Independent 6743/Dac
Posted by John on May 27th, 2008
What’s Dac doing on a Tuesday? Something’s afoot. Oh yes, today must be special – look at the outer unches – in which case many congratulations.
A typical Dac, as usual excellent, but there were one or two answers I wasn’t quite comfortable with (a nice ambiguity: not comfortable because I didn’t like the clues or because I couldn’t understand them?).
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | BEG d(INNER) – ‘Here’s one’ refers to ‘starter’ and is the definition |
| 9 | ONE-WAY – (y(ou) awe no)rev. |
| 10 | L AMP – I think this is an &lit., where l is the abbreviation for ‘live’ (?? Not in chambers or the COD) |
| 11 | TABLE D’HOTE – (bloated the)* |
| 12 | ILKESTON – (likes to)* round n |
| 13 | PRIOR – 2 defs, the American reference new to me |
| 14 | PLIGHTS – 2 defs |
| 16 | BARSAC – (scarab)* |
| 19 | SAROS – o in SARS – not sure about ‘globe’ for ‘o’; saros is a word new to me |
| 20 | C(A STILL)A – it’s an old region of Spain, I think |
| 22 | S(ANT)AM A RIA – (air)rev. – easy to fall into the trap of thinking ‘SA’ is ‘South America’ and then wondering how he gets the m |
| 24 | DEAR – “deer” |
| 25 | S OFTEN |
| 26 | B REACHES |
| Down | |
| 1 | TERAFLOP – (fear plot)* – so that’s why they’re called floppy disks – I’d always wondered, because they’re anything but floppy; for a while I had FLOPRATE, which didn’t help |
| 2 | HIP PIE |
| 3 | IN S(how) TITCHES |
| 4 | pROPErly |
| 5 | TECHNICS – “tec nix” |
| 6 | YATTER – (Ramsa)y (treat)* |
| 8 | RIBAND – (Ir)rev. band |
| 13 | PEAR-SHAPED – 2 defs |
| 15 | IR R(IT)ATE |
| 17 | COLLARED – 2 defs |
| 18 | SCAR A B |
| 19 | SH(AD)OW |
| 21 | IN DUCE – referring to Mussolini |
| 23 | MIND – 2 defs, although I’m not sure about ‘will’ = ‘mind’ |
May 27th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Indeed, many congratulations to Dac and MrsDac.
Good puzzle as usual for Dac, although I found it a bit harder than usual.
May 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Though Chambers (1998) itself does not have l = live, Chambers XWD, A Dictionary of Crossword Abbreviations has it.
May 27th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
No, floppy disks really are floppy (at least the bit inside the case is – take one apart and see), in distinction to hard disks. Older readers will remember 5.25 inch floppies, which had a much flimsier sleeve. (Even older readers may remember 8 inch floppies used in what we used to call “minicomputers”. And younger readers may never have seen a floppy disk at all…)
The “flop” in TERAFLOP is unrelated to floppiness, being an abbreviation of FLoating-point OPeration.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I found this one a little tricky too, and was eventually defeated by 8D. I never think to look for anything untoward in Dac’s puzzles and completely missed the Nina on my first pass, but it helped with a few missing answers when I eventually spotted it. Congrats to the happy couple.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Congratulations Dac, I’m sure this will mean more than flowers (oh, what – as well as? Of course).
I’d say Castilla is still a region of Spain – possibly two regions, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla-Leon.
May 27th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Surely “having prior” means the same in the UK these days, (i.e. “having form”) or am I mis-remembering what I hear on the cop shows?
The Saros cycle is well known to us eclipse nuts and worthy of a link – which I would put here but I suspect it is the inclusion of a link that is sending my comment into the spam bucket – I suggest googling “saros” and choosing the NASA pages.
I certainly liked this new Daconian concept – instead of “say it with flowers” – “say it with outer unches”!
May 27th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Congrats, Dac, an excellent puzzle as normal – just a little harder cos of the constraints. I spotted the message only very near the end. Though I don’t think Merlin will like globe = o in SAROS.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I think we say “‘e’s got previous”, rather than “prior”.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I think the L = live issue came up on this board before. It’s definitely OK, I think, given in Collins (ref:electricity, I guess). The ‘prior’ in that American sense was new to me too, but my COD gives it. While I know it’s not continuous, guys, ‘perimeter’ sounds better than ‘outer unches’ certainly among ladies of my acquaintance anyway.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
You’re right Michod, “previous”.
May 27th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
You’re five years behind us, Dac, but heartiest congratulations to you both!