Guardian 24,187/Paul – Poetic Licence?
Posted by loonapick on September 20th, 2007
A typical fun crossword from Paul – an enjoyable challenge as he doesn’t allow the rules to get in the way of a good clue.
Time taken – 14mins, approximately
ACROSS
1 see 19dn
5 T(HR)O-WIN – spent too long trying to work out the wordplay, because I couldn’t help but see “time” as T
9 RADII – there are 2 of them across a circle or ring
10 ALPENHORN – (planner)* round HO
11 IVORY-TO-WE-(solve)R – another one where the wordplay takes longer to work out than it does to put in the obvious answer
14 UNDERTAKERS – geddit?
18 HIPPO-CRATES
22 FIN-G(<=FRE(sh))OOD – “nibbles” is the definition, “bit of fish” = FIN. Again, wordplay took me a while because I couldn’t see past F as “bit of fish”
27 PSALTER – (stapler)*
28 PO(<=ACE-L)T – typo corrected
DOWN
1 JERK-IN
2 SIDE-ON – (Edison)* – what do people think of “invention of” as the anagrind?
3 1-KID-YOU(NO)T(h) – nice
5 TOP SECRET – (protects E)*
6,21dn RING-PULL – for our non-cricketing fans, a pull shot is a cricket shot where the batsman “pulls” the ball from one side of the wicket to the other – a risky shot, especially if you’re as poor at the game as I am.
7 WHO(CA(ke))RES – wouldn’t be Paul without a clue like this, would it?
8 N(O)N-SE-N-SE – the only clue in the puzzle I have a problem with. Using “a number of points” to indicate seven of the eight letters appears a bit lazy to me
13 K(A1-SERB)ILL – nickname of Wilhelm II, the last emperor of Germany and Prussia
15 DER-RINGER
17 A-POLO-GIA – where GIA is the “starts to” Get Interesting Attacking”
19,1ac POETIC JUSTICE – my favourite clue in the puzzle, although some purists might frown a bit
24 FLAT RACE – another good ‘un
September 20th, 2007 at 11:03 am
I liked POETIC LICENCE, though it was the last answer I got. 23 down GET UP (PUT EG
September 20th, 2007 at 11:11 am
… reversed) was good too.
I forgot, in comments you can’t use this sign or it will terminate your post –
September 20th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I agree re 8D — btw, today’s Times has something very similar (“Makes whole series of points after resistance”).
September 20th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Yeah I don’t like that kind of thing. It seems only a relatively short step from there to being able to clue any word as “a series of letters”. The only difference is that for an n-letter word instead of 4n possibilities there would be 26n.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I guess superscripts don’t work here. The above should be read “4 to the power of n” and “26 to the power of n”
September 20th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Michod, you can stick in the less than sign using the following sequence of characters < like this < (I hope!)
September 20th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Can someone explain 28 across? I get the ACE-L reversed bit, but where does the PO…AT come from?
September 20th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Sorry, ignore me, I’m being thick. I see my mistake.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Loonapick
explanation of 28 across should be PO(ACE-L)T
Stakes indicates POT with ACE-L reversed inside POT
September 20th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
19dn,1ac was my last and favourite clue. Only 2 words fitted the crossing letters for 19: poetic and aortic. Given the rhyming clue, it had to be poetic.
September 21st, 2007 at 12:44 am
The phrase was POETIC JUSTICE, not POETIC LICENCE.
September 21st, 2007 at 8:01 am
Testy in comment 4: Superscripts can be made – e.g. xy. The HTML to put in your comment is: x<sup>y</sup>