Posted by NealH on 16th June 2008
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed
I found this quite tough and there were a number of tricky, deceptive clues.
| Across |
| 8 |
Beneficiary: Soundalike of Ben E. Fishery (Ben Elton the comedian rather than Elton John). |
| 9, 24 |
Ice Age: I[rvin]e around CE AG. |
| 10 |
Sales Resistance: (ceaseless strain)*. Not completely convinced about “involves” as an anagram indicator. |
| 11 |
Assailant: As Saint around Al<. Southampton FC are known as the Saints and it’s Al[an] Shearer (although I’ve never heard anyone call him that). |
| 13 |
Nudes: Crpytic def (barely). |
| 15, 16 |
Summer Season: Sum on around Mersea’s. |
| 19 |
Owner: Own + ER. |
| 20 |
Overspill: cryptic def. |
| 21 |
Indian Wrestling: (rigid lawn tennis)*. |
| 25 |
Ejector Seat: o in (jet creates)*. |
| Down |
| 1 |
Englishman: Single* + HM + a[dmiratio]n. Not my favourite clue since I’m English but also a republican. |
| 2 |
Offs: [T]offs. |
| 3 |
Schemas: Sch + same<. |
| 4 |
Tap Into: TA + pint + o. Good disguise of the definition. |
| 5 |
Bystanders: Stan in Derby’s*. |
| 6 |
Mien: Even letters of umpire + N. Not sure why regularly is used to mean even - it’s certainly not the mathematical definition. |
| 7 |
Reversing light: Lamp<. Possibly not one for the Ximenean purists since there doesn’t appear to be any proper definition. |
| 8 |
Busman’s Holiday: Busman’s + Holiday. |
| 12 |
Icebreaker: Cryptic def (as in breaking the ice at a party). |
| 14 |
Dispirited: DI + rips< + it + ed. |
| 17 |
Hogweed: Hog + wee + d. The last one I got, since I was stumped for another word for parsnip. The parsnip in question is actually Cow Parsnip. |
| 18 |
Memento: Me + men + to. |
| 22 |
Does: double def. |
| 23 |
Tort: homophone of taught. |
Posted in Independent | 8 Comments »
Posted by rightback on 16th June 2008
Solving time: About 15 mins I think.
The eight answers clued by definition wordplay only (asterisked below) were all types of camera, which took me a long time to spot; I think a combination of DIGITAL and PINHOLE provided the breakthrough. I’d never heard of PLATE or BROWNIE cameras, while I found the wordplay to POLAROID the hardest.
Brummie’s clues tend to have more accurate wordplay than those of most Guardian setters, while retaining the slightly off-beat element which sets this newspaper’s crossword apart form the other broadsheets’. 11ac was my favourite clue today.
Sorry this is late, for the second week running - real life and lack of Internet access have intervened over the last week and a half. Wordpress has an ‘autopost’ facility which allows blogs to be written in advance and scheduled for posting, so I’ll try to use that in future to avoid delays (although it wouldn’t have helped in this case).
