
(LINER RATTLES)* |
| 16 |
reverse hidden in “OIL OF TROPical” - excellent hidden clue as it’s not the kind of word that you’d expect to be hidden. |
| 22 |
A,K in TEN - I’m assuming that “one” refers to 1A here…? [Edit: this should be OAKEN, see comment below] |
| 24 |
B in RAID. |
Posted in Guardian | 11 Comments »
Posted by bensand on 29th June 2007
I thought I’d got the schedule wrong when I came to post this and saw the top Independent post from Neil for a Phi! Closer examination revealed a different crossword completely so business as usual. [Change to 8 down, thanks to nmsindy for pointing it out]
Mostly smooth going today but I can’t explain 23ac.
| Across |
| 1 |
ACQUIRED TASTE - AC + QUIRE + D + TASTE. QUIRE for leaves rather than wordplay was cleverly misleading |
| 11 |
CLEANERS - LEANER in CS |
| 12 |
ESTHER - Hidden word in “Chronicl(es the r)elevant” |
| 14 |
AUCTIONEER - Cryptic definition |
| 18 |
CRETACEOUS - (A COURSE ETC)* |
|
| 23 |
PINCE-NEZ - Well it’s ?I?C?-N?Z and they’re lookers … PIN could relate to the legs part … that’s as far as I go with this one though! |
| 25 |
TEMPERA - TEMPER + A. Classic crossword word for me. |
| 26 |
TOMPION - (MOTION)* around P |
| 27 |
RETROSPECTIVE - (PROTECT + REVISE)* |
| |
| Down |
| 1 |
AGGREGATE - A G(GREG)ATE |
| 2 |
QUEENS - Men refers to chess pieces which explains the apparent gender paradox |
| 5 |
TALK SHOW - (WHAT FOLKS)* without F |
| 6 |
SWISH - S + WISH |
| 7 |
ENTERPRISE ZONE - ENTER + PRISE + Z + ONE |
| 8 |
ELECTRIC GUITAR (not CUTTER!) - Cryptic definition, I’d never come across this term before but with letters it wasn’t too hard to spot. Much better, should have thought about that for longer. Not the first time I’ve been fooled by axe for guitar |
| 15 |
TOURISTIC - (IT IS CUT OR)* Not a word I’ve ever found myself using |
| 20 |
SCAMPI - IS <= around CAMP |
Posted in Independent | 2 Comments »
Posted by ilancaron on 29th June 2007
Even though his name is Mudd here – it’s Paul in the Guardian. I definitely solved this more quickly than the typical Paul – so maybe there is something to the theory that FT puzzles are pitched somewhat lower. Seemed to be a mild food and drink theme (9a, 12a, 19a, 7d, 11d, 17d, 24d, 27d) which is probably more than my imagination. And, as an American, I appreciate that the Britishisms are kept to a minimum.
Across
| 1 |
TICKER – two (colloquial) meanings |
| 4 |
B,LIGHTER – our “vessel’s” a LIGHTER and I suppose a BLIGHTER is a kind of (benign) “rat”. |
| 9 |
AU LAIT=”Ole” – nice multi-cultural food/drink-themed homophone |
| 10 |
SPANKING – two meanings – at first I wanted SM,ASHING to be the answer… |
| 12 |
STRAIGHT – two meanings. Honest! |
| 15 |
PATE – two meanings: our next food clue. The first spelling pâté has a couple of accents that are ignored in crypticland. |
| 21 |
WIN,O – I like this: to lose everything is the same as to win nothing, i.e. WIN,O. |
| 25 |
[ant]IGUA,NA – ref. the Caribbean island ANTIGUA (conquered by the US a few years ago I think? or was that Grenada?). |
| 26 |
CASH,MERE |
| 29 |
RE,TINA – “bit of a looker” is a touch cryptic so a question-mark would have been in order I think. TINA’s our “girl”. |
| 31 |
S,ELECT – as in “President ELECT”, e.g. the guy who’ll be waiting to take over in January 2009 from Bush… |
Down
| 2 |
CELE[b]RITY – our “star” is just a CELEBRITY. Good consistent astronomical surface. |
| 3 |
E,LICIT – nice consistent surface again: def is “draw out”, and “within the law” is simply LICIT (no containment etc.) |
| 5 |
[s]LOPE |
| 6 |
GANG,LION – a GANGLION is in fact a mass of nerve tissue. |
| 7 |
TRIFLE – two meanings: another food clue. |
| 11 |
RHUBARB – another food clue: cryptic def for the word that actors use to simulate background chatter (I guess it’s the universal homophone!) |
