Posted by Andrew on 2nd September 2008
It’s my first day back in the office after a week-and-a-bit’s holiday, so a large backlog of emails has somewhat delayed my blogging. A lot of obscure words and references, combined with some rather dodgy clueing (and not helped by the aforementioned email backlog), made this puzzle a bit of a slog, though there were some nice clues scattered in there.
Key:
dd = double definition
* = anagram
< = reverse
| Across |
| 1 |
ALLEGRI |
I for O in ALLEGRO |
Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652) is probably best known for his setting of the Miserere (Psalm 51), which was so highly regarded that the Vatican forbade its transcription. The 14-year-old Mozart is said to have written it down from memory after a single hearing.
I was about to admit defeat on the wordplay in this one (I originally thought there was a partial anagram of LARGELY in there) when I suddenly saw it: “largely 26″ is BRISK(et), and a “brisk piece” is an ALLEGRO; give “one for nothing” and you get ALLEGRI. 10/10 for sheer cheek, I think. |
| 5 |
RISOTTO |
(I TO SORT)* |
|
| 9 |
PARSNIP |
PAR SNIP |
I’d say “par for the course” is metaphorical rather than proverbial. |
| 10 |
ACROBAT |
CAR* + BOAT* |
|
| 11 |
EROGENOUS |
(h)ERO + GONE* + US |
|
| 12 |
ENROL |
EN R-O-L |
An EN is a measurement in printing, or a particular size of space (about the size of a letter “n”, in fact). And then “nothing” = O separates the “two sides” R and L. |
| 13 |
SIDON |
(NOD IS)< |
“A nod is as good as a wink.” Sidon is a very ancient city, in what is now Lebanon. |
| 15 |
PRINCETON |
N in PRICE + TON |
|
| 17 |
IMPORTUNE |
IMPORT UNE |
UNE = “a foreign female” - just about OK, I suppose. |
| 19 |
RATES |
TREAS(urer)* |
I don’t like “treasurer shortly” = TREAS. Araucaria does this sort of thing occasionally - perhaps Gordius has picked up the habit from him. |
| 22 |
PULSE |
L for R in PURSE |
|
| 23 |
OLFACTORY |
OL(d) FACTORY |
|
| 25 |
STADIUM |
(MUST AID)* |
|
| 26 |
BRISKET |
RISK in BET |
|
| 27 |
ELEANOR |
(LEAN + O) in ER |
Nothing to do with any of the six wives of Henry VIII - Eleanor of Aquitaine was the wife of Henry II, and the mother of Richard the Lionheart and John. “Which English king was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine?” was Judith Keppel’s million pound question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. |
| 28 |
ELECTOR |
CT replaces AN in ELEANOR |
A nice linkage of these two words |
| Down |
| 1 |
ALPHEUS |
HELP* in AUS |
I think this wins the prize for “most obscure reference” in this puzzle: Alpheus was the father of the disciple James the Less, not to be confused with James the brother of John, whose father was Zebedee. |
| 2 |
LARWOOD |
(A ROW OLD)* |
Harold Larwood (1904-1995) was one of the fast bowlers involved in the famous “bodyline” Test series against Australia in 1932-33. |
| 3 |
GUNGE |
GUN + EG< |
|
| 4 |
IMPROMPTU |
PROM in I’M PUT* |
“Over” here needs to be interpreted as “containing” |
| 5 |
ROADS |
Homophone of (Cecil) RHODES |
|
| 6 |
STREETCAR |
CARTERET’S* |
“A Streetcar Named Desire” is a play by Tennessee Williams, but most famous as the 1951 film starring Marlon Brando. |
| 7 |
TABORET |
TA BORE T |
Volunteers = Territorial Army = TA is a common piece of wordplay. “Taboret” was unfamiliar to me - it can be either a stool or a cabinet. |
| 8 |
ORTOLAN |
(A LOT)< in ORN |
ORTOLAN is a bird - a type of bunting: nothing to do with flags in the street. |
| 14 |
NORWEGIAN |
(WEARING ON)* |
Surely a bit of a stretch to call Norwegian a race. |
| 16 |
INEFFABLE |
dd |
This cheered me up when I was feeling a bit grumpy about the puzzle - can’t be sworn at = can’t be effed (as in effing and blinding) = ineffable. |
| 17 |
IMPASSE |
I’M PASSÉ |
|
| 18 |
PILLAGE |
PILL AGE |
Another amusing one |
| 20 |
TOOL KIT |
L in TOOK IT |
|
| 21 |
SHYSTER |
hidden |
Flywheel, Shyester and Flywheel was a short-lived 1932 radio sitcom by the Marx brothers. It was revived a few years ago on Radio 4. (Addendum - not so few: it was actually in 1990-1992) |
| 23 |
ORMER |
OR MER |
A type of sea snail, also called the Abalone |
| 24 |
CHINE |
CHIN E |
An easy clue for another rather obscure word. It’s a steep-sided river valley. |
Posted in Guardian | 17 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 2nd September 2008
I found this mostly reasonably easy but with a few tough spots here and there. I only spotted the Nina (in the perimeter running clockwise from the bottom left-hand corner) once I’d finished the puzzle - appropriately enough for the time of year it reads BRINGING IN THE SHEAVES, which is a traditional thanksgiving hymn which I presume is often sung around harvest festival time.
