Fifteensquared

Never knowingly undersolved.

Archive for October 6th, 2008

Independent 6856 by Eimi - ‘Tis the Season to Miss out the Crossword

Posted by NealH on 6th October 2008

NealH.

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed

I don’t know if the Indy has dropped the cryptic crossword altogether from its published edition but, despite annoying other passengers on the train by noisily going through my paper 11 times, I was unable to find it. Somewhat galling to find you’ve spent £1.00 and didn’t get the main thing you wanted !

There is now a printable version on the web site, which is how I got the compiler’s name. It was a relatively easy for the most part but I was thrown by 11 across, where I’d never come across “summer” as a type of beam. I suppose I should have realized because all the other seasons also appear. There were a couple of other clues I didn’t entirely follow.

Across
1 Seasons: Sea son[g]s. Indicates the puzzle “theme”.
5 Spring: double def.
10 Electronic organ: (in Elgar concerto)*.
11 Summer: “Beam when tale-teller loses leg”. The dictionary confirms that summer is a type of beam, but I don’t follow the rest.
12 Autumn: Aunt* around U M.
14 Cases: double definition (case as in “case the joint”).
16 Bride to be: (to bed)* in brie[f].
17 Error free: (r reefer or)*
19 Miser: Miser=”close one”. Word play = MI + ser[vices].
20 Winter: W + Inter [Milan].
21 Cliche: Alternative letters of Celtic + he, but I’m not completely sure why the Caholic is there.
25 Proxima Centauri: (American tour pix)*.
26 Malaga: A lag in ma.
27 Vivaldi: Viv + Aldi - see Viv Nicholson
Down
1 Seersucker: Se[tt]er + sucker. This was made difficult by the fact that on the online version you don’t get the compiler name. On the printed version, it’s been changed from “compiler” to Eimi.
2 A Team: Ate AM. This is a reference to the TV series, the A Team, whose leader was called Hannibal. You can’t accuse them of being elitist.
3 Outlets: Out + Lets.
4 Swot: tows<.
6 Pro cure
7 Ingenious: This was the other one I didn’t really follow. Clue is “Clever girl turned into a cow in fashionable group”.
8 Gong: Go[i]ng.
9 Minutiae: Minute around AI<. A minute is a 60th part of a degree in angular measurement.
13 Decree Nisi: (Residence I)*.
15 Straw Poll: [Jack] Straw + poll.
16 Bergerac: Double definition. Bergerac was a 1980s TV detective series set on Jersey. It was John Nettles’ previous incarnation, before he left to do something about the horrendous murder rate in the Midsomer area.
18 Running: Double def.
19 Molotov: Double def. Fairly easy to get from the “cocktail” part, but I was not aware that Perm is a Russian city which was formerly called Molotov.
22 Cruel: Soundalike of crewel.
23 Spam: Initial letters + &lit.
24 Derv: Hidden.

Posted in Independent | 16 Comments »

Guardian 24512/Rufus

Posted by mhl on 6th October 2008

mhl.

As ever, a great fun puzzle for the start of the week from Rufus, with lots of “A-ha!” moments with the cryptic definitions. I found the top left corner was much harder than the rest of this puzzle - 5 across and down were the last to go in…

Across
5 CAUCUS: The “range in southeast Europe” is the CAUCASUS, and “when out” removes AS (= “when”). The word “caucus” is often used to mean a meeting of members of a party (and in some countries the whole party), but the word can also be used to mean the people at such gathering, which I think must be the sense here.
6 FAT CAT: Double definition: “bread” is slang for money
9 BUNKER: Cryptic defintion: a golfer might drive into a sand trap
10 APIARIES: Cryptic definition: apiaries are beehives, and “workers” are worker bees
11 SKUA: The other birds are AUKS, reversed to give the original one
12 TENNIS BALL: An excellent cryptic definition
13 FLYING A KITE: Double definition
18 BATTLEDORE: I hadn’t heard this word before, but apparently it’s a racket or bat that one might hit a shuttle-cock with. The subsidiary part is BATTLED = “Fought” + ORE = “foreign currency”, which might be the Norwegian øre or the Swedish öre
21 PUBS: UP reversed + B + S
22 ALLOWING: ALL + OWING
23 TOOK UP: Double definition
24 WHEELS: W + HEELS; “revolvers” is the definition
25 RANCID: RAN + CID
 
