Posted by linxit on 1st April 2008
I wondered if there might be a thematic puzzle today, and when I saw it was by Araucaria I pretty much knew I was right. The preamble stated that any E’s in the answers should be replaced by one of the characters in APRIL FOOLS DAY to make a valid word or phrase, but the joke is that there aren’t any E’s in any of the answers (see 21D, 12A)! I wonder if the 2nd column of unches is a representation of Araucaria laughing his head off at us: AUAOAHAA.
Across
5 JUMBLY - One of Edward Lear’s creatures who went to sea in a sieve.
9 C,ANON,IC
11 NATIONAL BUS PASS (an aunt OAPs bliss)* - a scheme which goes live today, enabling pensioners and the disabled to get free bus travel anywhere in England, not just their local area.
13 VI,C,TO,RIANA = “an air” rev.
18 (h)ITCH
20 CHAINS OF COMMAND - fair enough for “Order transmissions”, but mayors wear chains of office.
23 SARDANA - SARDINIA with INI replaced by AN. A Catalan dance in a ring formation.
25 ALALIA - hidden in “traditionAL ALIAs”
26 SWANNY - sounds like Swanee, the river mentioned in the song by Stephen Foster, Old Folks at Home.
Down
2 STRATFORD - TARTS rev, above FOR,D. Strange clue - I suppose the underline is supposed to represent the AMN of DAMN in the surface reading. The poet is Shakespeare, of course.
4 AC,T(UA)RIAL - the UA coming from the middle of square.
5 JA,COB - the only breed of sheep to be found in Crosswordland!
10 C(A,STASH,AD)OW
14 TURNCOATS - how one might cryptically indicate “Ascot”. I looked for an anagram of “renegades” briefly, while I still thought there might be E’s lurking somewhere.
15 A,ST(RA)KHAN - A + RA in thanks*. The A at the front must mean “first”, which is justified in Chambers by the definition “something or someone of first class or order…” I think Araucaria’s used it before, but I can’t remember anyone else having done so.
16 CORN,WALL - I can’t see any likely correlation between the meanings of snout and wall, but wall is listed under snout in Bradford’s. [ Snout plays the Wall in the mechanicals' play in MND - thanks John. ]
19 UM,BRIA(n) - these last two ref 11A, national being defined as from Cornwall to Northumbria (well, North Umbria actually, but that’s close enough for Araucaria!)
21,12 A,P(RIL F)OOL - FLIRT rev minus T (model), “in A POOL”, i.e. among bathers.
22 OBAMA - O + A MAB rev. Queen Mab is a fairy described by Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet.
Posted in Guardian | 10 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 1st April 2008
A classic themed puzzle from Virgilius, which I was on to before I’d filled a single answer in as I saw “Idiot” twice in the Across clues, plus “nincompoop” and then quickly realised the date. Appropriately enough, 17a was the first answer I filled in and after that the various fools came rushing in, as it were.
As a sidenote, I see that Virgilius (as Brendan) was responsible for yesterday’s Guardian puzzle so all he needs now is for tomorrow’s Times puzzle to be one of his to complete the hat-trick.
| Across |
| 7 |
(HEAD YES)* - HAYSEED, a derogatory term for yokel, was new to me although easy to guess once a few letters were in. |
| 10 |
DUN,CE - DUN means to make repeated demands for payment so “pressure church to pay” = DUN CE. |
| 11 |
BRA in LAME,IN |
| 12 |
L in COD,PATE - CLODPATE was another new one for me but very gettable from the wordplay. |
| 17 |
(AS DOOLALLY F)* - ALL FOOLS DAY. |
| 21 |
IC in YORK - the 14a from “Hamlet” and the subject of a common misquotation: Hamlet does not say “Alas poor Yorick. I knew him well”; he in fact says, “Alas poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio…” So now you know. |
| 22 |
hidden in “joB ONE HE ADored” - very well hidden. |
| 25 |
(MICHELLE’S)* - I sort of knew this but wasn’t sure about the spelling so had to wait for a few letters to go in before committing myself. SCHLEMIEL is a Yiddish word for an unlucky person or someone for whom things never go right. |
| 27 |
GOOSE - I was unsure about “smoother touch” when I filled this in but I’ve just looked it up and found that a GOOSE is a tailor’s smoothing iron. |
| |
| Down |
| 6 |
T[-o]WER,P - I thought this was very cleverly done, with some well disguised wordplay. |
| 8 |
N in DOORS - “roughly equally” tells us that the N doesn’t quite go in the middle of DOORS. |
| 9 |
hidden in “thE DICTionary” |
| 18 |
LOCKE,DON |
| 19 |
HYS,SOP - which is SOPHY’S cut in half and the bits switched around. |
| 20 |
RED,DO (going up) |
| 28 |
O,OIL (going up) - an OLIO is a mixture or medley. |
Posted in Independent | 1 Comment »
Posted by C G Rishikesh on 1st April 2008
Indian wrestling
Across
1 Omitted on purpose
10 CHAMOIS - anag. of a, h, si(-t)com
11 STAPLER - L. (”line”) in anag. of ‘paster’
13 DEMIJOHN - appears to have no cryptic element in it; in early stages I was thinking OS goes into a word meaning ‘wicker’; though familiar with the word, I learnt only now that a demijohn is enclosed in wickerwork.
15 HOMECRAFTS - anag. of ‘forms teach’ - Till a couple of decades ago parents in India seeking bridegrooms for their daughters used to say in matrimonial ads that the latter were “domestically trained”.
20 NEGOTIATOR - solved at a later stage from def. and crossings but I am unable to parse it fully; I can see “possessed” = GOT IT, “gold” = OR. I rarely feel the need to use a scribble pad for breakups or even anagrams. Here I give up even after some jottings.
22 RESERVED - two definitions - ignore that “started the game again” is ‘re-served’
27 ANILINE - a Nil(in)e - “all the rage” = fashionable = in
28 Omitted on purpose
Down
2 REALISM - anag. of R A, smile
3 SHOELACE - CD - “Oxford” refers not to the University but to shoes; can “I” in such clues be an inanimate thing?
4 WEST - W (”the centre of NeWry”), est, L. for “is”
6 KHAKI - marginally cryptic - “material” being fabric not equipment
8 Omitted on purpose
9 Omitted on purpose
17 FILTHIER - anag. of “hit” with “rifle”, “inaccurate” being the anag. signal - I knew the word must end in -er, yet I solved it only at the finishing stage; that is because I was not on the same 14dn as the setter’s.
21 TANKING - t(-h)anking - ‘tank’ is slang for ’thrash’
23 ROOST - roo (”animal”, short for kangaroo), ’s, t (”time”)
Posted in FT | 6 Comments »