Independent 6442/Virgilius - Cornered.
Posted by neildubya on 16th June 2007
One of the last names you expect to see above a puzzle on a Saturday is Mr Tuesday himself, Virgilius. Not that I’m complaining. This was definitely easier than usual for a Saturday but no less enjoyable for that. And there is, of course, a theme which I’ve referred to in my notes (but see 20D for the full explanation).
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 10 | hidden twice in “dAILy mAIL” |
| 11 | (ITS NEW TERMS)* - our first thematic element. |
| 12 | A,B,BEY - I didn’t know BEY so this was a guess. I also didn’t spot it’s connection to the previous clue so at this point I wasn’t aware of the theme. |
| 18 | O in STEP< - another part of the theme and again, I didn’t make the connection at the time of solving. |
| 20 | (OLD GIRL)* in CE - COLERIDGE. I think it was solving this clue that led me to thinking about a theme of some sort, although at this point I thought it was just to do with poets, nothing else. |
| 24 | hidden in “terueL OR CAstellon” - a nice touch to have his actual birth place in the grid. |
| 27 | (YET A VINEGAR)* - very nice clue. |
| 30 | NY in (SONNET)* - TENNYSON. I think my brain finally moved out of first gear with this one although I hadn’t yet solved 20D. |
| Down | |
| 1 | A in GRANDA(d) |
| 3 | DOWRY - not the best cryptic definition we’ve seen from Virgilius but that’s a bit like criticising Kaka for making a wayward pass. |
| 4 | AUSTR(al)IA |
| 8 | P in FORCES |
| 16 | ALAS (going up),MAN(x),CA(t) - SALAMANCA, which is in Spain. |
| 17 | L in (NEED BATS)* - nice definition (”West Indian players”) given the cricketing surface reading. |
| 20 | CORNER - double definition of “set piece” (as in football) and “where rook was, initially” (chess). The penny dropped completely with this one: “Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey”. In the bottom right-hand corner of the grid, Coleridge and Tennyson with 25D and 26D soon to follow. I’m not sure that Coleridge is actually part of the theme though as he’s not buried in Poet’s Corner and he doesn’t have a memorial there either. OK, he’s a poet and he’s in the corner of the grid but Tennyson, Burns and Byron are actually a part of Poet’s Corner (Tennyson was buried there, the other two have memorials). On the other hand, LORCA and EMERSON (who both wrote poetry) also appear in this corner of the grid so maybe the theme is not meant to be too exact. Another nice touch, which may not have been deliberate, is that Poet’s Corner is in the South Transept of the Abbey, and the poets appear in the “south” of the grid. |
| 22 | EMERS(i)ON |
| 25 | BY,NOR< - another of our thematic poets… |
| 26 | BURNS - … and the final one. |
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