Guardian 24,325 (Sat 1 Mar)/Enigmatist - Killer Queen
Posted by rightback on 8th March 2008
Solving time: 32:36
This was really hard, but with some excellent clueing. After 10 minutes I had solved 3 clues (MASCARA, LAND AHOY and NEOLOGISM). Eventually I just wrestled with the anagram at 16dn until I solved it, and after that things started to move, but I still struggled to finish it off, especially in the top left (where I have one gripe - see 4dn). No mistakes though (but I can’t explain 10ac).
Music of the day: I Want to Break Free by 9ac.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | LAT[t]ICES - my penultimate solve, once I finally twigged as to what ‘One-time’ meant, and I immediately realised it was the plural of ‘latex’. |
| 5 | BRO + A + DINT + HEBE + A.M. - Hebe was the Gods’ cup-bearer in Greek mythology. |
| 10 | RINGS DOWN - I had to go through the alphabet on the first word to make sure nothing else made sense. Apparently this means “to give the signal for lowering the curtain” in a theatrical sense. DOWN is ‘duck’s feathers’ but how does ‘Evidence in book [of]…’ give RINGS? |
| 11 | AIR-TRAFFIC CONTROLLER - ROLL (= ‘wind’) in (CRAFT FOR CERTAIN I)* - even with the initial A?R in place I struggled with this. |
| 12 | LAND + A + HOY |
| 14 | LINCOLN CITY; L + IN + COL + N(CIT.)Y - very frustrating. I thought of Lincoln City from ‘Imps’ straight away, but thought that was just the first word, followed by wordplay (’left in depression’) with the definition being something to do with New York. |
| 18 | TABLE FOR TWO; (R,W + A BOTTLE OF)*, &lit - brilliant clue. |
| 22 | CONTINUITY ANNOUNCERS; (UNITARY CONNECTION + US + N[ewsflash])* - another &lit, this one a little more forced (’Unitary’?) but still pretty good. |
| 25 | GREEK GIFT; (KG + IF) in GREET - extremely clever. The definition is “What’s presented by the treacherous” while ‘SOB’ is actually ’sob’, as in to weep, which is another meaning of ‘greet’. |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | LO(QUA)T - I almost pencilled in ‘joquab’ here, having been able to think only of Job, not Lot. This was my final entry, once I eventually cracked 1ac. |
| 2 | THE + O + RY - simple but fooled me for a good while, which is slightly depressing as I’ve definitely seen this treatment before. |
| 4 | SERIF; rev. of FIRES - this I don’t like at all. The clue is “Dismisses antipodean type?” which I would happily accept as a clue to ‘fires’, but not to ’serif’; both ‘antipodean’ and more importantly the question mark at the end of the clue have to be associated with the first word, ‘Dismisses’, which really isn’t fair. |
| 5 | BANDI(COO)T |
| 6 | OUSE (hidden) - I’m fairly sure this is right, but can’t see how ‘tributary’ can mean ‘a section in the middle of’. |
| 7 | DIORAMIC; I in (ROAD)* + M1 + C[oventry] |
| 8,9 | NINE DAYS’ QUEEN; “DAZE” - ‘Mercury and others’ for Queen is brilliant and caused a great deal of self-kicking when I got it. Mnemosyne’s daughters were the Muses. The definition refers to Lady Jane Grey. |
| 16,26 | STRAIGHT EDGES; (STAGGERED THIS)* - I started by trying to find an anagram of ‘Hand-held tools’. Once I’d got the right letters this still took ages, but was the breakthrough clue for me. |
| 17 | OBSOLETE; SOLE for O in OBOTE - I couldn’t understand this when solving; unsurprising, as I hadn’t heard of Milton Obote. |
| 19 | VIA + G,R,A - not sure the definition reading of this really makes sense. |
| 20 | AYE + SHA (= HAS*) - a much better clue than I realised when solving: Ayesha is not just a girl’s name, but the main character in Haggard’s novel She. |
| 23 | TOTE + M - M as in M. |
| 24 | SKYE, from ESKY |
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