Posted by rightback on 31st May 2008
Solving time: 28:00, over half of which on 1dn, 10ac and 15ac.
I had a good start on this, stalled a little in the middle until I untangled BODICE RIPPER at 22/21dn, and then came to a complete halt on the three starred clues. Got there in the end, although PINK at 10ac was only a semi-educated guess.
I generally like Shed’s clues, although some of the surface readings are a bit strange and there are a few too many superfluous words and other inaccuracies in this puzzle for my liking.
* = anagram.
| Across |
| 7 |
NEMATODE; (ATOM)* in rev. of EDEN |
| 9 |
OUT SET |
| *10 |
PINK (double definition) - I probably spent 6 or 7 minutes on this clue, looking at all the possibilities for the third letter (C, L, N, R, S etc) and postulating an ‘I’ from 1dn. ‘Pink’ as a noun meaning a pink flower rang a small bell, and as I knew that ‘pink had several other meanings (eight separate entries in Chambers!) I went with it - and it turns out that one of those meanings is ‘to stab or pierce’. |
| 11 |
INTESTINAL; IN, + rev. of NITS in TEAL |
| 12 |
ME(R.M.)AN |
| 14 |
TEMPLATE; (PALETTE)* around M |
| *15 |
TINT + IN - I don’t know why this took me so long. I thought ‘in’ might give the last two letters but even with a possible ‘T’ from 1dn, all I could see was ‘tannin’. (And I now learn from Chambers that although tannin is used in tanning and occurs in wines, especially red wines, it is actually a colourless substance.) A very good clue though. |
| 17 |
BRIGHT[on] - ‘on departure’ seems clumsy. Why not ‘on departing’? |
| 20 |
T(R)OPICAL |
| 22 |
BITTE + R - ‘bitte’ is German for ‘please’ but not ‘to please’ (which I believe is ‘bitten’) so the ‘to’ in this clue is awkwardly superfluous. I suppose you could argue that it means ‘next to’. |
| 23 |
SPELLBOUND; (ELL in PB) in SOUND - tough wordplay. |
| 24 |
PUP + A |
| 25 |
SEX + TET - the Tet Offensive was part of the Vietnam War. |
| 26 |
TICKLISH (double definition) |
| Down |
| *1 |
PE(DIME)NT - not a word I knew and this took me a long time to get. |
| 2 |
MARK (double definition) |
| 3 |
LOTION; rev. of TO in LION - for this clue to make cryptic sense, you have to read ‘to’ as a plural (i.e. a group of letters) so that ‘to turn up’ makes sense, but this doesn’t feel quite right to me. |
| 4 |
GOSSAMER; rev. of MASS in GOER |
| 5 |
S(TRIP)LIGHT |
| 6 |
RE PAST - I liked this one. |
| 8 |
ENTITY; N.T. in [d]EITY |
| 13 |
MANIPULATE; rev. of A LUPIN in MATE |
| 16 |
INCUBATE; CUBA in (TEN I)* - a premonition of England’s forthcoming match against Trinidad & Tobago, perhaps? |
| 18 |
TRES(SPA)S |
| 19 |
FL + AUNT - ‘was active’ for FL (standing for ‘floruit’, meaning ‘he flourished’) is pretty difficult. |
| 22/21 |
BO(DICER + I)PPER - I had to dissect the wordplay here as I didn’t know the phrase ‘bodice ripper’. |
| 24 |
PELT (double definition) - another superfluous ‘to’ here. The ALF is the Animal Liberation Front. |
Posted in Guardian | 2 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 30th May 2008
Ran into a brick wall about halfway through this one and then spotted the Nina (referenced in 9), which got things moving again. Still don’t understand a few things here and there though.