Down
1 JUNK MAIL: “Bodyguard” is MAIL (a chain-mail vest, for instance), and a JUNK is a vessel; in this case “on” means “go after” rather than “put on top”, as it might well do in a down clue
2 TURRET: Cryptic definition
3 BASILISK: Cryptic definition; the basilisk is fabulous as in “from fable” and could kill people just by looking at them
4 SCARAB: A R = “a river” in SCAB = “Rat”
5 CHUKKA: Cryptic definition: games of polo are divided up into “chukkas”, also spelled “chukkers”
7 TREBLE: TRE[M]BLE
8 SAINT GEORGE: (GOES TEARING)*
14 INEDIBLE: (LIE IN BED)* - I guess some people might not like having “enough” in the definition part here…
15 TOP-NOTCH: “To surpass” = TOP + “score” = NOTCH. I’m rather surprised that this is (8) rather than (3-5) - I guess that’s just an error unless the Guardian daily crossword is switching to the Ximines / Azed policy on hyphenation
16 SALLOW: “Sally” or SAL is short for Sarah, and LOW = “depression”
17 ABSURD: AB’S = “Jack’s” (as in sailor) + U = “posh” (as in “U and non-U”) + RD = “road” or “way”
19 TROWEL: Cryptic definition
20 EXTRAS: (EX-STAR)*

Posted in Guardian | 9 Comments »

Guardian Genius no.63, Brummie: The final curtain

Posted by michod on 6th October 2008

michod.

As a newcomer to the Genius since the site went free, I found this OK but a little - not hard to get going with, but tough to finish because the entry method for the thematic clues, though good, left you with the kind of ambiguities a definiton-only puzzle would (I love cryptics, they;re so much easier!) . The final curtain, as it were, was little underwhelming, and I felt that the whole synonym idea could have been deployed to better purpose. The eight thematic clues are asterisked, two theme words in bold.

ACROSS:

9. SQUEAMISH. MAE<in SQUISH. One of the last to go, quite tough as Mae is quite a long way down the list of women’s names that come to mind.

10. (b)OUNCE. A lynx or snow leopard, not endangered in crosswords at least.

11. S(h)USH+I. Nice surface, though wd be better if I could refer to India.

12. HIGHS PEED. Peaks=highs a bit close to the definition of the whole, but it’s still a nice charade -Brummie likes the odd lavatorial reference, and so do I.

*13. NOODLES (ONE’S OLD*) = NITWITS. I had ninnies at first - dimwits, cretins, prob others alsot possible.

*14. IN V(O)ICE = ACCOUNT. A very clever clue, which possibly should have had a question mark after ‘clamped’ - O  is in ‘in vice’, i.e. opening clamped.

*17. C(ockr)OACH = TUTOR. I found most of these quite hard to get, because you have to force yourself to ignore checking letters while trying to cold-solve the clue.

19. C(l)UE. This being the clue.

*20. (c)UTTER = SPEAK. I had sheer at first, although that is really the same meaning as in the definition, so couldn’t have been right.

21. LOR(I’M)E+R.

22. G RO(s)SES. Took a while because of mistakes at 22 and 23 dn.

24. FOOD CHAIN. A rare CD, and not a great one - I don’t see another meaning for it really.

26. MOT+IF (TOM<).

28. RE(S)IN.

29. NILE DELTA. I(r)ELAND LET*.

DOWN:

1. IS IS. Ref part of the Thames in Oxford, where people punt.

2. RUSS+ET. Ref comedian Russ Abbot - not sure you see him much these days.

3. PACIFIC RIM. CD (the main edge) + CAPRI FC II*+M(ilan).

4. (w)EIGHTS. Rowing races with eight rowers I believe.

5. THE GRAVE. Unclued answer, the non-literal sense of 19dn.

6. POTS (DD). Not sure why, but I fingered this one early on as thematic, and had ‘pans’ as the entry, which slowed things down.

7. INSECURE. (SINECURE with S dropping two places). Good clue.

*8. (th)RUSH = REED. Looking back, it took me a moment to remember why - surely Rushdie’s neither a singer nor particularly acne’d, and has seven letters anyway - ah, of course, the spotty singer’s a thrush!

13. NAT+AL.

15. CUSTOM-MADE. Straight charade of the compound word’s two parts.

16. TAKAS (TAKES with A for E). The only really obscure word here, except possibly lorimer.

18. TORT + OISE. Apologies to those who roll the R in tortoise - it worked for me.

19. CURTAINS. Formed fromthe first letters of the asterisked entries, and defining 5 down - although not very directly: both refer to death, but in subtly different ways.

*22. TENDER (RED NET<) = GENTLE. Another ambiguous one - I had ‘kindly’.

*23. A LIGHT = SETTLE. Can’t even remember what I had here.

*24. SACK (CASK switching C and S) = FIRE.

25. CAN+T.

27. FLAG (DD).

Posted in Guardian | 6 Comments »