Independent 6642/Dac
Posted by John on January 30th, 2008
One of Dac’s easier puzzles I think, but none the worse for that. Consistently excellent clueing as usual.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | DOMINICANS. The islanders and the monks. |
| 9 | AMOROSO, which is both a lover and a dark sweet sherry |
| 10 | TOSTADO? I put this in as a result of the wordplay, which is possibly s (= small??) in tot ado, and although Chambers only gives “tostada” as a fried tortilla there is possibly a variant spelling (which there evidently is). |
| 13/14 | CATHERINE OF ARAGON - (to go in a French area)* |
| 16 | SPLI(N)T |
| 18 | RO(TUN)D |
| 19/22 | CABERNET SAUVIGNON - cab (enters)* A(u)vignon. Very neat and elegant. |
| 23 | H AVER. I had wanted to put in “waver”. |
| 25 | B RING UP |
| 26 | RESERVE - 2 mngs. |
| 27 | (DO)YENS. This use of “avoid” always seems a bit odd, but I suppose it is roughly equivalent to “shun”. |
| 28 | ARCHPRIEST - (parish rect(or))* |
| Down | |
| 1 | DIABOLO - i in (a bold)* o. Not a game I’ve ever come across except in crosswords. |
| 2 | MO(O)TS - good clue if you can accept shape of wheel = round = o |
| 4 | CHOW-CHOW |
| 5 | NOTATE - (at Eton)*, although it isn’t just maths in which you notate. Dac seems to go along with the trend for omitting “perhaps” or some such. |
| 7 | I NA(NI)TION. |
| 8 | SLOWEST - low in (sets)* |
| 11 | STEEPLECHASER - pl in (see the races)*. Excellent &lit. |
| 15 | AR(THUR)IA N. When this puzzle appears in book form “Thur” will be a problem. |
| 17 | F(A RN)ORTH |
| 20 | TOR RENT |
| 21 | SNI(P)PER |
| 22 | V ERNE(ST) |
January 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
TOSTADO A new word to me, but I think yr explanation is right ie. S = small (as in clothes sizes) TOT “goes without” ADO. Not too difficult a puzzle, but good as always from Dac.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Made a right mess of this one, I’m afraid. A lot of unfamiliar words meant I struggled. I usually start with the anagrams and work from there - but couldn’t quite untangle either 28ac or 11d, which with the other problems left me with large gaps I couldn’t fill.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Enjoyed this one a lot. I knew 10a but couldn’t work out all of the wordplay straight away so waited a while before filling it in. 7d was a guess for me but a reasonably confident one. I was also suprised by the Thur reference in 15d.
January 31st, 2008 at 9:05 am
John queries the use oh ‘wheel’ to denote O. I’m not too keen on indicating letters by things of the same shape, but this is just a matter of taste and there is nothing unsound about it. I was much more concerned about the use of ‘ball’ to denote O in 1D. I don’t see how a 3-dimensional object can be considered equivalent to a 2-dimensional one.