Guardian 24,245 - Gordius : “This island race, this happy breed”
Posted by stan on November 27th, 2007
Apologies if you checked in earlier - a work crisis of Biblical proportions had wiped out my leisure time and my solution was sparse.
Across
12 KENTISH = (THESKIN)*
16 A-TT-OR-NEY GENERAL - As per 1 down TT is a motorbike race, and then I get a bit lost - a GENERAL is a top soldier and Marshall NEY was a top soldier too. Close enough ?
19 EPONYMOUS = gorgeous clue including as it does a PONY and a MOUSE with the last letter shifted to the front. Meaning is “something named after a person”
21 CAN-ON
22 INDULGE = (ELUDING)*
23 COL-OGNE = COLonel (GONE)*
24 MEANS = i.e MEAN(der) without the “der”
25 ATTAIN-DER (see above - the “der” that was surplus there is needed here) Had to look it up ”
| the termination of the civil rights of a person upon a sentence of death or outlawry for treason or a felony |
”
DOWN
1 ISLAND RACE
4 RUED = sounds like “rude”
14 PHE(NO-MEN)AL = (AHELP)* with NO MEN inside
15 ELLE(NT ER)RY ? Ellery Queen was a crime noverlist NT = New Testament ER is the Queen. Tried to squeeze Helen Mirren in there for the longest time.
7 ROY-A-LIST
18 RENEGADE = ( E A GENDER)*
20 OR-DEAL
21 COLLIE(ry)
22 IAMB - it’s a grammatical “foot” contained in willIAM Brown
23 <<left as an exercise>>
November 27th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
16A: A TT (race) OR (’other ranks’, ie soldiers) NEY (Marshal) GENERAL
NEY popped up in a charade clue by Taupi recently
19A: EPONYMOUS doesn’t mean ’something named after a person’ but rather ‘pertaining to the person something was named after’ (thus Hamlet is the eponymous hero of the play). In the clue, George Washington is the eponymous one - he was the eponym of the US capital city. Clever clue!
15D: This is indeed ELLEN TERRY - NT (’books’) + ER (Queen!) inside ELLERY (Ellery Queen was the detective hero of a famous set of American novels, as well as the pseudonym of the two cousins who wrote them!) Ellen Terry was a leading Shakespearian actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries -a great friend of George Bernard Shaw and the great aunt of John Gielgud.
November 27th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Cheers, Geoff - I was getting there … missed the Other Ranks reference : thanks
November 27th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
23D is CATO (turn coat!)
November 27th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
I’m stuck with -
9AC: Put on the green! (5,4)
14AC: State of student turning up sack (9)
2DN: Itis off, all right (????, LEFT)
7DN: A name is called a name (6)
November 27th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Short putt
Pupillage
None left
Monica
November 27th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
SHORT PUTT, P(UP)ILLAGE, NONE LEFT (ha ha), MONICA=”moniker”
November 27th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Doesn’t eponymous work both ways? An eponymous hero of a book is the one that the book is named after but an eponymous album is one that is named after the band. An eponym can be either the derived or the original name.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Thanks Fletch & Ilancaron
November 28th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Testy: I’ve checked ‘eponymous’ in Chambers and the Shorter Oxford, and you’re absolutely right - the word can be used both ways. I’m surprised, because the literary pedants of my acquaintance have always been very sniffy about the reverse usage to the one I confidently gave (and which probably was the original one). It does mean the the word is pretentiously nonsensical because it doesn’t inform which was named after which - the fact that the names are related is obvious anyway!
November 28th, 2007 at 1:13 am
re: 2. none left
I get the ‘all right’ part, but not the first part, ‘it’s off’
Please explain.
November 28th, 2007 at 2:23 am
We think “It’s off” = what the waitress says when there is none left!
December 1st, 2007 at 8:42 pm
13A has not been mentioned - believe it’s DWELT from reversing (retiring) Model=T and LEWD.
I flat-out don’t understand “SHORT PUTT”. Surely one’s already on the green to do a short putt, so it’s got nothing to do with getting to the green? Was assuming it started “SPORT” = to put on, but then went nowhere. Ho hum.