| 14 |
A,NAG,RAM – clever analogy clue for the term describing the relationship between (cheat)* and (teach)*. |
| 18 |
LIFELINE – another clever clue: double def (one cryptic). It’s what palm readers pay close attention to. |
| 19 |
F(ORE)CAST – ORE (“raw material”) in facts* |
| 22 |
PINCER – not sure about this: “little clap” is C, def is “nipper” but what about “ceremony”? “Nipper provides a little clap in ceremony”. Testy notes its hidden in “calP IN CERmony”. I suppose “provides a little” is an acceptable hidden indicator. Well, perhaps not. |
| 24 |
CHEESE – ref. Big CHEESE (a VIP). Our second to last course. |
| 27 |
MINT – two meanings: our meal ends with a “sweet”. |
Posted in FT | 11 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 29th June 2007
We had a tough Saturday Phi puzzle a couple of months ago but I think this one was harder. I solved this one in deepest Suffolk, with no access to a decent dictionary or other solving aids (ie, the Internet) so I was unsure about a number of answers; I filled them in anyway in order to make progress but I had to wait until I got home to be sure about the last two or three. There’s a Nina too - starting at the left-hand corner of the grid and going round clockwise, the unchecked letters spell out: IS THIS A HIDDEN MESSAGE OR ISNT IT.
| Across |
| 9 |
OUT,FLUSH - reasonably straightforward wordplay but quite an unlikely word which I’d never heard of. With no dictionary to hand I was reluctant to fill this in until I was sure that OUT was correct. |
| 10 |
IN,FIDE,L(ong-term),S(trategy) - The definition is again quite straightforward so this was probably get-able even if you didn’t know about FIDE. |
| 11 |
MOI,RA,I - very tough, and one I had to look up once I had returned to civilization. “Affected me” is MOI, as in “Pretentious,moi?” and RA is the Egyptian god. The MOIRAI are explained here. |
| 18 |
ST,URGE,ON - great clue, which had me deceived for a while as I thought that “egg-producer” would be something to do with chickens. |
| 20 |
MUS(t) in (spelling) BEE |
| 21 |
I,AMBUS(h) - in poetry, a metrical foot consisting of a short or unstressed syllable followed by a long or stressed one. Bung five together and you have an iambic pentameter, the foundation for most of the verse in Shakespeare, among others. |
| 23 |
TWO in BAM,AN - another toughie. “Appropriate representation of heavy blow” is BAM, which you might find in a comic. |
| 25 |
RIOT,L,RIG< - I knew the phrase RIOT GIRL as RIOT GRRRL (which is how the Chambers Online dictionary has it) but the wordplay leads to the former. |
| 26 |
RANDOM - leapt out at me straightaway but I couldn’t see the wordplay at first. Eventually I saw R,AND,OM(e). |
| |
| Down |
| 2 |
(ITS APPLE)* |
| 3 |
LEVER,IT in TEE - yet another tough one and an excellent clue. “Prize” (US spelling of prise) is particularly deceptive as it indicates LEVER and TELEVERITE is an uncommon word. |
| 4 |
H,(ONE HAS A RED BLUE)* - HORSEHEAD NEBULA. I’d never heard of this but NEBULA seemed like the right option with N?B?L? filled in and HORSEHEAD was the only convincing thing to do with the rest of the anagram fodder. |
| 6 |
SLEIGH(t) |
| 7 |
A,SS,AIL,ANTS |
| 13 |
(OR REACTION)* - E CONTRARIO. The tough ones keep on coming. My first thought when it emerged that the one letter in (1,9) was E was that I’d made a mistake but I also knew that TEEPEE at 12A (which crossed with this clue) had to be right. The wordplay was straightfoward enough and I could see that a word that looked like “contrary” was in there somewhere - the checking letters helped to get everything in the right order. |
| 17 |
AMP in LOONS |
Posted in Independent | 1 Comment »
