Fifteensquared

Never knowingly undersolved.

Archive for July 16th, 2008

Guardian 24,442 / Araucaria - Proboscis Puzzler

Posted by manehi on 16th July 2008

manehi.

Phew! Struggled through this very slowly, including a good five minute stare at 1dn before giving up on it until almost the end. Really enjoyed this.

Across
9 LAURIE LEE LAUREL around I, EE cummings - Laurie Lee wrote…
10, 27 CIDER WITH ROSIE (hisweirderotic)*
11,22,24 BARRACK ROOM BALLADS BARACK Obama, holding R(ight), and ROADS around OM = Order of Merit and BALL = dance. The Barrack Room Ballads were a collection of Kipling’s poetry.
12 PROVERB PUB dropping the U and taking in ROVER
13 EXIT I have this down as a double def, but there may be more to this.
16 TIN TRAY ? Last one I put in - TINT RAY looks like the wordplay, but I don’t understand the definition - clue is: “Coloured light for final cargo item”
19 GRANDE DAME “GRADED A” = ranked first, by ME, taking in N(ame)
25 SPARTAN PART in SAN(E) (insane, but not quite). Loved this.
26 EQUAL QUA is Latin, and means “as”, more or less, in EL, which can apparently mean an elevated railroad.
Down
1 FLIBBERTIGIBBET F(inds), homophone of “liberty”, and GIBBET is, thankfully, pretty much the only synonym of “gallows” I can think of.
3 VICAR V(ehicle), I CAR - vicars have taken holy orders
4 BLAKENEY BLAKE is a painter and poet, NEY was a commander under Napoleon, and Sir Percy Blakeney was the Scarlet Pimpernel, who rescued French aristocrats from execution under the Terror. I suspect this is also a clever &lit, but can’t remember if Blakeney was also a poet/painter/soldier.
5 DELPHI Site of the temple to Apollo, and also ADELPHI, Greek for brothers, topped/beheaded.
6 ACCORDING (ccargo)* around DIN. Not too sure about “according”=”agreeable” - “agreeing” would be closer in meaning.
8 PROBOSCIS MONKEY (boycomposerskin)*
15 GRADUALLY GRAY is the poet, DUAL must be some kind of control, and L for learner.
17 BOMB SITE BOMB=fail, SITE sounds like SIGHT
18 APOSTASY A POST (say)*
20 ALL BUT ABUT about L,L = 50-50 in Roman numerals. I suppose 49-49 is “all but” 50-50?
21 DISOWN “This way”, referring to the clue’s direction means DOWN, around IS.
23 MARRY An old fashioned way of saying “indeed”, I assume.

Posted in Guardian | 15 Comments »

Independent 6786/Dac

Posted by John on 16th July 2008

John.

One runs out of superlatives. Every clue here is pithy, elegant and utterly fair, and my slowness in completing some of the clues in the bottom half of the grid is only the result of incompetence.

Dac seldom seems to have hidden words in his clues. Yesterday, on the other hand, Virgilius had three. They both, however, like to use complete anagrams.

Across
1 HOM(A G(randee))E
4 GAS THA(t) US, a German word. No doubt there are gasthausen (actually I’m told it’s gasthauser; gasthauses anyway) in Augsburg
9 R A REST
10 I NUN DATE
12 BLUE - 2 defs
13 INF(L)ECTION
15 CASTLE HOWARD - (watches a lord)*
18 UN(CLASS)IFIED
21 EUROTUNNEL - (route)* un n el - a quite brilliant &lit.
22 ZEN O
24 AUGSBURG - Aug (grub’s)rev.
25 KUWAIT - (UK)rev. wait
26 S(URGE)ONS
27 HAVE(O)N - def. ‘wear’
 
Down
1 HARDBACK - ‘bard hack’ Spoonerised
2 MARQUE SS
3 GA(astronaut(S))P
5 ARNOLD WESKER - (Landseer work)*
6 TONY CURTIS - (runs to city)*
7 A TAXI C(abby)
8 STERNE - “stern”
11 IN THE LONG RUN
14 PLANET ABLE
16 LIB E RATE
17 E(D MON)TON
19 P(rovid)E CANS
20 KRUGER - “crew” Ger
23 J(o)UR A

Posted in Independent | 1 Comment »

Financial Times no. 12,821 Set by DOGBERRY

Posted by Octofem on 16th July 2008

Octofem.

ACROSS

Much of this puzzle was ‘instant’ but I had some problems with 24a and 26a, and would welcome
comments.

1.    TEMPLE -  (dd - Shirley Temple, adored child star of the Thirties, later an Ambassador for her country)
4.    ALARUM - (< m-ural-a)
8.    BARRAGE - ( bar-ra-ge)
9.    PROVIDE  - ( pr-ovid-e - PR for public relations of course)
11.  DERMATITIS - (* tardis time)
12.  LOUT -  C(lout) - having some clout is to have influence.
13.  omitted
14.  MEANTIME- ( me-anti-me - or me against myself.   The other Dogberry was from Shakespeare’s Much    Ado.  He was noted for his Malapropisms)
16.  CAROUSEL - (carouse-l)
18.  STEER - (dd)
20.  ALMA - (Alma was the beautiful  wife of  Mahler - he had psychological hang-ups about his love for his mother, which plagued their relationship)
21.  MAGISTRATE - *megistar it)
23.  INDIANA -(in-<aid-na)
24.  PARODIC - (<c-i do-rap- this held me up for a while, as I think of ‘crap’ as a dice game, not cards)
25.  EASTER - (e- aster)
26   STREET  - (st-reet - ‘reet’ the Northern word for right, and reference to street-wise?)
DOWN

1.    omitted  
2.    MARIMBA - (ma-ri-mba - RI abbreviation for Republic of Indonesia - marimba an African instrument,
                              adopted and much loved by Central America)
3.    LIGHTNESS -(*hit singles)
5.    LARKS  -( Bevy is the collective noun for larks - and also quails and beauties!)
6.    RIVULET - (riv-ul-et)
7.    MIDSUMMER - ( m-ids -ummer - I suppose December is mid-summer in the Southern Hemisphere.)
10.  ETYMOLOGY ( *gloomy yet - the linguistic study of word derivation, not to be confused with  entymology , study of insects.)
13.  AT A GLANCE ((a-tag-lance)
15.  ASSISTANT (dd)
17.  OVARIES-(o-varies - the female  reproductive glands)
19.  EARHOLE - (ear-ho-l-e - the slightly less inelegant version of ‘lughole’ as in ‘pin back your-’
21.  MANGE - (mange-(R) - usually used for animals when they have a skin complaint allied to human
                          dermatitis)
22.  TWIST - dd

Posted in FT | 10 Comments »