Posted by petebiddlecombe on 1st December 2007
Solving time 30:50 without books, one mistake - or c. 38 mins with confirming look-ups and one correction.
Mostly fairly straightforward, but there are one or two unresolved points where you may be able to help out. In theory I should defer this post by 40-odd minutes but I doubt any of you are sad enough to crib from this and rush for the midnight post even if you have one.
| Across |
| 3 |
F,ACE,FUNG,U.S. - A Charlie is a beard of the Charles I type, and a fung is a mythical Chinese bird, often equated with the phoenix |
| 10 |
MARZIPAN - zip = energy in (an arm)* |
| 12 |
BRAK - comp anag - (Durban lakes)* - (land use)* - Durban and the Afrikaans answer fit nicely together but I don’t think they make an &lit. |
| 13 |
A,MAN(I)TA - manta as in manta ray is Spanish for blanket. The Amanita genus includes three well-known fungi - fly agaric (A. muscaria) - the red toadstool with white spots in all the fairy-tale pics, the death cap (A. phalloides), and destroying angel (a. virosa). |
| 14 |
RONIN - a lordless Samurai |
| 15 |
COL,IN=on fire - the Virginian quail |
| 17 |
CA(LOT)TES - cates = viands, and calottes RC are clerical headgear - the “papal yarmulke” kind. This is the one I messed up, trying PALETTES, which didn’t really work at all on reflection. |
| 18 |
SHOO(I)N - ’shoon’ = an old plural for ’shoe’. A shoo-in is a US ‘dead cert’. |
| 22 |
TELOS = aim. I guess L=left replaces something in a TE___OS name for an Ionian island. But after Googling for TEHAVENOS and TEPORTOS and looking at one list of such islands, I’ve given up. |
| 24 |
BACKRA - white folk in Caribbean English. Comp anag - (in Carib-speak)* - (I pen)* |
| 26 |
SEALYHAM = (leash may)* - a kind of terrier |
| 29 |
TA(B)LA - Indian drums, and Indian musical rhythm |
| 30 |
AIR-HOLE - passage = aisle and P=rho replaces the central S - cheeky use of the appearance of Gk. capital letters. |
| 31 |
REIN - two* removed from Rotwein. |
| 32 |
FI(REFLA=flare*)G - &lit. |
| 33 |
S AND C = “sc., literally”,ASTLE=tales* |
|
| Down |
| 1 |
IMBRAST = (arm bits)* - archaism for embraced |
| 2 |
CA(RO=or rev,)CHE - add caroche to your xwd notebook page headed “carriages” (or find it in Bradford). |
| 3 |
FRANCO - which turns out to be Italian for “post-free or franked”. |
| 4 |
CION - US sp. of scion - icon with C = crown relocated |
| 5 |
F(AMILYB=(by mail)*)AKER |
| 6 |
NA(NOTE)CH - nach = a performance by (Indian) professional dancing women. |
| 7 |
GU(’ILT)Y |
| 8 |
(a)UNTIE - resolve as in ’solve a knotty problem’, I guess |
| 9 |
S(P)ANS - sans = Fr. ‘without’ = bar, but I can’t quite see spans = “winds up old” - though I can see “wound up old” from the archaic use of ’span’, as in that quote about Adam and Eve (see the Times for the Times comments from last Wednesday for more on this - well, I had to find some way of mentioning this puzzle …). |
| 11 |
PARANTHELIA - (Paler in a hat)* whitish images of the sun elsewhere in the sky - worked out from checking letters in my case. |
| 16 |
WOO(L)SHED - a ringer is the most expert (i.e. quickest) of a group of Aussie sheep-shearers |
| 20 |
URALI,AN - urali has many spellings - worth a look in C as they come up quite often |
| 21 |
PADANGS = (gasp and)* - Malaysian playing-fields |
| 23 |
L,A(URE)N. - an. = anno = “in the year”, ure = archaic ‘use’ |
| 25 |
KEBELE - hidden word. It’s a territory in Ethopia. Surprised to see no anagram of Ethiopian marathon star Kenenisa Bekele (sadly for this purpose, Abibi of the 1960 Olympics was ‘Bikila’, though it sounds the same from English lips). |
| 26 |
STAYS - I assume ‘fundamentally rigid’ is about the corsetry kind. |
| 27 |
ERIC = (blood) fine,A = afternoon |
| 29 |
TRET - last letters of “bolt for free, that” - an old allowance for waste when selling goods by weight |
Posted in Azed | No Comments »
Posted by rightback on 1st December 2007
Solving time: 14:58
Another well-constructed alphabetical jigsaw from Araucaria. When I solved his last one I decided afterwards that I should have tried to fit answers into the grid more quickly, so I did that today, starting with T (1ac). This definitely worked, although failing either to cross off clue numbers or to write down answers I’d solved but couldn’t fit in striaght away proved a false economy. CHEMOSTAT and SCOTIST helpd me up for a couple of minutes at the end.