| Across |
| 1 |
(HAS)* in HU[-b]BY - HUSHABY. Think I’ve parsed that correctly, with the definition being “at Bedtime song”. |
| 5 |
US,(INTO)*,V - Peter USTINOV. |
| 10 |
AC,I,DRAIN |
| 12 |
PEON[-y] - a farm labourer in Latin America. |
| 13 |
AMEN CORNER - a bit before my time but I had heard of AMEN CORNER (the band) as I remember my Dad introducing me to “Wide-eyed and legless”, a song by their former lead singer Andy Fairweather-Low. It’s also holes 11, 12 and 13 on the Augusta golf course. |
| 14 |
hidden in “tiPSY CHOreographer” |
| 16 |
O TO Z in PROA - “the last dozen characters” is O TO Z and PROA has come up twice in recent puzzles, which definitely helped me. |
| 17 |
AS in IN VAIN - not sure what “bit by bit” is doing…? |
| 20 |
BELIEF - not sure how this one works: “Credit what S used to do in a bygone age”. I filled it in because it fit with the definition and the Nina. |
| 22 |
(ANGRILY SIT)* - LARYNGITIS. |
| 25 |
(BAR YOU)* - YORUBA. |
| 27 |
GESTE in ED |
| |
| Down |
| 2 |
UNCLE[-an] - no, I don’t know why UNCLE is slang for “pawnbroker” either. |
| 3 |
hidden in “perisHED ON ICy” - I think “shores” works really well as the hidden indicator here. |
| 6 |
SIROCCO - can’t work out this one either, apart from the definition: “Very good 70s pop band holding right to break wind”. Ker-razy surface reading. |
| 8 |
ON THE NOSE - why “offensive to Aussies”? |
| 9 |
ONCE UPON A TIME - “Fairytale start” and (4,4,1,4) got this for me but it was a while before I spotted what the rest of the clue was about. If you’re still in the dark, look at the 1st and 15th columns. |
| 15 |
(GANGLIONS)* - SINGALONG. |
| 18 |
A,Y L in SUMS |
| 21 |
LOWBROW - can’t work out this one either: “Thicko out on a limb collecting zero wickets and run out”. |
Posted in Independent | 12 Comments »
Posted by Ali on 30th May 2008
I struggled to get going with this, only solving one of the Across clues on my first pass. A few nice, long cryptic definitions eventually got the ball rolling and everything else then fell into place. Good stuff as usual, though the wordplay in one clue (22A) has me stumped, which is a rarity for Phi I must say!
| Across |
| 7 |
ANNEX - ANNE[-x] |
| 8/10 |
PEDESTRIAN CROSSING - CD. Needed a few checking letters before I got the first half of this |
| 11 |
HEAVEN - H,A in EVEN |
| 14 |
TEAR DUCT - (A CRUDE)* in TT - “A source of salt water” is a neat definition here |
| 15 |
CAPITAL ASSETS - CAPITAL,SET in ASS |
| 18 |
CLERICAL - ERIC in (CALL)* |
| 20 |
IMPOST - IM,POST |
| 22 |
PAELLA - As above, am stumped by this one. Any help appreciated |
| 24,25 |
COMPUTER SCIENTISTS - Another CD. Even with ???E?T?S?S, this took a while for me to get |
| 26 |
KELP - [-la]KE,L,P |
| |
| Down |
| 1 |
UNCRITICAL - CR in UNIT,I CAL[-l] |
| 3 |
OPTIMIST - IT rev. in (IMPOST)* |
| 5 |
ORGANDIE - ORGAN,DIE - A new word for me. It’s like muslin apparently |
| 9 |
DIGITAL CLOCKS - CD number 3 |
| 14 |
CASUS BELLI - C(”initially captured”),AS,US,BELL,I - I think I first came across this phrase in a Listener or Azed puzzle. An odd one if you’re not familiar with random Latin, but this is as good a clue as I’ve seen for it |
| 16 |
PARALLEL - PAR ALL,EL - Clue of the day! (”Hole out consistently - and for Olazabal the equivalent?”) |
| 19 |
CRAFTY - CRAFT,Y |
| 21 |
PLUCKY - P,LUCKY |
| 23 |
ARCH - [-p]ARCH |
Posted in Independent | 5 Comments »
Posted by Octofem on 30th May 2008
Not too troublesome today - one or two pleasing clues with a few rather obvious ones.
