Fifteensquared

Never knowingly undersolved.

Archive for August 20th, 2008

Independent 6816/Dac

Posted by neildubya on 20th August 2008

neildubya.
Across
1 BE in (ANIMAL)* - LIMA BEAN.
10 MIDDLE-AGE SPREAD - I can’t decide if this is a cryptic definition or if there’s some aspect of the wordplay that I’m missing because I can’t work out what “long before that” might mean.
11 OZ in ALE,LIME (all reversed) - EMILE ZOLA was the first French writer to spring to mind, which was then confirmed by “Australia” (OZ) in the wordplay.
12 COMBS - I used Reveal to confirm this as I can’t find COMBS for “old-fashioned underwear” in either of the dictionaries I have access to. I expect it’s in the Big C.
13 PHRASE - sounds like “frays”.
15 EP(I)TOME
19 BEET,ON - a reference to Mrs Beeton, author of the Book of Household Management.
21 hidden in “chAP PLEasure” - I liked “a small portion will do” as the indicator.
26 N,(MEASLES)* - I have to say that it surprised me that NAMELESS could mean “too horrific to be described”. Seems like an odd meaning for such an innocuous word.
 
Down
1 L,UMBER
2 MIDNIGHT EXPRESS - the film directed by Alan Parker. “Sleeper” is a reference to sleeper trains, of which the midnight express might be one.
6 IMP,ACTIVE
7 T in (SOME COAL)*,(MOVE IT)* - STEAM LOCOMOTIVE. Cleverly done; I guess this must be an &lit as there isn’t a direct definition in the clue.
8 OD-[d] in (ITEMS)* - MODISTES was new to me but not too tricky to get from the wordplay.
9 DEB,AT,E - “treat” can mean to negotiate with someone to settle a dispute so I guess that could be the same as DEBATE?
14 GAME,M in ANON
16 SAS in (TRIED)* - DISASTER.
19 BUSH TEA[-m]
20 AMI,[-l]ENS
23 hidden in “BrowNIE CEremony”.

Posted in Independent | 5 Comments »

FINANCIAL TIMES 12,851 by CINEPHILE

Posted by Gaufrid on 20th August 2008

Gaufrid.

A tricky one from Araucaria in the Guardian yesterday and a similar offering from Cinephile in today’s FT. There was a gentle hint at the beginning that ‘the works are similar’ which helped to narrow down the choice of plays and having ‘a?o’ for the second word in 12a these all fell readily into place.
.

Across

1 COINCIDENTAL  COIN (money) CI (chief inspector initially) DENTAL (of teeth)

8 OVERARM  cd - to ‘lob’ a ball you would generally need to go underarm

9 ENTERIC  *(CENTRE I) - ‘enteric’ is a short form of ‘enteric fever’, an infectious disease that causes nasty things to happen to one’s intestines

11 TURBINE  dis[TURBIN]g E - I assume the ‘at start’ refers to the beginning of the clue to give the ‘E’

12, 13, 24 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING  MU (Greek letter) CHAD (land, country) A BOUT (a fight) in O NOTHING (two cyphers) - a ‘cypher’ is the character ‘0′ in mathematics

14 IMMEDIATE  IM (Cinephile is) MEDIATE (act as referee)

16 RECOMMEND  COMME (as, in French) in REND (tear)

19 THING  *(NIGHT)

21 COARSEN  CO (company) ARSEN[al] (a lot of weapons)

23 UPPSALA  UP (winning) PS (pawns) ALA (in the style of) - Founded in 1477, the Uppsala University is the oldest centre of higher education in Scandinavia and much of Northern Europe

25 MACBETH  BET (speculate) in MACH (number) - see yesterday’s Guardian blog if you don’t know what a Mach number is :-)

26 PROFITEROLES  PROFIT (gain) E (English) ROLES (parts)

Down

1 CHEERIO  EER (forever) in CH (companion) IO (I love)

2 IMAGIST  MAGI (wise men) in IST (first or 1st) - a reference to the imagist (poet) Ezra Pound

3 CYMBELINE  MY reversed BE in CLINE - a pleasing use of ‘incline’ to denote the insertion

4 DREAM  RE (concerned with) in DAM (barrier)

5 NOTICED  cd - a plain cake has no icing on it

6 ADRIANA  *(AIDA RAN) - Adriana is the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus in Shakespeare’s ‘A Comedy of Errors’. Strangely enough the title of this play was one of the answers in yesterday’s Independent

7 SOUTH AFRICAN  *(SAFARI COUNT [mont]H)

10 CHOREOGRAPHY  CHORE (routine) GO reversed RAP (knock) H[app]Y - ‘routine’ could be seen as doing double duty here, part of the definition and part of the wordplay, but I also think it works if the definition is simply ‘dancing’

15, 22 MIDSUMMER NIGHT  IDS (identifications) in MUMMER (actor) NIGH (close) T (time)

17 CHAPTER  dd - ‘chapter’ is a ‘cathedral body’ and ‘a sequence of events having a common attribute’. I have seen ‘chapter of errors’ before but needed Collins to confirm ‘chapter of accidents’ as being “a series of misfortunes’ or ‘the unforeseeable course of events’

18 MASTIFF   MA (degree) STIFF (formal)

19 TOPICAL  TOPI (hat) CAL (US State)

20 IN A MESS  MESSINA (a Sicilian city) with the second half brought to the front - I would normally expect ‘inversion’ to indicate that the whole word is reversed so I spent some time looking for city in Sicily that ended with ‘ani’

Posted in FT | 1 Comment »

Guardian 24,472/Logodaedalus

Posted by golgonooza on 20th August 2008

golgonooza.

A fairly enjoyable puzzle. The wording of some of the clues seemed a little odd to me.

Across

7 BANDAGES  BAND(AGE)S

9 OPORTO  O(PORT)O

10 SKIN  S+KIN = HIDE

11 ELEMENTARY  cryptic def. “Elementary my dear Watson”

12 BURNEY  YEN+RUB rev - Fanny Burney

14 TENDERED  TENDER+ED

15 TATTOO  dd

17 ODDEST  TOES* +DD inside

20 DROWNING  DR+OWNING

22 ASKING  AS+KING

23 PTARMIGANS  MRSTAGPAIN*

24 ARMY  (SM)ARMY

 

Down

1 BANKRUPT  BA(NK)R+PUT*

2 ODIN  O+DIN  “Our Wednesday” because Odin or Woden is the god of that day. A bizarrely worded clue.

3 EGGERY  EG+GREY*

4 GOVERNED  GO(VERNE)D

5 BOTTLENECK  BOTTLE+NECK

6 STARVE  AVERTS*

8 SIESTA  TESSAI*

13 NOTEWORTHY  NOTE+WORTHY

16 ORIGINAL  OR(I+GIN)AL

18 TENEMENT  TENE(MEN)T

19 AGHAST  AG+HAS+T

22 ANSWER  ASWREN*

Posted in Guardian | 20 Comments »