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Archive for July 29th, 2008

Independent 6,797/Virgilius

Posted by Ali on 29th July 2008

Ali.

I found this pretty tough going, not least because I completely failed to see what was going on until very late on. The theme is the Old Testamant (6D), books of which can be found scattered around the grid. I counted 7 after a quick Wiki (Job, Genesis, Kings, Ruth, Numbers, Samuel and Judges). I guess that 3D is also related. Not sure if John, Peter and Agnes have any thematic connection, though they all appear elsewhere in The Bible I’m sure.

Across
1 JERICHO - A reference to the Biblical battle (as described in the OT)
5 SET FAIR - SET,FAIR
9 BARBARISM - BARB + IS in ARM
11 POULT - “You”,L in POT
12 SHELL TOP - HE’LL in STOP
14 STREAK - R in STEAK
17 ROMANS - A nice double def. ‘Roman’ is the French word for novel
22 FLAVOUR - L in FAVOURS
22 AGNES - [-champ]AGNES - The ‘doesn’t sound like that!’ part presuambly refers the fact that the name AGNES is pronounced “AG-NESS”, whereas the drink sounds like “SHAM PAIN”
25 ODOUR - O,DOUR
29 DATA SET - AT AD rev.,SET
 
Down
1 JOB - A crime as in ‘bank job’
2 RORQUAL - Hidden in feaR OR QUALms
3 CHAPTER AND VERSE - (ADVENT PREACHER’S)*
4 OTIOSITY - (IS IT TOO)*,[-da]Y - A new word for me
5 SAMUEL - (US MALE)*
6 THE OLD TESTAMENT - Our theme. ‘Willing’ as in writing a (last) will (and testament)
7 ABALONE - AB,ALONE - ‘turns to..’ doesn’t seem to sit right here as no part of the clue involves a reversal
8 RUTH - RUT,H
11 PETER - Ref. Beatrix Potter and Prokofiev
16 CLOSETED - CLOSE,TED
16 MALCOLM - CO in MALL,M
20 GENESIS - (SEEING)*,S[-ummer]
27 POT - P,OT

Posted in Independent | 7 Comments »

Financial Times 12832 / by Quark

Posted by C G Rishikesh on 29th July 2008

C G Rishikesh.
I solved Ac 7,10,12,15,18,20,24,25,29 when I had to move to the Dn set where I got 6,7,8,15,25,16,19,29 before all the others. The top left corner was the last to be completed.
Last Tuesday I put down all the answers because it was the day after the puzzle’s publication that I wrote the blog. This week the crossword is alive so I am omitting some answers.

Across

1 CHAIRPERSON - anag. of ‘parishioner, c’ after deleting one I from the anag. fodder

9 VACUA - CD - the very last answer for me - pl. of vacuum - ‘pump’ must be reference to a vacuum pump - anyway not a clue worth sweating over

10 MEANWHILE - anag. of ‘a new h’ in ‘mile’

11 RUDIMENTS - RU, d(I’m)ents - RU: Rugby Union - Good surface reading

13 NANNIES - The penultimate answer for me. Of course, the definition was clear from the beginning. And also the content in the c/c clue. But even now I am doubtful about the container.

20 UNEARTH - anag. of ‘run’ and ‘heat’

24 APPRAISAL - anag. of ‘paris’ in ‘a pal’ (note that here the indefinite article is part of the container but in 10 ac above it is to be overlooked)

26 TURNTABLE - anag. of ‘run battle’ - I have nostalgic memories of 78rpm records.

27 PRANG - (-s)prang - it’s a “vehicle crash” (airmen’s slang, acc. to Chambers)

28 RUT - rev. hidden in ‘lecTURer’, ‘contribution’ being the hidden signal

29 DERANGEMENT - anag. of ‘need garment’ - Woe unto you if you thought ‘garment torn’ was anag fodder, ‘in disturbance’ was the anag. signal and ‘need’ was the def.

Down

1, 21 COVERING LETTER - two def. - I put down the second word of the phrase first. It is by no means a difficult clue, yet I did not get the first word as quickly as I should have got. With C as the first letter, I had to banish ‘circular’ [letter] from my mind before, well, getting round to ‘covering’.

4 ERMINES - ‘min.’ in ‘eres’

5 SWANSEA - ’sea’ (”the main”) being at the base of this Down entry is a supporter of ’swan’ (”a bird”). Again the answer was slightly delayed because, with that final letter a in the answer word and the word ’supporter’ in the clue, I was trying to fit in a bra (size 42 C).

7 APIARY - anag. of ‘pair’ in ‘ay’ (”yes”)

8, 17 SEEING THE LIGHT - two def. - Here I got the first and second words of the phrase quickly enough but not the third - The first def. is new to me.

16 DRESSAGE - dress, age

19 CHAMBER - MBE in ‘char’

20 UMPTEEN - nothing cryptic about this clue

22 CLARET - anag. of ‘article’ after deleting I

25 AMPLE - (-s)ample

Posted in FT | 6 Comments »

Guardian 24,453/Paul - pride of place

Posted by Andrew on 29th July 2008

Andrew.

Paul’s name always tells us that the puzzle will be tough but fun, and so it was with this one. It looked particularly daunting at first with some long answers and lots of cross-references, but (as is often the case) it was fairly easy to spot the phrases once a few crossing letters were filled in, after which the rest yielded without too much trouble.

Key:
* - anagram
dd - double definition
< - reverse

Across
1 BELONG To “Go together” is to belong, and if you’ll be back in five minutes then you won’t BE LONG
4 TEAM UP (PUMA ET)< Elliot was the boy who befriended ET in Spielberg’s film
10,1d,15 PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL Why LIONS then DROP
11 PROSIT PRO SIT
12 LANDSEER The lookout in the crow’s nest might “see land”. Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873), British artist, famous for animal paintings such as “The Monarch of the Glen”; more relevantly for this puzzle, he also sculpted the lions in Trafalgar Square.
13 SALT WATER WAT in (prayer)S ALTER
17,23,24 PUT THE CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS Trafalgar Square is famous for its pigeons, as well as Landeer’s lions
21 FURLOUGH FUR LO(ng) UGH
22 ELAPSE A P in ELSE
25 OVUM OV is V O (very round) “on the contrary”, and UM is “I’m not sure”
27 KNIGHT (blac)K NIGHT - and the chess piece can be black or white
Down
2 LIONS N in SOIL<
3 NAPHTHA NAP (pile) HT HA! “Oil” is the definition: apparently crude oil was formerly known as naphtha, but the word now refers to various products derived from oil.
5 EXEUNT = “They leave the stage”. EX TUNE*
6 MOONSCAPE (COMPOSE AN)* - well-hidden anagram
8 WILLIE RUSHTON (SILLIER NUT WHO)* Appropriate anagram for Willie Rushton, who was famous for his appearances on “I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue” until his untimely death in 1996, but also had a distinguished career as actor, cartoonist and satirist, being a founder of Private Eye and a performer on “That Was The Week That Was”
14 TOODLE-PIP Spoonerism of POODLE TIP
16 DAUPHIN (U AND HIP)* - U = “posh” (as in U and non-U)
19 ASSAULT SAUL in A ST. Paul the Saint not the Setter.. St Paul was known as Saul (of Tarsus) before his conversion on the road to Damascus, but the Saul here is the King from the OT.
20 BUDGIE I in BUDGE

Posted in Guardian | 10 Comments »