Guardian 24168 / Gordius – Lock Up Your Dorters
Posted by neildubya on August 29th, 2007
A change of pace after yesterday’s Paul brainbuster. It still required two coffees, Mrs Stan and Crossword Buddy (http://www.loquax.co.uk/puzzles/) to complete however, which probably says more about the state of my mind than the level of difficulty.
Across
1 DECADE – sounds like “decayed”
4 BAND-I.T – Maybe a little strained to included mobiles as I.T
9 OMER – Had to look this one up – it’s a Hebrew measure of grain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_of_the_Omer
10 SPIN DOCTOR – (NIPS)< DO (CT) OR – is there a general move among compilers to use up the Blair references quickly before we all forget who he was ?
12 FOREMOST - FORT with SOME backwards inside – using the meaning of “van” as in “vanguard”
13 ACCOUTRED – ACTORCUED*
21 BATHROOM – Thanks go to ilancaron for bailing me out - Bath = Spring, Room = Assembly
26 THAIRM – TM for trademark with HAIR inside. Thank heavens for the shortage of 4-letter musicals. Thairm is the intestine used for Haggis – also for fiddle-strings.
Down
1 DEMONIC – COMEDI(A)N*
2 CAREY – George Carey the current Archbishop of Canterbury – Carey Street is where the bankrupcy courts used to be in London.
6 DE-CAMERON
7 TROTS-KY - Abbreviation for Kentucky – If you have the Trots you are in urgent need of a washroom.
8 DIE FLEDERMAUS - MADEFIELDERSU* A little German goes a long way – comic opera by Strauss.
14 OCTAHEDRA – ACTORHEAD*
16 BRA-VEST – very much my sense of humour. Bra vo !
18 H-ACKERS – “Ackers” is Northern slang for money, allegedly from the Egyptian “akka”
20 DORTER – had to look this up – it’s where monks sleep. As opposed to “apricots”, which is where monkeys sleep …
August 29th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Any help on 23/25? They’re the last ones I’m stuck on.
DEEP / DRIVE are the two stabs I’ve had at it but I don’t have any wordplay to back them up.
August 29th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
23 DAN-CE – Tribe of Dan, CE for church
25 NOES – sounds like ‘nose’
August 29th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I reckon 25A is NOES as in the opposite of Ayes and homophone “nose”; and 23D is DANCE – there is biblical tribe called Dan.
I was amused to see ACCOUTRED having only recently seen it for the first time in Bill Deedes obituary where as an example of his old-fashion turn of phrase he was quoted using it.
I got held up by writing in READY TO EAT with a flourish and not having the german to be sure of the Fledermaus spelling, but got there all but THAIRM for which I thank you.
August 29th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I thought that it was BATHROOM (with spring referring to the town BATH) — WASHROOM is more of a Canadianism (in my expericen at least).
August 29th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Thanks Stan!
Beermagnet – seems to be that the homophone in 25 is Ascent/assent rather than the nose/noes, but it works both ways
August 29th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Sorry to be a pedant but Carey was the previous archbishop of C. The current one is Rowan Williams.
August 29th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Ciaran
23 is a hidden word. (h)ave sta (tus). Zoroastrian text.
25 is just a charade. ex e mp t.
HTH
August 29th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
sorry Ciaran, wrong puzzle. (Must stop smoking that stuff. It confuses me).
(lies down in darkened room).
August 29th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I accept Ilancaron’s view of the world – I have changed to BATHROOM.
Conradcork : My legendary attention to detail strikes again – yes, Carey was the last guy.
August 29th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Decade in the UK is pronounced
de-CAYED, but in the US, it’s pronounced DECK-ade
August 29th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
re Bathroom: My interpretation of spring assembly is a collection of fixtures that supply runnning water.
(sink, toilet, bathtub, shower), which makes the entire clue a CD.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
As I used to live in Bath, I assumed that the Assembly Rooms, where one takes the water that rises from the spring, is the reason why it is Bathroom.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
25 across is ‘a scent’, meaning a nose – wine tasters use the term; so it isn’t assent, as that doesn’t mean to go up.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Just to confuse matters, definition 38 out of 55 in dictionary.com for wash is “a small stream or shallow pool”.
Could yet be “washroom”
August 29th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Wasn’t OCTAHEDRA an answer in another Guardian puzzle just a short while ago?
Is this just coincidence, or do the setters sometimes each try to get the same word in a puzzle? Or do they come up with multiple clues to the same word and don’t want to waste them, or what?