Posted by John on 18th April 2008
The usual sound and enjoyable stuff from Phi - there don’t seem to be many novels here and I wonder if I’m missing anything.
| Across |
| 9 |
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, one of the four 20s |
| 10 |
REP LET (sal)E |
| 11 |
REBECCA - rebe(l) acc(rev.), the second 20 |
| 12 |
TUDOR - d in rout(rev.) |
| 13 |
T(A RANT)AR A |
| 15 |
THE SHIPPING NEWS - the third 20 |
| 18 |
AN TIP AS TO |
| 20 |
NOVEL - I don’t understand this. New OK, but the rest of it? |
| 22 |
TH(e) ROUGH |
| 24 |
EARPLUG - (Elgar up)* |
| 26 |
COLD COM(FORT FAR)M - the fourth 20 |
| |
|
| |
| Down |
| 1 |
STAR(kers). I think the ‘possibly’ goes with ‘actress’, since a male actor can also be a star. |
| 2 |
STU(PI)D(y) |
| 3 |
RE(SE)AR CH |
| 4 |
VIDEOTAPES - (pose TV idea)* |
| 5 |
THOR(n) - I think this is it, although a thorn is arguably not a sore point but a point that makes one sore, which isn’t quite the same thing. |
| 6 |
THE BAN |
| 7 |
PUR(CHA)SE |
| 8 |
MET A TAR’S AL(l) |
| 12 |
TETRASTICH - (that cries)* about (poe)t. Not a word I use every day, but easy enough once there are some checking letters. |
| 14 |
RHINOCEROS - (horn is core)* |
| 16 |
(g)ENT(IRE)LY I think. |
| 17 |
GENE RATE |
| 19 |
P(A)UNCH |
| 21 |
V U L G(athering) A(ctual) R(ecords) |
| 23 |
HUM P |
| 25 |
GAME - 2 mngs I think |
Posted in Independent | 4 Comments »
Posted by ilancaron on 18th April 2008
A couple of unfamiliar words had me scurrying to the dictionary, e.g. PSITTACOSIS and I’m still not sure about a wordplay or two. Par for the course. Updated based on comments.
Across
| 1 |
RA(MI,F[ive])Y - RAY’s our man and a slightly cheeky way to produce F via roman V=five’s first letter. No idea what I was thinking — must have mentally substituted V for 5 and then forgotten about it: it’s just 5=Five. |
| 4 |
C(RIMIN[i])AL - CAL’s our state, RIMINI’s our Italian city. |
| 9 |
RE(SI)ST - SI’s our abbreviation for Systeme Internationale (for standard units) — well, international other than the US and Britain. |
| 10 |
S,PLATTER - which is our mess. |
| 11 |
IN,AUS,PIC,IOU,SLY - AUS is ‘down under’, SLY’s our nickname for Sylvester Stallone. |
| 13 |
PEC,CAD,ILL,O - I don’t see how PECCAD is produced by “muscleman of ill repute” though. PEC’s our muscle and man of ill repute is a CAD so another minor non-Ximenean infraction. |
| 14 |
LAV,A - it flows and LAV’s our bog (toilet). |
| 18 |
STRIP(TEAS)E - obviously, Shed goes to the sketchy part of town for his STRIPTEASEs. |
| 21 |
CHILL,ICON,C,ARNE - I like defining CHILLI as “hot chow”. ARNE is our (perennial) English “composer”. |
| 24 |
VESSEL - two meanings |
| 25 |
REARM,OST - OST is “east” in German and if you need to get ready for the next war, you’d better REARM now. |
| 26 |
TY,RANT - 20 is T[went]Y. |
Down
| 1 |
RARE - def is ‘excellent’ but I don’t see the 2nd half; “Having just been shown the pan is excellent”. Speculation in comments that briefly cooked is “just been shown the pan…”? |
| 2 |
MA,SONIC |
|
| 3 |
FIST,U,LAR - new word for me: means tubular. U’s our turn and LAR is our household god. |
| 5 |
RAP,SC(ALL)ION |
| 7 |
NA=rev(an),TASH,A - TASH must be slang for mustache somewhere. And NATASHA’s our girl. |
| 8 |
L(ARDY C)AKE - (D’Arcy)* in LAKE. |
| 12 |
P(S)ITTA,COS,IS - I’ve seen this before but still needed a dictionary and I’m certainly not sure how to pronounce it. Cryptic lettuce is often conveniently COS. Oh, it’s a rather nasty bird disease. |
| 13 |
PUSH,CHAIR - it’s a buggy but I give up on the wordplay: “Reportedly pedal president’s buggy”. pedal=”PEDDLE”=push and CHAIR is president. |
| 15 |
STRA(TEG)Y - TEG is a useful cryptic (young) sheep |
| 17 |
CHIMER,A |
| 19 |
A(MNE)SIA - MEN* in ASIA (”incontinent”). The question-mark indicating the minor non-Ximenean infraction. |
| 20 |
A,LARUM=rev(mural) |
| 22 |
SLOT[h] - one of the seven deadly. |
Posted in Guardian, Uncategorized | 9 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 18th April 2008
Excellent puzzle from Morph with a theme that must be close to the heart of many a crossword solver: 10A. The ones I recognised were 4a,9a,27a,3d,4d,6d and 17d. I think I noticed what was going on around halfway through but it didn’t really help with the rest of the puzzle. The top-left hand corner in particular was proving very stubborn until I got 1a.
