Independent 6707/Virgilius - Placeholder
Posted by tilsit on 15th April 2008
Full blog to appear soon…
Posted in Independent | 7 Comments »
Archive for April 15th, 2008
Guardian 24363/Brummie
Posted by Colin Blackburn on 15th April 2008
Several very easy hidden clues mingled in with some more difficult clues. One word I had to cheat on and look up, another I just couldn’t get despite it being easy, with hindsight! In addition there were a two themes running through the puzzle. The four outer entries all contained colours. The second theme was then based on 1a. However, the answer to this one brings back painful memories of a Listener failure in 2007 that I recently discovered through the annual statistics.
* = anagram
< = reversal
“” = homophone
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LITTLE GREEN MEN | LITTLE+GREEN+MEN | A few months ago I went to a talk by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell on her discovery of pulsars. One of her slides showed the original pen-trace with the regular tick of the first pulsars clearly visible. Next to the traces were written, LGM-1 and LGM-2. At that time the oscillations were just too regular and LITTLE GREEN MEN was a definite possibility. |
| 8 | VENUS | (ha)VE + SUN< | SUN = daily (newspaper) and ref Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. |
| 11 | NACELLE | EL in CLEAN* | I failed on this one as I spent too long trying to fit LE or LA in rather than thinking of EL (or even IL) as a foreign article. It didn’t help that the word was a new one on me. A NACELLE is a streamlined structure housing an engine on a plane, car, boat or other form of transport. |
| 12 | INEARTH | IN+EARTH | |
| 17 | BARNSTORM | BAR+N+S+TO+R(oo)M | |
| 20 | ACTED | AC+TED | ref Ted Hughes. |
| 23 | NEEDFUL | NE(E)D + FU(e)L | the letters are all in the clue but the E is moved 3 places, it could have been moved 4 places. |
| 25 | CHURLISH | HURL+I+S in CH | Brummie = I but cleverly hides Bob = Shilling = S. |
| 27 | A WHITE ELEPHANT | A WHITE + ELEPHANT | odd one this. The cryptic reference is to Humph (Humphrey Littleton) being A WHITE rather than a black trumpeter as Satchmo (Louis Armstrong) would be. Trumpeter is then used to define elephant and so seems to be doing double duty here. |
| Down | |||
| 1 | LAVENDER BLUE | LAV.+ENDER + BLUE | rude = BLUE. The song has lots of “dilly dilly”s in it. |
| 4 | GASKELL | GASKE(T) + L+L | I think “lives” here is meaning use the abbreviation L = live twice. |
| 5 | ELYSIUM | ELY + (I in SUM) | SUM = (maths) problem |
| 7 | EYES RIGHT | YES+R in EIGHT | rowers is more often EIGHT than four or two. |
| 10 | THE RED PLANET | (PLANTED THREE)* | LGMs were often though to come from Mars, the Red Planet rather than a green one. |
| 14 | SCRIMSHAW | (SCHISM+WAR)* | sailors in the past used to carve or engrave bone or shells to while away the time, this is SCRIMSHAW. |
| 16 | SPACESHIP | SPACES+HIP | |
| 18 | OLD-TIME | TOLD* + I+ME | again Brummie is refering to himself but twice this time. |
| 22 | VERDI | E(lland)+RD in VI | I think it’s a long time, if ever, since Elland Road (home of Leeds United) will have been entertained with a double hat trick = VI. |
| 24 | FONDA | “fonder” | despite this appearing easy I just didn’t see it, and that’s after running through the alphabet for the fourth letter! Henry, Jane, Peter or Bridget. Take your pick. |
Posted in Guardian | 6 Comments »
Financial Times 12742 / by Highlander
Posted by C G Rishikesh on 15th April 2008
I breezed through this crossword, taking less than 15 minutes. This time around I solved all but a couple of Down clues first before looking at the Across set. When once these were put down, some of the Acrosses were correctly guessed even before reading the clues or before reading them fully.
On an analysis of clue-types, I find: charade - 12; two definitions - 5; container/contained - 6; anagram after deletion - 1; anagram - 5; charade with anagram component - 1; reversal - 1; telescopic - 1 Total - 32.
Across
1 PRIMROSE - prim, rose - charade - Whether ’stood up’ is ‘behind formal’ is debatable.
5 SPRING - two definitions
9 SUPPLIER - supp(l,i)er - container/contained
10 CLEFTS - c(left)s - container/contained
12 ROUND - two definitions
13 DEBUTANTE - debut,ante - charade - not a very satisfactory word breakup as ‘debut’ is closely related to the answer word
14 BETTER - two definitions - I would think ‘better’ = improved, not ‘is improving’
16 DEBACLE - anag. of ‘bleaced’ after deleting ‘h’ from ‘bleached’ - anag. after deletion
19 RETREAT - two definitions
21 THEORY - the(or)y - container/contained - cf. 21 dn.
23 PALATABLE - pal, a, table - charade - see comment below
25 SHEER - two definitions
26 SOLVER - anag. of ‘lovers’ - by including ‘hopefully’ in the clue, the setter seems to think that someone after looking at the crossword may turn away from it without attempting it. In the surface reading ‘you’ is plural but as def. for word required it is singular.
27 PARROTED - anag. of ‘part, rode’ (ignoring the comma)
28 LOCATE - l(OC)ate - container/contained
29 HYSTERIA - anag. of ‘this year’ - the def. is ‘frenzied laughter’ but I would think that ‘hysteria’ might manifest in frenzied crying too.
Down
1 PASTRY - pa’s, try - charade -don’t these dads ever complete the job of baking? I am not quite happy with ‘dough’ as the definition.
2 IMPRUDENT - i’m, prudent - charade
3 RILED - RI, led - charade
4 SLENDER - s(l)ender - container/contained
6 PALATABLE - pal, a, table - charade - see 23 ac. above - to repeat the same word in a crossword is a ‘no-no’, to repeat the wordplay to boot is more so. But crossword compilers sometimes turn puckish.
7 IN FUN - anag. of ‘if nun’
8 GAS METER - anag. of ‘eg stream’
11 IBID - I, bid - charade
15 TREATMENT - treat,men, t - charade
17 CARPENTER - carp, enter - charade
18 PROPOSAL - prop, osal (anag. of ‘also’) - charade with anag.component
20 TUBA - Rev. of ‘abut’ - reversal - The def. for the word required is only ‘touch’, the ‘up’ from ‘touch up’ in the surface reading being the rev. ind.
21 THERAPY - the(rap)y - container/contained - More careful compilers might perhaps avoid the use in any clue of a word that is an answer word in the grid. The word ‘treatment’ in this clue is the solution for Clue 15 in the same segment. Both 21 ac and 21 dn have the same ‘container’ that is given gratis to 26 ac.
22 GRADE A - anag. of ‘grade’, a OR anag. of ‘grade’ around a - charade with an anag. component OR container/contained with anag. component
24 LILAC - hidden in ’shalL I LACk’ - telescopic
25 SPRAT - Sp., rat
Posted in FT | 3 Comments »