Music: Come Together by The Beatles, the opening track of 20ac.
* = anagram.
| Across |
| 1 (T) |
THE JOKE IS ON ME; (JOHN SEE TO MIKE)* - I started this puzzle by looking for long multi-word answers and this one jumped out straight away. A quick check of the perimeter revealed the top row as the only sensible place for this to fit in, which was very lucky as it gave six other clue placements straight away. |
| 10 (P) |
PAL + MIST - wither an inadequate definition (”to work on the hand”) or a kind of semi-&lit which doesn’t really work for me. |
| 11 (V) |
V + ED-ETTE - a mounted sentry or boat for this purpose. |
| 12 (U) |
UNCUT, from UNCUS - nice idea (shifting S by one letter) but the wording is questionable (”hook with next to last letter”). |
| 14 (Y) |
YUSUF; “YOU SUFF[er]” - the Arabic name for the prophet Joseph, and a common Muslim name, as in Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens). Anyone with a teddy bear called Joe, watch out. |
| 16 (C) |
CH(OP + LOG)IC - false reasoning, or a person who applies it. |
| 19 (R) |
RODE + O; &lit - decent clue but far from original. |
| 20 (A) |
AB(BEY)ROAD |
| 24 (S) |
SCOT(IS)T - my last entry. A Scotist turns out to be a follower of John Duns Scotus, a 13th century theologian and philosopher. Not a word I knew but I eventually made the leap from ‘great man’ to ‘[Great] Scott’. The origin of this expression is unclear - see here. |
| 25 (L) |
LAM + PER + N - a type of lamprey. An unconfident guess for me, and I spent some time looking for an alternative answer using a word for ‘pole’ to fit ‘-E-N’. |
| 26 (E) |
EXPERT WITNESS; (PRETEXT IS NEWS)* |
| Down |
| 1 (H) |
HAL + F.C. + ASTE (= TEAS*) - ‘club’ is worked in very well as an anagram indicator, but ’supplies’ is totally superfluous as far as I can see - not satisfactory. |
| 4 (K) |
KOTOW; rev. of WO(TO)K - but ‘return’ needs to be singular (i.e. ‘returns’) for the cryptic grammar to make sense. |
| 6 (O) |
OLD SAILOR; (10 DOLLARS)* - refers to Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Very Araucarian, with no genuine definition of this phrase. |
| 8 (X) |
X PLUS Y EQUALS Z - I resolved to work out the wordplay to this before stopping the clock, but forgot. Luckily it was right: X (= 10 in Roman numerals) + Y (= 39, the atomic number of Yttrium) = 49 (= the answer to clue F, written as Z in the clue’s answer). |
| 9 (Z) |
ZEBRA CROSSING; ZEBRA + [cro]SS[ing] - a zebrass is the offspring of a zebra and a donkey. |
| 15 (F) |
FOR + TYN(IN)E |
| 16 (C) |
CHE(MOST)AT - my penultimate solve; I spent far too long here trying to fit a five-letter word for ‘culture’ with the last letter removed into CHEAT. |
| 17 (G) |
GOD(LINES)S - cleanliness being next to godliness. |
| 21 (B) |
BRO + N + X - another slow one for me, with time wasted concentrating on ‘relative’ when ‘unknown’ and ‘New York’ should have been ample. |
| 22 (D) |
DEL(P)HI - ‘letter missing’ is a bit much for ‘remove an arbitrary letter’. |
| 28 (N) |
NO + MEN |
Posted in Guardian | 4 Comments »
Posted by Colin Blackburn on 1st December 2007
I don’t normally blog the FT but as it was the only free newspaper with a decent crossword available on the Heathrow to Newcastle flight yesterday I gave it a go. At the end of a marathon 24 hour journey that saw me travel from Honolulu to the Durham Dales any UK crossword was welcome. As a non-reader of the FT two things struck me. First, who else is Flimsy? Second, why is the FT grid so tiny?
