Posted by petebiddlecombe on 10th August 2007
Solving time: ages!
The only previous Kruger puzzle I remember was about No. 6 in the Inquisitor series, based on the Offa’s Dyke footpath and associated places – one that I found pretty tough and was quite relieved not to be writing about.
Posted in Inquisitor | No Comments »
Posted by ilancaron on 10th August 2007
Not the easiest puzzle to return to from France.
Puck and Paul must have gone to the same school of cryptic wizardry if their senses of humor are anything to go by. The theme this time is appropriately a favorite subject of schoolboys (breaking wind) and the Brit 90′s sitcom “Father Ted” which I’ve seen on transatlantic BA flights. Though I don’t think any linkage is intended – unless theme #1 was recurrent in theme #2?
Posted in Guardian | 12 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 10th August 2007
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PIP in BLOWE(r) |
| 5 | TOLD,DO – not a phrase I’d ever come across before but not a tricky one to get from the wordplay. |
| 9 | (TELE(-v)ISED)* |
| 10 | SILVER – SLIVER with LI reversed, indicated by “turned over partly”. |
| 12 | HANKS in SSP,ON,Y – I’d heard of this but I didn’t know what it meant. Chambers has it as “the use of one’s own legs as a means of travelling.” That’ll be walking or running then. |
| 17 | AI,CAR<,LIST – nice misleading surface. |
| 18 | S in DIM,EMBER – I had the D and S filled in so I wrote in DISMEMBER without thinking too hard once I saw “pull apart”. |
| 20 | LAUGHTER in SER(ies) |
| 24 | ACE<,R(-a)TE – another one I filled in without really knowing why, apart from the definition. I’ve only just worked out the RTE bit of the worplay: “Reckon to lose it, in short” indicates removing the A(ce) from RATE. Nicely done. |
| 25 | (HOME RAIN)* – MAORI HEN. I had H?N filled in so HEN was the only option for the second word. MAORI seemed an obvious choice for the rest of the anagram fodder given the NZ bit of the definition. |
| 26 | P(LENT for A)Y |
| 27 | A,V in DANCES – I guess “potential difference” is V because of Versus? |
| Down | |
| 1 | (ABSURD TALE)* – The definition – “One’s coping with it” – would have deceived me for a lot longer were it not for one of my favourite Azed comp clues for the same word: “Bears cope”. For some reason that clue has always stuck with me so when I think of cope/coping I think of BALUSTRADE. |
| 4 | PLEA,SURE O in BAT |
| 6 | DAIRY M (all going up),AID |
| 7/8 | L,AV(-i)ATOR,Y |
| 11 | CON,G,R in CERT,AND |
| 13 | HIER,AR(t),CHIC |
| 14 | RANK in OTHERS – which is where we get the useful-for-crosswords abbreviation, OR. |
| 16 | T in TIER SEAT – the last one to go in and not a phrase I’d heard of so I had to check it in Chambers. |
| 22/23 | MET<,PLATE |
Posted in Independent | 6 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 10th August 2007
My first Sleuth puzzle but I’ve solved a few by the same setter as Hypnos in the Independent. This was a reasonably gentle solve with some nice touches here and there. One query with 15A, where I don’t understand all of the wordplay. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in FT | 7 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 10th August 2007
The Beelzebub puzzle, published in the magazine section of the Independent on Sunday, is currently set by two setters: Phi does three a month and Columba does one. Columba used to be a setter for the daily Independent cryptic (he often appeared on a Wednesday, if memory serves) and I often used to buy the Independent whenever he appeared as his puzzles were always very challenging but great fun. His clues are very fair (as you’d expect from an Azed comp winner) and often quite complex to unravel. If you’ve never encountered this setter before, a number of his puzzles appear in this book.
Posted in Beelzebub | 6 Comments »
