Comments on: Independent on Sunday 1054 by Quixote 25th April 2010

By: Handel

Handel — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:40:16 +0000

Just a question of which crossword cliches you know! We’ve certainly seen this one quite a bit though, along with ‘sack’.

Tent:(archaic) A kind of wine of a deep red colour, chiefly from Galicia or Malaga in Spain

By: Rothwell

Rothwell — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:31:39 +0000

Although in 17 across I worked the answer out I still don’t get ‘tent’ = red wine. Not one I’ve encountered before.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:02:48 +0000

Though on the plus side, no recondite words!

By: walruss

walruss — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:47:55 +0000

My sheltered life then Conrad, I’d never heard of it. I remember the chat about Araucaria’s ‘art lecturer’ definition for TEACHEST though.

By: Conrad Cork

Conrad Cork — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:28:32 +0000

The use of the ‘french art’ thing is pretty widespread, so much so that it counts IMHO as a dead giveaway.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:46:31 +0000

I found this a bit tougher than usual for Quixote, esp that SE corner with PRIMUS, TRAINS, and SHIN. Just in case anyone does not fully understand SCRAP IRON Fe is the symbol for Iron.

That ‘French art’ = es would be familiar to solvers from way back, though one sees it less now. As Rishi has explained, you are = thou art = tu es.

Favourite clue, LOIRE.

DÁIL is the Irish equivalent of the House of Commons (pronounced Doyle).

By: Handel

Handel — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:28:05 +0000

Thanks for the explanation, Rishi. That is a tough way of clueing ‘es’! Might have been nice to give some hint that ‘art’ was being used in an archaic sense in the clue, but I imagine that didn’t work well with the surface reading. Having recently set our first puzzle, we have a new-found sympathy when it comes to such things!

By: walruss

walruss — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:13:45 +0000

I’m not surprised you had trouble at 25 across. Ridiculous and obscure!

By: Rishi

Rishi — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:59:33 +0000

In French “you are tall” is “vous être grand” but when “you” is a familiar person, I think, it is “tu es grand”.

Now, ‘art’ goes with ‘thou’ which is ‘you’, familiar, though archaic.

So art = are = es in French.