Guardian, 24492 (Brummie)
Posted by diagacht on September 12th, 2008
Didn’t find this easy and am still unsure about 9a
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 9 | RANCOROUS: ANCOR in anagram of SOUR; but why ANCOR? (is it a homophone of ANCHOR) |
| 12,3 | WONDERFUL COPENHAGEN: WONDERFUL (modern meaning of WICKED) + C + OPEN (frank) + HAG + EN (as in en dash); from ‘Hans Christian Andersen’ |
| 13 | MUGSHOT: MUG’S (stein’s) + HOT |
| 17 | VYING: dYING losing ‘d’ and gaining ‘V’ (very) |
| 19,1 | MANTRAP: MA + N (end of ruin) + GIN (a trap) |
| 20 | LARGO: LARGe losing ‘e’ and gaining ‘O’ |
| 21 | ERMINED: ER (King Edward) + MINED |
| 22 | LIBRARY: &Lit (as in a book may turn up but noise volume may not) |
| 24 | GESTATION: anangram of ON STAGE IT |
| 26,14 | APRIL IN PARIS: anagram of L PAIR and ASPIRIN; and AVRIL is APRIL IN PARIS |
| 28,16 | GHOST STORY: G HOST + STORY |
| 29 | HOOVER DAM: HOOVER + DAM |
| Down | |
| 2 | UNKING: sUNKING without the ‘s’ |
| 4 | GODWIT: WIT following GOD |
| 5 | ASUNCION: A SUN + anagram of ICON; capital city of Paraguay |
| 7 | SEAFARER: FARE in SEAR |
| 8 | IDOL: I’D + O + L |
| 13 | MOVIE: I (start of innocence) in MOVE |
| 15 | PALLBEARER: &Lit |
| 19,18 | MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW: MIDNIGHT (kind of blue) + IN (popular) + MO (Maureen) + S (bob, shilling) + COW (Daisy) |
| 22,11 | LONDON PRIDE: I think this is a double definition |
| 23 | ABRADE: A BRA + D + E (top of elastic) |
| 24,6 | GIGABYTE: GIG + A BYTE (sounds like a bite) |
| 25 | ARTY: heARTY less ‘he’ |
| 27 | LIME: sLIME without the ‘s’ (sulphur) |
September 12th, 2008 at 9:07 am
9a AN COR = one ‘I say!’
September 12th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I was puzzled by 9ac for a while too, but it’s AN=one) COR=I say! in SOUR*
I found this rather a strange puzzle – a mixture of hard and easy. I wasn’t keen on 19/1, where TRAP has the same meaning in both the wordplay and the answer.
Interesting coincidence to have he(ARTY) in this one after our discussions a couple of days ago.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I thought this was tough but very satisfying to finish.
I, too, got hung up on ‘anchor’ in 9ac.
I thought 2dn was pretty audacious ['king' as a verb is rather archaic - but to 'unking?] but it made me laugh.
I puzzled over the anagram fodder for 26,14. Can ‘l’ really be an abbreviation for ‘little’ as well as ‘large’? I’m ashamed to say it took me a few minutes to realise that ‘Avril’ was the definition – I might have expected some reference to 13dn for this answer.
10ac was the last one I put in, after finally getting the ‘y’ from ‘byte’. I’d spent ages puzzling over a word for ‘cave’ to put inside a word for ‘bear’.
I thought there were some great clues, with excellent surfaces [e.g. 22ac and 24ac] and I liked the construction of 17ac and 20ac. I don’t have a problem with 19.1: the reference to ‘Mother’s ruin’ was too good to miss!
September 12th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I got the Y in BYTE quite early, so for a while I was trying to fit Yogi Bear into 10ac..
September 12th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I thought the wordplay for 26/14 was PR in AIL for “little pair in distress”, followed by anag of ASPIRIN (dished out), which I think works better than having “little” mean L.
Can somebody please explain 10ac?
September 12th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
10a double definition, yield as in ‘bear fruit’ and ‘cave in’ (in cave? No other way round) or ‘give way under pressure’.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
26/14: JamieC’s explanation works for me – but I still feel it needs a further definition: ‘April in Paris’ doesn’t mean anything, except as a 13dn or a song.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I agree with Eileen about the lack of definition for APRIL IN PARIS. There’s an unstated mini-theme of song titles in the puzzle – A in P is one, as are MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW, WONDERFUL COPENHAGEN (both indicated their clue) and LONDON PRIDE (Noel Coward), so it’s a bit of a pity that it wasn’t made slightly more explicit. Stretching the point a bit too far we also have Handel’s LARGO and the Harry LIME theme…
September 12th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
In 21 across, does “was exploitative” really work for MINED? As usual, I guess I’ve just misunderstood, but I’d have thought it should be “exploited” or “was exploited”…
This was a good level of difficulty for a daily puzzle, I thought – pretty tough, but nothing so unapproachable that I got really stuck at any point. (10 across was the last one I got – without understanding the construction, unfortunately.)
September 12th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Is 15d really an &lit? Am I missing something? Isn’t it a typical Rufus type clue?
September 13th, 2008 at 12:42 am
I thought ‘Avril’ was the definition for 26/14 and in Paris, France it’s what they’d say for April, so Avril = April in France/Paris/French. I don’t see the problem really.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Can I please have 10 across explained?
I understand that YIELD can be both ‘bear’ and ‘cave’, but I don’t get the ‘No, other way round’ part of the clue.
September 13th, 2008 at 10:08 am
See comment #6 above.
September 13th, 2008 at 10:59 am
As newcomers to the blog we are not quite au fait with the terminology. Would someone please explain “&lit” ?
September 13th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
&lit is explained towards the bottom of this page:
http://www.biddlecombe.demon.co.uk/yagcc/YAGCC2.html