Guardian 24031/Brendan – elephantine planes
Posted by ilancaron on March 22nd, 2007
Not an easy puzzle for me. Started off well and cracked the theme pretty quickly – but held up for a long time by the NE corner (got the PIGEON/pidgin homophone inverted). I liked the various meanings of PLANE sprinkled around. The central cross reads CARRY-ON LUGGAGE and PAIR OF TRUNKS. If I was a fortune-teller, I would predict a long trip is in the cards for Brendan. Hopefully, not in a MICROLIGHT or in a caravan of camels.
Across
| 9 | ORIGIN – the X and Y axes in graphs “cut” each other at the ORIGIN. |
| 11 | E,MISS,ARIES – ARIES is our sign of the Zodiac. |
| 12 | PLANES – our first PLANE: a tool and a thing that grows that has a trunk (19D): nice shift of “growing” from gerund to adjective. |
| 14 | OVERLONG – I quickly realized this was OVER something due to the cricket (“deliveries”) reference but didn’t think of LONG for a long tedious time. I’m not completely convinced that “by implication” is needed – is this just a way to indicate that OVERLONG is a cryptic way to define “too many deliveries”? |
| 15 | C(‘ARRY)-ON – [H]ARRY’s our Cockney bloke and to CARRY-ON means to make a fuss. |
| 17 | LUG,GAGE – Needed to decide between LUGGAGE and BAGGAGE. 4D resolved that for me. Turns out that LUG is a fruit box (between 28 and 40 pounds for those who care). |
| 22 | JET SET – got this immediately once I had JUMBOS without knowing 3 or 12 – in fact I worked those out from this answer. |
| 23 | M[ass],OLYBDENUM – (men doubly)* – not the most familiar of elements but obvious anagram. |
| 26 | S,MO,OTHER – tough clue for some reason: another meaning of plane. Two seconds: S and MO[ment]. |
Down
| 2 | SAID – rev(Dias) as in Bartholemeu (Portuguese navigator). |
| 3 | FLY,ER’S – FLY is Brit for “shrewd”. Edward Rex is our monarch this time (and FLYERS is alt. spelling of fliers referred to by 22A). |
| 4 | ROU=”rue”,SSEU=”so” – hard but fair and clever clue. Indeed Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU was a French philosopher (incidentally in my last Guardian blog for Paul it was Henri ROUSSEAU who cropped up). |
| 5 | MICRO,LIGHT – Goodness, MICROcomputers are a thing of the past by now, no? |
| 6 | PIGEON=”pidgin” – Smooth surface. Homer the pigeon not Simpson nor that Greek guy. I had this inverted at first which was the reason I was so stuck (on 11A for instance). |
| 8,19 | PAIR OF TRUNKS – another clever clue: 22D is JUMBOS who, when elephants, have TRUNKS. |
| 16 | O(PEN, DO,O)R – Nice to see Oregon in a puzzle (where my parents live now). “Welcoming” is the containment indicator in the sense of embracing I suppose. |
| 18 | GUERNSEY – It’s an island but I don’t see the word play. ”Cast off when finished working on this island”. Offers? |
| 22 | J,UMBOS – with J?M??? I was sure of JUMBOS but I had to check that UMBOS are large projecting bosses on shields. Our final kind of plane. |
| 24 | WATT=”what” – a homophone (that doesn’t work in Scotland apparently) that was in Tuesday’s Times as well. Quite well hidden. |
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
18D A guernsey is a knitted sweater (just like a jersey – and for that matter, Fair Isle and Aran). For future reference, there are Guernsey and Alderney breeds of cattle, to go with Jersey.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I happen to know that Brendan recently flew from America to Europe, but not by microlight.
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:00 pm
I’ve always thought it odd that ‘jersey’ and ‘guernsey (or ‘gansey’ as it is sometimes spelt) are named after the islands from which come breeds of… cattle!
I wonder what happened to Jersey or Guernsey sheep – are their fleece so inferior to the wool(??) from their bovine rivals?