| Across |
| 4 |
MOB<,BAR,(DIRE)* - not completely convinced by “tackle” as an anagram indicator but, apart from adding to the football-related surface reading, I think I see what Morph is getting at here as tackle can mean “deal with” or “solve a problem”. |
| 9 |
L,AND LORD - nicely disguised definition: “he lets out”. |
| 10 |
BIT,TER[-m] - I think this is right as a BIT is something that drills or bores a hole. |
| 12 |
LIT,TOR,AL[-l] - I knew the word LITTORAL but was a bit hazy as to it’s meaning so this went in fairly late. |
| 13 |
MERE - definitely not sure about this one. A MERE is a pond so “pool of water” fits as the definition but I don’t understand what “going down below sofa” is about. |
| 14 |
I SOLD E - of “Tristan and…” fame. Nice clue that could almost be a headline for a number of tabloids. |
| 19 |
LP in AS - “Holding record as” needs to be read as “as holding record”. |
| 24 |
COUNTY - “Beds” is of course short for Bedfordshire and being an aristocrat could be being count-like or count-y. |
| 25 |
[a]R[e] H[e] Y[ou] T[o] H[u]M - I thought this was very cleverly done: “Are you and he to hum without vocals? Need a sense of beat”. |
| 26 |
ELECT,RIC[-hards] - “Richards stops after first note” had me confused for a while but I think it refers to C being the first musical note in RICHARDS. |
| 27 |
BLACKS,HEEP - any reference to a “humble character” in a clue is practically a dead cert for Uriah HEEP, a character from David Copperfield who went around telling everyone how ‘umble he was. |
| |
| Down |
| 2 |
UNA,MUSED - one of the last couple to go in and I thought for a while I was going to have to admit defeat. It was only when I got 1a that I was able to make headway as it occurred to me that “A Spanish female” could be UNA (the feminine form of “one” in Spanish). |
| 3 |
GIDE (going up) in (PEER)* - PEDIGREE. Another one that gave me trouble (the top left-hand of the grid was a bit of nightmare all round for me really) but this one shouldn’t have as I spotted GIDE for “French author” quite quickly. But for some reason, it took much longer to see that “Eccentric peer” was (PEER)*. D’oh. |
| 4 |
BROADS,I,DE - nice tennis-related surface reading. |
| 5 |
(I DEFEND WORMHOLE)* - MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. |
| 6 |
AB[-s],BOT[-tom] |
| 8 |
EVEN AS - there isn’t a 7A in the puzzle so something else is going on here: write 7A as SEVENA and move the first letter so that it’s the last. |
| 15 |
(HAD T[-o] PRICE)* - another very good clue with some clever wording: “had to cut price” is so natural sounding that it’s easy to miss what it’s telling you to do. |
| 16 |
BAGUETTE - a small bag (”petit sac”) could be a bag-ette. |
Posted in Independent | 7 Comments »
Posted by petebiddlecombe on 18th April 2008
Solving time: ages!
This was a classic example of the kind of themed puzzle for which solver A can spot the theme instantly and have the whole thing done in an hour or two, and solver B can grind away for hours before the penny drops. This time, I was definitely solver B! I should have read the title and preamble carefully, and then considered anniversaries. This might have helped me to remember that the first CND march to Aldermaston took place in 1958 (which I knew within a year or two). I would then have seen that Aldermaston was a destination with the right number of letters.
