Fifteensquared

Never knowingly undersolved.

Archive for August 19th, 2008

Independent 6815/Morph

Posted by John on 19th August 2008

John.

This took ages — Morph seems to be getting very difficult nowadays. This wasn’t helped by the fact that there were some answers that appear a bit tenuous, although it’s more likely that I don’t understand them properly.

Across
1 MING CAMPBELL — “mink amble” — not sure I like ‘could hear’
9 DEEP I think — (peed)rev. I don’t approve of this sort of clue: it could just as easily be PEED, and one can only be sure when one has the last checking letter. In my opinion the answer to a clue should be unequivocal
10 SMOKING GUN
11 LET ALONE — presumably this is ‘let(h)al one’, although is a lethal one a cause of death? A lethal injection maybe, but a lethal one? Does this term exist?
12 AVOCET — (cove)* in at, nice clue
13 LITTLE BY LITTLE — Stuart Little doesn’t appear to be a person, but a film. Good clue
16 CHARM OF FENS I’VE
19 I’S OG ON — not quite sure when I’d use ‘on’ to mean ‘valid’
21 ROLL CALL — CD
23 HEALTH FOOD — (do half the)* around 0, but nuts and pulses etc. aren’t the only health food, so this is definition by example — fine if you’re happy with that
24 EX P.O.
25 FECKLESSNESS — Father Ted and his friends use the word ‘feck’, no doubt
 
Down
2 IMPLANT I think — one’s sole of foot is (just about) an implant, and dental (e.g.) implant
3 GUSTO — gut so with the t and the s upset — excellent semi (I think) &lit.
4 A COMEDY OF ERRORS — I’m not sure about this: The play is “The Comedy of Errors”; does the change from ‘the’ to ‘A’ reflect the fact that ‘play’ is slightly altered to ‘ploy’? And ‘funky’?
5 PRIVATISE — “private eyes”. Is there some subtle joke going on here, since arguably the only killing from the BR privatisation has been the ill-effect on the rail system?
6 ED GE(OU)T
7 LOUSE? — (b)louse, but the last three words are a mystery to me
8 CELERIAC — (clear ice)*
14 EMMENTHAL — ((chees)e n ham melt)*, almost a nice & lit., spoilt for me by the ‘What might be grated’, which seems odd as an anagram indicator (’what is grated’)
15 ENVELOPE — 2 defs
17 ANGELIC — (nice gal)*
18 SUCKERS? — I can’t see how these are hearing aids
20 S/H ELF — lots of rather good &lits in this crossword
22 LADEN — ref. Osama, who isn’t necessarily (as I thought) ‘Bin Laden’, but more often, apparently, ‘bin Laden’

Posted in Independent | 21 Comments »

Guardian, 24471/Araucaria

Posted by mhl on 19th August 2008

mhl.

This was a difficult puzzle today, I thought, although I tend to find Araucaria’s crosswords harder than the other Guardian setters. As usual, there are some really satisfying clues here and great surface readings. There are two clues nicely linked to 10 down, but otherwise I didn’t spot a particular theme. Can someone explain 16,19?

Across
1 DECIMAL POINT: D = “number”, and then it’s PO IN (”[postal] order” “at home”) in (CLIMATE)*. The defintion (which utterly misled me) is “period look”, as in “the appearance of a period (full stop)”.
8 HOMERIC: HOME + RIC(H). I wouldn’t otherwise have thought of HOMERIC for “imposing”, but Chambers gives as two of its definitions “worthy of Homer” and “in the heroic or epic manner”
9 ANT LION: (N(A)TIONAL)* The fly is an ant lion, one of those animals that I only know about through crosswords. (Araucaria also clued it in a puzzle published last October.)
11 MISFORM: A really fun clue: “A is for Apple, so M___” - to complete that phrase with anything, it must contain the letters “M is for M” or MISFORM
12 Omitted according to the site’s policy
13 ENEMY: 67.5° is East North East, and “of setter” is MY. The definition is a reference to the phrase “time is the enemy”, although I’m not sure where that’s originally from…
14 TYPEWRITE: “unknown seat” is Y PEW in TRITE (”well worn”)
16,19 SHERBORNE ABBEY: I don’t quite get the Spoonerism here - presumably “down-at-heel” is “shabby”, but what is “citified”? Update: thanks to everyone in the comments who pointed out that it’s “urban”
21 ANGELUS: (GUN SALE)* and a prayer.
23 TOPARCH: A nice triple definition, the second two being TOP ARCH and TO PARCH
24 KHEDIVE: A new word to me, meaning a viceroy; the subsidiary is K + HE + DIVE
25 FOREARM: EAR (”listener”) in FORM; a cubit was supposed to be the length of your forearm.
26 HORN OF PLENTY: LEN (”small boy”) in (FOR PYTHON)* gives mythical wealth
 
