Posted by linxit on 3rd August 2007
Solving time - 15:41
This started off very easy and I had most of the top half finished in a couple of minutes, but my momentum slipped away and I eventually ground to a halt with 15 down left. All I could think of at first was FLANDERS, which I know is in Belgium and couldn’t be the answer. That one clue makes up about a third of the total solving time.
Across
1 STAND,S - one of those illogical English words which baffle learners of the language.
4 SMART SET - if you “exchange points” you get SMARTEST
10 A,DAM(SAL)E - SAL is Latin for salt.
11 BRIEF,EN,COUNT,ER - classic film by David Lean starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, and it’s back in the cinema from next Tuesday as part of a season of British films.
14 ANKH (Khan*) - 
- one of these.
16 ARCH - double def.
18 BATH OLIVER - Jamie Oliver, the TV chef. Maybe not so famous outside the UK?
21 DOUBLE ENTENDRE - bit of a tame one for the Guardian lately though!
23 A(vant-garde),U(nderstand),T(hat),AR,CH,(tr)Y - AR = state, short for Arizona I think, or maybe Arkansas?
25 SARACENS - A,C inside NASSER*
26 AS,SAIL - A royal is a small sail flown immediately above the topgallant (straight out of Wikipedia).
Down
2 ALBERTA (ratable*) - I got this before I got 5, so knew I was looking for a Canadian city.
3 DI’S,TENDS - princess is only ever DI or IDA in cryptics, which narrows it down a bit.
5 MEDIC,IN,E,HAT - E = Spain (IVR)
6 RUMP,US - the Rump Parliament sat in the 17th century.
7 SPARTAN - hidden in “He’S PART ANatolian”
8 THE ARCHER(s) - a.k.a. Sagittarius. The Archers is a long-running (over 15,000 episodes since 1951) British radio soap opera.
12 E(LIZABETHA)N - (Ba’thi zeal)*, inside EN. Corrected explanation following Mick’s comment below.
15 G(LAND)ERS - Gers is a department of SW France. Last one I put in about 5 minutes after the rest. I eventually got it by going through the alphabet one letter at a time, and thought it might be a nickname for glandular fever. Turns out it’s a disease of horses.
17 C(L)USTER
19 V(ER)ANDA - museum is the V&A, or Victoria and Albert museum in London.
20 ALARIC (racial*) - Visigoth king who sacked Rome in 410AD.
22 FELL - double def.
Posted in Guardian | 5 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 3rd August 2007
Fairly easy puzzle from Nimrod, although getting the 3 long down clues early on definitely helped.
| Across |
| 3 |
WAS< in WARP,ACT - “pervert”is a verb here, rather than a noun. |
| 8 |
SCOREBOARD - not sure I understand this one, unless it’s a pun on “shower” being “something that shows”? |
| 10 |
ED in PANTRY |
| 11 |
ONE WAY - “A street” literally is ONE WAY and can also be ONE WAY. |
| 12 |
FIVE IRON - I didn’t understand this at first so I was debating whether to fill in FIVE IRON or NINE IRON, then I saw that “And how” is the answer at 5 Down. |
| 17 |
W,HAT,NEXT |
| 20 |
A,”gender” - sounds like GENDA. |
| 21 |
C,H in LATKEY - Chambers has LATKE (a trad. Jewish pancake) rather than LATKEY - maybe it’s in another
dictionary? |
| 22 |
ACTA - “Minutes” is the definition I think but I can’t see the wordplay. |
| 23 |
THIRD-PARTY - an extra “do” on “dodo” would be a third party. |
| 24 |
FLEE,TINGLY |
| 25 |
LSD - tough one this. “Specie” can mean “coined money” and LSD is an abbreviation for “pounds, shilling and pence” (from the Latin Librae, solidi, denarii). The rest of the clue must be a reference to the hallucinatory effects of LSD. |
|
|
|
| Down |
| 1/2 |
(BIG WATERLOO CAFE RAILCAR)* - BACTERIOLOGICAL WARFARE. I somehow managed to see WARFARE in all of those letters which made this clue a bit easier. |
| 4 |
(INWARDLY ALIGNED)* - READY AND WILLING. |
| 5 |
AN,DHOW |
| 6/7 |
PRESENT COMPANY EXCEPTED - another way of saying “Give two out”. |
| 16 |
ANT in SAFE |
| 18 |
AT in (UHLAN)* - NAHUATL. I only got this because it appeared in another Nimrod crossword from a couple of weeks ago. |
| 19 |
MAI TAI - “might I”. |
Posted in Independent | 5 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 3rd August 2007
Very entertaining puzzle from Monk. Of course, it wouldn’t be Monk with a Nina of some sort and I spotted this one once I solved 17/18/19A - the unchecked letters in the top row of the grid are all Ns and in the bottom row they’re all Ss.
Solving time: 37 mins. I hardly ever time myself but I did on this occasion as I knew I had a clear hour in front of me. I think I usually take longer than this to solve Monk puzzles so I wonder how others solvers did with this one.
| Across |
| 9 |
(TO BE A REAL)* - I liked “crook” as an anagrind. |
| 10 |
OPE(n)RA(n) - “closing early” is an excellent indicator for this clue. |
| 11 |
SCRATCH - I filled this in without understanding what “the Devil” meant. Post-solving, Wikipedia tells me that in the short story and film “The Devil and Daniel Webster”, Satan appears as a character called “Mr Scratch”. |
| 12 |
hidden reversed in “hippopotAMUS TASting” - “nipped” is another good indicator. |
| 14 |
NUMB,ER,(LEAPT)* - tough clue to parse, not least because “front of car, but not quite” is not an obvious looking definition. |
| 17/18/19 |
NORTH AND SOUTH - which is Cockney rhyming slang for “mouth”=trap. |
| 25 |
N,AIR,OBI - a semi-guess as I wasn’t completely sure about OBI (a type of witchcraft practised in the West Indies) |
| 27 |
SHAV(e),(OUT)* - the bottom right-hand side of the grid was the trickiest bit of this puzzle for me and this was one of the reasons why (along with 20D and 24D). I thought that “out unorthodox” might be an anagram but a word ending -UOT seemed unlikely until SHAVE emerged as a contender for “cut”. I don’t know why but SHAVUOT just looked right. |
| |
| Down |
| 2 |
ARRAN (going up),TOR |
| 3 |
T in NOTING,HAM |
| 4 |
hidden in “oN A SHoestring” - a reference to the very marvellous Ogden Nash. |
| 5 |
SVEN in NEW,D(i)OR - I wasted a bit of time on this thinking that “Swede in original” might be an anagram. |
| 6 |
NOWT - TOWN with the N and T swapped around. |
| 15 |
(EMAILS WHEN)* |
| 16 |
PUSH-STARTERS - now that’s what I call a cryptic definition. |
| 17 |
M in NUB,NESS - very natural sounding surface reading. |
| 20 |
LUM in (PUBS,N)* - excellent clue and a tough one to parse. |
| 24 |
(STE(-al)THY)* - the last one in for me. With T?T?Y? filled in, something ending -THYS is always seems a good bet for a mythological character so that’s what I tried. |
| 27 |
SOUS - a sou is an old French coin and SOUS is “under” in French (as in sous-chef). |
Posted in Independent | 4 Comments »