Posted by nmsindy on 10th September 2007
Interesting puzzle with clues ranging from very easy to very tricky.
A theme which I think you could not miss if you solved the puzzle - Land’s End and John O’Groats appropriately placed in the grid.
Solving time: 38 mins
* = anagram
ACROSS
1 CAP (Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union) ERIN G
5 ST JOHN Surreal surface reading
10 G (R) OATS r = rex (king)
12 EXES Short form of expenses
15 BAR ROW BOY
18 CHIP A piece of wood and (I think) referring to chip and pin technology re plastic (ie credit cards etc)
19 SCUD (clouds)* less lo = look
20 SETTLE S IN
25 CLOT (he) costume vb
29 B (IND) OVER BOVvER
31 DONE DEAL “Dundee’ll”!
DOWN
1 CO (WHERe) B Natural wording reversed here, but got it in the end.
2 PHASE (shape)* Phase = faze = disconcert = throw
3 RA H(ind)U The Hindu God that hides the sun in eclipses.
7 ORATORIOS A very clever hidden that I did not spot till late on.
11 NOR YET (Try one)*
14 “Cheeky! - rude response to question about one’s age?” I think it’s BOLD with B- OLD as the rude reply!
16 CELL Double definition ref prison - excellent surface suggesting poultry. Difficult.
22 L AND S with END in 30 across S (END)ER.
23 RE EVE
24 RHINO (I horn)* & lit
26 LEVEE Double definition
27 Bette M(IDLE)R
Posted in Independent | 9 Comments »
Posted by ilancaron on 10th September 2007
Imagine my confusion when I saw a puzzle by Rufus (almost) without a cryptic definition. Mirroring Araucaria’s recent non-cross-referenced puzzle.
Across
| 1 |
RE,TORT |
| 5 |
RE,STRICT – the other meaning of RE this time. |
| 9 |
MASERATI – (steam, air)* — credible surface and nice definition: “classic form of transport”. |
| 10 |
A,TT,END – a couple of problems here: “Wait on non-drinker, whose after a tip”, where “whose” is presumably a Graudianism for “who’s”. Not sure how TT for “non-drinker” is supposed to precede END (for “tip”) or be inside A,END. |
| 11 |
EXPRESS=”say” TRAIN=”attendants” – nice non-homophonic clue. |
| 13 |
SHED – easy double definition &lit |
| 18 |
NETS – my last clue – two meanings, one cricket-related unsurprisingly. Like baseball players, cricket batsmen must hit practice balls into NETS? |
| 20 |
POLLING BOOTH – all right, so there is one cryptic definition: not obvious, since you’re likely to think about fording a river at first. |
| 23 |
RIMINI – clever clue: take “pRIMe mINIster” and remove tempers* and you get an Italian resort (famous for being where my parents spent their honeymoon and I suspect where I was… well, you know…). |
| 26 |
DA(KO)TA – DAKOTA is a WWII-era transport plane. |
Down
| 3 |
OPEN(END)ED |
| 4 |
TRAMPS – two meanings |
| 5 |
RAISE THE SUBJECT – two meanings: where the first I suppose is a way to define the action of being knighted. |
| 6 |
SWANSONG – “lay” is song here – can’t decide if this a cryptic definition or a double definition: “A bird’s last lay”. |
| 19 |
BOLTED – two meanings: one of my last clues, probably because of the antonymical meanings. |
| 21 |
LO(I)RE – it’s where I spent my French vacances. |
| 22 |
SLOT – ref. SLOT machines. |
Posted in Guardian | 9 Comments »