Instead, I concentrated on solving clues and finding possible locations for the blank squares. This got me nowhere fast, as I just had a set of answers near the top of the grid, and very little else for a long time. To make progress, I resorted to a couple of Chambers CD-Rom full-text searches, which means I lost the battle. This got me as far as seeing a good chunk of the outline of the CND roundel symbol, though I wasn’t yet sure whether it was a letter C or a circle - or an octagon, come to that.
Something (possibly the ‘first’ in the extra letters phrase) eventually made me think of 1908 and then 1958 as possible dates, and at last the penny dropped. Then all was pretty plain sailing, except that in “First march by CND”, I’m not yet sure where the H in march and D in CND come from - maybe writing this will help?
| Across |
| 1 |
F |
ALTERCATION - E in (a lot in craft)* |
| 10 |
|
TI(R.A.)DE |
| 12 |
I |
OVERSEE - Erse in (O,vie) |
| 14 |
R |
NENE - N,erne - British setters have the luxury of cluing Nene as ‘river’ rather than the giveaway ‘Hawaiian goose’ |
| 15 |
|
MOSS - 2 defs |
| 16 |
|
ETNA - an old-fashioned name for some kind of boiler, = ante rev. |
| 18 |
|
KA(T)Y - new barred-grid solvers note that letter names like kay count as words in Chambers |
| 19 |
S |
ERINITE - Erin in site |
| 20 |
|
SO(u)L, ref. the footballing Mr. Campbell |
| 22 |
|
A,C.(IN)I. - pl. of acinus - the bits of a raspberry or similar fruit. |
| 23 |
|
TERRACOTTA - (carrot*,T) in tea |
| 26 |
|
A,B.S.(e.) |
| 27 |
T |
ERG - TERG(um) |
| 28 |
|
S.A.(LA)D. |
| 30 |
M |
AITS - A,M.I.T.,S |
| 32 |
A |
RICH - AR(I)CH |
| 33 |
|
MENU - reverse hidden word |
| 34 |
|
(b)RACH |
| 35 |
|
RE,ACTOR |
| 36 |
R |
AENEID - A(René)ID |
| 37 |
|
ALDERMASTON - the destination |
| |
| Down |
| 1 |
|
S(TREE,T.T.,HE)AT(i)RE - actor = Tree (Sir Herbert Beerbohm T) lives on still … |
| 2 |
C |
AINTREE - A1,N.T.,Cree - a cheeky hint at another possible theme for a puzzle printed on the day of the Grand National! |
| 3 |
|
T(A NAG)RA - a bird genus - same thing a tanager, the word I remembered and looked up |
| 4 |
|
(s)EDEN(t) - P.M. until a couple of years before the theme, if I’m right in thinking that he resigned in 1956, just after Suez. |
| 5 |
|
CORM(orant) - only just spotted the fiendish wordplay for this - an orant is a worshipping figure in Greek and early Christian art, and we can take it for granted that cormorant = gannet = glutton. |
| 6 |
|
TE(MEN)OS - TEOS must be a the Gk. place |
| 7 |
|
O.S.,S.A - another Greek place! |
| 8 |
H |
NESTOR - nesh,tor - Here’s the H! - nesh = lacking energy |
| 9 |
|
JEKYLL,AND,HYDE=”hide” - I must assume that there was a famous gardener called Jekyll. |
| 11 |
B |
RENIG - (b)REN,(G.I. rev) |
| 13 |
|
VATIC = inspired,A,N |
| 17 |
|
P.(I.C.A.)S.,SO |
| 20 |
Y |
ITERANT - (train yet)* |
| 21 |
C |
S(CL)ICE - remember ‘Ceylon’ when trying to think of the IVR for Sri Lanka. |
| 22 |
N |
ARBUTE - A,nr.,Bute |
| 24 |
|
TE(A CHI)N |
| 25 |
|
CRIMEA - I can see R = revolutionary leader but the rest of the wordplay is a mystery to me. Strong candidate for the extra D then! IN fact, no. |
| 29 |
|
RES - half of rested? |
| 31 |
D |
TEAL - D(T)EAL - foxed until just now by wood = deal. Aaargh! |
Posted in Inquisitor | 3 Comments »