Independent 6595/Math
Posted by John on 5th December 2007
Unfortunately I’m not the best person to be blogging this, since I have never read anything by Philip Pullman, but Google always helps. Probably I’ve missed something. It seems that this is timed to coincide with the film that is out around now, and the religious controversy surrounding it.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 8 | Ms Gardner is always Ava, so it’s AVA (S)TAR. I suppose an avatar is a celebrity. |
| 10 | HIT PARADE - (a dire path)*. |
| 11 | AN (ELK) rev. Is this something in the Pullman books? |
| 12 | SUB(TI)TLE. This goes with 17A to make one of the trilogy. |
| 14/1 | N(OR THE RN L)IGHTS. Another of the trilogy. |
| 17 | (FINK) rev. E. e is the base of natural logarithms. |
| 18/6/26 | A cryptic definition of the overall title of the Pullman trilogy. I wasn’t quite sure about “around here”. |
| 19 | AMBER - (bream)*. With 20, this is another of the trilogy. |
| 20 | SPYGLASS. But not sure why. You find a vodka martini in a glass, OK, but … |
| 22 | DNA rev. in CID. DNA is new (modern-day?…) evidence. |
| 29 | GO L DEN. This with 30A makes the US title of “Northern Lights”. |
| 30 | COMPASS - 2 defs. |
| Down | |
| 2 | BAIT? Something very clever going on here, which I can’t see. |
| 3 | DE GAULLE - (due legal)*. |
| 4 | A RY L all rev. A Pullman character. |
| 5 | AB rev. above (i.e. supported by) SALT. |
| 8 | A L(HE rev.)OUSE. Presumably the exclam makes the previous five words into a warning. It’s surely wrong if it’s a way of saying the clue is a bit cleverly-tricky. Perfectly OK, but nothing very special. |
| 13 | BR I NY. The def. is simply “The sea”. |
| 15 | E(MBE)D. Nice little topical reference. |
| 16 | CHESSMAN presumably, being (men’s cash)*, but I can’t see why a chessman is a pawn arrangement. |
| 17 | KOS HER. Almost a good clue, I think, but what is the “that” doing? |
| 19 | “Admirer” is an ANAGRAM[S] of “Married”. Here it’s a verb. This is one of the many suitable anagrams (like “schoolmaster” and “the classroom”) so beloved of would-be &lit. clue-setters. |
| 21 | LA-(DI)-DA. |
| 23 | D ES IST. OK for those with a smattering of German; not that it has to be a very big smattering here. |
| 25 | S COW, which is a type of barge (just). |
| 28 | A LAS(S). |
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