Posted by Colin Blackburn on 5th September 2007
It’s good to see that even the crazy anarcho-punk-folk ensemble Chumbawamba like to turn to a decent cryptic puzzle in between demos and gigs…
…it would appear to be 3999 from Phi.
Posted in Trivia | 4 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 5th September 2007
I don’t think this was as tough as some recent Dac puzzles but I have a feeling that 9A will trip some people up…
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | COMMOD[-or]ES |
| 6 | SHREW,D |
| 9 | BADLY DRAWN BOY - I can’t imagine that this clue would be anything other than difficult if you’d never heard of Damon Gough. The wordplay is certainly not as helpful as it could be, given that the answer is not a familiar phrase. |
| 10 | FELL ON - sounds like “felon”. |
| 11 | (LARG[-e] IPOD)* - PRODIGAL. I suppose Apple’s ubiquitous digital music player was bound to make it into crosswords sooner or later. |
| 14 | T,ALKIE |
| 16 | RE[-d]CENT - I filled this in from the definition and crossing letters as I didn’t get all of the wordplay. I think I assumed that “old” and “penny” were indicating two different things, rather than just D. |
| 20 | CARIES in ST |
| 22 | EUROPA - “you rope a”. A reference to Europa and the Bull |
| 24 | (T[-h]E LOST VAMPIRE)* - SPLATTER MOVIE. Excellent clue with a great surface reading. |
| Down | |
| 2 | [s]OMBRE - this one really had me puzzled until I got 1A and checked O it provides as I thought I was looking for a a card game beginning with S. I interpreted the wordplay as “[a word for "serious"] after S” |
| 4 | YE in DONNE - another one that held me up because I parsed the clue incorrectly: I thought the definition was “respected” and that an F would feature somewhere. |
| 6 | (TWO WARS)* - SAW WORT. |
| 7 | hidden in “aRAB BIllionaire” |
| 17 | TREATED - I found this quite tricky too, although I’m not sure why now. |
| 19 | (REARMED)* - DREAMER. |
| 21 | K in RILE - Rainer Maria RILKE. |
Posted in Independent | 2 Comments »
Posted by michod on 5th September 2007
Despite some complex wordplay, I found this less difficult than the average Araucaria (a relief after yesterday’s Pasquale, where I failed on four clues). The theme is the 19th century Tory PM Disraeli, so those not familiar with his literary output (OK, the names of his books) may have had problems. My reference above to the Cream album is gratuitous, but I’d be interested if anyone knows why they called it that.
ACROSS:
1. BOD, KIN. A large needle, which has a large eye.
4. EG, G, SHE, LL. As in L-plates.
10. CON, IN, GS, BY. A novel by Disraeli. Selective education = Grammar School.
11. ALAR, MC, ALL.
13. I, L, LEG IT, I, MATE. The wordplay’s OK, but I don’t see how the definition works at all - “Bar sinister means” is what I have left?
17. LAURE(NB, A, CAL)L.
20. MORE’S (…the pity). Nice clue.
21. LAID ASIDE. (ADELAIDE IS* - E). Now this is a real bugbear of mine, and I’m sorry to see it here - “Adelaide is” pointlessly would be ADLAIDI. All that’s happened here is that one of three points has been removed. Some would also question ‘displaying’ as an anagrind.
23. RUE MORGUE. As in “The Murders in the …”.
24. SYBIL. Sounds like Sibyl the prophet - tricky if, like me, you can’t remember which way round the I and Y go in either version of the name.
25. (H)OME LETTE(R). The definition referes to 4ac ‘EGGSHELL’, but the wordplay stumps me here. It looks like “letter home” has to have HR (reversed) removed from it, but I don’t see why we then have to reverse the order of the two words.
DOWN:
1, 2. BEN, JA(MIND, IS)R, A, ELI. A strikingly implausible surface - wouldn’t ’brain’ have worked better than intellect, or do we frown on treating brain and mind as synonyms?
5. GENTLEMANLIKE. (TAKING + ME + ELLEN*).
8. LA(Y)ME, N.
10. CHAR, TERF (FRET<), LIGHT.
14. GLAD STONE. Straightforward clue for BD’s liberal counterpart.
15. V, AR(I)ABLE. ‘x’ marks the definition.
16. FLU, ELLEN (ref 5 down). Welsh character in Henry V.
19. BREEZE. Easy, as in ‘a breeze’, wind, and breeze block.
Posted in Guardian | 9 Comments »