Down
1 DEMESNE: Another new word for me, meaning the land around a manor; the subsidiary is “setter’s” = ME S in DENE
2 CURSORY: A nice use of 10d; it rhymes with nursery.
3 MACHMETER: “the sound of bells: I go” is CH(I)ME, kept by MATER. The definition is a bit odd here; a machmeter measures the Mach number of an aircraft, which is the ratio of its air speed to the speed of sound. I’m not convinced this is something you’d use to find when the sound of bells would reach you, unless the clue’s narrator is in motion. :) Have I missed something?
4 LEACH: I’m not familiar with the potter, but I guess it’s Bernard Leach
5 OUTGROW: An anagram of TUG O WAR, but with “O for a”. The definition is “dwarf”, as in “to outgrow/dwarf something”…
6 NAIROBI: It turns out that OBI is a type of witchcraft, which comes after N (”North”) and AIR (”to expose”).
7 CHIMNEY STACK: A rather sad image: (MAY NEST)* in CHICK
10 NURSERY RHYME: The definition is “Lavender’s blue, say”. Where lavender’s protected might be a NURSERY, followed by a homophone of rime (an excellent word).
15 PLENTIFUL: LENT IF = “fast, if”, in PUL(L) = “unfinished draw”.
17 EL GRECO: The painter with very crossword-friendly orthography; like “Zorba the Greek” here.
18 BULLION: A fun clue: BULL and LION (Taurus and Leo) telescoped together, a nice image for sliding one word over the other to remove the extra letter
19 Omitted according to the site’s policy
20 BURSARY: the other rhyme for nursery
22 SHEAF: The two females are SHE and F, keeping A. The definition (”contribution to stack”) refers to sheaves of hay making up a hay stack.

Posted in Guardian | 22 Comments »

Financial Times 12850 / Armonie

Posted by C G Rishikesh on 19th August 2008

C G Rishikesh.

Neither too easy nor too hard, this puzzle has neat clues. I must admit that I had an unusually slow start but I completed it in much less than 30 minutes. The bottom left quad was filled in first while the bottom right was delayed.

Across

1 CHANGE - c(hang)e

4 ISABELLA - (libels AA)*

9 MURAL - M.,Ural

10 APOLOGIST - a,polo,gist

11 DETRACT - D,E,tract - D is from Deutschland and E is from Espana.

12 TRIDENT - Tr(id)ent

13 APEX - ape,X - No monkey business here!

14 MEANNESS - me(Anne)ess

17 MASSACRE - mass, acre -  I am not sure if ‘acre’ can mean ‘area’ or ‘land’. Chambers has “(in pl) a very large area”. Similarly, ‘extensive’ doesn’t yield ‘mass’ so readily for me. 

19 LATE - (et. al.)< 

22 EXCRETE - ex,Crete

24 NO SWEAT - (saw note)*

25 TRANSPIRE - T,ran,spire

26 RHONE - RH,one - The last to go in. I solved it from wordplay. I have to google to find out who the banker is.

27 DERANGED - de(rang)ed - “out to lunch” is US slang for ’slightly crazy’.

28 BRUTUS - b(rut)us

Down

1 COMEDIAN - co(media)n - For me, the plural of ‘medium’ in the sense ‘psychics’ is ‘mediums’.

2 AIRSTREAM - (Is rare mat)*

3 GALWAY - gal(lag<),way - Solved from wordplay - Galway, I learn, is Ireland’s cultural heart.

5 SHOOTING RANGE - I solved it from the definition and the enumeration but did not see the wordplay until now. - shoot, in, grange - ’sucker’ is ‘a new shoot’ (looked up just now).

6 BROMIDE - br(OM)ide - Bromides are used as sedatives; a ‘dull, platitudinous person’ may be called a bromide.

7 LOIRE - lo,ire

8 ASTUTE - hidden in ‘breakfAST UTEnsil’ - I suppose that it was the designer who put that ‘clever part’ on the utensil - Anyway, glad that ’statue’ is left untouched.

10 AT THE SAME TIME - (Meat emits heat)*

15 SCAPEGOAT - S,cape,goat - Among the last two to go in - ‘Patsy’ is slang for a sucker - It is not a proper name here - Cape as in Cape of Good Hope - I haven’t come across ‘goat (v.) = to assault’. Comments welcome. (On edit) It is actually S,cape,go at. See comment below. 

16 HEATHENS - heat, hens

18 STEPSON - read: ’steps on’ - the most abused relative in crosswords.

20 HEATED - h(E)ated* - E in anag. of ‘death’ - Very nice surface reading.
 
21 USURER - usur(-p)er - Maybe he took the dollars or the pounds.

23 CHAIR - C, hair? - Solved from def. ‘office’ as in the University chair - For lay = hair, I need to - just a minute, I got it now - it’s Ch. (chief), air (’lay’ as in ’The Lay of the Last Minstrel’)

A satisfying conclusion to my blog today.

Posted in FT | 8 Comments »