Music of the day: would be ‘Somewhere In My Heart’ by Aztec Camera, but I haven’t managed to fix the sound on this prehistoric machine so no link I’m afraid.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across |
| 1 |
CUP(I’D)S |
| 4 |
M(RSM)OP - RSM = Regimental Sergeant Major. It didn’t occur to me that ‘Warrant Officer’ might be anything other than WO, which made this and 5dn rather tricky. |
| 9 |
EMMA; rev. of [h]AMME[r] |
| 10 |
GIRLFRIEND; (FIELDING + R + R)* - nice definition (’Bird some say’). |
| 11 |
CAVE A[r]T - excellent. |
| 12 |
A VERSION |
| 13 |
ETYMOLOGY; (GLOOMY YET)* |
| 15 |
GENE - Gene Kelly of Singin’ In The Rain fame. |
| 16 |
BACK (double definition) |
| * 17 |
MINI + A + T + URE - the rock star is Ultravox’s Midge Ure, who co-wrote the original Band Aid single Do They Know It’s Christmas?. |
| * 21 |
PO(LA ROI)D - ‘le roi’ is French for ‘the king’, hence ‘the effeminate French ruler?’ = ‘la roi’. This was my last thematic entry. |
* 22/25
/ 5dn |
SINGLE + LEN’S + REFLEX - ‘reflex’ = ‘unconscious’ is fair but not easy. |
| 24 |
UNHINDERED; (HUNDRED NI[n]E)* |
| 26 |
ER + SAT + Z - Z as in Zzzzzz… |
| 27 |
URANUS; rev. of (SUN + A + R.U.) |
| Down |
| * 1 |
COMP. + ACT - ‘comp’ short for ‘competition’. |
| * 2 |
PLAT[h] + E - I was expecting a classical poet here; Sylvia Plath would never have occurred to me, especially as I’d never heard of a plate camera. |
| * 3 |
DIG + I.T. (= ‘computing and stuff’) + A + L |
| 6 |
MAINSHEET; MAINS (= ‘Electrical supply’) + E in (THE)* - a sheet can mean a rope in nautical terms. |
| * 7 |
PIN + HOLE - clever! |
| 8 |
ORGAN(GRINDER)S - with several letters in place this looked as though it had to contain an anagram of ‘in rags’, but no. |
| 14 |
MO(C,C + AS + I)NS |
| * 16 |
BROWN (= ‘PM’) + I + E (= ‘a quarter’) |
| 18 |
INSIDER; “INN CIDER” |
| 19 |
RULINGS (double definition) |
| 20 |
HOLD IT - ‘Stop’ is the definition; a ‘gin & it’ is a gin and Italian vermouth, which explains the second part of the clue. |
| 23 |
NYLON; N + (ONLY)* - here ’short and’ gives ‘n’ as in ‘his ‘n’ hers’. |
Posted in Guardian | 10 Comments »
Posted by Uncle Yap on 16th June 2008
Common abbreviations used
dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
* = anagram
A soft start to the week but fun and amusing. As usual, you cannot but help being awed by Rufus’s ability to make his clues read so smoothly.
8 WAR PAINT An amusing cd
9 HUSHED cd
10 SKIT Removal of R from SKIRT. A skit is a satirical sketch or a take off
11 DUMBWAITER Cha
12 SHOCKS Ins of HOCK (wine) in SS. What a smooth surface!
14 EYELINER
15 SPANISH This *(ships an) borders on an &lit
17 INITIAL My clue of the day and the last one to be filled in.
Very clever word play that foxed me for a while
20 STAIR ROD cd for a rod for holding a stair carpet in place.
22 PEACHY dd
23 WATER WHEEL The answer was simple enough given the crossing letters but only a visit to Chambers fully explained the wordplay…
race = a channel bringing water to or from a millwheel
24 FILM A dd which Cyclops would be proud of
25 TOPEKA Ins of OP in TEKA *(take) for the capital city of Kansas, USA
26 DERANGED Ins of RANG in DEED; barking mad
Down
1 TALK SHOP Cha of TALKS (gossips) HOP (dance)
2 SPOT Rev of TOPS. A top is a golfing boo-boo where the club only makes contact with the upper part of the ball. Did you see Tiger Woods’s 12-foot putt on the 18th to force a play-off ? Superb stuff !
3 HINDUS ha
4 STUMPED Stump is a cricketing term meaning to dismiss by breaking the wicket when the striker is out of his ground
5 CHOW MEIN Another smoothie anagram clue that Rufus is famous for; and this time, delicious, too
6 ASPIDISTRA *(past is said)
7 RECEDE Cha of RE (Royal Engineers or soldiers) CEDE (give up)
13 CANTILEVER Can’t I (may I not) LEVER (rev of revel). Cantilever is an engineering structure of a beam fixed at one end and free at the other, usually like a horizontal projection in the air
16 STRAW HAT *(war that’s) How does Rufus dream up these gems?
18 ACHILLES Ins of HILL in ACES
19 ADDENDA add-end-a
21 TEAPOT Another clever cd misleading us to think of those brewers in Scotland producing those lovely single malts
22 PALTRY pal-try (go)
24 FIND FI (e) ND
Posted in Guardian | 14 Comments »