Anyway, I easily polished off the puzzle on the short flight bar one clue. The puzzle was straightforward with a some very nice clues with good surface readings.
| Across |
| 4 |
STUDENTS — STUD+(SENT)* — good surface reading. |
| 11 |
NACRE — oystER CAN < — very nice &lit |
| 19 |
BESTOW — BES(t)+TO+W |
| 21 |
COMPUTE — PUT in COME — a selection of words that suggests there should be more until the synonyms of deposit and advance are seen. |
| 28 |
OVERNIGHT — (HER VOTING)* — good anagram tied to the surface well. |
| 30 |
ROTATE — RO(t)+TATE — it had to end in TATE! |
|
| Down |
| 1 |
BANKNOTE — (BEN+A KNOT)* mdash; excellent surface with reference to the old children’s TV characters of Bill and Ben hiding the definition well. |
| 3 |
ECHO — H in ECO — ref Umberto Eco who wrote The Name of the Rose among others. |
| 7 |
NACHO — oN A CHOcolate — I’m not sure whether this is quite enough, “Biting on a chocolate chip”. |
| 9 |
?O?P?E — “Crumpet picked up by smooth man with this?(6)” |
| 20 |
WITHOUT — THOU in WIT — lacking is a subtle definition here |
| 24 |
EASEL — EASE+L |
| 26 |
UNDO — (f)UN+DO — ending with anoother excellent surface reading. |
Posted in FT | 5 Comments »
Posted by Pete Maclean on 1st December 2007
A good, challenging and satisfying puzzle which like most from Bradman is a little on the tough side for a daily FTer. Challenging enough in fact that I have yet to complete the bottom left corner.
Across
1. MISERY - MERRY (jolly) with one R removed (not right) and IS inserted. I have come across people who consider it wrong to use a series of blanks in a clue as seen here. I have no problem with the technique and it fits well here.
4. TRIBUNAL - BUN (item of food) in TRIAL (test)
9. TIMID - TIM (boy) + ID (girl backwards)
10. GESTATION - GE (E.G. around) + STATION (Paddington). If I understand this clue correctly, one might object to the fact that “say” performs a dual role, first that of providing the EG and second that of indicating Paddington is an example of what is required to follow.
11. VENISON - anagram of IN OVENS
12. TOUGHEN - UGH (exclamation of disgust) + E (English) in TON (French fashion)
13. TAIL - homophone
14. PORTRAIT - PORT (left) + RA (artist) + IT (a certain something)
17. SHREDDED - RED (angry looking) + D (daughter) in SHED (hut)
19. ARAL - A (a) + R (river) + A (a) + L (lake). I have a particular liking for clues that, like this one, consist of a list of words or phrases.
24. APPLIED - A (a) + PP (president repeatedly) + LIED (fibbed)
25. STREAMLET - REAM (lots of paper) + L (left) in STET (leave it)
26. ERASE - ERAS (times) + E (minimal energy)
28. MODERN - MODE (method) + RN (sailors)
Down
1. MOTIVATE - MOT (something motorist pays for) + VAT (tax) in IE (that is)
2. SEMANTICS - anagram of SCAN ITEMS
3. RADISH - RA (artist) + DISH (something to eat)
5. RISE TO THE BAIT - anagram of BE HOT IRATE ITS. This is an &lit! And the kind of clue that separates the pros from the rest of us.
6. BRAVURA - BRA (undergarment) + V (very skimpy) + URA[ls] (40% of a range)
7. NEIGH - half of NEIGHBOURS
8. LINING - IN (home) in LING (heather)
10. GUNPOWDER PLOT -anagram of PURPLE TOWN DOG
15. TERMINATE - ERMINE (fur) intermingled in TAT (rubbishy stuff)
16. BLUDGEON - anagram of DOUBLE AGENT with EAT removed
18. RECLAIM - RE (monarch overthrown) + CLAIM (land)
21. SPEEDO - cryptic definition. “Speedo” means speedometer here and camera refers to a speed camera. Difficult to my mind because I am not familiar with the use of this abbreviation but then again it is not so difficult because nothing else fits and the word springs to mind as it is familiar as a brand name.
Posted in FT | 2 Comments »