Posted by John on 8th July 2008
The usual tough but excellent puzzle from Punk. At one stage I thought I would never get going and would have to admit defeat, but eventually all was well.
| Across |
| 1 |
COSTIVE - I can’t quite see how ‘Punk’s’ can lead to ‘I’ve’; I was looking for a word ending ‘my’ |
| 5 |
IN FANTA |
| 9 |
GARLIC PRESS - gallic press with r replacing the first l - very good clue |
| 10 |
TOT - a palindrome |
| 11 |
A(n)FIELD |
| 12 |
SLYBOOTS - stoo(by)ls rev. - a few years ago this was a clue word in an Azed competition, but this clue wasn’t one of the prizewinners. I wonder how it would have done. |
| 14 |
ET ON |
| 15 |
DAISY CHAIN - CD |
| 17 |
LEMBIT OPIK - (Lib (D)em))* to (kip)rev. - an &lit. Cheeky Girl reference? |
| 18 |
SovieTS A Russian - has a chestnutty feel to it |
| 21 |
AL(SAT I)AN |
| 22 |
HAT RED - For a long time I was trying to think of a word containing ‘fez’ |
| 24 |
SKI(p) |
| 25 |
SPOTTED DICK - 2 defs |
| 26 |
DEANERY - (yearned)* |
| 27 |
PATTER N |
| |
| Down |
| 1 |
CO(GNAT)E - ref. Sebastian Coe |
| 2 |
STRAIT OF MESSINA - (if son’s metatarsi)* - the toe of Italy I suppose, or is it some mythological reference? |
| 3 |
I C 1 C L (spik)E - &lit. |
| 4 |
EX PO - if work isn’t written down it’s written up |
| 5 |
IDEALISTIC - I couldn’t understand this until I discovered that ‘idealistic’ is an anagram of ‘italicised’, so very clever clue, but on the edge I think |
| 6 |
FASTBACK - fast rev. |
| 7 |
NATIONAL SERVICE - I thought he was being a bit political until I realised that 8 (which I hadn’t at that stage got) was ‘artisan’ and it’s (violence artisan)* |
| 8 |
(p)ARTISAN |
| 13 |
L(A BORAT)ORY |
| 16 |
DI STA(S)TE |
| 17 |
LI(A1(lonelines)S)ED |
| 19 |
REDSKIN - a Desiree potato has, as I discovered, a red skin |
| 20 |
BAR DOT - I’m not sure this is a very established term in music - a question mark might have been kinder |
| 23 |
STEP - pets rev. |
Posted in Independent | 9 Comments »
Posted by C G Rishikesh on 8th July 2008
Not too easy, not too hard. First I solved Ac 15,21,9,1,25,4,13,28 and Dn 5,28,7,23,2,6,22 before a brief holdup. At the end of my allotted time, I have some four clues to go (all in bottom right corner). But I must go.
Across
1 CRUISE - “crews”
4 LACERATE - lace, rate
9 LEDGER - L(edge)R
10 GOODWOOD - Guessable from wordplay. A racing course in England.
12 FALLS DUE - F(all)s due* - “under duress” is the anag. signal.
16 ANTENNA - a, n, tenna (”tenner”) - The def. “provides good feeling” does not point to a noun and maybe that is why there is the question mark at the end of the clue.
20 CHINWAG - chin, wag
26 FREE FALL - f(reef)all - One can solve this clue with just the definition
28 CALORIES - anag. of ‘close air’ - I don’t get the drift of the surface reading.
29 Not solved
30 THROTTLE
31 Not solved
Down
1 COLD FEET - One might have these if one were wearing “inadequate hose”.
2 UNDULATE - un(dulat*)e
3 SPEISS - S(PE is)S - The clue does not really indicate that the word required is a noun. Not an everyday word but easily obtainable from wordplay.
7 ADONIS - anag. of ‘is on ad’
8 ELDEST - anag. of ’setled’ after removing t (time) from ’settled’. This raises a question. The word ’settled’ has two t’s but we are required to remove only one ‘t’. In such situations should the clue-writer give suitable direction?
11, 14 RUNNING REPAIRS - The surface reading is no great shakes. Do repairs bring about improvements, I wonder.
17 THEOCRAT - rather a straightforward def.
18 Not solved
19 Not solved - I do see the stuttering element yet I am unable to get the answer immediately.
24 REFILL - ref.,i’ll
Posted in FT | 3 Comments »
Posted by ilancaron on 8th July 2008
Ran into several problems here with unfamiliar definitions requiring a bit of research, 10A still available… Also feels like a theme here but I can’t quite put my finger on it: e.g. several clues refer to “little creature”, boat pushing and two adjacent clues have boob in the clue and answer. In light of comments below, I guess there is a theme after all, namely, obscure Brit politicians.
Across
| 5 |
T(ELF)O,RD - Had to look (Thomas) TELFORD up to learn he was a ‘famous engineer’ (not that famous I guess :). |
| 9 |
IMP,OT=rev(to) - vaguely remembered this from prep school: it’s a punishment, e.g. “lines” as in “I will not solve crosswords during class”. |
| 10 |
D?R?S?E?M - a mystery: “Sporty types in pub of South Devon railway?” |
| 11 |
F(ARMH)O,USE - harm* in of*: the insertion operator (”in”) is post-fix, i.e. follows its fodder. |
| 12 |
FLING - I suspect that the wordplay “pushing the boat out” wants us to take a word meaning ‘pushing’ and remove a word meaning boat to produce FLING — but I don’t see it. |
|
| 13 |
L[a]UNCH - another “push the boat”. |
| 15 |
MERCI=crime*,LESS - presumably MERCILESS ‘treatment’ of crime leads to its reduction — thus an &lit. |
| 18 |
BOOB,YTRAP=rev(party) - Labour is an example of a party. Our first BOOB. |
| 19 |
HAG,UE=rev(EU) - ref. William HAGUE, former Tory leader (and “old woman” perhaps). |
| 25 |
TRISKELIA=(astir like)* - it’s the 3-legged emblem of the Isle of Man (gleaned incidentally from another cryptic). |
| 26 |
BLEAR[s] - ref. Hazel BLEARS — a (well-known?) UK politician — had me running to wikipedia to look up hazel. |
Down
| 3 |
NOT,CH - I guess NOT CH[urch] can whimsically be “ungodly”. Nice devilish surface touch. |
|
| 4 |
MIDSU(MM)ER - wordplay in the answer: the middle of summer is MM for ‘military medal’ and the definition is just “time”. |
| 5 |
THROE=”throw” |
| 7 |
OB,ELI - I think OB is short for obituary, thus “characters for a departed”. |
| 8 |
DAM,AGES - ref. 20 which is ELDERLY. |
| 16 |
RE,PUD,I,ATE - PUD[ding] for ‘duff’ and RE for ‘over’. |
| 17 |
ENGELBERT=(green belt)* - can’t be ref. ENGELBERT Humperdinck can it? |
| 18 |
BRISTOL - another type of ‘boob’: it’s rhyming slang: BRISTOL city rhymes with titty which… also, BRISTOL fashion is a phrase meaning in good order. Yes, I looked this up. |
| 20 |
EL(DER,L)Y - three cryptic idioms in a single clue: ELY is an example of a religious ’see’ and L for ’student’ and German for ‘the’ is DER. |
| 23 |
RU,LED - ref. Rugby Union. |
| 24 |
CABLE - “Liberal means of communication?” — two meanings perhaps? it’s a telegram and it’s a high-bandwidth wired system (thus ‘liberal’??) |
Posted in Guardian | 20 Comments »