Posted by linxit on 3rd September 2007
Solving time 4:32
I suppose I should thank Rufus after last Friday’s battle with a really tough Araucaria, but this was just too easy! I’m no speed demon, but I got nearly every clue at first glance. And what about the four across clues on the top and bottom rows? Where’s the misdirection? There were too many CDs (I counted 11, with 5 DDs too), which means more than half the clues had no wordplay. Having said that, I thought 11 was a brilliant anagram &lit. Almost made up for the rest!
Across
5 CRYSTAL - I’m not sure this is even a CD. It’s more word-association than crossword clue!
11 APOSTROPHE (perhaps too)* - excellent &lit. Did I already mention that?
12 L,IN,NET - another good one, with perfectly natural surface reading.
13 APPLE PIE - DD. I hadn’t heard of an apple-pie bed before, which is one where the sheets are doubled over so you can’t get in it.
23 FALSETTO (of latest)* - nicely disguised anagram.
24 FUR,ORE
28 CANTEEN - sort of double CD, or cryptic DD? Whatever…
29 ENEMIES - straight clue. I suppose the idea is that friends talk about their enemies, so “converse” can have two meanings. However, as both lead to the same answer, what’s the point?
Down
2 O,PINION
4 EX-ACTOR - this might have been the trickiest clue, and was the only one I had to go back to once all the crossing letters were there.
7 SCORE DRAW - another CD where the point is the two meanings of the word “tie”, but again, what else could it be?
9 ROMAN CATHOLIC (can omit choral)* - nicely apt anagram fodder, but easily spotted.
21 BAR,RAGE
22 STROKE - best of the bunch of double definitions today. The leading oarsman in a boat, or a shot played.
Posted in Guardian | 13 Comments »
Posted by Colin Blackburn on 3rd September 2007
I found 90% of this crossword a doddle and then struggled filling in the last few answers. There was the odd word in the wordplay that I’d have expected more in a Morded Listener puzzle.
However, there were some superb clues and I wish I’d had time to comment on more.
| Across |
| 1 |
SLANG — ‘S + LANG.— very simple, initially giving the impression of a badly done hidden word, then it dawned. |
| 4 |
EMBOSOMS — (kat)E+MB+O+(MOSS)* — this was great, partly because one of my colleagues is Dr Love. Really. |
| 11 |
THIEF — HIE in T(ea-lea)F — this one confused me for a while because tea-leaf is rhyming slang for thief which is clearly use din the surface but I worked into the definition. I think, however, that Mordred is using the obscure word HIE, which means hasten, for run. |
| 12 |
TIGHTNESS — TIGHT+NESS— semi &lit. |
| 22 |
DEFEATISM — FEAT in DEISM — this is a great &lit clue and the best clue in the puzzle for me. |
| 26 |
CHATEAU — CHA+TEA+U — CHAT+EAU confused me for a while but a U rated film can be seen by anyone. |
| 27 |
RAIMENT — AIM in RENT— mark = AIM. |
| 29 |
ARSON — (p)ARSON(s) — NIcholas Parsons, presenter of Just A Minute, among other things. |
|
| Down |
| 1 |
SHUTTER — HUTT in SER. — Jabba the Hutt is, I belive, a character from Star Wars. |
| 3 |
GRAFFITO — FIT in GRAF+O — Steffi Graf. Graffito is the singular of graffiti. |
| 6 |
SMOOTH — T for C in SMOOCH — lovely surface. |
| 7 |
MINCEMEAT — M+INCE+(TEAM)* — Paul Ince was an England midfielder. |
| 8 |
EDISON — NO SIDE<— I don’t follow this but I suspect the reversal of a term I’ve not checked in Chambers. |
| 14 |
CLIFF FACE — CLIFF + FACE — Cliff Richard is probably the last person who’d produce sheer rock! |
| 17 |
SWASTIKA — (SAW in A KITS)< — I think I’ve got the parts right here but I’m not sure if the A comes from ‘about’ or ‘at first’. |
| 23 |
MERIT — RI in MET ? — I initially assumed that I was an abbreviation for emporer but now I’m not so sure. MERIT isn’t the most obvious meaning for ‘desert’ though it is listed before the other meaning in Chambers. |
Posted in Independent | 10 Comments »
Posted by jetdoc on 3rd September 2007
Thematic answers are all types of of light, camera or action. These clues don’t have definitions, apart from the number referring to 1d, 2d or 3d. Once you work that out, without a preamble to help, it’s fairly straightforward. Enigmatist finds a variety of ways to say that one word or character string is contained within another.
