Independent 7374/Phi
Posted by John on June 4th, 2010
The usual nice cryptic from Phi, with some very good clues as always. One which utterly defeats me, but which people will I’m sure fall over themselves to explain.
As for a Nina, the only thing I can see is OIL in three of the unches, quite near BP, but I don’t think that’s anything more than chance.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 8 | LEFT OVERS — port=left, deliveries are overs and leftovers are possibly not fresh |
| 10 | A1 OLI{d} |
| 11 | PAINT THE TOWN RED — 2 defs |
| 12 | TO TEM{pt} |
| 13 | BIG ENDIAN — (being)* i in (and)*, something that I associated with Gulliver’s Travels but which I now see is also to do with computing |
| 15 | COA(STA)L |
| 17 | ATHIRST — {wate}r in (that is)* — I’m not sure what this is — I think it’s an attempt at an &lit. but to my mind it doesn’t quite work |
| 19 | CA(LAB)RES {forc}E |
| 21 | MIAOU — but I can’t see why beyond the fact that a miaou is the call of a cat |
| 23 | MONEY FOR OLD ROPE — 2 defs |
| 25 | DIN GO |
| 26 | COP YR {f}IGHT |
| Down | |
| 1 | SLAPSTICK COMEDY — KC in (domestic play’s)* |
| 2 | C(ON TEMP)T |
| 3 | DESHABILLE — (said he’ll be)* — one would think that the main meaning is as given in Chambers “careless attention to one’s dress”, but another meaning, which makes the clue OK, is “a light casual garment” |
| 4 | P{lay}S S{tun}T |
| 5 | DAR{e} WIN |
| 6 | COUR({fron}T)IER — excellent clue |
| 7 | WIND IN STRU(MEN)TS |
| 9 | F LINT — flint is a variety of quartz |
| 14 | GUADELOUPE — up in (league do)* |
| 16 | ALL-IN ONE — where all-in is shattered |
| 18 | HUMIDORS — (dim)rev. in (hours)* |
| 20 | B(L)Y TON |
| 22 | A LO(N)G |
| 24 | {c}OUCH — well I suppose a couch is a bed, but I think of a couch as more a pouf, like the one Steven Fry liked to have his feet on while watching Countdown — however the dictionaries will give couch=bed |
June 4th, 2010 at 2:55 am
A, E, I, O, and U are the ‘vocal characters’ minus the E, the most popular.
Sigmund Freud’s patients reclined on his couch, I don’t think a pouf is quite the same thing.
June 4th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
As I normally spell miaou as miaow, was slightly misled until I got the vowels part. Otherwise a fairly pleasant Friday Phi. Back to the cricket, someone needs to take a bat to KP’s head.
June 4th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Vocal can mean “of or pertaining to a vowel”, although I’d prefer verbal myself. I quite enjoyed this one. It took me a while, although I was trying to do other things at the same time, which never really works well.
June 4th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Thanks john.
A comparatively easy puzzle from Phi(compared to Loroso in the F.T.).
I read 3 down as referring to ‘en(or in) deshabille’ wnich means ‘partly or improperly dressed.
17 across works as an &lit for me – a bit tenuous perhaps but o.k.
Just Googled ‘Big Endian’ as I only knew the Swiftian reference – like you say something to do with computers but many miles over my head!
June 7th, 2010 at 3:00 am
Ha as a computer bloke (sorry, computer fixing prices on request) the big endian clue confused me as I’d only ever heard the term big/little endian in computing environments, I’ve never read a word of Swift, but I guessed the term had been nicked from there.
You would be surprised at the number of computing technical terms have been taken like this. You’d be surprised at how thick most techies are.
I may well be the most badly read contributer here. Makes it more of a challenge.