Guardian 24,448 (Puck)
Posted by diagacht on July 23rd, 2008
Apologies for a very late post!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | QUOTATION MARKS: QUOTATION (estimate) + K in MARS (next door planet) |
| 11 | TOERAGS: TOE (digit) + RAGS (newspapers) |
| 12 | TRIPLEX: a kind of double definition |
| 13 | ORGAN: OR (men) + NAG (reversed) |
| 15 | DECAPODAL: A POD in DECAL (transfer) |
| 17 | MAELSTROM: anagram of MORE MALTS |
| 20 | RHEUM: first letter of Recurring Hourly Ending Up Monthly |
| 21 | RUN-OFFS: HE + A TRASH |
| 23 | STEWPOT: STEW (fix) + TOP (reversed) |
| 25 | CONCRETE: CON (tory) + CRETE |
| 27 | INVERTED COMMAS: anagram of VARIED COMMENTS |
| Down | |
| 1 | QUESTION MARK: anagram of MUSKET ON IRAQ |
| 2 | OF USE: F in OUSE (river) |
| 3 | ALL SAINTS: Cleary a girlie goup but although referring to the gospellers not sure that it could encapsulate ‘all saints’ |
| 4 | INFUSED: F (sex) in anagram of UNDIES |
| 5 | NILOTIC: pertaining to the river Nile. Nil-O + TI (half-time) + C (Charlie) |
| 6 | AIOLI: a garlic mayonnaise; every second letter of mAn Is OiL rIg |
| 7 | KNOWLEDGE: K + NOW + L + EDGE |
| 10 | EXCLAMATIONS: anagram of CAN A MOL(e) EXIST. Moles live underground so delete final ‘e’ |
| 14 | GREENHORN: GREEN + HORN(y) |
| 16 | PARLEYVOO/strong>: anagram of POLO and A VERY |
| 18 | RESPECT: PEC in REST |
| 19 | MISDEED: anagram of DID SEEM |
| 22 | FICHE: hidden in terriFIC HEroism |
July 24th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Ref 10d I think the “with head cut off” refers to the e in exist rather than the e in mole. It seems more logical to me.
Ref 16d Parleyvoo. Why is this informal Frenchman? The only memory I have of that word was in a rather vulgar WW1 troop song which I think was titled “Mademoiselle from Armentieres”
Apologies if I have broken any comment courtesy rules, this is my first attempt.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:04 am
12 ac: the wordplay is surely TRIPLE/X (for XXX). I don’t understand 9ac, which must be FOLLOW ON, but what’s it got to do with dog-leg? Otherwise I enjoyed this.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I was rather disappointed with 26ac. Presumably it’s “VIRGO” but I thought “ill-tempered woman” for “virago” was a bit of a stretch.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Shed: to dog is to follow, and leg refers to the ‘on’ side in cricket. (As opposed to the ‘off’.)
July 24th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Diagacht: I’m not sure about C=Charlie in 5 down. I’ve offered a different explanation in the placeholder blog. What do you think?
July 24th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I don’t understand the explanation for 21ac: surely it’s an anagram of FUN FOR + S (half of US)?
16d: ‘Parleyvoo’ can informally (colloquially/in slang) mean ‘speak French’, ‘the French language’ and ‘a Frenchman’.
10d: I agree with Barry that the clue makes more sense as indicating an anagram of CAN A MOLE + (E)XIST (i.e. EXIST headless).
5d: I took the final C to be short for ‘cent’ (sounds like ["radio report"] ‘sent’).
I still don’t fully grasp 4d: why ‘on the contrary’?
Quite a tricky puzzle; I have to admit I didn’t get half a dozen of these (though some of the other clues where quite straigtforward.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I’ve just looked at the placeholder blog, and Andrew’s suggestion (Comment 16) makes perfect sense of 4d’s ‘on the contrary’: i.e. not UNDIES* during F but F during UNDIES.
July 24th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
3 down Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in such a girlie group? No 19 for them!
Can anyone please explain the reference to No 19?
July 24th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I took it to mean that Saints (which M, M, L & J are) aren’t responsible for any MISDEEDS. To answer Diagacht’s comment – they aren’t all the Saints, but they are all saints. Hmm: not one of the best clues, I thought.