Independent 6599 by Punk - Nation States
Posted by NealH on 10th December 2007
One of those themed crosswords where a large number of the clues draw their definition from one of the other clues (in this case 11 across). With this type of puzzle, you either find that you get the defining clue quickly and finish easily or you struggle to get anywhere at all. In this case, it wasn’t too difficult and the theme was fairly non-specific, being just countries of the world.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Night: Deceptive soundalike clue. Dark = night. Man = knight. | |
| 10 | Ecuador: Another one to annoy the purists. “Ado” inside “cur” (clued by “incur”) following e. | |
| 11 | Nation: The theme word. “at IO” splitting 2 Ns (clued as “News”, which seems to be a plural of New rather than its normal meaning). | |
| 19 | Greece: Soundalike reference to the the musical “Grease is the Word”. | |
| 25 | Jordan: Double definition. Jordan (aka Katie Price) is a model. | |
| 28 | Emitted: “Mitt” inside (d)eed. | |
| 29 | Croatia. Reversal of A1 tao RC. | |
| 31 | Dirty Look: Double definition. | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Armenia: “Armen” + i + a. “Armen” is clued as “beheaded cigarette manufacturer”, which I didn’t really get. After a bit of internet research, I found it’s a reference to the opera, Carmen, whose protagonist works in a cigarette factory. I’m better on the pop culture stuff. | |
| 4 | Laos: “Lagos” (Nigerian city) with middle letter removed. | |
| 5 | Azerbaijan: Anag of “Zairean Punjab” minus pun. | |
| 6 | Nauru: Hidden word. An obscure country that I’ve not heard of much. | |
| 8 | Turkey: Double def. | |
| 15 | Scrimping: S (small) + “crimping”. | |
| 24 | Rotor: This was the only one I didn’t really get. It’s clued as “Turner taken from opposing angles”. I guess rotor=turner. Is the rest of it a reference to it being a palindrome ? | |
| 26 | Ditto: Ditt(y) + o (love in tennis). | |
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