Fifteensquared

Never knowingly undersolved.

Archive for June 2nd, 2007

Azed 1,826: obscure names and words

Posted by michod on 2nd June 2007

michod.

I actually finished the last couple of words (SOARE and EXORDIA)around 11am on Saturday, so could have made it to the post with this, but I couldn’t quite bear to part with it. The reason being the clue competition Prizewinners’ panel on the right, which has my name and address for only the second time ever. And the book tokens have already arrived! Anyway, to the puzzle - I’d say it was on the hard side for a plain Azed, but satisfying.

ACROSS:

1. APPLE KNOCKER. I got ‘knocker’ first, and guessed ‘apple’ from checking letters, but C confirms Jonathan to be a kind of apple.

10. COR(ONIU)M. I was convinced there was an anagram of ’stem’ around one of ‘unio’, and put in ESTONIUM, which I hypothesised as an element close to polonium. But this one is in Chambers.

13. NO (JO)Y. Jo is a Scots sweetheart well known to Scrabblers, noy is to annoy in Spenser.

14. SO(A)RE. A young hawk, or a four-year old buck. I took a while to get from ‘touchy’ to ’sore’.

15. T(ENUT)O S. Good surface, tricky wordplay. I thought ‘SOP’ might work as an abbreviation for sporano, but in fact ’for soprano’ = ’TO S.’, with TUNE backwards in it. 

 16. YA(L)D. Day for time is a little woolly, but it’s a good word.

17. ORATE (ERATO). Interestingly, ‘orate’ as a verb in C is only in this sense of to harangue, not how I would think of it at all.

19. STISHI E. IS THIS*. Lovely clue (and no, I’m not Scottish, I just like it).

24. HUM A ‘N. Clue to everyday word managing to incorporate a more unusual one.

26. SAMA. Hidden.

29. C(ORNIS)T.

31. DO ORB<. Good simple stuff.

34. BULLY BOY (YOB<). Trouble being that ‘yob’ was coined as a reversal of boy, so doesn’t have the sense of accident I like with wordplay.

35. EXTRASENSORY. SORRY ANTE SEX*. I think Azed enjoyed this one!

DOWN:

2. POM O. I was slow to get this one, and it’s not how I normally think of postmodernism, but maybe the term’s become corrupted.

3. P(RAJ)NA. (JAR< in PAN). One of the reason’s I had problems with this corner - as unlikely a word as you’ll find. Unless you’re a Buddhist.

4. LO(GO)UTS. Vey nice definition - ‘they involve leaving servers’.

5. NU(DIS)T.

9. EX(ORDI)A. Very clever and misleading.’ To chop up’ is AXE<, with I R(e)DO* inside. But ‘lazily’ as an A.I? Would a lazy word be bothered to rearrange its letters?

10. CANT OF ORME (ROME*).

11. P(RESENT D)AY. Good clue.

18. RESEAUX. (AXE USER*). Also used for networks in french.

20. S(UNR)AY S. E.g. here giving ’say’.

22. A C(O)RUS. A ‘crus’ is a leg-like structure, believe it or not.

23. RODALE. ORDEAL*. This, I take it, is the obscure name Azed apologised for in the postamble. Apparently a pioneer of the organic movement and founder of a company bearing his name. New to me.

25. M(I)O(MB)O. Two bits of things dumped in moo (low).

27. AL(IS)T. So ‘alt’, must be ’a lofty mood, one assumes. Why exactly?

28. MALAR. I think I understood this when I did it, but I can’t remember the explanation now! Ah, of course - MALARKEY without the key - it’s not musical.

  

Posted in Azed | 1 Comment »

Guardian 24,087 (Sat 26 May)/Paul - Capital punishment

Posted by rightback on 2nd June 2007

rightback.

Solving time: 23:35

After five minutes I had solved four clues. Then 15ac helped me tumble to the theme: ‘S’ = ‘State capital’. Most of the puzzle then fell out quickly but I stubbornly resisted the urge to look up the last couple of capitals so took an age to finish off the top right and 8dn/13ac. The state numbers and ‘original’ references were no use to me, and initial errors in 6dn and 12ac didn’t help matters.

Explanations for 4ac and 7dn would be welcome.