Chambers gives ‘single-action’ (26ac); but does not give ‘double-action’ (20d) or ‘triple-action’ (12ac). I assume they too must refer to firearms.
| Across |
| 1 |
LACKADAY — Weeks without Sabbath would indeed lack a day, more’s the pity. |
| 5 |
CANDID — C and ID make CID, a branch of the police force. Candid Camera was a long-running television series, created and produced by Allen Funt (crazy name, crazy guy!), which initially began on radio as Candid Microphone on 28 June 1947. It involved concealed cameras filming ordinary people being confronted with unusual situations. |
| 9 |
GUMPTION — ‘mug’ (face) reversed; *(point) |
| 10 |
HAZARD — HARD with AZ (as in the London A–Z, a tour guide) inside it. Hazard lights are warning lights on a car. |
| 11 |
TURNOVER — Turner (the artist); framing (containing) OV = nothing against. Chambers defines ‘turnover’ as ‘a newspaper article begun on the front page and continued overleaf’; I’m not sure where the ‘20-page’ comes from. |
| 12 |
TRIPLE — I assume this must be right, but I’m not sure how it is clued by ‘Act without restraint on cycle?’. I’ll probably realise just after posting this blog, and feel stupid. |
| 14 |
CHIEF BARON — B = ‘Bush initially’; in E FARO = ‘European card game’; all in (covered by) CHIN. The Chief Baron, a term previously unknown to me, is the President of the Court of Exchequer. |
| 18 |
AT A PREMIUM — *(up a Marmite). ‘Making… roll’ is a nice anagram indicator. |
| 22 |
SEARCH — EAR = attention; SCH = school. Searchlight. |
| 23 |
LAST POST — The last post is not the first post, or the initial letters. Last Post was originally a bugle call used in British Army camps to signal the end of the day — so it was played just before Lights Out. |
| 24 |
REFLEX — ‘elf’ reversed in REX = king. A reflex camera is one in which the image is reflected onto a glass screen for composing and focusing, either through the camera lens or through a separate lens of the same focal length. |
| 25 |
THROBBER — TH = ‘the’ minus its final letter (‘finish off’); ROBBER = highwayman. Were one to be a throbber (and I don’t think I wish to speculate about this) it would presumably be valid to say ‘I beat’. |
| 26 |
SINGLE — Trapped by (contained in) condenSING LEns. ‘Single-action’ is a term applied to a firearm (‘having a hammer which requires [sic] to be cocked manually before firing’, according to Chambers). |
| 27 |
ALTER EGO — ALTO = voice; embodying (containing) ‘Gere’ reversed. Wikipedia tells me that Richard Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995. In 2002, he married actress Carey Lowell. So, presumably, it’s a while since Cindy was his alter ago. |
|
| Down |
| 1, 2, 3 |
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION — a direction on film sets, which gives the theme of the whole puzzle. |
| 4 |
SORE THUMB — Something obvious is said to stand out like one; and a luckless hitchhiker may have one. |
| 6 |
ANAEROBE — A = foremost of actresses; over AN OBE with ER = the Queen (or Brenda to Cyclops regulars) ‘collected’. A nice clue, with deceptive surface reading — no anaerobe, an organism that lives in the absence of free oxygen and would therefore not inspire (inhale), has (as far as I know, but then I’m no expert) ever won an Oscar. |
| 7 |
DIASPORA — 1 ASP (single poisoner) in ‘a rod’ reversed. |
| 8 |
DUDGEONS — *(gone); in DUDS (dud’s). A dudgeon is ‘the haft of a dagger; a small dagger’, such as Macbeth saw before him. |
| 13 |
BEQUEATHAL — QU A about E (energy) ’consumed by’ *(in the lab). Good use of two meanings of ‘leaving’. |
| 15 |
MAESTROS — ‘seam’ (= join) reversed; ‘sort’ (= kind) reversed. |
| 16 |
PARAFFIN — RAFF = half of ’riff-raff’ in PAIN. ‘In pain’ = ‘suffering’. |
| 17 |
TRACHEAL — ACHE replacing I in TRIAL. |
| 19 |
STROBE — *(sorbet). A type of light. |
| 20 |
DOUBLE — UB (= unemployment benefit) in DOLE. Two terms for ‘state payment’. Neat clue. |
| 21 |
STEREO — ‘ere t’ reversed, in SO. Another one not given in Chambers: a stereo camera is a type of camera with two or more lenses, allowing it to simulate human binocular vision, and so to capture 3-D Images. |
Posted in Guardian | 3 Comments »