Guardian 24,277 (Sat 5 Jan)/Araucaria - Sin city
Posted by rightback on 13th January 2008
Solving time: Turned to references after 45 mins (in two sessions) with 6 answers missing (asterisked) and one wrong (2dn).
The thematic element of this puzzle was the inclusion of the seven deadly sins, which was straightforward enough provded you could name them all (I couldn’t - see 13ac). The rest of the crossword, though, was packed with difficult words, obscure references and intractable wordplay, and in the end I resorted to reference books to help me out. Not my favourite crossword of the year so far.
If anyone can shed light on 3dn I would be grateful.
Music (13dn): Pride by U2.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| *11 | T(W)OBIT’S - ‘two’ was as far as I could get with this. Tobit turns out to be a character in the Apocrypha, while ‘two bits’ is an American term meaning 25 cents (a quarter). |
| 12 | W(IT + T)ILY - ‘takes initiation’ for T is awful. |
| 13 | PRIDE - this took me a shocking length of time. I just couldn’t name the seventh deadly sin, despite thinking of lions from the clue (”Royal beasts…”). |
| 14 | PERFORMED; (rev. of REP) + FOR + ME + D |
| 16 | SEVEN DEADLY SINS; (SENSED ANY DEVILS)* |
| *19 | EQUIP + OISE[aux] - I didn’t know this word but thought of ‘oiseaux’ and ‘poise’ separately, so should really have made the connection. |
| *22 | LA RONDE; ([c]ALDERON)* - La Ronde is a fairly obscure French film from 1964, starring Jane Fonda. ‘La Drone’ and ‘La Norde’ looked just as likely to me, so with two crossing answers missing I left this blank. |
| 23 | C(ASS + I)U’S |
| 25 | CAVALCADE; CAVA + (LACED)* |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | TOO + TH(PAST)E - for ages I thought ‘overly over’ must be ‘rev. of TOO’, so was looking for ‘boot????er’. |
| 2 | Z + I + NOV(I.E.)V - not ‘Tinoviev’, which I guessed from supposing that ‘put last’ might mean ‘the last letter of put’. The Zinoviev Letter played a role in the 1924 general election. |
| *3 | INCISE - I assume this is something to do with ‘Inc.’ vs ‘Ltd’ but I don’t know where the final E comes from. Clue: Engrave corollary to “Ltd is US” (6) |
| 5 | DRAW + BRIDGE - ‘Game without winner’ is the unsatisfactory wordplay; cf 14dn. |
| 7 | BARIUM - refers to barium meal, which can be swallowed to make the alimentary canal visible to X-rays. |
| 8 | ENVY; “N V” |
| 14 | P + RESIDE + N.C. + Y - as in 5dn, the first bit of wordplay here is in the wrong order (’Live quietly…’). |
| *17 | [o]NE + PENT + HE - ‘a drink or drug causing sorrow to be forgotten’ (Chambers). |
| 18 | [p]INGUIN + A + L (= ‘plate’) |
| *20 | UPROOT; (TO POUR)* - terrible clue. |
| 21 | ANS (= ‘articles’) + ELM - Saint Anselm was an Italian monk who was Archbishop of Canterbury, and propsed an argument for the existence of God. I didn’t know the name but guessed it from the (questionable) wordplay. |
| 22 | LUST[rum] - a lustrum is a period of five years. |
| 23 | COVE[to us ness] |
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