Independent 6443/Mass
Posted by neildubya on June 11th, 2007
The last time I blogged a Mass puzzle I introduced it thus: “A compiler I usually struggle with but not on this occasion. There are some very nice clues in this but a couple that I don’t fully understand and a couple of (I think) weak puns/cryptic defs.” Today, I can probably say that I don’t struggle with Mass anymore, I think I understand most of the clues and there more than a couple of cryptic definitions. There were some very nice clues too.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | ESSEN(c)E - these people. |
| 5 | A,S in LACE - even if you’ve only recently started solving cryptics you probably expected “Doctor” to indicate DR or MB or MO as that’s a standard bit of crossword-ese. In this clue, however, indicates LACE, which was a nice touch I thought. |
| 8 | KIDNAPPER - cryptic def playing with the phrase “take issue”. I don’t find this particularly convincing though because although the word itself literally suggests the abduction of a child (”kid”), we apply the word to anyone who has been taken against their will. |
| 12 | GOLD BEATER - if this is right then, again, I think the cryptic def is quite weak and not very cryptic. I guess we’re supposed to be misled into thinking that “foils” is something to do with swords, when it actually refers to gold-leaf. |
| 13 | S in HARD,HIP |
| 15 | OC,TAD - funny how the simplest things can pass you by. I was fairly sure that OCTAD was the right answer but couldn’t see why “dash” = TAD. Obviously they both mean a small of amount of something. |
| 19 | BORDEAUX - “bore dough” |
| 22 | (NOVELIST IE)* |
| 26 | C,(WEATHER)*,L - looks like “cloudy” indicates C here but I can’t find that in the paper copy of COED or the online Chambers so I assume it appears elsewhere. Don’t think I’ve ever seen it used before but it could be a staple of advanced puzzles. |
| Down | |
| 4 | UP in (HEROIC)* - nicely disguised definition. |
| 6 | TONE in SCOLD |
| 7 | (COTE LIT)* - COLETIT. I guessed this, although with “Bird” as the definition and TIT in the anagram fodder it wasn’t a tricky quess. Not sure I like “with a flutter” as the anagram indicator though. |
| 8 | (HEATED DRINK)* - The surface reading “Cordial, nutty heated drink” isn’t very convincing… |
| 10 | X in (RADIO)* in PA,CAL - …but it’s excellent in this one. |
| 14 | CR in (IS NEVER)* - SCRIVENER |
| 16 | MONOGRAM - I spent ages trying to work out the wordplay but I think it’s just a cryptic definition. Sorry to bang on like this but, again, it seems a bit weak. |
| 20 | ATHLETE - see previous clue. |
| 21 | PYCH,E - I liked this. “Prepare for ordeal” for PSYCH (as in “psych yourself up”) was surprising, for some strange reason. |
| 24 | S,WAN |
June 11th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
C = Cloudy refers to charts of weather forecasts - so it was appropriate to use it here. It’s not in Concise OED and I don’t have Collins at present to check. It’s in Chambers all right. Must say I liked MONOGRAM and did think GOLD-BEATER was nicely misleading with many meanings of “foils”.
June 12th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Took a shade under 8, with a minute or two on 16/28 at the end - i.e. pretty easy for Mass - maybe it’s time to tweak his rating on the setters page. Although I found it difficult, I thought the two meanings of ‘characters weaving together’ made 16D a good CD - better than 12.