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Archive for November 4th, 2007

Private Eye/Cyclops 351 - Up or down

Posted by beermagnet on 4th November 2007

beermagnet.

There are occasions when the answer to a clue is a word or its reverse, and there is nothing in the clue to indicate which.  So you end up relying on crossing checking letters to confirm which to use.  Here, 5D is an example.  The construct is , and for 5D it is def 1 that is the answer and def 2 that is reversed.  If anything, the sense of the surface reading tends towards the alternate answer.  In this instance I was wise to the possibility, but on other occasions I have fallen for the trap, written in a reverse answer, and been stuck.  In the context of an entire puzzle this is probably fair, but it shows that clues taken in isolation are not necessarily fully solvable.

Across
8 WARBLE  -  Hidden in deWAR BLEeding
9 UP IN ARMS  -  U-PIN-ARMS Member Members
10 ABUNDANCE  -  AB-UN-DANCE Un from “Vulgar one” as in “That’un”
12 BANTU  -  ANT in BU(sh) “Dubya not quiet”
13 BIG JOBS  -  BIG(g)S around JOB Ref Ronnie Biggs
15 HARD-HIT  -  Erection; Success
17 NIPPLE COUNT  -  (PENCIL NOT UP)* It is popularly supposed that tabloid circulation rises with nipple count.  I’ve no doubt someone is finishing a PhD on the subject right now
21 EARDRUM  -  Effectively hidden in hEARD RUMour - indeed, revealed when HOUR removed (time lost) which is a very nice construct.  If the definition hadn’t meant the answer was so obvious, I would’ve given this clue top marks.
23 JOHNSON  -  American loo; Issue - Ref Alan Johnson Sec. State for Health http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page6309.asp
24 LEHAR  -  King LEAR around H(ard) gives Merry Widow composer
26 PINPRICKS  -  PRICK inside PINS
28 SWELLING  -  DD
29 IDLING  -  (s)IDLING
 
Down
1 SWEAR BY  -  A very convoluted clue: “Almost the end of Brown” delivers “W”, this is then put inside (ARSE)*, then B(lood)Y from “bloody heartless”
2 URDU - ex-Foreign Sec. and ex-Home Sec. Douglas Hurd is our Tory Grandee (h)URD U(nited)
3 CLODHOPPER  -  Lump; Springer
4 SPEECH  -  PEE inside SCH (abbrev. School)
5 KNOB  -  (BONK<)  I knew this was BONK or KNOB but wasn’t sure which one till I had a crossing letter.  Full clue:
Dick stands on head to screw (4)
6 BRONCHITIS  -  (IC SHIT BORN)* Hawking in the spitting sense yet again
7 ASQUITH  -  QUIT inside (HAS)* Going back in time for this ex-PM
11 NASAL  -  NASA-L I liked “US agency sending people up” for NASA
14 GONORRHOEA  -  (OOH-ER ORGAN)* I had trouble with this - the spelling I mean. Apposite anagram means it picks up my favourite clue award
16 ROUGH TRADE  -  ”Difficult” “Profession”
18 CAJUN  -  JU (half a month, JUne or JUly) inside CAN (jail)
19 LEGLESS  -  LEG-LES-S
20 INN SIGN  -  (SINNING)*
22 MOPING  -  OP (surgery) inside (MING) Party leader - Err, no more I fear, slightly out of date there Cyclops old boy
25 RILE  -  hidden in bovRIL Enema.  Oh dear, there’s an image we could do without
26 CHIT  -  C-HIT This is the clue I had most trouble with, and was reduced to an alphabet trawl on C?I? before I hit CHIT

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Guardian 24,219 (Sat 27 Oct)/Araucaria - Dusty answers

Posted by rightback on 4th November 2007

rightback.

Solving time: 25 mins, two missing (26ac and 8dn).

The ‘cloth hats’ referred to in the preamble were all reptiles (REP = ‘cloth’, TILES = ‘hats’), though unless KOMODO DRAGON at 19dn/29ac (my favourite clue in this puzzle) counts as two answers I can only find 11 (asterisked below).

Music (14dn): Crocodile Rock by Elton John.

* = anagram.

Across
*1 IGUANA; rev. of ‘AN AUG 1′ - August 1st is Lammas Day.
9 PETER HAIN; (HER)* in PETAIN - Henri Pétain of ‘ils ne passeront pas’ fame, although according to Wikipedia it was someone else who actually said this.
*11 [i]S NAKE[d]
12 METHYLENE; ME + THY + “LEAN”
13 DICTION[aries]
15 READER; (ARE RED)*
*17 GO(R + G)ON - who had snakes for hair.
19 KALENDS; KALE and ENDS merged - the first day of the month. According to Chambers, ‘telescope’ can mean ‘to slide into one another like the movable joints of a telescope’.
22 AMORPHISM; AMO (= ‘I love’ in Latin) + (SHRIMP)*
*24 GEC + KO
*26 S + KINK - I didn’t know this lizard, but should probably have got ‘kink’ from ‘peculiarity’.
27 GO + D(STRUT)H - the lesser-used Lawrence, behind T.E. Lawrence.
28 CHE V. RON - nice clue.
Down
3 NURSELING; (GUNNERS)* around LI[ttle]
*4 MONITOR (double definition) - also a type of lizard.
5 DUSTY (double definition) - as in the phrase ‘a dusty answer’, meaning ‘a bad answer’.
*6 CH + AME(LEO)N
7 MUGGER, from ‘facer’
*8 CAIMAN/CAYMAN - I couldn’t get this without electronic help. I should probably have concentrated on the definition (which I knew was ‘a reptile’) rather than the wordplay, as I have heard of this animal but still can’t explain the clue (”Grand place for a bank account!”) - some reference to the Cayman Islands, perhaps?
*14 CROCODILE - as in, “See you later, alligator/In a while, crocodile”
*16 ALL + IG(AT)OR - ‘at heart’ meaning ‘put ‘AT’ in the middle’ is horrible.
18 NAIL GUN; N + (LINGUA)* - terrible clue. How on earth can ‘lingua franca’ be interpreted as ‘anagram of LINGUA’?
*19/29 KO + MO + DO + DRAG ON - I love, and strongly empathise with, this clue’s surface reading.
20 SI(OB + HA)N - a little easier if you have a sister called ‘Siobhan’ than if you don’t.
25 C + LUNG

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