Fifteensquared

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Archive for March 25th, 2008

Independent 6689/Merlin

Posted by John on 25th March 2008

John.

I didn’t do this quickly, although looking at it now I bet some people did. One problem was that I wrote an answer in the wrong place, and when I transferred it to the right place wrote it in backwards, so there were some delays. Merlin makes use of the latitude afforded by The Indy to do things that a Times setter couldn’t do: to use “a” for one (3dn) and to refer to living people (2dn, 25 ac).

Across
1 S(CR)APPER. All this talk from irritated customers about how hopeless the websites are, and on this occasion the website has it correct: “fighter”; the printed version omits that word’s first letter.
6 SAMSON - (M(andible) ON ASS)*. Excellent semi-&lit.
9 CAP ONE
10 BISEXUAL - CD
11 OCCASIONAL TABLE - (conceal sailboat)*
12 PROSPER O. A Shakespeare reference.
14 ARTIST I think, but I must be missing something. What’s going on?
15 STRAIT - the Torres Strait, nothing to do with the footballer. I’m never very comfortable with these linked clues, but it seems that ”special” is an anagram indicator for the answer to the previous clue. Not sure where “characteristic” fits in.
17 DETERRED - “de-turd”. For a while I had been trying to make “deferred” (= de-furred) work, on the erroneous assumption that the Indy would be politer.
19 WEAR SEVERAL HATS - (valet’s shareware)*, with “employing” the anagram indicator. If I’m correct, isn’t that a bit dodgy?
22 SOCIETAL - (1 locates)*
23 INVERT(ebrate)
24 WON TON. I don’t like this clue, because the answer could perfectly well be “not now”, indeed the clue seems to me to lead more naturally to this. As it is, it seems the word “for” should have been omitted.
25 WILL’S ELF, referring to Puck in MND
 
Down
2 CH(ANC)ER
3 A ROMA
4 P(ennsylvania Avenue) RESIDENT I think, although I’m a bit uncomfortable with “’s foremost” to give the first letter of a pair of words; if indeed that is what’s happening.
5 ROBIN (G for H)OOD FELLOW
6 thiS IS A Long
7 MA X-FACTOR. Nice definition.
8 ORACLES - (so clear)*
13 STAIRLIFT - CD
14 ACTUA(AIR rev.)L
16 T(R.E.M.)O LO
18 ENTER AL. In what sense does “admit” = “enter”, rather than ”allow to enter”?
20 oncE AT ENormous. An excellent hidden, which defeated me until the very end.
21 HIVES - 2 defs. Why “lots and lots” rather than simply “lots”?

Posted in Independent | 13 Comments »

Financial Times / 12724 by Jason

Posted by C G Rishikesh on 25th March 2008

C G Rishikesh.

I took longer to solve this puzzle than the others that I have done here before. To tell the truth, I have all except 18dn (where, of course, I can guess the second word of the phrase); 29ac: I can guess the word from the crossings and also from “Destroy” part of the clue, but the full annotation/explanation eludes me at the moment of writing. While in the earlier FT crosswords I found full justification for every clue, here I am floundering. 

Across

5 FOLD-UP - DD - ‘fold-up stocking’ (”Sort of  stocking”) I can understand; I am unable to justify the clue as a whole. Help!  HOLD-UP - DD - sort of stocking/bank ‘job’ (robbery)

  11 MONT BLANC - CD? Not exactly! - ‘high point’ in the literal sense and not in the figurative sense of, say, ‘the most memorable moment of an event’. “With its 4,808 m summit, Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps and Western Europe…” (Wikipedia)

12 SAG - rev. of ‘gas’ (loosely, ‘talk’; actually ‘gas’ is empty or boastful or even garrulous talk)

13 ON ONE’S GUARD - CD - I got the third word of this phrase at later stages from crossings and the entire solution from the definition, which I think is ‘carefully’; the full justification is lost on me. Help!

15 STENCH - DD? - ’smell’ - I need explanation for ‘fish’ part of the clue.

19 AIRLIFT - anag. of ‘if trial’, ‘fails’ being the anag. signal. In a straightforward clue the definition. “An emergency procedure” may not be sufficient to lead to the answer. 

21 RESIDE - Re (’again’), side (’ledge’) Here the def. part of the clue (’assign’) is not readily discernible. The nearest that I can think of is, say, “The power to cancel the meeting resides in the convenor”, where it would mean that the power is assigned to the chairman.

23 MATHEMATICS - CD (Really!) - Here ’summer’ is ‘one who does the sums’. Crossword veterans know what ‘a summer danger’ is.

25 LAG - rev. of ‘gal’

26 HANSOM CAB - hom. of ‘handsome cab’. I am afraid this is not a very satisfying clue.

28 ORATE - o (old), rate (charge)

30 TWIN BEDS - I considered ‘love nest’ before I abandoned it. Nothing in the clue to suggest that the required word is a plural form; or is there?

Down

1 HUGEST - hug (cuddle), est, Fr.’is’ 2 ALLIGATOR - anag. of a, t(from ‘tense’, n.), gorilla

3 LEGIONNAIRE - solved in later stages from the crossings; ref. needs lookup.

4 MAMMOTH - mam (mum), moth (insect). ’squashed’ seems to play a passive role in surface reading; at any rate it is not an anag. ind.

