Independent 6659/Virgilius
Posted by neildubya on February 19th, 2008
Make the most of this puzzle, we might not see a Virgilius next week, unless he has a few puzzles in the pipeline. Not sure if this constitutes a theme but lots of answers have Is or Ts in them (see 15/18).
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | hidden in “joB IF Fomenting” |
| 3 | S,PACE,CRAFT – if I’ve parsed this correctly then I’m not sure what “put into” is doing. Maybe it belongs with “workmanship” and taken together they indicate CRAFT? |
| 9 | NEXT? – fits the definition but I can’t see the wordplay. “Clothing store that’s still open – most close”. The last two words might indicate T? |
| 10 | TILL in (ONE SIX)* – SEXTILLION is the sixth power of a million. |
| 12 | (RANKS FOE)* – FORSAKEN. |
| 15/18 | DOTS THE IS AND CROSSES THE TS – I’m not sure I really understand all of what’s going here. The full clue is “Applies finishing touches needed to rewrite it”. The first three words provide the definition but it’s the last half of the clue that I don’t really get. I mean “it” already has a dotted “i” and crossed “t” – why does it need rewriting? |
| 22 | DETR[-o]IT,US |
| 24 | IT in (TIED ROPE)* – PERIDOTITE. For me, this was another one of those “chuck the remaining letters in and hope for the best” clues. The wordplay is easy enough but once all the checking letters were in, you’re left with P?R?D?T?T? and EIEIO from the anagram fodder. Pretty much all the combinations of letters look convincing so I went for PIRODETITE. |
| 26 | (A CONTEST ID)* – ANECDOTIST. |
| Down | |
| 1 | hidden (going up) in “deED IF AN OBjection” – excellent hidden clue with a great surface reading. |
| 4 | RE,RE in PLEASE – quite a tough one to parse but the penny dropped once I worked out what “holding on repeatedly” meant. |
| 7 | I,I in AC DC – this showed up my lack of science knowledge. In the PH scale above 7 is alkaline or “basic” and below 7 is ACIDIC. I didn’t know that so I guessed it from the checking letters and wordplay. |
| 8 | TINKER – which can mean “fiddle” but I don’t understand “Irish sage listened to”. |
| 11 | TERM in (DEMAND IS)* – MASTERMINDED. |
| 14 | US,HE,SETTER (going up) – excellent definition “Girl Guides in the dark” and a slightly surreal surface reading. |
| 16 | EXTR[-a] in DOSE |
| 23 | last letters in “thiS lasT cluE lasT” – this appeared in the Times puzzle yesterday too. It’s usually found in the margins of manuscripts “to indicate that something which has been changed or marked for deletion is to be retained in its original form after all.” Apparently it means “let it stand” in Latin. |
February 19th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
What does the opening sentence mean? Why mightn’t we see a Virgilius puzzle next week?
February 19th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Virgilius is having to cut down his crossword output because of pressures of other work. As a consequence, he’ll probably only be appearing every other week.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Agree re 15/18. Perhaps if cap IT had been used? Got me thinking though, I’ll say that, and there were no doubts as to the required answer.
NEXT looks like a multiple definition: can’t see the ‘still open’, but that’s probably due to the fact that I don’t have any decent refs here at work, and ‘most close’ would be equivalent to next as in ‘next to’.
Love the fact that you were left with eey-aye-eey-aye-o!
February 19th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Btw, think the S+PACE+CRAFT is just what’s ‘put into’ getting the answer.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
8D If you say “Thinker” with an Irish accent it sounds like “Tinker” thus Irish sage
February 19th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Work is the curse of the Crosswording classes, eh!
“Irish sage listened to” is a homonym indicator for ‘thinker’.
I got stuck on the bottom left corner (19d and 21ac) – now trying to see if Is and Ts help, but I fear not.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Was it just me, or was this a bit trickier than usual for Virgilius? I convinced myself for a long time that there was an anagram somewhere in 15/18, and the hidden answers in 1ac / 1d remained very well hidden for me…
February 19th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I assumed that theme here was the presence of words with DOTI (dotting the Is) or XT (crossing the Ts)?
Ali
February 19th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Well done Ali!
I suggested to Virgilius that this theme would catch a few people out.
I read 15/18 as meaning if you had to write (as opposed to type) “it” you would have to dot an i and cross a t and if you had to write it again (rewrite) it would be i’s and t’s. A bit of a liberty, perhaps.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
And thanks from me Ali – that tip enabled me to get 21ac, and so 19 down.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I had noticed at lot of EXTs, but, now, thanks to Ali, realise why this was hard for a Virgilius puzzle with some unfamiliar words. Another thematic pleasure.
While I can hardly argue with an Irishman such as Virgilius, I’ve my doubts about the TINKER (thinker) homophone…
February 19th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
NEXT Following on from Paul B, ‘most close’ may be ‘nearest’ i.e. NEXT. ‘still open’ might just mean NEXT shops are still trading.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Didn’t get the “Dive and Sink” clue. (Across, near the bottom of the puzzle- can’t remember number).
Have got -O-E.
Looks like “HOLE” but why?
Al
February 19th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Yep, hole as in ‘a miserable place’, and presumably a golf reference – hole/sink a putt
Ali
February 20th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
What was the hoopla clue – something about “a scene in Much Ado about Nothing” ? It sounds like it should be a word for fuss about o, but apart from hoo-ha, I can’t think of any words for fuss that look like that.
Also, who was the religious leader called Fox in foxtrots. Was he an archbishop or something like that ?
February 20th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Hoopla = much ado about nothing.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-215366/George-Fox
February 20th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
HOOPLA Following on from Paul B, it’s a double definition – the ‘about’ is not a containing indicator here. The ‘hoo-ha’ tempted me too at first.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
FOX
NealH: From quakerinfo.com, I read (had been vaguely aware of this but hadn’t been sure) “George Fox is generally called the founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)”.