Independent 6934/Virgilius
Posted by John on January 6th, 2009
A typically excellent crossword from Virgilius to start the new year. The two themes — anagrams of colours and some other pairs of anagrams — are no doubt related in some very clever way, but unfortunately I can’t see how. No doubt someone will explain. This seemed unusually difficult for a Virgilius.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 5 | TRAFFIC LIGHTS — (if craft)* lights [lands] |
| 8 | CURE — the acute accent on the e goes |
| 9 | S TALE |
| 10 | FUN K |
| 11 | SHEEPDOG — Heep in (gods)rev. |
| 13 | SOUR CE |
| 14 | ALTERED COURSE — I suspect that I’m not appreciating the full richness of this clue: I think the def. is ‘went from’; 13 Down [stone] is an anagram of 19 [set on], as 13 Across [source] is of 16 [Crusoe], the latter two also being anagrams of ‘course’. But the way in which the clue is written doesn’t seem to say that these pairs are anagrams of each other… |
| 16 | CRUS(O)E |
| 18 | ONE’S BEST — (bones set)* |
| 20 | HOP 1 |
| 21 | C(H)ORE |
| 23 | LATE — (et al)rev. |
| 24 | A NEW DIRECTION — a(red wine)*ction |
| Down | |
| 1 | EAS(E MEN)T |
| 2 | {t}OFFS |
| 3 | facsiMILE |
| 4 | studenT HE FLUnked |
| 5 | TOUCH — 2 defs |
| 6 | CHANGED COLOUR — mile-lime, cure-ecru, stale-slate, sliver-silver, chore-ochre, late-teal are I think the anagrams |
| 7 | artiSAN I CLEarly — clues that begin ‘Some’ I always find unsatisfactory: they are a giveaway, and in my humble opinion ‘some xyz’ only at a stretch means ‘some of the letters of xyz’ |
| 12 | DIR(G)E |
| 13 | STONE — 2 defs, but why ‘really’? |
| 14 | AUREOLA — 0 in a (rule)* a |
| 15 | R(ABEL)A IS |
| 17 | S LIVER — I initially thought that ‘gland’ was a bit inappropriate for what seemed more an organ, but Chambers put me right: a large gland |
| 19 | SET ON — ‘on set’ with parts reversed |
| 21 | COD A |
| 22 | EACH — (ache)* |
January 6th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I thought this was a classic with all the interlinking. Not sure at all but wondered if SET ON = COURSE (with dogs).
January 6th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I found this trickier than I expected, but only easement really held me up. Quite an unusual word and the clue was interpretable in a number of ways.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
CHANGING COURSE from S TO NE (south to north-east) and from SE TO N (south-east to north). 13A and 16 are both altered COURSEs.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Sorry, that should of course read ALTERED COURSE
January 6th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
That explains it, Testy, many thanks – I was never confident about my other theory, I’ll have to admit.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
I didn’t work out that “if craft” was to be anagrammed, so ended up with LANDING LIGHTS, which totally messed up the top left corner for me. Doh!
January 7th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
And 1dn: oh! Goodness me, what a study in restraint Virgilius offers us here today.