7 DRAMA - &Lit - m (male) in draa, anag. of RADA (for Royal Academy of Dramatic Art). For def, reread the whole clue. Is ‘performing’ to be taken as an anag. signal? That’s your choice!  

9 ENTERS - deletion - solved from crossings and def. (records). I am yet to figure out what is deleted from what. Put me out of misery!

14 GREASY SPOON - Greasy (buttery) spoon (court, v.).  I would like to ask my readers if they have ever told their sweethearts “I am hungry… I am thirsting… Come on, off to a greasy spoon!”

17 MIDDLE AGE - CD - Supposed period in one’s life when one is supposed to put on weight around the waist. I am well past middle age and I don’t have it!

20 THATCH - that, ch - “That ch” (”church over there”)

21 RAINBOW - I in ‘ranbow’ (anag. of ‘a brown’).  ’Rainbow trout’ is a sort of trout.

22 PROGRESS - deletion of pr (prince) from progress (to carry on)

24 TENOR - ‘Top scoring man’ in the musical sense. Ten (X), or (gold) terms which a scorer, whether top or otherwise, might probably use. X, I think, is entered in the cricket scoring sheet when the batsman does not score anything. In any case, not a really satisfying clue.

Posted in FT | 1 Comment »

Guardian 24345/Gordius - The Pope’s a rapist?

Posted by ilancaron on 25th March 2008

ilancaron.

A mix of the easy and the hard. I had to trawl Google a bit here and there. Finding one of my answers on this very site (see 24A). Questions about some of the last downs … lots of useful comments have clarified things!

Across

1 WARD=rev(draw),ROBE - Archbishops are well-known for wearing ROBEs? The Archbishop of York is Ebor=rev(ROBE) apparently.
5 TO,BAG,O - I’m beginning to think it’s a cryptic cliche TO BAG nothing when going hunting (in the West Indies at least).
11 EYR(I)E - ref. Jane EYRE.
12 CATER,PILLARS - whimsical description of where you’d find CATERPILLARS (am I missing a way to associate them with journalism apropos the Grub Street ref?)
15 S,ARK - a useful cryptic island: others are Inch, Iona…
18 IN,SECT,B(IT)E - BE is “live”.
19 TONE - two meanings: not a homophone. Needed Google to find this river in Somerset.
24 T,ALMA - T’s our model (car), and ALMA’s our girl. And thanks to Google again, TALMA’s a cape (found by said search engine incidentally on this very site as an answer to a recent Inquisitor!).
25 EROTICISM=(isometric)* - apposite anagram!
26 ANSWER=(as Wren)* - not sure what the surface is supposed to imply though: “You may find it as Wren built”.
27 SKIP,JACK - A Brit dumpster is a SKIP and a lift’s a JACK (”from a” indicating the concatenation of JACK after SKIP). Hang on, I’m looking up SKIPJACK… a fish pie? Almost… just a kind of tuna.

Down

1 WETS - two meanings: one of my last. Ref. Maggie’s epithet for anyone who didn’t agree with her hardline and boiling over results in getting things WET (though the parts of speech don’t agree do they?). So it’s WETS=rev(stew=boil).
2 RUED - [gran]rev(DEUR). Our “ancestor” is our gran.  
4 BARTERED BRIDE - I got this from the crossing letters and a bit of inspiration. It’s an opera by Smetana… “Marenka and Jeník want to marry. However, Marenka’s father, Krušina, has other ideas. He wants Marenka to marry a boy she has never met, Vašek, the son of Micha, who is a wealthy landowner. The marriage-broker Kecal is hired to broker the marriage between Marenka and Vašek. Kecal is made aware of the relationship between Marenka and Jeník, and becomes determined to break them up in order to facilitate the marriage of Marenka with Vašek.”. Sounds even better than “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”.
6 OVERLO(R/a)D - Replace “a” with R (roger in radio-speak) in overload.
7 AB,REACTION - means “purging of emotional tensions”. AB’s our (able-bodied) “rating” and the right really do tend to be REACTIONary.
8 OPEN SECRET - an oxymoron of course - and is the other ref to the fact that it’s foreign (OPEN?) espionage (SECRET?) that MI6 engage in?
10 RAPE OF THE LOCK - again Googled to resolve this… it’s ref. Alexander POPE’s (not the one in Rome) satire RAPE OF THE LOCK (which was about a lock of hair, not trying to gain entry by forcing a key).
13 ASPIDISTRA - (it’s paradis[e])*. Only know this plant from George Orwell’s rather superior satire “Keep the ASPIDISTRA Flying”.
14 ERYSIPELAS - (replies, say)* — again not a homophone. Incidentally, not a very pleasant complaint: “acute streptococcal infection characterized by deep-red inflammation of the skin and mucous membranes”.
17 SCARFACE - Ref. Al Pacino’s nickname in the eponymous movie. Can’t work out the wordplay though: must have something to with SCARCELY or SCARCE: “Hood hardly ever appears over nothing”. FA=F*** All in SCARCE (after all).
20 SCRIMP - Cryptic def I suppose. Am I missing something? Perhaps M (little money) in SCRIP (shares?).
22 MINA - OK this is definitely a cryptic definition since MINA (alt. myna, mynah) birds are known to be talkative.
22 AM,OK - I’m fine. Really.

Posted in Guardian | 14 Comments »