ACROSS
1. TAFFRAIL - <fat-frail (upper part of the stern of a ship)
5. STASIS - dd. (East German secret police, suspended animation)
9. REINVENT - rein, vent
10. VIRAGO - ( Virgo with ‘a’)
11. ADHESIVE - a -d-hes-ive - (a dive in the sense of a low class club etc)
12. omitted
14. STONEHENGE - *gets around one-hen ( This was rather neat, I thought)
18. FIELD EVENT- def., as opposed to track event
22. LOOK ON - o.k. within loon (American name for a diving bird)
23. CAREFREE - (s) care - free.
24. omitted
25. TINCTURE - dd. ( or maybe treble, a solution of alcohol and water, a trace or smattering, a dye or pigment)
26. TURRET- *utter with r from revived
27. ENGENDER - very obvious one with e-ng-ender.
DOWN
1. TURBAN - t-urban
2,16. FLIGHT RECORDER dd (black box used to track aircraft’s history after crash, for instance)
3. RAVISH - vi within rash ( reminds me of a time many years ago at University when I declared
to friends that a dishy professor had ‘ravished me with a smile.’ An early example of my misuse of words - truly!
4. INNOVATIVE- In -Nov <Evita (Another inventive clue )
6. TWILIGHT - Not sure of the word-play here. Twilight Zone is a well-known American TV series
which no doubt has many followers but could do with an explanation of the clue.
7,20. STAMPING GROUND * mad pigs grunt on
8. SHOULDER - should -er ( to bear in sense of carry)
13. INUNDATE- i-n-und-ation (German word for’and’ within 1 nation)
15. AFFLUENT - effluent with change of first letter
17. ADVOCATE - ad-vo-ca-te
19. RESCUE (rest-cue , with t(ime) removed)2
21. METEOR *remote
Posted in FT | 3 Comments »
Posted by diagacht on 30th May 2008
| Across |
| 1 |
DECIDED: CID in DEED |
| 5 |
DELIBES: DLIBErateS without rate. Refers to Leo Delibes the French romantic composer |
| 10 |
NEWCASTLE: anagram of LEWES CANT |
| 11 |
OFF WITH HIS HEAD: from Lewis Carroll’s Queen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Also much used by Shakespeare! |
| 13 |
OARE: OAR + E |
| 14 |
ALTARNUN: sounds like ‘alter none’ |
| 17 |
EYESIGHT: YES in EIGHT |
| 18 |
RHEA: oveRHEAd without an anagram of ‘dove’ |
| 21 |
PERFECT EXAMPLE: PERFECT (grammatical tense) + EX + AMPLE (adequate) |
| 23 |
TIGERWOOD: a kind of wood and the singular writing of the great golfer Tiger Woods |
| 24 |
TENSE: anagram of SENT + E |
| 25 |
YPSILON: I SPY (reversed) + half LONdon |
| 26 |
SYCOSIS: sounds like psychosis |
|
| Down |
| 1 |
DUDS: double definition |
| 2 |
CASH FOR PEERAGES: CASH FOR PEE (toilet charge) + RAGES |
| 3 |
DISOWN: IS (one’s) in DOWN |
| 6 |
LOADSTAR: anagram of LAST ROAD |
| 7 |
BETWEEN THE LINES: I think this is a double definition. |
| 8 |
SHELDONIAN: anagram of IS ON HANDEL, for the Oxford theatre |
| 12 |
HOMEOPATHY: HOME (in) + O (love) + PATH Y (unknown way) |
| 15 |
DIHEDRAL: anagram of DR HAILED. I have no idea what the aerodynamic feature is. I know the word within the context of mathematics, referring to that bounded by two planes (not aeroplanes!) |
| 16 |
SHUT DOWN: SH + UT + DOWN |
| 19 |
EXODUS: Not confident of this one. EX (once) OD (in the red, as in overdrawn) + US (those on the Guardian team?) |
| 20 |
EMETIC: reverse CITE ME (as in the setter) |
| 22 |
TEAS: TEASe without the ‘e’, to chaff |
Posted in Guardian | 8 Comments »