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Archive for November 26th, 2007

Independent No 6587 by Tees - Paradise Made Difficult

Posted by NealH on 26th November 2007

NealH.

I found this very tough, although the Milton theme helped a lot if you were at all familiar with his work. My favourite clue was 25 - a superbly hidden anagram.

Across
8 Firewood: “ire” in “f” + Wood (I believe it’s a reference to Elijah Wood, who played Frodo in the Lord of the Rings films)
15 Grandpa: Grand (piano) + pa. Is pa an abbreviation for piano ?
17 Revelry: “Re” + “very” around “l”
20 Children: “Chile” around “dr” + “N” (newton is the SI unit for pressure)
22 Bodega: Aged + Ob reversed
23 Dotted Line: I was a bit unsure about this. I suppose a dash with a dot in it would be against the Morse code, but I was unclear about the overall def.
26 Nineteen: Slightly bizarre clue, I thought. I suppose you were supposed to think “20″ referred to 20 across.
 
Down
1 Minotaur: Minor around tau. It helped if you knew who Pasiphae was.
2 Test: Double definition (the Test being a river in Hampshire).
7 Parsec: “Parse” + c (speed of light constant)
13 Monolithic: (o Milton)* + hic (which I believe is latin for “this”)
16/10 Paradise Lost: The themed clue, which was fairly easy to get if you know Milton’s work at all. (Ideal spot as)* around “r” (last of tempter)
18 Regained: The other Milton themed clue. Seems to be three definitions (won back + rained around “eg”).
19 Ancient: Very tough clue. Apparently, an ancient is a type of flag.

Posted in Independent | 18 Comments »

Guardian 24,244, Rufus: high tea?

Posted by michod on 26th November 2007

michod.

A gentle start to the week as ever. Most of the clues are pretty straightforward, so I’ve only given a few explanations - more can be supplied on request.

Across:

1. GRAFTS. Double meaning. 

5. LIME RICK. A limerick has five lines.

11. FAINT-HEARTED (A FRIEND AT THE*).

17. S(CATH)ING.

18. PACK. Wolves is a football team, the pack are rugby forwards.

20. BODY-SNATCHER. CD, but ‘grave’ to me does quickly suggest a cryptic meaning rather  than the surface one.

25. TEA DANCE. I guess ‘trip’ here means dance, rather than any drug reference. Tea is old slang for marijuana, but I believe it wasn’t so trippy back in the jazz age.

DOWN:

2. RA PT. The regiment is the Royal Artillery.

3. FAIR FIGHT. A straight definition, really - might have been more cryptic concealed within a phrase.

7. ROTOR. I’m getting bored of palindromes clued with reference to their palindromic nature as the only cryptic element (there’ve been a few recently) - although I must admit this one is nicely phrased.

8. CONVEYANCE. CD - trap = small carriage = conveyance.

12. ELECT ORATE. Not great. I’m not a fan of charades where the word split just hives off the stem of a longer word, playing on the same meaning (’voters choose’).

16. LION’S DEN. This CD I like - the surface is very neat and misleading, but the cryptic meaning also works nicely.

19. C HOP IN.  My other favourite clue - ‘hop in’ = ‘offer of a lift’.

Posted in Guardian | 3 Comments »