| Across |
| 6 |
hidden in “maNY A LAager” |
| 7 |
BAN,JOIST |
| 9 |
(RING)*,ED - GIRNED was new to me but it was my first guess given the wordplay. Even so, I waited for all the crossing letters before filling it in. |
| 10 |
REP,ROACH - I’d never heard of Hal Roach (an American TV and film producer apparently) so this was another partial guess. “Carpet” is an easy enough definition and “salesman” is a common indicator for REP so not knowing the Hal shouldn’t have made this clue unsolvable for most. |
| 11 |
(HIT ON NEW)* - NON-WHITE. |
| 13 |
R(EVIL)E - Good clue, especially the use of “clamp” to indicate containment. |
| 17 |
IT in SURF< - another good one with a pertinent surface reading, given the current economic climate. |
| 19 |
INSTEP - not sure I really understand all of this: “Sandhurst marchers” would be IN STEP but what does “they control it” mean? Something to with controlling the INSTEP of the foot? |
| 23 |
R,IGOR,O[-p]US - you don’t need to know that Stravinsky’s first name was IGOR to solve this but it certainly helps. You could probably get by knowing that you’re looking for a word for “harsh” that begins with R. |
| 27 |
B,(TREE)*,OOT - BEETROOT, the colour you go when you blush. |
| 28 |
[-c]ANNUL[-a] |
| |
| Down |
| 1 |
IN(D)IGO - Inigo Jones was an Elizabethan architect. |
| 2 |
NA[-v]AN - I didn’t understand the “Irish fort” reference so this was another guess. |
| 3 |
G,AND,HI |
| 4 |
IN,(SPERRI[-ns])* - INSPIRER. Bizarre sounding clue and “3, perhaps” is a bit loose as a definition for GANDHI I thought. |
| 7 |
BAR[-ns]LEY |
| 8 |
S(ICKLE)S - “little to child” for ICKLE was a nice touch and quite original. |
| 15 |
PENS[-l]IVE[-d] |
| 16 |
TOP(TOT,O)E - “tope” means to drink habitually and to excess, which I knew from somewhere or other (probably another crossword). |
| 18 |
RUS(SE)T - more guesswork required here as I’d never come across RUST as a type of fungus before. Also, is “Sussex” really good enough as an indicator for SE (South East)? |
| 21 |
G,US,VAT (reversed) |
| 26 |
L in UNA - I remember Una Stubbs from the 80s children’s TV programme Worzel Gummidge but apparently she’s recently been in Eastenders and The Catherine Tate Show. |
Posted in Independent | 14 Comments »
Posted by C G Rishikesh on 2nd September 2008
Late blog because of late uploading of puzzle.
Some clues may have familiar wordplay but the puzzle on the whole is enjoyable.
Across
1 BETRAY - bet, ray - to ‘betray’ is not just to tell but to tell something in a breach of trust
4 CROSSBOW - cross,bow
10 CARNATION - car, nation - did you at first count the letters in ‘motor race’ and think the answer was an anagram?
11 ON CUE - “on!”, cue (ignoring the initial capital in “Rod”)
12 CHIP - c, hip The initial capital in ‘Nick’ is in its own right as it starts a sentence, but as def. for word required it is ‘nick’
13 INDISTINCT - in(Di)stinct
15 ATHLETE - let in ‘athe’ (anag. of ‘heat’)
16 GARAGE - gar(-b)age - I don’t find any support for b as an abbr. for ‘barrel’, maybe it’s a case where we have to substitute the initial letter of a given word
19 ODIOUS - OD, IOUs
21 FLAVOUR - f(L)avour
23 STANDPOINT - stand, point (ignoring the initial capital in Spike)
25 SMUT - tums<
27 EXTRA - e(x,t)ra - Is there any dictionary support for t = tenor?
28 PERSIMMON - P, ersimmon (anag. of misnomer)
29 DECODERS de(cod)er,s - ‘Does’ in wordplay is n. pl. of ‘doe’ giving ‘deer’ - During World War II, Bletchley Park was the location of the United Kingdom’s main codebreaking establishment. I may be excused if at first I was looking for a word like ‘decoding’ - the clue as written does not seem to demand a noun as the answer word
30 GLANCE - g,lance
Down
1 BACKCHAT - back, chat - ‘chat’ is a small songbird
2 TARNISHED - tarn, I, shed - ‘tarn’ is a small mountain lake
3 AJAR - a, jar
5 RANKING - ran, king (ignoring the initial capital in Rex)
6 SHORTBREAD - short, bread
7 BACON - BA, con - the reference may be to Roger Bacon or Francis Bacon (who is also known for his Essays)
8 WREATH - anag. of ‘The war’
9 FIANCE - fi(n)ance (you’ve to remove only one name, though!)
14 SECOND HAND - second hand - wordplay is passable - while referring to the part of a watch I think we would say ’seconds hand’, not ’second hand’
17 GROOMSMAN - G (rooms) man - Whether ‘apartment’ (in singular) can give ‘rooms’ is debatable
18 PRETENCE - ‘retenc’ (anag. of ‘recent’) in PE (physical education)
20 SHOPPER - s, hopper - ’shop’, v., is to inform the police against someone. Whether ’shopper’ is used to refer to a person who does this activity, a native speaker of English must tell me, for I haven’t come across it in reading
21 FINERY - (-RE)finery
22 ASCEND - anag. of ‘dances’
24 ATTIC - solved from the def. ‘Greek’ (I recall Keats’s ‘Attic shape’) - The deletion-wordplay eludes me at the moment
26 MILL - two def. - one is a reference to John Stuart Mill, English philosopher
Posted in FT | 1 Comment »