Fifteensquared

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Archive for June 4th, 2008

Independent 6750/Dac

Posted by neildubya on 4th June 2008

neildubya.
Across
1 MAT,THE,W - not sure which writer this is referring to; perhaps the author of the Gospel of MATTHEW?
5 DEFACED - the letters of which are all musical notes.
10 OB,[-a]VIATING
11 DE,CLARE - I didn’t understand “nun, poor woman” when I filled this in but a bit of Googling reveals that it seems to be a reference to Clare of Assisi, who founded an order of nun known as the Poor Clares.
16 PROPOSITION - not really about this one. A PROPOSITION is an invitation to have sex, which kind of fits with “call girl’s job” but why does the clue end “is to —”?
18 ERE in THIN
24 [-m]INI,GO
25 (ENTRIES)* - a reference to the schools founded by STEINER Waldorf.
 
Down
2 TOUT COURT - this was new to me also. Literally means “very short” (I think) in French but has come to mean “briefly”.
5 VID (going up) - DIV is a shortened form of “divvy”. Nice (and somewhat surprising) to see that a bit of playground slang from my childhood has made it into the dictionary. The COED has, tantalisingly: “-ORIGIN 1970s: of unknown origin”.
6 RAG in FILE
7 hidden in “lunCH IN Eatery” - a cut of meat, usually pork I think.
8 DIG,IT,A LIN[-e]
12 (TO S COU[-n]TRIES)* - ECOTOURISTS.
13 DIP,”Styx” - a reference to the mythological river which separated Earth from the Underworld.
14 (TRAIN LINE)* - TRIENNIAL, or once every three years.
19 hidden reversed in “determinED AVEnger”
21 E,POXY
23 alternate letters of “rEpAiRs”

Posted in Independent | 13 Comments »

FT crossword no. 12,785 Set by SATORI, June 4 2008

Posted by Octofem on 4th June 2008

Octofem.

Some clever clues by SATORI.  I especially liked 21a, 7d. and 14d.
Would appreciate comments on 20d.  Boards made me think of theatre, but the anagram seemed clear.

ACROSS

1.    ROSARY - ros(em)ary
4.    SOMBRERO - sombre -r -o ( r for king and o for old )
10.  QUICKSAND - quick (meaning fast or fleet) - s-and (additional)
11.  TONAL - hidden clue
12.  IOTA - alternate letters in iron t-.bar
13.  THUNDERING - th- under-ing (Thing as in the song - Me and Mrs Jones ; we(’ve) got a thing going on)
15.  ALL-OVER - dd
16.  LEDGER -l-edge-r (left and right )
19.  PARROT - parr-ot (young salmon with <to)
21.  BOWLING - bow-ling (Bow, district of London, with lingo cut short)
23. PROSTHETIC - *the tropics
25. SMUT - s-<tum
27. ARROW- (h)arrow
28. TIT FOR TAT - tit-fort-at
29.  DISORDER - <red ros id ( red rose without final e. ID ))
30.  BRACED - brace -d ( a pair plus old penny)

DOWN

1.   REQUITAL - re-quit-al ( one’s just deserts)
2.   SCINTILLA - * I can still (a spark or twinkling)
3.   RAKE -double definition .
5.   ORDINAL - or-din-al ( ’second’ is an example of one)
6.   BATTEN DOWN - (dd, if batsman  ten is down , all wickets have gone)
7.   ENNUI- sounds like ‘Henri’ spoken by Jonathan Ross trying to talk French!
                    Henri Cartier-Bresson - famous French Photographer )
8.   OBLIGE  - ob-lig-e (OBE with <gill minus the final ‘l’_
9.   omitted
14. IVORY TOWER - dd ( an ivory can be a tooth as well as a piano key. )
17. ENIGMATIC- *giant mice
18. AGITATED - ag-itat-ed ([Jacques] Tati reversed within aged)
20. TRESTLE - * street with ‘l’ -(not sure of word play, unless the plane
                               is a piece of wood with support,)
21. BLINTZ - bli-n-tz ( a type of pancake popularised in America by Jewish
                                      immigrants and often served on Jewish holidays)
22. omitted
24. ORRIS - (f)or-<sir ( another name of iris or flag)
26. MOOR - dd

 

 

Posted in FT | 4 Comments »

Guardian 24,406 Quantum

Posted by stan on 4th June 2008

stan.

I was sorry to hear of the death of Eric Burge, who I’ve “only” known through his Quantum crosswords in The Guardian.

To a non-crossworder, it would seem that I should therefore hardly notice his passing. What they don’t realise is that the thing about solving someone’s crosswords is that over a number of years you learn what makes them laugh, what irritates them and what interests them. Good setters have a “voice” that you can pick out in a moment. Quantum set some very pleasing puzzles and his voice was gentle, straight and if he could work a science reference in, then even better.

A perfect example of his style was this clue from a while back.

“Mixed, as in molecules (13)”

His puzzles were pure Ximenean and relied on cryptic definition and clever anagrams, so today’s puzzle was absolutely typical of his style.

Thanks to his widow for allowing us the pleasure of his posthumous puzzles, and my thoughts are with her today.

ACROSS

9 USURP : (PURSUe)*

10 AIRLIFTED : (FLAIR TIDE)*

11 UNC(l)E-R(T)AIN

12 LI(TR)E : “Tr.” is a standard abbreviation for “translated”

13 M.A-EST.-R-O

15 HOT-SHOT : “shot” as  in “it’s my shot now”

17 Omitted on purpose - it’s all in the clue

18 BUS : SUB (i.e a “subscription”) reversed. Not sure which is harder to reverse, a sub or a bus …

20 ORGAN : I had BUGLE  to start with, which made 6d challenging

22 RESID(U)E

25 TEXT-URE

26 V(I-ST)A

27 RURALISED : (LAIRD RUES)*

30 CoLt-EVEREST

31 LIMIT

DOWN

1 GU-RU : I think RU (Rugy Union) is the football, but otherwise …. help !

2 LUNCHEON : (UNCLE H ON) - always wondered why “H” for “Henry” ?

3 SPAR = RAPS reversed

4 One of the easiest anagrams I’ve seen in ages, so I’ll omit this

5 CRUNCH : “Champ” as in “champ at the bit”

6 BILLET DOUX : It is an old-fashioned love letter, and it ends in “X”

7 S-TITCH : ref. to “a stitch in time saves nine” , a common  English saying  which means “any effort you put into guarding against mishap is likely to be a ninth of the effort you’ll put in should the mishap happen”. The factor of 9 is not scientifically tested, but is poetically necessary.

8 EDGE

13 MUSER : (RESUMe) reversed

14 TREAD WATER : (WE DART TEAR)*

16 TENSE

19 SATURATE : (TREAT US)*

21 GRUE-SOME : (URGE)* + SOME

23 S(l)ASHES

24 (l)EARNER

26 Omitted on purpose -  easy double definition

28 LILT : (I’LL)* +T

29 D.A-TA : “D.A” is a U.S “District Attorney”

Posted in Guardian | 9 Comments »