Independent 6487/Dac
Posted by Colin Blackburn on August 1st, 2007
This turned out to be a nightmare puzzle for me. I’m too busy at work preparing to take a break and so I didn’t find the space to do this puzzle justice. Some excellent clues but they didn’t come very quickly for me. I have decided to post without knowing the answers to a triplet from the south west corner (18d, 19d, and 22a if anyone wants to chip in before tomorrow’s solution.)
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | DUMBO — DUMB+O — This should have been simple but for some reason I wrote in MIME+O assuming it to refer to a film used in the duplication process. This then held me up for rather too long on 1d. |
| 9 | WIDGEON — WIDGE(t)+ON — a duck. PIDGEON is definitely not the right answer! |
| 10 | NOTICED — NOT ICED — very nice cryptic definition for the subsidiary indication. |
| 11 | SALAAM — ALAS< + AM — good surface reading with a little bit of politics thrown in. |
| 14 | INANIMATE OBJECT — IN+A+MATE+NI + OBJECT — the definition here is very well hidden as “Thing that’s still…” NI = Northern Ireland not technically Ulster but common usage justifies its use (to an Englishman!) |
| 17 | GREEN CHARTREUSE — GREEN + CHART+REUSE — very good surface connecting GREEN and REUSE. I’d not heard of the spirit but it fitted. |
| 18 | ALICANTE — CANT in ALIE(n) — a popular Spanish resort with a useful airport if you want to explore Murcia. |
| 25 | SULKY — double def. — I had to look this one up. I spent way too long looking at S-L-Y and trying to fit word play to it. It turns out a SULKY is a small carriage. |
| Down | |
| 2 | MIDDLE AMERICANS — (CRAMMED IN LADIES)* — very good anagram and a nice use of the initial uppercase letter to hide the definition. |
| 4 | RANK — double def. — J Arthur RANK (useful rhyming slang for the Cyclops puzzle one day) owned cinemas and taxis are found on taxi ranks. Another excellent surface. |
| 6 | PETAL — P(erformance) + LATE< — this is one of those clue that gives the impression of complex word play and then there it is staring at you. |
| 7 | INCONSEQUENTIAL — C in (A QUESTION LENIN)* — great anagram once again. |
| 8 | NADIR — homophone? — I assume this is a homophone but I can’t imagine of what. |
| 13 | WASHETERIA — H in (AS IT WERE)* +A — a word I haven’t heard for a long time. |
| 16 | TREACHERY — R in TEACHER + (sp)Y |
| 21 | ABLE — (g)ABLE — the surface here is tremendous. |
August 1st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Very tough – the three you mention were the ones I struggled with too. They’re A PT ED – new to me but verified, TRAM PER (all reversed in the wordplay) and, I think APPAL cf APP(e)AL, but not fully understood.
August 1st, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I made a good start with this one, but then spent a good 20 mins on the Tube staring blankly at the entire left hand side of the grid. I then managed to get the long anagram at 2D and all of a sudden about 10 clues went in in 10 seconds, which must have looked quite impressive to the person who’d just sat down next to me! Ended up 3 clues short before resorting to help, SULKY being one of them, the others being 5D and 24A (CEN-TIME-TRE and DIS-PL-EASE)
An enjoyable puzzle overall, but a toughie
Ali
August 1st, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Answer to 19d is Appel “A quick stamp of the foot used in fencing as a feint to produce an opening”. Appeal wanting a.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:11 pm
APPEL – that fits much better, doesn’t it? Thanks, Jos.
August 1st, 2007 at 11:09 pm
A Dac with a bit of a sting in the tail. Colin’s missing 3 plus SULKY probably took me about 40% of the time for the whole puzzle.
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:20 am
Well, I’m glad it wasn’t just me then!
Can anyone explain NADIR?
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:11 am
NADIR, admittedly Collins offers two different pronunciations of the first syllable, but in this case the homophone works as ‘not so, sweet’ or ‘nay, dear.’
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:35 am
“Nay, dear” – ouch!