Independent 6708/Dac
Posted by neildubya on April 16th, 2008
Dac was described last week as a “class act” by a fellow blogger - I couldn’t agree more.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | HAS,TEN - I briefly considered N for “mid-morning”. |
| 10 | IRAQI - I think the spirit is “raki”. |
| 11 | LO,(A GENT)*,ON - I knew it was a place but wasn’t sure that it was in Derbyshire - not much doubt with the wordplay though. |
| 13 | E,A in SEMIS< - I had S?A???? so SIAMESE went in without too much thought. Looking at it now, it’s quite a tricky clue to parse, with “offering accomodation” serving as a containment indicator. |
| 14 | IN,DUB[-a]I,TABLE - This was also a tricky one to parse, mainly, I think, because the clue reads so smoothly that it’s hard to see the joins. |
| 18 | (A NUT TRE[-e])*,RAIL - I filled in NATURE TRAIL when I had most of the checking letters in place because I couldn’t see what else would fit but the wordplay went completely over my head. Working out now, I accounted for everything except RAIL, which turns out to be a type of bird. |
| 22 | GETS in GEN (reversed) |
| 26 | O,NAN in REST |
| Down | |
| 1 | HAIR,GRIP - the last one in for me. In TV, a GRIP is someone who manouevres the camera. |
| 5 | (STRONG BEER)*,NINE - I think I would have struggled with this one for a while had I not immediately thought of NINE for “one over the eight”. |
| 6 | AVER,P (going up),LENT - “forty day period” made this very easy, for me at least. |
| 8 | CANNED - yet another synonym for “drunk” apparently, although I don’t think I’ve heard it before. |
| 16 | FILE (going up) in F,ACT |
| 17 | PLUG,L in (GUY)* - this is a great clue: “Tough guy shaking, clutching top of leg after getting shot”. Some lifting and separating needed on “tough guy” - the first word is the definition, and the second starts the wordplay. |
| 19 | DANCER - a ref to Wayne Sleep. |
| 20 | [-h]ALTERS |
April 16th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
24. Nothing was said about 24, my only doubtful entry. I have cream corn, but can’t see the wordplay. Please explain.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
24a I put CREAM HORN (”pastry concoction”), which is RE (”about”),(HAM)* in CORN. The Reveal feature in the online version confirms the answer.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
In 11A I presume ON is indicated by “in the vicinity of”. Is this just because if something is on top of something it will be in the same vicinity or is there a more definitive link between ON and “in the vicinity of”? Not knowing the town I initially assumed that “in the vicinity of” would indicate BY and had considered pencilling in LONG TEABY.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I wondered about ON too but Chambers Online dictionary has “very near to or along the side of something” for the fourth meaning of it and gives the example: “a house on the shore”. So, “in the vicinity of” seems fair to me.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Fair enough. BTW I forgot to say that I thought this was a really good puzzle with, as ever, brilliant surfaces and (as you mentioned) extremely well concealed breaks between wordplay and definitions.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Some very good clue here as always from Dac, and it’s always nice when I can attribute some random knowledge to the hundreds of hours of my life I’ve spent watching The Simpsons. I’d never heard of Ernest Borgnine until I saw him in the Boy Scouts episode!
April 18th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I’m still stuck with 20 across - can anyone help! Thanks.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:59 am
What was the clue?
April 18th, 2008 at 11:11 am
President completely destroyed? Not completely (7)
April 18th, 2008 at 11:13 am
ALLENDE - ALL ENDE[-d]
April 18th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Of course - many thanks.