States are given in brackets after capitals. * = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 ALBAN + Y (New York) - St Alban was a Christian martyr who was beheaded at what is now St Albans.
4 CONCORD (New Hampshire) - but the spelling of the aircraft is Concorde so unless this is a mistake, I don’t understand this clue. I also don’t understand 7dn which is an almost identical clue.
9 GRID (= ‘this pattern’) + IRONS - a gridiron is an American football field. A late spot for me.
10/23 BAT ON + ROUGE (Louisiana)
11 STEEP (double definition)
12 E + MA + NATIVE - I initially had ‘emanation’ here which held me up. On reflection I don’t think ‘mother’ = ‘nation’ would have made sense.
13 ATLANTA (Georgia); ANT in ‘AT LA[st]‘ - should have been much faster with this.
15 AUSTIN (Texas) - refers to the Austin Motor Company.
24 TA(S)TE - refers to Sir Henry Tate of Tate & Lyle fame.
26 HIND (= ‘back’) + U (= uranium)
27 STREAMLET; (LAST METRE)*
28 THE + REIN
Down
1 AUGUST + A (Maine)
2 BOISE (Idaho); “BOYS”- because ‘boys will be boys’, as in this poem by Allan Ahlberg.
4 C(ASS)AT + A - my last entry, and a guess, but it’s an Italian ice cream containing fruit and nuts.
5 NUBIA; rev. of A1 BUN
6 OBTAINING; (ON AIN’T BIG)* - I saw ‘Getting’ and the partial anagram fodder ‘ain’t’ and wrote in ‘attaining’ which was foolish.
7 DENVER (Colorado) - I can’t explain this wordplay (’…tragically no longer flying’).
8 TOPEKA; rev. of KEPT around O, + A
14 L + ON + GRANGE
16 SAINT PAUL (Minnesota)
18 MAD IS ON (Wisconsin) - this was actually the first thematic wordplay I solved, but I didn’t understand the definition part at the time.
19 B + LEARY - refers to Timothy Leary.
20 TRENT + ON (New Jersey)
21 UP + SHOT (= ‘go’)
25 SALE + M

Posted in Guardian | 4 Comments »

Independent 6430/Merlin - Sticky ends.

Posted by neildubya on 2nd June 2007

neildubya.

Last Saturday’s Monk puzzle was difficult enough but I thought this offering from Merlin was even tougher. This was mainly due to the theme of the puzzle - all but two of the down clues made reference to a Saint and, more specifically, how they died their horrible deaths. As themes go this was very original (and an amazing achievement to get them all in the grid and even come up with clues which echoed the deaths - 2, 5 and 6) but it did the make the puzzle a difficult solve and it could only really have appeared on a Saturday, when it’s assumed that solvers have access to references. Despite all of that, I really enjoyed and there were some excellent clues.

Across
8 ALAN in CATS - got this straight away, which made me think I was in for a quick solve. If only. Non-native solvers, or those without TVs, will probably want to know who Alan Partridge is.
9 E,LEG IT - pretty tough, although the definition “writ of execution” was not really disguised.
10 BASAL,T
11 HIC in ORTON - another toughie and a new word to me. One of the last few I filled in so I think I had O?T?I?O? - ORTON immediately sprang to mind as the playwright.
19 (ICEBERGS)*,N - this, and the previous 3 or 4 clues were pretty easy, which came as something of a relief.
23 ((OH EDIT IT)* - anyone read this? You’re braver than me if you have.
24 LONERS - is this right (nothing else that I can think of fits)? If so then the wordplay is lost on me. The full clue is Fellow shunned by Cockneys, they prefer their own company (6).
25 BLIT,HE - A B Lit is a Bachelor of Literature degree, hence “well-read graduate”.
26 IV in IN VASE
Down
1 A,WOMA in SAWN IN HALF - St Simon the Apostle (AKA St Simon the Zealot ) was put to death with a saw. “Twaveller” for WOMA (Roma gypsy) was cheeky but fun.
2 LANCE in BAD - I think the Thomas here is Thomas Becket, who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. I’m guessing he was stabbed to death with some kind of LANCE.
3 DARTS - or, strictly speaking, arrows.
4 A,STONED - Saint Stephen was stoned to death and ASTONED appears in Chaucer. All of which makes it a deceptively tough clue.
5 MEN,(s)TATION - you’ve probably already worked out by now that Saint Pancras had his head chopped off. Excellent clue, helped enormously by the fact that St Pancras is luckily now a train station.
6 NAILED (going up) - this is very clever. Saint Peter was crucified (NAILED) upside down - DELIAN, which also happens to be a word for someone from the Aegean island of Delos.
7 DIG ONE’S OWN GRAVE - Saint Phocas was decapitated and buried in a grave he had dug himself. Was a bit surprised that ONE’S appears in both the clue and answer.
14 ME (upside down),BROILED - Saint Lawrence was apparently grilled to death. Anyone feeling queasy yet? He is supposed to have said, at the point of death, “I am done on this side. Turn me over and eat!”, which would have come as something of a disappointment to the guards who were torturing him for information.
17 R in (AGONIES)* - “Terrible agonies” sums up the deaths in the last 8 clues pretty well.
18 FELT TIP - poor old Saint Cassian. Stabbed to death by his students with the implements they used to mark their wax tablets. And they say teachers have it rough these days…
20/22 SAINTS ALIVE - i.e. none of these poor souls.

Posted in Independent | 5 Comments »